Wednesday 20 January: Plan greater hospital capacity now and prevent lockdown next winter

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 not as good as 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:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2021/01/20/lettersplan-greater-hospital-capacity-now-prevent-lockdown-next/

1,050 thoughts on “Wednesday 20 January: Plan greater hospital capacity now and prevent lockdown next winter”

  2. Plan greater hospital capacity now and prevent lockdown next winter

    Sounds like a great idea until you look at Germany in full lockdown with a much larger capacity.

      1. Reminds me of a fairly weak joke from prep school days:

        Why does Winston Churchill keep a revolver under his pillow?

        Because he knows there’s a jerry under his bed.

  4. Breaking News – Washington has flown in one million Ouija boards to help celebrate Biden’s inauguration

      1. Almost certainly fake, the facts don’t add up. The BBC is correct that if a direct debit is not revoked they may continue to collect, it is up to the customer to stop it. Compound interest at 8% over 7 years would come to considerably more than £350.

        Had such a judgement been obtained against the BBC it would have been widely publicised, it has not been publicised at all.

  6. Israeli Covid czar says first Pfizer jab not as effective as hoped and blames spike in cases on British strain. 20 January 2021.

    Israel’s coronavirus czar has warned that the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine offers less protection than expected, as he blamed the country’s surge in Covid cases partly on the new British variant.

    Nachman Ash said many Israelis had caught Covid in between their first and second doses of the Pfizer vaccine, suggesting that the first jab is “less effective than we thought,” according to Army Radio.

    Morning everyone. It would suggest that it isn’t effective at all!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/01/19/israeli-covid-czar-says-first-pfizer-jab-not-effective-hoped/

    1. Not much going for us when the Home Secretary’s paramount concern is being criticised by social justice warriors.

    1. Re All The President Men – it’s hard to believe but one of them was a Nobel Peace Prize ‘Winner’…….

      1. It’s incredible how war suddenly doesn’t matter to hate-filled liberals. The Nobel Prize is just another sad example of how liberals turn the world upside down.

  10. Macron calls on Biden for greater US military involvement. 20 January 2021.

    French President Emmanuel Macron hoped on Tuesday that U.S. President-elect Joe Biden will show a greater military commitment to fight against Islamic extremists in several theaters of conflict and especially in the Middle East.

    I don’t think that there will be a problem with that Manny! The first rule of all revolutions is to start a Foreign War to distract attention from Domestic Problems!

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/macron-calls-on-biden-for-greater-us-military-involvement-emmanuel-macron-joe-biden-france-extremists-us-b1789670.html

    1. Oh, good. Biden doesn’t have his feet under the table yet, and already he’s being encouraged to have a war or three. Last time, and the time before that, and the time before that… etc… it went well with war in the Middle East.
      One would hope he’d tell Micron to fuck right off, get in his presidential jet and fuck off some more. In those terms, too.

      1. Interesting that Ayatolla Rouhani was shown on the news this morning determinedly pointing out that Trump’s career has been such a failure, and that Biden will be so successful.

      2. Have to disagree with you there Paul. I hope that he will explain, very quietly and very politely, that the answer is no. Quiet and polite is usually more effective than bad language – even if the bad language does often make the user feel better.

        Goodness knows, I’ve done it often enough myself, so I know whereof I speak.

    4. Macron’s going to get his wish, Biden’s already making friendly overtures to countries that hate America.

          3. In fact they say he was only fifteen as the age of sexual consent in France is fifteen.

            The implications in Neil Seduction’s song Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen were pretty clear:

            Tonight’s the night, I’ve waited for
            Because it’s not illegal any more

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwJV3ozcTUg

      1. Moin, moin, John. Wie geht’s?

        The wind yesterday was unpleasant, the threatened rain almost non-existent.

  12. Who would have thought we would have seen the USA slide into dictatorship after the rigged election.

    1. ‘Morning, Johnny.

      I’ve reached that stage in Life when very little surprises me anymore.

      2. I’m surprised every day that there are still die-hard Trump fans who swallow his lies. The man’s a fraud.

      3. Are you still surprised when people do not know the difference between how one should use the phrases owing to and due to?

        Perhaps you would like to give us a clear explanation?

        1. The former is adverbial and the latter, adjectival. At least that’s what I was taught at school. I doubt that anyone cares these days, more’s the pity.

          1. Yes, that is how I explained it to my pupils and added that due to usually follows a part of the verb to be, which takes an adjectival complement.

            e.g. It was due to bad weather that the match was cancelled.
            and owing to the Covid 19 virus normal life has been suspended indefinitely.

        2. No, I’m not. In the same manner, many people don’t know the difference between imply & infer, lie & lay*, & the correct place to insert ‘only’ into a sentence**.

          *I actually saw lie used as a transitive verb in the DT yesterday, which makes a change.

          **If you insert ‘only’ in the wrong place in German (nur, bloß, ausschießlich) or Swedish (endast, bara) you end up with gibberish.

    2. Dictatorship?

      What are you on about, JN? Joe Biden won the popular vote by a large margin and the electoral college vote by about the same margin as Trump did in 2016. It’s called democracy.

      1. Of course he did not win it was a total fix. You need to read more and not the MSM. You are part of the fix if you do not question what went on.

      2. Good morning, Geoffrey

        Looking at the upvotes under your respective comments it would appear that Johnny has beaten you by a large majority!

          2. The other day you were arguing that the majority is right! What you mean is that you think it is right when it agrees with you and wrong when it doesn’t!

        3. …and he has no downvotes. GW has managed to accrue 4 and his reply to Richard another 3. Well done he of the Woolly mind.

  13. Theresa May accuses Boris Johnson of surrendering Britain’s ‘global moral leadership’. 20 January 2021.

    Theresa May has accused Boris Johnson of surrendering Britain’s “global moral leadership” in her most outspoken attack to date on her successor

    She says: “We have been sliding towards absolutism in international affairs: if you are not 100 per cent for me, you must be 100 per cent against me. Compromise is seen as a dirty word.

    She adds: “To lead we must live up to our values.”

    Without in any way seeking to Bull Boris you do genuinely wonder how they are able to say things like this with a straight face. The Iraq War put paid to any claims the UK might make to be a “global moral leader”. Since then it’s kept its dirtier foreign linen well hidden from prying eyes. The whole Parliamentary political system is rotten to its very core. May herself sought to corrupt the express wishes of the people in the Brexit negotiations!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/01/20/theresa-may-accuses-boris-johnson-surrendering-britains-global/

    2. Has our former prime minister had a Damascene moment?

      Mrs May was probably the most mendacious person ever to hold that position – how can such a committed and dedicated liar talk about morality unless she has had some sort of conversion?

  14. Brilliant Repartee

    For those of us, who no longer listen to the ‘Today’ programme on Radio 4, this was the standard many years ago and this was repartee at its best:

    Right at the end of the programme one day, there was a discussion about the obscene cost of entry into Premiership football games – the cheapest £60, and £100 per game is common.

    An older chap being interviewed said he could recall many years ago arriving at the turnstile (it was probably West Ham United or Queen’s Park Rangers) to be told “That will be 10 Quid Mate”.

    “What!” the old chap said “I could get a woman for that!”

    The guy on the turnstile said …
    “Not for 45 minutes each way you wouldn’t – and a brass band in the Interval!”

  15. Good morning from a soaking wet Derbyshire. Pitch black outside, chucking it down all night and a surprisingly warm 6°C on the yard thermometer.

    And this was quite a common practice during my short time in teaching:-

    Unruly pupils were hidden in squash courts during Ofsted inspection, tribunal hears
    Ged Thomas won an unfair dismissal claim against Berwick Academy, a secondary school in Northumberland

    By
    Camilla Turner,
    EDUCATION EDITOR
    19 January 2021 • 7:32pm

    Unruly pupils were hidden in squash courts during an Ofsted inspection, a tribunal heard.

    Ged Thomas, a former Maths teacher at Berwick Academy, won an unfair dismissal claim against the secondary school in Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland.

    An employment tribunal ruled that Mr Thomas was wrongfully dismissed following the school’s “deeply flawed” internal disciplinary investigation.

    The panel heard Mr Thomas alerted Ofsted about allegations that troublesome pupils had been “hidden” during an inspection.

    The judgement said: “He received text messages from a colleague and parents saying certain pupils, who were known for misbehaving, had been removed from lessons to the squash courts out of sight of the inspection team. “Hiding children from Ofsted inspectors would almost certainly amount to concealment of information which tends to show relevant failures.

    “That for him was the last straw. He formally raised his concerns to Ofsted through their online school teachers portal, whilst sitting in his car.

    “These clearly were protected disclosures. He later received requests for further information from Ofsted and the DfE.”

    The 44-page judgment said the school’s codes of conduct on social media use and whistleblowing was “so complex it was inevitable there would be disagreement on whether they were complied with fully.”

    The academy had claimed that the “sole reason” for Mr Thomas’ dismissal was his social media posts about the school which it said were derogatory or offensive. But the panel also concluded that making the negative social media comments had not been an “indication of any disloyalty”.

    Employment judge Tudor Garnon concluded: “The respondent has not proved on the balance of probabilities the claimant was guilty of gross misconduct because any breach of lawful and reasonable instructions was not an indication of his disloyalty to, or wish to harm, the academy as such.”

    Judge Garnon upheld claims for wrongful dismissal, unfair dismissal, compensation for untaken annual leave and breach of contract relating to missing property.

    Claims over unlawful deductions of wages were dismissed and compensation is expected to be determined at a later hearing.

    At its most recent full inspection in 2019, Berwick Academy was judged “inadequate”, the lowest possible grade that Ofsted award.

    During a monitoring visit in 2019, inspectors noted “significant improvements were still necessary” while acknowledging that “positive measures had been implemented”.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/01/19/unruly-pupils-hidden-squash-courts-ofsted-inspection-tribunal/

  16. BBC Breakfast this morning had Priti Patel being interviewed by Dan Walker. His first question was “Will you be glad to see the back of President Trump?” She answered diplomatically, then Walker repeated the question.

    Appalling.

  17. Morning all

    SIR – The idea that we should expect a repetition of curbs on normal life next winter, with sections of the economy shut down anew, needs to be firmly scotched now.

    We will be at the other side of the “game-changing” vaccination campaign. Covid will be another of the endemic respiratory viruses we have to contend with.

    The public-health authorities seem to have got it into their heads that it is their job to abolish mortality at whatever cost.

    We should heed the lessons of this pandemic, practising rigorous hand hygiene and not spluttering all over colleagues and fellow passengers by struggling into work when we are ill.

    The other lesson we should learn is to ensure hospital capacity is there to deal with the inevitable pressures that come around.

    Austin Spreadbury

    Enfield, Middlesex

    SIR – It is indeed wonderful to see Salisbury Cathedral used as a vaccination centre (Letters, January 19), especially when more than half of England’s parish churches and a good number of its cathedrals are firmly closed to those who want to worship.

    Jane Read

    Fairford, Gloucestershire

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    SIR – Your headline “Lockdown takes its toll on mental well-being” (January 18) is not at all surprising. For any of us to be whole as human beings we need every aspect of life to be available. That includes especially our closer relationships and social interaction.

    We need resources that feed us spiritually, emotionally, mentally and morally. Without them we cannot be whole, and any physical healing is hindered.

    Particularly sad and counterproductive, therefore, is the closure of churches and their activities, including the personal ministry of clergy and that of members to their fellows.

    Rev Martin H Perry

    Wellington, Somerset

    SIR – Lockdown is a public-health policy. Any public-health policy that causes harm to lives and livelihoods is to be deplored, and no one should be condemned or punished for pointing that out.

    Victoria Edge

    Farningham, Kent

    SIR – At the start of last week I drove eight miles to Purbeck and left my car as the only one in the car park. I enjoyed a four-mile walk, during which time I saw one lady and a dog in the distance. When I returned there were six other cars there.

    But many of the car parks in Purbeck are now closed and I have to walk nearer home. On one such occasion this week, during a 20-minute walk, I was closely passed by cyclists, joggers and other walkers – around 50 in total.

    The logic of closing car parks and forcing more people to exercise in proximity is lost on me.

    Clifford Baxter

    Wareham, Dorset

    1. In France the Catholic Church is doing its best to keep offering succour and support to its congregations and is prepared to take on the atheist Macron; in Britain the atheist Welby has merely collaborated with the atheist Johnson.

      Perhaps the Catholics still believe in Christ.

      1. Some do. The Scottish Bishops do not, it seems, and they have supported church closures. The churches in Scotland are now entirely closed, by law. The Catholic bishops of Scotland have been brought to the heel of the Government over a number of years, with sex education and muslims now rife in Catholic schools. This is a gross betrayal of the Catholic “community” as Catholic schools were originally set up privately by Catholic parents in the late 19th century. This was a significant financial burden on a group that was not generally well off, many being immigrants from Ireland. In 1918 the State adopted Catholic schools to continue running them on the same basis. The Catholic hierarchy of the last fifty years have capitulated to the State in all aspects.

  18. SIR – Where are the commentators now who last year delighted in criticising the Government for not joining the EU’s vaccine procurement scheme?

    Simon Taylor

    Kingsbury Episcopi, Somerset

  19. Smart but not safe

    SIR – You report (January 19) that a coroner has confirmed the scrapping of motorway hard shoulders “presents an ongoing risk of future deaths”.

    A response from the Department for Transport states that it has presented Highways England with a plan to ensure that smart motorways are “as safe as they can be”. Therein lies the problem; they cannot be safe.

