848 thoughts on “Wednesday 22 January: Why should every owner of a television be compelled to fund the BBC?”

  1. Good Morning, all

    SIR – The world would not stop turning if the BBC were to be axed.

    We would, of course, miss some of its programmes, but we would not much miss its pontificating or its bias.

    The arrogant way that, under pressure, it dropped BBC Three, only to resurrect it online, is just one example of its self-importance.

    Alan Palmer
    Kenilworth, Warwickshire

    1. BTL:

      John Villiers 22 Jan 2020 6:00AM
      P. J. Mills is right. I don’t buy a copy of the Guardian if I want to read the Telegraph. Why should I pay for the broadcasting arm of the Guardian if I want to watch another channel.

      1. BTL:

        Nigel Wheatcroft 22 Jan 2020 5:12AM
        The BBC and the EU have much in common …they are both afraid of losing a great chunk of their income if their current subscribers leave and the reality of the real world hits them. Both have a sense of entitlement, both are self centred socialist gravy trains and both are past their sell by date…change has to happen, the sooner the better

        1. ‘Morning, Citroen, “… and both are past their sell by date…”

          …and both are well past their sell by date…

      2. “Why should I pay for the broadcasting arm of the Guardian if I want to watch another channel?”

        And here’s me thinking that the BBC was the broadcasting arm of Pravda.

  3. THE SHOVEL

    I woke for the toilet in the middle of the night and noticed a Muslim sneaking through next door’s garden.

    Suddenly my neighbour came from nowhere and smacked him over the head with a shovel killing him instantly.

    He then began to dig a grave with the shovel. Astonished, I got back into bed.

    My wife said, ‘Darling, you’re shaking, what is?

    “You’ll never believe what I’ve just seen” I said,

    “That Bastard next door has still got my shovel”

  4. SIR—The BBC must not lose its current funding. In general terms, the world acknowledges the pre-eminence of the BBC, and viewers in many countries rely on the World Service.

    It was a dreadful mistake to cap the licence fee some years ago, thus denying the corporation much-needed cash. It is an institution that we must ensure survives and flourishes.

    Herbert C Chappell
    Woking, Surrey

    Herbie is a beeboid. The evidence is clear. How else would a numskull like him relish people continuing to paying a huge tax such as the licence fee?

    That “much-needed cash” is desperately required to be frittered away on bias, propaganda and the hyper-inflated wages of BeeB employees.

    That much is right, eh, Herb

    1. BTL:

      malcolm scoggins 22 Jan 2020 6:54AM
      Interesting that the only letter writer supporting the BBC lives in woke-ing.

    2. Does Herbert work for the BBC. It sounds like it

      If viewer across the world rely on it they should be paying for it

    4. Make it subscription-only. Then they can charge what they like, as Netflix, and see how many want to pay for it.

    6. “…In general terms, the world acknowledges the pre-eminence of the BBC.” Without ever offering real evidence to support this claim.

  6. What have the ‘woke’ middle managers of New Broadcasting House done to our BBC?
    ALLISON PEARSON – 21 JANUARY 2020 • 9:26PM

    Will the BBC live to see its hundredth birthday in 2022? As Director-General Tony Hall steps down, the corporation’s reputation for impartiality is in tatters. It faces huge compensation payments to women broadcasters after illegally underpaying them while foolishly overpaying the likes of Gary Lineker, who is not in the same league as his sublime predecessor Des Lynam. It has welshed on its deal for viewers over the age of 75, who actually watch the telly, as it desperately pursues young people who don’t. It must deal with a landslide Conservative government, which is likely to be in power until the BBC Charter comes up for renewal in 2027. Unfortunately, of its 22,401 staff, only one is believed to have voted for Boris – Brian, who works in Archives in Perivale, but he’s coming up for retirement.

    The BBC has a metropolitan, globalist point of view which prevents it from tuning into the national mood. In December, a YouGov poll found that less than half (44 per cent) of Britons trusted BBC journalists to tell the truth, a fall of seven percentage points since October. Most dangerously of all, it has a Prime Minister who wonders aloud why, with so many excellent subscription channels, the British people should go on paying a compulsory tax for a public-service broadcaster which doesn’t seem to much like the public or their views.

    Twenty years ago, when I was employed as a TV critic, there was very little criticism of the BBC. In fact, there was widespread affection for Auntie, and rightly so. Documentaries (of which there were plenty) were generally of a high standard, and drama series did not exist to ram a multicultural agenda down the audience’s throat. For instance, it was not mandatory for every police detective to have an ethnic-minority spouse regardless of how accurately that reflected the real world.

    The BBC of 2020 is obsessed with promoting what Lord Hall calls “our values”. The fact that those values so seldom coincide with the values of the majority of people who pay their wages seems to be a matter of supreme unconcern. The BBC is only able to show such disdain for its customers because they have paid their money before entering the shop.

    That complacency may well prove fatal. Now that they have a choice, customers are choosing to go into another store. (I am surprised how many friends say they now listen to LBC instead of Radio 4, but then I switched recently to ITN’s News at Ten.) The number of people giving up their TV licences has soared, with more than 860,000 licences cancelled in 2017-18 compared to 798,000 a year earlier. Admittedly, that’s a small proportion of the 25.8 million licences currently held, but it’s still 2,300 cancellations a day. Coverage of Brexit alone must have seen hundreds of thousands of viewers switch off. BBC bias was embarrassingly evident with panels of six people featuring only one Leaver, studio audiences packed with choleric Corbynists and editors drip-feeding viewers a daily diet of Project Fear.

    One morning, a Telegraph colleague found herself waiting in a BBC newsroom before she went into the studio where Anna Soubry was screeching one of her mad, Lucia de Lammermoor anti-Brexit arias. When Soubry finished, staff broke into applause, my astonished colleague reported. I wonder, do you think they will get Huw Edwards to wear a black tie on Brexit Day? Nothing would surprise us anymore.

    Nowadays, if I start watching a BBC period drama I am always braced for the ahistorical nonsense with which producers chastise the past for being insufficiently politically correct. (The kids say Doctor Who has become unwatchable, that sprightly intergalactic voyager now weighed down by the lentil-bake concerns of a vegan cafe in Tufnell Park.) I adore the defiantly truthful and gutsily Northern Happy Valley, but otherwise prefer sophisticated US and French dramas which don’t insult the viewer as BBC productions do with their childish diversity-by-numbers. There is certainly diversity in Spiral, my favourite French detective series, but it occurs perfectly naturally and no one gives a damn if the villains turn out to be immigrants. C’est la vie, eh?

    Will a new Director-General be able to restore public trust in the BBC? There’s a chance if they choose someone from outside the metropolitan bubble who wants to reflect the nation back to itself, not lecture it. Oh, and commissioning one comedy show that doesn’t use the word “Tory” as an expletive might be nice.

    My fear is that institutional smuggery runs too deep at Broadcasting House to admit that change is urgently needed. Old Tories like Wogan and Brucie are gone, and in their place are the Guardianistas who have just been roundly rejected by the country. If you look at an electoral map of Britain, amid a vast sea of Tory blue, there are a few small islets of Labour red. Those islets are where BBC staff live and from which they draw their ideas.

    Once, not that long ago, it would have been impossible to imagine a Britain without the BBC. It’s still hard. We have so much shared history, Auntie and I, all the way back to Andy Pandy (I cried every time they shut him and Teddy in that wicker basket). But the Beeb can no longer count on public affection in the way it used to. Viewers are irritated, angry even. Many would welcome the Government decriminalising the licence fee, which would be the beginning of the end. To justify demanding a TV tax from every household, you have to truly speak for the nation, not an elite corner of London. The new DG would do well to ponder what was said about Charles Dickens, our most successful and beloved national entertainer. “Dickens didn’t just give the people what they wanted. He wanted what the people wanted.”

    ********************************************************

    Richard Kenward 21 Jan 2020 9:46PM
    Silent Witness tonight a fest of anti-white male racism. All minorities and women are victims and all the bad people are white men.

    And this is why I detest the institutionally racist BBC

    Buck Rogers 21 Jan 2020 9:34PM
    Let its admirers pay for it through charitable contributions.

    Like the Guardian.

    2. The fundamental problem is the BBC doesn’t have to worry about the market.

      That’s why we get tosh like that.

      It also cannot see it’s own prejudice. It thinks it is doing the right thing in using the lump hammer of it’s perceived power against our back woods ignorance.

      1. The latest pestilence has reached the USA, I believe. I’m sure that our government is on the ball and will ensure that everyone, including the rubber raft people, are declared disease free before allowing them across the threshold. My meds are due in an hour or so.

          1. Morning, Araminta.

            The Davos crew are meeting and plotting again. I wonder what they have in store for the plebs?

          2. Yes, it is, temperature just 4° and I have to drive 6 foggy miles, mostly on single-track road, to the surgery for 10:15 and an INR appointment. I would rather stay warm, NoTTLe and read a book.

        3. Welcome back, Korky! You are much more likeable than that horrible green big ‘ead with spindly limbs floating around on a flying platform.

          2. By popular demand: well, poppiesmum last evening.🙃

            …that horrible green big ‘ead with spindly limbs floating around on a flying platform.

            That’s no way to talk about BT’s trombetti.

      2. The trouble is that no longer applies thanks to the British based and European charities ensuring that the population of African countries expands to vastly exceed the countries’ ability to sustain it.

  10. BOEING Shares Slide

    Boeing shares tanked as much as 5.5% in late Tuesday trading after the jet manufacturer announced its 737 Max model won’t return to service until at least mid-2020.
    The company’s latest estimate “is informed by our experience to date with the certification process,” Boeing said in a Tuesday statement. The company will provide additional information on its push to return the 737 Max to service in its fourth-quarter earnings report scheduled for release on January 29.

      1. It was their best selling plane and they have over 4900 built that they cannot deliver. They have now stopped building them and the date they can get the plane in service keeps disappearing out into the future faster than Crossrail

        The planes they have built are parked in the open so will presumably need some rework when they do get to be able to deliver them

  12. https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/01/21/22/5001294-7913181-Mean_Even_Prince_Harry_is_made_fun_of_but_not_as_much_as_his_bri-a-123_1579644337488.jpg
    https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2018/10/12/18/5001264-6270493-image-a-14_1539365136735.jpg
    https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/01/21/21/5001266-7913181-Yikes_On_the_wedding_he_had_biting_remarks_about_the_bride_and_h-a-35_1579643268579.jpg
    https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/01/21/21/5001292-7913181-Time_to_shine_His_George_looks_down_on_his_sister_Charlotte_and_-a-38_1579643268738.jpg
    https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/01/22/00/5001288-7913181-Cheeky_He_quipped_about_a_DailyMail_com_article_about_his_new_sc-a-13_1579651341781.jpg

    1. On the plus side. Mummy has lost her main weapon for embarrassing the teenage George.
      His future girlfriends have already seen photos of That Shirt.

  14. Trafford Centre and Lakeside owner Intu in desperate bid to raise £1bn

    This was announced a few days ago but did not mention they needed to raise £1B. In my view shopping centers are now high risk. Lots of shops closing down. Company CVA’s forcing down rents and falling footfall

    You would have to be brave and have deep pockets to invest in shopping centers. Probably only slightly safer than investing in department stores

    1. In a trading statement last year it said it was ‘likely’ to raise more cash to balance its books – which are weighed down by a £4.7billion debt pile.
      Intu’s shares have fallen by around 80 per cent in the last year as the High Street crisis has intensified and rental income has plunged.

    2. Morning BJ

      Has the threat of terrorism coupled with lawless youths , beggars and expensive car parking contributed to the demise of many shopping centres.

      Most shopping centres attract pensioners etc , but they don’t buy very much apart from a few treats or a visit to the travel agent?

      1. Intu do the big indoor shopping centers and they have security guards. They dont usually allow beggars or big issue sellers or chuggers
        in them

        The big problem in my view is we have far to many shops. If there is a failing High Street a council approach is to trt to get a new shopping center built. WE probably have about a 25% surplus of shops

        1. Bill, we build shopping centres, Americans build shopping centers but they call them malls.

          3. And they Malls are closing down in the US as well. Both forms of Centre are in widespread use in the UK. Language changes with time. The term Mall is also used in the UK/ I am sure Shakespeare would be horrified by today’s English

          4. Never mind, Shakespeare, I’m with Grizzly being horrified at today’s misuse of language and seemingly, your acquiescence to such mis-use

          7. Why do Yanks call workshops “shops” [“Hey, welcome to the shop.” as they invite you on YouTube carpentry videos]?

            Yet they insist on calling shops “stores”! This is wrong on two accounts:

            1. A store is a place where things are kept for safekeeping for later use (like a squirrel stores his nuts).

            2. No one goes on a “storing expedition” or carries a “storing bag”.

            You buy things from a shop, you muppets!

          8. Out of step again. The term shop is widely used in the UK. ie the term Shop floor is in very common usage in factories

          9. You missed the point of my post … again!

            I am well aware of the term “shop floor” since I spent the first seven years of my working life on one. I was drawing attention to the Yanks’ inability to think for themselves and adopt just one way of speaking universally. They all have such a limited vocabulary.

  15. Sainsbury’s chief executive Mike Coupe to retire

    I think it is more a case of him being told you would like to retire? We dont really want to have to fire you.

  16. Ted Baker investigation finds £58m phantom stock

    Looks a bit suspect. You would have to be very careless to over state stock by £58M

    Last month it said the figure was up to £25m. The new estimate comes after a review by accountants Deloitte.

    .
    The news from Deloitte’s investigation will be embarrassing for rival KPMG as it had said it had uncovered mis-statements but concluded they were too small to affect the fashion label’s accounts.

  17. Veterans railcard for cheaper train fares to launch on Armistice Day

    A new railcard offering discounted train tickets for military veterans will be launched later this year, the government has said.
    The railcard – to be released on Armistice Day in November – will save a third off most train fares.
    It will benefit more than 830,000 veterans who do not already qualify for existing discounts, the Department for Transport said.
    Serving armed forces personnel already qualify for their own railcard.

      1. Morning Anne

        Yes , a compliant weak minded Prince who didn’t insist on meeting his father in law and other relatives.. He was probably baited , targeted and seduced and by virtue of her controlling behaviour found there was no way back… he gave in!

        I cannot get over the costs involved .. £30 million pounds on a wedding and an extravagant world tour … I just don’t get it , I really don’t.

        1. ‘Morning, Mags, even £30,000 spent on a wedding (that seems to be today’s norm) makes me gasp and stretch my eyes, never-mind £30,000,000 – that’s just wasteful.

          1. When we got married, we had no money. Cheap as chips wedding, bride’s dress made by her father. Borrowed car for to & from church. Threadbare reception in village tin shack hall.
            Still married to same lady some 38 years later. That took a whole lifetime of good luck to find her and get her to marry me, and it’s worth every moment.
            It seems from no study of the data at all that marriages last in inverse proportion to the amounts spent.

