Wednesday 24 January: The sick now resort to drastic measures to get treatment through GPs

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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678 thoughts on “Wednesday 24 January: The sick now resort to drastic measures to get treatment through GPs”

      1. Good Morning Elsie
        Another good day on wordle

        Wordle 949 2/6

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  3. Good morrow, gentlefolk. Today’s (recycled) list
    PARAPROSDOKIANS

    Here is the definition of “paraprosdokian”.
    “Figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected; frequently used in a humorous situation.”
    “Where there’s a will, I want to be in it,” is a type of paraprosdokian. Here are a few to enjoy.

    1. Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.

    2. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it’s still on my list.

    3. Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

    4. If I agreed with you, we’d both be wrong.

    5. We never really grow up; we only learn how to act in public.

    6. War does not determine who is right – only who is left.

    7. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.

    8. Evening news is where they begin with ‘Good Evening,’ and then proceed to tell you why it isn’t.

    9. To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.

    10. A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station.

    11. I thought I wanted a career. Turns out I just wanted pay cheques.

    12. Whenever I fill out an application, in the part that says, ‘In case of emergency, notify:’ I put ‘DOCTOR.’

    13. I didn’t say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.

    14. Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy
    15. Behind every successful man is his woman. Behind the fall of a successful man is usually another woman.

    16. A clear conscience is the sign of a fuzzy memory.

    17. I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn’t work that way. So, I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness.

    18. You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.

    19. Money can’t buy happiness, but it sure makes misery easier to live with.

    20. There’s a fine line between cuddling and holding someone down so they can’t get away.

    21. I used to be indecisive. Now I’m not so sure.

    22. You’re never too old to learn something stupid.

    23. To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.

    24. Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.

    25. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.

    26. Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.

    27. A diplomat is someone who tells you to go to hell in such a way that you look forward to the trip.

    28. Hospitality is making your guests feel at home even when you wish they were.

    29. I always take life with a grain of salt. Plus, a slice of lemon, and a shot of tequila.

    30. When tempted to fight fire with fire, remember that the Fire Department usually uses water.

    31. Dolphins are so smart that within a few weeks of captivity, they can train people to stand on the very edge of the pool and throw them fish.

    32. A bank is a place that will lend you money, if you can prove that you don’t need it.

    33. Why does someone believe you when you say there are four billion stars, but check when you say the paint is wet?

    34. Why do Americans choose from just two people to run for president and 50 for Miss America?

    35. The voices in my head may not be real, but they have some good ideas!

    36. Always borrow money from a pessimist. He won’t expect it back.

    37. I discovered I scream the same way whether I’m about to be devoured by a great white shark or if a piece of seaweed touches my foot.

    38. A bus is a vehicle that runs twice as fast when you are after it as when you are in it.

    1. Sir Jasper, I am enjoying your recycled joke book just as much as the first time round.

  4. The sick now resort to drastic measures to get treatment through GPs

    GP’s appear to have evaporated since the pandemic, they weren’t that good before, it just feels like they have given up.
    Yet I keep getting text from the doctor to complete a survey for some reason.

    1. And, to rub salt into the wound, they’re paid according to the number of patients on their list. Which I know from past experience are most of date.

  5. Public face call-up if we go to war, military chief warns. 24 January 2024.

    The British public will be called up to fight if the UK goes to war because the military is too small, the head of the Army is to warn.

    General Sir Patrick Sanders will stress the need for the Government to “mobilise the nation” in the event of war with Russia in a speech on Wednesday.

    With the British Army being reduced to its smallest size for centuries, The Telegraph understands Gen Sir Patrick, who has been openly critical of troop cuts, wants British men and women to be prepared for a call-up if Nato goes to war with Putin.

    The British public! Lol. Good luck with that. The Muzzies definuitely will not accept the call and though some despised white indigenes might be dragooned into it I doubt their enthusiasm . The interesting thing is that this is added on to recent warnings of the same from Europe. It is probably just propaganda to boost support for Ukraine or maybe even the leading edge to justify a NATO intervention. I shall not be supporting it. I hate the ruling political elites of Europe and the UK far more than Vladimir Putin or Russia.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/23/public-call-up-army-too-small/

    1. His words are so far from reality, I do wonder what they are up to now. Similar warnings are being issued in other European countries apparently.

      1. Morning BB. These people are the same ones that have presided over the destruction of the UK’s armed forces without a word. They have also consipired at its Wokification!

    2. Indeed, a threat of a call up would have Gen Z reaching for the smelling salts. Merely the threat of such a move would generate more support for the Ukes in the hope that they will continue to feed the meat grinder with their own men rather than rope us in.

    3. It may be propaganda to encourage gathering an EUSSR army. After all, if the independent European countries don’t have the manpower to form a sizeable force, who better than an unelected group of Brussels/Strasbourg gravy train warmongering generals to run a war from the safety of their Berlaymont bunker?

  6. Good morning, chums. I hope you all slept well. Enjoy today: yesterday is past, and tomorrow never comes.

  7. Wordle 949 3/6

    I’m pleased that I got it in three today, but could kick myself for not leaving one letter where is was, only to find that it was now in the wrong place.

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    1. Good morning
      Wordle 949 4/6

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  8. Good morning all.
    A blustery night, but with little rain. Still blustery at 4½°C and the sky seems clear.
    A run with the van up to south west Manchester to pick up a few things I’ve bought is planned.
    If Grad. Son is ready in time he’s coming with me.

  9. Ministers blundered by turning a new Holocaust memorial into a controversy. 24 January 2024.

    Given what is going on at the moment, with the war in Gaza fomenting a rise in anti-Semitism to levels not seen for many decades in this country, it takes a heightened level of hubris for our political leaders to have managed to divide Jewish people over how to remember humanity’s greatest crime. How is it possible to have created the circumstances in which survivors of the camps themselves say: “Not in our name”?

    This story begins exactly 10 years ago in January 2014 when David Cameron, then prime minister, set up a commission to consider whether Britain could do more to preserve the memory of the Holocaust and ensure that the lessons it teaches are never forgotten. This was an important exercise, and it was not calculated to conclude that nothing new was needed.

    The blunder was typically Cameron’s. We do not need or want a Holocaust Memorial in the UK. We are not responsible for it. We were not involved. Our legacy for the Jews is the kindertransport and the destruction of Hitler’s Germany.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/23/ministers-turned-holocaust-memorial-into-controversy/

    1. A holocaust memorial in London was always a crass, insensitive idea that was likely to be misinterpreted by future generations to believe that Britain was responsible.
      We have our own history of that episode, and it included a large number of refugees in the East End. We don’t need a memorial to events in France, Germany and Poland.

      1. Given the way history is being turned on its head today, and that the young are accepting what they are told, I would say it is inevitable rather than “likely”.

  10. True Belle posted something late last night that I think is important. It’s a link to an X account which shows our esteemed Chancellor with one of the Chinese women who was kicking up a stink recently in St Pancras station. I will do my best to post it here but perhaps True Belle could do the honours properly.

    https://twitter.com/petersingh206/status/1749915461746098569?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1749915461746098569%7Ctwgr%5E47b489423369f39d68370425dc5a2d710b291099%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdisqus.com%2Fembed%2Fcomments%2F%3Fbase%3Ddefaultf%3Dnottlt_i%3D369820https3A2F2Fnttl.blog2F3Fp3D3698t_u%3Dhttps3A2F2Fnttl.blog2Ftuesday-23-january-hamass-murderous-aims-mean-a-two-state-solution-is-wishful-thinking2Ft_e%3DTuesday202320January3A20HamasE28099s20murderous20aims20mean20a20two-state20solution20is20wishful20thinkingt_d%3DTuesday202320January3A20HamasE28099s20murderous20aims20mean20a20two-state20solution20is20wishful20thinkingt_t%3DTuesday202320January3A20HamasE28099s20murderous20aims20mean20a20two-state20solution20is20wishful20thinkings_o%3Ddescversion%3Dcb3f36bfade5c758ef967a494d077f95

    Edit. Oh wow. It worked.

    Incidentally Madeleine Grant had a good piece on the topic of the intolerant gaming the system (which included a reference to the St Pancras debacle as well as the Michaela school court drama currently underway) but unfortunately PressReader won’t let me access the text view so I am unable to repost it here (and no comments allowed either).

    4. I think it was Tousi TV that analysed the Chinese people who caused the fuss and that is where that still has come from. They were working in the UK but it was interesting to see the groups they were in were those that try to influence our society. I tried to find the link but its seems to have gone and another interview of the piano player has appeared.

  11. Good day all,

    Looks as if it’s going to be a nice breezy day at McPhee Towers. Wind in the West, 6℃ rising to 10℃.

    Ignoring the fact that we’re probably all well past military age, who here today would fight for King and Country?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bc1e6d87f98f5fb91e6281384504ad7fcad44f0f319a9e098135d21e159e7b99.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/23/public-call-up-army-too-small/

    With the British Army being reduced to its smallest size for centuries, The Telegraph understands Gen Sir Patrick, who has been openly critical of troop cuts, wants British men and women to be prepared for a call-up if Nato goes to war with Putin.

    It comes after a senior Nato military official warned that private citizens should prepare for an all-out war with Russia in the next 20 years, which would require wholesale change in their lives.

    Adml Rob Bauer said that nations needed to be prepared to “find more people if it comes to war”, and to consider “mobilisation, reservists or conscription”.

    Not I. No, Sir.

    I would not shed one drop of blood, mine or anyone else’s, for this evil, corrupt, LGBTQWERTY-Islam-and-Net Zero loving government of multi-national technocrats which we have the misfortune we live under. I would, however, sign up to fight against it. In a heartbeat. So, Sir Patrick, you know what you have to do.

    1. Defence fears if Trump wins.

      Will the authors of this ‘article’ please tell us how many US servicepeople died, worldwide, in action, whilst Mr Trump was President.

    2. Defence fears if Trump wins.

      Will the authors of this ‘article’ please tell us how many US servicepeople died, worldwide, in action, whilst Mr Trump was President.

    3. Let the army they’ve been importing in rubber boats go and fight the Russians for them. I’d like to restore the Old World Order. The Habsburgs, Romanovs and Hohenzollerns. I begin to have sympathy with Joseph McCarthy, except I’d go further and hang the bleeding commies.

  12. Good morning, all. Mild as muck but blowing a hooley.

    Good to be home. 1,100 mails in 4 days – though 300 were driven (to Devon from Glos) by my beloved elder son. That was a shyte journey – a real gale and driving rain. Fortunately, during the worst part – Exeter to Swindon – I slept!

    I can confirm that the amount of litter by the side of every road- even little lanes – is disgusting. And that ALL roads, no matter what grade – are potholed.

    Have I missed much? The post office thing seems to have disappeared…. Funny that.

  13. One thing I did see – Shitts announcing that WW3 will be started by the Russians quite soon; and five minutes later that he is determined to reduce the Armed Forces of the Crown even more.

    I couldn’t work that one out… (sarc)

    1. It makes me almost shiver each time I see that plonker about to make an announcement.
      I can remember him only a few year’s ago posing for a photograph in what was supposed to be ‘his local pub’ in Hatfield. One sipped pint of the dark stuff on the table where he sat on his own. And not another single person in sight.
      And now look at him……..

        1. He certainly did quite well as housing minister. If you get my drift. We’ve got new builds all over since then.
          And according to local planning thousands more on the way. So Wonderful to see…. (not)

  14. Right, that me & Grad.Son off for the day.
    Still blustery, but it’s not raining at the moment.

    TTFN All.

  15. Good morning all!

    Not much bothered about WWIII at the moment. Just need the leccy company to sort out the power failure in the substation. Apparently there are three banks of fuses and one is completely kaput. The lights are on, the kettle boiled and my phone is charging but the boiler room is dead. Luke warm shower this morning. The guys sent to check out the substation for this area, which is in our garden, say there isn’t anything they can do therefore an engineer has been called but they don’t know how long it will take. Typical.

    1. What is the purpose of sending people to check a substation but are unable to do anything other than confirm it is broken? Which is self evident.

      Good morning.

      1. I agree. And when I left for work the engineer still hadn’t arrived. But my leccy bill was paid yesterday and any repairs to the boiler room will be added to our service charge.

  16. 382347+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Public face call-up if we go to war, military chief warns
    General says Army is too small and Government needs to ‘mobilise the nation’ in the event of conflict with Russia

    The current political overseeing nutters would go for it, and on past showings these last three plus decades so would many of the double nutters who keep returning the political nutty parties to power.

    We have witnessed the mini culling, that is surely still fresh in the mind even of those now gearing up for the coming, much more of the same, General Election, call up of the indigenous will very well = MAXI culling.

    Common sense advice would surely be firstly have a civil war as a warm up
    Blighty is in dire need of a new broom at her masthead.

    1. Luckily we have all the “black and brown” people to do the fighting for us. After all, they are superior to the stoopid hWytes that used to do this job. Ditto the Pronoun and Alphabet people. We are truly blessed to have them.

      1. It can’t and won’t happen MIR, they’ll get Mrs Blair to sue for the revival of slavery and plead mental health issues.

          1. Oh yerrs……and probably added another 18 inches to the height of the brick wall around their bucks property.

    2. When you consider that there will be about 14% that will not have too much loyalty to this country, the 6 million EU passport holders, the disabled, the ancient and that anyone remaining will suffer mental elf isuoos, there are not going to be that many to chose from.

      1. 382347+ up ticks,

        Morning KP,
        We can surely count on the politico’s leading from the front…….can we not ?

    3. 382347+ up ticks,

      O2O,
      Tis an ill wind,
      It will be a rather colourful
      set too, as old “whitey” are finding it difficult to join the current armed forces.

    4. The Army is already outnumbered by the number of fighting age men that have been imported recently. The same is happening in the USA via their southern border. Let that sink in.

      1. 382347+ up ticks,

        Morning KtK,
        The not so secret army, assembled and given succour via the polling station majority voter.

      2. At least those who are swarming over the US southern border aren’t jihadis bent on killing those who aren’t.

          1. I don’t know the details but my impression is that those swarming over the US southern border are Hispanics and, therefore, probably Christian. Is that not the case?