    David Vincent

    Cranbrook, Kent

    SIR – Calling a motorway smart is no more convincing than a country inserting Democratic into its title. Or even, perhaps, United.

    Sir Michael Ferguson Davie Bt

    Bath, Somerset

    1. I avoid these death trap conversions where I can. From Worcester, this means using the cross-country route through Bridgnorth when going North, and the A46 to Warwick when going East and South. I am rather dreading having to drive through the middle of Reading when they ruin the M4. I have no idea what people do when having to avoid the M1 into Yorkshire.

      The whole point of this scheme is, as with HS2, nothing to do with improving the national infrastructure. It is to transfer large amounts of Government borrowing, and money raised from sell-offs and cuts, from public services to the offshore accounts of favoured interests. It has been a resounding success.

    2. I hate “smart” motorways with a passion. Quite apart from the safety aspect, they used the North as guinea pigs – “Slow! Report of pedestrians in the road” had me thinking they were a good thing at first. Months later, still crawling at 50 down that stretch, my internal voice was screaming that you’d think someone would have managed to run the buggers over by now.

      And don’t get me started on the illiteracy of the bloody “hardshoulder”. Argh!

    1. “The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people.” (Republican Senator Mitch McConnell).

      And, as a result of those lies and that provocation, Joe Biden’s inauguration has been overshadowed by violence and the need to have hitherto unseen security. My wife and I attended Bill Clinton’s first inauguration on the 20th of January, 1993 – twenty-eight years ago to the day – and it was a gloriously enjoyable and unforgettable occasion. We loved it.

          1. You appear to have supported Clinton and do support Biden.
            Even leaving the theft of the election aside, his well documented misuse of US taxpayer funds when dealing with the Ukraine should have barred him from office.

          2. Bill Clinton was a great President – in part because he had the ability (through being a Southerner) – to cope well with the race problems that exist over there. Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush also had that ability, I accept that Joe Biden is not yet proven in that respect but the auguries are good.

      2. A good friend of ours was there on 20/01/93 with his wife. He had been a Rhodes scholar with B Clinton and accepted Bill’s invitation to join the administration as an attorney in the White House. Nine months later they were back in Short Hills, NJ having become so disgusted by what they saw going on. For reasons of self-preservation, they have never documented it.

      3. One man’s lie is another’s truth.

        As Paul Simon wrote in one of his songs: A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.

        1. No One Left to Lie To: The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton (2012)

          In this vitriolic polemic, Christopher Hitchens takes on the myth surrounding the most divisive political figures in American political history: Bill Clinton and Hilary Clinton.

          By far the best of all the books on the Clinton era. – Edward Said

          In No One Left to Lie To, Christopher Hitchens portrays President Bill Clinton as one of the most ideologically skewed and morally negligent politicians of recent times. In a blistering polemic which shows that Clinton was at once philanderer and philistine, crooked and corrupt, Hitchens challenges perceptions – of liberals and conservatives alike – of this highly divisive figure.

          With blistering wit and meticulous documentation, Hitchens masterfully deconstructs Clinton’s abject propensity for pandering to the Left while delivering to the Right and argues that the president’s personal transgressions were inseparable from his political corruption.

          The most vocal critics of Bill Clinton’s presidency tend to be conservatives–think, for example, of William J. Bennett’s The Death of Outrage–but there are those on the Left who are fed up with Clinton as well. Among them is journalist Christopher Hitchens (most prominently associated with The Nation and Vanity Fair), who has produced a slim but vehement volume outlining how “Clinton’s private vileness meshes exactly with his brutal and opportunistic public style”. No One Left to Lie To is the story of a man who took the Democratic presidential nomination and, having achieved office, began enacting welfare reform and anticrime legislation that surpassed the ambitions of all but the most ideologically loyal Republicans–and routinely plundered the GOP platform for other policy ideas as well.

          Hitchens is particularly damning on Clinton’s tendency to resort to divisive racial politics when it suits his purposes, as when, in the course of the 1992 presidential campaign, he refused to lift a finger to save a mentally retarded African American from state execution so he could appear tough on crime, then shortly afterwards hijacked a Rainbow Coalition conference to criticise rap artist Sister Souljah for the benefit of the attendant press. When he needs the black vote, though, Clinton will allow himself to be trumpeted as the most racially sensitive president in American history–if not, in Toni Morrison’s memorably ludicrous phrase, “our first black president”. Furthermore, the man who once connived his way out of the draft has become a chief executive so willing to use military air strikes as a means of foreign policy that, in the author’s view, the United States is now a “potential banana republic”.

          Of course, there is plenty of vitriol directed at Clinton’s conduct with regard to Monica Lewinsky (the woman with whom he admitted, under duress, to having had an “inappropriate relationship” consisting of multiple incidences of oral sex) and Kathleen Willey (who alleges that the leader of the free world merely fondled her breasts and forced her to touch–albeit shielded under some layers of clothing–his tumescent penis). In Hitchens’s view, however, the sexual controversies are only the most prominent aspect of Clinton’s shameful character, a moral condition that must be considered in toto. The book is short, with an argument that runs to only about a hundred pages, but that’s still more than enough room for Hitchens to serve up comprehensive, blistering indictment suffused throughout by his dark wit. He sums up the failure of those fixated on Clinton’s adultery to fully investigate his cronyism and financial shenanigans.

    2. “The mob was fed lies. They were provoked by the president and other powerful people.” (Republican Senator Mitch McConnell).

      And, as a result of those lies and that provocation, Joe Biden’s inauguration has been overshadowed by violence and the need to have hitherto unseen security. My wife and I attended Bill Clinton’s first inauguration on the 20th of January, 1993 – twenty-eight years ago to the day – and it was a gloriously enjoyable and unforgettable occasion. We loved it.

  22. SIR – Suzanne Moore (Features, January 19) asks: “When did people start writing ‘Kind regards’ at the end of emails?”

    What’s wrong with “Kind regards”? It’s no worse than “Yours sincerely”, “Yours faithfully”, or even “Stay safe”.

    Geoff White

    Kalkara, Malta

  23. Morning again

    SIR – Con Coughlin (Comment, January 13) says Taiwan must not be allowed to go the way of Hong Kong. However, the fact is that the West is not prepared to fight an all-out war with China over this.

    As well as crushing democracy in Hong Kong, China has been disappearing Uighurs, militarising the South China Sea, and violently seizing territory from India. It has also continued its commercial and military espionage against the West.

    The response? The Islamic world is silent. The EU has just concluded a new trade deal with China. Britain had to be cudgelled into excluding Huawei from its 5G network. India has faced Chinese aggression alone. And with Donald Trump gone, and Japan at sixes and sevens, China now expects to have a much freer hand.

    We may anticipate an invasion of Taiwan soon. Beijing knows that the worst it will face is verbal condemnation and weak sanctions.

    Terry Smith

    London NW11

    2. Yo Epi

      I wonder why the BLMers are not up in ‘arms’ about the Chinese wanting to subjugate Taiwan

      If a white country even tried to make the residents of a black country free from despotic rulers. Lammy-Lammy and
      and co would howl the house down

    3. Twas always the same; the world’s superpowers have always been able to act as they please.

      1. the fact is that the West is not prepared to fight an all-out war with China over this.

        Just as they were not prepared to fight an all-out war with the Soviets over Afghanistan, Chechnya or any other bit of territory into which they chose to march.

        The truth is, almost certainly, that the West would not win an all out war with China… so not being willing to start one is probably more wise than foolish.

  26. One from BLT

    The logic of closing car parks and forcing more people to exercise in proximity is lost on me.
    Clifford Baxter Wareham, Dorset

    Mr Baxter, for the 7,432 time:

    The rules/regualations/laws etc in force at the moment have very little to do with the control of COVID
    They are all about the control of PEOPLE!

  27. Did I miss it or has Trump ‘released the Kraken’; ‘the memo’ or whatever was up his sleeve to expose x,y and z? Asking for a friend (Polly).

    1. All of these efforts to expose what has happened always assumed that there were good unpoliticised people out there in the mainstream media, in positions of authority and in the judiciary that would be shocked and appalled at the findings and evidence and something would be done, but alas when push came to shove, there weren’t any, the only people to be shocked and appalled the vast majority are in no position to do anything about it.

      1. Yeah Bob, everyone in any position of authority so corrupt and pro-Biden that they’ll act illegally; of course they are.

        1. It happened in Germany in the 1930’s and in most communist countries that fell to totalitarianism.
          The same thing would happen here, virtually everyone in positions of authority are signed up to all the wokery.

          1. And didn’t Mr Heath lie to us about the Common Market European Economic Community European Community European Union The Disunited States of Europe?

          3. Indeed he did. There is a YouTube video of Heath speaking at an EEC entry celebration banquet held on 2 Jan 197, i.e. the day after he had signed our Sovereignty away.

            In the ,mercifully short, clip Heath explains the direction of travel of the Brussels/Strasbourg gravy train.

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRtmuEZg0p8

          4. And didn’t Mr Heath lie to us about the Common Market European Community European Community European Union The Disunited States of Europe?

          5. It has already happened in Scotland. There is no upper chamber to moderate the Scottish Parliament. Ms Sturgeon is in control of the SNP controlling clique and with the unquestioning support of the mindless Greens, Ms Sturgeon can do as she pleases, and does.
            The obvious parallel is Hitler’s assumption of complete control when the role of President was combined with that of Chancellor on the death of Hindenberg. Both routes to power were legal and against a background of broad upset, even chaos.

          6. ‘Afternoon, BoB, I’ve been watching the re-runs of World At War and it makes me shudder to see that the rise of Hitler and the National SOCIALIST Party are so akin to what is happening now.

      2. 328686+ up ticks,
        Morning B3,
        As with the UK submission is not an option, work in progress has got to be the order of the day.
        The victory cannot go to those that
        in the case of the UK have screwed
        things up via the same continuing actions in the polling booth, but to those who want to return to the realm of political decency & personal self respect.

      3. Absolutely right.

        The partisan MSM has helped create a nightmare and has completely lost any credibility it might once have had.

        Remember that song where the faithless lover blames his sweetheart for making the mistake of believing him when she knew he was lying?

        Why should we believe the MSM when we know it is lying?

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWG2YIYXuAU

          2. A BTL Comment on the Letters Page:-

            Robert Spowart
            20 Jan 2021 8:44AM
            @Andrew Wood They claim they are “following the science,” but that is totally false. What they are really doing is following Scientific Opinion, specially selected to support their policies.

            The opinions of any other scientists, including specialist in the particular field, whether Global Warming or the Wuhan Virus, are ignored.

      1. Good morning

        ‘Swedish homework’ – are you speaking literally or metaphorically?

        1. ‘Morning, me ol’ mate.

          Literally. I have to write a short piece on Swedish food (which I could summarize in one sentence) & do an exercise answering questions.

          3. The metaphor – which has become a cliché – to which I was referring was that ‘doing your homework’ with your French – or Swedish mistress – used to be a euphemism for sex.

      2. Morning, Peddy.
        I suspect I will be working on a new needlepoint design; one that I’m making it up as a I go along, using wools that I already have in stock.
        Yes, yes, I know the playroom looks a rather lived in … but …

  29. 328686+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    January: Plan greater hospital capacity now and prevent lockdown next winter,
    Is political / party speak to give credence to illegal entrance
    and salve the conscience of many of the ovis.

    Anti in-house nurse / doctor training program they the incoming are looked upon by many backing these governance party’s as a much needed commodity.

    Don’t close Dover and secure our borders then we will have a hospital building construction program stretching into the far distant future non-ending.

    A building program that MUST be inclusive of high security
    prisons, establishments for the criminally insane,( incoming ) plus nervous break-down, deep depression specialist centres for the UKs treacherously injured indigenous peoples.

    Was the nightingale build / dismantle a prototype ? to fit the governing party’s covert agenda ?

    The Peoples re-set must surely take place starting in the ballot booth IF there is another General Election and before
    they really do come to take YOU away to one of the new
    construct camps.

  31. There has been a sharp drop in the number of patients admitted to hospitals in England with heart attacks or heart failure in recent months, with the pandemic thought to be causing people to stay away”.

    They are putting them off until it is safe to have one

    1. Conclusion (By Government Department of Health): Lockdown reduces likelihood of heart attack.

    4. I’ve been trying to find out how the vaccine might react to the medication so many people over 60 are prescribed in the uk alone. Head wall and banging comes to mind.
      There’s been speculation that once the sudden rise in deaths of isolated ‘care home’ residents (who remember were forced to sell their homes to survive) could have been caused by a lack of research into the unknown reactions between the vaccine and the many prescribed medications.

      2. No testing has been done on on the elderly (over 55s!) and ageing immune systems. No tests have been done on those with illnesses and prescribed medication. Presumably insufficient time and perhaps they simply didn’t care, in a similar way the nhs managers didn’t care when they seeded the care homes with infected elderly. Did not care deliberately? We are freeborn subjects of the British Crown and this is medical tyranny.

        1. I have a good friend who is a little older than I am, he takes the same or similar types of medications to my prescriptions. And yesterday he felt uncomfortable 20 or so hours after his vaccination. Hes not responded so far today.
          I have just spoken to our village GP practice and the receptionist advised me to write in to relate my concerns re the proposed vaccine. I haven’t heard when or where yet.
          So I’m typing very soon. And I’ll drop it in asap.