          2. We had two. One was in a pair of shorts on a cliffside, the other in a church – that was to suit the mothers. Yes, she has two wedding rings, although one’s a hulahoop.

            Poor girl. She married an ogre twice.

          3. Sounds familiar – we called in favours left, right and centre. The dress was second hand and altered to fit. A lawyer friend drew up the (legally required) pre nup. A friend who ran a disco as a side line provided the music. My elder sister provided the garden for the reception. My wife’s cousin made the cake. My brother, a photographer and printer, provided invitations and the pics. The minister was a friend and the cost of the flowers in the church was shared between all the weddings that took place that day. The bridal car was borrowed from a relative. The most expensive item was the bar and lamb-on-the-spit braai for 100 people.

            All in all, a cheap as chips do – it cost a month’s salary – and we’ve been married for 31 years. My new DiL on the other hand had a ‘cheap’ wedding which cost of £20k – bonkers.

          4. I’m not sure about that sum.
            Maybe security costs (oooh, sounds familiar) were included.

          1. He’s a man. Eventually it heads north after a while and you either start thinking or become a ***head.

    3. My spirit is being crushed by work.

      She’s lived a life of abject flipping privilege. She’s never known want, lack or need. She’ll live in that luxury her whole life. At, in some way, my expense.

      I’ll happily pay for Her Majesty the Queen as she gives up her life to her country and citzens. Same with Harry and Charlie boy.

      I don’t want to spend another second paying for Megan ‘Can’t be arsed’ Markle. I don’t get to say that. I have to crack this code lark. People depend on me. Wretched woman.

      1. Good morning Mabah

        I think this woman will soon take her place in history next to the likes of Martin Luther King !

        She has stabbed democracy and our United Kingdom in the heart .
        She has whined and winged and distorted truths .

    1. BTL
      “Erogenous Bosch 22 Jan 2020 9:12AM
      Certain constructs, such as ‘diversity’ are presented to us as ‘good’ and then accepted as the norm and therefore unquestionable. Now we have child grooming and rape, drug gangs, stabbings, FGM, ritual slaughter of animals, honour killings etc., can anyone mention a benefit of diversity that outweighs these things?”

  20. Archant to launch new weekly in Devon after approach from news industry veterans

    Archant is launching a new weekly newspaper and website in South Devon after local news industry veterans came to the publisher with the idea for the title in response to demand from residents.

    The Torbay Weekly will be based in the centre of Torquay (pictured) with a team of up to six dedicated editorial and commercial staff, with roles yet to be announced.

    1. Interesting to see a start-up newspaper when most others are failing. Is this a triumph of hope over reality?
      For 6 of them, plus premises and printing costs, they will likely need a revenue stream of about £1/2 million or so. At, say, £0,50 a paper, that means a significant sale, leading to significant advertising & sponsorship, to survive, let alone catch up with setup costs, and pay some profits.
      I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t try it.

      2. It will be tough to make it pay. Almost all National an Local paper are seeing circulations fall each year by about 5% to 15% and the circulations are already low. I cannot see it lasting long as a printed paper

      3. Never been to Torbay, but maybe life there is a little dull and reading the local rag is the highlight of the week.

      4. £0,50? Don’t you bring your silly continental comma decimal points here! :•)

        I rebel against them all the time in Sweden. Heathens!

        1. There’s a car-park firm that shows the fee due as “£2,50” – if they were trying to bring us into line with Yoorup, I hope they are now feeling very foolish.

        2. Sometimes you have to accept, in order to be understood. I think their ‘decimal point’ is in use to denote thousands as in SEK, 1.000.000,567

          2. Yup.
            Arse about face, but like I now find myself wondering what the English word is for things, I also use dot & comma as comma and dot…

        3. Dosh it is almost standard around the world, It is use that are out of line. It is not confusing. IT is the American date format that’s a nightmare

        4. Puh!
          Morniong, Grizz. Habits die hard… the computeratoriser doesn’t understand dot in numbers…

          1. Morning Paul.

            My habits are ingrained. I’m happy to stick with what I know and what has served me well for all of my life.

        5. There’s a special parameter in the Special Names paragraph in a Cobol program: DECIMAL-POINT IS COMMA.

          I used to take great delight in omitting it and putting edit masks of numeric display fields that inserted a comma as a thousand delimiter.

          Nobody ever noticed in code inspections!

          1. After years of being forced to use a full point as a decimal point [3.5] and flatly refusing to use the silly Euro comma [3,5], I was delirious with delight to locate a proper decimal point (as taught at school in the early 60s) on my iMac [3·5].

            Oh, yes!

  21. Disney+ streaming service to launch earlier in UK on 24 March

    A new TV streaming service, Disney+, is to launch in the UK earlier than scheduled in a move that underlines the increasing competition facing the BBC.
    Disney had planned to launch the service on 31 March, but has now brought it forward a week to 24 March.
    It has confirmed the service will match the cost of Netflix by charging subscribers a monthly fee of £5.99. Disney will also offer a yearly rate for the service of £59.99

    The new platform focuses on spin-off shows, films and other series from studios including Disney, Pixar and Marvel. Disney has pledged to make any new film releases exclusive to its platform, and has already begun the process of pulling its content from competitors such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV+.
    Unlike Netflix it will release new episodes of selected shows weekly to avoid binge viewing.

    1. Good morning Belle
      As the saying goes

      You can fool some of the people all of the time
      All of the people some of the time
      But you can’t fool all the people all the time.

      Nottlers are not fooled by this scaremongering but I know some, otherwise intelligent people, who are.

    1. The Guy sitting alongside the police chief is Lord Nazir Ahmed currently charged with three child sexual offences.

  26. London Liverpool Street to Norwich line currently

    Engineers are still trying to move a train which was damaged after it struck a deer on the main line from London Liverpool Street to Norwich, blocking the line

    1. Which bit of the line?
      It’s a bloody long way from Liverpool Street to Norwich so I doubt if the entire line is blocked.

  27. Sainsbury’s boss Mike Coupe to quit after six years…..Is this a case of a Coupe de gras?

          1. If he can no longer afford a gardener I expect he will just have to get used to self-service tilling……

          2. Ah but he was on a TV program about Salisburys saying he had the full support of the board

    1. The French can get away with it. Indeed they are far more ‘protectionist and insular’ than the British but they have the brass neck (or should I say la nuque de laiton) to criticise the British.

    2. Nothing gets on my tits more than the routine mentioning of that Clinton bitch by her first name. Why don’t they just call hr Clinton and have done with it.

      There weren’t any problems with the two Adams, the two Johnsons, the two Roosevelts or the two Bushes.

      1. I always refer to both her and her husband as ‘clitoris’ since they’re both a bit of a ‘see you next Tuesday’.

  30. Back again and survived the bleedin’ vampire.

    As a regular subscriber to Ask Leo, this link landed in my inbox and I seem to remember that someone with a new laptop for Christmas was agonising over whether her Windows 7 Laptop should be upgraded to the awful Windows 10.

    This might help to reassure her and any others alarmed by the fact that Microsoft no longer support Win 7:

    https://askleo.com/how-to-keep-using-windows-7-safely-after-support-ends/?awt_a=7qbL&awt_l=Ji94_&awt_m=IoKKzI6MtpdfbL&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=20200121&utm_medium=email&utm_content=featured

    I assure you that the website and link are both virus free and quite secure to use.

      1. Not at all, if by ‘subscriber’ you mean does one have to sign in or sign up – not at all.

        It is merely a link to some wisdom written by a very knowledgeable American about thinks computer-wise.

    3. Morning Nanny,

      I’m still using wnds 7 my preferred option. Thanks for the Leo link
      I’ve downloaded it …I’m sure I’ll find it helpful.

      Thanks again. x

    4. It was Plum who was concerned.

      Have forwarded your link to her, with acknowledgement to you.

      Thanks for that – it helps me as I am also on W7, and like it!

  31. Jaguar Land Rover announces hundreds of redundancies as Halewood plant makes major change to shift pattern

    They have been struggling for a time and demand across Europe is falling. The cuts are down to going from a 3 shift system to a 2 shit system

        1. Perhaps we’ll be waving TATA to many jobs. Well, it happened in Wales too, with steel. That’s what comes of letting foreigners buy our industries – one of the things that I disagreed very strongly with Thatcher about.

      2. They can have the time & efficiency folks to come in & do a study on how workforce constipation effects productivity and with their extra long pencils they can work it out!

  33. WH Smith High Street woes continue

    They have been in trouble for almost a decade,. Scruffy run down high street stores and the demand for their products in free-fall. Newspaper and magazine sales are in steep decline and everyone sells them. Book sales are in decline and half the time they dont have the book you want in stock and the Music & DVD market has all but gone. They are a shop you dont really need now. THe only bit doing ol is the Airport and Rail stations where they have a fairly captive market

    WH Smith’s stores in train stations, airports and hospitals are doing well but the retailer’s High Street branches remain in the doldrums, it said this morning.
    Sales climbed 7% in the 20 weeks to 18 January, but a 5% fall in revenues in its High Street division offset a strong 19% jump in travel.

    1. Newspaper and magazine sales have fallen because everyone now gets their news from Bill Jackson on NTTL.

  34. Food now bigger than booze in Britain’s pubs, new data shows

    Almost 30 years after the first ‘gastropub’ opened its doors, Britain’s pubs now employ more people handling food than drink.
    New data shows chefs and food servers have overtaken bar staff in Britain’s pubs for the first time.
    43.8% of staff at pub and bar companies work in catering, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), while just 28.9% do bar work.
    The figures were almost the polar opposite in 2003. Back then, four in 10 employees were bar staff and just under three in 10 were involved in food.

  35. New TV Program coming soon

    I’m an NTTL,er Get Me Out of here

    You will have to do tasks to try and find the phantom down voter

      1. Patience, it’s only recently that BJ has worked out how to post links and reply. Don’t rush him. I’m sure he’ll discover up votes in a few years.

    2. Been using that stuff for a couple of years now – good shave (several from one blade) and far cheaper than Gillette/ Wilkinson’s/Bic whatever.

        1. Good afternoon, your Bossness.

          I couldn’t get on with Harry’s. Don’t know why. The blades kept clogging up.

        1. I can make one last 6 months or longer.

          I don’t shave at home, I go to the Turkish barber.

    1. BJ,
      Surely the commons / lords should be be very, very, seriously debating the
      mass rape & abuse of under-aged
      indigenous of these Isles.
      And they should either quit as politicians or come out with an acceptable to ALL peoples answer before leaving the chambers of 40 shades of sh!te.

  39. Social media giants to be bound by code of conduct to protect children from online harm. 21 JANUARY 2020.

    In a victory for The Telegraph’s duty of care campaign, Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham today publishes groundbreaking rules that will bar Facebook, Google and other tech giants from serving children any content that is “detrimental to their physical or mental health or wellbeing.”

    BELOW THE LINE.

    Mr Tea 22 Jan 2020 6:24AM.

    They will need to be protected from critics of mass immigration, critics of Islam, critics of the homosexual lifestyles, of transgenderism of the CAGW fraud.

    They will also need to be protected from monsters that endorse the concept of free speech over hate speech.

    Of course the best way to stop children coming into contact with such monstrous ideas will be to suppress them altogether so no one can express or view such notions.

    Morning everyone. Mr Tea has clearly figured it out and so have his fellow posters!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/01/21/social-media-giants-bound-code-conductto-protect-children-online/

    1. Morning Minty, Maybe we can add to Mr. Tea’s list?

      Additionally, children will need to be protected from critics of:

      1. Over-population.
      2. Open Borders.
      3. The European Union.
      4. Waste in Foreign Aid.

      [edited]

  41. ”Beales, the department store chain, has gone into administration, in the face of business rates as much as three times the corresponding rents (Business, January 20).”

    I lived in the UK for 60 years yet I have never heard of Beales let alone ever walked into one! I’ve travelled extensively in the UK yet this chain of department stores has never featured on my radar. How can this be?

    2. We who lived in the softy South have known Beales from an early age. It was the go-to dept. store in Bournemouth when I was a nipper.

      1. When I lived oop t’North, Cole Brothers of Sheffield (part of John Lewis) was me go-to department store, tha’ knows.

        When oi moved to Naafuck, oi be a regular at Jarrold’s of Norwich, boy.

        2. I remember Coles. It was across from Sheffield City Hall and it’s exterior was clad in white tiles which were in the habit of falling off. The architect was an English version of the American firm Yorke Rosenberg and Mardall (their name escapes me).

          1. I have spent many hours in Sheffield City Hall. The only concert I failed to get tickets for was Led Zeppelin. The queue for tickets for that concert snaked around the city and a photograph of it featured on the front page of that night’s Sheffield Star.

            Cole’s was diminished somewhat when taken over by JL. It became more anodyne.

          2. Me too. We had some top groups performing at the Sheffield University Union. I attended classical concerts at Sheffield City Hall and still have the programmes (I am a hoarder). Most concerts were performed by the Halle under James Loughran who had succeeded Sir John Barbarolli.

            Some visiting orchestras were particularly memorable such as the Czech Philharmonic Mahler under Vaclav Neumann. Seven double basses was a sight to behold.

            I remember Istvan Kertesz taking applause and walking on bearing a large glass of wine to toast the audience. Shortly afterwards he drowned whilst swimming in the sea.

        3. I know Jarrold’s & I think I’ve heard of John Lewis, but I’ve never heard of Cole Bros.

          1. John Lewis had a number of stores throughout the country. They then started snapping up other department stores countrywide, including:

            Cole Brothers of Sheffield.
            Jessops of Nottingham.
            Bonds of Norwich.
            Bainbridges of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
            Robert Sayle of Cambridge.
            Tyrell & Green of Southsea.

            Peter Jones of Chelsea and Knight & Lee of Southampton also joined the group but kept their own names. The question I ask is “why?”

            Personally I think all the others should have been permitted to keep their original names as they were all institutions in their home cities and locals identified with them. Renaming them all ‘John Lewis’ made them a bit anodyne.

          3. Tyrell & Green of Southsea Southampton.

            The DT & her sister worked there, as did old Wyn our former neighbour before we moved up to Derbyshire.

            Knight & Lee might have been Bournemouth, but closed years ago.

            Because the stores were respected local businesses, JL retained the names for many years until the ’90.
            T&G became rebranded as John Lewis when the moved from their old post war Above Bar site.

      2. Morning Peddy,

        Yes in Bournemouth and Poole and Worthing etc .. Bad morning coffee etc! Ladies wore hats and gloves in the year dot, a place to buy nice stockings and nightwear, certain types of lingerie and of course sadly now, wedding lists no longer exist .. China dinner services , napiery, cutlery like cake forks and bespoke wine glasses..

