Wednesday 21 June: Rishi Sunak’s reticence over partygate has made him look even weaker

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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661 thoughts on “Wednesday 21 June: Rishi Sunak’s reticence over partygate has made him look even weaker”

  2. Good morrow, Gentlefolks, today’s story

    Heimlich Manoeuvre

    Two West Virginians were having the blue-plate special at their favourite watering hole when they heard this awful choking sound.

    They turned around to see a lady, a few barstools down, turning blue from wolfing down a possum burger too fast. The first hillbilly said to the other, “Think we gotta’ help?”

    “I reckon,” said the second hick.

    The first hillbilly got up and walked over to the lady and asked, “Kin yew breathe?”

    She shook her head “No”.

    “Kin yew speak?” he asked.

    She again shook her head “No”.

    With that he helped her to her feet, lifted up her skirt and licked her on the butt.

    She was so shocked, she coughed up the obstruction and began to breathe, with great relief.

    The first hillbilly turned back to his friend and said, “Funny how that there Hind Lick Manoeuvre works ever’ time.”

  4. Rishi Sunak’s reticence over partygate has made him look even weaker

    He seems to be keeping a low profile at the moment, which isn’t hard for a midget

    2. Don’t knock it. Old Sniffer Joe got elected without leaving his basement.

    1. I’ve just been washing my face in the morning dew…..’Morning Bob and all!

    2. Notable that the Quarry HGV Rush Hour this morning, usually 04:00ish, was a bit quieter than normal.
      They appear to be catching up at the moment though!

  7. Good morning, chums. Enjoy your longest daylight hours today (and tomorrow and Friday). After that, the daylight hours get shorter.

    1. Having clearly gone out of your way to be correct, may I politely point out that the hours do not get shorter?
      };-O

      1. You Silly Sausage, sosraboc, the daylight hours get shorter by one or two minutes each day. Lol.

        1. Close, but no cigar, sausage shaped or otherwise.

          The hours of daylight become fewer, the actual time elapsed by an hour or minute itself doesn’t change, except by an almost infinitesimally small amount over decades.

          1. I think you have convinced me, sosraboc, that it I who am a Silly Sausage.

    1. Tell this silly insect woman to go to India and start killing cows if she really believes livestock harm the planet. She would soon realise the error of her ways.

    2. Livestock are good for land. Killing insects however is stupid, especially considering the capacity and scale required for a single dairy cow vs insects.

    1. Cat litter in trays in the corridors outside the classrooms and cat food for meals.

      In fact it would be a good idea to make it compulsory for people to eat suitable food for the animals with which they self-identify. Vultures, hyenas and jackals feed on carrion so it might cause extra work for the sanitary inspectors to see that it is hygienically stored.

      1. Thinking back to my school dinners, a bowl of Whiskas would have had less gristle and more meat.

  10. Well said Gillian Watts:-

    Cat people
    SIR – You report that some schools are letting children self-identify as “cats, horses and dinosaurs”.

    Pupils should not be allowed to jeopardise the education of others with behaviour that, I believe, makes a mockery of the system.

    I’m a retired teacher, and I think my response to a child identifying as an animal would have been to tell them that animals were not allowed in school, and that I would be asking their parents to keep them at home and feed them the appropriate food. These children should not be disrupting classes full of pupils who may be desperate to catch up with so much lost learning.

    Gillian Watts
    London SE11

    Mike Pitman
    50 MIN AGO
    Retired teacher Gillian Watts must surely realise that the children she taught wouldn’t have dared come out with such drivel in her class. Her attitude is right though: the present day teachers should send them home and refuse to teach them until they come to their senses but of course, as someone said yesterday, there are too many children posing as teachers in our schools.

    Jon Jaycee
    20 MIN AGO
    I’m wondering if this particular situation is just being over-sensationalised. I’m no psychologist but left alone, is that child likely to self identity as a cat for very long? She either has friends who probably ignore the cat part or doesn’t in which case that might tell her something and lead her to change her mind pretty quickly. Either way, all the attention is unlikely to be helpful.
    Meantime, is there any connection with the teacher who committed suicide because her school’s Ofsted rating was downgraded, apparently because of safeguarding issues?

    1. A good letter on this subject:

      SIR – Children have a sense of humour. Were I in the same situation, having been fed drivel by a teacher about identifying as one of many genders, I might also decide to be something entirely different. A cat seems perfectly reasonable to me.

      Jemma Jones
      Bishop’s Castle, Shropshire

  11. Good morning, all. Sunny and calm here.

    Warrington people along with the people in Thetford have secured successes against their respective councils’ plans to first restrict movement with the ushering in of 15 minute cities as the end-game.
    The current government would, I’m sure, like to see these restrictions expand everywhere but are too weak and cowardly to make it their clear policy. The Labour party under Smarmer may not be so reticent in forcing restrictions on the people: to save the Planet, of course.

    https://twitter.com/JimFergusonUK/status/1671268271096569856

    1. 373632+ up ticks,

      Morning KtK,

      People power can achieve much when working together. The people fought back and won.…

      Double it up with a strong boycotting element and we are on cert winners.

      1. These are only small victories on the local level but it’s a start. Perhaps the Tories getting drubbed in the upcoming by-elections will have an impact on their arrogance, or not.

    2. People fought back and won….

      Which is rather the wrong way around, don’t you think? The state should ask the public and then accept that decision.

      1. It is the wrong way round but that is how government has, over time, manipulated the situation. The old adage along the lines of, ‘when the people fear the government it’s tyranny but when the government fear the people it’s democracy,’ has the ring of truth. The government have hijacked the authority loaned to them by the people and those rogues believe that they are now the masters.

        1. A situation that must be reversed, immediately. The state is making an utter pigs ear of everything and refuses to not endlessly meddle.

  12. 373632+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    If many peoples think he should be strong of character then decent peoples are in great jeopardy in supporting the wrong horse.

    He is a great success as a WEF / NWO implant,a continuation of
    a long line of WEF / NWO successful implants

    He is showing out as political DEFLECTION at its finest.

    We have two opportunities approaching to signal radical change,
    if the “party comes first” mode of voting is followed on through to the General Election then maybe submission to the WEF / NWO
    or islam, whoever, is the best course of inaction, surely better than more innocents being killed, with the sick majority voters consent.

    Wednesday 21 June: Rishi Sunak’s reticence over partygate has made him look even weaker

  13. Again, a mass fainting of Nottlers- it is I, leClerc.
    I must thank you all for your lovely comments yesterday. Up early again as my husband is going for another procedure and I will be stocking up on nerve tonic.
    Didn’t get pissed last night as I went to bed at 7.30 and that was it apart from a few paracetamol. Will do better today ;-))

    1. That’s what I like to hear! If at first you don’t succeed…….😘

    3. All my best thoughts for you, Ann.
      Good luck to both of you; you are certainly having a rough time of it.

  14. Good morning, all. Hazy but much less breeze.

    Great drama last night. at 10 pm, as we were getting ready for bed, I look out of the balcony and saw smoke. Then flames. Then large flames lighting up the cliff. Some half-wit had lit a fire on the beach which – because of the very strong wind, had “got out of hand”. It was about 100 yards from our block of flats. The MR called the fire brigade. Three engines from Monaco (the nearest) turned up – by which time, te fire had been put out. So we had 50 firemen standing around. Blue lights flashing. The odd thing was that they did not go down to the beach….!!

      1. I have seen them in action in the past – when a damned fool Englishman was drowned. Ten SPs were down those stairs in a trice – carrying their heavy gear, too. Very impressive.

        The bloke was one of a group having a stag party and was pissed out of his mind. He wanted to swim out to the boat they had come on. People tried to stop him – to no avail.

    2. Seeing the fire fighters standing around, Jacques Pierre penned these lines….

      Once more unto the beach, dear friends, once more;
      Too close to the wall, the English dread.
      In France there’s nothing so becomes a man
      As modest stillness and humility:
      But when the blast of fire blows in our ears,
      Then initiate the action of firefighter;

  15. ‘Morning, Peeps. Happy Summer Solstice!

    Shortly I shall be off for a walk down to the beach, to drink in all that sea air – provided that the sewage discharged by Southern Water after all that heavy rain has dispersed.

    A busy evening follows as today the second of the two annual Nightjar counts takes place on the Forest. The known sites are divided up between about two dozen of us. Very inconveniently the birds don’t start their ‘churring’ call until about 15 minutes after the sun drops below the horizon, so it’s a rather late finish at around 11-11.30pm. If we are lucky we may see their bat-like flight above us against the darkening sky as they feed on moths and flies. It’s a fascinating exercise – well, it is for those of us doing it.

      4. I may be able to help you, BoB. Set your alarm clock for around 2.30 am, then get up and open the cupboard doors to where you keep your jams and marmalades. Lol.

