Wednesday 24 June: Getting the economy going again with a drink in a sunny pub garden

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its comments facility (now reinstated, but not as good as ours),
Intelligent, polite, good-humoured debate is welcome, whether on or off topic. Differing opinions are encouraged, but rudeness or personal attacks on other posters will not be tolerated. Posts which – in the opinion of the moderators – make this a less than cordial environment, are likely to be removed, without prior warning.  Persistent offenders will be blacklisted.

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/06/23/lettersgetting-economy-going-drink-sunny-pub-garden/

550 thoughts on “Wednesday 24 June: Getting the economy going again with a drink in a sunny pub garden”

    1. The paywall prevents access, but some of the leading comments are worth reading. Happy days!

  3. This was posted last night

    The BBC has a diversity problem – it’s just not the one they think it is

    The national broadcaster is badly out of tune with the instincts of the British people, writes our columnist

    ALLISON PEARSON – 23 June 2020 • 10:58pm
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/women/2020/06/23/TELEMMGLPICT000233382564_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bqek9vKm18v_rkIPH9w2GMNtm3NAjPW-2_OvjCiS6COCU.jpeg?imwidth=960
    “You would struggle to find a better rebuttal of systemic racism than a series currently on BBC1, I May Destroy You”

    In a week when three innocent men were stabbed to death in a Reading park it is inevitable that our thoughts turn to other mass killings and the causes of them. So it was perhaps timely that BBC1’s Panorama had an episode on the terrorist threat to the UK.

    Except they got the wrong kind of terrorist. Hunting the Neo-Nazis was a report into a far-right global network which is recruiting in the UK.

    What planet is the BBC on? I can guarantee that no normal person believes that far-right extremism is on a par with the threat to their country posed by the Islamist kind. Maybe that’s because it isn’t. The appalling death toll from multiple bloody attacks since 7 July 2005, when 56 innocent people were murdered in London, is almost entirely down to fanatics who cry, “Allahu Akbar!” as they detonate their bombs and wield their knives.

    This fact is an acute embarrassment to the bien-pensant, left-wing “anti-racists” who run the BBC, The Guardian and even the higher echelons of the police. They feel far more comfortable investigating hateful white people. Last year, a counter-terrorism officer tried to claim that the far right “is the fastest-growing terrorist threat in the UK” even as MI5 admitted it was struggling to keep tabs on at least 23,000 jihadists, about 3,000 of whom posed an immediate threat to the public.

    Intelligence expert Colonel Richard Kemp said yesterday that the authorities “know full well” that the far-right extremists Panorama got so excited about are “not a serious threat” but it was “a pretence to appease the sort of people that want to damage the UK such as Islamist terrorists and the hard Left.” Shamefully, the BBC colludes in that pretence.

    It is a very grave matter when the national broadcaster is so badly out of tune with the instincts of the British people who give it a deafening £3.83 billion a year in licence fees. Impartiality should be their watchword, not a constant hectoring assertion that all right-thinking people agree with left-wing producers. They don’t. The Beeb desperately needs to change, although not in the way it thinks it does. Director general Tony Hall announced this week that the BBC is to “increase diversity” by investing £100 million to produce “diverse and inclusive content”. This initiative, Lord Hall said, came about after “the senseless killing of George Floyd and what it tells us about the stain of systemic racism”.

    Do you suppose that an increase in BBC “diversity” will include non-metropolitan, right-of-centre people who make up the silent majority? You know, doing something completely crazy like hiring a couple of people who don’t read The Guardian and live in Tufnell Park with a cat called Muriel Spark (in the immortal words of the late Victoria Wood).

    No, me neither. No chance. Yet it is precisely that kind of “inclusivity” – including people with normal, decent views – which the BBC desperately needs if it is to continue to justify a tax imposed on every household in the land.

    You would struggle to find a better rebuttal of systemic racism than a series currently on BBC1, I May Destroy You. Written and partly directed by Michaela Coel, who was born in London to Ghanaian parents, this new drama is so brilliant you don’t watch it thinking that most of the characters are black. That’s irrelevant. They are human beings equipped with the full repertoire of virtues and vices.

    People don’t object to great work that is truly colour-blind. What drives us mad is a tokenistic “diversity” agenda and a leftist, anti-British groupthink imposed on viewers and listeners by a privately-educated liberal elite. The BBC boss class is as far from diverse as Mayfair is from Mablethorpe.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/politics/bbc-has-diversity-problem-just-not-one-think/

    No comments!!

    1. According to a BTL on the letters page, initially, there were comments allowed, but they were removed.

      Martyn Imrie
      24 Jun 2020 6:09AM
      @Leslie Ayre Comments were permitted when the article first appeared. I commented as 3rd or 4th of them. They disappeared sometime during the night.

      Flag2Unlike
      Reply

    2. ‘Morning, Citroen. After the episode of Panodrama about the PPE shortage that turned out to be no more than a party political for Labour, I’m surprised that anyone watches it any more. A once-respected investigative programme is now just a grubby little sideshow with a busted reputation.

      PS As for ‘diversity’ this is wot I posted late last night:

      “Precisely, Con! At the start of a BBC programme this evening they featured 5 women just moments before it started…of whom 4 were BAME. Frankly I’m sick of it.”

      Yes, the Black Broadcasting Corporation is turning me into a waycist!

      1. I can see the formation of another vastly over staffed, over paid unit at the BBC so they can audit the 20% quota requirements – but who will be deciding what qualifies for that 20%? Will the “twofor” system apply so that a black lesbian, for example, counts as 2, not 1?? Will anyone pay any attention to whether the 20% are actually any good at their jobs?

        1. One legged? Blind? Deaf? Wheelchair bound?
          Heck; at this rate one person could count for the 20% on ze own.

      2. That’s the real danger. Their own inherent prejudices and intolerance, their own racism makes racists of others who are not.

        This is why black lives matter is so disgusting.

    1. Good morning, Sir.
      Presumably to get the acoustics of the empty hall to more closely match when an audience is present.

      1. Either that or they are suffering from the same affliction as HRH The Prince of Wales. {:^))

    4. I think it was a lovely idea! Certainly got people’s attention. It was a one-off and they’re donating the plants to – can’t remember, but people who might like them. Thanks for posting.

      As Bob of Bonsall says below (or above, I suppose), it provides at least some feeling of an audience for the musicians, some acoustic other than empty seats.

      I would be happy to sing to an auditorium full of plants!

  6. Give me back the ‘old normal’ before lockdown took away our freedoms

    The PM’s relaxation of the restrictions will still leave us chained by unnecessary and pettifogging rules

    PHILIP JOHNSTON – 23 June 2020 • 9:30pm

    When a rattled-looking Boris Johnson popped onto our television screens on March 23 to announce the most significant restrictions on British life and liberty in peacetime, he promised a review within three weeks.

    Few would have guessed that three months later many of the measures would still be in place. At the time, there had been 350 deaths from Covid-19 in the UK. Today there have been close to 40,000. That grim figure explains why the Government has retained the controls over social interactions, albeit with modifications as the pace of contagion has slowed.

    Now that it has almost halted, Mr Johnson is emboldened to relax the restrictions further and, in delivering better news, he certainly looked far more chipper in the Commons than he has done for a while, back to the old Boris.

    But listening to his statement about what we are now permitted to do was to appreciate in the starkest terms what it is that we have lost. For a country that is defined by its love of freedom to be told that we can go to the pub, though only if we supply our names and addresses to the innkeeper; or can get our hair cut, though only if our coiffeur dresses like a nuclear power plant worker; or we can have a dinner party but must not embrace or kiss our guests, these are hard orders to take, even if they are dressed up as “guidance”. As a law-abiding nation, we take these things seriously even when they are not actually the law of the land as many of these “rules” are not, including the two-metre distancing.