        The rare occasion when Moh shopped with me , I used to lead him to the perfumery dept .. er no , the hint never worked , but he did end up being sprayed with something exotic by a persuasive girly girl!!!!

        1. Wedding lists certainly do exist.
          As I discovered last year.
          They are now lists of experiences (sunset dinners on a boat in Mauritius) rather than the old fish knives and toast racks.

          1. Wedding List

            Please note there is an expectation that the minimum value of a gift will be £1000

          2. I think wedding gifts should be witheld these days until they have reached at least the silver anniversary.

        2. I loathe those perfume departments – they really upset my eyes. The trip through their equivalent in Duty Free at airports is to my mind akin to the seventh circle of hell.

    4. ‘Morning, George, perhaps it was because they don’t sell cat-flaps for dyslexic Yorkshiremen with whippets and they don’t have mushy peas either.

      I shall admit that when I lived in Bungay, it was just six miles from Beccles where they did have a Beales but to this day, I have never been aware of it.

      1. God morgon, Elsie.

        No, but I can remember a popular beat combo comprising John, George, Paul and Richard.

        1. The stark reality is that he should have replaced the name Richard with Rastus rather than Ringo.

      1. Tjena, Nursie.

        I couldn’t shop there if I’d never heard of it. I’d never heard of Budgen’s grocery stores until I moved to Norfolk. I was never impressed with them and their staff were the most gormless and unclean I’ve ever come across anywhere.

        1. Budgens used to be quite a large chain of small budget grocers but they have shrunk considerable and not that many about now. Not quiter as small as Wimpy Bars are now. They used to be all over the UK but not many of them left now

          1. We have a Budgens that runs alongside the BP garage near West Meon. It’s well stocked and well run.

    7. There is – or was – a branch in Worthing, but I too have never set foot in the place. Presumably my absence has contributed to their demise. Oh the irony of a business becoming well known for going bust…

  42. Harry and Meghan’s 24-hour security detail DOES include British police bodyguards – as well as Canadian ‘Mounties’ – as couple face questions over who pays the £3million bill. Mail 22 January 2020.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7b5225253398af0450b0edb138fc2af31843403b7b09f76dbed7735724f706fb.jpg

    A smiling Meghan was pictured walking through a forest with Archie and her two dogs yesterday trailed by one of her regular British security men, who was accompanied by a Canadian counterpart.

    Well of course we shouldn’t be paying anything. I’m a private individual and I don’t have one bodyguard let alone two and if the Canadians provide one more fool them. This said one looks at this photograph and wonders how serious an attempt it is at evading scrutiny. It’s early morning, she is carrying a child in a very awkward manner and has two dogs on leads. The trip is obviously not for the purpose of exercise and Archie is not of an age to appreciate woodland scenery while the dogs would be quite happy in the garden. I think what we see here is Meghan’s agenda. Fame and Fortune on her own terms with someone else to pick up the bill!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7912183/Harry-Meghan-Markles-24-hour-security-DOES-include-British-police-bodyguards.html

    1. Morning Minty

      I just hope the weak weepy Prince will be be properly protected from his mendacious missus… and that his security bods will not turn the other cheek.

      That woman is an absolute tarantula with a deadly bite!

    2. ‘Moning, Minty.

      I thought we had given all aspects of this scenario a good & thorough hacking yes’day.

          1. Good morning, Peddy

            Schoolmasters can be accused of saying the same thing over and over again – it comes with the territory. Indeed, we probably all bear traces of our former professions in our characters. When you are older and kinder and less eager to cause pain as you did with your dentist’s drill then perhaps you will learn to be more tolerant of people who repeat themselves!

            (My tongue is in my cheek in case you did not notice)

          2. You’re speaking to one of the worst offenders. The number of times I’ve repeated aftercare of post-extraction dental socket is enough to make anyone’s brain shrivel. In So’ton my nurse used to stand behind the patient & lip-sync while gurning to try & make me laugh while I was repeating the serious stuff.

    3. She’s carrying him in a fronty bag and her arm is holding his to her rather than – as these are wont – his flopping backward.

    4. The poor child to have a mother like that!

      Her body language clearly says that she doesn’t give a toss for him

    5. If these two are security, they don’t look “official”. The regular guys normally have an earpiece, and a little badge so they don’t shoot each other. Neither seen here. Look more like perverts…

      1. Nonsense, Herr Oberst. The Mountie is obviously Magic Grandpa being trained for his new job when Labour gets a new leader.

  44. Just watched the Bbc News at One report on the China virus. Not one mention of it being a result of global warming. A missed opportunity?

      2. I still don’t understand that film. The answer must be on the cutting room floor covered in blood.

  47. 150 french neighbourhoods held by islamist’s, bridgehead formed.
    We in the UK can do better than that, are the governing
    bodies not pulling their weight in the submissive department, me thinking we were world leaders in
    submissiveness, PCism & Appeasement.

  48. ‘Truly horrific’ photos of starving lions at Sudan zoo prompt global outcry. Indy. 22 January 2020.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1be44569d46be890a29cdfc89b513233f22a272dbfe46e969e72d49babe60f46.png

    Photos of malnourished and dying lions at a zoo in Sudan have sparked global backlash and a growing online campaign to save the animals.

    The five African lions were found in an emaciated state by activist Osman Salih in Khartoum’s Al-Qureshi Park.

    The problem here of course is that the human population is in a similar state. Perhaps we could solve two problems and throw a few humans in there! That way we get Fat Lions and less Starving People! It’s a win/win situation!

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/starving-lion-sudan-zoo-khartoum-campaign-a9294881.html

        1. Morning, Pud.

          There’s not enough meat on that spoilt, gobby little puppet’s scrawny carcase to fed one of those lions.

      1. It is a little known fact that Africans and Orientals are largely indifferent to the sufferings of animals!

    4. Starving people fed to lions are not less people, unless you count lion excrement as “lesser people”. I think you meant fewer people. You’d need a fair few starving Sudanese Muslims to get these lions fat.

    5. Ooooh Minty, you are awful – but I like you!

      But seriously, when my father was in the Sudan Political Service the Sudan was run far more humanely. The great irony is that black lives did matter to the white people in the Sudan while black lives do not matter to the blacks.

  49. DefundtheBBC:

    Will the BBC live to see its hundredth birthday in 2022? As Director-General Tony Hall steps down, the corporation’s reputation for impartiality is in tatters. It faces huge compensation payments to women broadcasters after illegally underpaying them while foolishly overpaying the likes of Gary Lineker, who is not in the same league as his sublime predecessor Des Lynam. It has welshed on its deal for viewers over the age of 75, who actually watch the telly, as it desperately pursues young people who don’t. It must deal with a landslide Conservative government, which is likely to be in power until the BBC Charter comes up for renewal in 2027. Unfortunately, of its 22,401 staff, only one is believed to have voted for Boris – Brian, who works in Archives in Perivale, but he’s coming up for retirement.

    The BBC has a metropolitan, globalist point of view which prevents it from tuning into the national mood. In December, a YouGov poll found that less than half (44 per cent) of Britons trusted BBC journalists to tell the truth, a fall of seven percentage points since October. Most dangerously of all, it has a Prime Minister who wonders aloud why, with so many excellent subscription channels, the British people should go on paying a compulsory tax for a public-service broadcaster which doesn’t seem to much like the public or their views.

    Twenty years ago, when I was employed as a TV critic, there was very little criticism of the BBC. In fact, there was widespread affection for Auntie, and rightly so. Documentaries (of which there were plenty) were generally of a high standard, and drama series did not exist to ram a multicultural agenda down the audience’s throat. For instance, it was not mandatory for every police detective to have an ethnic-minority spouse regardless of how accurately that reflected the real world.

    The BBC of 2020 is obsessed with promoting what Lord Hall calls “our values”. The fact that those values so seldom coincide with the values of the majority of people who pay their wages seems to be a matter of supreme unconcern. The BBC is only able to show such disdain for its customers because they have paid their money before entering the shop.

    hat complacency may well prove fatal. Now that they have a choice, customers are choosing to go into another store. (I am surprised how many friends say they now listen to LBC instead of Radio 4, but then I switched recently to ITN’s News at Ten.) The number of people giving up their TV licences has soared, with more than 860,000 licences cancelled in 2017-18 compared to 798,000 a year earlier. Admittedly, that’s a small proportion of the 25.8 million licences currently held, but it’s still 2,300 cancellations a day. Coverage of Brexit alone must have seen hundreds of thousands of viewers switch off. BBC bias was embarrassingly evident with panels of six people featuring only one Leaver, studio audiences packed with choleric Corbynists and editors drip-feeding viewers a daily diet of Project Fear.

    One morning, a Telegraph colleague found herself waiting in a BBC newsroom before she went into the studio where Anna Soubry was screeching one of her mad, Lucia de Lammermoor anti-Brexit arias. When Soubry finished, staff broke into applause, my astonished colleague reported. I wonder, do you think they will get Huw Edwards to wear a black tie on Brexit Day? Nothing would surprise us anymore.

    Nowadays, if I start watching a BBC period drama I am always braced for the ahistorical nonsense with which producers chastise the past for being insufficiently politically correct. (The kids say Doctor Who has become unwatchable, that sprightly intergalactic voyager now weighed down by the lentil-bake concerns of a vegan cafe in Tufnell Park.) I adore the defiantly truthful and gutsily Northern Happy Valley, but otherwise prefer sophisticated US and French dramas which don’t insult the viewer as BBC productions do with their childish diversity-by-numbers. There is certainly diversity in Spiral, my favourite French detective series, but it occurs perfectly naturally and no one gives a damn if the villains turn out to be immigrants. C’est la vie, eh?

    Will a new Director-General be able to restore public trust in the BBC? There’s a chance if they choose someone from outside the metropolitan bubble who wants to reflect the nation back to itself, not lecture it. Oh, and commissioning one comedy show that doesn’t use the word “Tory” as an expletive might be nice.

    My fear is that institutional smuggery runs too deep at Broadcasting House to admit that change is urgently needed. Old Tories like Wogan and Brucie are gone, and in their place are the Guardianistas who have just been roundly rejected by the country. If you look at an electoral map of Britain, amid a vast sea of Tory blue, there are a few small islets of Labour red. Those islets are where BBC staff live and from which they draw their ideas.

    Once, not that long ago, it would have been impossible to imagine a Britain without the BBC. It’s still hard. We have so much shared history, Auntie and I, all the way back to Andy Pandy (I cried every time they shut him and Teddy in that wicker basket). But the Beeb can no longer count on public affection in the way it used to. Viewers are irritated, angry even. Many would welcome the Government decriminalising the licence fee, which would be the beginning of the end. To justify demanding a TV tax from every household, you have to truly speak for the nation, not an elite corner of London. The new DG would do well to ponder what was said about Charles Dickens, our most successful and beloved national entertainer. “Dickens didn’t just give the people what they wanted. He wanted what the people wanted.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/work/have-woke-middle-managers-new-broadcasting-house-done-bbc/

    1. Talking of Dickens I see that the new Charles Dickens film has an actor who is not ethic English playing David Copperfield. I must have missed this detail when I read the novel. So perhaps Mr Murdstone was a racist as well as a sadist.

      2. That’s why I’m against them serving years in gaol.
        The sentences should be shortened: via a trapdoor and a rope.

    4. Watching old Who with junior you start to realise that they told stories about tolerance, decency, respect for others and the differences of culture and how to approach them. These were not rammed down our throats. They were nuanced, intelligent writing.

      The pay dispute is absurd. Woman comes along and says ‘I want to be paid the same as him’. Man says.. but i’ve 20 years of experience, you’ve 5. Woman says ‘I is woman.’ Man says ‘but my programme is an hour long political slot at prime time yours is 30 minutes mid morning. Woman says ‘I is woman’.

      Woman gets massive payout. It’s wrong. Pay should be on the basis of merit and reward, not what sex you are.

    3. Falconer is almost as odious as his former flatmate, Blair.

      I would be very happy if JHB joined the Conservative Party and became prime minister – not because she is a woman but because she is articulate, intelligent and full of common senses and humour.

        1. Good morning Joe. I actually met Golda briefly when she visited the troops in the Sinai in the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur war
          I am happy to report I never voted for her or her stinking Labour party !

          1. Golda Meir was nearly as pretty as Nikita Khrushchev’s wife (or Leonid Brezhnev’s missus come to that). :•)

          2. Golda Meir was nearly as pretty as Nikita Khrushchev’s wife (or Leonid Brezhnev’s missus come to that). :•)

          6. Good morning Justin, yes seen here visiting the troops in the Sinai shortly after the ceasefire. I wasn’t at this particular place the photo was taken as I was across the canal in Egypt near Port Suez at the time. About 2 weeks later we were withdrawn back to the Sinai and this time she visited those of us in units that had been pulled back from Egypt and Dayan was not with her when she visited the division I was in.

          7. I hadn’t seen their photos in decades. But I know very well their faces and whom they are.

  52. Ventured into Colchester town centre this morning and noticed just how damaged and dangerous the pavements have become – last week I took the wife there in her wheelchair but we didn’t stray from one of the ‘centres’ – with so many raised and loose slabs the clicking as I walked was a warning to take care. I was also very dismayed by the amount of dog fouling on the pavements as I walked in from parking my car. My walk took me via some of the ‘better’ streets, Inglis Road, Oxford Road and Creffield Road and I had to be wary where I walked.
    The good points of my visit were the purchase of two small batches of seed potatoes and a rare visit to the sole remaining real grocer, Gunton’s, in Couch St. I popped in to see if they stocked any local cheeses and was pleased to find one of my favourites, Suffolk Blue along with its stablemate Blue Brie. I bought a piece of each along with Barkham Blue. The latter is so-so but too much like Stilton for a follow-up purchase.
    Colchester Council have much to answer for as parts of the town centre are looking a bit down at heel and the state of the pavements isn’t helping. Perhaps they’re too busy looking at the prospects of all the extra tax they’ll be grabbing if their West Tey (Colchester Braintree Borders Garden Community) and Tendring Colchester Borders Garden Community plans come to fruition.
    Dismayed Korky the Kat of Kingsford.

      1. Too early as I do not think it will have matured sufficiently for my taste. You may not have noticed my lack of comments either as the Mekon or KtK on the M & H saga as it played out over the last few weeks.

      2. Have you tried the Megan & Harry Brie

        I have, but it goes off so bliddy quick, and it takes ages to get rid of the smell.

      3. Have you tried the Megan & Harry Brie

        I have, but it goes off so bliddy quick, and it takes ages to get rid of the smell.

    2. KK

      This won’t make you feel better when I say that council budgets are being gobbled up by Social care , especially children .. I gather that here there and everywhere Councils are running on a deficit already .. They aren’t coping very well .. social care is the elephant in the room . Children’s services are causing huge headaches as well as adult care .