          2. It used to be the case, but they are now getting people from all over the world.
            What is happening is people are fleeing into S America and heading North as well as coming in from war-torn areas, many of them Islamic.
            Refugee Arrivals by Region and Country of Origin

            The geographic origins of admitted refugees have changed considerably over time (see Figure 2). In the first eight months of FY 2023, 43 percent of admitted refugees were from Africa, 28 percent from the Middle East and South Asia, 13 percent from East Asia, 11 percent from Latin America and the Caribbean, and 4 percent from Europe and Central Asia. In comparison, the leading origins of resettled refugees in FY 2012 was the Middle East and South Asia (52 percent), followed by East Asia (25 percent), Africa (18 percent), Latin America and the Caribbean (4 percent), and Europe and Central Asia (2 percent).
            https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/refugees-and-asylees-united-states#:~:text=Refugee%20Arrivals%20by%20Region%20and%20Country%20of%20Origin,-The%20geographic%20origins&text=In%20the%20first%20eight%20months%20of%20FY%202023%2C%2043%20percent,from%20Europe%20and%20Central%20Asia.

          3. Thanks, for that. I wasn’t aware that the situation had changed so much and I agree that it is very worrying for the US and us.

        2. That’s not what I’m hearing/reading on American sites: the two main concerns are the unaccompanied young men of African or Chinese origin. The latter suspected by some to be CCP infiltrators.

  17. Morning all 🙂😊
    At least it’s stopped raining and the wind has calmed down. Children walking past to school with grandparents.
    I’m not sure what todays the headline means.
    If your not well these days the GP practice is the last place you’d be advised to go to.
    It can take two weeks to get an appointment.
    From recent personal experiences A&E departments are absolutely packed and even ambulances are qued out side the main entrances.
    If you ring 111 they will tell you to go to your nearest A&E.

  18. Good morning Nottlers, another very breezy night on the Costa Clyde with similar forecast here until late afternoon.

    I hope the roof at Tesco Irvine has withstood the weather (not always a given with modern building styles).

    As our media saturate their headlines with quibbles over the non-event of vax inquiries and Rwanda one-for-one swaps (whilst failing to mention the UN Migration Pact that the treasonous hag Saggy May signed us up to, or those responsible for ‘negotiating’ on our behalf [FOIA requests have been rebuffed] the impending UN:WHO Scamdemic Treaty, some news on a poll from across the pond.

    I think it’s fair to say that a similar mindset exists amongst those who consider themselves ‘the elite’ closer to home.

    No wonder they detest Brexit and have dragged anchor since 2016.

    https://www.diogenesmiddlefinger.com/2024/01/americas-elites-are-dangerous-fringe.html?m=1

    1. ‘Morning Feargal! We were in Home Bargains in Bannockburn yesterday, and there were at least 5 leaks in the very large store, which has only been open about 4 years! Good job they had lots of buckets!

  19. Morning all, rather windy during the night, not many zzzzzzz’s. All calm now and no damage but many trees down in the surrounding roads

  20. Good morning, all. Breezy with a high light overcast.

    My goodness, Richard Tice is on the receiving end of a social media shit-storm following his gallivanting to Central Ukraine. If neither he, nor his advisors could see and understand that such a move wasn’t going to be popular, more especially a few days after the financially incontinent Sunak has just thrown away another £2.5Billion of our money Zelensky’s way, then the people rightly will have concerns about his/their judgement. The fact that he was involved in delivering aid must not be used as mitigation against a poor political decision made by a politician.

    Tice’s stance during the ‘Plandemic’ closely followed the government’s narrative and now he compounds his folly. For my sins I thought that Reform would be different from the useless shower of a political class we have but I am feeling disappointed. IMHO, to claim to be different you have to be seen to be different, under Tice’s direction that isn’t happening anything like it needs to be.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3241f178f6cd8cbb4dc535d50a4c9b1a4cf454ed33ed7bd51972268e0abd4925.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6b6dbdc84b1ae3e99728b09b3b5f36e8f7133cfb54bc5280c04ae355290ccb4c.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/be870f7bde19bdd51192dae13ff7bbef286786dc23421302af51d057903d0fca.png
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/93843f777c489ca3df30fdcb4d42259c45199d47b57dcee383eb104016cb5ffa.png

    1. Though I am going to vote Reform I do have some reservations about Tice! I have a suspicion that he is not only weak but quite possibly a Globalist plant!

      1. I think so too. I feel that Reform was only ever about splitting the Conservative vote in order to allow Labour to walk easily into the hot seat. Now it has become too popular and presenting a danger in its own right, so self sabotage becomes necessary. The photograph of him standing next to the Ukraine sign speaks volumes.

    2. “Not being the worst
      Stands in some rank of praise.”
      [King Lear]

      I find the Reform Party very disappointing. The only thing in its favour is that it is not the Conservative Party, The Labour Party or the Lib Dems even though it is not as dissimilar from these three as it should be.

      I would like the Reform Party to be far clearer on the absurdity of Net Zero, the damage of the Covid jabs and the question of the societal change caused by the mass immigration of those who are culturally, economically and philosophically Britain’s enemies.

      1. Pass. I’m so disgusted with the political class it’s all moronic. There’s just no point voting.

        Reform – I watched Richard Tice and that MP and he was weak. Loud, gobby, kept repeating the phrases but there was no conviction. It was just noise. He could have taken the MP apart easily by calmy repeating the question but he just became a bombastic nit.

        The folk voting for Reform are going to be disaffected Conservatives. That means high earning, intelligent fellows (judging by Telegraph demographics) and he just doesn’t appeal to me.

        At the end of the day Reform – even if a miracle occurs – won’t be able to do anything. The state will stop it and Reform won’t be nimble enough to ouflank them. The tired political class will get in and continue the statist agenda.

    3. “Not being the worst
      Stands in some rank of praise.”
      [King Lear]

      I find the Reform Party very disappointing. The only thing in its favour is that it is not the Conservative Party, The Labour Party or the Lib Dems even though it is not as dissimilar from these three as it should be.

      I would like the Reform Party it to be far clearer on the absurdity of Net Zero, the damage of the Covid jabs and the question of the societal change caused by mass immigration of those who are culturally, economically and philosophically Britain’s enemies.

  21. Good morning all ,

    Fine morning here , the golfer was up and dressed by 7am and all I wanted to do was carry on snoozing .

    The government is not governing .. the circle of trust is shattered .

    One Thatcher policy/ idea that I hated still do, is when Milton Friedman introduced the theory in a 1970 essay for The New York Times titled “A Friedman Doctrine: The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase Its Profits”. In it, he argued that a company has no social responsibility to the public or society; its only responsibility is to its shareholders.

    Greed is good appears to be a policy none of us voted for , but look at the state of the country now.

    Nothing works .

  23. Right, off outside to tidy up the garden following the last few days of entirely normal travelling Atlantic depressions.

  25. Ukraine lets slip the cats of war. 24 January 2024.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e19d4161ec3c318054c9770a3e2d48d58e19996f0bf6d0ca17e94c459b76b455.png

    Shaybyk has moved to different positions with Liashuk, with the pair becoming a viral sensation for their joint patrol videos

    Wars are fought by soldiers using bullets, shells and missiles, but also with ideas and propaganda — which explains why cats have become the latest battlefront in Ukraine.

    Ukraine’s social media are full of felines, showing how they help soldiers as emotional support animals, attract donations to the military with their fluffy cuteness, and also fight invaders — in this case mice.

    Russia is fighting back by humanizing its invading soldiers — often used in “meat wave” attacks against Ukrainian positions and accused of atrocities against civilians — by showing them with their own cats..

    Watch out Nottler Kitties. They are coming for you!

    https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-russia-war-cat-army-social-media/

    1. Cry Havoc and let slip

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/454f51028140546f453f841e8dbd7245adf7fd79f5b8557008ad97e5d24d5efc.png

      The dog of War.

      The Asterix books were full of literary allusions and instead of using French quotations the translators used quotations, in English in the English version, from Shakespeare and Milton which English readers might recognise. Dogmatix was always eager to join the fray when the Armorican villagers attacked the Roman legions.

    1. I hope it is used to its best advantage to fight a general election. It makes me cringe every time I see it.

    2. 382347+ up ticks,

      O2O,

      If it comes to trench warfare make damn sure these types are in front of you.

    1. Oh. So no worries about the impact of flying on climate change then? Or did they walk and swim?

      Btw. Where are the children???

    3. Can anyone explain to me please what No Woman No Cry is supposed to mean? Is he saying that without a woman there isn’t any crying or is he asking a woman not to cry?

    4. Most certainly not the Armed Forces I joined in 1966. Mixed feelings when I saw that picture ranging from anger through bewilderment to a great sadness for what used to be a great organisation to see what it has become. Even sadder because all this bollocks comes from the top.

    5. As I’ve just commented on yesterday’s page.
      It’s the design for the new 9/-d note.

    6. As I’ve just commented on yesterday’s page.
      It’s the design for the new 9/-d note.

  29. Jordan Peterson podcast (prob. available on You Tube too) on the College of Psychologists of Ontario’s verdict following the vexatious complaints against him.
    https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-jordan-b-peterson-podcast/id1184022695?i=1000642701350

    Dispiriting is his assessment on Canadian politics at c. 33 and 43 minutes: that Pierre Poilievre will win the next election, be stitched up like a kipper by the establishment (and have inherited a mess so big it’s impossible to clean up) only for Mark Carney to get in and finalise the damage.

    Oh, Canada!

  30. Well I guess you up north have had quite a night with the storm but down here we had virtually nothing. Sandhurst Weather reported a gust of 48mph, maybe that did wake me up, but by and large nothing more than a stiff breeze and not a drop of rain. Same as Sunday/Monday, nothing more than a few twigs down. But of course the media and government want us to be aware as of course the climate is (not) changing.

    1. Lovely pictures Belle.
      Those were the days when we had one Queen and loads of ships.
      How things have changed, we now have loads of queens and one ship.
      RIP Britain.

  32. Good morning everybody.

    I enjoyed the Meteorological office’s exhortation 2 days ago that “The safest place, or where you can minimise the risks of injury in your
    home, would be anywhere away from glass, such as windows and also rooms
    where there is no chimney stack above.” So, that would mean no shower, tipples or shaving & hairbrushing. Never mind that modern domestic windows are usually double glazed, and require kite marked safety glass.

  33. ‘Morning All

    War you say……….No Worries

    “We don’t want to fight

    But by Jingo if we do,

    We’ve got the Gays, we’ve got the Trans

    And we’ve got the pronouns too.”

    Medley

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/753a995c167aae59563f7db125eca60ffbd5cea8c988713c1b597d04d71dec46.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0aeb324521b5767c11257acae85f678f87254296075e99b5672863ae663ce0c7.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/439dbec8c723814d98f8c7984c0cad7d2b4b7c1d020d757c2d79d57649ac1bfa.jpg

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fbaf4fa518bcfcea219ef0400f4bdf8d779b1fd9bbb459a37d5d68eb89182289.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/26060a7dd81bf8b47c144f499b0de2e0bd21ebf71a2c0eb580e6cdf32dd7ebdd.jpg

    finish with Neil Oliver

    https://twitter.com/JamesMelville/status/1748781259940098140?s=20

  34. And now a tale for the tinh at club.

    Yesterday some Nottler kindly posted some memes, one of which alleged that the Palace of West-minster had banned EVs from its car park. A check showed that to be incorrect (DW, your role is still safe), but to be certain I downloaded a p d f Parlia-mentary d ocument about MPs’ car parking, which was partially blacked out, ie censored for whatever reason. As I enlarged the type, it appeared that the font used is a secure typeface in which every single letter is unique and thus traceable. A sort of variation of a Q R code, in which each letter (abc) is overlaid with tiny greyscale squares (pale grey, medium & dark) making the document unique and ‘secure’. In that way, any civil ser vant or functionary foolish enough to ‘leak’ a document could be identified (via IP address, etc) by the authorities.

      1. Certain government documents available to the public via the interwebby are digitally watermarked down to each individual letter. Copyright, security, anti organised crime, who knows? If I were to post an image of a marked letter of the alphabet, the Fat Controller could identify my Internet Protocol address, and thus me personally.

  35. OT. Oil tanks. Regular readers will know that we had a new oil tank installed last April. All fine and dandy. EXCEPT. It has no “telltale” but an electronic widget that “beams” the contents of the tank to a smaller display widget in the house.

    Last week it was showing 3 bars. The tank is 2500 litres – so I assumed that the 3 bars = (roughly) 900 litres. So I ordered a delivery of 1600 plus assuming that the tank might take 50 or so more. In fact it took 1800 litres – which means that the 3 bars ACTUALLY indicated 700 litres.
    And so the widget is almost useless – except asavery general indiator.

    Have other NoTTLers got this sort of widget? And – apart from getting a ladder and a long stick – is there any better way of measuring the contents of the tank?

    Answers on a postal order please.

      1. That’s what I meant by a telltale.

        The manufacturer of the new tank deliberately omitted a telltale so one was forced to have one of the electronic widgets he sells…

    2. Should you opt to consult the current Mrs Thomas as regards the advisability of your using a ladder to investigate the level of oil in your tank, you run the risk of her shoving your accompanying long stick up an unfamiliar part of your anatomy. We puerile NoTTLers would find this to be massively amusing, but you wouldn’t.

    4. If you have any sort of musical instrument to hand (to.check what note you’re hearing, on the assumption that you don’t have perfect pitch), you could try tapping the tank with something metallic from time to time.

      The note you hear will change according to the.amount of oil in there. Once you’ve calibrated it, you should know to order more oil once it gets over a certain pitch.

      It’s how I used to check.my gas bottles in the caravan.

      2. We have a double skinned, semi transparent, plastic oil tank which holds 1500 litres. With the help of our wood-burning stoves we seldom us more than1200 litres pa.

        We used to have a dial which was operated by a floater – the further the floater fell the more empty the amount in the tank which was recorded on the dial. This worked well until I broke it. Now we wait until it is dark and shine a bright torch on the side of the semi-transparent tank which shows us how much oil is left.