    Many restrictions seem arbitrary. Why, for instance, is professional football allowed but not cricket? This makes no sense since the former involves much more close contact. Mr Johnson said the ball in cricket acted as a “vector” for disease but on that basis the game will never restart.

    We were promised Independence Day on July 4 but remain in chains, even if they are looser than before. Even when we are freed, which will not happen this year because of the Government’s fear of a second wave, much will have changed.

    Looking through my wallet yesterday was like a Proustian journey into a past life. Photo-passes to offices 
I no longer visit; an oyster card for trains that I no longer use; a library card for books no longer borrowed; and even some cash – remember that? These may well be the detritus of a world never to be regained. Will those of us able to work at home ever be allowed back into the office or even want to go for that matter?

    I had thought that once this nightmare was over, we would all be commuting into cities again, eager to return to the camaraderie and woke minefield of modern office life, but I have my doubts now.

    Parents whose children have been at home since March and face another two months with the little darlings cannot wait to get back to the office but once the schools have returned they might think differently. Home working by millions will be an abiding legacy of this time with all the implications that will have for the viability of public transport, commercial property management and businesses like cafes, restaurants and taxis that rely on commuters for their livelihoods, especially in London.

    Foreign travel will change even when the 14-day quarantine for all arrivals is dropped. While there are many people desperate to get back to the beaches of the Med, there are others who find the thought of a masked four-hour queue at the airport intolerable. Eating out, going to the cinema, attending the theatre – all these activities are to reopen but their pleasures constrained by pettifogging rules; and for how long?

    What else will change? The BBC has been running a series of podcasts called Rethink in which leading figures in their fields consider what might happen. One contributor, Lady Hale, the former president of the Supreme Court, suggests that we might reconsider how we use juries in criminal trials.

    This has been a theme recently among jurists alarmed at the growing backlog in the system. One proposed “temporary measure” is for judges to sit alone or with a couple of lay assessors rather than with a full jury in order to get through the mountain of pending trials. But it would not be a temporary measure. Once introduced it would be hard to get rid of it. Do we want the “new normal” to erode our ancient juridical rights?

    Or what about Parliament: when will it go back to proper functioning? Now that voting is carried out remotely or by proxy, do we ever see the old system returning or a full complement of MPs allowed back to Westminster? What will that mean for the scrutiny of legislation which was never especially well done and has been almost non-existent in recent weeks?

    Research by the Hansard Society think tank found that more than 
90 pieces of legislation, including significant restrictions on people’s freedoms, were pushed through without parliamentary scrutiny. We have lost a great deal in the past few months. We cannot dispense with our democracy as well.

    Do events like a pandemic create a new reality or accentuate changes that were already lurking beneath the surface? Notwithstanding the death toll, this has not been the catastrophic plague that some had feared and has mercifully spared the young almost entirely, unlike past contagions. Moreover, when Mr Johnson announced what he acknowledged to be an unprecedented curtailment of individual freedom, he said the aim was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed.

    That justification passed some time ago and yet the Government still thinks it should dictate how we conduct our lives, including our most intimate contacts. Provided the people most likely to succumb to the virus are protected then everyone else should be allowed to carry on and assess the risk (low for most) to themselves.

    Our freedoms cannot continue to be restricted by a fixation on R numbers or assumptions that there will be a “second wave” of the virus which, as Liam Fox said in the Commons, is merely the continuation of a disease that we cannot get rid of and have to live with. The “new normal” is a world devoid of light and liberty. I want the old normal back, please.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/23/give-back-old-normal-lockdown-took-away-freedoms/

    1. Remote working is great – to a point. It should be a mixed thing, chosen when you want it.

      However the commute I don’t miss. The early mornings – no. Increasingly now I believe the lockdown was unnecessary. a knee jerk response to being associated with potential deaths.

      If the NHS couldn’t cope then the NHS is deficient. It’s as simple as that. It has incredible resources and legions of managers. Those people have failed to do their jobs.

    2. About cricket. To remove the possibility of a situation where “the ball in cricket acted as a “vector” for disease” may I suggest the following.
      A sanitised anti-viral pad be sewn to the front of the trousers of bowlers. When the bowlers rub the ball against their groin as they habitually do, any virus will be killed off. The bowler may then bowl normally.

    3. That is gorgeous; thank you. I’ve seen double helices but never a triple. I think that will stick in my head all day.

      Morning, all.

  8. Oh dear me…the ‘noose’ found in a BAME’s garage turns out to be part of the pulley system for the garage door.

    That particular outrage bus has just suffered a rather awkward engine failure. Toady’s Sgt Bilko sounded rather crestfallen, as well he might, bearing in mind that our state broadcaster is the self-appointed promoter of the BLM movement…

  10. New Black Lives Matter event planned for Coventry city centre. 24 June 2020.

    A newly-formed anti-racism group is heading another Black Lives Matter rally and march planned for Coventry city centre on Saturday (June 27).

    One of the co-founders of the group, who gave his name as Daniel, said: “The public conference we are holding will be an opportunity for people of various different backgrounds to talk about various different topics centred around race with the aim of teaching and educating our audience.

    A speaker from the group, introduced to the crowd as Chad, told last Saturday’s rally that the movement was “at war” with a system that kept people oppressed across the world.

    He said: “It’s a war against the system, it’s a war against oppression. We cannot afford to be distracted, we cannot be blinded. This is a war we cannot afford to lose.

    I of course being an old sceptic would like to know where Daniel and Chad come from. Where did they get the financing for this? Who exactly are they? There is about their words the stink of rote learning. The cant of the propagandist.

    https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-news/new-black-lives-matter-protest-18473186

    1. A system that gives everyone equality under law? What oppression? You’re the ones looting and rioting, destroying public property. The police don’t seem willing to stop you so how exactly are you oppressed?

  11. They certainly are dragging out the end of lockdown, you can go in pubs but not the gym, swimming or indoor tennis, they really need a slap

    1. Think I’ll pass, Rik. The Twatter quote is as far as I want to go with this one!

      Edit: Sorry, B3. My response to Rik now appears before his post!

    2. 320569+ up ticks,
      Morning B3,
      Follow it through, the pub tends to make you nonsensical, lethargic, whereas the others top up as being for a healthy person in body & MIND capable of
      judging the governance of the lab/lib/con parties as complete sh!te, now that in a decent Country would call for a readjustment of the voting pattern, who wants that I ask you?

    2. One notes that this systemic racism has not prevented him becoming a Sky News Reporter! As to the killings well quite a few people have died in Police custody in my lifetime, the vast majority of them being White, no one to my knowledge has suggested this was racist!.

    3. Maybe ACPO should take out a libel action against this person. He can put up or shut up.

    4. Think I’ll pass, Rik. The Twatter quote is as far as I want to go with this one!

    5. If the police had, the media wouldn’t ever let it go. The BBC would bring it up at every opportunity to show how racist the UK is.

      That they can’t shows he’s lying.

    6. Failing that [and if your blood pressure is still low] there is an article in today’s Telegaffe sports section, by a columnist who should surely be seeking a transfer to the Grauniad, banging on about what an appalling thing it was that someone displayed a “White Lives Matter” banner over some wendyball stadium. The DT really is on a downward spiral – thank heavens for Allison Pearson!

    8. The stark fact is that black people in the UK are more likely to be murdered by other black people rather than by the police or even a white person. Most stabbings in London, for instance, are black youths knifing other black youths.