  16. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/edbca137e042fb024ce50b236418724bd3fba8b9284fdbf90f2c405add1510e6.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/06/21/25-year-fixed-rate-mortgage-not-silver-bullet

    BTL René Étrangleur- Rangeurs)

    We moved to France 35 years ago and discovered that property prices were still affordable because there were strict controls on how much a person was allowed to borrow (no more than 3 times a person’s income or twice a couple’s income); fixed rate mortgages throughout the mortgage term set at 5% regardless of the bank rate (so that people were not faced with nasty surprises with raised rates); and a minimum 10% deposit.

    Having people’s home loans dependent on bank rates has proved a disaster as many people of my generation could see very clearly and voiced our opinion at the time. With low rates people borrowed far too much up to absurd multiples of their incomes and property price exploded owing to the market being too flush with borrowed money and then, when rates rose, people lost their homes and businesses and went bankrupt in the late 1980s.

    Why are politicians consistently incapable of seeing what is abundantly clear to most reasonably intelligent people?

    1. Its called a free market that france ( EU) does not have and we are losing ours.

      1. I suppose that when you have to sell your house – which has become unsellable at anything like the price you had to pay for it – because of the fact that your mortgage payments have quadrupled you will be able to comfort yourself with the thought that you are in a free market!

        1. You have to make sure the free market works for you, so you have to control what you do rather than the state control you. i see the state all over the West taking more and more cotrolof your life and it will only end is dissaster. Poland and Co did not come free from the east for the EU to replace what they had before.

    2. It would be far better if government were not allowed to meddle with the interest rate for political purposes (borrowing vast amounts of money), to then distort the market with massive public sector costs, debt and the mechanisms used to continue that debt.

      In short, it would be much nicer if the state just buggered off and stopped making our lives worse.

  17. SIR – I followed the Commons debate on Boris Johnson.

    It was an unedifying spectacle, often involving intemperate character assassinations or, it seemed, the settling of personal scores.

    The tone was set by the shadow leader of the House, who discourteously referred to the former prime minister by his surname alone and spent nearly half of her speech attacking the present Prime Minister and his Cabinet.

    Most people were heard respectfully, but when Lia Nici tried to make counter-arguments the deputy Speaker had to ask members not to mutter at her, and the official interruptions were unsympathetic.

    A sad day.

    David Wilson
    Cottingham, East Yorkshire

    That is because the place is stuffed with the small-minded, the incompetent and the downright nasty, hence our slide into penury, mountainous national debt and the massive national self-harm of Nut Zero. Most Nottlrs, including this one, have probably come to realise that we lived and worked in a relatively golden age.

  18. 373632+ up ticks,

    They really should settle on the bottom of the hole dragging the spoils in behind themselves, if they could arrange to take the tory / lib/dems with them all the better.

    Letters: The gaping hole at the heart of Labour’s plan for achieving net zero

    1. It is an interesting and informative series of articles; which follows on from a shorter series on Somalia. In both situations, the heavy hand of the US is involved (with Blair chucking his tuppence in regarding the DRC) stirring the waters and casting blame on the UN when things subsequently go awry due to the US failing to gain the regime change they desire, rather than the one the country needs.

      China and Russia get castigated for their involvement in African countries affairs but I doubt it’s because their presidents needed a diversion from being caught shagging the staff, as in the Somalia debacle.

      AW Kauma, the author of the articles, is as meticulous in his character background information as Always Worth Saying in his bBC QT reviews. He suffers so that we don’t have to and it provides a pain-free read each Friday morning.

  20. A good response to yesterday’s silly letter from Sgt Bilko:

    SIR – Once again, Nick Robinson misses the point on impartiality (Letters, June 20). When viewers tune into GB News or other such broadcasters, they know what to expect: Jacob Rees-Mogg or Nadine Dorries are going to say things that are Conservative. Also, these broadcasters are privately funded. A viewer has the choice whether to watch.

    With the BBC this is not the case. So often a “talking head” is interviewed to expound their anti-Tory views. Only later does it transpire that this person was a political activist with an agenda.

    The BBC is also funded by a tax on the public that gives it an unparalleled advantage. Therefore, it should broadcast a range of opinions that match those of the population, not just those of people living in Islington.

    John Evans
    Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex

    However, Mr Evans forgot to include the fact that some of their bias is in the stories they choose to exclude!

    1. BBC interviews are always balanced.

      Both sides get 3 minutes to state their case. They go something like this:

      Lefty, introduced as leading academic (think tank activist Lefty, previous unionist) – 3 minutes of uninterrupted, unchallenged word salad waffle.
      Normal person: Well… ‘If I could interrupt you there. What you’re saying is….’ No, that is’ ah, but you said in 93 that….’ well, no, that…’ ah, so you are saying…

      And then 3 minutes is up, at which point the interview sums up with, so obvious, high taxes, more spending, more debt are good and create growth and are necessary, as we’ve just heard from both sides.

      And thus the interview ends.

      They did a piece on the Rhoyinga muslims and managed to completely ignore the decades long campaign of violence, rape, murder, burglary, theft and insults the muslims had heaped on the locals.

  21. SIR – When my call to HMRC to chase a new payroll number – several weeks overdue – was eventually answered, the tetchy officer responded: “Well, we have been on strike, you know.”

    Better than claiming the dog ate it, I suppose.

    Nicholas Grenfell-Marten
    Llanfaethlu, Anglesey

    Not just the usual ‘shirking from home’ then??

    1. Surely the answer is ‘So? Just means you’ve more to o when you go back to work. Don’t like it? Get a different job.’

      I imagine if hmrc were paid only on results that they’d actually owe money!

    2. I have just had a similar experience with my attempts to secure my appointment for my heart operation.
      It could now be a ‘Christmas present’.
      One of the excuses for still not being told is, strikes. But collectively they knew I needed this 5 months before any strikes took place. Its quite Simply due to lack of coordination with other departments.

      1. Lack of coordination is their go to position. My friend’s wife had a bad stroke a couple of months ago. Once she was breathing/eating/shuffling about (albeit with an escort) she wanted to leave hospital. Considered too fit for the local halfway house, she would be going home…once they had organised her ‘care package’.

        However, the components of this package were multi-sourced and it was going to take further weeks in hospital to put it together. As she still insisted on going home, the hospital pulled an Obama and warned her she could be ‘at the back of the queue’ for care packages.

        Needless to say, Bob’s ironing skills are improving and he’s actually had to enter a super market for the first time in his 67 years!

  23. ‘Morning All

    “Ain’t that the truth files”

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c7536f6744e74df441b97851e8087e42af2712e655bfdc27daf04e266c663834.gif

    Rest of the medley…….

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d711eb9522850ae7451dfecdc899530940bebc3a223b61e1b8895ee80addbbe5.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8850a500c3ccf9946c9f7b15b14065318cb8029fafbb93353d2d58690e333b0a.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/275fbff80170bfa5702c8a0edc65a4baeeb5f06bd4e90d79f081d57d30fd1706.jpg

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/087b74841fcc933de8e8d6f575145c6d053cd38e64fd54cf7ddcf37890ff9d9c.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7be4c24eb6217481db338d7abc66fd54532bfd212b40bec872e56343b1bf1241.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/32142da5c79a72bed84bc3891c2932dbd6a742e1987ea21dafd9fbe2b8167a76.jpg

  24. Good Moaning.
    I think the DT site is about to crash under the weight of comments about the Woke Academy.
    3,600 comments and counting.
    Here is a flavour.

    2 MIN AGO

    “BREAKING NEWS 💥💥

    Rye College in Sussex is to be sued after a pupil identifying as a Gazelle was eaten by two other pupils identifying as Lions.

    More follows”

      1. Neatly stacked; will text our jolly useful chap this morning.
        Meanwhile, MB and I will treat and paint the sections that will be too near to the garden fence to be tackled once the folly is erected.

      1. The comments are pure gold. But the site is really feeling the strain of numbers and it takes ages to comment.
        I’m sure that particular BTLer would be delighted for his gem to gain a wider audience.

      1. One for which I would love to claim authorship.
        However ….. kudos to the BTLer.

  25. G’day peeps,

    A carbon copy of yesterday at McPhee Towers. Cloudy, some sunny periods later, chance of a shower midday to early afternoon, wind Sou’-West, 15℃ with 21℃ forecast. Some painting to do today.

    This caught my eye in the Gatesograph, it’s a report and video of a terrifying attempted child abduction by a migrant in an affluent part of Bordeaux:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/06/20/grandmother-child-attacked-bordeaux-emmanuel-macron-france/

    How many of this type of savage are in Europe now? How many have crossed the Channel by dinghy or other means, illegitimate or ‘legitimate’?

    Have we reached the point where we must enforce our right to defend ourselves, our families and property by any means, lethal if necessary?

      2. And rural villages. With their hands and faces pressed against the windows to see what we’ve got inside our homes.

    1. I would be happier if Andrew Bridgen were taking Hancock to court for his more serious offences of which they seem to be legion rather than defamation of Bridgen’s character… still, you never know what doors it may open, where it may lead to.