      Everywhere here in Dorset appears to be looking down at heel, holes in the road , trashed signposts , crooked pavements, etc etc

      I dread the thought of a council tax rise , but I reckon there will be one.. There are hardly any regular buses, fewer police , people are trying , but society seems to be cracking at the seams .. Don’t even mention the NHS ..

      My son needs physiotherapy on his leg .. he has just had a letter to tell him there is an 8 week waiting list but they will send him another letter nearer the time with an appointment . Private physio sessions are nearly £100 per hour!

      1. Belle, I didn’t mention the potholes in my rant-lite but it is concerning that roads around my neck of the woods relaid only a few years ago are breaking up. As for those that haven’t been relaid but only repaired, the less said the better.

        1. Just driven to and from Ickworth where we had lunch. Went via Haverhill and was shocked to see the main road covered with thick mud and gravel spread by Thwaites dumper trucks working on the latest ghastly Redrow housing developments.

          Returning to our village and to avoid the stretch I took a shortcut via Hundon. All of the verges are cracked and interspersed with deep waterlogged potholes. Just about every road gulley or manhole ironworks are lower than the road surface and filler repairs have disintegrated giving rise to loose gravel everywhere.

          I read yesterday about our Government’s promises to pay for new roads in Africa additional to our preposterously high foreign aid budget. Meanwhile our roads are degrading daily and now resemble those once to be found in rural France, before the EU extracted our billions to pay for extravagant new roads in France, Spain and Poland.

          Does anyone notice or even care?

      2. Go on Google and see what type of physio is required and then do it yourselves.

        With my neck condition i had two Doctor appointments, three with the consultant and six with the physio. An MRI scan and another consultation. Then a follow up appointment with the GP, which i had to wait eight weeks for because the bookings for appointments were closed between 1st Dec to Jan 15th.

        The outcome from all this was a prescription for Tramadol (which is highly addictive) with an open ended prescription to control the pain.

        Not once did any of these specialists mention Yoga which i found on You Tube for my condition. It was a life saver.

        Good afternoon, Belle.

        1. Good afternoon Phizzee..

          Yoga seems a good idea .. glad you benefited .. I wish I didn’t have to travel far and wide to access things like that !

          I had a similar problem to you 18months ago… everything seemed to happen at once , health wise. Tramadol is very addictive.

          I will consult You tube .. son has a shin problem brought on by exercise up and down hills!

      3. Cripes. I pay £40 for a session. Not for an hour, but, quite frankly, an hour is too long anyway.

    3. But extra local tax is pointless in the English local finance system (which has FULL equalisation for differences in resources and “needs”) – it will simply lead to equivalent losses in Revenue/Rate Support Grant. Even after 50 years of hammer and chiseling this into local councillors heads ….

    4. Colchester is an embarrassment.
      It is ‘run’ by people who appear to loathe the place.

  53. Last night caught the two stray cats (courtesy of Cats Protection traps, who have taken up residence in our garden and are off to the vets today. Should be back suitably neutered later today. Will try and get photos off my son’s phone for Jenny’s delectation. They are lovely cats – hope they eventually forgive us for today’s incarceration.

    2. Morning, cynarch. They may forgive you for the incarceration but not for having their ‘bits’ interfered with. Well done.
      Many years ago we took in two feral kittens, one was a delightful cat and the other was a ‘monster’; raiding a neighbour’s kitchen through their own cat flap, getting stuck up trees etc. The ‘monster’ recovered from cat flu but was hit by a car and in his weakened state after the flu didn’t survive.

        1. I was sneaking around as the Mekon after KtK was reduced to zero by the bot. Nice to be missed, though.

      2. Hurrah! Your incarnation has returned. Once upon a time we had a feral kitty, he grew into the neighbourhood thug, holding down next door’s cats with his front paw and hauling tufts of their fur from them with his teeth. He was a large cat, he would have to haul himself through the cat-flap and from time to time brought back pheasants, any number of headless chickens and squirrels which he would display on the kitchen floor with him purring, lying alongside with an ‘aren’t I the man, then!’ demeanour. This fearless predator was named ‘Sooty’ in his kittenhood.

      3. We are hoping they will still hang around to discourage the rodents, after the outrage they have suffered today. They are lovely cats, might just be tameable in time.

        1. Thanks, BoB, but I haven’t been away or ill – my reference to my meds was just a throw away line aimed at our government’s lack of effort at protecting us from incomers with disease – I have been masquerading as the Mekon.

      4. I watched these a couple of weeks back. The presenter is very funny: he would make a TV natural.

    4. Morning C,
      Do not believe this cat would have such a forgiving nature if you cut his nuts off, Ooweeeeeeeee.

  55. The first amendment by the HoL has been dismissed. The second amendment is being voted on now. The voting system in the HoC is archaic and long winded. It should be electronic.

    1. There would be lots of challenges, especially from the unwashed Labour M.P.s, on the grounds that the electronic system was faulty, or had been hacked by the Chinese, or whatever. Can’t be much room for error with the present system.

  56. I have come to the conclusion that is easier to pass a camel through the eye of a needle than it is to get a Lefty to recognise and admit that the Asian grooming gangs operating all over the country through extreme racism are any different from the your everyday paedophile and they should be treated any differently under the law or in the media and that to debate it doesn’t make one a racist

    1. First let the politicians , media, police and courts call them Muslim grooming gangs not Asian grooming gangs as there are no Filipino, Korean, Chinese, Burmese, Japanese , Nepalese or Tibetan Monk grooming gangs in the UK, Sweden, Germany, Belgium , Denmark, France or the rest of Europe !

        1. No its a blatantly dishonest attempt to divert attention from the truth that specifically Muslims are waging Jihad against us White folks by labeling all Asians as groomers. Mass rape & sexual slavery of infidels is part of Jihads programme to establish the global Caliphate . I blame Blair & Brown for bringing in millions of Muslims, giving them lifelong welfare & citizenship in exchange for them voting Labour in an attempt to keep Labour in power in perpetuity.

    2. Morning B3,
      It is that racist ( a well thought out velcro type tag) is to be applied when employing PC / Appeasement in the eyes of the governing parties.
      Why would any politico enjoying a very comfortable lifestyle or establishment
      employee in many cases want to put that lifestyle in jeopardy? it only take a
      few in number ( political hierarchy) to kick off the knot weed rot.
      Then it is down to the “party before the welfare of kids / Country” brigade.
      This is not a leftie only odious issue, it is the consequences of mass UNCONTROLLED immigration fed & fueled via the ballot booth.
      We have always suffered paedophilia
      but I think I am right in saying NOT
      mass paedophilia.
      As with mass murder, mass rape / abuse, mass acid scarring / mass knifing the decline of ALL societies infrastructure ALL down to the mass uncontrolled immigration campaign, of course the governing bodies don’t want to debate, much easier to tag those that do RACIST.

      1. Morning KtK,
        Why then do these type governing bodies always find favour at the ballot booth, is it because the peoples find favour with the
        parties policies ?

        1. Do you mean why do people vote for the political party that favours and supports Muslim Pakistani rape gangs?

          They don’t. Most people vote for reasons utterly unrelated to these minority issues. However as Labour voters continually voted for higher taxes, unemployment and poverty under Brown, so too did they vote for an influx of immigrants.

          They didn’t want them, the political party forced it on them. When Conservative voters found themselves facing a tax raising and immigrant supporting, soft on crime Conservative government they too didn’t vote for it.

          Politicians lie. It’s what they do.

          1. W,
            The wretch cameron pledged to reduce the influx numbers only to promptly raise them, the wretch cameron was the tory party leader.
            Why do peoples support parties that support & cover up the actions of parkistani rape / abuse gangs, the people support for these parties is continual, ie, time & again.
            The tory party has proved to be a continuation of the lab, party
            a coalition in point of fact and very little has made me want to change my mind, our present odious condition as a nation proves my point.
            By the by ” All politicians lie,” gettaway.

          2. W,
            “Most people vote for reasons utterly unrelated to these minor issues”
            In one town alone you would find 1400 / 1600 mentally scarred
            who would disagree with that statement.
            That surely is straight out of the PIE instruction manual.

    1. Surely it’s all a cunning plan to nail Margaret Beckett because she was the one who kept Bercow in the Speaker’s chair to frustrate Brexit. {:^))

        1. It will discriminate against asphalt engineers and specialist providers of leisure services to young children.

        2. It’s to keep you virtual prisoners where you live, unless you travel by inadequate public transport.
          Can’t fly. Can’t drive. Stay where you are, and shut up.

    3. Now, if applied to Chelsea Tractors, I would be delighted. City dwellers do not need a 4×4.

      1. What if they regularly use it offroad in the country? If they run a vets practice, pull horseboxes, drive to building sites? Launch boats at the seaside?

  60. GM’s Cruise unveils its first driverless vehicle

    Cruise, the self-driving car start-up, majority owned by General Motors, has unveiled its first vehicle designed to be driverless.
    The electric-powered Cruise Origin has no steering wheel or pedals.

    Cruise said it was designed for shared ownership: “It’s not a product you buy, it’s an experience you share.”

    1. But will Bill Jackson surprise us all & unveil his plan to up vote his fellow Nottlers posts ?
      Bill this is your official notification from me that with immediate effect I am ceasing to be almost the only mug on here who up votes your posts!

      1. If BJ makes a good point – and he does sometimes – I give him an uptick.

        I don’t think he has ever given me or anyone else an uptick and I imagined that he was the phantom down ticker – not out of malice but because, as with his spelling, he sometimes imitates Eric Morecombe and presses the right keys but in the wrong order.

        1. Bill Jackson was never the phantom down voter, he is simply too egotistic to give his fellow Nottlers an upvote for their comments – it is IMO a shortcoming of his that he wants to dominate the board with a torrent of comments and get up voted for them whilst not up voting other Nottlers, which is as far as I am concerned discourteous.

          Regarding the phantom down voter that was always the demented parrot & probably Gedore ( in whatever current disguise he is using ) . I was criticized on here for speaking out against them since 2016 & urging their banning ever since the NTTL channel was created & even had a number of my posts removed in the past by the mods not wishing to do anything about the two resident Trolls.

          I have now been fully vindicated once the name of the serial down voters became visible and if Polly had been pre-banned on the Blog from the outset in August 2019 then maybe Bill Thomas would still be on here today!

  62. The third amendment has now been dismissed re choosing to take orders from the ECJ. The EU and the EU 27 will be sharpening their knives to welcome Boris.

      1. Ah but she broke the definition of toplessness

        Buchanan was charged under a state law which prohibits women from removing their tops “below the top of the areola” before a child “under circumstances the person should know will likely cause affront or alarm” or “arouse” either party.

  65. DT Story

    The European Union is preparing to offer the UK a trade deal on tougher terms than its deals with Canada, Japan and a host of other leading trade partners, the Telegraph has learned.

    If this is the case then surely Boris Johnson has no alternative to ‘no deal with the EU’ and WTO terms? We shall soon see If, after fornication and procreation, he has any testicular strength left!

    1. Take these stories with a pinch of salt and in any case you never open negotiations with your best offer

  67. Dominic Cummings thinktank called for ‘end of BBC in current form’. 22 January 2020.

    Dominic Cummings’s thinktank called for the “end of the BBC in its current form” and suggested rightwingers should work to undermine the credibility of the broadcaster, branding it the “mortal enemy” of the Conservative party.

    I am not opposed to the BBC in itself or for Public Broadcasting in principle but experience has taught me that sooner can Meghan Markle pass a Photo Opportunity than a Government Quango be reformed. So I don’t want the end of the BBC in its “current form” I just want it ending.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jan/21/dominic-cummings-thinktank-called-for-end-of-bbc-in-current-form

  69. Scientists now reckon they have discovered a crater that could well have started life on earth with an impact 2.2bn years ago by turning our ice clad planet into water.

    The conjecture arises that this could have been the start of global warming since water vapour is an efficient greenhouse gas.

    It follows therefore that in our current climate we may well have neglected the role of water vapour in ongoing global warming because it is such a transient atmospheric variable which is very difficult to quantify in a single meaningful measurement.

    It’s much easier to just use a carbon emission calculator to try and convince Greta that we are sorting her problem by reducing our carbon footprints.

    https://www.sciencealert.com/a-crater-in-australia-is-earth-s-oldest-known-meteoroid-impact

  70. – just been hearing about the plague in China, sore throat, bad coughs and chest infections, it seems like everyone around where I live has already had it.

  71. Ugandan beef ‘will have honoured place’ in UK, PM says
    22 January 2020 | by FarmingUK Team | Beef cattle, Government and Brexit, Meat,

    https://www.farminguk.com/news/ugandan-beef-will-have-honoured-place-in-uk-pm-says_54809.html?fbclid=IwAR3jMi4r0RMBbXSSq7jIerCdAj0Co2YCSdJHZQa3YYteovCMBMTgS8F4sjw

    Hang on, we have our own national beef herds .. what is he playing at .

    We don’t want African half starved cattle .. those places can hardly feed their own people .. Turn again Gungadin, stop this nonsense.

    1. Ummm…
      Ugandan negotiations/discussions involving the old bull’s wizzle, where have I heard that before?

      1. Private Eye, but some while ago. As a young resident from ‘59 until after Idi Amin, I take notice of Ugandan Affairs!

      1. I expect he didn’t mention the disgusting Ugandan practise of flinging people off the top of roof buildings ..

        Africa is a mess, it is not our problem .

        1. Odd that George the Poet doesn’t seem to mention the fact but he does tell us how bad colonialism was. He was not there for Independence day in 1963, and seems not to remember the murderous achievements of Idi Amin I was, and do.

          1. I read at the time Idi Amin kept the heads of his enemies on platters in a fridge. He also had a taste for a certain woman minister which gave rise to Private Eye’s Ugandan jibe.

            Back then Private Eye was amusing. Nowadays it is as woke as the Snowflakes.

          2. I tuned in by accident to a half hour segment on George the (so-called) Poet on Radio 4 where he was pondering whether or not he should accept an honour. I didn’t wait until the conclusion. What a tosser.

  72. Jeff Bezos: UN calls for investigation into alleged Saudi hack. 22 January 2020.

    UN experts are demanding an immediate investigation by the US and others into evidence indicating Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of the Washington Post, was hacked with spyware deployed in a WhatsApp message sent from the account of Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.

    Well I’m kind of lacking in sympathy for Bezos here and it’s not because he’s loaded. This Mohammed bin Salman is a fully fledged certifiable nut job. No one with an ounce of sense would go near him. He had Khashoggi murdered in a particularly repellent fashion, started the Yemen war and almost succeeded in setting off the Iran version. His home life must be like a scene from the Life of the Caesars where the lives are very short, very depraved and very brutal!

    https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jan/22/jeff-bezos-un-calls-for-investigation-into-alleged-saudi-hack

    1. UN investigation because worlds almost-richest man is hacked. Diddums. No investigation at all, by anyone, when young girls are raped by Pakistani gangs.