    9. Viewed negatively? Followed around in shops> not at the top of professions? Nonsense.

      Look at the man! He’s the sports editor for Sky! Trevor McFlippinDonald! My GP is a black fellow (with a preponderance for watches that’d make the clock on Big Ben look small). bah. Utter lies. You get stop and searched because you carry knives. If black kids didn’t kill other black kids – and if we talked about it as a society – you wouldn’t get stopped and searched. It’s for the protection of other blacks!

      And no, white lives matter is not opposing black lives matter. Both are racist. People matter. for their actions, character, attitudes. Their skin colour is irrelevant.

    1. Quite remarkable, isn’t it! One would almost think that they didn’t matter!

  14. Q: What do a Rubik’s cube and a penis have in common?
    A: The longer you play with it, the harder it gets.

    Q: What does Mike Tyson smell like after sex?
    A: Pepper Spray!

    Q: What’s the difference between an oral thermometer and a rectal thermometer?
    A: the taste!

    Q: What’s the difference between a circumcision and a divorce?
    A: With a divorce, you get rid if the whole prick!

    NoToIrma has temporarily morphed to Sir Jasper – laptop problems, doncha know.

          1. I was asking a mod, Sos. It will be a victory for trolls if the dog was allowed to ban me because he didn’t like facts from history.

          2. I think he probably flagged the post and someone reacted.
            He posted a comment earlier today complaining about your comment yesterday, hence my response to you.

            Oddly, the post itself was still up, unless there was another one, and it didn’t appear as “Guest”, so you might be having disqus difficulties rather than being banned.

    3. Oh, Sir Jasper!

      Are you partial to touching people in spite of requests not to do so and to lying between lily white sheets completely in the nude?

  15. Morning all

    SIR – Thank goodness that pubs and restaurants will be reopening on July 4. While it is obviously important for the vulnerable to shield themselves, many young, fit people have become absurdly fearful of leaving home, out of all proportion to the actual risk, and this is inflicting terrible damage on the economy.

    I hope the Prime Minister’s announcement has given a clear sign that life is returning to something like normal, and that it is safe for children to return to school and all of us to start shopping and spending again.

    And who doesn’t enjoy a drink in a sunny pub garden or a ploughman’s in a cosy bar?

    Elizabeth Robertson

    Cranbrook, Kent

    SIR – I welcome the Prime Minister’s relaxation of the lockdown rules.

    However, the Government should also be looking to the later months of the year. Jenny Harries, the deputy chief medical officer, has said there is evidence that the warm weather is helping to kill off the virus, meaning that the summer will be “as safe as it is likely to be for a while”. The virus has not gone away.

    The Government should therefore be making plans in case there is a rise in the virus during the winter months, and letting everyone know what it is doing so that people and businesses can be prepared.

    John Griffith

    Tiverton, Devon

    SIR – The hawks will be out for Boris Johnson now that he has started to lift the lockdown. He is damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. Everyone knows best until they are asked to predict how this situation will unfold.

    Mick Ferrie

    Mawnan Smith, Cornwall

    SIR – When Boris Johnson outsourced the running of this country to unaccountable scientists, he lost his authority. The lockdown was the single biggest blunder in our political history. The disastrous economic consequences will be Mr Johnson’s legacy.

    Dr Alistair A Donald

    Watlington, Oxfordshire

    SIR – Yesterday, just before 5pm, a BBC political correspondent announced that the impending coronavirus update would be the last.

    Presumably over the next few days it will replaced by normal programmes such as Pointless. I hope I am able to see the difference.

    Peter Ellis

    Grewelthorpe, North Yorkshire

    SIR – Watching sport on television while the coronavirus restrictions have been in force, I have noticed something: I prefer football without the crowd noise.

    I wonder if this feature could be retained as the restrictions are lifted – along with socially distant goal celebrations.

    Ian Johnson

    Cirencester, Gloucestershire

    1. Mr MacDonald – what should he have done? Nothing? Then you’d slate him for inaction.

      You can’t have it both ways. Done is done.

  16. No charity in Church

    SIR – Lockdown is now easing, yet couples have been unable to marry, babies have not been baptised, the dying have not been given the last rites, and the sacrament of Holy Communion has been denied to the Christian community. The silence of church leaders has been deafening.

    Kay Clifton

    West Horsley, Surrey

    1. SIR – Our church wardens spent hours preparing our large village church to open for its (small) congregation, adhering to the strict guidelines and risk assessment set down by the Church of England (report, June 20).

      The church was open for private prayer, one household at a time, for precisely one hour yesterday, and it will also open on Saturday, allowing 72 hours between openings. Two volunteers are overseeing this, ensuring that the correct path is followed around the church and that the correct pews are used. They must also sanitise the pews at the end of each session, although different ones will be used at the next session.

      Thank goodness that supermarkets and shops do not have to leave 72 hours between openings.

      Sherry Stokes

      Gretton, Northamptonshire

    2. Is the church leader really a church leader, or is he a Davos placement who looks like a church leader ?

      1. He should wear excremental rather than ecclesiastical garments as he is a piece of odure.

      2. He is so bloody ineffectual, I suspect he is a plant put in place to finally kill off the CoE.

        1. ”Oh, Dave, just one more thing… ”

          ”Yes, George, what are your instructions ?”

          ”I’d like my friend Justin to be Archbishop of Canterbury.”

          ”Yes, my Lord, of course. Thy wish will be done”.

          ”Thank you, Dave. You will be rewarded generously in due course. You may go”.

      1. There lurks a distinct aura of evil about Welby as it lurks about Blair.

        Both of them have sold their souls to Satan.

        1. Morning Richard. There is of course someone behind all this and I have often mused (the nature of their evil being so great) that it might actually be Auld Nick himself.

  17. Breaking,
    Lancashire Police have been fined 100,000 quid by Common Purpose for their miserable failure to bend the law enough to bang up the pilot and the banner man.
    In a statement a CP spokesperson said
    “We already had the courts stitched up ready to hand down a draconian prison sentence for any charge that could be manipulated to fit,the failure of imagination by Lancs Police to twist any available law to our purpose is deeply regrettable”
    “Other forces have proved far more effective, Lancs must do better”

    1. Why can Common Purpose, a charity fine a public body? There was no court ruling. The police said no crime was committed.

      1. It is quite usual for an Organisation to impose fines on members who fail to live up to the rules and standards set out by the Organisation.
        Our local Flat Earth Association have sometimes fined members for permitting their children to own schoolbooks with illustrations of the Earth as spheroid.

        1. *snort*. That’s just funny.

          However, the police are not a member of common purpose.

  18. SIR – It’s been announced that government food boxes for those who are shielding will soon cease. What is the advice for anyone who still needs them? Should they write to their MP – or to a Premier League footballer?

    Alexander Marr

    Marlborough, Wiltshire

    1. “Shielding”? Lord, I hate this perversion of our language. Quit the jargon, get out from behind the sofa and unless you’re actually ill or disabled – in which case say so in plain English – go and do your own shopping, Alexander!

      1. Good morning, Sue.

        This insidious rise in the perversion of the language is in direct proportion to the rapidly increasing number of people on this small planet, tied in with the unstoppable decrease in humanity’s general intelligence. It won’t be too long before grunting takes over from language as the widespread and normal means of communication. It has already started with text speak and street slang, which is rapidly proliferating among older people these days.

      4. I was given a stern lecture on the dangers I posed to myself for breaking the lockdown rules. I asked – do I risk anyone else? No, was the long winded answer.

        As long as I risk my life – as I do crossing the road – then I will continue to risk it.