      1. 373632+ up ticks,

        Morning Pm,
        It truly could lead to other doors opening, aggravating,
        pulling on one thread could unwind the whole issue.
        I do not believe these current politico’s are of the go down alone calibre.

  27. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d773e7f73c44dcde0a16a11f815a7b6d62072f0c43406ce0d0c87a5189432fc3.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1d26aac4d5b2df292b2b3874263493e9f98cb7fa70bbbca0be325627400b86cb.png Since I missed out on yesterday’s debate on the sartorial elegance (or inelegance) of wearing a black topper with a grey suit; maybe this forum’s upper crust element will advise me if the same rules apply to wearing a grey topper with a black morning suit. Moss Bros (back in 1981) were insouciant on the matter).

    2. What a smart young man you look! The grey top hat looks really good with the black tailcoat because it balances the grey trousers and echoes the tie. All fine!

      2. His second son certainly has inherited the Idiot King’s mean-spirited sense of entitlement and I suppose you could say that neither of them can use the brains God didn’t give them.

    4. Kingy’s hat appears to be in good condition and I wonder if it might be beaver rather than silk?

      Perfectly acceptable to wear a black top hat, and at his age KCIII is sensible to select his most comfortable topper.

    5. You look very smart Grizzly. The old mantra for hats was grey for a wedding, black for a funeral.

      I wore a grey Topper with a black morning coat when I married Caroline in 1988.

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f4a1d4f3f07688d004495bbe9d9ce43558abdce3770b2c097a6f4649f834b8ea.jpg

      And I’m going to try and get hold of one of these for an Irish friend for next March 17th

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1c85d698ae4612a0fae7d3eb0f40fabb5a14a4f368f35b973b3e854ea0b29abf.jpg

    1. The telegraph should stop making it difficult to read their articles and perhaps the cuckoo’s could have been more upto date. 😉🐣

      1. Thanks for posting, JC. Like you, I skipped the silly commentary. Besides, Dr Petersen doesn’t need any ‘explanations’

      1. They certainly used to. I’m not in Scotland so perhaps one of our Scotland-based Nottlers could confirm if they still do.

    4. Well if it were due to climate change/global warming variety wouldn’t the cuckoos have arrived here earlier to acquire lots of that lovely warmth and give them a good start on the breeding season? Or are we really entering climate change/global cooling now, and tptb are loathe to lose their scam and all is grist to that scam?

      1. My hypothesis is that it is due to the cool spring we experienced in April to the end of May and the persistent Northerly or North-Easterly winds.

        1. Mine, too. Migratory birds don’t have a set date, they don’t mark it off on the calendar, they wait until the conditions are right, one of them being, I suppose, the availability of food en route which will correspond with rising temperatures which happened to be later this year thanks to our cold, wet spring. Some years migratory birds are early, sometimes they are late. This never used to be remarkable. They are grasping at straws. They are getting desperate because even in their ivory towers they can sense it is all falling apart.

  29. Morning all 🙂😊
    Cloudless sky and fresher after all that rain.
    Steve and I had a visit to the Mosquito aircraft museum yesterday. The ladies went to the cinema. We had a lovely time chatting with the guides. They do know everything which is very satisfying to hear. And good sense of humour which adds to the fun.
    And I imagine that Richie would see himself as some sort of rogue or even a labour frontbencher if he joined in with all the plastic rhetoric over party gate. It doesn’t really fit in with what needs to be done in Parliament to get a grip our current situation. Stopped the boats and send them all back. He’d be very popular if he actually did something as useful as that. He would probably turn the tide against the stupid labour loudmouth’s.

      1. They have spent a lot of time and money on refurbishment, a whole new building. They have a huge Merlin engine they briefly turnover. And one of the chatty guides was originally from Whitchurch Lane.
        My father in law worked at Handley Page Radlett and later became a technical author at Hatfield. All fattened and built over now or course.

  30. Is the world really ready to rehabilitate Bashar al-Assad? 21 June 2023.

    Syria has seen over a decade of murderous civil war – yet recent overtures suggest a sudden shift in international attitudes to the dictator
    After Syria became the latest repressive Arab state to fall victim to a brutal civil war in 2011, my focus turned to the role of Bashar al-Assad in the conflict. Having inherited the residency from his father, the shy and retiring Bashar had managed to turn himself into one of the most reviled dictators of the modern age.

    Throughout the course of the Syrian conflict, Bashar was to be found at the heart of his regime’s murderous assault against the Syrian people, whether it be supervising massacres in rebel strongholds or launching chemical-weapon attacks against his own people.

    Coughlin tries to make out here that Assad was both a bloodthirsty monster and an incompetent incapable of dealing with events. He could not be both. He was certainly out of his depth at the beginning and who would not be who suddenly found himself facing a sponsored CIA and Mi6 uprising where the insurgents received vast amounts of funding and the most advanced weaponry? I don’t doubt that horrors occurred. How could they not in a fight to the death? He was fighting for the life of his people and himself. The real responsibility for this war lies, as in Ukraine, with the West. It is a blessing to us all that Assad emerged from this struggle triumphant since the alternative was a Jihadist enclave on the Mediterranean coast and a refugee crisis that would have anticipated the present by several years.

    yearshttps://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/06/21/bashar-al-assad-syria/

      1. Probably Stephen. His history is similary comical. A drunken Mi6 stooge. When they engineered his promotion to head of Foreign Affairs at the Telegraph he came back from “lunch” one day and sacked all the Foreign Correspondents!

          3. I found I spoke French much better after a glug or three! In vino verity’s, and all that! Hic!

    2. Can anybody remember an occasion when the UK backed the right side in the ME?

      1. No Richard. These things might be acceptable if they had succeeded but they have all been utter disasters. Not just for the people of the countries we have occupied and destabilised but for ourselves.

    1. Oh, look another squirrel! I don’t believe a word of anything I read or hear these days.

        1. Just posted a reply to Tom above. To be blunt, I’ve had better weeks;-)

          1. Quite the understatement.
            It takes time for such news to sink in. Hopefully, Nottlers can help to keep your spirits up.

    3. I believe that .

      My athletic healthy sometimes selfish Moh was informed he had a heart murmur earlier in the year. He has been examined by cardiologists

      He plays golf 3/4 times , still runs , but with difficulty (HE won’t listen to me and of course has total control of household things ) .. has been having tests , and is due for another test on Friday .

      This not about me , because I also had Covid jab scares , including a spell in A+E .. and am now suffering from tiredness, aches and very swollen ankles and puffed out when I exert myself.

      I am sick and tired of doctors saying well it is your age .. I am not taking this ageing thing very well .

      2. I resemble your condition TB but without the ankles. Trouble is that I can’t blame it on the vax!

        1. Nor me, KP, no covid, no jabs and not just the ankles but the whole leg swollen up to the knee.

      3. You sound just as I am, Maggie, but we get up each day and do what has to be done. As I’ve said to Ann, earlier, Just KBO, old girl.

      4. Do you take turmeric? I am rarely impressed with that sort of thing, but I found that it really does seem to zap vague feelings of achiness and fatigue. It demolishes a wall of weariness, a feeling of constantly battling against an insubstantial barrier.

        1. I have seen many recommendations for turmeric, but have often wondered whether it is just clever marketing. What form do you take it in, and at what dose?

          2. I took it for about 18 months after a debilitating bout of flu.
            Then circumstance (covid hysteria, Christmas post and striking RM) meant I ran out.
            I had a fortnight without before the repeat packet arrived.
            I felt fine, so didn’t resume it. After another fortnight, familiar symptoms began to creep up, so it would seem that month without turmeric returned me to my former state.
            I take Healthspan Opti-Turmeric capsules; there are variations in the formal, but I just use the plain one.

      5. My fit and sporty husband had three Pfizer jabs and then a year after the last one collapsed with heart disease and had a triple by pass. He’s now on yet another drug to regulate his heart which has made him feel absolutely awful.

      6. I think it possibly is your age, I suffer from the things you mention but only from time to time and not the swollen ankles nor being puffed out, I can’t do as much as I used to do, I get tired more easily, I don’t concentrate as well. Doctors will fob you off, they are terrified of being associated with anything negative about the jab – but I do think it exacerbates the symptoms of anything that you may be suffering from, or have suffered from in the past. An alternative approach may help, you could try a naturopath. Why we think it is ok to consume and inject our bodies with the toxic chemicals provided by the nhs I can’t imagine – we have been groomed and programmed by the govt for decades to accept this on behalf of big pharma for the obvious reason. Our nhs contributions are a constant supply of profit.

        1. “They are terrified of being associated with anything negative about the jab.”
          So true which is partially why my husband and I are in such a poor health state right now. Not to mention lockdowns etc.

          1. They are all scared stiff of being in the first cohort to rock the boat, scared for their job, their reputation and pension. They know full well they will be made a severe example of to quell any following on.

        2. I think a good diet and good sleep make all the difference. After a bad night’s sleep worrying about something, it’s not surprising if we feel lousy.