    2. This was the Crown Prince that Saudi Arabia presented to the world as an example of how civilised “educated muslims” can be in the modern age. This was the best that they could do, but even he could not keep that murderous streak under control.

        1. I would think that the base ideology of real islam, where it is perfectly fine to kill those that you see as enemies, would have had more than a little influence on what this “Prince” turned out to be. As well as the men who followed his orders.

          There are a rather large number of others who take that mindset seriously who have no problem at all with murdering people. You do not see that many Amish farmers running riot in other peoples countries and laying waste to their populations. 🙂

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e61dd0f007b619568d18d055c538c68516f581cacb41d470ab16902a0b82f5e0.jpg

          3. I was thinking of the very early settlers who apparently didn’t get on terribly well with the original inhabitants….

          4. Stephenroi – I have just looked at your question again and something went “click” in my mind and it occurred to me that you might be talking about the removal of American Indians by the “white man.” Taking an hour away the computer can help to refocus my mind. 🙂

            I knew little about Amish history, but I thought they were the pacifist ones who would not fight in wars. I have just looked up their history on Wikipedia and found some interesting details that I did not know:

            “The Amish and the Native Americans

            The Northkill Amish Settlement, established in 1740 in Berks County, Pennsylvania, was the first identifiable Amish community in the new world. During the French and Indian War, the so-called Hochstetler Massacre occurred: Local tribes attacked the Jacob Hochstetler homestead in the Northkill settlement on September 19, 1757. The sons of the family took their weapons but father Jacob did not allow them to shoot. Jacob Sr.’s wife, Anna (Lorentz) Hochstetler, a daughter (name unknown) and Jacob Jr. were killed by the Native Americans. Jacob Sr. and sons Joseph and Christian were taken captive. Jacob escaped after about eight months, but the boys were held for several years.

            As early as 1809 Amish were farming side by side with Native American farmers in Pennsylvania. According to Cones Kupwah Snowflower, a Shawnee genealogist, the Amish and Quakers were known to incorporate Native Americans into their families to protect them from ill-treatment, especially after the Removal Act of 1832.

            The Amish, as pacifists, did not engage in warfare with Native Americans, nor displace them directly, but were among the European immigrants whose arrival resulted in their displacement.

            In 2012, the Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society collaborated with the Native American community to construct a replica Iroquois Longhouse.”

            So the Amish were quite kind and peaceful even back then. Which is more than can be said for those groups that did drive the American Indians onto reservations.

        1. I’m sorry this couple are not diverse enough. My British neighbour is married to a Persian. Their Son is married to a Hong Kong (British) Chinese lady and their Daughter’s Partner is from Ghana…..both branches of their family have children….

          2. I am a Heinz 57 Varieties mongrel.

            I have a mix of Ancient Briton, Celt, Roman, Angle, Saxon, Jute, Viking, Norman and any other passing invadee who enjoyed “congress” with my great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grannies!

          6. I have a permanently bent joint just at the terminal phalanx of the little finger on my left hand. It manifested itself a few years back. It is not painful and I have full use and dexterity in my right hand (I do too in my left hand but that is more sinister!). :•)

          9. Oh, he’d already invaded a long time ago when he took my g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g g granny behind the pub’s car chariot park.

        3. Being a “post modern family” they seem to have pretty sensible ideas, and actually listen to both sides before commenting. The Chinese have a good card to play being both white and ethnic.

  74. A nugget from ‘The Spectator’:

    As 31 January looms, I’ve been thinking about how to bring the country back together again after we’ve left the EU. How can those who’ve spent the past three-and-a-half years fighting Brexit tooth and nail be persuaded to accept Britain’s new status? Bear in mind that many of them occupy highly influential positions — as Supreme Court judges, for instance. The last thing we want is for them to sabotage our post-Brexit future in an attempt to prove they were right all along.

    However, I had an encounter at a Christmas party with Lionel Barber, the outgoing editor of the Financial Times, that made me think a Truth and Reconciliation Commission may not be necessary. I was getting my coat as he was arriving and I suggested it would be a good idea for the leading figures on both sides to meet after 31 January to discuss how to put their differences behind them.

    ‘Why me?’ he asked.

    ‘Because you’ve been such a passionate opponent of Brexit,’ I said.

    ‘Nonsense,’ he replied. ‘I’ve always felt a bit ambivalent about it, but I’ve never denied there are huge opportunities for Britain outside the EU.’

    I was dumbfounded. A bit ambivalent?! That’s like the leader of the Spanish Inquisition claiming he only had a few qualms about the heliocentric theory. Not only did the FT campaign relentlessly against a Leave vote in 2016, but it refused to accept the result, publishing editorial after editorial attacking the idea that Britain’s economy could thrive outside the single market and the customs union. Its columnists, with the exception of Merryn Somerset-Webb, wrote the script that was then followed in the Senior Common Rooms of Oxbridge and the boardrooms of the City. On the eve of last month’s election, the FT ran a leader accusing Boris of playing ‘fast and loose with democratic norms’, describing the notion that the UK could conclude a trade deal with the EU by December 2020 as ‘fantastical’ and washing its hands of the Conservative party. Yet now, apparently, the editor was merely ‘ambivalent’ about Brexit.

    Barber isn’t alone. Since Boris’s victory, some of the most fanatical Remainers in my social circle — former Conservatives who campaigned for Sam Gyimah in Kensington, so great was their aversion to -Brexit — have come up to me and said: ‘Great result, eh?’ It’s as if those Tories dubbed ‘born-again Brexit-eers’ during the Conservative -leadership contest — Jeremy Hunt, Sajid Javid, Gavin Williamson — have set the pattern that the rest of their kind have followed. ‘Anti-Brexit? Me? Nah mate. You must be confusing me with someone else.’ How long will it be before Rory Stewart, Matthew Parris and Ken Clarke join their ranks?

    I’m reminded of an anecdote told by Raymond Walter Apple Jr, the late New York Times columnist known as Johnny Apple. In 1989, after the fall of the Berlin Wall had precipitated the collapse of communism in East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Romania, Apple was sent to Eastern Europe by his editor and told to interview some of the defenders of the previous regimes. The idea was to inject a bit of balance into the way these momentous events were being covered in the West. Enough with all this capitalist triumphalism! Let’s hear the case for Marxism.

    But try as he might, Johnny Apple couldn’t find a single person willing to stick up for communism. It wasn’t that they’d changed their minds, having witnessed the defeat of their side in the Cold War. At least, none would admit to that. Rather, like Barber, they denied ever having been defenders of the now discredited ideology in the first place. When Apple confronted them with evidence of their zealotry just a few weeks before, they stared at him blankly. If he plied them with alcohol, the most he could get out of them was that, yes, they had occasionally said supportive things about their political masters, but they’d had to say them to protect their careers and families. They never really believed it.

    It’s tempting to find the same volte-face among Remainiacs irritating. How dare you pretend to be on the winning side when you were among our most dogged opponents? But I think we have to overlook this inconsistency and accept them into the fold. Turns out, trying to apply Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s bereavement model is wrong. There aren’t five stages of grief following a big political defeat, just two. Anger, followed swiftly by the enthusiastic embrace of all your enemy’s beliefs.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/2020/01/the-delusion-of-the-born-again-brexiteers/

    2. I’d still like to see some high profile Remainers getting their noses rubbed in it, if we leave properly, that is.

      1. “…if we leave properly..”

        That is a very big if.

        In philosophical logic ‘if and only if’ can be expressed as iff with a double f as in fforbes-Hamilton.

    4. I wonder if the author has ever heard the story of the Trojan Horse and, if he has, whether he can draw any parallels with his article.

    5. “…Supreme Court judges, for instance. The last thing we want is for them to sabotage our post-Brexit future ..”

      Easy abolish the nonjudicial Supreme Court and return the Law Lords and only the hereditaries to the second chamber.

  75. EU Exit Bill Commons Vote on Lords Amendments

    Votes so far

    Amendment 1 Rejected
    Amendment 2 Rejected
    Amendment 3 Rejected
    Amendment 4 Rejected
    Amendment 5 Rejected

        1. Ah she need to buy one of my designer bin stores a snip at £1000 and they can be customized for an additional £500

    2. Your can snap up a Grade II* William & Mary mansion plus equestrian centre for 4million in our village right now.

  78. Coming to a Cinema near You soon

    A new Epic film Called ” When Megan met Harry” A love story about a commoner & a prince which has a surprising outcome

        3. The most unconvincing sound of orgasm (and sounds of passion) ever in the history of Hollywood, and in reality!

  80. Boris Johnson urged to let Greggs workers keep bonus

    Thats the whole idea though o Universal Credit if you income goes up you benefits go down

    Boris Johnson has dismissed calls to reform tax and benefit rules after claims some Greggs staff can only keep a quarter of their annual bonus.
    The bakery chain has awarded 25,000 staff members a £300 bonus after a “phenomenal” year.
    But Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said some workers on universal credit will only be able to keep £75 of it.
    The prime minister said Greggs was producing record figures, and only one person had complained about the bonus.
    Universal credit, which rolls six benefit payments into one, is meant to ensure no one is better off claiming benefits than working.

    How might a Greggs worker’s bonus be cut to £75?
    To work out how a Greggs £300 bonus could be cut to £75, consider somebody earning enough to pay income tax (more than £12,500 a year).
    On the £300 bonus they would pay £60 income tax and £36 of national insurance, so £204 would go in their bank account.
    If they were receiving universal credit, that would be reduced in line with the taper rate, which means they lose 63p in benefits for each £1 they earn. So they would lose £128.52 of their benefits.
    That means that the £300 bonus would only have left them £75.48 better off.
    We spoke to the Department for Work and Pensions about these figures. They told us there were Greggs employees who would be in that situation, but not all of them.
    Others may already be earning enough to have stopped receiving universal credit or they may be earning little enough to have leftover work allowances (that’s the amount you’re allowed to earn before you start losing benefits).

    1. Universal Credit is not there to be considered an ” entitlement ” that can never be reduced. And the tax and NIC is irrelevant. Everyone pays tax on their bonuses, The flip side is that those on U.C. do not have to pay a £143 a year tax to watch the BBC.

  81. Thrill seekers wanted: New rollercoaster taking Clacton Pier to ‘another level’

    It’s a pity the local council does not do much to encourage visitors

    A new rollercoaster coming to the Essex seaside is designed to bring more ‘thrill seekers’ to the attraction. One of Clacton Pier’s main rides, Stella’s Revenge, is being removed to make way for a bigger and more exciting attraction.

    Having occupied the pier since 2011, it is now being carefully dismantled so it can be sent to a ride operator in South America.
    It replaced the original Steel Stella rollercoaster, which had been a star attraction from the 1930s to the 1970s.

    “The additions for this summer are set to appeal more to the thrill seeker than the family audience,” he said.
    “Stella’s Revenge has been up for almost 10 years and we want to replace it with a ride that will help take us to another level.

    As long as all the ducks fall into line, an announcement about the new attraction will be made within weeks.
    “The new log flume is already taking shape and we hope to have the two new statement rides in place for the main season.”

    The main ride attractions operate at weekends and holiday periods from the February half term through to November and are open daily from Whitsun through to October.

    In a bid to bring more customers in over the half term, all rides in operation on the pier (except go-karts) will be priced at £1 all week.
    Customers will see a number of changes in the layout of the outdoor ride deck and work on the scheme has been taking place since November.
    Alex Porter, cabinet member for leisure and tourism, said: “Tourism is an integral part of the economy in Clacton and Tendring, providing more than 6,000 full time jobs in the district.
    “As a whole the industry is worth nearly £373m a year.

  82. Not wishing to depress anyone, but I have a couple of links for your perusal (via Breitbart comments):
    Breitbart:
    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/01/22/leaked-french-internal-intelligence-report-claims-150-neighborhoods-held-by-radical-islamists/
    Leaked French Internal Intelligence Report Claims 150 Neighborhoods ‘Held’ By Radical Islamists

    Which led to:
    http://www.snouts-in-the-trough.com/archives/15327
    Lancaster Plan

    https://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm?frm=189295&sec_id=189295
    The Lancaster Plan
    by John M. Joyce (June 2018)

    I won’t suggest you enjoy these. I don’t know whether they’re a spoof (too close to current events for that), or merely theoretical conjecture/fake news.
    I leave you to make up your own minds.
    Ten years ago we wouldn’t necessarily have believed any of it, now it has too much of the ring of truth.

    2. ” French Secretary of State for the Interior Laurent Nuñez said that the
      government had closed a total of 130 drinking establishments”
      But Muslims don’t drink !! ????????

    4. Fuck me drunk! I’ve just clicked on your BrainFart link (top) and have never seen so many commentators who have evidently escaped from the world’s largest lunatic asylum. What is the qualifying standard for commenting on that rag? Half a brain cell? (and the brain cell of a stick of celery at that!). I couldn’t find one written in anything resembling intelligible English.

      1. That’s less the site to look at, so much as the third one. It’s just the link trail I’d posted.

      2. BB has a big problem with “best” comment.

        The one that appears on the top of the heap gets all the replies from all the Khazies.

      4. I know.
        The standard of comments over on Breitbart has really gone downhill in recent years.
        Maybe it’s because they rarely delete or censor comments there, so it’s a total free-for-all.

          1. At least they will have the ability to shoot Sanders supporters. Win win and double Nectar points.

  83. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9ca4b2aa03670f1c3631fec18d36a9911d4a27fc4f866ed0d5a9d7c26583b431.jpg Just enjoyed a wonderfully sunny afternoon out on the south coast and nearby large lakes, using my Leica binoculars and Questar telescope, checking out the overwintering wildfowl. I started off with a good number (20+) of Smew (pictured) which are surely the most striking duck in Europe.

    I also had good numbers of Goosander, Goldeneye, Tufted Duck and Mallard, with smaller numbers of Teal and Pochard. Disappointingly there were no Wigeon or Gadwall to be seen and they are usually present, at this time of year, in good numbers. There were also many Mute Swans but no sign of any Whooper Swans. The only geese present were flocks of Greylags; no sign of any Bean Geese or White-fronted, which I can usually count on around here.

      2. Back to normal weather today after a few bright days – drizzly fog. But I’ve had a nice day out having lunch with old friends.

          1. Lunch was ok – but a bit too much so I couldn’t finish it, and I still feel full. Company good, as always – we’ve been friends over 60 years now.

    2. That is lovely Grizz….glad you had a lovely day. We all need them. I have had a good day too and looking forward to quite a few more in coming days. Eye still bothering me but that will get sorted.

    3. Smew, Smew, Barnacled grew, Greylegs, Mute Swans and Ruff.
      A twitcher’s banquet?

      (With apologies to Trumpton)

      1. I remember post and rail. I helped my Dad putting those in over 30 miles of the M27. Both sides A double head shovel to dig the holes. It’s why i’m so popular now what with my immaculate physique….coughs. :o(

        1. It is a small world Phizzee.

          My Family’s Timber Mill supplied the post and rail fencing for the M27.