          1. I’ve not had any reactions or side effects from yesterdays jab (yet) – not even a sore arm but there again our practice nurse knows how to give injections

          2. Oh gosh, that is ominous. Do let us know how your friend gets on, and if there is a response to your concerns. I hope he is feeling better soon. Every one I meet in the village are pro-vaccine, joyfully announcing they have just got themselves a slot. They don’t seem to have put a thought to the fact that they are the guinea pigs in a great experiment/scam. I have given up trying to inform them as they simply cannot get their heads around the fact that government may not have their best interests at heart and that their trust is being exploited.

          5. I like to do my bit 🙂 I couldn’t make out why you-know-who gave a downvote to Horace – whether she thought anyone else commenting on Scotland deserved a whack or not, I’ve no idea.

  32. There has been a sharp drop in the number of patients admitted to hospitals in England with heart attacks or heart failure in recent months, with the pandemic thought to be causing people to stay away”.

    They are putting them off until it is safe to have one

    1. A wet gale here and still dark. Lawns are boggy and even the ducks didn’t want to come out.

  34. Yesterday, when I returned from shopping, I noticed a solitary bloom of a red climbing rose 1/2way up the north wall of the house. The rose is Danse du Feu.

    Not bad for late January.

    1. Morning Peddy,

      My Iceberg which is comfortable rising through part of the privet hedge , has been flowering all winter. It is such a forgiving solid unfussy with deep green leaved white rose.

        1. And Iceberg is tough. My mother could grow only a limited selection of roses in her exposed north and east facing garden in Aberdeenshire – but Iceberg did very well there.

          Later she was able to created a second garden at the back of the house – south facing and much more sheltered though without sun for 3 months in mid winter – she grew some of the old roses there and they did well with the worst of the north and east winds kept at bay.

  35. Good morning, my friends

    I fear that a very substantial percentage of the US population believe that Biden won the election because he cheated. This is likely to have disastrous consequences unless these people can accept that the election was not stolen.

    In 1975, like the majority of people in Britain, I voted for my country to stay in the Common Market. I did so because I believed the E.E.C. was purely what it ‘said on the tin’ – that it was – a European Economic Community. Indeed Mr Heath assured us that this was the case, that there were no political implications and that British sovereignty was not in danger.

    But Mr Heath was lying – and the consequences of this lie have lasted for 45 years ending in acrimony and contempt and vilification of each side by the other in the Brexit debate which has still not been entirely resolved. We are still not a nation at peace with itself.

    It is a moot point as to whether Biden cheated – but if it emerges that he did and the the election was a big lie then the consequences in the US will not only be just as acrimonious at the consequences of Heath’s big lie – they will be far more violent.

    A trite but true observation – if your foundations are based on mendacity then whatever you build is likely to fall apart and lead to conflict.

    2. Whether or not there was cheating I cannot recall any previous POTUS having suffered such extremely and (apparently co-ordinated) hostile press and media reporting from day one. I don’t like the “brand Trump” and would not care to have him representing my country . I had a heated argument with my youngest who hates Trump , and I mean Hate, as to why she hated him so, we have no connection with the US and she has no friends there, her entire arguments were based on the fact that he was obviously a proven racist, a misogynist , a rapist and locked children in cages, facts so obvious that she thought them not worth checking so refused to do so, this is the mindset of her and her cohort (educated 40ish year olds ) . I despair .

      1. My educated 30 y.o. and educated 20 y.o. querstion why there is so much anti-Trump materials in the MSM, and believe Trump didn’t get ethical or fair treatment. They hold the MSM in total contempt. Even SWMBO, who finds Trump offensive, reckons he is unfairly treated.

        1. I wish they could have a little chat with my youngest but she has that anti-Brexit anti-Tory mindset which borders on the sort of fanaticism found in cults. I will say that my eldest is rational and well grounded which is a relief. My SWMBO and your SWMBO share the same opinion as do most of my acquaintances and following the thrust of your original post I am not looking forward to the fallout.

          1. My own lovely personal Rider Haggard character, Caroline, does not like Trump. Of course she does not know for certain whether Biden cheated or not but she feels that if the Democrats did cheat he (Biden) must have resorted to the most repulsive means to pull it off. Of course the complete failure of the MSM to show any impartiality has bred suspicion – it has certainly not allayed it.

            On a lighter note we named our lovely boxer Rumpole – may he rest in peace – after John Mortimer’s character whose wife, Hilda, was referred to as She Who Must Be Obeyed.

          2. Haggard was one of my early teen favourites ( along with John Mortimer, Henry Cecil, Harry Harrison and a slew of other SFery ) I read She well before seeing the film, I cannot remember if I had a particular critical opinion of the adaptation but I do remember Ursula Andress as Ayesha, oh yes.

          4. And She obeyed on the James Bond beach! Ironically her character was Honey Ryder – but did she say Yes to Doctor No?

            Of course Rider Haggard often used to appear in the DT crossword:

            e.g. A horse in tough conditions looks like a worn out novelist.

            ( a gg within hard gives haggard = worn out

          5. Henry Cecil wrote SF? Who knew? I thought he wouldn’t have had time between training his racehorse string and cultivating his roses 🙂

          6. My bad sentence construction, I really should read my posts two or three times before committing, I was of course referring to the author of Brothers in Law ,ho hum off to bed 8^)

          7. I was teasing because (Sir) Henry Cecil was a famous racehorse trainer who oversaw and nurtured Frankel to his 14 undefeated races.

        2. I did study philosophical logic a little when I was at university many years ago. Perhaps you would explain the logical connection between your son being smart and Trump being a wrong’un>?

          1. My analytical logic allows me to notice that neither Geoffrey nor Datz has mentioned having a son.

          2. I always supply a nit or two for you to pick – it would be cruel of me not to do so!

            Just as I remember some of the English Literature I used to teach you remember some of the teeth you looked after and you are now using the skills you honed as a dentist in using that nasty sharp thing to probe your victims’ teeth and applying these skills to dissecting your fellow posters’ posts.

            A general question: are you more driven by the urge to be meticulous or the desire to find fault in others?

          3. I think nit-picking is driven chiefly by a lack of anything more important to think about.
            I’m not guiltless on that score. Life is tedious under lockdown and it helps to pass the time.

    3. Morning Rastus, your concerns and fears must be shared by Biden and others, otherwise why so many armed guards in Washington and other cities today?

  36. Well bergamot me! I’m beginning to believe in the Multiverse. The reason being I think I’ve just strayed into a parallel one:……From ZH….

    “To look back and think we thought things were weird in January 2020, when we first reported that Gwyneth Paltrow was selling a candle called “This Smells Like My Vagina”, is funny. Incidentally, once Covid-19 took hold of the year, Paltrow’s vagina-scented candle wound up turning into one of the more normal stories of the year.

    But not unlike the new year’s Covid mutations, the Paltrow-vagina-candle-story has also mutated for 2021. And neither mutation is good news.
    It was reported this weekend that one of Paltrow’s vagina-scented candles “exploded into flames” after a woman in the U.K. lit it in her living room. The woman had won the candle as a prize for a quiz, the New York Post reports.

    The woman, 50 year old Jody Thompson, said: “The candle exploded and emitted huge flames, with bits flying everywhere. I’ve never seen anything like it. The whole thing was ablaze and it was too hot to touch. There was an inferno in the room.”She then said she “threw the flaming candle out the front door”.

    “It could have burned the place down. It was scary at the time, but funny looking back that Gwyneth’s vagina candle exploded in my living room,” Thompson said.

    As we noted last year, for just $75, perverts around the world can fool themselves into thinking they are living in the nether regions of the famous 47 year old actress by shelling out for and burning the candle, which according to Fox News actually is made up of geranium, citrusy bergamot and cedar smells.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8f413a3759f0180c162876ecb1c8c228538cdb5c2477d48c005d48af009e282b.png

    1. Well all I can say or do is wax lyrical and we are all rather lucky that Allan Wicker has long passed on.
      And I’d rather not have one of those ‘scent’ to me.

      1. Clearly $75 is the cost of Climax Change but it won’t necessarily stop Glow Ball warming…..

    5. Reminds me of the 1st Ingatestone Peewit Patrols favourite ditty in 1964

      🎶All the nice girls love a candle
      All the nice girls love a wick
      ’cause there’s something about a candle
      that makes it feel like a ——- 🎶

    7. Why on earth would a woman buy a candle that, when lit, fills the room with the odour of another woman’s minge?

      ToPS in action.

      1. I think the marketing may have been aimed at men or those aiming to be regarded as a woman?

    10. My neighbour ordered one for Christmas.
      They were too mingy to send it in a secure box which was slit ….she had to snatch it from postie before he dropped it!

    11. I’m beginning to regret starting this thread! Isn’t there something more interesting about to start over in the US shortly…..like the end of the World?

    12. Apart from anything else, Paltrow—in common with most Yanks—is anatomically uneducated, nay: gormless! She, and most others of her ilk, idiotically, risibly and cluelessly uses the word ‘vagina’ as a synonym for vulva. It isn’t!

      They are quite different things, Gwynnie. I bet you also have difficulty in determining which is your arse and which is your elbow!

  37. Morning all.
    Welcome to the new world.
    It’s all looking rather grim out there.
    How did this happen?

    1. 328686+ up ticks,
      Morning RE,
      “How did this happen”

      Especially over the last three decades
      abuse of the polling booth, and it paid off,
      we are witnessing the results of the continuing input.

      1. Good morning J

        I cannot believe how mild the weather feels . but as you say it is very dark .

        The dogs must be solar powered , because they are both cuddled down and not demanding a walk!

        1. Mine was reluctant this morning. The temperature read 10 degrees C in shelter, but the wind chill reduced that significantly! It’s now down to 1 degree C and snowing hard!

    1. Oh, so ‘D!ck Brain’ wants to imply that Covid kills people the day they become infected despite every single statement about this pointing out that there’s a roughly two week delay.

      1. 328686+ up tick,
        Morning C,
        Tsk,Tsk, no morning greeting, straight in with a
        seemingly take down of Richard Braine for having the audacity to “imply” are you not implying that he has no right to, under freedom of speech rulings,imply.

      3. Take a closer look. The Tw@’s tweet is dated 19th January. The article to which he refers is dated 23/5/20 – and the red lines for 2020 scarcely go past the end of April. There is simply no information given by that picture… except disinformation intended to mislaid (as it has clearly done).

  40. 328686+ up ticks,
    We had similar back in the 70s from two senior female MPs
    having rhetoric with PIE, one still operational in parliament.

    breitbart,
    Arab World Institute Head Regrets Signing Letter Proposing Decriminalization of Sex with Children

    A dabbler, ? maybe.

  41. Over-reliance on electricity for the world’s energy requirements.

    We live in a world where the population explosion of humans is directly causing an exponential rise in its energy requirements. This goes hand-in-hand with countless other dire problems, for the species and the planet, that nothing more than too many humans is causing. This is all coupled with the ongoing depletion of the earth’s resources (food, water, fuel) which are vital for providing energy for an ever-more burgeoning and demanding population.

    All technology in this modern world relies on a massive and uninterrupted supply of electricity. The problem for the future is not just how to generate enough electricity to keep the world going, but how to ensure our supplies of it remain—as far as is scientifically possible—uninterrupted. In a world where there is an ever-increasing move towards transport being provided by electrically-powered vehicles, both commericial and private, many unforseen problems lie lurking in wait. The biggest, most frequent, and most problematic … is the power cut.

    Power cuts

    A power cut—also known as a power ‘outage’, power failure, power loss, or power blackout—is described as ‘an interruption, or cessation, of the flow of electricity to the end-user’. Power cuts have a huge number of causes and they will remain a frequent, and ever more inconvenient, daily fact of life as we continue to demand a reliable supply of electricity in order to maintain our modern lifestyle.

    Power cuts have numerous causes. Below is a list of the most common.

    Weather-related. This accounts for 70% of all power outages. It includes: Storms (including electrical storms and lightning strikes), Wind (especially high winds), Heatwaves, Ice and snow, Freezing rain.
    Animal attacks on equipment
    Bird-strike
    Earth tremors/earthquakes
    Excavations (both commercial and domestic)
    High power demand
    Technical failures
    Human error
    Scheduled interruptions
    Faults
    Poor performance of generating equipment
    Deterioration of cables and generating equipment
    Equipment failure
    Incorrect operation
    Overloaded circuits
    Power surges (or ‘spikes’)
    Theft of generating equipment
    Criminal damage to generating equipment
    Faulty circuit-breakers and fuses
    Fire
    Unpaid electricity bills
    Floods and water damage
    Cyber attacks
    Insurrection and political interference by outside agencies.
    Warfare.

    The list is ever-growing and never-ending in its scope.

    I foresee a time in the not-too-distant future when millions of private cars and commercial vehicles are stranded on the world’s roads and motorways because there will be no available electricity to charge them at any of the ever-growing number of charging points that will be required to cater for this explosion in a suchlike means of transport. The ramifications of this happening are simply too horrendous to even think about.

    A buoyant economy relies on an efficient transport infrastructure. When this is curtailed, or even cancelled by a lack of electricity caused by any of the above-mentioned means, then civilisation itself will be in jeopardy.

    Electricity is vital for a modern world. An over-reliance on it will lead to its premature removal, or—at best—a severe rationing will jettison us back into prehistory. And let us not forget, if it does become rationed, you can bet your bottom groat that it will be those with power and influence who will be the last to be deprived of it.