        1. I got the lecture from a bank teller – I suspect he just didn’t want to do his job.

      5. We have created a whole new class of victims. There will have to be a benefit in the system soon, similar to that given to those who will not feed their children properly and throw the responsibility on to the taxpayer.

  19. Morning again

    SIR – Bread put out for the birds gets very hard after a few days. We are visited by an intelligent crow, who picks it up and drops it in the birdbath. A one-minute soak, and then it’s devoured with relish.

    John Raines

    Baldock, Hertfordshire

    SIR – The birds may not like Lesley Thompson’s baking (Letters, June 23), but the blackbirds and starlings are devouring my wife’s bread pudding.

    Roger Gentry

    Sutton-at-Hone, Kent

  21. Good morning, all. Up betimes and ready for the clinician. I have a small bet with myself that said person will NOT be able to deal with my bronchitis but will tell me to go to my GP who, of course, sent me to the clinician because he couldn’t deal with my bronchitis.

    I shudda been born bleck.

    1. Good morning Bill

      Chicken soup helps.. or even drinking a mug of hot chicken Knorr stock cube liquid helps loosen the gubbins .. keep your spitoon handy!

      All the best for today.

      1. ‘hot chicken Knorr stock cube liquid helps loosen the gubbins .. keep your spitoon handy!’

        Ever considered a career in healthcare, TB? ;@)

        1. Remember the old notices on lamposts that used to say no hawking no spitting..

          I can remember spitoons used in hospitals , the old white baccy chewers and snuff takers are no longer around .. That was in the late 1960’s,

        3. You put the gubbins loosening stuff in a thingummyjig.
          But Maggie didn’t wish to blind you with science.

  22. Three Murdered in an English Park. So Where Are the Street Protests? 24 June 2020.

    Three people have been stabbed to death and a number of others seriously injured while sitting in a park in Reading, England. OK – so when do the protests start?

    They can’t get these people off the Front pages and Underground fast enough. Lol! There must have been some Effing and Blinding at Propaganda Central when they were murdered. It broke the entire narrative. Not only three White Guys but they were Gay as well, and by a Muslim of all people. What a nightmare. Never mind let’s write him off as a nutter and bury it as quick as we can and then back to Maverick with White Oppression! Lol!

    https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/06/23/three-murdered-in-an-english-park-where-are-the-protests/

    2. I am not sure how “D” notices work, but the vanishing of this story seems very soon and very sudden, almost as if it were co-ordinated.
      Compare and contrast the story of the loonie from Wales who bumped into a crowd outside a mosque. (Will Prince Charles visit Reading like he visited Finsbury Park mosque and will he convey a message from the Queen?)

      1. Occasionally, Allison Pearson comments on her own articles. Yesterday, when asked about this, she cited sub judice. I’m sure plenty of comment pieces have been written in the past about matters yet to come to court.

  23. Good morning everybody.
    My Committee has been working on the accreditation of a new, inclusive and harmonious slogan, but it needs some additional input.
    The choice is between ‘Transparent(ly) Lives Matter’ or ‘Clearly Lives Matter’.
    The requirement is to respect the feelings of any human beings who do not identify with the spectrum, or who are feeling a bit off-colour.

    1. All amoeba descended lives… oh dear. We love visible… Nope, offensive to blind people.

      2. To the numpties fronting it – yes.
        To those using those numpties – there are much greater long term aims. Which are shortening every time a plod or pol kneels down in public.

    2. Jordan Peterson is a beacon of common sense and lucitdity.

      He destroyed the attempts of Kathy Newman to discredit him but it is understandable why the Left have such a loathing for him.

      His book, Twelve Rules For Life, is a must-read.

    1. 320569+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      One important thing missing in their stance og,
      the rifle.

    2. Are we in safe hands? Not after hearing his nonsense comments, including that he would have been would probably have been with the protestors had he not been a police officer.

      1. 320569+ up ticks,
        Morning VOM,
        Had he been out of uniform could also be the case.

        1. Hadn’t realised that. So there is the worrying prospect that a junior officer policing a riot could come up against one of his or hers superiors out-of-uniform!

          1. 320569+ up ticks,
            VOM,
            There is one of the uniformed islamic ideology
            followers coming up before the beak shortly, is there not ?

  26. I note with disgust that America’s one-, two- and twenty-dollar bills bear images of slave-owners. I have therefore burnt all my greenbacks of those denominations, and I call upon all decent people to do the same.

    A. Pharisee

  28. SIR – The Waterwitch Memorial on St Helena also commemorates the Royal Navy’s role in the suppression of the Atlantic slave trade (Letters, June 20).

    A Vice Admiralty Court was active on the island from 1840 until 1872, and slave vessels apprehended by the Navy were brought there for adjudication. Over that period, more than 25,000 slaves were liberated.

    HMB Waterwitch was the most successful of these vessels, and the memorial was set up in the ship’s name and inscribed: “This column was erected by the commander, officers and crew of her Majesty’s brig Waterwitch to the memory of their shipmates who died while serving on the coast of Africa AD 1839-1843. The greater number died while absent in captured slave vessels. Their remains were either left in different parts of Africa or given to the sea, their graves alike undistinguished. This Island is selected for the record because three lie buried here and because the deceased as well as their surviving comrades, ever met the warmest welcome from its inhabitants.”

    Colin Fox
    Wantage, Oxfordshire

  29. The negativity of the BBC Today programme was on superdrive with Sergeant Bilko, as I see NR as an earlier commenter described him, was interviewing a hapless minister who obviously hadn’t done much preparation for the interview. NR asked questions about Covid stats and after the minister replied NR consulted his aide memoirs and tore the minister’s replies to pieces. Later a female presenter and her guest tore into Donald Trump’s private life destroying his vulnerable image. At the final full daily COVID 19 update Laura Kuensberg asked Boris if the pandemic situation got worse would he accept responsibility. Boris said yes, I will take responsibility.
    Is the BBC still getting money from the EU?

    1. Clue…..

      ”We… leverage policy and legislation…. and build strong relationships with officials, politicians, NGOs and other actors… for three decades”.

      Who said that ?

      Who are the ”other actors” ?

      I think the ”other actors” include the media.

    2. Maybe the BBC should get ALL of its funding from the EU and none from British people – at least we would then be absolutely clear on where they stand.

    3. It must have been around 10 years ago when they had ‘a soft loan’ from the ECB,…. 250 million I believe.

    4. Clue…..

      ”We… leverage policy and legislation…. and build strong relationships with officials, politicians, NGOs and other actors… for three decades”.

      Who said that ?

      I think the ”other actors” include the media.

  30. The sun is shining today, for the second time in 3 weeks.
    Meanwhile there is no room on the BBC website for an update on the condition of the people injured in the muslim terrorist attack in Reading.
    Happily, though, the BBC did find room for the headline, ‘I know the pain of growing up without a father’ concerning someone in the United States.

      1. Thanks. They were certainly well buried. No pictures, no names, no interviews. Every morning the BBC TV channel is bursting with people being interviewed on their crochet in lockdown, whether chocolate brownies should be banned, and lots of similar meretricious hogwash.

  32. Multiculturalism is fuelling division. Spiked 24th June 2020.

    Much is made of our inability to have a civilised debate. But without a broad common identity, it is impossible to believe in the civility of our opponents. Multiculturalism was well-intentioned. But it undermines any attempt at unity that extends beyond one’s own sectional interest. Sadly, it is the cause of, not the cure for, the divisions in society today.