          Where Is the pic.of you……with your immaculate physique?

          17. My Sunday name is Reverend. I am a Pastor of the Universal Life Church and if you wish to marry i can give you a discount of -50%

          21. Just found the original picture. This is my Dad and my Grandfather. Agriculture being the only employment for illiterate bumpkins at that time. My thanks to you and your family for providing the materials for well paid jobs. It put food on our table. The other photo is of my Grandfather and my Grandmother on the bumpkin side of the family.. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ef5dfd2a3757fcc737a4842bf01dacf58b5d1a325334424c77d31a812c9313d9.jpg

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/09a43c397f481333842a60d28cb022a82c0986cd28d6c821706aa13073dde173.jpg

          23. More innocent times. These were taken before i was born and i can assure you that the only side he was in touch with was my mother. A grammar school educated runaway that lead him astray.

            She had left home without permission. In those days a young woman had few options available to her. When my (future) Dad parked his bike outside the Convent she was grafting in…she fell for his charm. ( Hey, who wouldn’t) I have it myself.

            The rest as we say is…………..misery. Er…I mean history.

    5. I have noticed from time to time that I lose several posts if I refresh the page and scroll down too quickly. By refreshing the page again and scrolling down slowly, leaving enough time for the pictures to load, then those lost posts are visible again.

  87. May one ask, seeing as our border force is up for swelling the lab/lib/con party membership numbers via the incoming invasion force, can we trust the french to check for this inbound virus before launching the invasion fleet.
    By the by should we not isolate all those that have / are attending davos meeting so there is no “chink” in our
    armour.
    Really they should be isolated…………………… forever.

    1. 1. Yes one may ask.
      2. We can never trust the French. Never could, never should.
      3. Yes we probably should isolate Davos travellers – but that is unlikely to repair the many chinks in our armour. It’ll take more than that.
      4. Do you mean the French should be isolated, the Davos attendees, or the (continuing) incoming invasion force?

      In 4. I would suggest that the French are OK as long as they are not in politics, you don’t have to trust them, and you don’t have to listen to how they got France free in WWII.

      For the others, the Davos attendees wreak much damage behind the scenes, so they should be isolated from Davosand from the world. Incoming invaders should be isolated away from life in Europe (and every other civilsed country anywhere), and sent back to their existence in their own places.

      1. Afternoon HL,
        Trusting the french was said TIC, chink = Chinamen, in my book also following the path of the easily led fools down the submit,
        PCism / Appeasement way is not my bag at all.
        The davos attendees should be exiled to a far of land….. for ever.
        The incoming plague of illegals could contain chinks, chinks
        = chinamen the new virus originated in China hence, a chink in our armour.

  88. Police in France and the Netherlands have arrested 23 people suspected of helping to smuggle about 10,000 Kurdish migrants into the UK.

    The group is accused of picking up migrants from car parks in France and taking them to the UK in refrigerated lorries and small rubber boats, law enforcement agency Eurojust said.

    Migrants were allegedly charged up €7,000 per person for the journey.

    Eurojust said 19 suspects were arrested in France and four in the Netherlands.

    The law enforcement agency set up an international investigation team after French authorities spotted suspects using vehicles with Dutch licence plates.

    Migrants were picked up from various car parks in France before being taken to the UK, Eurojust said.

    Detectives linked migrants’ payments to an illegal hawala banking system in the Netherlands. Hawala is an informal system of money transfer based on trust where no money actually crosses international borders.

    Eurojust executed European Arrest Warrants and the 23 suspects were arrested, while five premises were searched.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-51214424

    The law enforcement agency said the criminal network is alleged to have total profits of about €70m (£59.1m).

    1. Where on earth do 10,000 impoverished immigrants get 7000 Euros eacn from to pay the smugglers.
      It is pretty obvious that somebody, somewhere is financing this.

      Is this a case of not seeing the wood for the trees ?

      1. I think in a lot of cases they have to work as slaves to pay their masters. Others, like the Vietnamese ones found dead, heve families who stump up the fees.

      2. We need answers to that .. Where do these people get their money from to pay smugglers ..

        Is this a new way of money laundering?

        10,000 Kurds .. Where do they integrate into .. I though that Iraqi types in the UK and others hated them?

        2. Get one child in.
          Two parents reunited with child.
          Four more children (siblings) brought in.
          Four Grandparents.
          Four more families from the grandparents.
          Each family with five children.
          Each spouse with brothers and sisters and parents and grandparents.
          etc etc et-bloody-cetera.

          A life on benefits for all of them, free health care, free housing, free education.

          At only 7,000 Euros? It’s the bargain of the century.

          1. Certainly is… and then suddenly shop bought bread becomes Halal, sheep are kidnapped and slaughtered mercilessly , communities will squabble and stab .. and their old quarrels will always arise .. and we here cannot offend or criticise them or defend our culture!

        3. Perhaps they end up in kebab shops. I always thought the donner kebab doesn’t quite taste like lamb.

  90. Apologies if this has already been posted. What amazes me is that the blokes in this country seem prepared to put up with it.

    ‘The grooming gang cover-up is Britain’s real racism scandal

    ALLISON PEARSON

    21 JANUARY 2020 • 7:00PM

    Home Secretary Priti Patel must ‘publish the report into the grooming gangs, and put a stop to this toxic epidemic once and for all’

    While Prince Harry was making a speech on Sunday night, Himself was in a London cab. The driver was incensed by reports suggesting the Duke and Duchess were abdicating because Meghan had been the victim of racist media coverage. “I didn’t even know she was black until I saw her mum at the wedding,” huffed the cabbie.

    He spoke for millions of Britons who welcomed the beautiful American actress into our Royal family with open arms and had no concerns about her suitability. Well, not until she started writing cringeworthy mottos on bananas destined for sex workers, anyway.

    On Question Time, when the actor Laurence Fox also dismissed the suggestion that Meghan had faced racism and said that, as countries go, we were really quite nice and non-racist, there was uproar in the ‘woke’ echo chamber of social media. The rest of the country simply nodded and said: “Too right, mate.”

    An audience member (naturally, she turned out to be an academic and regular BBC contributor) then accused Fox of “white privilege”. That charge is supposed to intimidate its target into silence. Refreshingly, Fox refused to be cowed. He pointed out that nervousness surrounding the issue of racism meant that “things like the Manchester grooming scandal get ignored”.

    How painfully true that was. In the very week that an excoriating 150-page report revealed that Greater Manchester Police (GMP) knew of grooming gangs sexually exploiting almost a hundred girls, some as young as 12, “in plain sight”, Question Time did not feature a single question on the topic.

    The BBC was keen to indulge the notion that a cossetted multi-millionairess had been a victim of racism, while completely ignoring girls like Victoria Agoglia, who died after having her 15-year-old veins filled with heroin so she could be raped by dozens of “Asian” (Pakistani-heritage) men.

    I ask you, which case is of greater national significance? A duchess who leaves the Royal family after 20 months because it’s “not working for me”, or the revelation that police officers turned a blind eye to scores of children being grotesquely violated because to arrest their tormentors might look like cultural insensitivity?

    Not much “white privilege” for poor Victoria Agoglia, whose grandmother begged in vain for police and social services to help her. Nor for the 11-year-old in Oxford whose buttock was branded with the initial of her British-Pakistani “owner”. On the contrary. The girls being white, and their abusers being non-white, made it much less likely they would be protected.

    At long last, we now have conclusive proof of that. After a five-year investigation, the Independent Office for Police Conduct has just upheld a complaint against a senior Rotherham officer who admitted that his force ignored the sexual abuse of girls by grooming gangs “for decades” because it was afraid of increasing “racial tensions”.

    The copper, who was unable to be identified, told a missing child’s distraught father that grooming was “P—-s—-ing”, and admitted that “what with it being Asians, we can’t afford for this to be coming out”, because the town “would erupt”.

    Keeping the lid on social unrest, not upsetting “the community”, that was the main thing. Young girls pimped, threatened, tortured? Why, they were just collateral damage in the greater project of multiculturalism.

    After Victoria Agoglia died of an overdose administered by an older man in 2003, official denial became a lot harder – although that didn’t stop the coroner at Victoria’s inquest doing his best. He “recognised the multiple concerns”, but pointed out that the girl had a “propensity to provide sexual favours”. Remember that insensitive man was talking about a child who was supposedly in the care of Manchester City Council when she was coerced, before puberty, into prostitution.

    GMP set up Operation Augusta to tackle “the sexual exploitation of a significant number of children in the care system by predominantly Asian men”. Police identified at least 57 child victims and up to 97 suspects. But Augusta was abruptly closed down after just over a year when police turned to less “sensitive” crimes. The report claims there was a lack of resources, but the amazing Maggie Oliver, the retired detective who blew the whistle, said that not only had GMP “deliberately” not investigated child rape, it had tried to get the official report suppressed.

    You may have noticed that I find it extremely hard to write about the despicable behaviour – both by the perpetrators and by the people who were supposed to protect their young prey – without completely losing it. So, just to recap: 27 towns and cities so far where grooming gangs, made up of predominantly Pakistani-heritage males, have plied their foul trade.

    Last year, the NSPCC identified 19,000 victims of gang abuse and admitted the true number is probably much higher. It is, without doubt, the biggest scandal this country has seen in my lifetime, yet still there is a terror on the part of officialdom of conducting the full public inquiry that is so clearly needed.

    Back in December 2018, Sajid Javid, then home secretary, said that it was “wrong to ignore” the ethnicity of abusers. Born in Rochdale to a British-Pakistani family, Javid was ideally placed to insist that he wanted officials researching the causes of gang-based exploitation to “leave no stone unturned”.

    As home secretary, Sajid Javid said it was “wrong to ignore” the ethnicity of abusers in grooming gangs

    Even Javid, after he spoke out, was asked by a Muslim writer if he worried that his comments “may have fuelled hate crimes”. Thus do perpetrators continue to evade justice because exposing the hateful things men from that background have done to young girls might cause, yes, “hate crimes”. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

    Consider the fate of that Home Office report into grooming gangs commissioned by Javid. Now complete, officials are refusing to make it public. Why?

    We are often told that this is a complex issue. I think it’s horribly simple, actually. As Shaista Gohir of the Muslim Women’s Network told Newsnight last week: “Pakistan is one of the worst countries in the world to be a woman.” If you import Pakistan’s misogynistic attitudes into parts of the UK and they run straight into vulnerable young white girls who look, to a certain type of man, like easy meat, then you have a recipe for sexual abuse.

    Furthermore, if your authorities are afraid to confront and condemn those misogynistic attitudes for fear of appearing racist, then that sexual abuse can flourish on an industrial scale.

    I agree with Maggie Oliver. After the scathing report into GMP was published, she demanded that criminal prosecutions be brought against those at the top of the police. Let the guilty men be named and shamed for leaving so many terrified girls at the mercy of their abusers. Meanwhile, hundreds of victims are suing seven councils and South Yorkshire Police for their part in the Rotherham scandal. Good for them.

    But a scandal of this magnitude calls for remedy at the highest level. Priti Patel has got off to a terrific start, fierce and focused, as Home Secretary. I hope she will call on her considerable reserves of political courage, publish the report into the grooming gangs and announce a public inquiry to put a stop to this toxic epidemic once and for all.

    Laurence Fox was right. We are a remarkably tolerant nation. If anything is going to fuel racism in the UK, it’s the attempt to brush these abhorrent offences under the carpet.’

    2. What?

      And have a public enquiry conclude that there is institutional racism in the male Pakistani community.

      No way, José

          1. Careful…he might send his big cats to hunt you down and sandpaper you to death with their tongues.

          1. Three hail Marys and givus yer phone number and you can return, I thought that I have had enough of listening to tw*ts, I’ll stay out.

      5. O,
        Not only the perpetrators but
        many more who knew and allowed, following the PC / Appeasement line & of course the parties name.

    4. ITP,
      As I put in an earlier post the ex jailbird mp mcshane stated a lot of this was known by the public at that time &
      Jay report put it firmly in the public arena.
      The three monkeys were very active in the ballot booth along with a mix of,
      hold the nasal canals, best of the worst, PC,Appeasement, submission to silence on this odious issue being best for the party.
      There are decent people trying to point this out only to be castigated,
      incarcerated.
      It has got so the lid cannot be kept on any longer, so it is slowly coming
      into the light.

      Submitting, PC/Appeasement can & does kill.

    1. Afternoon TB,
      We stopped long ago warburtons, kingsmill, only sticking to Hovis at the time.
      Now the lade of the house makes her own & very nice to as is the bread.

    3. Kingsmill was the rebranding of Mother’s Pride, disgusting Chorleywood-process cotton-wool masquerading as “bread”.

      1. I bought a loaf of Kingsmill once, just to see what it was like, and I couldn’t do anything with it. Trying to make a sandwich just shredded it and even toasting it produced something brittle that almost “shattered” when you touched it with a buttered knife. I’ve not touched the stuff since then.

        1. Just Google “Chorleywood Bread Process”, Merry Mac, and you’ll see why mass produced pap like that is not real bread. It is a slurry of chemicals whizzed around at high speed (to produce heat) to form an ersatz “dough” that is then inflated in a steam oven, sliced, wrapped, then sold as “bread”.

          Just like it took CAMRA to educate the world that the chemical-laden brown fizzy liquid being marketed by “breweries” was NOT beer; it is time that a Campaign for Real Bread was started to educate a gullible public who think this shite is bread.

    4. I think the job should be done properly, and all food should bear a certification mark that it is suiable for Christians, Sikhs and Buddhists..

  92. DM Story

    Prince Charles will meet Greta Thunberg after flying to Davos on a private jet emitting six tonnes of carbon to warn summit there is ‘ten years to save planet’ (but travels from the airport in an electric Jaguar instead of a helicopter)

    Prince Charles is a silly old bloke
    But he often enjoys a good joke
    But his jests have too far gone
    With twice oxidised carbon
    Just to prove to Ms Thunberg he’s woke.

    1. Donald Trump’s arrival at Davos included multiple helicopters , planes fleets of cars, FBI bodyguards and Uncle Tom Cobley and all. . His travels in Airforce 1 must cost a fortune.

    2. I do get mightily bemused by the constant reference in the media and by climate scaremongers to “carbon” , as I understand it carbon is an element and in its natural state black and dirty. Now are the Mail saying that Charle’s jet laid a trail of 6 tons of carbon across the countryside in its wake? I’m fairly sure that exhaust CO2 doesn’t quickly degrade into carbon and oxygen. Powerful thing semantics.