          I have to say, I’m very reluctant to go near the doctor, apart from supporting my OH, and at nearly 75, on no medication I feel as well as I could hope for. I reduced my carb intake a few months ago as I was getting a bit porky round the middle, and losing a few pounds has improved my energy levels. I also avoid processed food where possible, eat meat, dairy and nuts. A glass of wine with dinner too.

          1. Not carrying extra weight around with you really does make a lot of difference, in all sorts of ways. You have described my eating habits also and I am not on any medication. Processed food is death to the cells – these vegan (and otherwise) pancake wraps with some gloopy chemical sauce poured over it. I intend to stay as far away as possible from the nhs.

      7. It is surprising how long some people who are overweight and under-exercised manage to live.

        I had some pretty corpulent uncles who lived into their 90s

    4. Even MB, who is a much nicer person than I am (listens for gasps of horror and cries of “Nooooo, you are just such a lovely person”…) is doubting the story and the reasons for its prominence.

    5. The sub story is no story at all just prurient sensationalism. Those people are already dead and that is all that can be said about it. Still, bread and circuses and all that.

    6. And is it any surprise that Andrew Bridgen should be villainised, sacked and cancelled?

      But will they be able to keep the truth hidden for ever? And when will the climate change carbon dioxide scam be seen for the fraud it is?

      1. I think many people have been aware of the climate scam for years now – it’s amazing how they have managed to keep pushing it for so long. I got red – pilled on that one when my elder son (sceptical about most things) gave me three books for Christmas 2009, including one by Christopher Booker, and one by Ian Plimer (a very heavy read). I was also convinced by the hockey stick fraud. Last year’s catastrophic high temperature on my birthday was absolutely laughable, considering where they took the damningly high reading.

        Once seen, these frauds are clearly what they are.

    7. Aseem Malhotra has been speaking out against the jabs since he saw the light when his father died unexpectedly. As a cardiologist, he probably knows as much about hearts and their problems as anyone.

  32. I am heartened to see that the truly appalling national self-harm that is Net Zero (no such thing, of course) is increasingly debated by so many, including the BTL posters, GBN, DT letter writers and so on. True, the BBC still preaches its utter nonsense on this subject but I think I detect a debate that is slowly but surely rising up the ranks and is starting to create the impression that they may before long be in a minority.

    Of course, our idiot politicians are the main stumbling block as they fall over themselves in their determination to be seen as ‘green’, when in fact it is purely virtue-signalling on a very grand scale. Neither of the major parties offer any kind of alternative, and that is where there is much work to be done. I have already told my MP, more than once, that my 50+ years of consistently voting Conservative is well and truly over, and to hell with the consequences. After all, very few of the parliamentary party know what Conservatism is, and he is one of them.

    I was struck by this BTL post in today’s batch:

    Trevor Anderson
    1 HR AGO
    Monday’s Letters headline: “The gaping hole at the heart of Labour achieving net zero.” Rather ironic isn’t it when the Tories are just as bad?
    I have email evidence from the former Deputy Prime Minister that he has not got an inkling of an idea of the the vast scale and requirements of the insane project his government is enforcing upon the country. It is remarkable and indicative that there has never been a coherent, cohesive set of plans about how it might work and from the top down. The majority of our MP’s are just as wilfully ignorant as he because they don’t know the nuts and bolts required for this either.
    When challenged by me with eight technical questions required for the achievement of Net Zero, he firstly admitted he would have to go to “Ministerial colleagues for the answers.” When castigated and pressed subsequently on his ignorance, he asked me if I would like him to “Write on your behalf to Grant Shapps for the answers.”
    Net Zero was subject to almost no parliamentary or public scrutiny, and is universally approved by our political class without a single, viable plan for how, what and where we would become self-sufficient in renewable, efficient and reliable energy production. Apart from the deluded Green Zealots, almost half the population has been scammed into believing the “Climate Catastrophe” nonsense, but the majority of the other half don’t believe it and don’t want it; because they know it will lead us to penury and social deprivation.
    The public deserves to have this vanity scam exposed. We need the weight of protest to cancel this disastrous madness. There are plenty of journalists and high profile individuals who are anti – Net Zero, can we get them behind us?
    Suggestions from anyone and everyone how we might do that, please.

    * * *

    The problem is, Mr A, that the members of this government are myopic and totally out of touch. They are looking to anyone but their traditional voters. They may as well be on another planet. They are listening to all the wrong people – the vociferous but tiny minority of brainless loons who have commandeered social meeja for their own rampant wokery. I actually hope that the forthcoming election will destroy the diseased carcass that is the Conservative Party, and eventually that we can start again with a genuine and fearless right-of-centre party that so many are looking for but not finding. However, I doubt that this will happen in my lifetime, and even if it happens it will be a very rough ride getting there.

    1. Primariiy because it won’t affect them, they don’t care what the costs are. They’re not even interested in the rational argument. It’s irrelevant to them. They believe in the religion of ‘climate change’ solely because doing so secures them the after office jobs they so crave.

  33. Rishi Sunak has no political savvy , he is in conference giving a speech for Ukraine ‘s recovery.

    What about us, we are going to hell on a handcart . Sunak just hasn’t got the message .

    1. How do we tell the little git that we don’t care about Ukraine. We care about Britain.

      1. He’s just the same as all the others of parliamentary ilk. Completely out of touch with life and reality. And only interested in appeasing his NWO masters.

      2. Good morning Fiscal and everyone.
        Mr Sunak appears to be fishing for financial and other contributions from the private sector, to be donated to Ukrainian businesses. In other words, give up some shareholders’ dosh to support your foreign competitors.
        Edit: a lot of intelligent youngsters in Kyev work in IT, and so his wife’s firm Infosys could easily recruit a few.

      1. Yes wibbles, by the time that the bills come in Rishi will be many, many miles away.

  34. I obviously was awake earlier – I see my story was posted but now I’ve done my Rip Van Winkle bit, woke at 09:00 and wondered what happened.

    How is our Ann?

    Anybody heard from her today.

    Is somebody nearby and can check on her?

    1. Up at the crackers of dawn- well for me anyway- 6. Just seen husband into cab for his hospital appt. which will be a day long event. Going out later to stock up on Kanga so I can let my hair down tonight.
      Vivaldi blaring which is a wonderful mind soother.
      Wasn’t a great night, fitful sleep and pain. Later today I shall study the paperwork in detail and get on with the new regime of painkillers.
      Unlikely my husband will be home before 6pm so some chores and a trip to the Kanga store will pass the time.

      1. Good to know that you are awake, alive, not necessarily well, but coping. KBO, old girl. We’re here for you as you’ve been here for me.

  35. Water company blasted for worrying about causing offence with ‘men at work’ signs
    A stock image of workers from Thames Water delivering a temporary water supply from a tanker to the village of Northend

    By Jack Walters
    Published: 20/06/2023 – 17:13
    The prominent water company has been accused of neglecting female members of staff after it put out gendered signs
    A water company has been blasted by woke activists for causing offence with “men at work” signs.

    South West Water was forced to order a review after receiving a complaint for allegedly underplaying the contribution of its workers who are women.

    2. I object the the figure being bald and wearing wellies.
      H&S would insist on a hard hat and steel toe caps.

        1. I have a pair. And safety trainers, also safety office shoes. In Norway, you can also get safety clogs and safety sandals (yes, really!)

    3. There won’t be any women on the crews going out who put those signs up. The activists never want to ‘do the work’, they just want the top jobs they think should be gifted them. As the Warqueen has said some female applicants believe they are entitled to a role based on their gender alone, without the slightest ability and the men on those boards are so frightened of legislation that they hire out of fear.

      Which is funny, as she then sacks the women who can’t do the job who were pushed into her department.

    4. You hardly ever see women working on manual jobs outside . So men at work is most probably correct.
      Should all the signs be scrapped just in case.?

    5. Heard cricket commentator yesterday refer to ‘Nightwatcher’, rather than ‘Nightwatchman”. Pathetic.

    1. Just 6 comments with thousands of votes so comments were obviously closed
      The didn’t like the replies I expect

      2. Comments moderated in advance.
        So they’ve stored up a couple of hundred before moderating them.

    3. I agree with you entirely.

      How on earth did she stay with him for so long? Michael Gove has that weird quality of being able to excite extreme revulsion to the extent that the thought of any physical contact with him – even a handshake – makes one shudder with disgust.

  38. Off to Blue Lagoon.
    The organisation is impressive – minibuses rush round Rekjavik collecting people for the massive tour buses which then take us all over Iceland. Works like clockwork.
    Proper job!

    1. They should do the same for all the Covid criminals, including Big Pharma.

      Their drugs are just as harmful as crack cocaine.

  40. Just off to the beach. Despite the gale – the MR has ordained…

    Funny thing last evening. Watching local TV (which makes BBC regional telly seem world class) – there was a long doom laden piece about the drought. They did the live prog outdoors next to a 95% full reservoir – thus “watering down” the guff about death round the corner. It ended with firemen practising by using the “precious” water to put out non-existent fire – including a water dump from a helico….