    Morning everyone. There is no successful example of multiculturalism in the Historical Canon. It is a pipe dream. A fantasy for idealists. All such attempts have ended as this one is about to do; in bloodshed . This is because for any Society to function effectively there must be broad agreement on a range of principles. Vegans cannot sit down with Cannibals without themselves becoming the dinner menu. This is the way of things. We may not like it. We may not agree with it, but it is the way things are.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/06/24/multiculturalism-is-fuelling-division/

    2. A couple of messages in bad taste were posted late last night.

      They’re still there, despite mods claiming to have deleted them.

      1. I took a look back. Not the best thing to do eh.
        But I see the usual dissident over reacted.
        and now we’ve lost NTN.

      2. I took a look back. Not the best thing to do eh.
        But I see the usual dissident over reacted.
        and now we’ve lost NTN.

    2. Whenever I see pictures of aborigines native Australians I see a bearded entertainer who no longer entertains…

  39. The Beeb’s most recent attempt to appease the mob is such arrant nonsense and merely confirms that they have money to burn. How will they spend the allocated £100 million? Redundancy payments to honkeys in senior positions to make way for BAMEs? Once again, the slithery Hall is trying to save his skin using licence payers’ money.

    James Innes-Smith
    The BBC’s patronising new diversity quota
    24 June 2020, 11:59am

    https://images.contentstack.io/v3/assets/bltf04078f3cf7a9c30/bltbf9a97cdb39a4d96/5ef32a32f9186d1ceee3f257/GettyImages-1061817246.jpg?format=jpg&width=1920&height=1080&fit=bounds

    ‘Diversity’ and ‘inclusion’ have become sacred doctrines within many of our major institutions, a religious fervour that has only increased since the senseless death of George Floyd. All across the globe, panicked corporations, desperate to be on the right side of history, have been rushing to meet demands for ‘systemic and structural change’, whatever that might mean in practice.

    Not surprisingly, the BBC has been busily doubling down on its efforts to change perceptions of racism from within its own ranks. This week, director-general Lord Hall announced that the BBC will invest £100 million of its TV budget over a three-year period to produce ‘diverse and inclusive content’. Behind the scenes the corporation has set a mandatory target – 20 per cent of off-screen talent must come from under-represented groups, including ‘those with a disability or from a BAME or disadvantaged socio-economic background’.

    In a statement, Lord Hall claims that the Floyd murder has ‘made us question ourselves about what more we can do to help tackle racism – and drive inclusion within our organisation and in society as a whole.’ But why should police brutality in faraway Minneapolis cause Lord Hall to question the cuddly inclusiveness of our national broadcaster, an institution with an almost religious adherence to diversity? Hall’s ambition for the scheme, which will apply from April 2021, is to drive inclusion beyond the confines of New Broadcasting House to ‘society as a whole’, a desire which is surely beyond the remit of the organisation, even one claiming to be the nation’s aunty.

    So why 20 per cent? Why not 50 or 10 per cent? And how does tinkering around with percentages remove what Hall describes as the ‘stain of systemic racism’, a term that has yet to be explained in anything other than impenetrable progressive speak? Even if the BBC were to mirror its latest initiative along UK demographics, they would soon disappear down the same old diversity rabbit hole.

    Eighty-six per cent of the population is white so will that awkwardly high number be taken into consideration? People from Asian ethnic groups make up the second-largest percentage at 7.5 per cent, followed by Black ethnic groups at 3.3 per cent. Does that mean there should be 4.2 per cent more Asians than black people working within the BBC? But hang on, ‘Asian’ is a pretty broad umbrella. How does Hall intend to fairly distribute Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Pakistani and Bangladeshi employees across all levels of the corporation, if indeed that is his plan? Is he aware that some minorities are less deprived than others and don’t particularly need his generous leg-up? And how will he cater for the 2.2 per cent mixed/multiple ethnic groups and ‘other’ ethnic groups weighing in at 1 per cent?

    As it stands, the thinking appears to be that all minorities form part of the same group but this patronisingly reductive way of viewing difference ignores the remarkable complexity of individual lives.

    Lord Hall wants to include people from other ‘disadvantaged socio-economic’ backgrounds while being light on details. Will he be including those white working-class young men Trevor Philips describes as today’s ‘educational left-behinds’? What about the elderly; single mothers; deprived Northerners; those struggling in blighted seaside towns? Will any of these disadvantaged people be considered for plum roles at the BBC’s prestigious central London offices or even for more menial employment within the organisation?

    It’s not as if BAME people are being denied jobs at the BBC. The real issue here isn’t numbers, it’s the distribution of labour – the higher up the ladder you go at the BBC, the whiter it becomes. So how do you fix that tricky conundrum? Well, it’s easy to blame ‘institutional’ and ‘structural’ racism when you hit a complex set of circumstances. Few will dare question such vague assertions, especially when they risk accusations of bigotry. These terms certainly sound menacing enough but does trying to tackle them really get to grips with the issue in hand, namely that of individual choice and the role upbringing and circumstance have on a person’s life chances? Over time, benign sounding diversity initiatives can be quietly swept aside while genuine inequality continues unabated.

    When it comes to the BBC, is Lord Hall seriously asking us to believe that there is a cabal of racists working undercover at one of the most liberal institutions on earth? You only have to look at the schedules and the acres of content devoted to perceived racial inequality in our society to see that the BBC is already doing everything in its power to stamp out whatever vestiges of racism still exist. Do they really need to spend a further £100 million of licence fee money on tick-box initiatives that add nothing to the quality of their output?

    A spokesperson for the corporation admitted to me that they were already hitting on-screen targets so why not spend the money on hiring the best people for the job and leave it at that?

    This latest push follows hot on the heels of last year’s pledge to ensure 50 per cent of on-air roles go to women by the end of 2020, with targets of 15 per cent for black, Asian and minority ethnic groups, 8 per cent for disabled people and 8 per cent for LGBT staff. But how do these on-screen percentages tally up with the seemingly arbitrary 20 per cent figure for off-screen staff? No one seems to know.

    Hall’s announcement this week includes three ‘tests’ for diversity in the BBC’s TV output, with programmes needing to meet two of them to qualify. These comprise ‘diverse stories and portrayal on-screen’, ‘diverse production teams and talent’ and ‘diverse-led production companies’. I have spoken to independent producers about what this means for programme-making and they seem genuinely baffled.

    In essence, then, this latest initiative feels more like a knee-jerk atonement rather than a genuine desire to make the corporation accountable to the broadest possible demographic. By focusing on racial diversity, the BBC is once again forgetting about its lack of diversity around opinions and ideas – an issue viewers are finding increasingly concerning.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-bbc-s-patronising-new-diversity-quota

    1. ”Strong relationships with officials, politicians, NGOs and other actors”, Dolly, looks the likely explanation.

      Why not spend some time researching what is really happening in the background ?

    2. James Innes-Smith understands very little about percentages.

      People from Asian ethnic groups make up the second-largest percentage at 7.5 per cent, followed by Black ethnic groups at 3.3 per cent. Does that mean there should be 4.2 per cent more Asians than black people working within the BBC?

      No James it means about 140% more Asians than blacks should be working within the BBC. If that figure isn’t met will it be bad for diversity? The thing is that most educated Asian employees don’t have a chip on each shoulder and are quite happy with the best person for the job system. However other ethnic minorities believe they should be given a job because of their colour and not their abilities.

      Is my logic correct?

    1. Hmm, those of a certain faith have a version which reads “I will never shovel”. Manual work was traditionally carried out by servants and enslaved people…

    2. 320569+ up ticks,
      G,
      That is only half the story, wait until the other knee goes down…. five times a day.
      Coming to the peoples via the polling booth.

    3. Good morning, Grizzly

      Well said!

      What sort of peer pressure must be applied to today’s policemen encouraging them to grovel to BLM and how do they resist it? How would you have reacted – almost an impossible question.