      1. They aren’t so quick to complain when somebody sticks a lump of carbon on a gold ring for them.

  93. A Short Poem or Else Not Say I

    True pleasure breathes not city air,
    Nor in Art’s temples dwells,
    In palaces and towers where
    The voice of Grandeur dwells.

    No! Seek it where high Nature holds
    Her court ‘mid stately groves,
    Where she her majesty unfolds,
    And in fresh beauty moves;

    Where thousand birds of sweetest song,
    The wildly rushing storm
    And hundred streams which glide along,
    Her mighty concert form!

    Go where the woods in beauty sleep
    Bathed in pale Luna’s light,
    Or where among their branches sweep
    The hollow sounds of night.

    Go where the warbling nightingale
    In gushes rich doth sing,
    Till all the lonely, quiet vale
    With melody doth ring.

    Go, sit upon a mountain steep,
    And view the prospect round;
    The hills and vales, the valley’s sweep,
    The far horizon bound.

    Then view the wide sky overhead,
    The still, deep vault of blue,
    The sun which golden light doth shed,
    The clouds of pearly hue.

    And as you gaze on this vast scene
    Your thoughts will journey far,
    Though hundred years should roll between
    On Time’s swift-passing car.

    To ages when the earth was young,
    When patriarchs, grey and old,
    The praises of their god oft sung,
    And oft his mercies told.

    You see them with their beards of snow,
    Their robes of ample form,
    Their lives whose peaceful, gentle flow,
    Felt seldom passion’s storm.

    Then a calm, solemn pleasure steals
    Into your inmost mind;
    A quiet aura your spirit feels,
    A softened stillness kind.

    Charlotte Brontë

  94. Experts estimate at least 4,000 people infected with coronavirus and cases could reach UK. 22 January 2020.

    As many as 4,000 people in the city at the epicentre of an outbreak of a mystery new coronavirus could be infected with the disease, experts have warned.

    So far, Chinese authorities say roughly 500 people have fallen ill and nine people have died from the disease, which was first identified in China at the end of last year and has now spread to five other countries, including the United States.

    Yes this is how the end begins. Next week it will mutate and the ones already affected will turn into zombie’s. I hope they don’t move any faster than the ones in the movies though I note that they still catch everyone. As I see it this will make the Black Death look like measles. I’m looking forward to NoTTLers On the Beach where we have a final Wheelchair race before succumbing to overdoses of Single Malt Scotch!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/01/22/passengers-virus-hit-region-china-separated-heathrow/

    1. Can’t we skip the wheelchair race and go straight to the Speyside?

      PS Loved the Neville Shute reference!

      1. Ah Mr Shute. I still read him Stephen. Pure nostalgia of course. It’s like returning to a much loved place from my youth. A vanished world!

      2. It annoyed me that everyone was so upbeat and positive about their coming doom. I would have liked a bit more wailing and gnashing of teeth. Not afternoon Tea Dances.

          5. Slight problem.

            Being good at what you’re good at is usually seen as a fast track to t’other place.
            Gambling, gluttony, wine, women and song.

            };-O

    2. One case confirmed in the US so far – a man who flew into Seattle from Wuhan. He ‘s in hospital:

      “Officials said they are monitoring him there out of an abundance of caution, not because he is seriously ill. “

      1. They are obviously lying! This isn’t Novichok. He’s probably already infected half the staff!

        1. Of all the aspects I found slightly disturbing it was the report that 15 healthcare workers had gone down with it.

          If the reports of it being only a few people and then suddenly going up to 300 cases of which 15 are trained individuals who ought to know the risks and what preventive measures to take, this isn’t a minor nothing to see here disease.

          It strongly suggests that it might be a lot more virulent than is being let on.

          1. Possibly they were volunteer nurses from Glasgow. The others will be on flights back via Beijing or Shanghai, pretending they are fine, with the assistance of lying colleagues.

          2. That nurse who had picked up Ebola(!) and came back into the UK was a bit of a red flashing light about allowing health workers to just travel back and forth to those infected areas. When she had a relapse some time later, they reported that a form of the virus was still there inside her eyes, and there was nothing that they knew of that could get rid of it.

            Helping hundreds of people is laudable, but not at the cost of exposing hundreds of millions more to it when you come back.

          3. She had any amount of praise heaped upon her. I’d have had her killed and burned in a closed incinerator. But, that’s just me. If an individual betrays society as she and her chum did, then they deserve no mercy. There could easily have been a huge outbreak and…

    3. I wonder if we have the virus over here already. Many of us are suffering respiratory and throat infections which are lasting longer than normal. I am in my fourth week and improving but others are taking longer. I haven’t read what the symptoms of the Chinese Corona virus infection are

    6. Our response has been pathetic. Apparently we are going to ask passengers arriving from Wanchoo (or wherever) if they are feeling OK.
      Possible answers;
      1. No, I don’t. I’ve been on nonstop flight from China squashed like a sardine while worrying what the air-conditioning system is spreading around.
      2. No, I don’t. I may have the bug, so better put me in quarantine for a fortnight so I miss my business appointments/ guided tour of the sights.
      3. I feel perf(cough, cough)ectly fine. (Cough, cough, retch.) No worries. (Cough, wheeze.)

      We should have stopped all arrivals from Whoozon (or wherever).
      It is apparent that none of our politicos know how to respond to a potential crisis. You go in big (ten times overkill) and you go in quickly, within minutes.

    7. roughly 500 people have fallen ill and nine people have died from the disease

      Not a very high mortality rate.
      They panicked over an SARS-like outbreak a few years ago, predicting a global pandemic, but which burned itself out very quickly. As the virus infected each successive person it got noticeably weaker.
      I shan’t worry just yet…

    8. Any chance of it reaching Davos (where every CEO and Bank and ex-Bank Governor seems to bbe embracing the climate hysteria) this week?

    1. I don’t own a Union Flag (“Jacks” are Naval), here in Sweden, but a week on Friday I shall have my St George’s Cross badge on my lapel as I entertain friends, and fly my Yorkshire and Derbyshire flags proudly (I’m a Yorks/Derbys mongrel).

      I’ll then open a discussion on Swexit.

        2. No. Not even close. There should be more white to the top at the ‘hoist’, otherwise how are we to know when the wearer is in distress (and wearing them upside-down?)

          1. Take it from me…If you see me in those pants it won’t make much difference which side up i am. :o)

      3. The Union Jack, or Union Flag, is the national flag of the United Kingdom. The flag also has official status in Canada, by parliamentary resolution, where it is known as the Royal Union Flag. Additionally, it is used as an official flag in some of the smaller British overseas territories. The Union Flag also appears in the canton (upper flagstaff-side quarter) of the flags of several nations and territories that are former British possessions or dominions, as well as the state flag of Hawaii.

        The claim that the term Union Jack properly refers only to naval usage has been disputed, following historical investigations by the Flag Institute in 2013.]

        The origins of the earlier flag of Great Britain date back to 1606. James VI of Scotland had inherited the English and Irish thrones in 1603 as James I, thereby uniting the crowns of England, Scotland, and Ireland in a personal union,
        although the three kingdoms remained separate states. On 12 April 1606,
        a new flag to represent this regal union between England and Scotland
        was specified in a royal decree, according to which the flag of England (a red cross on a white background, known as St George’s Cross), and the flag of Scotland (a white saltire on a blue background, known as the Saltire or St Andrew’s Cross),
        would be joined together, forming the flag of England and Scotland for
        maritime purposes. King James also began to refer to a “Kingdom of Great
        Britaine”, although the union remained a personal one.

        The present design of the Union Flag dates from a Royal proclamation following the union of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801.[8] The flag combines aspects of three older national flags: the red cross of St George for the Kingdom of England, the white saltire of St Andrew for Scotland (which two were united in the first Union Flag), and the red saltire of St Patrick to represent Ireland.
        Notably, the home country of Wales is not represented separately in the Union Flag, as the flag was designed after the invasion of Wales in 1282. Hence Wales as a home country has no representation on the flag. ( Wiki)

      4. My wife has a Union flag that her grandfather bought to mark Empire Day in 1920. Seems appropriate to give it early centenary airing on 31st Jan/1st Feb.

      6. When I was a child, it was always called the Union Jack. When the Queen’s Coronation took place, everyone bought Union Jacks, that I remember very clearly – my father like many others bought a pair of them that were rubber suckered to his car windscreen. I never even heard the term Union Flag until many, many years later, probably about when the popularity of the Scottish and Welsh flags began to rise.

        1. jackthelad – You are right. The purpose of communication is to get ideas across. The vast majority of humankind that even knows what that flag looks like will call it the Union Jack. If you try using the “correct” term of Union Flag then they won’t have a clue what you are talking about, and it can cause confusion at different levels.

          I only ever call it the Union Flag in certain company, and they don’t care anyway. It is what is behind the symbol that matters.

        2. As I recall, the Union Jack had a white border, and was flown from the jack staff {in the bow) of naval vessels when in port. The White Ensign is properly flown at sea.

          The term ‘Union Jack’ has been relaxed in recent years; the terms ‘Union Jack’ and ‘Union Flag’ are now accepted as interchangeable, more’s the pity …

        3. From memory I believe there was an Act of Parliament giving the prescribed dimensions and ratios for official Union Flags. These gave the relative thickness of the red, white and blue elements and showed the correct way to hang the flag.

          Having designed the flagpole on my building, Richmond House Whitehall, I was obliged to familiarise myself with the ruling conventions. In 1987 the size of flags was described by yardage so you had four, six, eight and ten yarders.

          Again, this is from memory as it would take me some time to retrieve the actual documentation from my archive.

  96. Good afternoon, Nottlers.

    So true. (I hope the last sentence proves to be so as well)…

    “These Liberal/Lefty pacifists will do anything to deny the reality of who they really are, they will not accept the fact that they’ve been sold a pack of lies. They will never want to accept the responsibility for turning an advanced, civilised society, one of the greatest countries in the world, into a Third World slum: they will deserve all the misery that they get when reality catches up.

    The current but thankfully receding age of Liberal/Lefty Socialism has provided so many people with a kind of easy virtue, a cloak of sophistication and an escape from their averagely mundane lives: when their bubble pops there will be trouble.

    On the 1st of February, the Lefty bubble may well finally pop, if not it won’t be far off. I’ve long thought that as the age of global Socialism unwinds there will be chaos in the world. You only have to look at the continuing riots in France, Hong Kong, South America and many other places to see that trouble is already here and will get much worse.

    The people of the world have been under an illusion for so long, reality is going to be very painful. However: you can’t make an omelette without cracking a few eggs.

    The coming turmoil is something that we must go through. Whatever happens, however difficult things get, in the last few very difficult years, we’ve made advances towards regaining our freedom that back then we would never have imagined.

    As Viv would say: keep battling on, we’re actually winning.”

    For full article:
    https://independencedaily.co.uk/easy-virtue/

    1. Some people really do have nothing going on in their lives, if they can pretend to be this offended all of the time. You can almost hear their little thoughts:

      “I think that could be vaguely unacceptable, on some level, possibly. So no one else must be exposed to it in any way.”

      What a shock they will have in a few years time, when something really unacceptable comes into their lives. There won’t be any safe spaces for them then. It will be time to “man up” not “person up.”

      1. When the blowback comes it will be very harsh and cathartic for the rest of the human race.

      2. They will have no way to deal with a real crisis in their life which most grownups have had at one time or another. They will become even more violent than they already are with even more outrageous temper tantrums. Arm yourselves.

      3. Do you think that they actually think? For most of them, it seems like a Pavlovian reaction to almost anything.

      1. I noticed the headlne and thought, “blimey, I’m nearly always offended, there must be work in that”.

        As to the programme: nope.

        1. Yes, but you, like many of us here, are offended by all the “wrong” things – like snowflakes and millennials whining about their lot in life, the seeming blind eye turned to illegal immigration and the crimes of that cult. Or hopelessly dishonest politicians.

    3. The job’s taken. I give offence to someone every time I open my mouth. Ask any wrong apostrophe.

  98. With regard to the earlier discussion on councils and social care. I took a look at both our local county and state accounts online. Turns out the county (pop. about 118,000) spends about $200k on something they call “social care” – probably a couple of salaries. The state, like the federal government has a sizable health and human services budget – which includes running the state med school, and supplementary funding for “poor” families with children, medical costs aid for same and also the unemployed, but no indication of a lot of care providers on the payroll.

    I suspect like Britain used to be, family is the primary provider when support is needed. That and the local churches who have a lot of outreach programs for their members (i.e. those who tithe)

      1. Of course. the Eu will demand and get continued free movement of EU citizens into the UK. Many of the EU countries will issue passports to refugees/immigrants together with a one-way ticket to the UK. When they have got rid of all of those whom they don’t want, they will renegotiate free movement and put a stop to it. The UK will then be stuck with the trash of the world.

        1. That’s why the UK needs to be out from under free movement and the EU courts. Then said “trash” can be deported back to its various countries of origin.

  100. As I flee into the night, hoping that Rik is recovering by now, I will leave some images that I liked from films:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2d0d30399c0960b3e0f7159c1b0fcd226bbae58db9e01ba8b7f991181d5bf867.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/281ee55b48d8f18f9de1c7c5fe6352f8c071917551333beb048845f597dc8b54.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0733dc9fb7f6492ffc809c05dff8a871d99a42bb546cab61320825f70fb0cb0d.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/84941f4121250b414779d7a0cc99424cb3117d56dea1056b12bf5f1cc17a4f7b.jpg

  101. I am amused:

    Q. My husband and I are committed Brexiteers. For many years we have regularly enjoyed friendly bridge evenings with a couple who are Remainers, but who are in every other respect unexceptionable. On consulting my diary this morning I noticed to my horror that it is our turn to host our next evening on 31 January. How should I handle this potentially difficult situation, Mary? When 11 o’clock strikes should I break out the champagne or forgo our once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to celebrate? Against the odds we have remained friends thus far.
    — J.A., Suffolk

    A. Social life has improved dramatically since the election, and fortunately 31 January will be one of the last opportunities for re-opening the old wound. No matter how great your enthusiasm for Brexit, there is no need for you to rub any Remainers’ noses in the (from their point of view) catastrophic result. Least said, soonest mended. Simply schedule an earlier-than-usual kick-off for the bridge party on the grounds that you have to get up early the following morning. In this way you can indulge in a private triumphalism after the Remainers have gone home.

    Q. I teach a course on Game Theory at an American university and I am struggling to write appropriate questions for the class. The nature of the material lends itself to asking questions about relationship pairs. In recent months I have received complaints for not including enough hypothetical lesbian couples in my examples, but my (mostly young and female) students seem uncomfortable when I discuss these lesbian dates in class. How can I proceed?
    — Name and address withheld

    A. The quickest solution is to use the growing list of unisex names to illustrate your questions: no one in your class will be able to easily guess the genders of Frankie, Alex, Jean and Lindsay, for example, and with any luck no student will dare to enquire for fear of being labelled ‘genderist’. In this way you can get on with delivering your teachings without their having to be derailed by lengthy discussions on wokeness.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/2020/01/dear-mary-how-can-i-stop-other-diners-eating-my-chips/

  102. DM STORY

    Prince Charles calls for green TAXES as he meets Greta Thunberg in Davos and pitches radical new world economy to tackle climate change – a day after Donald Trump rejected ‘prophets of doom’

    Is he competing with his American daughter-in-law to see which one of them can finish off the monarchy more quickly?