    All rather pointless. But project fear lives on….

  41. Good Morning all.
    Just checking in to let you all know that in spite of the NHS’s best efforts to kill me at the end of last year and their dire prognoses I’m very much alive and if not kicking definitely slowly regaining an encouraging amount of slow but certain movement and strength in the kicking apparatus. I’m still mostly bed bound and in care but there is hope for the future , 1 year or 10 I don’t know but I’m now a much happier chap.

    It’s a strange existence however, I find myself almost in a Groundhog Day situation except every morning I check the headlines it seems it must be April 1st.

    Today I’m mostly identifying as a 3/8in Whitworth spanner

      1. Having mostly de-toxed from the cocktail of heavy duty pain killers I was on I’m down to a very modest background dose of oxycodone and also overcoming swaths of self pity in the last three months I’m now very much engaged with the world. I’m in a BUPA run 40 bed facility with mostly either demented or near end life residents. The staff are delightful and for some strange reason over time seem to spent more and more time with me chatting and just shooting the breeze, so it is now that we are so familiar with each other that I’m almost living a “Carry on” film, thus comments like “keep it up”and “that must be hard for you” etc raise guffaws and chuckles all round. There are no daffodils.

        1. Morning Datz, that’s good to hear that you’re causing a stir with the natives!

    3. A timely reappearance.
      Pleased to read that things are on the up.
      I hope that your own improvement will inspire LadyoftheLake, who has just yesterday received very dispiriting news.

    4. How lovely to hear from you, and thank you for the update. Even your post from last year was very positive, given the contents of what you said! Hope you will be kicking for a long time yet!

      The contents of the newspapers are one long pantomime…

    5. Good to see you, Datz and pleased to hear things are positive! Keep it up, pet😘

    7. So good to see you here Datz! I was worried as we hadn’t seen you for a while. Glad to hear you’re feeling positive too – keep that spanner up!

    8. Good to see you.
      Are you indentifying as a patient or a bolshie old bu ……?

      1. Since I no longer wield either tin opener or supper dish I seem to have become an irrelevance in their miserable and ungrateful existence . I do however worry about the elder dog Connie as she is developing health problems which is another worry for Leila.

        1. I fully understand the “indifferent” pet…

          KBO – it is always good to have your comments.

        2. Mongo will go first to Junior for fuss, then he will look at me as if ‘well, come on then’, after a while of my not moving or just fussing his head he falls into ‘I have my hoomahns, what else did I want?’

  42. Zelensky admits slow progress but says offensive is not a movie

    President Volodymyr Zelensky has acknowledged battlefield progress has been “slower than desired”, weeks into Ukraine’s military offensive to recapture areas occupied by Russia.

    “Some people believe this is a Hollywood movie and expect results now. It’s not,” he told the BBC.
    “What’s at stake is people’s lives.”

    Ukraine says its counter-offensive has reclaimed eight villages so far in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk to the east.

    I’m pretty sure now from the deathly silence, both of our political leaders and the MSM, that this counter-attack has utterly collapsed. They are all sitting down now trying to figure out what to do next. This is either muster four or five of the brigades that have not been involved in the calamity at the front and try and smash their way through the Russian lines (very risky) or try to widen the war, perhaps with a false flag operation or a strike on the Crimea.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65971790

    1. Apparently we’ve done a trade deal with Australia, so watch out for mRNA-jabbed beef in the not too distant future. If it’s labelled with country of origin I will avoid it as I do with NZ lamb.

      1. 373632+ up ticks,

        Afternoon N,
        Same as that, also halal, will these tainted, morally and physically items, be labelled up as such?
        What is really needed as well as a patriotic governing pressure / group / party is a boycotting peoples funded
        party, the “nasties” don’t like their profits honestly abused.

      2. Too often, it’s not labelled with the country of origin.
        I can’t help feeling that this is about breaking trade links as much as anything. If we reject meat from Oz, or unknown origin, what does that leave us? Locally produced meat.
        Then they put quotas on how much British farmers are allowed to produce.

  44. Off topic!

    I’ve been using the BBC Good Food website for years – excellent recipes, and a good search engine with a system of filters.

    Recently, though, I’ve been getting frustrated by the general push of vegetarian food – today’s offering of “summer family meals” is 50% vegetarian. And why, on a food website, do they have articles about “adult ADHD” for example? It’s all becoming too woke for me to be able to ignore.

    I would like to vote with my feet and go elsewhere for inspiration, but so far the other websites that I have found have simply not had properly tested recipes.

    Which cookery websites do discerning Nottlers use?

    1. I like the BBC Good Food website. The recipes are usually pretty hassle free.
      The Spekkie has a newish food writer named Olivia Potts; her intro can be a bit floury (ho, ho) but her recipes are very straightforward and always work.
      Apparently she started off as a lawyer and then retrained as a pastry chef.
      The other thing I do is trawl online for recipes when I need them or go to tried, tested (and v. v. grubby) cookery books and my own files.
      https://oliviapotts.wordpress.com/recipes/
      .

      1. I follow some Nigella ones, as others have said Ainsley Jarvis is good. Hairy Bikers is very good, especially their Hair Dieters books.

        Although, sometimes I just fall back to Delia. Although, ‘Now add the milk’ is NOT A BLASTED INSTRUCTION, WOMAN!

        If you mean ‘a small bit at a time’, say so!!!

        1. Ahem, I do believe Ainsey Jarvis is the butler/ cross dresser in one of the Pink Panther movies. The one where Dreyfus goes bonkers.

      2. I know you’re joking. Gosh, he annoys me with his “chuck in”, “slap on”, “splash in”, etc.

        Another of my pet hates in as far as celebrity chefs goes is Gordon Ramsay.

        1. I only see him because Carolyn quite enjoys his progs!

          Otherwise, neither of us have anything to do with TV Chefery

        2. Interesting that some of the finest chefs like Ramsay or Pierre White are also the most annoying.

      1. Good grief Phizzee, you must eat at the Savoy and think it’s down market. Or, maybe I am a really bad cook? Probably me.

        Our beef strog is beef fillet, mushrooms, some cream sauce and if they’re lucky herby dumplings, but usually mash spud. Half the vegetablisms on here are mutant foreign ones!

        1. Bavette steak is a lot cheaper than fillet. As recommended by Great British Chefs.

          I have focused on food and cooking all my life. Not a food snob though. Still enjoy the odd fish finger sarnie or even a Maccie D.

    6. I do not use a specific site but browse the internet for a particular recipe. That way has led me to some very good recipes that even I can follow with some success.
      For example, I was having trouble with pastry flan cases shrinking – despite two tubs of weights in the dish – and the pastry becoming hard. Then I stumbled on a recipe written by Raymond Blanc for his lemon tart: perfect crumbly pastry every time. I have also unearthed recipes for scones and flaky pastry amongst others that work well. I have a folder of printed or written out recipes that I know will work. I remain a novice but I keep working at learning by doing.

        1. 3 or 4 times now with what I modestly call success. Last weekend the pastry was very pliable, due to the heat(?), without the water and so I didn’t add any water. After resting, the pastry wasn’t as pliable as I’d hoped and it made getting it in the flan case a bit difficult. However, it cooked up well and all who had a slice said it was fine.
          I find making the pastry and the cream filling easy, it’s getting it all together that is the more difficult part.

          1. First rule of tarts…follow the recipe !

            Patisserie is unforgiving as you have found out.

            Sounds like you are doing well though.

            The best lemon tarts are made from Sicilian lemons. If you can’t get those use Sicilian lemon juice or Yuzu. Yuzu makes it really really tart.

          4. Good. You know the bits of lemons left over from everything else done to them still have uses. Like sticking up a chickens bottom before roasting. Waste not want not ! :@)

          5. I find that resting the pastry in the fridge before rolling works well. Bring it a few mins beforehand.

    7. I use cookery books. Haven’t found a website that suits me. Anything from the BBC is going to be pushing the agenda.

      1. I have a Good Housekeeping cookery book from the 1970s – and I still use it for biscuits and cakes. Not very exciting or inspiring recipes for nowadays as there is simply so much more on offer in terms of ingredients than fifty years ago. But all the recipes are 100% reliable. I’ll look at that website, thank you.

          3. Four people going out to dinner can be quite expensive. But two full racks of lamb at home still works out cheaper.

          4. I do when i do my showstopper meals for friends and neighbours. I don’t use the little paper hats though. Another favourite is beef wellington. Finished with a pastry lattice. I like to show off when entertaining.

          6. I have that one too.

            The tomato garnish is wrong for the Wellington. The tomatoes will make the bottom of the pastry soggy. Anyway, who wants salad stuff with Wellington…

          7. Wellington? WELLINGTON!?

            The Frogs claim ownership of the dish and would never name it after Arthur Wellesley, their bête noir.

            In the book it is called Filet de Boeuf en Croute. And there is nary a duxelle in sight.