    ©Grizzly, 20/01/21

    1. Morning Grizzly

      I spoke to my sister on Monday , it was her 70th birthday , she lives near Cape Town , she was talking about the heat , and the problems SA are having with power outages . Now a regular occurence .

      Further north , the Joburg area is really suffering from very prolonged outages . Things are worse now than they were ten years ago .

      Load shedding will be implemented in most instances in 2 hour blocks.

      However, in Eskom-supplied Johannesburg areas, blocks are 4 hours long. This is to coincide with City Power’s 4 hour schedule.
      Each of the time periods has an additional 30 minutes added to allow for switching of networks in a way that will not damage the power system.

      Most customers (those in 2 hour blocks) may therefore be without electricity for up to 2.5 hours at a time, while customers in 4 hour blocks may be without electricity for up to 4.5 hours at a time.
      Eskom will begin load shedding customers at the start of the period (for example from 06:00), and will have all scheduled customers switched off within the first half hour (that is, by 06:30)

      At the end of the period, after the two / four hours (that is, by 08:00 or 10:00 as applicable), Eskom will start returning power to customers and should have them all back within half an hour (that is, by 08:30 or 10:30).

      The frequency of load shedding increases as higher Stages are used

      https://loadshedding.eskom.co.za/loadshedding/ScheduleInterpretation

        1. This world would be much improved if most of its human population started breeding as frugally as Europeans. (NB. Yes, this is a European country. Japan is Asian, Tasmania is Australian, the British Isles are European.)

          1. But not as frugally as our recent arrivals and their already embedded Muslim relatives, whose sole aim is to outnumber the indigenous European population in order to establish the Western Caliphate.

            Do I now qualify for a tinfoil hat?

        2. When you consider the idiots who are spouting absolute nonsense re the Climate and Ecological Emergency Strategy, and if places like Africa cannot get it right with solar energy and other forms of power, what hope is there for us as Government insists doing away with gas and coal ..

          I think Boris is being influenced by his toothy squeeze , to my mind she should be booted out and told to mind her own business .

          1. They could get solar power right in Africa if their governments were not run by kleptomaniac, power-mad despots who keep most of their people scratching a living in the dust.

            The wind and solar fanatics here are the same – all in it for the money. You’ve only got to look at our local billionaire – Dale Vince – who started Ecotrickery when he was a caravan-living eco-junky. He now owns most of Stroud.

          3. “places like Africa cannot get it right with solar energy”
            Fixed it for you. ;-))

        3. Oh, I don’t know, George, since the world has over-populated itself, a vast pandemic akin to a bad dose of ‘flu should see off over half the population in about a year.

          Oh, wait a minute…

      1. Those that will allow Joe Public to be cut off by someone else – and the elite won’t be.

      2. I had a text from SP today telling me they were in the area and I should sign up on the website. I deleted it.

      1. It’s all mine, Bob.

        Seldom is the day I awake without something buzzing in my head that needs to be written down before it disappears.

      1. Yes – and there was an eco-battle here for years against the huge incinerator which was built near Gloucester with a huge amount of public money. A rival firm set up an anaerobic digester but I haven’t heard much of that lately.

    6. I used to keep a notebook beside my bed to jot down ideas for paintings (or stories that I write occasionally) that came to me if I woke up in the night. If I didn’t, I would have forgotten them by morning.

    7. Magnetic storms, like the Carrington Event of 1859.
      It knocked out the telegraph system, which was all they had in the way of electrical systems back then. Can you imagine what it would do today?

      I read a book recently which was imagining what would happen if Carrington struck today. I thought the book was rather idealistic, but it did set me thinking about an extended spell without electricity.

      1. An awful lot of today’s youth would be like fish out of water and anybody in an all-electric household, with no open fires, would be stuffed.

          1. Once the supermarket shelves are empty and they can’t glue themselves to their mobile phones there will be trouble.

  42. Anyone feeling cold? In weather news: “The temperature in portions of the Yakutia region of eastern Russia, where Yakutsk is located, dropped below 40 degrees below zero Fahrenheit (40 degrees below zero Celsius) during the middle of December and hasn’t climbed above that level since — making this one of the longest stretches of subzero cold in at least 14 years,”

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0200ad8666f1497b2726f1683c64d2816477e6dfdc1b6df99e66c4a3239bf7a9.jpg

    Anastasia Gruzdeva makes a selfie as the temperature dropped to about -50 degrees (-58 degrees Fahrenheit) in Yakutsk, Russia.

    And there was I thinking that the climate warriors were right and that snow is a thing of the past (!).

    1. For heaven’s sake, there is climate and there is weather, and you *always* conflate the two. Frankly I despair – it’s been explained to you people often enough, are you so dim that you still don’t get it?

      Once again, again, again: When it’s hot it’s climate, when it’s cold it’s weather. Got it now?

    3. -50C is seriously cold.
      Spill your coffee, and it will barely reach the ground before freezing. Don’t touch stuff with bare skin!

      2. I watched a documentary about sable hunters in Siberia many years ago. They were shooting them as they ran about in the trees and the beasties were frozen solid when they hit the ground… temperatures between -50C and -60C. They had to warm them up before they could skin them – as the pelts would shatter. They had a quota for how many they could shoot, so they needed to make sure every skin counted. They were living in tents in that temperature for days on end whilst hunting… Not much wonder a sable coat costs the earth.

    5. Ah, yes, we all remember ‘Global Warming’ which became such an embarrassment, that it was changed to discount the naturally occurring changes in climatic norms to become the notorious ‘Climate Change’ the we must ALL fight against.

    1. Don’t forget the DT gladly accepted Bill Gates’ ‘donation’ of $3.4M in 2017 in return for ‘coverage’ of ‘health issues’.

    2. Tucker Carlson is extremely lucid.

      Lucidity is very much despised by the left who thrive on people being muddle-headed.

  45. The DT has an extended ‘orange man bad’ article today from Kim Darroch. It is shocking to think that this obnoxiously partisan and deeply arrogant man who never understood the meaning of the word ‘confidential’ was our Ambassador in Washington. Obama didn’t trust him him, and Trump disliked him.

    2. The ‘article’ by Sajid Javid is almost as bad. At least he had the cojones to allow reader comments, although I’d seriously doubt if he’ll bother to read any of them. This paper’s coverage of US politics over the last 5 years has been an utter disgrace – it’s so bad that, for me, it was above their (already terrible and pro-Establishment) ‘coverage’ of the pandemic in the reasons why I finally said ‘no more!’ and unsubbed last June, after 20 years.

      1. THERESA MAY: Britain threatened to break the law. We abandoned our global moral leadership… we did not raise our credibility in the eyes of the world …….

        Stop it please………..my sides are aching

        1. Are you sure you’ve got that right, Rodger?
          Shouldn’t it be ‘morality & Theresa May do not belong in the same sentence’?

    4. 328686+ up ticks,
      Morning P,
      She is once again wrong IMO johnson is well on course and will in time be shown as
      lapping her in the treachery department.
      My personal view.

    5. I read that too. Talk about deluded about her premiership. With all the bad PMs over the past 30 years, she STILL manages to come out as by far the worst and yet blames Boris for all her ills. The modern equivalent of Ted Heath?

      2. She is a very sad and self-deluded woman. I am sure that her rather peculiar family background helped make her the woman she is.

    1. 328686+ up ticks,
      Morning PP,
      It is surely the only truth uttered via the gobs of the political gobshites & co.
      Their supporting cast of followers really really thought they were inclusive.

    2. What do they know? Our politicians are on the ball with this. They will save us. The BBC agrees. Everyone interviewed in the street says we need more lockdown.

  50. Just over a month ago I sent a letter to the Bank of Scotland. An actual letter as they do not give an email address. I had phoned previously and I had spoken to someone. I’ve receive a new bank card and it has a different number to the previous one. This is the first time that this has happened. Usually they have the same number. My interlocutor dismissed me with a “that’s the way it is”, although he may not have known why.
    My letter said that I was not happy with this as the card number is embedded in a number of sites and it would be tedious to have to go round them to check and change.
    A few days ago I received an SMS message saying that they were looking into it, but I could contact the financial Ombudsman Service*.
    This morning I received another SMS message saying the same thing. Delay blamed on Covid, of course.
    My reference number is 15,867,741, (now serving 23 – probably).
    The interesting thing is that the SMS message was sent to my dummyphone though I had only given my postal address in the letter. So someone has accessed my account details to find my phone number, but has not taken the trouble to determine why my Visa debit card number has changed. Do they know what they are doing?

    *I sent a very concise and clear typed properly and spelled correctly to the financial Ombudsman about two years ago. The building society had told me rudely and abruptly (“this correspondence is now closed”) that I could not use them as a bank by withdrawing whenever I felt like it. The account had originally been advertised as “easy access account”. The clerk at th Ombudsman office sent me a form to fill in. Life is too short.

    1. Some years ago I was trying to renew my anti -virus program from the store bought card/code number. The instructions coming up on the screen didn’t, in any way, match up with what was on the screen. Frustration was immense – BP going through the roof. After about an hour my home phone rang – it turned out to be the anti virus firm – somewhere in Europe ringing me to offer help as they were watching ( not camera watching ) the chaos I was having – on their system. I had never given my EX_DIR number.

      1. Mine don’t. The only thing that changes is the CCV number – which I have to type in each time anyway.

    3. That reminds me of my recent dealings with a company who had under-billed me. Rather than leave it and wait for them to find out a year later, I e-mailed them for a revised invoice and received one with the corrected amount. What made me laugh was the reason they gave for the re-issuing: ‘Customer Dissatisfaction’.

    4. It may well be a nuisance for you, but from a security point of view it makes sense. And you admit that the old long number is stored on various hackable websites.

        1. And that is why some banks are using one time passwords (OTP) or simple alerts sent as an SMS to your mobile phone; even if Messrs Soros and Putin have cloned your SIM, you would still receive that text, which should alert you to any potential wrongdoing.

  51. I wonder will the mainstream media be holding Biden up to the same level of scrutiny and moral criteria as they did for Donald Trump?
    Or will they give him the standard four year honeymoon period.
    Well it was eight years for Obama but nobody believes Biden will last that long.

    1. Given what they allowed to pass their gaze in the last 4+ years and especially in the run up to the US Elections, I seriously doubt it. My money is on Biden stepping down within a year for ‘health reasons’ and it’ll be a Harris+1 with Pelosi and Schumer pulling the strings, as always intended.

  52. Did anyone see the programme of ITV1 last night about the pandemic – specifically the cover-up by China and how they apparently deliberately allowed the virus to spread abroad whilst hoarding equipment and supplies worldwide and locking down very hard at home? I couldn’t record/watch it due to other programme commitments.

    Thus far, I have yet to see any coverage of this in the printe ot TV news media outside of ITV.

    1. I can’t see the MSM mentioning, let alone commenting, on it, given how close the US and China are going to get over the next four years. Don’t rock the junk, so to speak.

      1. Er … correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t this programme aired by a branch of the MSM, i.e. ITV?

        2. IMHO, ITV are the least MSM/Establishment outelt of all the UK TV outlets. They still (some in ITN) have some proper journalists. Even the Telegraph has some decent journos, just that this group gets smaller every year.

    2. I never understood how the virus, very shortly after first announcement on the news, that it had been “found”, that it was virtually everywhere on the planet, including on a remote tribe in the Amazon. How was it tested for there? Was it spread from the Chinese space vehicle, James Bond style, allowed to drop as the it circled the planet?

      2. What I’d read before was that whilst Wuhan was initially locked down (people were literally locked in their homes and doors on flat blocks welded up), the CCP allowed international travel to allow the virus to go worldwide for a good few months before the news of it reached our TV screens.

        This is especially easy, given how much goods come from China these days.

    3. It was very good Andy. Quite riveting in fact.

      Oh, just one little thing — Interjected near the end, completely out of context, was the comment that “it definitely didn’t come from the Wuhan biological

      laboratory”…..but the commentator didn’t say how ITV knew that.

    2. The Greeks still smash crockery to celebrate, you know. Perhaps they’re pleased Sleepy Joe got inaugurated 🙂

  57. Am I the only one to tune in on inauguration day just to see if the new president gets shot?

    1. President Trump is not attending presumably to reduce the risk otherwise of protest.

      Biden is illegitimate and a proxy for Obama who is pulling the strings.

        1. Now, now. This is a civilised forum (or was till I got here). We should respect other peoples sensibilities, if not their views.

      2. No, in the circumstances, it isn’t. We’ve just had four years of relentless hatred and death wishes directed at Trump and his family. We’ve had an election that hasn’t been audited and doesn’t bear up to analysis. Phizzee’s comment was clearly flippant. I had to scroll back up to see which comment you were referring to.

        1. Wow! Geoffrey has garnered FOUR downvotes – that must be a record! None from the usual suspect, of course.

    3. Judging by the amount of Security they are expecting the Grossdeutschland Panzer division!

    4. No. It’s the only reason to tune in. Well, not really. I’d like to see what Ralph Lauren chose for President-elect Biden to wear and whether Kamelarse will be wearing the full Native American outfit*, including eagle feathers.

      *I had one when I was little. My Indian name is “White Feather, Collides With Objects”.

  58. ‘Inside’ Putin’s £1billion palace: Theatre, casino, strip club and ice rink that rival Alexei Navalny claims are built into President’s 17,300-acre Black Sea home. 20 january 2021.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5ed5d5cfcaf46aa20db3a0d162ad74ee8f46e759f772427ea7075f1836167cfc.jpg

    Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, who was arrested on his return to Russia last weekend, has claimed a strip club, casino and a theatre are among a series of luxurious rooms inside President Putin’s £1billion ‘palace’.