    7. Next time it’s full, or very soon now if the tank was “brimmed” at that delivery, get a length of nylon string and tie a heavy nut or similar to the end.

      I would recommend you wear gloves.
      Keeping the string taut, gently lower the nut into the oil and let the weight of the nut pull the sting to the bottom. Stop as soon as the string no longer moves.
      Mark the point where the string enter the tank.
      Gently pull the string back up and mark the point where the string starts to be covered in oil.
      Then withdraw the rest of the string and measure the depth. Tie knots at even intervals from top to bottom, an easy way is to halve the length three times which will give you intervals of 1/8th of a tankful, although you could choose more appropriate intervals if 300 litres left is too much or too little.

      Then lower the nut back into the oil until it reaches the bottom and tie a suitable stick at the top so that you can withdraw your measurer easily. When you wish to measure what’s left, pull up the string to the dry point and subtract the number of dry knots from the total. It will give you a reasonably accurate estimate.

    8. If the tank holds 2,500 litres and your widget showed 3 bars out of a possible 10, 30% of 2,500 is 750, which suggests the widget isn’t too bad.

      If you’re not happy with that try my more complex solution.

      1. Clever clogs! There are EIGHT bars…..

        As for your complex solution – next time you are passing….

          3. It rests on a 2 ft plinth – so as to get sufficient “drop” to feed into the house – 70 yards away. The tank itself is 6 ft high.

          4. Understandable.
            You could almost certainly do what I suggest, but measuring against the side of the tank and just drop it in.

          5. I fear you have not grasped the point. To put anything into the tank would require a longish ladder, scrabbling about 8 ft above the grounds…. Neither the MR nor I are willing to undertake that sort of caper.

            As I said – next time you – as a very young person – are passing, I’ll lend you the ladder.

          6. Suggestion:
            Having discovered the real “bar to volume ratio” do it arithmetically.
            Even a lawyer should be able to do that.

            err…Or on the other hand….

    9. Is it possible to configure the widget in your house to display something other than bars, eg a more exact measure?

      1. No.

        For future reference, I am going to assume that each of the eight bars = 250 litres – and reorder accordingly

    10. I have a Watchman. I have no idea how accurate it is. My tank holds 1300 ltrs. I had to get the right gizmo for the size of tank or it wouldn’t be accurate.

  36. STOP PRESS

    Urgent fashion news. The Times had stopped using the word “influencer” and has replaced it with “street-styler”.

    I thought you should all know about this important change.

    2. In fashion terms, is a street styler someone who goes out looking like they’ve just crawled out of a dustbin? The thing that alwasy strikes me about old Pathe and Movietone newsreel is that people used to have self-respect in the way they presented themselves in public.

        1. Would you do the gardening dressed like that? It might frighten Gus and Pickles. Do they forgive you for being away?

          1. They sulk for five minutes then revert to their usual somnolent mode. Gus is asleep on our bed. Pickles by the stove.

            Food is a great sulk remover!

        2. I don’t currently subscribe to that rag but What in the Name of Unholy Hell is that Creature? She can’t be as nearly a famous writer as you are? Tell us it ain’t so, Bill.

        3. I don’t currently subscribe to that rag but What in the Name of Unholy Hell is that Creature? She can’t be as nearly a famous writer as you are? Tell us it ain’t so, Bill.

        5. I presume that she’s standing like that because if she moves her hands, her trousers will fall down?

    1. Another idiot.

      Prince William set to launch new ‘garden city’ for 2,500 people to tackle housing crisis
      Story by Russell Myers •
      14h

      Prince William is set to launch a 2,500-home “garden city” to tackle the social housing crisis.

      The project, through the Duchy of Cornwall, will create hundreds of affordable houses on his farmland. A total of 30% are for low-income households, three times more than rules for new projects.

      The 320-acre plan in Faversham, Kent, will create jobs and includes a primary school and shops. Officials are understood to be in the final stages of signing off the application lodged with Swale Borough council, before publishing a decision by January 31.

      But Tory MP Helen Whately said the area “could be permanently gridlocked” if thousands of extra homes were built. Royal sources described the project as a “game changer”, adding: “It could open up a range of possibilities to transform Britain’s house building crisis.”

      Prince William discusses the construction project
      Prince William discusses the construction project
      © POOL/AFP via Getty Images
      William took over the 130,000-acre Duchy estate from King Charles. It spans from Cornwall to Kent and has assets of more than £1billion. The Prince of Wales said he wanted the Duchy, which includes housing projects in Newquay and Dorch-ester, to commit to build social housing on the private estate. Initial plans were put forward in 2018 after the council asked landowners to help meet housing targets.

      The properties, ranging from one to five or six bedrooms, will be powered by renewable energy. The Duchy said a final decision on the plan will be known in due course.

      Related video: Prince William issued a stark warning about his future role as King (Dailymotion)

      Daily Mirror

      2. “Powered by renewable energy” Ho ho ho effin ho. I hope they are built with complete isolation from the grid.
        Do they not realise all houses are affordable – it depends on how much money you have

        1. Before the Dopey Wokies in charge of our country’s demise had planned to shut down the steel works in Port Talbot. It’s already been planned that India will build a huge new Blast Furnace.

      3. “The properties, ranging from one to five or six bedrooms”

        The average native British family has a mother and father and 2 kids. Three bedrooms would suit this family. 5 to 6 bedroom houses would be suited to which demographic I wonder.

      4. No housing should be built on farmland (the same goes for solar arrays). We need the land to produce food.

  38. Putin’s repression of anti-war critics increasing, says MoD. 24 January 2024.

    Vladimir Putin’s repression of Russians who criticise the war in Ukraine is intensifying, the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) has said.

    In its latest defence intelligence briefing, the MoD said the Russian state Duma was discussing a bill “to seize the financial assets, including property, of Russians who openly criticise the Russian military and the ‘special military operation’.”

    It added: “This legislation highly likely seeks to deter and silence anti-war opposition.

    “This recent bill in conjunction with the Foreign Agents measures, likely intends to restrict criticism of the war altogether.”

    This from the country that has produced the Online Harms Bill. Where you can be arrested for preaching the Christian Religion in the streets! That keeps an entire Department (OfCom) for the suppression of Free Speech.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/01/24/ukraine-russia-war-news-latest-missile-probing-attacks-kyiv/#1706094383603

    1. ‘Morning Minty
      I was musing on “conscription” as age seems to be no barrier to serving on the front line (Ukeland) these days I was pondering a volunteer NoTTL platoon
      it’s been a long time since I’ve held a rifle and I would be delighted to shoot the enemies of my country but I sure as hell wouldn’t be starting with Russia
      (please add to the target list)

      2. The point of the war is the washing of Western taxpayers’ cash through this system, to be returned neatly laundered into the hands of the parasites known as ‘the elite’. The point is not to win the war, but for it to be endless, for this very purpose. (Information courtesy Julian Assange. No wonder the ‘they’ want him kept behind bars.)

    1. Likewise
      Wordle 949 4/6

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

      1. And me.

        Wordle 949 4/6

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

  41. Well it proves she is right to not encourage islamic practices.

    Britain’s strictest headteacher has opened up on the horrific abuse her staff have recieved since a prayer ban was introduced at the school, telling GB News: “They’re coming to me very frightened.”

    Katharine Birbalsingh, Head of Michaela Community School in north west London, was speaking amid a court battle over her policy.
    A student, who cannot be named, and her mother launched a high court challenge that alleges that the no prayer policy introduced by the school in Wembley is discriminatory.

    The school has been subjected to repeated threats since the action was taken, and even received a “bomb hoax” in December.

  42. Well it proves she is right to not encourage islamic practices.

    Britain’s strictest headteacher has opened up on the horrific abuse her staff have recieved since a prayer ban was introduced at the school, telling GB News: “They’re coming to me very frightened.”

    Katharine Birbalsingh, Head of Michaela Community School in north west London, was speaking amid a court battle over her policy.
    A student, who cannot be named, and her mother launched a high court challenge that alleges that the no prayer policy introduced by the school in Wembley is discriminatory.

    The school has been subjected to repeated threats since the action was taken, and even received a “bomb hoax” in December.

  43. 65 Ukrainian prisoners on downed plane, claims Russia. 24 January 2024.

    It said the Il-76 transport aircraft was carrying 65 Ukrainian POWs and nine others when it crashed on Wednesday morning.

    Andrei Kartapolov, a Russian MP, retired general and former deputy defence minister, claimed the aircraft had been shot down by Ukrainian soldiers using three missiles fired from Western-supplied Patriot or Iris-T launchers.

    Whoops!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/01/24/ukraine-russia-war-news-latest-missile-probing-attacks-kyiv/

  45. You reposted
    Martin Daubney 🇬🇧
    @MartinDaubney
    CONSCRIPTION MADNESS! The government expects us to fight for it under conscription?

    Why would any of us fight for a country that seems to despise us?

    A country that can’t stop the boats – then calls us racist for objecting?

    A country that will not control our borders – while we watch our culture die before our eyes?

    A country that houses illegal immigrants above our own homeless?

    A country that forces us to scrap our cars, or boilers, under Net Zero madness?

    A country that tried to cancel our Brexit votes?

    A country that locked us down, then taxes us to death to pay for it? A country that threatened to remove our liberty unless we had their jabs?

    A country that legalises the butchering of children? A country that ignores grooming gang victims in case it’s seen as racist?

    A country that takes the knee to BLM & pro-Palestine protestors, then arrests those who object?

    A country that cannot deport terrorists?

    A country that rewards/houses the workshy while the taxpayer struggles to get by?

    Over my own dead body would I fight for that country!

    1. Twitt was overall pretty down on the conscription press release…

      Withnail’s Ghost
      @BuildBackBroken
      🤣🤣🤣jokes on him, I don’t have a country anymore. Just an airport lounge with a health service hanging off it.

  48. Good afternoon all. Having a busy day, hope that tomorrow is quieter. But just found this in my email and thought people would find it interesting.
    Revelation That U.K. Climate Target is Based on One Windy Year’s Data Threatens to Unravel Net Zero Credibility
    https://dailysceptic.org/2024/01/24/revelation-that-u-k-climate-target-is-based-on-one-windy-years-data-threatens-to-unravel-net-zero-credibility/

    Also this video
    Sunak faces election wipe out. Russia sanctions sink UK economy
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQ4BWvcAo1g

    1. If Mercouris is correct re voters’ attitude towards Starmer what are Tice and Reform doing faffing about at 12% in the polls? That is quite a few votes and no seats territory.

    2. If Mercouris is correct re voters’ attitude towards Starmer what are Tice and Reform doing faffing about at 12% in the polls? That is quite a few votes and no seats territory.

    3. “ Revelation That U.K. Climate Target is Based on One Windy Year’s Data Threatens to Unravel Net Zero Credibility”.

      Why does it just threaten? It is now surely completely discredited by their own admission. But I suppose the bandwagon will just keep on rolling along.

      1. As it did after the CRU at UEA’s revelation (via leaked emails) of cherry picking the data to support climate change back in 2008. It was big headlines in the media then. “Oh good” I thought, “”it’s all over now.” Government behaved as nothing had happened and everything trundled onwards in the same manner as it had before. Govt brazens out everything and people fall oh-so-meekly into line.

    4. I liked everything that was said. It was quite clear to Alf and me that backing Zelensky was a crazy thing to do, with Boris going to Kiev on the point of an agreement between Russia and Ukraine and putting his oar in. Why did he do it?

      2. I had to down vote that one.
        He picked on the slightest mistake in grammar and punctuation.
        He was a bit of a PIA.

        2. I don’t mind it happening as long as it’s done with a bit of humour, unfortunately not his strongpoint.

      3. His peddytheviking id was banned after he made some very nasty attacks on Conway. He returned some months later as Peter Anderson but stopped posting of his own accord. I think he just got fed up with us.

        1. He was particularly nasty to Garlands too. I know there are two sides to every story but i know who i believe.

          1. He gave me a detailed chapter and verse on that fall out. I know she intended to be kind but she outstayed her welcome there.

          2. She visited him every day in hospital for over a week. She even argued his case with Doctors. She took wine with her and drank it because he hadn’t provided anything at his house. The kitchen and the surfaces were disgusting which she cleaned up.
            A Nottler visited at a later date and was not entertained in any way.
            He just wanted everyone to piss off.
            I have met Garlands several times and she is known to Geoff and others on here.
            His descriptions are exaggerated.

          4. I got a postcard from Blenheim in the Summer.

            Garlands is not talking much and i don’t want to be pushy but the lady sent Dolly and Harry lots of treats for Christmas and me Calvin Klein leather gloves. I wrote back with thanks.
            I know she keeps busy with the Church.

          10. Here was me thinking it was only in the Telegraph Letters comments that there were fall outs.

    2. The question screaming to be asked is why didn’t he call the fire brigade? Illegal? Subletting?

    3. Just some speculation.
      Soon after that terrible event, it was mentioned that the resident had possibly sublet his flat and or his family were not in the flat at the time. It was also mentioned that he was storing fuel in the kitchen for his job as taxi cab driver/owner.
      And it was also mentioned in the first stages of investigation, that possibly one of the reasons why the fire spread so quickly was the rubbish chute had been blocked. And as a result the landings were also partly blocked with backed up rubbish bags.
      Whether it was true or not I am not sure, I only saw this mentioned once and not very long after the fire.
      Who knows, although I know that type of foam insulation burns but it’s not self combusting.

      1. I knew someone who lived is a similar block. The rubbish chutes were often blocked. And they stank. The lift always had urine soaked floor too.

        1. One of my aunts use to live in one in Edgware. Top floor, great view.
          The Queen mother called in to say hello on official opening day.
          But it all went quickly down hill.

          1. I moved into an apartment building at No1 Surrey Quays. It featured in a Ford advert because of its modern design. There was supposed to be a shopping complex on the ground floor that never happened.
            Because the rents for that area of London were lower than average (near Millwall) No one would or could pay the rents for for this place. After a year the place began to fill with single mothers on benefits. Noise and rubbish everywhere and the security doors were broken. Fire extinguishers nicked.
            I left.