        3. I have a couple of GH books, a few Reader’s Digest ones including Farmhouse Cookery which is my all-time favourite, go-to recipe book.
          Escoffier’s 2000 French Recipes is also a life-saver and Dr Oetker’s German Baking Today.
          The rest of my cookery library is an assortment of Nigella, Jamie (sorry Phizz), older classics, Chocolates & Sweets and a couple of antiques books.
          I just bought “Cooking like Mummyji” which is a modern British-Asian cook book, but reading the introduction, it already has several digs at white people, of the kind that are very popular in modern publishing. I haven’t tried out the recipes yet.

          Edit: forgot to mention Gretel Beer – marvellous cakes – Austrian, I think.

          1. I have the Readers’ Digest Farmhouse Cookery book too. Another more recent one is Prue Leith’s and Caroline Waldegrave’s Cookery Bible – written before Prue Leith became a TV sleb.

        4. Agree re the older stuff being plain, the newer recipes she has used are excellent and accurate.

    9. I don’t, Caroline, I’ve written my own cook-book

      C:UsersUserDesktopDocumentsWIPCook BookTom’s Simple Cook Book (Rev 13) A5 9Pt.docx.

      I hope this will download

      1. I’m afraid that doesn’t work as a downloadable link – you’d have to first upload it to a website.

        Could you email it to me please? I’d love to see what you’ve got in there. For obvious reasons I won’t give our email address here but you’ll find it on our website which you’ll find by looking for tracey-frenchcourses dot com.

        2. I can recommend Tom’s Chicken Basque……. easy and good with or without the chorizo.

      2. Tom – when you sent it to me you used a website called Media fire – but the link you sent it on no longer works. Good job I saved the pdf file.

        1. I can’t even find it on that website either, Jules. I’ll not pay for it anymore.

        1. It does, Paul and Caroline couldn’t download from there, but she told me where to find her e-mail and I sent it as an attachment.

          Do I take it you want a copy as well? I have your e-mail.

      4. That’s a link to somewhere on your computer Tom, we can’t get into that…. You need to upload it somewhere on the web.

        1. I had to send the link to Caroline’s e-mail as an attachment. You can authorise, Hertslass to give me your e-mail address and I’ll do the same for you..

          I had this from Caroline Tracy, “Thank you so much, Tom! What a labour of love your cookbook is. I shall enjoy browsing through it and making some of the recipes; I’ll let you know how I get on!
          Love,
          Caroline”

    10. I’ll type what meal I’m interested in the search engine, such as ‘Thai chicken curry recipes’ or ‘quiche recipes’. Then compare recipe ingredients and cooking methods until I either find one that suits me exactly (unusual), or pick and choose from a whole variety of recipes to come up with my Frankenstein creation. I’ll usually save the ones that are closest to my (and the family’s) tastes.

    12. Youtube. Especially the short recipes with no commentary, just subtitles listing ingredients and instructions.

  45. Just back from beach. Sea chilly- but invigorating… Tried a different way back to avoid the 154 steps. Stupid boy. Alternative = 145 steps plus a half mile walk!

          1. And that’s not at all patronising….! It’s as well seeing you’re on your hols!

  46. Just had a letter from EonNext saying electricity wii be 14p night rate but 40p day rate per kWh from 1 July. This means that I shall be able to charge the EV for two hours at 2kW per hour making a battery top up of 4kW if I get up at 6:40 hrs to switch on.
    That would give me an extra range of 16 miles at a cost of 56p = 3.5p per mile.

    Good moaning by the way however you identify yourself.

    1. I don’t want to think about energy costs. It’s too worrying, especially when you realise the future the state is pushing and what it means.

      We urgently need to be building gas, coal and nuclear power stations. One a month would be a good start, to come on line in 2025. We should have plans for 20 SMR molten salt reactors or thorium, one in every major city. Gas to follow those, then coal. We cannot, cannot let the state dictate this declinist, Left wing ideology.

      1. That’s one of the reasons why I’ve bought an air fryer – I abhor the idea of using the cooker’s oven, I may boil eggs on the hob but that’s about it.

  47. Ukraine war: Push to rebuild economy starts with UK’s $3bn. 21 June 2023.

    Ukraine’s economy will need external help for many years to come, a senior World Bank official has told the BBC.

    The war-torn country “also has a lot of potential to turn a lot of its assets into economic opportunity and recovery”, according to Anna Bjerde.

    The managing director for operations was talking before a major international conference in London on rebuilding Ukraine’s economy.

    I’m pleased to hear that we have $3bn to spare.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65969456

      1. The Ukrainians will wreck anything and everything they want replaced and blame the destruction on the Russians.

    3. If “a lot of its assets” includes Crimea, Donbass, Kharkov and Odessa then tough titty ’cause they won’t have any of that for much longer. Will the “diplomat” Victoria Nuland be attending the London conference? If she is, we’d best start building our bomb shelters. That woman never fails to leave a trail of destruction in her wake.

    5. They haven’t finished trashing the place yet and I should think the majority of the cost will be borne by the USA with conditions attached

      1. ‘conditions attached’.

        Yes. All mineral rights.

        At least when China does it most of the population not only survive but end up with better infrastructure !

        1. The Yanks will insist on them joining NATO and having a couple of bases there

      2. Perhaps as a condition for after war aid, Ukraine should be forced accept all the gimmegrants sorry, architects, surgeons and engineers, piling into Europe from Africa and the ME and allow them to rebuild the place in exchange for them settling in Ukraine, there’s plenty of fine land available.

  48. I am off shortly to the Kanga resupply store. Not looking forward to it.
    Got a phone call for the CT scan next Tuesday. I think my lungs are OK- I seem to be still be breathing.
    See y’all later.
    PS- how much I love Vivaldi…. words cannot describe.

  49. Just back from a shopping run to Belper.
    Had to drop S@H off at the station as he’s off to his aunt’s near Southampton for a couple of days.

      1. A multi-compartment storage case to hold all (or at least as many as possible) of them assorted bits screwdriver bits you end up getting lots of!
        Plus some fruit & general groceries.

    2. OH’s niece lives there. Nice town. Last time we were there we watched the peregrine falcons on the old mill building – then one was shot by some bastard.

        1. Yes. 2019 I think. Last visit in April we stayed with her brother in Sheffield. Last year’s visit was postponed due to OH being in hospital.

  52. Elon Musk says AI is far more dangerous than nukes:

    https://youtu.be/5taE_br3Vr8

    This guy demonstrates what AI can do by creating the image a cute Asian girl who doesn’t exist in reality but who is capable of creating a lot of interest within social media.

    Having studied recently how the field of AI is developing in computer science I found this video very explanatory as to how computers are using complex processes in learning how to create imaginary visual identities in a fictional world:

    https://youtu.be/nc9kq9ZkNV8

    Warning: AI generated images of cute Asian girls.

      1. This is what is concerning about the direction AI may take in the generation of images ceated for profit within sicial media.

  54. This may make you smile; you may recall I mentioned the lovely Indian lady cashier at the supermarket who loves the Carry On movies and wants to be called Barbara Windsor.
    I went through her check out today and I reminded her, yes she said I am Barbara Windsor. After I paid I said to her, ” Carry on Cashiering.” She nearly fell off her chair.

  56. Nicked

    Telegraph:

    Rishi Sunak will have to intervene to help households cope with the

    rising cost of mortgages, a former chairman of the Conservative Party

    has said.

    Sir Jake Berry …told Times Radio: “We are going to have

    to do something as a Government to help people out. We cannot see mass

    evictions… I do think the Government’s going to have to act.”

    I have a plan! We get a large asset management company to step in to

    rescue the homeowner! The asset management company takes over the

    mortgage. The mortgage payments are kept relatively affordable. The name

    of them is just changed to ‘rent’. The residents won’t actually be able

    to ever own their home, the asset management company will. But the

    residents won’t be evicted and they will be happy!

    I think this could work 🤔

    WE need a name for the company,perhaps……..

    Dark Stone
    Grey Pebble
    Dindu Grit

      1. If people were daft enough to take out mortgages then couldn’t afford when the rates went up why the bloody hell should i bail out their stupid decisions.

          1. I lived through those extortionate rates and survived on tinned food. If they have no idea how to adapt it isn’t my fault. I have also stopped contributing to food banks and charities. It just encourages more unfortunate decisions.

          2. I had to remortgage my house in the early 90’s when I was divorcing my ex to pay him his share. I also had my younger son still at school and then at university to support. I had a full time job and two part time ones to pay the bills. I’ve never supported food banks as they just encourage dependancy in the feckless.

      2. Nor will it be the government – they don’t have any money – they steal it from us
        Nobody helped me when I was paying 15% interest on my mortgage

  58. Afternoon all. Well after a half hour queue at the chemists this morning to get my pills – new lady in charge and it was taking her ages – I decided to ring the National Trust and cancel. Fifteen minutes listening to ‘we have more supporters calling than normal..’ when I got through it was fairly trivial. But when he asked why I wanted to leave the phone line it seems went poor just at that moment. Like many I don’t like the way they are heading with slavery/woke/climate but chap didn’t seem to really understand. They don’t it seems follow up leavings with questionnaires to ask why, you would have thought they might have cottoned on by now.