    Navalny claims to be in possession of leaked floor plans of Putin’s lavish property on Russia’s southern Black Sea coast which have been used to draw up artists’ impressions of the palace’s interior.

    Astonishing 3D images of the estate’s interior allege ‘Putin’s palace’ features an arcade room with slot machines and a dance mat, a spa and a theatre inside the mansion, along with an underground ice rink and even vineyards in the grounds.

    There is no evidence given here (as one might expect) that Putin actually owns this rather vulgar residence that looks more like a French Casino than someone’s home. It is impossible to imagine living there; one would need an army of domestics just to keep the place clean. Still the story itself tells us something; first that it was prepared long in advance of Navalny’s return to Moscow and that he was given professional help to”Visualise” it; there being no actual photographs of the interior. It coincides with a whole rash of anti-Putin articles in the MSM and of course Biden’s coronation. One suspects that this is more than accidental and that there will be some mention by the White House’s resident Hair Sniffer of his Russian Bête Noir in his First Pronouncements later today.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9164717/Rival-Navalny-claims-theatre-casino-strip-club-inside-Putins-1billion-palace.html

    1. The bathroom looks bit plain. It does not even score a “1” on the bling scale. Any pretensions are spoiled by the old armchairs bought cheap from a junk shop that does house clearances of old folks homes. I’d like a lot more gold, preferably a dozen or so statuettes of cherubs and angels, a large golden baroque set of shelves loaded with Egyptian towels, and a bar of scented soap from Santa Maria Novella in Florence (I mean to say, even we have that!).

    4. When I was nursing , we had to attend to a young man who attempted to get out of a huge formal bath like the one above, he arrived at hospital with badly crushed balls … The sharp edges of the marble rim that the bath was surrounded by , so we were informed was cripplingly impossible to get out of , and coupled with a slippery floor seemed to be a recipe for disaster .

      1. Many hotel bathrooms are not disabled-friendly. During my recently-ended travelling days, when checking out a hotel, I always looked at the bathrooms. Often important grab-handles are missing.

  59. BBC News “NHS Tavistock child gender clinic rated ‘inadequate”

    Same as the patients then.

  60. If you lose one sense your other senses are enhanced.

    This is why people with no sense of humour have a heightened sense of self-importance.

      3. Corim, I think that he is past that point and is being used and abused by others. That he’s an awful person with much to answer for is clear and he deserves all he will get from his handlers. I’m sure Harris has that covered.
        The USA is set for a really rough ride over the next few years and how will it be stopped? Now that they have power the corrupt democrats and the equally corrupt RINOs will ensure that all future elections are fixed.

        1. I agree. One of the most distasteful aspects of the fraud has been the de-platforming of President Trump by Big Tech and the media in general. The BBC coverage and anti-Trump bias remains a national disgrace.

          I also find those crowing at the removal of Trump and wishing to pursue him as a vendetta to be hypocrites and evil people. We have a few such on this forum.

          1. Lots of backtracking and red faces when the reality of having a lame-duck president from the outset hits home. One has to assume that there exists quite a number of decent democrats – even some of the dead ones – who will be horrified as the Biden circus starts to reveal its true position. Could get very ugly.

    2. As I recently said on another (unrelated) forum when some people were chomping at the bit for Trump and his voter base (and anyone who supports anything he’s done) to be cancelled and more, whilst doing the ‘I see no ships’ routine at Biden’s many, many fundamental flaws and more:

      Be careful what you wish for – you may get it. I suspect those people will, as you say, have to learn the hard way. The next few years are going to make 2016-2020 look like paradise in comparison.

      1. Be careful what you wish for!

        Gold has just jumped $35- on the NY Mercantile Exchange.

        There appears to be a bunch of investors who don’t see good coming out of today.

    3. Since that type of name re-alignment is not only applicable to sex but if I’m ever arrested I shall just tell them I identify as a black Muslim with affiliations to BLM, AntiFa and ER.

    4. Forgive my ignorance but is she someone specific (apart from not being Miss World)?

        2. “Openly transgender”? How can you be a closet transgender? If you just wore women’s clothes in the privacy of your home, you’d be a transvestite, surely?

    5. In the first clip, I was half-expecting the deaf signer to start ‘translating’ the hand-washing motions.

    6. Hang on. By the second sentence I am reading that your judgement should be decided by you, not by the judiciary.

      Memememememememememe rather defines this idiotic generation. Truly, the world has gone mad.

  62. Manhunt after two men’s faces smashed in unprovoked attack at Greenford petrol station. 20 January 2021.

    Suspect one is described as a white man, aged in his mid-20s, of a slim built, around 6ft tall with dark brown hair. He was wearing a dark green/grey top and blue jeans.

    Suspect two is described as a white man, aged in his mid-20s. He was wearing a dark, short sleeved top, with a black puffa jacket with skinny jeans and black trainers.

    White Men eh? I assume this was released under the Man bites Dog paradigm?

    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/two-men-attacked-greenford-petrol-station-manhunt-b900434.html

  63. Adam Boulton has given up any pretence at impartial commentary. Recent highlights – ‘Trump is a pompous little man’, ‘So, there we go, the White House finally sees the back of Trump.’

    1. Strange. Only the other day the DT ran an article alleging that Trump’s associates were lobbying him to get their clients off. Clearly they weren’t very successful…

    2. I guessed something like this when they ran all those stupid articles. One gets quite a good nose for this kind of BS after four years of it.

  65. Just switched on the BBC news in case anyone has shot Biden yet.
    FFS, never seen such a snow job, it appears the US will have St Joe and St Kamala in the White House.
    I eagerly await GB News to start up.

  66. I find as I get older I only need 3 shops in my life, Specsavers, Boots and Greggs.

    My life is all specs and drugs and sausage rolls.

  68. ‘British sausages in Northern Irish supermarkets could become a thing of the past after Brussels appeared to rule out an extension of a Brexit grace period for imports of UK chilled meats.

    The only way supermarkets in Northern Ireland can avoid Brexit border controls is to buy EU sausages from countries such as Germany, France or Ireland, EU officials said.

    “People now need to adapt to changes. The only way to avoid controls is to source things through the EU from now on,” an EU official said.’

    I think Boris needs to take another look at this (and tell May to wind her neck in).

    1. What is a ‘Brexit border control’ and why doesn’t it also apply to EU products?

      1. Because the UK is completely stupid.

        Aggressive reciprocal reaction is the ONLY thing the EUSSR will understand.

        Start to bring Eire near collapse and they’ll beg Brussels to ease off the regs.

          1. The republic has developed new, direct, ferry routes to the continent – and is still increasing them. It won’t be so easy to bring them anywhere near collapse – they already worked out that there is less honesty in Westminster than there is in Brussels.

    2. How does the EU have a say in Northern Irish Supermarkets selling sausages bought from any part of the SOVEREIGN United Kingdom?

      2. Because Bojo’s WA split off NI from the rest of the UK – great “deal”, no? I told you he was rubbish and just jumped on the Leave bandwagon without being truly committed.

    3. I think the NI people need to stop buying EU produce full stop. Hit ’em where it hurts, in the wallet.

    1. 328686+ up ticks,
      Afternoon LD.
      Will the American peoples rebel or wait until reaching the advance stage of sh!te governance and sufferance as of the indigenous of the UK.

  71. Listening to the BBC talking about the investiture of Biden. The studios are awash with champagne and they are wetting their knickers with pleasure – the women are just as excited. Biden’s middle name is Robinette, which was a sheep in French (a tap in modern French is a robinet because it resembles a sheep’s head) and it was also the childish name for a willy.

    2. That is the reason to watch CNN or read the Guardian, biased comments are expected there.

      1. It’s the level of vitriol that’s really worrying. There are some truly hateful individuals who are blind to economics, reason or evidence based analysis.

        They just hate, unthinkingly.

        1. Definitely both sides of their political arena, Pelosi and McConnell come to mind.

          That is why I suggested McCain is needed, he had respect from both parties and might have had the ability to start building bridges to reunite the US. The comments received in response show that a lot of that unreasoninghatred exists on this site.

    3. The wall to wall hatred and anger at Trump that the BBC pumps out is just vile. They hate him, we get it. Why can’t they just be honest about it and admit they’re deeply, permanently biased, that they’ve no interest in balance or truth and just spend an hour spewing invective?

      Oh. Because that would mean they’d probably get the sack.

      Which rather shows that the Left wing media are little more than spoiled, scared hypocrites.

  72. An acute observation in a BTL Comment:

    Downtoolong
    1 minute ago

    “The best part about being an investigative reporter in the liberal press is that you don’t actually have to spend money or time investigating anything. You just spin everything you see and hear to fit the established liberal narrative and get experts, who are also paid reporters, to back you up.

    What a beautiful scam indeed”.

    1. The same principle seems to apply to climate science researchers and their published papers.

      They all cite each other’s papers and then it becomes self-perpetuating, and because there are so many citations, that adds weight to the original.

  73. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/89458990b0582735831a2aaf38da401db9490bf5a4afa3af4c43acbb0ecf2114.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4a6973f44b8a8225bc214247c16a663fb5f1b52275f7b34513fef915007858c6.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ddd78753826580c20244137aa58485f1de5bb06432a5a6a53349f27cd93ecacb.jpg
    Just been to see my local (female) butcher who has relieved me of £130·88 for some of her meat. Much of what I buy over here has to be especially ordered since many cuts are not readily available as they are in the UK.

    I bought a two-rib fore rib of beef joint, weighing 7lb-4oz, for which I was charged £84·04. This works out at £11·59/lb.
    I also bought six beef short ribs, weighing 6lb-5oz, for which I was charged £37·26. This works out at £5·90/lb
    Finally I bought some beef fat (tallow), which she had kindly minced for me. I shall render this down in the oven to be used in my deep-fat fryer for frying fish and chips in the unbeatable Yorkshire- (and Belgian-) style. 8lb-6oz of tallow cost me £9·59. This works out at £1·15/lb.

    I shall get six substantial double meals out of the short ribs when braised in various ways. I shall roast the fore rib to medium rare when I host my 70th birthday party, inviting a few friends in a couple of weeks’ time.

      2. I’m going to order some brisket in the summer to put on the smoker and have 12-hour smoked brisket sandwiches. I’ve never had it but it looks very yummy in the videos.

        1. Grizzly, Good afternoon.

          I need to buy a new barbecue and have been
          looking at combination types, unfortunately I
          have not yet found any good, medium sized
          combinations.
          Do you have any recommendations?

          1. I have two. A Weber Spirit II, 2-burner gas BBQ, and a Pro-Q upright charcoal smoker. It all depends on what you want it to do.

            I use the gas BBQ for general grilling and the smoker for all manner of things: grilling, smoke-roasting, hot smoking and cold smoking.

    2. This is a rather long comment to remind us of
      your 70th. Birthday, which is NOT in a couple
      of weeks’ time!

      1. Take a look at the Weber range we had one for years still going strong, one our sons bought a new one last year and its excellent with so many different features.

    3. Looks very good. Your rib roast is at a similar (or slightly lower) price to online suppliers over here. I will take a look at the price in the local farm shop next time I’m in.

    1. AAAArgh! Where’s the mind bleach, or one of those MiB flashy things, when you need them?

  75. In other news from the USA:

    One of the most well-known polling companies, Rasmussen Reports, now has Trump on a 51% approval rating

    What is the first priority of Biden’s new Secretary of Defense? Beef up the military perhaps? No, “I will fight hard to stamp out sexual assault, to rid our ranks of racists and extremists.” (Did Biden choose him because he is a man of a certain hue)?

    Biden will reverse several of Trump’s policies on his first day including immigration enforcement, climate change and others, all out of anti-Trump vindictiveness and none that will Make America Great Again. Make America Grovel Again, more like!

    Trump: “a tyrant’s era came to an end and today is the final day of his ominous reign.” Who could have said this? None other than one of the world’s most malevolent tyrants, Ayatollah Rouhani, the President of the biggest supporter of state terrorism in the world! Trump can’t be so bad, after all!

    And this is Biden’s choice for Assistant Secretary of Health:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/965308cb19b3e4dde83cbb62254a1b35645e136dcefee4f6be50b0a86d465d4d.jpg

    The credentials for this appointment: He/she is “trans’, whatever that means, but was born as a male. Biden said “She (sic) is a historic and deeply qualified choice to help lead our administration’s health efforts.”

    3. No, No, … You cannot be right,

      JSP refers to him as her … see
      last night’s despatches!!

      … I admit to falling about laughing!

    4. On the plus side, this appointment will be good for those in the US who suffer from mental health problems. Too long neglected, they will be reassured to see that the new Assistant Health Secretary is him/her/itself mentally ill.

      This, on top of a President who suffers from dementia, represents a clear shift in American policy on mental health, in favour of the mentally afflicted.

    6. “to help lead our administration’s health efforts.” I understand that a fair number of Americans think that the Dems health policies are completely nuts…..

  76. Joe Biden and the crisis of the New World. 20 January 2021.

    America is saved. The republic has been rescued. The healing of the nation can begin now that authoritarian populism has been defeated and ‘the adults’ are back in charge. That’s the narrative swirling around the inauguration of Joe Biden today. It couldn’t be more wrong. The Biden-supporting woke elites pose a graver threat to the American republic, to its visionary founding ideals, than Donald Trump did. Behind the facade of today’s restoration of normalcy, the New World trembles.