          2. My aunt and hubby did the same after the ages of resident’s dropped rapidly and the newies
            started to become disorderly.
            Most of the flats in area have been demolished and new flats built.

          3. The Queen Mother visited a flat in a new tower block in Newcastle. The tenant had organised afternoon tea. QM, proffering a plate of comestibles: “Will you have a cake or a meringue?” Tenant: “No, you’re right, bonny lass – I’ll have a cake”…

      1. Maybe if Peddy gets his shirt back he will put his crocs on and come out to play

        Sorry about the duplication, I just read that others had already leapt to the same conclusion further down

    2. If it doesn’t give the WHO those powers, what’s the point of it?
      If it does give them the powers, countries are right to avoid it.
      Either way, it should be stopped

  53. Back in after tidying garden and cleaning the inside of my limo. It’s a lovely day out there in the Hants/West Berks borderlands. Positively spring-like.

  54. Araminta referenced the article about the proposed Holocaust memorial in London:

    Ministers blundered by turning a new Holocaust memorial into a controversy
    How have we got to a point where even survivors of the death camps oppose the ill-considered plans?
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/23/ministers-turned-holocaust-memorial-into-controversy/

    Perfectly reasonable alternatives have been put forward but no one seems to be listening. Robert ‘Many Houses’ Jenrick, the former minister and enthusiastic champion for the proposed scheme, has said it would “send a clear signal of Britain’s zero-tolerance approach to anti-Semitism.”

    An easier way to show that would be to prosecute those parading their hatred through the streets of London every week, this Saturday especially.

    Despite his fondness for property acquisition, Jenrick briefly showed some promise a while back. Now he appears to be morphing into Shapps MkII.

    There is also this:

    Parliament’s Holocaust memorial poses very real terrorism risk, warns former adviser
    Visitors to Victoria Tower Gardens may be subjected to electronic and body searches, warns Lord Carlile
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/01/23/parliament-holocaust-memorial-poses-real-terrorism-risk/

    The good lord said: “There is a real and present and serious prospect that the site would be regarded as iconic and as tempting by both Islamist and right-wing extremists given its proximity to this Palace and to the lack of any secure or meaningful perimeter and its close proximity both to busy public highways and the river.”

    I suppose the bogeyman had to be introduced but there are plenty of more mundane reasons to object to it being placed in Victoria Gardens. It will simply become a commonplace tourist attraction. Yanks and Japs will beam inanely into their phonecams, ill-disciplined children will cycle and skate around it or play football on its lawns, litter will pile up every day, dogs will run amok and, worst of all, MPs and other self-publicists seeking to parade in front of the Palace of Westminster will forego the traditional views from Parliament Square or Abingdon Street Gardens and position themselves in front of the twisted metal eyesore to demonstrate their virtue. It will utterly demean the cause.

    And no one will notice the modest Buxton memorial fountain commemorating the emancipation of slaves in the British Empire and the role of parliamentarians in the campaign to abolish the trade…

    1. I’ve edited the above.

      There is also this.

      The Westminster Holocaust Memorial is the wrong memorial in the wrong place

      TANYA GOLD • 11 August 2019

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6679c5ce8f3214925a7d8619b73ceb4d6ba62d8ad3311997d496c483aeef20ee.jpg
      David Adjaye’s design for the proposed Holocaust Memorial in Westminster resembles a toast rack
      CREDIT: Adjaye Associates and Ron Arad Architects
      _________________________________________________________________________________________________

      The Holocaust Memorial planned for Victoria Tower Gardens may not receive planning permission from Westminster Council, and this is right, even if every living prime minister supports it.

      I suppose they have to say they want a Holocaust Memorial in the shadow of Parliament, even if there was no Holocaust of British Jews. To say the opposite would be too complicated.

      It might – considering Labour’s wretched anti-Semitism crisis – be taken the wrong way. Or it might be considered opportunism. Even so, it is the wrong memorial in the wrong place.

      It looks like a large toast-rack; the other designs were no better. They were too monumental in scale, too grandiose. They reminded me more of Nazism – did Nazis like toast? – than pre-war Jewish life, which is what they are supposed to commemorate, aren’t they?

      I can’t see anything Jewish in toast racks and ornamental shapes. They are generic and unimaginative; monuments to mass murder designed by rote, pulled from a file. In Berlin and Vienna they are largely ignored. I do not think they commemorate catastrophe. They inure you to it.

      I am a British Jew and I don’t want the Holocaust to become the universal symbol of human wickedness, against which all others are measured.

      It is offensive to the Jew to be made a paradigm – particularly here, where none died, except those from the Channel Islands – and offensive to the sufferings of others unmourned. I should like, for instance, to see a memorial to the victims of slavery.

      You could make the whole of London a Holocaust memorial – or have a Holocaust memorial in every town from Penzance to Aberdeen – and it would do nothing to stay the rise of anti-Semitism, and racism more generally.

      The Nazis themselves proved that you cannot educate people out of murderous racism; if you could, why was it the most cultured nation in Europe that butchered its Jews?

      Anti-Semitism is a warning that society is fracturing; that people are afraid. You cannot stop that by building ugly statuary in the West End and compelling schoolchildren to look at it.

      There is already a Holocaust memorial in London. It is in Hyde Park. It is a simple stone engraved with words from Lamentations: “For these I weep / Streams of tears flow from my eyes / Because of the destruction of my people.”

      What else needs to be said?

      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/westminster-holocaust-memorial-wrong-memorial-wrong-place/

      And this:

      Commemorating the Holocaust is too important for us to risk getting it wrong
      The proposed memorial near Parliament is poorly situated and will be used for empty gesture politics
      CHARLES MOORE • 5 February 2021
      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/05/commemorating-holocaust-important-us-risk-getting-wrong/

      The current fuss is over attempts to use parliamentary statute to override Westminster City Council’s refusal for planning permission. The Fakir backs this.

      Like HS2, the proposed memorial is a ‘legacy’ of Call-me-Dave, along with his other notable success, same-sex marriage.

      1. A memorial to victims of slavery would be hijacked by blacks, totally ignoring the fact that slavery was, and continues to be, across all races.

          3. Doesn’t look bad. My catering college in Cosham didn’t have any windows in the kitchens. Very depressing.

          4. The one in Newcastle had a gazillion cockroaches in the cloakrooms! I was always first there so put my hand round the door, put on the lights and listened to them scuttling away! Yuk!

          6. I remember a class where the lecturer produced a large Turbot to show how to fillet and portion the fish. Before he had even cut into it two students fainted. Both men. I think women have a better understanding.

          7. The language labs at Essex were below ground and didn’t have any windows. I used to think they were originally designed as bunkers.

          8. How people are expected to function under artificial lights is beyond me. It’s all very well in places like Aus where it’s sunny 95% of the time but here?

          10. Thanks Geoff! Wonderful memories and great photos! I’m seeing a friend from those heady Hollings days on Friday! Can’t wait to show her!

      3. I think that a gigantic pile of shoes and small suitcases , and hats formed in some metal casting would be more appropriate to remind the world what the Holocaust was all about .

        1. If you haven’t read it, I recommend
          “The happiest man on earth” by Eddie Jaku.
          How he survived is a miracle and it is a short very easy to read story, very moving.

          3. I have watched it a few times now. I find if a book or film or …let’s play charades ! No…if it is good it can be revisited.

          5. If we are talking about miraculous survivals, I recommend “The Stable Boy of Auschwitz” by Henry Oster.

        2. Don’t forget the spectacles, gold teeth and hair.

          We shouldn’t have one here. It would be vandalised anyway by muslims.

        4. Visted those in Auschwitz.
          Those poor, broken shoes, suitcases with names, tatty old clothes were left because all the good ones were recycled into the civilian population.
          A very difficult exhibition to view, so it was.

      4. Why did they get a non-indigenous artist to design that monstrosity? Haven’t we got a memorial to those who abolished slavery?

  56. Afternoon folks,

    Just back from replacing the smashed window on the boat – It went in very smoothly I’m pleased to say… (No ‘as the Bishop said to the actress’ jokes please!)

      1. Thousands. But barging or, as Stephen would say, argy-bargy) is a bit like anything to do with horses. A way of setting fire to £50 notes.

        2. I was reminded of the old expression yesterday at Bridge – “If if flys, floats or f…s – rent it!”

        3. “I know two things about the horse
          And one of them is rather coarse.”

          Naomi Royde-Smith

  59. Hello people ,

    I have had a busy few hours doing bits and bobs , including a trip to the shops , dog walk on the heath and my black car cleaned .

    The birds know that spring is close , heathland , heather and birch trees , holly and furzey, and I feel happy knowing birds can take care of themselves . Pip and I had a good stroll, not too soggy either .

    We have a car clean set up in the village , efficient happy men from far away countries do the job cheerfully ..

    Today a chap from Kosovar and another from Iran cleaned my car ..

    The Balkan gent was full fluent in English , he has lived in Dorset since he was ten years old .. His family escaped from the troubles he said he felt safe and happy, married and his children are doing well at school . That is good .. but he is now so worried that the Balkans are preparing for an insurrection , and that some one big is financing weapons . which are being distributed amongst the civilians and everything will kick off again .

    I sat in the car and shuddered when he told me that.

    The chap from Iran is one of a handful of recent arrivals , his English was poor , but he smiled and intimated that he was happy to be here , and smiled . He seemed okay.. I told the other chap to tell him that my dentist is Afghan and married to an Iranian , and that his life will improve ..

    Now then , are the Iranians the product of people smugglers .. these people are different to other types of migrants .. intelligent and willing to work hard, yes?

    1. Hi Belle,
      Most of the delivery drivers i see are foreigners. I have no problem with people coming here wishing to work. And yes, they are polite and smile a lot.

      1. Most of the low end service workers round these parts (fast food restaurants, courier service and so on) are new immigrants with a poor command of English.

        It could be that the government came up with a program to help encourage employers to hire new immigrants. Needless to say, employers took advantage of the scheme and replaced established workers with these immigrants so that they could save money.

        Whodathunkit, a government program not fully thought out.

        1. Parcel deliveries have really taken off here. We needed people motivated to do that job. Brits on the whole prefer their sofas.

          1. What you need is a universal basic income – that will drive them to do even less than nothing!

            They are talking about that here even though every economist that takes one look at teh proposal says that it cannot be afforded.

          2. Interesting isn’t it that so many countries around the globe all think the same policies at the same are a good idea. Anyone would think there was a higher order interfering.

          4. I am seriously considering going back on them. The painkillers are fine except i just stare at the ceiling for several hours. At least the illegal ones paint pictures on those ceilings.

          7. Economically and socially guaranteeing people an income is a recipe for idleness, affordability aside.

          8. The Neal Asher book i am reading at the moment call these people ‘zero asset’. The when overpopulation hits and resources are stretched they are all murdered in their billions. By an implanted chip.

          9. I applaud the foreigners working – it’s always the same type of foreigner – but when I see them I see a job that a Brit hasn’t taken because welfare is easier than working.

            That needs to change. The problem is, we now have tens of millions of foreigners here who won’t magically leave if welfare is cut.

    2. Individuals in the main are fine. But where certain types gather together and do not assimilate, as all migrants do, they build an alien culture and eventually begin to introduce their ideas into politics once they have the numbers. Its not just muslims, take the black culture that exists here. It doesn’t have much to be said for it but even those borm here are heavily influenced by it. I dont think it benefits our society or does them much good. The car washers seem happy at the moment but those who dont better themselves may well be tempted later on by those other asian activities run out of barbers and nail bars that make you rich quick without the effort. Some will make good lives for themselves but those who are surrounded by the riches of the West without being part of it will form an embittered underclass. I think the industrial scale of shop lifting (robbery really) demonstrstes what I am trying to say. Of course, not all effnicks are bad eggs, but as a group they tend to live in the lower end of the social scale and therefore be prone to being involved in crime and social issues.

  60. S.S. Varild.

    Complement:
    15 (15 dead – no survivors).
    Ballast

    At 19.08 hours on 24th January 1940, U-23 (Otto Kretschmer) fired a G7e torpedo at a small steamer and observed a hit amidships on the port side and the sinking of the vessel in 45 seconds about 40 miles east of Fair Isle. At 20.20 hours the day before, the U-boat had spotted the ship, but then two attacks failed because first the torpedo was stuck in the tube and a G7e torpedo fired at 22.13 hours became a circle runner. Its victim was very likely the unescorted and neutral Varild (Master David Humlebrekk) which was reported missing en route from Norway to the UK.

    Type IIB U-Boat U-23 was scuttled at 2210hrs on 10th September 1944 in the Black Sea north of Agra, Turkey.

    https://uboat.net/media/allies/merchants/nw/varild.jpg

  61. Downing plane was ‘act of terrorism,’ says Moscow. 24 January 2024

    Russia’s defence ministry has accused Ukraine of downing a military plane in an “act of terrorism”.

    It said the Il-76 transport aircraft was carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war and nine others when it crashed in the Belgorod border region on Wednesday morning.

    The 77 Brigade trolls on the threads for this article have lost their minds. Lol.

    What we have here is a re-run in reverse of the Malaysia airlines Flight 17 in 2014 and the Russians are getting their own back. There is a slight difference in that the attack then was unintentional and incompetently managed. This one was almost certainly planned by Ukie central command and the order given for the Manpads to be fired when the aircraft was most vulnerable.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/01/24/ukraine-russia-war-news-latest-missile-probing-attacks-kyiv/

  62. Downing plane was ‘act of terrorism,’ says Moscow. 24 January 2024

    Russia’s defence ministry has accused Ukraine of downing a military plane in an “act of terrorism”.

    It said the Il-76 transport aircraft was carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war and nine others when it crashed in the Belgorod border region on Wednesday morning.

    The 77 Brigade trolls on the threads for this article have lost their minds. Lol.

    What we have here is a re-run in reverse of the Malaysia airlines Flight 17 in 2014 and the Russians are getting their own back. There is a slight difference in that the attack then was unintentional and incompetently managed. This one was almost certainly planned by Ukie central command and the order given for the Manpads to be fired when the aircraft was most vulnerable.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/01/24/ukraine-russia-war-news-latest-missile-probing-attacks-kyiv/

          1. “Kingdom” was a bit too near home for Bill!