    I have swapped NT membership for one at the Ramblers, half the price and with the amount of walks I do these days a worthy cause.

  60. Would politicians understand a call for help, can’t they imagine that the British public are tapping out SOS . dit dit dit –dah dah dah -dit dit dit.

    The British public need to be rescued, the tax payer needs to be rescued , we all might as well be 2 miles down in the deep… wont some one rescue us, we are being ignored.

    1. Blacks already swarm shops and destroy their business’s. San Fran a prime example. With what our government are allowing in they can swarm Westminster. I wonder if they have considered this. You can have as much well armed security as you like but swarming will defeat them eventually.

        1. They are already vulnerable. Have you seen who makes up most of the civil service and Northern councils?

      1. Our parish council was informed that we were not allowed to offer grants or funding to the churches in our ward. I bet we’d be allowed to give money to mosques, though.

    2. The British people have been grossly betrayed. How long before the silent resentment so many indigenous Britons feel can no longer remain silent and open and violent rebellion takes its place?

    2. I cannot understand how Team Sunak managed to deceive and cheat Truss into appointing Hunt as her chancellor. It looked as if a gun was being held to her head.

      Was blackmail used – and if so what was it?

      2. I shall contact them but out of courtesy, through the CEO of RAFA where I currently reside. Thank you for for the info’Maggie, much appreciated and I’d never heard of them. First thing in the morn.

    3. A care home exclusively for the Armed Forces community.
      Set in the popular seaside resort of Cromer, on the Norfolk coast, Halsey House is a beautiful historic building which was used as a hospital in the First and Second World Wars. The residents’ shared experiences in the Armed Forces create a truly unique and supportive community, where everyone looks out for one another.

      For more information about Halsey House or to arrange a visit, please call 01263 512 178 or send an email and a member of our team will be in touch.

      1. Thank you Maggie, I’ll be in touch. Sounds ideal for this ex RAF Norfolk Dumpling.

    2. So should many of us but my post above took a cutting from the article to which you point.

      I think the problem is that Charles has very little genuine warmth and is pettish and arrogant. I am two years older than he is and most of my friends and contemporaries have never liked him but always liked his sister. The body language of the Queen never suggested that she had much fondness for her eldest son and the Duke of Edinburgh did not show much enthusiasm for him either.

      I suppose we ought to feel sorry for the poor Idiot King – he is so completely devoid of charm.

      1. I think, as far as one can tell without knowing them personally, the Duke of Edinburgh did his best to be a good father to all his children.
        Charles might have been far nicer if he hadn’t been the Heir.

        1. Bb2

          Charles was ruined by his grandmother QE , of course none of us know really , but his mother was busy and nanny, Grandma and others spoilt the little firstborn .

        2. Sending Charles to Gordonstoun didn’t go down too well – I think his father thought he was a sissy.

          1. It’s so hard to get the decision right about which school is best for one’s children. The same route might not be right for different children.

          2. It will have been absolute Hell for him.
            Whatever else one may feel about the man it is clear he was given a prison sentence.

  66. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12213935/Why-picture-headache-King-Charles-Richard-Eden-explains.html

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4dd8759974b5f5c74d72a3d61642cf2740cd5baeac48a9197c86bb78c8a3955c.png

    This article suggests that the Idiot King’s treatment of his brother Andrew in trying to evict him is not making him at all popular with his other siblings and it is clear that Princess Anne in particular has very little time for her self-centred, egotistical, mean-spirited, spiteful and practically brain-dead older brother.

    I am inclined to trust The Princess Royal’s judgement more than that of other members of the family so I do ask myself why she prefers Andrew to Charles?

      1. Things may not be what they seem, Belle – we are being encouraged by the media, for example, to hate on Harry to a degree I have not observed before in my lifetime, which leaves me wondering what is the true agenda, what is behind it all. Ditto Andrew. Are Andrew and Harry the fall-guys, are they protecting Someone? It is all theatre, but to what end?

    2. Both Anne and Edward are very loyal, as they have demonstrated over the years. Andrew may be an arrogant chump, but he’s their arrogant chump.
      Of course, objectively Andrew doesn’t deserve the life of privilege that he enjoys entirely due to the accident of his birth, but it would be a very sad world if we all got what we deserved! In particular, Charles and Camilla might not be enjoying all the luxuries and privileges that they do.
      I think Anne and Edward have called it right. Stability for their family is more important than who’s in this year and who’s not. Sacking Andrew from official duties was necessary to protect the image of the United Kingdom abroad and the monarchy at home – evicting him from his home is court politics of Tudor proportions.

      1. Andrew was foolish in his choice of friends and associates, but he settled with the grasping woman without admitting any guilt. However, even with the Queen’s help, it probably cleaned him out. He has a 75 year lease on Royal Lodge so it’s his home, even if it is too big for him. The upkeep must be a killer.

        Is there any indication that William and Catherine actually want to move again? They only moved to Adelaide Cottage recently.

        1. I think they are dedicated royal game-players, and will move anywhere that will raise their status.

    1. But her pussy isn’t as hairy as that – he gone overboard with his black pencil!

        1. I dread to think what image would be created if the comment was to be put through a text to art AI converter!

    2. The thing sounds like an absolute death trap. If all the effort to rescue them is successful I hope the company pays the bill.

      1. It’s all quite unbelievable and I am not sure I do believe it. What I do feel is that it’s a deliberate distraction. How very convenient for it to pop up just when the ptb needed one. Will they pop up from the ocean floor tomorrow, like rabbits out of a hat? All alive and kicking but looking suitably wan? How would we know that they hadn’t been dropped off around the corner, as it were? I feel it’s all theatre for the herd, which ever way it goes.

      1. I think the parents mostly were hard working and came here to work – but the offspring didn’t turn out so well.

        2. ‘I think the mothers mostly were hardworking’ it should read – the mothers came over, enticed by the British Govt to work in the newly hatched NHS for lower wages than the indigenous would accept. There was very little work for their menfolk to do, and the problem we see goes back to those days and the example provided by the fathers to their sons. Also there seems to be a culture of non-work of African men wherever they may be. However, there are always exceptions.

          1. You’re probably right. Certainly the first black person I remember seeing was a nurse when I was in hospital.

            Not sure about all African men – in wildlife tourism almost all the camp staff and guides and rangers are men. I don’t know about other industries.

  70. Par Four today.

    Wordle 732 4/6
    🟨🟩⬜⬜🟩
    🟩🟩🟩⬜🟩
    🟩🟩🟩⬜🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Lucky three for me.

      Wordle 732 3/6

      🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟨🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      1. Well done, RT!

        I could have had a ‘hole-in-one’; the winning word today is on my list of 6 ‘starters’ . . . shucks ;((

    3. Birdie today.

      Wordle 732 3/6

      🟨🟩⬜⬜🟩
      🟩🟩🟩⬜🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. About time these idiotic councils/councillors were held to account by violence if necessary

      2. We are stuffed largely on account of having no written Constitution.

        Nobody in the UK has yet woken up to the tyrannical ways of our Uni-party in Westminster. If they can depose the likes of Boris Johnson for ‘lying to Parliament’ when the place is infested with habitual liars then they can go after anyone.

        Apart from Johnson you might add Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng, Jeremy Corbyn and soon to be Jacob Rees Mogg. Their latest establishment tool is the ludicrously named Privileges Committee chaired by Harriet Haridan.

        1. We have, Corri, it’s called Magna Carta and it lays down, before there ever was a parliament The Common Law based on Natural Law and NO parliamentary law has the power to change it.

          We , the British people must stand up to defend it and defeat ANY Parliamentary law (which is illegal) that tries to overrule it.

        2. That’s not true. We do have a written constitution; its just not in one document but several. The main ones are:

          The Charter of Liberties 1100
          Magna Carta 1215
          The Charter of the Forest 1225
          The Petition of Rights 1628
          The Bill of Rights 1688

          Parliament has usurped it and we are kept in ignorance of it from the very start of our lives – unless we go looking for it. If ever there was a time for folk to be looking for it and gaining knowledge of it, it is now.

          Check these out:
          https://www.sovereignnaturalempowerment.com/the-truth
          https://www.commonlawconstitution.org/

          1. I believe we would be better served by a USA style Constitution. This could bring together the various charters you mention and be a single immutable statement where everyone knows where they stand and where their rights reside.

    5. March on the Town Hall. Burn it to the ground. Stop effing moaning. TAKE ACTION.

  75. Please bear with me tonight; husband won’t be home until 6 at earliest and it’s all getting to me. Just emailed an old school friend who has been in constant touch
    and having to tell her brought it all to mind.
    Thank god for Bach and Vivaldi.

    1. It’s been a very long day for your other half, and for you to be alone! Was your shopping trip successful?

      1. Hic, yes! I even remembered everything, I think;-)
        Wanted to hoover the living room but ran out of steam.

        1. Those damned steam powered vacuum cleaners – not to be trusted. I prefer whisky to wine but….

          … each to his/her own.