    That United States we all know from our history books as a polity that always frightened Dictators and Tyrants is now finished. The inauguration of Biden will usher in a sea change where it will itself become what it has always opposed. No Government from today will be able to act without first looking over its shoulder to see if it is offending the new Master of the World.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/01/20/joe-biden-and-the-crisis-of-the-new-world/

    1. An interesting article, but one small problem. The creation of the American Republic was a cynical exercise in old world power – by France. Most Americans are entirely unaware of that fact that it was French power that brought about the United States of America, and when it is spelled out to them, they really don’t like it.

      It’s worse than that. The US remained a French client state until France declined so far after the demise of Napoleon that it really couldn’t sustain clients that required power projection. The US went round in circles for a while until the British invaded in 1848, took Washington, and generally made matters clear.

      1. Indeed. France encouraged the American Revolution to spite England. Unfortunately for them, it bit them in the bum when Lafayette came home. 1776 was followed by 1789.

    2. Authoritarian populism? The lengths they go to to twist words.

      The Left like calling democracy populist. It makes it sound bad. They did the same with nationalism to twist patriotism. However, I would be grateful how a popular president, elected with broad support possibly be authoritarian?

      The head shakes in bewilderment. Why can’t they just admit it? They hated Trump. They hated that they couldn’t control him. hated that he wasn’t greedy, malicious, spiteful and small. They hated that he didn’t want power to control but to do something for people. They hated his patriotism, his understand of people’s thinking.

      More, they hate those who voted for him. Their idea of the voter is much the same as a prostitute with a client, one to be feted when they want them and robbed the second they’re done.

    1. I bet a large number of them will be China’s spies. Bringing so many spies to the UK is the most incredibly stupid thing to do. Without any democratic consent too – one could almost believe that Boris was following orders!

      1. I get lots of sparrows, robins, blue tits but never seen so many of these if I have named them correctly

    2. I have on mine Blue Tits, Coal Tits, Long Tailed Tits and Great Tits but no other species. Last year I had these plus Nuthatch, Lesser Spotted Woodpecker and Robin. Our Blackbird gets the droppings from the feeders.

      1. Our Blackbird gets the droppings from the feeders.

        Poor Blackbirds! There must be a cleaner way of saying that.

          6. I believe a ‘hand full in each hand
            is the ideal’… but what the heck do I know,
            I am only a woman!!

          9. ‘Woman is the nigger of the world’ ©JohnLennon.

            Peace and love sister.

            No wonder someone shot him.

  79. Re: Biden’s health secretary. ‘Transsexual’ is almost always men wanting to become women, the few that go the other way turn up on the Graun sooner or later with stories of bitter regret and having been misled. Is it just because women get to wear nicer clothes?

    1. I think it is because two or three generations of young boys have grown up with no effective male role model in the family, the only person to be with them on the path into adulthood has been the mother. They have no idea of who they are.

        1. Who knows? It seems to have been encouraged and made fashionable by whites because it assists in destroying white society. In this case blacks, er, don’t appear to matter be involved.

        2. Black lads have plenty male of role models, unfortunately they are often unconnected to home or school and are not good ones.

      3. I read an article once which claimed that gays looked at women as a mother figure. Don’t know how true it is, as I’m not queer (well, not in that sense, anyway ).

    3. One bloke who pretended to be a woman would sit at his desk clipping his nails. His toe nails. He said that women did this all the time, and as he was a woman, he could too.

      Now, I have never seen a woman clipping her toe nails at work, feet on their desk.

      These mentally ill people just want to indulge themselves to make themselves feel different because they’re not happy with who they are. They need therapy, not surgery.

  80. I copied this from a BTL comment from DT letters but forgot to post it.

    CS Lewis on Living in an Atomic Age. For ‘Atomic’ read ‘Covid’ and for ‘Bomb’ read ‘Virus’. I hope it’ll settle everyone down.

    In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. ‘How are we to live in an atomic age?’ I am tempted to reply: ‘Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat at night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.

    In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented… It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.

    If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds…

    What the atomic bomb has really done is to remind us forcibly of the sort of world we are living in and which, during the prosperous period before, we were beginning to forget. And this reminder is, so far as it goes, a good thing. We have been waked from a pretty dream, and now we can begin to talk about realities…

    It is our business to live by our own law not by fears: to follow, in private or in public life, the law of love and temperance even when they seem to be suicidal, and not the law of competition and grab, even when they seem to be necessary to our own survival. For it is part of our spiritual law never to put survival first: not even the survival of our species. We must resolutely train ourselves to feel that the survival of Man on this Earth, much more of our own nation or culture or class, is not worth having unless it can be had by honorable and merciful means.

    Nothing is more likely to destroy a species or a nation than a determination to survive at all costs. Those who care for something else more than civilization are the only people by whom civilization is at all likely to be preserved. Those who want Heaven most have served Earth best. Those who love man less than God do most for man….

    Let the bomb find you doing well.

      1. This is what is beginning to sink in: what’s the point of staying alive if we’re not allowed to live?

        I truly think some terrified, snivelling people would truly prefer to live locked away, never seeing anyone again, never going outside and thinking themselves ‘safe’.

        This has to end. The problem is it’s shown how petty, small and ignorant so many people are. What will those of us who value the freedom to choose do against such a tide of terror?

        1. We will:
          a) Get beaten up in the street on every excursion,
          or
          b) Comply with all instructions.

        3. I did notice that in my local rag the numbers who don’t want a more severe lockdown are rising. Still only 25%, though.

        4. Presumably the ones keenest on lockdown are the snitches and that’s how they are keeping themselves entertained!

      2. “Quid enim proderit homini si lucretur mundum totum et detrimentum faciat animae suae”
        — Mark 8:36

  81. Just taken part in my first Zoom meeting!

    Easier than I thought it would be – I knew it was an irrational phobia that I should overcome. Just a girlie chitchat with the ladies I would have been having lunch with today in normal times.

    1. Congratulations!

      It’s a bit like the phobia of using a ‘puter before you get stuck in. I still have a similar phobia of smart phones.

      1. I’m not very fond of my phone but I used it for this – I don’t think my laptop would be up to it and I’m not very au fait with the more up to date system downstairs – and it’s very cold down there. I sat on the bed as the phone won’t pick up the internet in here and I can’t be bothered to pay for data I’m not going to use.

  82. Foul day out there today – the lane has turned into a muddy torrent.
    Howling gale and lots of rain. At least I didn’t have to go out.

    1. At one stage I thought the lake outside my studio was going to be deep enough to overflow the step and the veranda and flood it. Fortunately it seems to have abated – I can’t wait until work on the drain starts in a fortnight or so.

    1. So, Sos,

      You are telling us that a person, of no
      consequence and not much intelligence
      entered public office more than fifty years ago
      … and during those fifty or so years he has built
      up enough integral and financial backing to
      finance his desire to prove his relevance.’

      Sometimes it is very difficult not to blaspheme!!!

      1. “Sometimes it is very difficult not to blaspheme!!!”

        You’re not fucking wrong, Garlands. 😲

        2. Just waiting for Peddy to point out that, strictly speaking, using the word “fucking” is profanity, not blasphemy.
          ;¬)

          11. It is neither, it is vulgarity. No charge is incurred for this information. 😁 😂 🤣 😃 😄 😅

    2. It makes sense to me.

      Work commences on 21 November 2020 and concludes on 13 November 2120. Normal council time-scale.

  85. And behind the Palace walls, the festivities continue. All the great and the good are gathered, the trumpets sound, the drums beat

    All that’s missing is the Great American Public.

    1. That’s the same argument that young Londoners use: “It’s just for protection, innit?”

    3. We’ve been told since 2016 that walls don’t work. Except, all of a sudden, they do!

      In 2019 the then Commandant General of the USMC was bleating that Trump having some Marines sent to secure the US border was detracting from their real job. Total numbers, including USMC. . . wait for it . . 6,000 troops!

      Lord knows what he would say if he found out that 25,000 troops would be used to protect Joe Biden, the most popular president in US history.

    2. David Copperfield’s latest illusion; he made them disappear. They’re really there, honest, it’s all mirrors and camouflage netting.

    4. that was the best bit, she had such a stupid outfit that it must have been designed with malice.

  91. I am as far away from the TV as possible, as the MR insists on watching the Deplorables swearing themselves in.

    Looking back four years, I don’t think that Mr Trump believed for a minute that he would be elected. In fact, I seem to recall him hinting that he’d run just for the hell of it, expecting that the Ghastly Clinton Criminal would sweep the board.

    But he won. And then was faced with the nightmare of actually doing the job.

    At least he started no wars and no US military were killed in an action he began.

    Vinegar Joe will be a nightmare – and his Indian side-kick worse. God Help America.

          13. Indeel. Peeploders wavy with the handlebars and cheerloders all dancit with kneeclappers uttermost on the lawnlopper there. Deep joy!

            Oh yes.

          15. Indeed…and employing Grizzly…in Nottingham. If you didn’t work for Raleigh or Players Cigarettes, it had to be Boots the Chemists which is where my Pa spent his entire working life (when not lobbing shells at Narzis)

    3. Caroline and I applied for a headship or two before we took the plunge and moved to France and set up our own business. I thank God that we were not successful in our applications!

  92. You have to admit the man has talent… he is talking down his nose and out of his árse at the same time.

    1. Too true. The two outstanding Americans are President Trump and Secretary Pompeo. They achieved much and history will place them high in its annals.

      The two most despicable Americans are Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden (with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama running them close).

      1. You are joking. Two of the worst I have ever seen in those roles – they made even Nixon look good. Thank goodness this miserable 4 years is over. As a US citizen, I am proud to have voted to get rid of Tump. And even prouder that 80 million others did the same.

        Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Like others before me, I am out of here. Too many people posting utterly stupid comments about America and American politics – neither of which they apparently understand at all.

        1. Thanks for the sensible words, Obviously the call for healing falls on intentionally deaf ears.

          5. “Obviously the call for healing falls on intentionally deaf ears.”
            I think the schism has become so deep that that sentence works for both sides.

          6. Just because nefarious doings aren’t reported in the American MSM doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t true. Follow the money as John Ward is wont to say.

          7. I’ve said all along that so much money is involved in getting elected that the whole system is corrupt from top to bottom.

            I will bet that there were few people said “Here’s a million dollars fro your campaign, no I don’t want anything in return”.

          8. I’ve long held the view that Constitutional Monarchy is probably best. Some poor sod gets born heir and gets to live in a gilded cage (If the Social workers still permit it) but it prevents the likes of Brown Biden Blair Bush Trudeau Macron etc becoming President….

          11. Just because nefarious doings aren’t reported in the American MSM doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t true. Follow the money as John Ward is wont to say.

          12. Anyone who is still attacking Trump has a nerve to talk about healing after the last four years!

        2. Ah but…

          You thought Hillary Clinton would have been good for America.

          If you think Biden, Harris and the new wrecking crew will be good for your adopted country, I fear that you are in for a very rude awokening (sic)

          1. The Democrat cities have been torched and looted by Antifa and Black Lives Matter, egged on by Kamala Harris, the Police have been defunded and yet some Americans still seem blissfully unaware of the dangers past and present of getting into bed with anarchists.

            I have spoken with American friends and relatives in America and Canada and they are all supportive of President Trump.

            My neighbour is presently in Atlanta and is deeply worried at the prospect of an illegitimate president and the threatened return of failed Obama policies.

        3. Congratulations. Perhaps you would kindly do us the courtesy in a couple of years to let us know how it is going in the USA and whether or not you feel you’ve been had?

          1. That will be just after Biden goes, for whatever reason, to give Harris 10 years as President.

    2. Brutes – the lot of them!

      I remember a delighful boy in my class who had never studied Latin who covered himself in confusion when he read aloud Julius Caesar’s last words in the play we were reading and mispronounced the vocative form of a prominent assassin’s name.

        1. Why?
          Never block, never down vote, just try to ensure that your argument is better than theirs.

          3. I’d be failing in my duties as a mod if I blocked the posters I disagree with.
            I’d rather not reply than say what I think to some of them.

  94. DM Headline

    Inauguration Day 2021 news: ‘Democracy has prevailed’ says Joe Biden as he is sworn in as 46th US President – live updates

    Remember Ian Hislop in the days when he still had a sense of humour, was not biased in favour of one political philosophy over another, and before he became autonomously sexually self-sufficient? In those far off days he lost a Private Eye libel case against Robert Maxwell and joked between clenched teeth that he would have to pay ‘a fat czech’ and that, if that was justice then he was a banana.

    If a stolen election is the embodiment of the prevailing of democracy then I wonder if there is another plantain that would fit the menu?

      1. I stole this phrase from Tom Sharpe’s Porterhouse Blue in which one of his characters was described as being ‘sexually self-sufficient’ because he was an onanist.

          3. A condition known to occur frequently in the Great Glen, which is not solely a geological fault.

  95. That’s me gone for today. A damp, dreary dark day. It is said it will be sunny tomorrow. I wonder.

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain.

    5. Why was it moving? Impressive, yes. That’s easy. You just spend a lot of other people’s money on flash bang. Moving? Not remotely.

      The new year London fireworks were impressive and moving. They moved me to rage at the scum Khan.

  100. First, they stole an election.

    And they made us all watch that.