            (Swaffham where it was filmed, is only about 20 miles away from Fulmodeston)

  65. More reaction to the suggestion that we should sacrifice our sons to go and fight some bankers’ war:

    Parallel Systems Broadcast w/ Parallel Mike
    @parallel_mike
    Would you like to go die in a war, fighting for King Charles and the banking oligarchy who own him?
    Or a murderous government controlled by big pharma, Israel and the military industrial complex?
    What, no takers?! Where’s your national #pride🏳️‍🌈?!

    I haven’t seen one person who likes the idea yet!

  67. I hesitate to post this but then…

    “MAJOR MOTOR MERGER

    Renault and Ford have joined forces to create the perfect small car for women.
    Mixing the Renault ‘Clio’ and the Ford ‘Taurus’ they have designed the ‘Clitaurus’.
    It comes in pink, and the average male car thief won’t be able to find it, let alone turn it on – even if someone tells him where it is and how to do it.
    Rumour has it though, it can be a real bitch to start in the morning!
    Some have reported that on cold winter mornings, when you really need it, you can’t get it to turn over.
    New models are initially fun to own, but very costly to maintain, and horribly expensive to get rid of.
    Used models may initially appear to have kerb appeal and a low price, but eventually have an increased appetite for fuel, & the kerb weight typically increases with age.
    Manufacturers are baffled as to how the size of the boot increases, but say that the paint may just make it LOOK bigger.
    This model is not expected to reach collector status.

    Most owners find it is best to lease one, and replace it when it becomes troublesome!

  68. Jeeeeze what has our country become ?
    Watch this invaders triumph.

    The Chinese telling us what we can do in our own country…i’ve heard it all now. The useless copper should be removed, she seems too forget who she serves.

    Oh Booger i can open the link on my PC but it wont copy and paste

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDqJ0reIsnw

    3. Question. In addition to filming the milquetoast woman PC – did the White English chap make a formal complaint to the Muslipolitan Police Farce? If not, why not?

      Unless and until ALL such blatant breaches of civil liberties are challenged – the MPS will get worse and worse.

      3. Between them they have effed up everything that they are in contact with. And everything they are not in contact with.

      1. Not just a shitter but the hand wash too. I don’t believe these people even have showers in their houses. Still..the French do have them but don’t use them. :@)

  70. “Good evening, would you consider voting for LibLabCon?”
    “Get the fuck off my property.”

      1. Fortunately, in North Narfurk, no candidate ever knocks at the door. A Tory once came – late 1980s – and talked down to my then wife – “You needed worry about changing shop trading hours, my dear….pie in the sky”. What the wanqueur did not know was that said former wife was drafting the legislation that became the Sunday Trading Act….

        1. And now we have the Royal Mail only wanting to deliver three days a week.
          If you want a vibrant economy run by entrepreneurs who pay wages you stop over regulating!

  71. A pleasant trip!
    A bit blustery on the A515 over the tops to Buxton and then over the old A6, now the A5004, to Whaley Bridge and thence to the Auctioneer’s at Roundthorne.
    Picked up my purchases and returned via a refreshment stop at the garden centre at Poynton and a bit of shopping at Buxton Morrison’s.
    Was home by 14:00, had a bite to eat and promptly fell asleep for an hour!

    2. Par four for me.

      Wordle 949 4/6

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

    3. A boring 4 (compared to your and Bob3’s efforts).

      Wordle 949 4/6

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

      1. It does detract from the message a tad.

        He could have ended it be saying, on the other hand, if you’re looking for an army to clear out the corrupt political class and their useless civil servants you’ll probably find a few million young white men queuing up to join.

        1. I think there is a problem with ‘young white men (or women)‘ being interested in combatting the current invasion, let alone fighting in foreign fields.

    2. “…betrayed by a government of globalist shills who’ve turned this country into a cross between a transport hub and a public toilet for economic migrants…”

      To be fair to The Fakir, he didn’t start it. We’ve had 27 years of it…

        2. It’s more the case that he doesn’t understand that it’s wrong. He has no concept of a people or a nation as we knew it.

  74. Does anybody still think we shouldn’t have capital punishment?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6edea906cfdf5db97c06b33d52ee92928cbea13b9360f6735e073c6d945727fa.png

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/23/heroic-teenager-grace-battle-knifeman-save-friend/

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2024/01/23/barnaby-webber-grace-omalley-kumar-nottingham-justice/

    The psychopathic barbarian who did this has pleaded diminished responsibility and it has been accepted. There will be no justice for Grace and Barnaby’s grief-stricken families.

    He should swing. I know that if it were my son or daughter who had been murdered I would spend the rest of my day’s plotting how I could get to the killer and administer my own brand of summary justice. The State has failed.

    1. Hear hear.

      I would execute the bastard; but for the bleeding hearts, if one doesn’t kill him, tell him he is NEVER going to be released and leave him a noose hanging from the ceiling and a stool in his cell so if he gets depressed he can do the necessary.

      1. His lawyer will be celebrating his (or her) “success” though. I really don’t know how lawyers sleep at night.

        1. The trouble with our lazy but greedy legal system is, another precedent has now been set.

    3. He also murdered an older bloke, a caretaker, but no one seems to be bothered or motivated about him!

      2. To be fair, there have been a number of comments.
        However the “take” is always the youngsters. It forgets/ignores the youngsters who have lost a father, grandfather, uncle and friend in that older man.

      3. I can’t access the DT online (even by hitting the Esc button), is that murder mentioned in the article?

  75. PETER HITCHENS: It’s no wonder so many mentally ill killers are at large in Britain when the streets now stink of cannabis
    By PETER HITCHENS FOR THE DAILY MAIL

    Two astonishingly important questions remain unasked and unanswered almost every day in Britain. The horrible killings in Nottingham, in which people going about their normal lives were struck down in a moment by a mentally ill person, demand that they be asked and answered.

    The first is: ‘How much of the violent crime on our streets is committed by people who are dangerously mentally ill?’ The second is: ‘How did they become mentally ill in the first place?’

    PUBLISHED: 16:58, 24 January 2024 | UPDATED: 17:29, 24 January 2024

    1. The author of this policy, to the surprise of many, was one Enoch Powell, who as Minister of Health in 1961 called for ‘nothing less than the elimination of by far the greater part of this country’s mental hospitals as they exist today’.

      Much as I like Hitchens’ work he does get it spectacularly wrong at times, in my view. This is one of them.
      I accept I might be wrong too, but denigration of Powell seems to be an essential on any journalist’s CV.

      Powell was correct, the monstrous asylums needed review, but like most good ideas, the Left took them over and threw the baby out with the bathwater and created a dysfunctional dystopic alternative to what I think was intended by Powell. One sees it, time and time again, a sensible policy is taken up and perverted, Blair and Brown epitomised this.

      In the late 1960’s I worked in a Victorian mental facility, several large houses looking after men, women and children and they were cared for and some were given opportunities to be in the community, but able to return each day to a secure and safe haven. The majority never left the grounds and were offered various tasks that they could cope with.
      None of these individuals could cope independently; yet that is what successive governments expected them to do. and we are now reaping the whirlwind.

      1. What you describe reads like Mother’s care home. A place where those who can no longer manage are cared for and kept healthy and as safe and happy as they can be. She, and the others there, cannot cope due to dementia, and so need cared for. nOt like how the old asylums were described.

        1. The monstrous ones were awful, the community ones, like the one I describe, were brilliant.
          However, I have no idea what they cost the NHS(?) to run.

          1. Mother’s is private. It’s £5,000 a month. Whether there’s any subsidy, I don’t know.

          3. If/when the money runs out, the Council will contribute, apparently.
            Meanwhile, the proceeds of Mother’s house sale ebb away.

  76. That’s me gone for today. Mild but chilly (because of a strong westerly wind). Market tomorrow. Rain, of course….

    One bit of good news (here’s me tempting Providence…again): after a fortnight of debilitating insomnia, – I have slept normally for the last two nights.

    Have a jolly evening.

    A demain.

    1. If you are ever in a situation where your opinion clashes with the narrative you won’t be approached by PCSO or short women PC’s. They keep those bastards in reserve to throw pensioners in to paddy wagons.

  78. All these high tech drones being launched by Ukrainians and Houthis. I wonder who built them, supplied them and guided their use. I think it’s us. We certainly sold cluster mines to the Sauds. We also taught them how to fly large aircraft into buildings that allowed President Bush to attack a country that had nothing to do with it.

    Follow me for more news…

  82. I need a couple of days off work.
    Everything is pissing me off royally. even the cat, trying to be loving, is annoying, by tangling up my feet. And, despite wine, I can’t relax. Day off Friday, and a pub visit tomorrow, to celebrate Mother’s 95th with some good beer and likey interesting spirit.
    Was trying to remember when i was last with Mother for her birthday, and concluded that I was seven! I remember it in Nigeria – I crept downstairs to watch drunken adults dancing – and by the date I must have been under 8 years old, as after that I was at school in January in another country (UK). Afterwards, university, work away, and so on.

    1. Tomorrow is my eldest brother’s 84th birthday and the eleventh anniversary of our mother’s death. It feels longer. So much has happened in the last decade.

      1. Hope he has a good one! Tough present to have your Mother die on the same day. That would really take the shine off what should be a celebration of you.

    2. Think positively Paul – you are living in a beautiful (if sometimes chilly) country, that got a mention in The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to The Galaxy. You have abundant HEP and a Sovereign wealth Fund that is the envy of most of the World. Family close by in what I think many Brits would consider an idyllic setting. Best of all you aren’t really affected by the inanities of our bluddy politicians!

      1. Thanks!
        But… we have 11 months until the sale of new fossil cars is banned… government dumped very many used fossil cars abroad, so when the EV experiment fails, we can’t buy a used fossil car… we wondered why at the time, now we know.
        Labour politicians are even more stupid and needin g of being hanged than the others.

          1. Indeed, and experience queues to recharge, and the loss of range in the fcukking cold, like we have every year (below -30C here in Oslo this year) – maybe we’re hoping for some global warming… er…

    3. We celebrate HG’s mother’s birthday together.

      Every year she says it will be the last time together.

      It started in about 1994.

      She’s 98 in May

      1. Magic! Hope she reaches the telegram / royal email / whatever centenary. :-D)
        Just rather miss my Mum – that’s hard to write, when you’re over 60.

        3. You only get one Mum, and when they die, the pain is terrible. It’s 20 years since mine died, and I miss her every day. So much I want to ask her, to show her what I’ve become and to show her her great-grandchildren. She’d have loved them as I do, and she was absolutely right about my wonderful husband!
          Take care, Paul and I know your Mum doesn’t know you, but cherish every minute she’s in your life.

    4. I was 30 when I finally left home for pastures new. So that was 24 years of being “the man of the house” after Mum was widowed. She and Dad both died on 7th January. Forty years apart (1963 and 2003). They are but distant memories now. Though I occasionally, briefly, think I should phone Mum with some news. In her latter years, she had dementia, and vision and mobility issues. To the extent that she had her own unique ringtone on my mobile: the Mission Impossible theme. I was living with Dianne when Mum died, and returned, post-funeral, in a state of semi-exhaustion. Not so exhausted that I couldn’t quietly get the phone to play Mum’s ringtone. To say that Dianne jumped would be an understatement… 🙂

      1. I left home aged 8 – boarding schools, university, work… Not much idea what it’s like to grow up with parents, I’m afraid.
        Father died in 1997, about an hour before I could get in from Norway – could have sworn that I heard him talk to me in the departure lounge in Fornebu as I waited for the flight.
        I’d love to present my two boys (22 and 32) to him – both fine young men, talented, good cooks, skilled, a tribute to their Mother. But, not to be, sadly.

        1. My mother said her home life ended aged 11 when she went off to boarding school. It was always too fragmented after that.

      2. I was 18 when I finally managed to get away. Never really came back, even at holiday time. Got a temporary job during the vacations (in various parts of the country) to avoid having to spend time having holes picked in my life/dress/choice (of just about everything from food and friends to job).

  83. Sorry about that, Jules. Inevitable, but hard nonetheless. Took me ages to get over the feeling “Oh, I’ll just tell Pa that when I call at the wekend”… no Pa to call since 1997.

          4. Cheersh!
            At the pub tomorrow, after work. Sandvika Sportsbar – best pub in Norway.
            If you can get over here, I’m buying *
            * First round only

    2. I’m giving up alcohol for the rest of this year. Roll on 2024.

      What’s that you say? It isn’t 2023? Damn!

    3. I’m giving up alcohol for the rest of this year. Roll on 2024.

      What’s that you say? It isn’t 2023? Damn!

  87. Thought for the day:

    Purely for the sake of practice, just so we could see the reaction:

    The ministers who are talking about conscription should be required to send out conscription notices to EVERYONE who fits the criteria.

    The reaction might be interesting, to say the least.

    1. So you are suggesting we train and arm about 1 million new entrants? Is that a really good idea?

          4. For the avoidance of doubt Sue E I’m not a tranny. Would you be so kind as to remove your uptick of Mr sosraboc;’s grievous slur!

          10. Yes I had a tranny, a little bit larger than a large box of matches .. My aunt bought me one to take to boarding school.. the battery was feeble , we all had a radio , and we used to put our tiny radios on the school radiators to recharge .. how it happened heaven only knows .

            Those were the days when Elvis was belting out Wooden Heart in German .

          16. I had at least three Transits. All ancient. And hired many more.

            Somewhere, I have an aerial photo of a Laing diesel Transit crewbus parked outside my Mum’s place one lunchtime. In those days, turning the key off wasn’t sufficient to kill the engine. So I’d pulled the appropriate knob, but the thing still seemed to be running. But the noise was actually a Navy Sea King helicopter overhead.
            The pilot was the eventual brother in law of a female friend who lived nearby. He needed to fly some hours, which took him from RNAS Culdrose to Carlisle and back.