        1. And how many footballers would refuse to wear shirts with Black Lives Matter emblazoned upon them?

          1. Lamborghini, current WAG’s Porche, school fees for Taylor and Mason, multiple tattoos, multiple holidays, large ‘ancestral’ pile in Alderley Edge v. holding principles: no contest.

      2. In common with most of us, Rastus, I was a product of my time. No one would have even dreamt about suggesting that we behave in this grovelling and wholly inappropriate manner when I was serving. Even if someone had dared to show the wholesale lack of judgment and done so, then the negative response, glares and comments they would have received from the massed ranks would have been overwhelming.

  41. 320569+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    23/24/2016
    Lest we forget, four years ago today the design,forging, triggering of the
    freedom key was turned in the Brexitexit lock and resulted in victory.
    Took many a year and a number of good peoples in UKIP to fight on many fronts to achieve that victory against a three toxic, close shop pro eu political infrastructure, and a multitude of supporting fools.

    We are witnessing and living through the results of governance post 24/6/2016, the underlying treachery of past decades revealed itself
    via may & co.
    I truthfully only see one party over the last three decades that has shown success patriotically and beneficially towards the United Kingdom and it sure ain’t lab/lib/con.

    Sad to say that treachery currently rules as the ersatz UKIP NEc have proven, good men ( as proven) go to the wall and a very good viable party ( as proven ) go down the drain.

    Lest we forget.

    1. Morning Ogga

      What would be the top priority that could solve current problems ?

      I would knock political correctness on the head for starters.

      1. 320569+ up ticks,
        Morning TB,
        As you suggest that is a given, in one form or other it is an umbrella for ALL forms of devious dealings.
        Then the lab/lib/con political fraternity MUST be
        dismantled the herd at this moment in time are colluding in a ballot booth farce as in voting for
        failure, lesser failure, more failure, but failure ensured.
        We need desperately a party that says what it means & means what it says beneficial to the United Kingdom first & foremost.
        The proof of the consumed pudding dictates it will NOT be lab/lib/con sad to say wartime will bring forth such a group.

          1. 320569+ upticks,
            TB,
            The rules of a decent life book maybe,alligator Skinner (fiction) construction industrial tramp,
            nervous at times overseas traveller not sure of the
            endgame but going just the same.
            What you read is the way I truthfully see it, no if’s or but’s.

      2. Repeal of the human rights and equalities acts. Both stick two finger sup to the EU and the racists while comically affording them actual liberty.

    2. Morning Tom

      You are clearly very upset and angry re the ongoing events in the media .

      I was very shocked and upset when I saw your comment and horrible photo last night .. that was bad taste to the extreme .

      I think the heat of the day must have got to you.

      Cheerio for now.

  43. Former officer claims racism forced her out of Met police. 24 June 2020.

    A former officer for the Metropolitan police has lodged two claims with an employment tribunal against the force, citing a hostile and “racist” work environment that forced her to resign.

    The Pakistani Muslim woman, who has requested not to be named, claims she was forced to resign from her role as an inspector superintendent in January 2020. At that time, she was the most senior female BAME and Muslim officer in the Metropolitan police.

    Ahhh. It was so racist it made her a superintendent! What we see here is the lure of compensation!

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/24/bame-ex-officer-claims-racism-forced-her-out-met-police

    3. When are we going to hear of complaints and law claims made by white people because they have been unfairly discriminated against?

      It appears that this happens from the moment ‘positive discrimination’ is used at recruitment to when an employee is promoted. I suspect that few organisations would dare to support a white person rather than a person of colour for promotion to senior positions.

      This BLM movement has, I am sure, brought out all the latent racism in people who never thought they were remotely racist.

      1. Goood morning Richard

        Do the Dutch and the French have the same problems as us re uppity BAMES in senior positions , eg, MP’s, Police, Newspaper editors , TVmedia ?

        1. Speccie article last week which quietly hinted that not all bame people wish to be shoved into the same basket of eternal victimhood.
          Many Hindus and Chinese people (*ames) earn substantially more than indigenous Brits, ie a helluva lot more than other ethnicities.

      2. We are not allowed to complain Richard we are only here to be (re) educated.
        Did you see my guitar collection ?

      3. Positive discrimination has been policy in the UK for forty years. All HR departments manage recruiting by percentages of non-whites and “different ability” people recruited to staff.

      4. Around 1988, two white men in Boston, USA, declared on job applicatIons for the Fire Service that they were black in order to benefit from affirmative action. My recollection is that there were suspicions that hundreds of such applicants were serving in the Boston Police and Fire Service. Does anyone know what the legal position is in the UK – can people just say that they are black, Asian or whatever?

    4. No such rank as “Inspector Superintendent” in yer perlice (or anywhere else as far as I know) and the story is in the Graun…and if a Superintendent couldn’t bang a few (allegedly) racist heads together then her leadership and management skills would appear to be in a minus quantity.

      ‘Morning, Minty.

      1. ‘Morning Hugh (and Minty).

        Appalling “journalism” will always invent new concepts as it thinks fit.

  46. Glancing at the paper, I wondered whether the rich gentleman hurled (geddit) himself from the balcony in order to give Miss Hurley some much needed publicity….

    1. Very sad. The report of his demise in the DM emphasised that he was a ‘university drop out’ ( unpleasant journalism)
      Ms H has been moderately unlucky before; although they exchanged compliments, she failed to complete with Hugh Grant, and he then earned some seriously enormous royalties from several films. Multi millions.

      1. Strategic banana skin on balcony? Butler or maid placed in his employ as a sleeper?

    4. Very sad. The report of his demise in the DM emphasised that he was a ‘university drop out’ ( unpleasant journalism)
      Ms H has been moderately unlucky before; although they exchanged compliments, she failed to complete with Hugh Grant, and he then earned some seriously enormous royalties from several films. Multi millions.

    1. Finally! The truth is starting to creep in and undermine the Hard Left who say the Nazi’s are right wing. They were NOT.

  48. I think one can imagine, with a little amusement, the scenes at Lancashire police HQ when
    they were desperately trawling around to try to find something to charge Hero Bannerman Hepple with. A possibility could have been “Eh Sarge, how about the by-law of 1807 involving scaring sheep?”

    Happily all such attempts have failed and perhaps they can now concentrate more on the
    rape gang allegations of Rochdale and elsewhere.

      1. 320569+up ticks,
        Afternoon BA,
        The results of which will trigger a massive mosque building program.
        The testicles are already in parliament sworn on being the way to go, you will have to swallow it because it’s on the bloody canteen menu also.
        Edit testicles = tentacles in this instance,same thing.

  50. As some wag suggested on Twitter, if the pub asks for your name – say the following

    I am Maximus Decimus Meridius, Commander of the Army of the North, General of the Felix Legion, servant of the true Emperor Marcus Auralius.

    Can I get some crisps as well please?

          1. Wasn’t there a cartoon on here the other day referring to the likelihood of a lot of fake names being given?

            It would be easier here, given that almost everyone carries their driving licence wth them, which are all complete with a mugshot.

          2. They having driving licences with pictures now, what side of my pink license does that appear on?

          4. Are you saying you will happily hand over the information? Whatever happened to GDPR (is that applicable to the USA?). I see no pleasure in going out to eat or for a drink when you are to be interrogated for information. I greatly resent what has been done to the U.K. with this virus and have never believed any of it necessary.

    2. “My name is Legion, for we are many. Two pints of lager and a packet of crisps, please. Oh, and some devilled nuts”.