    Then, they subverted every single constitutional safeguard that should have prevented the certifying of that stolen election.

    And they made us all watch that also.

    Then, they swore in a compromised, illegitimate President who is literally a national security threat and who will quickly be replaced long before his term is over.

    And they made us all watch that too.

    If as an American patriot you’re not awake yet and pretty upset, that would be very surprising.

    3. You arrived again, after a long absence, trying to stir up the forum.

      Your constant gloating about Biden suggests, that having lost Brexit, you regard his election as an opportunity for revenge here.

      You actually belittle yourself by your arrival and departure.

      Fare thee well.

    6. Your wishy-washy opinions resemble a fog in a vacuum, but are designed to irritate us.
      A remoaner, anti-Boris and anti-Trump: what do you do for excitement ?

      Farewell …

    7. Please yourself, Geoffrey – dissenting opinions expressed politely, as you always do – are welcome here.

      1. Now Biden is inaugurated President Trump and his lawyers can unleash their evidence of fraud and have it heard by the courts. It should make for a very interesting year.

        If the impeachment of President Trump fails, as it will, Biden and Pelosi will be shitting bricks. Serves them right.

          2. It is true that impeachment was intended as a means of replacing a sitting President but this present lot seem able to bend the rules and ignore the constitution at will.

    8. Well, it’s probably for the best – I’m sure a Trump-hating Remoaner like you will be far happier on the Grauniad’s Kommentar macht frei site.

      Don’t let the door bang your arse on the way out.

    11. If only you didn’t rely on the Guardian, CNN, the NYT and the BBC for your information, without having the slightest clue of the other side of the story, no wonder you don’t see any point of being here. It is a pity you are going because, even though I and others have always profoundly disagreed with you, you are always polite and eloquent.

      Surely you are confident in your opinions, so why don’t you continue your efforts and try to convince us?

    15. There isn’t any point. “Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity”. Still there is a sales of vanities on at Victoria Plumbing.

  104. Just wondering who or what the TDS sufferers and the Remaners are going to target now for their inner hatred, I suppose we will need a few months, nay a year for them to warm down though.

    1. Next up?

      Old, white people.

      If we hadn’t saved slaughtered the NHS to care for them, the country would not be the bankrupted Hell-hole it is becoming.

  105. 328686+ up ticks,
    breitbart,

    POLL: MOST BRITONS BACK MANDATORY JABS FOR JOBS
    Ugov poll,
    That would be just one step from being, in the eyes of the political overseers, a robot giving them carte blanche to pull your fuse any time they wish.

    Could be a great many voting for the current overseers would go for it.

    1. These polls always appear to give the result that the government wants but none of the people do for some reason.

      2. There are a lot of insanely pro-corona jabbers in the Daily Mail. They all seem to believe that having the jab protects other people for some reason.

        1. They have bought into the protection racket of masks, lockdowns etc – without thinking about the damage.

      3. There are a lot of insanely pro-corona jabbers in the Daily Mail. They all seem to believe that having the jab protects other people for some reason.

      1. 328700+ up ticks,
        Morning DM,
        Jobbie grabbers more like on the political front, clutching onto any
        sh!te they consider to be a saviour.

    3. Ugov poll. Always gives the answer ‘they’ want to see. But insidious because it manipulates the non-thinkers into going along with it.

  106. Evening, all. Been a foul day here today; lashing rain and a cold wind. Dark at 15.00 🙁 Even the dog was reluctant to go for a walk, although he was more enthusiastic once we turned for home 🙂 I’ve spent the day filling time; doing my physio exercises to try to keep fit, taking a long, leisurely bath to try to shed some pounds (even though I know I’ll soon put them back on again once I have something to drink) and now, partaking of my daily dose of Nottl.

    1. I’ve crept up to 102KG this past year was always around 95KG before we we locked down for our health and safety

      1. As I remarked to the friend I met in the supermarket yesterday; I have put on a lot of weight, had to cut down on my exercise, have lost all my social life and developed a serious drinking problem – their measures are supposed to be saving my life, but in fact, they are killing me!

          1. The Connemara’s problems will start after lockdown; the projected loan arrangement fell through, so I’ve missed eight riding sessions. No wonder I’m crabby – no drink, little sleep and no riding.

          3. That’s life. Short of going out and buying a horse for the lockdown (and repenting at leisure!) there’s nothing I can do.

          5. I had a look to see how many rides I would miss before the 15th February – about as many as I’ve missed so far, so half way. I don’t trust the bastards not to extend the lockdown, though.

          1. It didn’t at first; I still piled on more pounds 🙁 I have lost nearly half a stone as the month has gone on, but there’s an awful lot more to shift.

    2. My dog was cowering from rain and gales this morning and I used his whimpering to head home early.

    1. It used to be on just before the news if I remember correctly. Better than Crystal Tipps and Alistair. Not up to Magic Roundabout standard. But I suspect that was an earlier series because I wouldn’t have been watching in the early evening by the time you were at the PhD stage.

    3. “Together, we must all now take up that fight.”

      Er, isn’t that similar to what Trump said – and was accused of inciting violence?

    4. Progressive ideas? I should think that a large majority of people would think that they are regressive ideas, coming from people like Khan, except for the residents of Tower Hamlets and Islington, of course! But I suppose they have to learn the hard way.

    5. In London’stan did Sad Dick Khan
      A muslim caliphate decree
      Where Thames, the turgid river ran
      Past mosques, immeasurable to man
      Down to Southend-on-Sea

        1. No it’s Kipling’s:
          “There’s a one-eyed yellow idol on the road to Katmandu and a Ladies a little further on,
          Where for a penny on deposit
          you can sit upon the closet
          and see sights that are worth half a crown….”

  109. From the DT :
    “Britain will “look carefully” at claims that the Pfizer vaccine fails to protect as well as expected following research into the first 200,000 people given the jab in Israel, Sir Patrick Vallance has said.

    The first real-world data showed the first dose led to a 33 per cent reduction in cases of coronavirus among people who were vaccinated between 14 and 21 days afterwards.

    But that figure is far lower than that predicted by the joint committee on vaccines and immunisation (JCVI), which suggested a single dose would prevent 89 per cent of recipients from getting Covid-19 symptoms.

    In a radio interview, Nachman Ash, Israel’s vaccine tsar, said a single dose appeared “less effective than we had thought” and also lower than Pfizer had suggested, raising fears that giving only one dose will not be as protective as hoped.”

      1. Let’s hope NHS Procurement had the wit to put in a non-performance clause in the contract if the claims for the vaccine turned out to be spurious… (PS Don’t hold your breath…)

        2. They did.
          It allows Pfizer to sue the UK government if their vaccine doesn’t work and get paid unlimited damages.

    3. A BTL Comment:

      I Lewin
      20 Jan 2021 7:14PM
      I’m an immunologist who specialises in antibodies. The first injection gives rise to low level antibodies after 8-10 days that slowly fall back to zero. A second injection ideally after 3-4 weeks gives high levels of antibodies after a couple of days and as important memory cells so if you see it again antibodies are produced within hours. As important the type of antibodies produced change from the large IgM to IgG and IgA. These can last for years.

      The second injection if given too late may not work. There is a reason the trial had injections spaced as they were and we should rapidly ensure that we keep as close to that as possible.

      Don’t listen to lawyers or even doctors that know little about immunology.

      1. One assumed that the licencing conditions for the vaccine were specified to be effective. So, one shot at certain intervals.

        2. Exactly. They put the information out there – all the numpties have to do is follow it.

          My granny used to say “fools and bairns shouldna see half finished work” – she’s been proved right all too often.

    5. NEVER FORGET

      He worked 4 years at 0 salary, while abused

      Ended ISIS

      7 million new jobs

      Middle-class income up $6,000

      Record low unemployment

      7 million off food stamps

      Historic tax reform

      Rebuilt military

      Massive deregulation

      Peace in Middle East

      Making America first

      1. + keeping the US out of the Paris climate fraud agreement, and the UN Invasion pact.

        The abuse was psychological warfare.

      2. Started no new wars.

        But he might prove to be a rallying post for a continuing civil war,

    6. “Just thought you’d like to know with The National Debt at $28 Trillion – there’s no money left……”

      1. And they do it instinctively, as though they actually know about Bernoulli’s equation on the aerofoil principle: lift, thrust, weight and drag etc.

        2. It’s like all those snooker players who surely don’t understand the physics but still pot most shots – I, on the other hand, …

          2. And the physics you would need to understand to score Beckham swerve goals is remarkable. No footballer is likely to understand the science that accurately.

        1. On the subject of trainspotting. Ian Allen and Co have brought out

          The Housebounders Book of Delivery Vans

          Various Sections Include

          Amazon
          Tesco
          Sainsbury’s
          Hermes
          etc

          It contains lists of all their van numbers.
          You underline the number in Black if you see it
          In red if it Delivers to you

          bring back any memories to any of you?

          1. I once thought of taking Photographs of trainspotters standing at the end of platforms and interviewing them to ask about their most exciting spots. Given the millions of rail commuters I thought there might be a market for a book on ‘Spotting the Train spotters’. I had intended to dedicate it to the Greek Authorities who a decade or so ago arrested a group of Plane Spotters as they couldn’t believe anyone could indulge in such an activity without some sort of nefarious purpose.

            Edit Post Script. I think it was finding a book in one WH Smith Shop entitled : ‘The Multi-storey Car Parks of Harlow’ convinced me that I would be wasting my time!

  114. It looks like Murdoch is trying to run with the fox and hunt with the hound. This looks like desperate measures to try to cover up a serious miscalculation.
    Only a fool would believe that Murdoch would not be aware of the stance his company Fox News was taking on election night, nor that Fox News would take any stance without Murdoch’s blessing.

    Rupert Murdoch leads Fox News shake-up as network loses Trump supporters
    By Josie Ensor, US Correspondent 20 January 2021 • 5:42pm
    3 minutes

    Rupert Murdoch has carried out a shake-up of Fox News, with some senior staff fired, amid reports the cable TV network lost viewers following its decision to call the state of Arizona for Joe Biden on Election Day.

    Bill Sammon, 62, Fox News Channel’s senior vice president who oversaw its “decision desk” on November 3, this week announced he would be taking retirement.

    Some 20 other staff members have been fired, including Chris Stirewalt, the veteran politics editor who was the onscreen face of the Arizona call, which enraged the Trump campaign and altered the narrative of election night media coverage.

    According to the Washington Post, Mr Murdoch told colleagues that the way Fox handled the call caused reputational damage and drove away some of Donald Trump’s most ardent supporters.

    Some of its more opinionated hosts, including Maria Bartiromo, who has called the election “fraudulent”, and Brian Kilmeade, have also been given primetime 7pm slots, replacing the usual news programming as part of wider shift toward conservative-leaning punditry.

    Fox News, the jewel in Mr Murdoch’s cable TV empire, is reported to be hemorrhaging pro-Trump viewers who have balked at the network, which was the earliest to project a win for Mr Biden in Arizona – an historically red state.

    CNN has beaten Fox News in viewership over the past few weeks, according to Nielsen. Both left-learning CNN and MSNBC have seen considerable audience growth since the election, as viewers gravitate to those cable outlets for coverage of the transition from Mr Trump to Mr Biden.

    The 89-year-old media mogul, whose family controls Fox’s parent company, has been taking a more active interest in its programming in the wake of the election.

    His youngest son James, last week publicly attacked “media property owners” and news outlets for their role in promoting false election claims that helped lead to the deadly riots in the US Capitol last week.

    “Those outlets that propagate lies to their audience have unleashed insidious and uncontrollable forces that will be with us for years,” he told the FT.

    A Fox network spokesperson said in a statement that it had “realigned its business and reporting structure to meet the demands of this new era” in the aftermath of the 2020 election cycle.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/01/20/rupert-murdoch-leads-fox-news-shake-up-network-loses-trump-supporters/

    1. It does seem strange that as far as I am aware not one mainstream media channel or newspaper did any coverage or scrutiny of the obvious and blatant election fraud and no presenter mentioned it except to ridicule it as nonsense out of hand, how could that be?
      And how could it be that none of the above tackled what was an obvious false flag coup attempt on the House of Representatives., how could that be?

      1. Perhaps the establishment, big tech companies and the MSM are happy to see the power “rightly” back where it belongs, in their grubby paws.
        How satisfying it must be to them to see the “deplorables” back where they belong, and of course our MSM and PTB are just as guilty.
        The BBC and Sky News were positively orgasmic with delight reporting today’s events.
        I can’t see trust in the MSM and the like returning soon, and that applies to Fox News despite Murdoch and his backsliding efforts.

    2. We are ‘over it”. Trump lost and we must move on.

      But the political arguments will not go away. I’m sure there’ll be a lot on which to comment as we track the devious policies of the kiddy-fiddler, Chinese Joe, while he moves the US ever nearer to a socialist dystopia

      1. I’m pleased to see you are over it. Judging by the comments below, you’re in a minority and we haven’t heard the end of insane claims from the losers.

        1. Give it a rest. Trump won with a landslide but the electoral fraud was off the scale. It will all come out in the wash.

          Stop crowing, it is both dishonest and boring.

    3. You have to give them credit from learning from the demented Never Trumpers who tried their hardest continuously over the entire 4 years to unseat the elected President of the USA.