            With my church youth club / venture scout colleagues, we took our disco ever further afield. I used to keep the equipment running / build the equipment. And was basically the transport department. The second van was a LWB Transit, into which I transplanted an ex-police 3.0 V6 Granada engine. ‘Custom Car’ readers would have recognised this as a ‘street sleeper’. Lowther Street, the main Southbound route in the centre of Carlisle, had four lanes, and several traffic lights. It was quite common to be waiting at the lights alongside some yob in a jacked-up Capri, with furry dice hanging from the mirror. On green, we could leave him standing, wondering what happened…

            I was pretty useless as a DJ. I distinctly remember doing a 21st birthday ‘do’ at Dalston Hall, Carlisle, when – at the end – an elderly female who wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Giles cartoon shuffled up to the stage, and said “I thought your disco was crap”. Naturally, I thanked her profusely…

          17. I remember driving a school minibus that required “pulling the plug” to stop the engine. I used to take parties to the Royal Show in it.

          18. We had a Mk 1 Transit minibus at school. The windscree washers were pedal operated. Every time we were waiting for a teacher to return to take us home, someone would turn the washer nozzles through 180 degrees, and woe betide any teacher who then walked in front of the vehicle…

          19. Ah, Those Were The Days my friend!

            Props for the custom car van job. Wish I could have seen that!

          20. Don’t think I have any photos, I’m afraid. It would never have made it to the front page of ‘Custom Car’. Not even if I’d draped myself seductively across the bonnet.

            I did manage to transplant the tailgate from the previous van, which made a handy shelter when loading and unloading. The V6 didn’t come directly from a police Granada: it had spent time in a local band’s van, and they had fabricated spacers to make the engine mountings fit. We bought our van with a blown engine, knowing we could source a replacement. And we added a diesel tranny front panel to accommodate the additional length of the engine. Eventually, the faded red original paint was disguised with a black gloss brush job. As projects go, it was great fun. And much easier than my neighbour at the time who transplanted a straight six Ventora engine into his Bedford CF van. That involved removing a section of floor, shortening and balancing the propshaft, and fabricating an new engine cover. In fairness, he was actually a time served mechanic, and depot engineer for the local bus company, so he had a fair idea of what he was doing.

            Our Tranny could have sold several times over, as it was just the thing for motorsport types…

      2. Nope, just suggesting that all those who are potentially in the line of fire be made aware of that fact.

    2. This talk worries me a lot.
      Why conscription? What’s the threat?
      It’s all preparing the country for war – against whom, and why?
      The more talk there is of this nature, the more likely there will be war, and that won’t go well at all.

      3. Drip, drip. Imho its to drum up support from the public for continuing aid to the Ukes. Rather than engage our own troops, Joe public will favour the easy option of sending weapons and cash. No UK body bags to embarrass the government either.

        2. Lets hope.
          It looks like some clowns want war with Russia over what, exactly? Scary stories told to small children in bed? Assholes, all of them.

    3. We will then find out than many who claim to be British suddenly find realise they are citizens of another country. Of course, all the illegals will still be off the hook.

    2. Quote from a Letter to The Press:

      I was catching a ride to work once with a crew on a brand new B737 -800 and the Captain said more than once he believed the

      legalizing of marijuana in Washington state just might have something to do with all the maintenance squawks

      they were getting on all of their new 737s. At the time I thought it was just off the cuff humor but now maybe he was right!

      1. No, never heard of him but just looked at Goodreads about him. His Goodreads stars are either ‘brilliant’ or ‘thanks but no thanks’. The latter being far more common.
        What would be a good one to start with?

        1. I can’t recall which I read first, so logically start from the beginning, however I do recall that the Alamut Ambush was good, as was “Other paths to Glory”

          2. Alamut Ambush, World of Books, £4.30

            The only problem was my bank who insisted on calling me to verify the transaction with a 4 digit number. Bastards.

  91. Evening, all. Milder and calmer here today, so I managed to get a bit done in the garden tidying up and removing the dead bits of clematis (while trying to avoid the apparently dead bits which were beginning to sprout).

  92. Re the Royal Mail, one of my sisters told me yesterday that her Christmas card had just arrived that I posted at the end of October .

    She lives near Cape Town .

    Now , is there something wrong with the SA post , or is it a problem of indifference here in the Uk.

    Is the Royal Mail using non indigenous sorters and despatchers at their sorting offices.

    Moh took a photo of me at my local post office handing them over to our clever loyal village girls … yes end of October .

    1. It’s the Royal Mail. The Christmas card I posted in early December to my nephew in Chicago arrived a few days ago because it was sent via Malaysia.

      1. Evening, Sue. My postie (I met him at the gate as I was working in the garden) was wearing shorts today!

          3. I heard one reason for the shorts. The sorting rooms are very warm. Personally i just think they are hoping to bump into someone with a knee fetish.

  95. Elections:
    Trump and Starmer lose, Biden and Sunak win.
    Trump and Sunak lose, Biden and Starmer win
    Biden and Sunak lose, Trump and Starmer win
    Biden and Starmer lose, Trump and Sunak win.

    OK I give up.

    Is any of those results good?

    7. They all seem to know where the camera is. Except for that one on the right who seems to have a thing about chickens.

    2. What a load of bolloceaux. There was no threat to public safety from the truckers. They were just driving a convoy to Ottowa. Where was this great overwhelming threat? No pne else could see it.

  101. That comedian, Damon Imani who released himself apparently telling Klaus Schwab “f your new world order” has now turned his sights on the World Health organisation and its ex terrorist leader. It seems to be going down well on Twitter.

    This is an excellent development because these super-national organisations are so full of pompous little crooks and they really are low hanging fruit for comedians, in the same way that Hitler has been in Britain since the war. Laughter is truly the best vaccine against dictators. Hope he does Schwab’s little familiar, Harari next.

  102. Late thought for the day:

    If Islam is the religion of peace, why is there seldom any peace where Muslims live?

    2. Since its inception, Islam has never been peaceful – quite the opposite. Like everything about it, the claim of being peaceful is a lie.

    4. Remember your 1984? War is Peace, Freedom is slavery, Ignorance is strength (well, it would be if diversity were not).

      The problem isn’t really muslim. It’s the savage, barbarian ignorance that allows them to punt off the responsibility for their actions on to a fake sky god. The West went through this 500 years ago. We weren’t much to write home about then either with wars, burnings, abuses, terrorism, torture. The muslim is simply still there. In 500 years they’ll grow up as we did, but until they can demonstrate that we must keep them penned where they are.

    5. The explanation I have seen, is that when islam alone exists within its world wide caliphate, there will be peace on Earth.

      2. Then they are deluded. No matter what utopia they think will come there will always be people unhappy with the status quo.

        1. They forgot that after they finish off the kuffir, they still have the Shia Sunni problem to solve. A bit like the Orish, they will be lost if they dont have anyone to fight.

  103. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/01/24/rishi-sunak-tory-critics-six-weeks-turn-premierhsip-around/

    Ignoring the typo in the title, I don’t think it matters what Sunak does. Whatever he tries will be dismissed as electioneering, to be rapidly reversed if he gets into office.

    He’s had years to do the right thing and has refused to, because the Keyensian civil service thinks of itself as the centre of the universe. Sunak doesn’t believe in low taxes and small government. He holds to the globalist agenda. He believes in nothing so his party have nothing to drive to and because he completely lacks passion does whatever the state wants.

    To stand any hope of avoiding a truly crushing defeat Sunak and Hunt need to announce a plan of real, genuine and significant tax cuts and repeal of legislation – the HRA, migration pact, climate change act, DIE nonsense – it’s got to go. Tax bands need to be raised, the state needs to take the pain. He won’t, so he’s happily dug his own grave. He can’t complain about his own actions.

    1. Who is Sunak, he appeared out of nowhere. I had never heard of him or new anything about him, and he is now PM. It stinks.

      1. JN, he appeared from nowhere to do a job and he will vanish in the same manner as he appeared. A lavish lifestyle in obscurity awaits him.

  104. Yes. Sunak doesn’t believe in anything so there is nothing to trust. He’s like a bad house guest.

  105. Brighton kicks weedkiller ban to the curb [sic] after five years

    Council says it’s time to take back the streets from the plague of nettles, thistles and weeds

    Telegraph Reporters • 24 January 2024 • 8:56pm

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4a5358090665256c58839e8530e9cda5a64fa4d758025f910f6d1b84b9b4a8fb.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d6bec8a2c09ddcbbf55fef51666c8ff4e9314e674d8f877c33518ac2658f22c4.jpg
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c14cef98aa4ed0f2f19938ed47dbcf9c0f32dad7277862ad59d2c252e7b1656b.jpg

    One of the first councils in Britain to ban weedkiller has dropped the strategy after streets and footpaths became choked with weeds. Brighton and Hove was branded a “city of triffids” after the council imposed a ban on the use of glyphosate – the active ingredient in most weedkillers – in 2019. Weeds standing up to five feet tall blocked pathways, trailed across streets and snaked up lamp posts.

    Now, after five years of complaints, the council has admitted the situation had become untenable and has voted to reintroduce glyphosate. Councillors said it was time to take back the streets from the plague of nettles, thistles and weeds that had taken over. They said every conceivable alternative method to keep the weeds at bay had been tried – including mechanical rippers, boiling water and specialised foam – but all to no avail.

    Councillor Tim Rowkins said: “Since then [2019] the council has relied on manual removal, and let me be clear what that means: it means giving our street staff hoes. Little wonder that since we took over in 2023 we have had so many desperate requests to do something. After five full years of unchecked growth roots are so well established that they’ve begun damaging roads and pavements.

    “We have a backlog of repairs for which there is no budget. Parts of the city are completely wild and many of our residents, wheelchair-users, parents and carers with buggies, those with visual or mobility impairments, simply can’t travel the distance of their own streets safely.”

    The council approved the “managed reintroduction” of the herbicide to tackle the weeds using a “controlled droplet” method, applying it to individual weeds rather than the blanket spraying of pavements and roads. In addition, glyphosate will not be used in any of the city’s public parks, children’s play areas or open spaces. Streets and communities that decide to weed their own streets will not be treated with glyphosate.

    Resident Michelle Adkins, 34, of Hove said: “It was such a preposterous policy and a total waste of taxpayers’ money. Anyone could see that if you stopped using weedkiller then weeds would run rampant across the city.”

    Ben Rhodes, of Brighton, said: “The Labour administration are billing the common sense return of glyphosate as being their idea when in fact they voted for the ban in 2019. Our politicians are full of weasel words.”

    But eco-conscious residents are furious and say the move will harm wildlife, particularly the starling population. Brighton and Hove is famous for the stunning murmurations of the starlings who fly around in huge flocks over the seafront at dusk.

    Steve Geliot, of Save Our Starlings, said Brighton and Hove once had a population of more than 150,000 starlings. By two years ago, this was down to 8,000. Last winter there was a recovery to 13,000 birds. He said: “It is coincidental but what is good for the starlings is not using pesticides, keeping wild verges and anything supporting wildflowers and insects.”

    Mr Geliot attended a meeting of the City Environment, South Downs and the Sea Committee on Wednesday. He said: “The report contains insufficient science about the safety of this known carcinogen including links to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Any use of pesticides is well known to have a harmful impact on our biological diversity that also exists on our pavements and roads – not just our green spaces and parks.”

    Up to 50 protesters gathered prior to the council meeting to voice their opposition and a petition to maintain the ban has gathered more than 1,000 signatures. Richard Jeffrey said: “This is a backward step. Biodiversity has increased since the decision to ban glyphosate was taken. To reintroduce now will wipe out all of those gains. The ban should be national.” Clare Fergusson O’Toole said: “We are trying to be an environmentally friendly world and protect wildlife. The council can empower residents to keep the pavements free. Poison is not the answer.”

    But Mr Rowkins said: “We have a duty to maintain safe streets for residents and we are currently failing in that regard. Continuing as we are is not an option. We have to act and have gone above and beyond to make sure we are doing so in a way that minimises any impact on biodiversity.”

    The decision is set to receive final approval at a meeting of the full council next month.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/24/brighton-reverses-weedkiller-ban-after-five-years/

    2. Last summer I chatted briefly to two Council employees who were using hoes and scrapping tools to dislodge weeds from the kerbs and pavements along one local road. The weeds were mostly dock and dandelion. Walking down the same road recently it’s clear they were wasting their time and Community Charge payers’ money. The kerbs and pavement are just as verdant as before they started. Fortunately in terms of Council waste of money, as I was told by one of the workmen that there were only four of them employed to conduct their futile task, so all in all a mere sum of probably less than £200,000…….

  106. Rishi Sunak offers to sacrifice Brexit freedoms to re-establish government in Northern Ireland

    Prime Minister hopes move to prevent extra trade barriers in the Irish Sea will persuade DUP to end its boycott of Stormont

    James Crisp, EUROPE EDITOR and Nick Gutteridge, WHITEHALL CORRESPONDENT
    24 January 2024 • 9:25pm

    Rishi Sunak has offered to sacrifice some of Britain’s Brexit freedoms in a bid to re-establish devolved government in Northern Ireland.

    The Prime Minister has pledged to introduce a requirement that all new laws are screened to ensure they will not create extra trade barriers in the Irish Sea. Downing Street hopes the promise will persuade the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to end its two-year boycott of Stormont that has paralysed Northern Irish politics.

    But the offer angered Tory MPs, who warned that introducing such a policy would make it almost impossible for Great Britain to diverge from EU rules. Eurosceptic sources said the plan would mean any laws designed to take advantage of Brexit freedoms risked being blocked by Whitehall officials.

    All legislation would have to be accompanied by a ministerial statement confirming it did not have a “significant adverse effect” on internal UK trade. The planned system would mirror the one used to screen new bills for their compatibility with the European Convention on Human Rights.

    Northern Ireland effectively remained in the European single market when the rest of the UK left the bloc, to prevent the need for a hard border with the Republic. As a result, goods travelling from Great Britain to Ulster have to undergo customs checks to make sure they are not destined for Ireland, an EU member.

    If Britain diverges from EU rules, the number of checks necessary on British goods crossing the Brexit border to Northern Ireland could increase, which critics say will harm trade. It raises the prospect that new laws which mean Britain diverges from Brussels could be blocked.