  76. Wish me luck, just heading out to lure fish a Whitsand cliff mark for a bass. We’ll stay until it gets dark.

      1. Cheers, Ann, it wasn’t great, but one ‘keeper’ bass and a decent Channel mackerel.

    2. Tight lines. I haven’t been bass-fishing for about 40 years! I must do something about that. Off to the Avon for trout again tomorrow – and maybe a big grayling since we can legitimately fish for them too now.

      1. At the right time (few and far between if you want a decent one), fly fishing for them can be quite stunning.

      2. Do people eat grayling? A lovely fish, but is it good eating. Is the ‘Lady of the stream’ a delicacy?

        1. I did when I was young and caught them in the Clyde and Tweed system. I recall them being very similar to trout but more delicate and with that hint of thyme which gives them their Latin name. When I started fishing the Avon I took one home for supper (we can take them if they’re 12′ – 15″) and it really wasn’t very good so all go back now. It’s actually a very sporting fish – the equal of trout in that respect.

    3. Tight lines. I haven’t been bass-fishing for about 40 years! I must do something about that. Off to the Avon for trout again tomorrow – and maybe a big grayling since we can legitimately fish for them too now.

  77. Back from beach to well earned glass of medicine. 3,080 steps.

    Saw a heart warming sight on the plage. Two Italian children – aged 9/10 – playing CARDS….. No phones; no machines; just playing cards.

    Their parents slept!

  78. One of the (many) great joys of being here in Cap d’Ail is that – about 8 pm, as the Sun sinks and the sea is calm between 50 and 100 Rock (or Crag) Martins launch themselves from the cliffs where they roost and whirl and wheel at enormous speed across the bay and between the two blocks of flats – “clicking” like mad. Really uplifting to see and hear. And never collide!

  79. And as the evenings start to draw in – I’ll say farewell.

    Have a spiffing evening.

    A demain – prolly…

  80. I am always cynical about people saying what dead people would have said had they not been dead.

    I seem to remember that Brendan Cox was sacked from his job for sexual harassment of women in his office and it was claimed that he had already started having affairs before his wife was murdered. He struck many of us as being an extremely seedy and nasty piece of work.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f3cf53663aaeab87b254665dd829dec097385804c6487187213ad4a3d72de20c.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/21/murdered-mp-jo-cox-happy-husband-brendan-getting-remarried/

    4. Very unpleasant pair all round, IMO. It may be just the Mail stirring the pot though.

      1. I never knew he was a trans and became a widow on his wife’s death rather than a widower.

        1. That bl0ody Rev Coles wrote a book and claimed throughout he was a “widow” because his “husband” had died. I was supposed to be reading it for book club but i gave up.

    3. Disgusting, I’d want to run through it with a very sharp machete on a pole,

      Unfortunately I cannot run these days.

      1. Me, as I have to pay the Khunt tax whether i agree with his insane ideas or not.

        We need to go back to the idea of not allowing people to vote unless they pay a certain amount of tax.

        1. Councils shouldn’t have funds enough for that. If someone wants flags, get sponsorship or make them yourself.

      1. Twatter doesn’t allow those of us who don’t pay for privileges to correct typos, Grizz, so one has to be a little more tolerant. It should be Regent Street of course.

  82. My husband is en route home- thank god. He sounded chipper but will hear it all when it gets here.

    1. Greet him with:
      “coffee, tea, vermouth, or me?”

      1 to 2 on: Vermouth
      evens: LotL
      3 to1: the field

      1. Are you kidding? After a day of hospital grub he’s in the loo- with a book;-)

          11. Not a chance Chez Lake;-)) Painkillers don’t bloody work so nerve tonic is the answer.

    1. Whether it is true or not, I can’t help thinking that the people peddling this are using his high profile memory to push their own agenda.

      Good opener to the Ashes, even if I think we could/should have won the match.

      1. Women’s ashes start tomorrow – surely they can’t be called the ‘Ashes’ there’s only the one lot which the men play for

  85. Not content with having added a sphincter to the pride flag, they are now trying to rope in austistic children.
    Autism diagnosis? You’re one of us, so hop into the car, kiddy!
    If, as is now looking possible, the rise in autism may be related to vaccines this wickedness is part of the attempt to poison the west, body and soul.
    https://twitter.com/Travis_in_Flint/status/1670960405433204736

  86. Forgive me for being callous.

    If it becomes clear that the submersible and its occupants are lost, they should be left where they are to rest in peace.

    I cannot see any reason whatsoever to recover their tomb, knowing that any knowledge gained could well be used by another chancer to do similarly.

    1. Which is what I have been posting. RMS Titanic is an underwater graveyard and not a tourist attraction. If these people perish, then leave them in peace also.
      I also think this is another distraction but I am a total cynic these days.

      1. I do so agree with you, nothing seems to be off limits these days, more’s the pity.

  89. 373632+ uo ticks,

    With the odious muttonheads ( party before Country majority voters) gearing up for more of the same, only not bad but far,far,worse.

    Seemingly we have kneeler starmer QC being advised by mandleson most definitely another QC.

    What could possibly go………

    13 Years Wasted… UK Government Debt Higher Than GDP For First Time Since 1961

  90. People are making jokes about those trapped in the Titanic submersible.
    How low can they sink?

  92. When I heard that POTUS – aka Dopey Joe – was getting involved with the submersible rescue effort, I felt deeply for the five down below.

      1. I don’t know. It could be Reiner Füllmich, he did interview many people for his Grand Jury.

  94. Going to bed… husband is home and is well as can be expected. Two very long days and I want to sleep in tomorrow.
    I wish y’all well and good sleep.
    Hope all of you with health issues find respite.

    3. Have a good zed, Ann. Hopefully no reason to get up early tomorrow. Treat yourselves to a lie-in.

    4. Have a good zed, Ann. Hopefully no reason to get up early tomorrow. Treat yourselves to a lie-in.

    1. Remember The Graduate starring Dustin Hoffman as Ben?

      When they are celebrating at the young graduate’s graduation party a friend of Ben’s father says:

      “I have just one word to say to you: plastics.”

      This simple line went down very well with the audience when I saw the film as a student in a cinema in Norwich in 1967.

      1. At least you aren’t troubled by orcas determined to attack your boat! Mind you the narrow boat’s steel hull would probably give them a bloody nose if they got into the Inland Waterway system and tried to do so.

        1. I fished for Pike around there when a boy. I used a lightweight aluminium spinnaker in those days. I mostly caught smaller fish, Roach and Dace with grubs and traditional floats.

          Eels were easy to catch from the old Bath weir, when it was a flat and straight surface on which you could walk long before the flood prevention scheme implementation with its Architect designed parabolic stepped curve design.

  101. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6a601c865853ca4f0f639408fcebc5124d7301d79b9e9904093618661941cfca.png
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/21/scoltland-shetland-orca-killer-whales-attack-yacht-gladis/

    As someone who has spent much of my time sailing I have always enjoyed seeing whales, dolphins and orcas and I have never wanted to inflict any harm on them. But if they attacked and wrecked my boat and endangered my life my affection for them would quickly disappear: indeed I would agree with this BTLiner.

    BTL

    Get Captain Ahab on the job but arm him with something more lethal than a few harpoons!

  103. Nothing on the MSM about the proxy war in Ukraine. This is doubtless because, despite the billions of dollars worth of equipment demanded by and provided to the clown Zelensky, the Ukrainians are on their knees, with soldiers defecting and surrendering, a depleted Ukrainian Army with massive losses and no prospect whatever of ever capturing territory lost.

    We are being fed lies in the west. We have no active journalists on the ground in Ukraine, have no proper intelligence other than lies from our corrupted government, and remain in a state of bewilderment at the sheer stupidity of our elected officials in supporting the ensuing carnage in the Ukraine conflict.

    The Russians are as a result of US policies in Ukraine now embedded with the Chinese. The Americans under Biden are increasingly irrelevant. How the mighty are fallen in no time at all. Countries need true leadership, not WEF puppeteers. This is surely a warning to the UK with its puppet globalist regime of misfits. China is a greater power and will seek its vengeance.

    The US is lost with the ludicrous corrupt Biden in power.

    1. Agreed, but most people still tend to find and are claiming Putin as the main protagonist. The whole thing is a complete and dangerous farce. Biden is just another of our planets most dangerous dick heads.

  104. Midnight local time in Reykjavik, and the sun shone. Lovely, but I need zeds so went to bed.

      1. Tom – I’ve deleted your ‘call to euthanise the nearest adherent to the Religion of Peace’. This site exists below the progressive radar. Calling for the erasing of the nearest Moose limb may be heartfelt on your part, but it’s unacceptable here, if you wish this site to continue. Understood?

        1. Sorry about that Geoff, Understood but I just feel badly about the way we’ve taken these damned people on side, pay them mega-millions and yet encourage more in on a day-to-day basis.

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