  51. The Thunderer is increasingly becoming a wet fart…

    Was Mary Seacole racist? The Times and an idiotic attempt to erase history
    By Chris McGovern – June 24, 2020

    ON Monday June 15, the Times carried a report by its ‘History Correspondent’, Mark Bridge, headed: ‘Hundreds of blue plaques checked for slavery links.’

    I wrote a letter to the newspaper because I wondered if the plaque at 14 Soho Square, Soho, City of Westminster, will be vetted.* The plaque states:

    Mary Seacole

    1805-1881

    Jamaican Nurse

    HEROINE OF THE

    CRIMEAN WAR

    lived here

    The Times, of course, was not under any obligation to publish my letter and declined to so do. It did, however, choose to enter into unsolicited correspondence with me in order to contest my opinion that Mary Seacole held racist views; albeit that these views reflected the era in which she lived.

    The judgment I have reached about Seacole is largely consequent on my having read her 1857 autobiography. The letter I wrote to the Times quoted from it. At a time of worldwide public protest and disorder, the newspaper seemed unhappy with my audacity. I was, extraordinarily, asked to prove that the autobiography was not a fake.

    Was it my reference to her deployment of the n-word that so upset the Times? Was it her classification of the Turks as ‘degenerate Arabs’ or her opinion that, ‘the fleas are the only industrious creatures in all Turkey’? Or was it, rather, her racist dismissal of ‘the cunning-eyed Greeks’ and ‘the lazy Maltese’?

    Could it, equally, have been her reference to ‘Jew Johnny’ and to the ‘dirty skin’ of foreigners that ‘spooked’ the newspaper? I doubt we shall ever know, but ‘spooked’ the newspaper certainly was. Has ‘Erase the Record’ become the Times’s new mission statement?

    The fact that the preface to Seacole’s autobiography was written by William Howard Russell, the famous Crimean War correspondent of the Times, made no difference. Nor did Seacole’s obituary, carried by the newspaper in 1881, even though it referenced her autobiography.

    Both the Mary Seacole Trust and the Florence Nightingale Museum are reputable organisations that attest to the authenticity of the autobiography. The Observer newspaper printed extracts from the book as soon as it was published.

    The Times was especially taken aback by my assertion that Mary Seacole was a great admirer of Horatio Nelson. This well-attested opinion is unlikely be true, according to the Times, since Seacole was born a year after the Battle of Trafalgar, in which Nelson died. Putting aside the fact that she was born in the same year, 1805, the absurdity of the suggestion being made by the newspaper is startling.

    The movement towards decolonising the curriculum at school and university is gathering pace. Private schools such as Winchester, Fettes, Ampleforth and St Paul’s Girls’ School are now on the bandwagon.

    Will the suppression of Mary Seacole’s autobiography be a part of the decolonising process? What else needs to be suppressed in order to decolonise?

    How sad that a reputable newspaper such as the Times should seek to contest a truth that might just help people get along with each other.

    The McGovern-Times correspondence, typos and all, is set out below. Judge for yourself …

    https://conservativewoman.co.uk/was-mary-seacole-racist-the-times-and-an-idiotic-attempt-to-erase-history/

      1. I have quoted these words from the Master before:

        Truth’s a dog that must to kennel. He must be whipped out, when Lady Brach may stand by th’ fire and stink.

        (The Fool in King Lear)

        That the truth should be silent I had almost forgot

        (Enobarbus in Antony and Cleopatra)

    2. William Howard “thin red streak topped with a line of steel”Russell. That Russell?

      1. What about Yodeling? I’m socially distanced on my mountain….if you don’t take the goats into account.

    2. I hope He wept quietly. There’ll be no hymn singing permitted when the churches open for worship in July. The C of E remains silent on the subject, but a report by the Church of Scotland says it’s likely to stay that way until 2021.

      1. It beggars belief that a supposedly conservative government would seek to regulate every aspect of our lives in this way.

        We now live in a world where thousands of people can congregate to support an anarcho-Marxist group, but law-abiding people can’t have seven friends in their garden. Or sing a hymn. Oh, and a cricket ball is no longer a cricket ball but a ‘natural vector of disease.’

        Madness.

    3. Face the wall in lifts?

      Face. The. Wall. In. Lifts.

      No. No. No. I am living in clown world.

  53. 20% of this years Oxford intake to be BAME.
    Sucks if you are a working class white. #blackprivilege.
    Reverse racism is still………………………racism??

    2. I very, very much doubt it will help black working class children either.

      I would wager that the vast majority come will from the private and grammar school sectors.

    3. This is actually pretty worrying. In three years’ time, these substandard students who only got let in because of their skin colour will be out in the job market with their dumbed down Oxford degrees, which the market will value as a genuine Oxford degree. Of course, they will all end up working for taxpayer funded jobs telling the rest of us how to think.

  54. There is an article in the Guardian that says: “Britain’s persistent racism cannot simply be explained by its imperial history”.

    What persistent racism?

    I think I can safely say that there are very few indigenous British people like me who has an Egyptian Nubian (dark chocolate colour) as a friend and business partner. I have known him for 40 years and he has visited the UK on numerous occasions. Never once have I detected the slightest hint of racism among the many people who have met us or sat next to us on trains, in restaurants, etc. I freely admit that we have never been to Islington, Tower Hamlets or Brixton but we have spent most of our time in conservative areas which seem to be the targets of the anti-racism brigade. This includes a club that I belonged to in St. James’s and the Cotswolds.

    It seems to me that the ‘persistent’ racism emanates from very narrow-minded people who deliberately see phantom racism everywhere. They use it to advance their cause, namely the destruction of our heritage, culture and traditions that they hate so much, to be replaced with a socialist/Marxist society, whether the majority of people want this or not. It is no coincidence that many members of the Labour Party, plus the Guardian and the BBC, are the ones pushing this agenda.

    What next? The weather forecasts are racist because of all those hideously white clouds? Nothing would surprise me any more!

    1. Morning all….
      The cotton picking guardian will know, it’s another of their inventions.

    2. The greatest stimulant to racism is the behaviour of politicians and the MSM who support BLM racism.

      Indeed, it is the express intention of BLM to stir up hatred between the races.

    3. I am not interested in who is over populating our country. I just want it to stop whoever thery are and wherever they come from..

      1. “I am not interested in who is over populating our country. ”

        I am, I would much rather be amongst people with whom I feel relaxed and can have a good banter … In Birmingham, I don’t get either if I stray outside
        white suburban areas and bump shoulders with either full burqas or uneducated Black Caribbean yoof. Added to the white chavs, it’s not a great mix.

    4. The only persistent racism is what the Left keep banging on about. By refusing to let it die and people treated as individuals they keep racism alive.

    1. 320569+ up ticks,
      Afternoon TB,
      Are there peoples out there still believe there is a Conservative party in power, wasn’t major a danger alert
      siren, followed by the wretch cameron and a bloody great alarm bell going off, then to cap it all hooters in all shapes & sizes joining the sirens & alarm bells when may took the stage.
      Now I do believe a bleeding great steam whistle must be constructed to be heard from John O’groats to Lands End for the next orchestrated failure.

    2. And Priti Awful vowed to stop all this when she was appointed Home Secretary. What a joke…{:¬(((

  56. Here’s the full article by Norman Tebbit, part of which was featured here earlier.

    The scrapping of DfID is good news in Westminster. The attack on Churchill’s statue is not

    NORMAN TEBBIT

    Setting aside the risks that the recent street protests over the death of an American black man might spark off a new wave of coronavirus deaths, the suggestion that Winston Churchill’s statue should be torn down brought a sense of disgust and despair.