    Unionists have been angered by the current arrangement, which they say has harmed the Northern Irish economy and made its people “second class” UK citizens. The DUP walked out of the Belfast assembly in February 2022 in protest at the Irish Sea Border and has refused to return until the checks are scrapped.

    Mr Sunak renegotiated the original Brexit deal last year and replaced it with the Windsor Framework, which reduced – but did not eliminate – customs red tape. Unionists have been pushing the Prime Minister to go further, but doing so would anger the EU and put the wider Brexit trade deal in peril.

    His latest offer would give the DUP an effective guarantee that the UK would not pass laws in the future that would create more trade barriers between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. But Tory MPs warned it would come at the expense of tying Britain to European standards and putting paid to capitalising on Brexit freedoms.

    Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former business secretary, said: “This means we will not diverge at all, and we will have ended up with Theresa May’s Chequers deal in all but name. I voted against the Windsor Framework because it subordinates part of the UK to the EU. This mechanism would restore part of the EU hegemony over us.”

    Sir Iain Duncan Smith, a former Tory leader, added that the plan was “…a real problem…the Windsor framework is the back door to the EU holding on to the UK and stopping us diverging. It should be replaced.”

    Sir Iain has led calls for the UK to relax its rules on the growing of gene-edited crops, which would be a major boost to UK farmers. But practice is banned by the EU, meaning Northern Ireland could not implement it or import any such produce from Great Britain.

    A eurosceptic source said: “It will be a powerful tool in the hands of civil servants, producing a chilling effect where any divergence will be seen as impossible.”

    Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the DUP leader, has been locked in talks with the Government for months over a deal to return to power-sharing in Stormont. Ministers have offered legislation guaranteeing Northern Ireland’s place in the UK, a new East-West council on internal trade ties and £3.3 billion of funding. There were hopes he would back the deal at a party meeting last week but the offer faced stiff resistance from some senior DUP members.

    He told the Commons on Wednesday that he had been threatened for attempting to find a deal over the Irish Sea border issue but vowed not to be intimidated.

    The Government has come under fire for “failing” to take advantage of Brexit by quietly extending the sway of EU law over the British economy. That criticism coincided with the Department for Business slipping out an announcement that it is expanding the use of European safety marks.

    Kevin Hollinrake, the business minister, said the bloc’s ‘CE’ stamp, which denotes goods made to EU standards, will now be accepted for more goods. The move means UK manufacturers of electronics, such as vacuum cleaners, heat pumps and fridges, will be incentivised to keep following Brussels’ rules.

    In a written statement, Mr Hollinrake said he had “listened to business” in both the UK and on the Continent who want to continue following EU standards. But eurosceptic MPs fear the latest climbdown will effectively end any hopes of Britain taking advantage of its Brexit freedoms by diverging from the EU.

    David Jones, deputy chairman of the European Research Group, said ministers “should encourage and hasten the development of British standards and not continue to adhere to EU regulation”.

    He added: “The UK is pursuing a global trading stance and EU standards are increasingly irrelevant. Clinging to the CE mark is extremely shortsighted.”

    Sir Bill Cash, a leading Tory eurosceptic, warned the Government was “squandering the opportunity” to break free from Brussels red tape. In a letter to Kemi Badenoch, the Business Secretary, he said there was “little hard evidence” ministers have a plan to pursue Brexit freedoms.

    Asked about the offer from Mr Sunak, a UK Government spokesman said: “We do not comment on speculation. We believe there is a strong basis for a restoration of power-sharing, and we remain hopeful that this can be fixed soon.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/24/rishi-sunak-sacrifice-brexit-freedoms-northern-ireland/

      1. Just what I was going to post! If successive remainers hadn’t fouled up leaving we wouldn’t have the fiasco in Northern Ireland in the first place.

    2. The EU has over 40 external borders with non-EU states. Only the Irish border is subject to such control.

    4. What an idiot. First the Cons throw NI this under the Brexit bus and now they want to make it worse.

  107. How a Welsh town became a hotbed of anti-English hatred

    A poison pen letter sent to an Aberystwyth resident reveals a potentially ‘toxic’ attitude towards the English as second homes proliferate

    Gwyneth Rees • 24 January 2024 • 9:18am

    Located in a leafy suburb less than a mile from the sea, Iorwerth Avenue in Aberystwyth is understandably a sought-after place to live. Its residents are a mix of lawyers and councillors, both Welsh and English, and the general consensus is that most people know each other and get along well. Yet recently, that has changed.

    A well-known and “popular” resident hailing from the Midlands received a poison pen letter, accusing him of being “low-life” and urging him to go back to “Brummyland”. Written in red ink, the note read:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a76f25e58407d1b9f6ceb939efcc05f5b323371152e8c2d4bbae82298f466960.jpg
    Police are treating the note as a hate crime, and – worried that it is linked to the violent Welsh Nationalism of the 1970s and 1980s which saw arsonists attack English-owned holiday homes – have taken measures to fire-proof the victim’s home. Meanwhile, locals point to a souring of relations with “incomers”, with tensions fuelled by the rise in numbers of Airbnbs, staycations and second homes.

    The recipient of the letter, Ben Williams, 55, a local doorman, told The Telegraph: “I moved here from the Midlands in 2008, but all my descendants are Welsh and I think of myself as Welsh. This has massively hurt me. I haven’t slept since it happened. You don’t know who it is or what I’ve done. It’s been designed to drive me out of here. I’m a well-known pillar of the community and that’s why it’s been done in such a cowardly way. It’s so nasty and has also really hurt my girlfriend. She feels unsafe.”

    There is no doubt that many neighbours are shocked and disgusted by the note. One, Wyn Davies, described Mr Williams as the most “amiable man” who can always be relied upon to help anyone. Yet, for others, the anti-English sentiment comes as no surprise. One English neighbour, Neil, who did not wish to give his last name, said: “I’ve got a lot of Welsh friends but some around here just don’t like the English. When I first moved here a decade or so ago, I often got comments such as ‘Go home English’ or ‘Why don’t you speak Welsh?’ There’s just a general undercurrent. There’s loads of students and Polish here. I don’t know if it’s racism or just defending the old culture.”

    Whether the letter is an example of a rise in anti-English sentiment or the work of one lone wolf, there is no doubt the town has strong nationalist roots. Alun Williams, local Plaid Cymru councillor, said: “There have been many events that have taken place in this town over the years in support of either independence or the Welsh language, for example, the Trefechan Bridge demonstrations, which campaigned for the Welsh language. These have left a lasting legacy that people are proud of. But this note is nasty and not reflective. Aberystwyth is a welcoming, cosmopolitan town used to visitors with few of these kinds of tensions.”

    There is no denying the town has seen change in recent years. Like much of Wales, there has been an increase in English moving in, with a 30 per cent rise between 2020 and 2022, driven by lower house prices (on average, Welsh houses are almost £100,000 cheaper than those in England) and cheaper living costs.

    David Sayce, of Compare My Move, which released the data, said: “People are feeling the squeeze with the cost of living, and the rising inflation rates over the past few years, so it makes sense that people are looking for places to move with money on their mind. Wales fits the bill and it’s going to continue.”

    An estate agent, who did not wish to be named in fear of a backlash from the Welsh community, added: “Plenty of English move in, and many Welsh who moved out when they were younger are coming back. But the main problem is jobs – there is no real work in this part of Wales, so locals struggle to stay and also to afford the houses. But there has always been great antagonism towards the English in this part of Wales. We are so remote and unconnected to the rest of the UK.”

    The town – which already boasts a student population of 8,000 due to the well-regarded university – has also become something of a tourist destination. Last year, a survey by American Express showed that Wales was the favoured place for people in the UK to holiday, beating Cornwall, Devon and the Lake District. Seven per cent of houses in Ceredigion are second homes, while Wales has seen a huge rise in the number of Airbnbs (in 2022, the number across the country stood at 22,000 properties – a 53 per cent rise in just four years).

    A 2022 report by the Bevan Foundation think-tank also showed the dearth of low-cost housing, with only 60 properties advertised across Wales being available at local housing authority rates.

    Ben Lake, MP for Ceredigion, said: “Much of my work in recent years has been concerned with Airbnb properties that open up in residential areas, with all the noise and nuisances that come with that. We also have a huge housing shortage. But I still do not believe there is any risk of any direct action having a resurgence.”

    It is a similar situation across much of Wales. Down the coast in Tenby, locals complain that the town is inundated with two million visitors in summer, but left a “ghost town” in winter, with one in four properties in the town centre being holiday homes. On the Llyn Peninsula, locals have blamed a crackdown on second homes – caused by a hike in council tax – to a change in those who visit.

    One local said: “The summer in Wales is now huge and marred by bad behaviour. People who owned second homes have sold up and these properties are often converted to Airbnbs and rented to anyone. It’s the same with caravans. The demand means they are just being let to people no one knows.”

    Some link this rise in tourism with a rise in crime, with one anonymous local saying: “Since Covid, there’s been a rise in the number of staycations, especially in the local caravan parks. There’s more people coming here from England – like the Midlands. And they come with bad behaviour and crime.”

    Statistics back this up, with a rise in the number of public order offences and violent crimes in recent years. For instance, in 2020, there were 56 violent crimes in Aberystwyth, rising to 106 in 2022, while public order offences increased from 16 to 31. In 2022, the BBC reported that local residents were complaining that English gangs “from the Midlands” were causing trouble in the centre of Aberystwyth, blaming county lines drug gangs.

    There are parallels between the pressures on housing and tourism today and those of the 1970s, when a violent form of Welsh nationalism took root. The movement was stirred into life by the fate of Capel Celyn in 1965 – a village in the valley of Tryweryn in northwest Wales that was sacrificed to make a reservoir to bring drinking water to the people of Liverpool.

    One campaign group, Meibion Glyndŵr – meaning sons of Glyndŵr – then formed to protest against the large numbers of homes being bought by the English for use as holiday homes, pushing up house prices beyond the means of most locals.

    Between 1979 and the mid-1990s, they set fire to and damaged more than 200 English-owned properties. The movement peaked in the late 1980s with the targeting of Conservative MPs’ homes with letter bombs, most notably David Hunt, the then Welsh secretary, in 1990.

    In recent years, there has been a resurgence of Welsh nationalism, with polls consistently showing support for an independent Wales running at around 30 per cent. Some 60 per cent of 16 to 34-year-olds are pro-independence, with more than 80 per cent in favour of greater devolution for the Senedd. It is thought that the push for nationalism in Scotland and Northern Ireland, as well as the UK Government’s handling of Brexit and Covid, has increased calls for a break-away, as has younger people’s increased engagement with the Welsh language.

    Some also blame Mark Drakeford, the First Minister of Wales, for stirring up Welsh nationalism. He has previously condemned nationalism as an “inherently Right-wing creed” while saying devolution was the “best of both worlds”. But the Welsh Labour manifesto for the 2020 Senedd elections said the “UK is a voluntary association of four nations” and in 2021, Mr Drakeford said the UK Government was actively hostile to the Welsh government and Senedd.

    Welsh Tory Darren Millar has repeatedly accused Mr Drakeford of “flirting with a divisive and hostile nationalism”. He told The Telegraph: “Labour has never managed to secure a majority in the Senedd and can only govern because they are propped up by Plaid Cymru. That’s why the First Minister makes constant overtures to the nationalists and wants to give the impression of support for their aspirations.

    “Focussing on the need for more powers is also a convenient distraction from Labour’s failings in Wales where their policy decisions have resulted in worse NHS services, poorer educational outcomes and the lightest pay packets in the UK.”

    This week, a report by the Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales concluded that independence for Wales is a “viable option” – although it would suffer “significant” short to medium-term challenges in raising enough tax for public services.

    The actor Michael Sheen, who has moved back to his home town of Port Talbot in recent years, has also been vocal about his desire for Welsh independence. Speaking on Irish radio station Newstalk in 2021, the actor said that the fight for better representation was a noble one. When asked if the debate could turn toxic, he said: “Anything can turn toxic. But I think basic unfairness has to be addressed, one way or the other, and if [the UK government] doesn’t then you know things do become toxic.”

    He added: “The suggestion there is that things are not toxic already. We’re not talking about something where everything is fair and working perfectly and then these awful nationalists are trying to make everything toxic. I think there’s just a basic sense [that] there’s a different way and it should be tried because maybe things aren’t working as well as people would hope.”

    Celebrities Charlotte Church and It’s A Sin screenwriter Russell T Davies have also spoken out about Welsh independence. Welsh experts are, however, keen to downplay any possible link between the Aberystwyth poison pen letter and historical militant nationalism.

    Marion Loeffler, an expert in Welsh history at Cardiff University, said: “This note is nothing to do with Welsh nationalism per se but a town overwhelmed with tourism and people moving in from outside. In some towns in West Wales, more than 60 per cent of houses are second homes. Locals cannot afford the houses.”

    From April this year, council tax on second homes in Ceredigion will double, following similar rises in other counties such as Gwynedd and Pembrokeshire. But Ms Loeffler does not think this will have an impact. “The rich can afford it,” she says. “We need powerful housing legislation or this will get worse.”

    Meanwhile, Plaid Cymru MS Rhodri Mabon ap Gwynfor said: “This isn’t Welsh nationalism that I recognise. Welsh nationalism is not racist or bigoted and it doesn’t put people down. Even the violent nationalism in the Seventies was, in my view, not the real nationalism. My grandfather was the first elected Plaid Cymru Member of Parliament, and he was a pacifist, as am I.”

    He does, however, link the note to real problems faced by much of Wales. He said: “The letter is racist, but it’s also an expression of an individual and community’s view about not being able to afford houses to rent, let alone buy. If we carry on as we are, Wales will become a playground for tourists and a battery for the rich. We create energy through wind and water for wealthier parts of Britain and serve as a playground for people to visit and then leave. But there are living communities here with rich traditions, which need to be respected, valued and helped to thrive.”

    Back in Aberystwyth, the anti-English sentiment can be found easily enough. Speaking from Yr Hen Orsaf pub, Brian Morgan, 69, said: “The English can come here so long as they have the dragon on their back. But what with the English and asylum seekers, local youngsters can’t afford a place to live.”