  120. I’m retiring to bed – I guess it’s the side effects of yesterdays vaccination – glands swollen, little lumps at back of throat, painful to swallow and shivering. Reporting side effects to coronavirus-yellow is a nightmare and to contact Nhs24 is like trying to knit soot. Hopefully be back tomorrow

    1. Maybe a paracet to help you relax and get a good night zed? Hope you’re all fixed in the morning!

      1. Thanks Paul – Just taken a couple of Disprin so should be ok tomorrow…..signing orf now

          1. Yes. Although AZ is more like our traditional vaccines, so they say, it does have a GMO addition. God knows what that is, and God knows what else is put in it as well. Gates funds research with Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca (SAGE and Imperial College also). He who pays the piper calls the tune.

          3. The seventy to eighty year olds in our village are rejoicing at being given an appt for vaccination. I don’t think any of them have done any reading about it or, heaven help us, further research. They hear the word ‘vaccine’ and they assume the rest. I have given up trying to inform them, even remotely steering a conversation in that direction they come over all glazed – their assumptions and world views are being challenged and they cannot cope. Their faith in government and pharmaceuticals is touching. These are not ‘village simpletons’, they are elderly well-to-do members of village society.

          4. But you still get an idiot downvote, Mum because you dare call into question others inability to question what’s being offered.

          6. ‘Evening, Cori, difficult to tell if your downvote is just because you are who you are, or because you dare to debunk the panacea that some think is the vaccine.

          7. Regardless of that , if having it enables me to visit my wife in the care home then I’m willing to take any risk

    6. Oh, I do hope it is short-lived, and that you are feeling better in the morning. Do let us know how you are tomorrow. You have taken one for the team. God bless. xx

    8. Sleep well, Spikey, it’s a wonder you didn’t get a downvote for suggesting the vaccine might be responsible.

  121. ‘Pressure to join forces with Brussels was intense. Leading scientists had published a letter in the Guardian suggesting that a failure to do so would likely leave the UK in a queue with other non-EU countries to acquire the vaccine after EU member states, and on less-favourable terms.

    In the first week of July, business secretary Alok Sharma made the final decision: as a newly non-EU member state, the UK would go it alone. On July 10 the UK’s ambassador to the EU, Sir Tim Barrow, sent a letter to the European Commission confirming the ‘no deal’.

    “The UK Government has decided on this occasion not to join this internal EU Initiative,” Sir Tim wrote.

    That decision, although potentially risky at the time, has arguably proven a master stroke.’

    Well done us. Well done Alok Sharma, Minister who made the decision.

      1. Well, there’s always that of course. But, frankly, would it be any worse than this?

          1. Well in which case, you wouldn’t know. Life is passing, I don’t think I’m happy giving up much more of it on the word of wanker Handcock.

          3. The deaths in Norway of people vaccinated with the Pfizer jab are creating concerns amongst those countries who are relying on it to save their populations from COVID mortalities.

            Pfizer are advising that it will not be particularly advantageous for those who are already terminally ill or highly suspected to be dead.🤔

          4. Pfizer have a track record of faulty vaccines and drugs. They were liable for the largest ever penalty for selling damaging drugs in history. I would give them a very wide berth.

          2. All drugs have side effects. A vaccine which has an unfortunate side-effect in such a tiny proportion (fewer than 2 in 100,000) cannot be described with any degree of accuracy as “disastrous”. Such a description is ridiculous and would be laughable if such ridiculous comments did not cause so much harm.

  122. Expect some grim scenes of flooding on TV over the next day or two. Rivers around Manchester are already about to break their banks after recent rains and in the last hour this moved through:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/04469d635a725fe8adb43126b008427a8a571112ff419a8f63d6d3a8d8d10290.jpg

    Expect also the usual lectures, virtue signalling and posturing from our useless political class.

    I look forward to a weary and distraught Manc who, while surveying his ruined property, is asked an idiotic ‘How do you feel?’ question by a half-witted BBC reporter and throws the pillock face down into the depths.

    3. It’s snowing heavily here; judging by my garden furniture, we’ve had about an inch (2.5cm for the imperially challenged) already. I let a brown dog out for a wee and he came back in hideously white 🙂

      2. You should move to Canada, maybe an inch of snow last night. Global warming is working out well so far.

        1. I’ve been to Canada. I prefer the sort of snow that enables you to make a snowman, not have to buy a plastic one 🙂

  123. There is a lot of aircraft noise in our part of the world tonight i.e. Duxford/Mildenhall/Cambridge (Marshall’s) sort of triangle. Just saying.

    3. Military, presumably. Flightradar24 shows nothing in the air over East Anglia. Nearer to home, there’s not a single aircraft at Farnborough, and only one at Gatwick. Even Heathrow is relatively quiet…

      1. It sounds military. Elder son was involved with Chinooks at RAF Odiham and the sound became very familiar to my ears.

          2. When we were coming in to land, Parky (my pilot) said he’d better not mess it up. I told him, “no boomps-a-daisy” and he laughed.

          4. Yes, that Parky. I upset Charlie Brown because when they asked who I’d like to fly with, I said I’d been booked to fly with Parky (I took a slot due to a cancellation because I happened to be there, although I was actually booked to fly in September) and I’d like to carry on with that 🙂 One day, I’ll go back and fly with Charlie Brown and maybe (I might as well spend the money, I’ve got nobody to leave it to) with Millie, too. The landing was very smooth, incidentally – greased it down for a three-pointer.

          7. I saw P7 in the Heritage Hangar at Biggin Hill. She was in for an overhaul. I was lucky enough to fly over Capel-le-Ferne – the weather was glorious in June (good job I did change my flight because it almost certainly wouldn’t have happened in September as it was dull and overcast with a low ceiling).

          9. It was added to make the roundel more visible against a camouflaged surface (in the late ’20s or early ’30s)

        2. I’m not far from Odiham, and their Chinooks are the only military aircraft I’ve ever seen on Flightradar24. Perhaps they don’t identify themselves when they’re doing serious stuff.

    4. RAF Wattisham, now the home of the Army Air Corps has also been busy today. Being Ex-RAF I can only surmise that a massive exercise is taking place.

      Could be in preparation of an assault by the the now despotic USA.

  124. Geoff has an impressive organ console in his new abode but I gather has yet to construct the means to create the sound.
    It’s difficult to create realistic pipe organ sounds with electronics so could this be an answer to a pipe organ:

    https://youtu.be/IOmFgIxvVzc

    1. Hi AO’D. I’m aiming to build a ‘virtual pipe organ’. Unlike all the electronic / digital instruments of past decades, which imitate, synthesise, or attempt to replicate organ sounds by analysing an audio sample, the VPO holds several samples recorded from each note of a real organ in memory, ready to be summoned up by the player, via the console and some clever software. Hauptwerk is probably the best known program for this. Recordings of many examples of virtual organs can be found at contrebombarde.com/concerthall/home/browse.

      My own project requires me to spend another few hundred quid, for the clever electronics that will interface between the console and the workstation computer which is sitting here, gathering dust. A project which I hope to complete this summer, funds permitting…

      1. My Canadian and American friends have been collaborating on creating a Hauptwerk organ. They used to give regular updates, but it’s gone quiet of late.

      2. My eldest brother is in a semi-independent sheltered home in Bath. He plays the organ by ear and can play every hymn in the hymnbook better than many others.

        I have thought about buying him a Hauptwerk virtual organ but he is not computer literate and so I hesitate.

        Have you looked at these virtual organs?

        1. I have the software, and have used it on the laptop with a MIDI keyboard with moderate success. But to work effectively, without latency (the delay between pressing a key and hearing the note) takes a lot of computing power – more than you’re likely to find in a laptop – and possibly more know-how than I possess. I’m not sure one can just walk into an organ showroom and ‘buy a Hauptwerk organ’ as you would a sack of potatoes, or even a car. If such a thing exists, it would likely cost several thousand, and would still require a degree of computer literacy. But I’m happy to be corrected.

      3. My eldest brother is in a semi-independent sheltered home in Bath. He plays the organ by ear and can play every hymn in the hymnbook better than many others.

        I have thought about buying him a Hauptwerk virtual organ but he is not computer literate and so I hesitate.

        Have you looked at these virtual organs?

      4. Does that mean you could sit at home and play some of the great organs of the world? How cool is that??

    2. Feeling rather depressed today. The one individual that was willing to stand against the slide into globalist domination has been removed, fairly or unfairly, it does not matter. I was reflecting on the strange phenomena of why Kameltoe is called ‘black’, when she is, er, not.

      1. Since the US for many, many years, operated a “one drop” policy whereby any person with a drop of black (or other) blood was “non-white”. Those of mixed race had no option but to describe themselves as “black”.

        It should surprise no one that this persists.

        1. It is very politically convenient! It will be easier to deal with BLM etc as the gov will still have the same racial problems and will now have the responsibility of facing up to them. It will be difficult to argue with the policies of the new administration but I am sure that they will.

          1. What will be, will be. My comment is historically accurate – it offers no prediction for the future.

            It is to be hoped that racial matters can be improved, but I’ve never pretended to clairvoyance.

          3. Blimey.
            Replace black with Jewish, and you see something that didn’t end well mid 1900s.

          4. It was the same attitude… taken to even more drastic conclusions.

            I think it is fair so say that such things never end well.

  126. AND it’s absolutely chucking it down outside!
    It’s like a river running down the road past the house.

    1. They aren’t turning their backs. They are keeping the tens of thousands of protestors behind the barriers. /sarc

  128. I have to report that eating an apple when troubled by reflux appears to be working – thank you for the suggestion! I have made it to 22.00 and no need to take esomeprazole yet. I haven’t tried the cider apple vinegar yet because I’ve not been shopping today (and if it’s still snowing tomorrow, I shan’t be venturing out then, either).

    1. I don’t know about esomeprazole, but I do know that omeprazole caused me some horrendous reflux. Sometimes very akin to the pain and discomfort of a heart attack.

      1. I started off with omeprazole, but was moved to esomeprazole because apparently omeprazole isn’t good for long-term use.

        1. My bastard pharmacist didn’t tell me there were alternatives. It was counteracting the aspirin I was prescribed and when I cut down and eventually stopped taking the omeprazole I quickly developed a duodenal ulcer. Straight into emergency ward. They insisted I take an omeprazole and I went into paroxysms of pain. I said give me some milk as I knew it stopped the attack. Then the bloody Spanish male nurse bunged an aspirin in with me meds the next morning and I just about bled out internally. Changed to Raboprazole and no aspirin any more. All the other drugs seem to work okay. The guy who did my oral endoscopy said “Look, it’s a duodenal ulcer, best result for you. It’s just another example of the great Aspirin Experiment.”

          1. I was told there were no side effects. I have noted since that there are at least 50. Erectile dysfunction being at the top of the list. Big Pharma making money in all directions. Except up in my case.

  130. The Food Standards Agency is urgently recalling ‘unsafe to eat’ meat products sold by a Wiltshire-based vendor over Facebook.

    The government agency said cuts of lamb, goat, veal and beef which are being supplied by an ‘unregistered and unapproved’ vendor have not been produced in line with food safety and hygiene laws.

    The products had been sold through various Facebook groups before January 15 without going through proper checks and are deemed ‘unsafe’.

    The FSA has told customers who have recently bought meat products from Ushqime Organike, Bio UK, Ushqime BIO UK, Ushqime BIO and Wiltshire Farm Products Facebook groups not to consume them.

    It urged consumers to check a business is registered and that they have a food hygiene rating of 3 of above before purchasing, and said that enforcement authorities will contact local premises and ensure any affected meats are withdrawn from the market.

    ‘Where sellers do not follow the rules, we will work with local authorities to take action as we have done in this instance.’

    Earlier this month it was revealed workers used a busy car wash as cover for slicing up tons of ‘dangerous’ goat, cow and sheep meat to sell on the black market.

    A Wiltshire public health squad swooped on the wash and carried out more than two tonnes of butchered meat, though it is not clear if today’s FSA warning is linked.

    It is the second time that emergency enforcement action had been taken against the same business operator, according to the council.

    Officers had searched a second hand wash in October, where they witnessed fresh meat being cut in a vehicle workshop in ‘grossly unhygienic conditions’.

    Cllr Simon Jacobs, Cabinet Member for Public Health, said the conditions found at both the car wash sites ‘shocked’ the council’s officers.

    There have been dozens of incidents of illegal butchery on farmers’ fields across the country. In February last year, two men pleaded guilty following the illegal slaughter of hundreds of sheep and lambs in Northamptonshire.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9168731/Food-Standards-Agency-issues-warning-unsafe-eat-meat-sold-Facebook.html

    1. “Wiltshire products”, well maybe they were in in field in Wiltshire when nicked. Goat somewhat gives the game away as to the perpetrators.

  131. Hell’s bells and buckets of blood!

    We are experiencing a storm of wild
    proportions:
    wind, rain, snow, hail, all interspersed
    with a few seconds of absolute calm.

    Very odd!

  136. Does something not feel quite right about how Donald suddenly gave up and disappeared into the sunset ?

    Leaving behind so much undone.

    Here’s what I was told yesterday morning…

    “What you have to understand is that literally nobody out there has studied clandestine warfare.

    That’s why you’re not seeing–and have NEVER seen–intelligent commentary about this.

    If you POSITION certain factors, the outcome becomes certain.

    Not a LIKELY outcome; a CERTAIN outcome.

    My guess is that Biden will be sworn in.

    But it won’t mean what you THINK it means”.

    1. Good morning Geoff. There was I thinking you were having a bit of a lie in following all the exertions with your organ….

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