    2. Charlie boy insisted when he was at Balmoral that all fruit and veg that was served came from his estate 600 miles away. Even though Balmoral was self sufficient in most things. Perhaps they should have renamed it Malmoral.

      2. I don’t think I have ever heard such a bad public speaker as he is. He is humourless, slow, pedantic, dreary, long-winded and he never has anything interesting, original or witty to say.

    3. Even more reason to hope our Queen lasts for many more years. How did she produce such a hand-wringing, religion-of-peace-apologist, out of touch numpty for her heir? And those are his good points.

    4. I thought we already had green taxes? A tax on flying, taxes on fuels, subsidies on windmills and solar farms, etc.

    5. Apparently we’ve only got ten years to save the world.

      We must be doing something right. Wasn’t it about 11 years ago that Gordon Brown stood up at one of these Jamborees and told us we had only 50 days to save the world?

      1. Flash Gordon only had 14 hours to save the Earth and he did alright. He had the dreaded “hot hail” to deal with as well.

          1. In a minor piece of trivia, the actor who played Flash Gordon in the 1980 film was called Sam Jones, and he has been in many other things as well. This is what he looked like 19 years later in an episode of an excellent science fiction series called Stargate SG-1. It was called “Deadmans Switch” and he played a world-weary bounty hunter with a sense of humour and sporadic morality.

            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bacbe5ba98a7cf5be0d11a27427c9fd90a941677849875801933804f770fd87c.jpg

      2. Why don’t they put their money where they mouths are and stop flying to talking shops and stop using devices powered by fossil fuels?

        1. He must have done. We survived his 50 days and here we are, 11 years later being told we’ve only got another 10 years to do it all over again.

    6. Ah yes, the usual solution to any problem, real or imagined. Tax it. The problem is only the rich benefit, whilst us plebs suffer.

    7. Rastus,

      To tell it as it is, and apologies for my choice of words, Charlie is a tw@t, always has been and always will be.

      Charlie has no concept of the struggle his future subjects go through just to get through to the end of a week, thank God he is the age he is, his reign will be relatively short, thank the Lord. I can hear the decree now, Wednesday is talk to the trees day. What else will he come up with?

      When Betty goes, I fear for the Monarchy!

    1. Not heard her for years, but in the days when I used to hear her on my car radio on 5Live in the afternoons she used to get right on my tits when someone phoned it with a sensible opinion that bore consideration, but which she, with her right-on views disagreed. She had this habit, of when the caller put his view, of saying ‘Hmmmmm!’ before she started to dismiss him offhand.

      Can’t stand her.

    2. Good. But surely it would be better to axe the BBC in its entirety.

      Overpaid autocue readers paid millions and described as talent whereas a more talent-less bunch of wasters would be difficult to find down at the Job Centre on a good day.

      After the last few years since we voted as a nation to leave the EU the BBC has acted as a sort of sheet anchor to frustrate our collective endeavours to return sovereignty to our shores.

      The BBC are worse than despicable. They pay mountains of our hard earned cash to comparative morons and frankly amateur presenters. Gary Lineker, a gobby ex footballer, is a prime example. Free to spout his warped views on Brexit without censure whilst raking in untold millions of our money.

      The BBC produce nothing nowadays that we wish to view on TV. We use Apple TV and other platforms for our viewing. The BBC News is bent and biased as is the now preposterous Question Time chaired by a flat faced cretin who happens to know next to nothing about Antiques, and even less about politics.

    1. Yes, it’s a cabal of snooty coke snorting bourgeois Leftists and we don’t want to pay for it anymore

      I just love that … delicious comment .. Glorious.

      1. It is not even that we don’t want to pay for it anymore…we SHOULD not have to pay for it especially when we don’t watch it. You would not pay the baker for bread without receiving that bread. I am very annoyed we have to start paying for it again in this household. BBC should earn their income like everyone else not be given free handouts for no service.

  108. Tell me have we got the right type political people in parliament ?
    Muslims cannot be friends with anybody who disobeys
    disbelieves in islam, Mohamed & allah, 58 : 22.

    If that be the case why is the koran being used in parliament, they swear by it ? is it used as an appeaser as in a PC submissive manner.

  109. Why was a post on model railways by a new poster calling himself Choo Choo arbitrarily removed just a minute-or-so ago?

    2. Still on my screen. Now two copies. I had a B-L LMS Royal Scot as a kid along with my Hornby gauge O trains.

      Jack.

    3. Just refreshed my page. Still there.

      Best post I’ve seen here for a while. Once a trainspotter, always a trainspotter.

        1. Watched that once. All I remember of it is somebody being sucked into a shitty toilet bowl and lots of miserable people.

          Not as good as the real thing: Egg and tomato sandwiches and a bottle of diluted orange Quosh either by a level crossing or on the end of platform 9 at Newcastle.

          4. Sneaking up the back of the old station because the residents of the house at the end didn’t like us using their drive!

            Sadly, by the time i used to go to Longhurst, I was living at Wooler, so my visits were few & far between, coinciding with stays at my Dad’s or Nana’s.

            I remember either my Dad or Step Dad telling me that some of the woodland round there were used to bury surplus wartime equipment at the end of the War simply to get rid of it.
            Did you ever hear those stories?

          5. Yup, we got chased occasionally when she caught us sneaking through. Never heard that about the woodland, but on the other side of the line were four large fields between there and the Ashington road. At their intersection is a forestry plantation, known locally as The Cross Plantation because of its shape. There was a First World War airfield there and apparently the plantation was used as a landmark for returning aircraft. Over beside the road near Coneygarth there were some ruins that I believe had something to do with the aerodrome, a brick building and a steel tank on a plinth. The plantation is still there, visible on Google Earth. It was preserved during the working of Potland Burn opencast coal site that worked the area for a couple of million or so tonnes of coal recently.

          6. When I go past the opencast sites of my early years, particularly the “Radar” sites at Widdrington and the one at Bedlington that the Newcastle bus went past, I have trouble believing the huge excavations that were once there.

    1. Terry Jones wrote a very interesting book about The Knight portrayed in The Canterbury Tales.

      The generally accepted view is that apart from in his descriptions of the Parson, The Ploughman and the Knight Chaucer delights in showing all the subtle hypocrisies and character flaws of his Canterbury pilgrims. But, according to Terry Jones’s account, Chaucer’s list of the campaigns that the Knight engaged in were far from noble and Jones comes to the conclusion that, far from being ‘the parfit gentil knight’, Chaucer’s Knight is not an idealised character at all but a fairly murky and unpleasant individual whom he satirises.
      .

      2. The brainless BBC bitch writing that drivel said, variously that Court won “24 grand slam titles” and also “64 grand slam titles”. Make your mind up, you sad Doris, and, whilst you are at it, get an education.

        Margaret Court won just one Grand Slam. Only One. She won many MAJOR titles but only one solitary Grand Slam!

        Tennisists are twats!

          1. Yup. Tennis is boring or at least has become so. We need another Evonne Goolagong and a Maria Bueno to bring a bit of class to the clunking, grunting women’s game.

            The men’s game is just as irritating and features mostly irritable bullies.

            We see the same clique of top players playing each other all the time. There is little variation or in today’s parlance little diversity.

          2. Give it time.
            When every top 100, but never likely to rise higher, man trannies into a woman and wipes the floor with the women’s game it will be more interesting, if only for the squeals (and grunts) of protest.

          3. Well, that approach would put the grunting coaches out of work. (You didn’t think that the players grunt naturally, without schooling, coaching, training and a lot of practice?)

  115. SIR – You report (January 22) tremendous improvements in controlling cervical cancer in younger women following HPV vaccination – although rates of disease are rising among those in their 20s
    While I applaud this change in the younger age group, readers should know that older boys and young men are still being denied the vaccine on cost grounds.
    For those who treat throat cancer and genital tumours in males, it is no consolation that they have been classified as second-class by the NHS.
    Tony Narula FRCS

    Not entirely correct.
    The HPV vaccine is available in sexual health clinics for men under 45yrs

    1. Have Cancer rates increased dramatically in the last 30 years? I lost a dear friend a few years ago but now i am hearing of it on a daily basis.

      1. I think so. If I look at my neighbours in the last 20 years, we have 1 lung cancer, 1 stroke, 1 pancreatic cancer, 1 healthy household, 1 non-Hodgkins lymphoma, 1 bowel cancer and me with prostate cancer.

        It’s the medical equivalent of Midsomer Murder.

      1. Nor a white actor playing Jesse Owens.

        (For my money the best sprinter of all time. With modern equipment he would have left Usain Bolt in his slip-stream.)

        1. Jesse would be out of the blocks faster and would be winning for half the race but by 70m Usain’s extreme stride length would have taken its toll and Jesse would fall behind. With modern gear and tracks Jesse might run a 9.9, he’ll never get close to 9.6. I suspect Bolt will be the 100m record holder for quite some time.

          1. Owens was running on cinder tracks, holes in the track instead of blocks hand timing at 10.3.
            With modern equipment and diet he would have slaughtered UB over 100, UB would have won over 200.

          2. Owens run a sub 9.58? Never. That record will still be standing in fifteen years time. Owens would be fast but not Bolt fast. He doesn’t have the stride for it. He’d only win over 50m. I’m sure he’d take half a second off his best times with modern tracks and gear but Bolt is a genetic freak.

          3. At the elite level, new tracks and equipment make a huge difference.

            I was a relatively ordinary athlete and “tartan track”, as opposed to cinder, made half a second difference regularly.

            They said the same about many athlete’s records.
            There are lots of athletes there or therabout at the 100m.
            I’m old enough to remember lots of “it will never be beaten” records, all of them have been.

            Right track, right athlete, it will go. And I’ll be very surprised if it lasts 15 years.

          4. Sure there’s people like Gatlin and Blake and they look ordinary next to Bolt.

            He’s simply a genetic freak. He’s too tall to be a great sprinter, too much air resistance, yet he needs 3 or 4 fewer strides to complete the distance and has the power in his hamstrings to be able to overcome the extra air resistance his frame causes. Once he hits his stride at 40-60m that’s it, everyone else just can’t keep up. Owens would be the same. He may technically be ‘faster’ (as in faster legs) but he’d still need to make 3-4 extra strides over Bolt which will cause the loss.

          5. It’s unlikely I will be around in 15 years, but if I am I’ll be very surprised if his records still stand.
            Even Beamon’s, the freakiest of the “it was all right on the night” was broken.
            OK, it took 20+ years but people were close within 15.

            (I ignore women’s, they were really men, records.)

          6. Yup. I remember those Russian and East German and Polish women athletes. On the one hand you had great tubs of shot-putting lard weighing tons with giveaway moustaches and hairy armpits and thighs.

            At the other end of the spectrum we saw waif like trampolining vaulting under developed gymnast girls, some as retarded physically as the freakish Greta Thunberg (but a lot more athletic).

          8. Hello Thayaric. Not seen you in a while. Have circumstances improved for you given the shit you had to put up with?

          9. I’m just plodding along Phil earning £300 a week for 48 night hours. I’ve turned into a vampire. Waiting for the flat to sell. Looking for a house. Got my debt down some, but still without a car. Amy doing great at uni. Dad just had a heart valve replaced and a quad bypass. He’ll be back on his feet in a week and fully healed in 3 months. Can’t complain but damn could do with a week or two off work but I don’t get any holiday, i have no employment rights.

          10. KBO matey. You at least seem to be getting ahead and not drowning. I remember a time where things were really bad for me. Plodding along is a good way to deal with it in the long term. Keep your pecker up and take pleasure in the smaller things in life that matter. ..

          11. For me, life has been all about surviving and I am pleased to have done that, just keeping my head above water – it is the same for many, many of us. Oh, how I laughed at Meghan Markle’s “it’s not enough to survive, you have to thrive.” Whoever does she think she is. You have your daughter doing good stuff at university, your father recovering. The universe is on your side. We keep going on, because we must.

          12. Precisely. As a boy I spent a year or two in Muller’s Homes in Uphill outside Weston super Mare and later a year or more in Threeways Childrens’ Home in Combe Down Bath.

            On both occasions my father was in The Mendip Hospital in Wells suffering from mental illness (He served in Burma for two years). My mother could not cope with a family of five so we were variously dispersed.

            I managed to obtain a good education, achieved 10 O-Levels and 4 A-Levels in the days when an amount of brain power was required. I went on to achieve an Honours degree and Draughtsmanship Prize from Sheffield University and Postgraduate Diploma from University College London.

            I worked on several significant buildings for Sir William Whitfield and was project architect on two which have since been granted Listing Status at Grade II (Rampayne Street) and Grade II* (Richmond House Whitehall).

            I have also worked on many listed buildings and two cathedrals. My own practice continues and was formed in 2002, probably ten years later than it should but I have done an enormous amount of work practising with my wife who is an interior designer.

            I become a bit annoyed when listening and reading the tales of the ignorant un-oppressed workshys who blame everyone for their condition whereas they are themselves responsible for their plight.

          13. How true. I lost my father at the age of five. Admittedly, I didn’t have to walk behind the coffin in a very public procession, like certain princes – but they were at least twice my age when it happened to them. In fact I wasn’t allowed to attend the funeral. But from that point, I was encouraged to be ‘the man of the house’. OK – it was 1963, and things have moved on. But the natural order of things is that our parents die before we do. Sometimes sooner, sometimes later. It’s far worse when the roles are reversed, in my humble opinion.

          14. I could not agree more. You have done really well and more than survived. My mother was in a mental hospital in York for a year (possibly war-time related experiences from WW1 as a child and WW11) and thus I was farmed out as a seven year old child to relatives and friends of the family – I developed anorexia and depression as a result of the stress. Survival is the name of life’s game and especially with one’s integrity and values intact, even in prosperous UK. Anything more is bonus.

  117. EU Brexit Bill Passed

    The bill has already been back to the Lords and the Lords backed down so it is now just a rubber stamp job with just Royal assent needed

      1. Plus C12 (had to look that one up), A5 (had to look that one up too). An 8F in disguise. B12?.

        Excellent modelling. Love it.

  120. ‘Strewth. That’s it – I’ve had enough. All hell broke loose on this site last night, and now one of the offenders has the temerity to blame me. Some of us sleep at night; other Mods were run ragged trying to put a lid on things. I’m closing all open pages to comments. Have a taste of life without NoTTL. It might return in due course, but don’t hold your breath.

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