    Another, who did not wish to be named, said: “There’s no real problem, but they often don’t seem to have any respect for those who have always lived here.”

    Dyfed Powys Police say they are still investigating the hate crime. Meanwhile, its victim, Mr Williams, is still shaken.

    “They need to find who did it,” he said. “This is unbearable.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/24/welsh-nationalism-housing-crisis-labour-aberystwyth

    Some observations:
    1. ‘County lines’ drug gangs are a problem throughout the UK mainland, not just in Wales.
    2. I have every sympathy with any tourist area in the UK where there are property shortages caused by second-home owners and holiday letting.
    3. Not all Brummies are gyppos but the Midlands does have some of England’s worst football hooligans!
    4. To the letter writer: it’s ‘yam yams’ not ‘yaw yaws’.
    5. Rhodri Gwynfor is a bit of an arse.
    6. Welsh independence would make even more of the country poor.
    7. If the Welsh don’t want so many English in Wales, they should join us in campaigning against the tide of immigration.
    8. Drakeford is an utter arse.

    1. Further observations; the incomers tend to spend money locally, as do tourists. If they go (or don’t come), they’ll take (or keep) their money with them.

      1. I come from a small village in Hampshire. I knew as a teenager i would never be able to afford to buy a property there. I also didn’t want to spend the rest of my life there. This idea that young people not being able to stay or afford to buy locally doesn’t ring true to me. Youngsters should spread their wings and go and explore. If they have roots back home then when they have made a life for themselves they can go back…they could probably be able to buy a property then !

        1. There is no way I would want to go back to where I was born. Even while I was still living there it changed out of all recognition; the cornfields were built on, the farms were turned into housing estates and the life of the village was completely destroyed.

          1. I went back a few years ago to visit my brother. He was doing a car boot sale on the local playing fields. I bumped into people who i had grown up with. I thanked my lucky stars i left when i did. They were all still the same. Just old.

      1. Is not Birmingham part of “the Black Country”? I refer to the previous industrial heritage, not the way it’s been “enriched”. “Made in Birmingham” used to be everywhere.

          1. I lived in Brum for five years. The Brummies i met thought the Black Country folk were not as cosmopolitan as they were. I kept my mouth shut.

      2. Indeed but the letter writer used ‘yaw yaw’ generically – after all, for many outside the area, Brummie and Black Country are the same.

        1. A bit like anyone originating ‘twixt Tweed and Tees being automatically classed as a “Geordie”.

    3. The note itself is rather curious. Written in a block style without spelling mistakes though the grammar could use improvement. Obviously someone over 40.

    5. It’s not just this place either. Try living in London, which is full of foreigners.

    6. Forgive me for being naive but who sold the properties to the English in the first place?

  108. How a Welsh town became a hotbed of anti-English hatred

    A poison pen letter sent to an Aberystwyth resident reveals a potentially ‘toxic’ attitude towards the English as second homes proliferate

    Gwyneth Rees • 24 January 2024 • 9:18am

    Located in a leafy suburb less than a mile from the sea, Iorwerth Avenue in Aberystwyth is understandably a sought-after place to live. Its residents are a mix of lawyers and councillors, both Welsh and English, and the general consensus is that most people know each other and get along well. Yet recently, that has changed.

    A well-known and “popular” resident hailing from the Midlands received a poison pen letter, accusing him of being “low-life” and urging him to go back to “Brummyland”. Written in red ink, the note read:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a76f25e58407d1b9f6ceb939efcc05f5b323371152e8c2d4bbae82298f466960.jpg
    Police are treating the note as a hate crime, and – worried that it is linked to the violent Welsh Nationalism of the 1970s and 1980s which saw arsonists attack English-owned holiday homes – have taken measures to fire-proof the victim’s home. Meanwhile, locals point to a souring of relations with “incomers”, with tensions fuelled by the rise in numbers of Airbnbs, staycations and second homes.

    The recipient of the letter, Ben Williams, 55, a local doorman, told The Telegraph: “I moved here from the Midlands in 2008, but all my descendants are Welsh and I think of myself as Welsh. This has massively hurt me. I haven’t slept since it happened. You don’t know who it is or what I’ve done. It’s been designed to drive me out of here. I’m a well-known pillar of the community and that’s why it’s been done in such a cowardly way. It’s so nasty and has also really hurt my girlfriend. She feels unsafe.”

    There is no doubt that many neighbours are shocked and disgusted by the note. One, Wyn Davies, described Mr Williams as the most “amiable man” who can always be relied upon to help anyone. Yet, for others, the anti-English sentiment comes as no surprise. One English neighbour, Neil, who did not wish to give his last name, said: “I’ve got a lot of Welsh friends but some around here just don’t like the English. When I first moved here a decade or so ago, I often got comments such as ‘Go home English’ or ‘Why don’t you speak Welsh?’ There’s just a general undercurrent. There’s loads of students and Polish here. I don’t know if it’s racism or just defending the old culture.”

    Whether the letter is an example of a rise in anti-English sentiment or the work of one lone wolf, there is no doubt the town has strong nationalist roots. Alun Williams, local Plaid Cymru councillor, said: “There have been many events that have taken place in this town over the years in support of either independence or the Welsh language, for example, the Trefechan Bridge demonstrations, which campaigned for the Welsh language. These have left a lasting legacy that people are proud of. But this note is nasty and not reflective. Aberystwyth is a welcoming, cosmopolitan town used to visitors with few of these kinds of tensions.”

    There is no denying the town has seen change in recent years. Like much of Wales, there has been an increase in English moving in, with a 30 per cent rise between 2020 and 2022, driven by lower house prices (on average, Welsh houses are almost £100,000 cheaper than those in England) and cheaper living costs.

    David Sayce, of Compare My Move, which released the data, said: “People are feeling the squeeze with the cost of living, and the rising inflation rates over the past few years, so it makes sense that people are looking for places to move with money on their mind. Wales fits the bill and it’s going to continue.”

    An estate agent, who did not wish to be named in fear of a backlash from the Welsh community, added: “Plenty of English move in, and many Welsh who moved out when they were younger are coming back. But the main problem is jobs – there is no real work in this part of Wales, so locals struggle to stay and also to afford the houses. But there has always been great antagonism towards the English in this part of Wales. We are so remote and unconnected to the rest of the UK.”

    The town – which already boasts a student population of 8,000 due to the well-regarded university – has also become something of a tourist destination. Last year, a survey by American Express showed that Wales was the favoured place for people in the UK to holiday, beating Cornwall, Devon and the Lake District. Seven per cent of houses in Ceredigion are second homes, while Wales has seen a huge rise in the number of Airbnbs (in 2022, the number across the country stood at 22,000 properties – a 53 per cent rise in just four years).

    A 2022 report by the Bevan Foundation think-tank also showed the dearth of low-cost housing, with only 60 properties advertised across Wales being available at local housing authority rates.

    Ben Lake, MP for Ceredigion, said: “Much of my work in recent years has been concerned with Airbnb properties that open up in residential areas, with all the noise and nuisances that come with that. We also have a huge housing shortage. But I still do not believe there is any risk of any direct action having a resurgence.”

    It is a similar situation across much of Wales. Down the coast in Tenby, locals complain that the town is inundated with two million visitors in summer, but left a “ghost town” in winter, with one in four properties in the town centre being holiday homes. On the Llyn Peninsula, locals have blamed a crackdown on second homes – caused by a hike in council tax – to a change in those who visit.

    One local said: “The summer in Wales is now huge and marred by bad behaviour. People who owned second homes have sold up and these properties are often converted to Airbnbs and rented to anyone. It’s the same with caravans. The demand means they are just being let to people no one knows.”

    Some link this rise in tourism with a rise in crime, with one anonymous local saying: “Since Covid, there’s been a rise in the number of staycations, especially in the local caravan parks. There’s more people coming here from England – like the Midlands. And they come with bad behaviour and crime.”

    Statistics back this up, with a rise in the number of public order offences and violent crimes in recent years. For instance, in 2020, there were 56 violent crimes in Aberystwyth, rising to 106 in 2022, while public order offences increased from 16 to 31. In 2022, the BBC reported that local residents were complaining that English gangs “from the Midlands” were causing trouble in the centre of Aberystwyth, blaming county lines drug gangs.

    There are parallels between the pressures on housing and tourism today and those of the 1970s, when a violent form of Welsh nationalism took root. The movement was stirred into life by the fate of Capel Celyn in 1965 – a village in the valley of Tryweryn in northwest Wales that was sacrificed to make a reservoir to bring drinking water to the people of Liverpool.

    One campaign group, Meibion Glyndŵr – meaning sons of Glyndŵr – then formed to protest against the large numbers of homes being bought by the English for use as holiday homes, pushing up house prices beyond the means of most locals.

    Between 1979 and the mid-1990s, they set fire to and damaged more than 200 English-owned properties. The movement peaked in the late 1980s with the targeting of Conservative MPs’ homes with letter bombs, most notably David Hunt, the then Welsh secretary, in 1990.

    In recent years, there has been a resurgence of Welsh nationalism, with polls consistently showing support for an independent Wales running at around 30 per cent. Some 60 per cent of 16 to 34-year-olds are pro-independence, with more than 80 per cent in favour of greater devolution for the Senedd. It is thought that the push for nationalism in Scotland and Northern Ireland, as well as the UK Government’s handling of Brexit and Covid, has increased calls for a break-away, as has younger people’s increased engagement with the Welsh language.

    Some also blame Mark Drakeford, the First Minister of Wales, for stirring up Welsh nationalism. He has previously condemned nationalism as an “inherently Right-wing creed” while saying devolution was the “best of both worlds”. But the Welsh Labour manifesto for the 2020 Senedd elections said the “UK is a voluntary association of four nations” and in 2021, Mr Drakeford said the UK Government was actively hostile to the Welsh government and Senedd.

    Welsh Tory Darren Millar has repeatedly accused Mr Drakeford of “flirting with a divisive and hostile nationalism”. He told The Telegraph: “Labour has never managed to secure a majority in the Senedd and can only govern because they are propped up by Plaid Cymru. That’s why the First Minister makes constant overtures to the nationalists and wants to give the impression of support for their aspirations.

    “Focussing on the need for more powers is also a convenient distraction from Labour’s failings in Wales where their policy decisions have resulted in worse NHS services, poorer educational outcomes and the lightest pay packets in the UK.”

    This week, a report by the Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales concluded that independence for Wales is a “viable option” – although it would suffer “significant” short to medium-term challenges in raising enough tax for public services.

    The actor Michael Sheen, who has moved back to his home town of Port Talbot in recent years, has also been vocal about his desire for Welsh independence. Speaking on Irish radio station Newstalk in 2021, the actor said that the fight for better representation was a noble one. When asked if the debate could turn toxic, he said: “Anything can turn toxic. But I think basic unfairness has to be addressed, one way or the other, and if [the UK government] doesn’t then you know things do become toxic.”

    He added: “The suggestion there is that things are not toxic already. We’re not talking about something where everything is fair and working perfectly and then these awful nationalists are trying to make everything toxic. I think there’s just a basic sense [that] there’s a different way and it should be tried because maybe things aren’t working as well as people would hope.”

    Celebrities Charlotte Church and It’s A Sin screenwriter Russell T Davies have also spoken out about Welsh independence. Welsh experts are, however, keen to downplay any possible link between the Aberystwyth poison pen letter and historical militant nationalism.

    Marion Loeffler, an expert in Welsh history at Cardiff University, said: “This note is nothing to do with Welsh nationalism per se but a town overwhelmed with tourism and people moving in from outside. In some towns in West Wales, more than 60 per cent of houses are second homes. Locals cannot afford the houses.”

    From April this year, council tax on second homes in Ceredigion will double, following similar rises in other counties such as Gwynedd and Pembrokeshire. But Ms Loeffler does not think this will have an impact. “The rich can afford it,” she says. “We need powerful housing legislation or this will get worse.”

    Meanwhile, Plaid Cymru MS Rhodri Mabon ap Gwynfor said: “This isn’t Welsh nationalism that I recognise. Welsh nationalism is not racist or bigoted and it doesn’t put people down. Even the violent nationalism in the Seventies was, in my view, not the real nationalism. My grandfather was the first elected Plaid Cymru Member of Parliament, and he was a pacifist, as am I.”

    He does, however, link the note to real problems faced by much of Wales. He said: “The letter is racist, but it’s also an expression of an individual and community’s view about not being able to afford houses to rent, let alone buy. If we carry on as we are, Wales will become a playground for tourists and a battery for the rich. We create energy through wind and water for wealthier parts of Britain and serve as a playground for people to visit and then leave. But there are living communities here with rich traditions, which need to be respected, valued and helped to thrive.”

    Back in Aberystwyth, the anti-English sentiment can be found easily enough. Speaking from Yr Hen Orsaf pub, Brian Morgan, 69, said: “The English can come here so long as they have the dragon on their back. But what with the English and asylum seekers, local youngsters can’t afford a place to live.”

    Another, who did not wish to be named, said: “There’s no real problem, but they often don’t seem to have any respect for those who have always lived here.”

    Dyfed Powys Police say they are still investigating the hate crime. Meanwhile, its victim, Mr Williams, is still shaken.

    “They need to find who did it,” he said. “This is unbearable.”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/24/welsh-nationalism-housing-crisis-labour-aberystwyth

    Some observations:
    1. ‘County lines’ drug gangs are a problem throughout the UK mainland, not just in Wales.
    2. I have every sympathy with any tourist area in the UK where there are property shortages caused by second-home owners and holiday letting.
    3. Not all Brummies are gyppos but the Midlands does have some of England’s worst football hooligans!
    4. To the letter writer: it’s ‘yam yams’ not ‘yaw yaws’.
    5. Rhodri Gwynfor is a bit of an arse.
    6. Welsh independence would make even more of the country poor.
    7. If the Welsh don’t want so many English in Wales, they should join us in campaigning against the tide of immigration.
    8. Drakeford is an utter arse.

  110. Almost midnight and I don’t want to turn into a pumpkin. So it’s Good Night, chums, sleep well and see you all tomorrow.

  112. Wordle 950 6/6

    Just made it in six today (Thursday). Phew!

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