    Churchill was the great wartime leader in the fight to save this country and liberate our friends on the continent from the curse of Hitler’s extreme Left, anti-Semitic, German National Socialist Workers’ Party regime. Unlike most of those on the streets last week, I grew up through the Second World War and at times carried in a cardboard box strung round my neck a mask, lest I should be unable to breathe during a gas attack.

    Millions died in those years to keep us free here. We were then able to liberate the Jews in concentration camps, awaiting their fate in gas ovens where they would be unable to breathe until they died.

    I hold no brief for the American police officer who shamelessly killed another American, but that wrong cannot be righted here on our streets by mobs attacking memorials to those who saved us from fascism.

    Perhaps it is just as well that there is not a statue of JK Rowling in Britain, for I am sure that the mobs would have attacked that too. Her Harry Potter books gave so much pleasure to so many youngsters but her common sense views on sexual identity have provoked much ire among those confused on such matters.

    The business of Parliament is best conducted face to face

    In the last few days I have not only celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of being first elected to Parliament, but I have begun to learn how to participate in online proceedings in the Chamber of the House of Lords and even to cast my vote in divisions.

    I find it all rather distasteful, and those of my colleagues I used to find the most awful bores when speaking in the Chamber itself strike me as even more boring when enabled to speak from their own homes.

    How I look forward to being back in Westminster and able to talk to colleagues from all sides as we turn to the task of restoring the economy and normal life in the wake of the pandemic.

    The aid we give should benefit Britain too

    Last week’s announcement of the takeover of the Overseas Aid Department by the Foreign Office is good news. For years we been giving our taxpayers’ money to countries such as India – rich enough to have its own space program – while still doing too little to help really poor countries get clean drinking water to their poorest people. Too often there has been too much truth in the jibe that overseas aid has been about taking money from poor people in rich countries to give to rich people in poor countries.

    Where possible our aid should not just give immediate benefit to people living in poverty but open the way to bilateral trade and promote honest and pro-Western democratic government.

    Whither Labour?

    Here at home it seems that the Government will continue cautiously moving away from lockdown to allow more social contact beyond individual households, allowing shops, pubs and food outlets to get back towards normal business and more schools to open.

    The opposition of teaching unions to opening schools is no surprise. They seem to regard schools as places to feed the bodies rather than the minds of pupils.

    With supporters like them, poor Sir Keir Starmer can but reflect gloomily on a report from “Labour Together”, a group of Labour MPs, party members, union leaders and Labour-supporting media folk.

    Their message is stark. Unless Labour makes a substantial comeback in Scotland it would need to take all but impregnable seats in England. But what would be Labour’s message to Scottish voters? It would have to favour the union, in agreement with the Scottish Tories.

    All Sir Keir can hope is that internal dissent within the Conservative Party will tear it apart.

    Unlikely? Yes – but the impossible does happen now and again in politics.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/06/22/scrapping-dfid-good-news-westminster-attack-churchills-statue/

    1. Good to learn he is alive and well. It seems some time since his last article appeared.

      1. He’s down to about one a month and some of the more recent have been rather half-hearted. Age is catching up with him.

  57. Yo All

    I have just read about a remake of the film ‘Zulu’. It will be called ‘Get Honkie’

    It will be set in Bradford and the men in Redcoats will be Black

    The upstart White trouble-makers just want to stay in their ancestral homes, where their families have lived for generations.

    The Redcoats, from the British Logistics Movement, under the command Major General David Whammy Lammy, are determined that the whites will be driven out of Bradford. and will open up the City to more Racially Diverse people (as long as they are not White.

    To safeguard life and knowing that the BLM will adhere to all orders, no defender will have the name Will, therfore, when Lammy gives the order “Fire at Will” there will be no targets.

    This country is OUR home. We have opened the door to peoples of many race, politics, religions etc, and even given them monetary assistance to do so.
    They were not brought here as slaves and in most cases paid to come here

    They do not have the right to take over our country

    When the African Nations allow White Lives to Matter, then we will all be happy

    The Government MUST promote All Lives Matter or there will be bloodshed

    1. Two of my relatives were murdered by black people in Africa: one of my father’s younger sisters in Kenya and the wife of his elder brother in Zimbabwe.

      Did their lives matter?

    2. Good stuff OLT , you echo what most of us think .

      I expect most of the BLM crowd don’t know their fathers let alone the fathers of their brothers and sisters either. .

      I object most strongly to being dictated to by people like that .

    3. I have just read about a remake of the film ‘Zulu’. It will be called ‘Get Honkie’

      And music by Billy jo Spears.

        1. In Lammys history books they won last time. Martyrs give their all to force whitey into bringing civilization to their family and friends.

        2. A quote from Shake a spear ?
          I’m having problems with my mobile again I cant log in.

  59. 320569+ up ticks,
    May one suggest that if the peoples are not prepared to rectify things via the polling booth then to show a semblance of retaining some moral fibre
    in countering unexceptionable silly type rulings with a stock answer
    -uck OFF, until such times as sanity returns to the ballot booth.
    Or dumb insolence will surfice.

    —

  60. “Black Lives Matter” – Who to ?

    From today’s Daily Mail –

    “A father-of-three and a 21-year-old were fatally shot at an illegal lockdown rave in Manchester in the early hours of Sunday.
    Abayomi Ajose, 36, was described as a ‘community hero’ as tributes poured in
    for the ‘peacemaker’ and ‘beautiful young soul’ Cheriff Tall, 21.”
    I wonder who could have done this – after all, it was only an illegal rave?

    1. It was systemic racism that caused it, obviously. BLM are just looking for a suitable free date to organise the riot.

    2. Black lives don’t really matter to BLM unless they can use someone’s death for political gains.
      Someone (can’t remember who, but it was a black conservative speaker) said that the African Americans are the only people to make heroes and martyrs out of criminals.

  61. A bit of a change: Standard Joke number 36

    A couple made a deal that whoever died first would come back and… inform the other if there is sex after death.

    Their biggest fear was that there was no after life at all.

    After a long life together, the husband was the first to die. True to his word, he made the first contact: ” Marion … Marion ”

    “Is that you, Bob?” “Yes, I’ve come back like we agreed.”

    “That’s wonderful! What’s it like?”

    “Well, I get up in the morning, I have sex. I have breakfast and then it’s off to the golf course.

    I have sex again, bathe in the warm sun and then have sex a couple of more times…

    Then I have lunch (you’d be proud – lots of greens).

    Another romp around the golf course, then pretty much have sex the rest of the afternoon.

    After supper, it’s back to golf course again. Then it’s more sex until late at night. I catch some much
    needed sleep and then the next day it starts all over again.”

    “Oh, Bob! Are you in Heaven?” …

    “No — I’m a rabbit somewhere in South Carolina .”

  62. 320569+ up ticks,
    A leg layer of great merit wishes everyone a happy independence day
    also has a masters degree in urine extraction,
    On par with Emil Zatopek at a crucial time.
    What you see is not what you get.

  63. And please forgive me but I thought it was now ‘1984’……but it seems we are going back another 8 years to the heat wave of 1976. The TV journos are loving it “ITS GOING TO BE THE HOTEST DAY OF THE YEAR”!!!! another band wagon to nail their colours to. Oh well done you lot.. I suppose partly to blame is all that hand washing. But what can we seriously expect, our population has risen by at least 3 million (recorded) since the benevolent Mr Blair opened the door in 1997 I believe it’s around 70 million now. It was under 60 million in 1997. That’s a lot of people using the natural resources of a small island. It’s not as if we don’t have enough rainfall, but it seems storage is seriously lacking.
    Our political classes have some serious decisions to make. And pretty soon.

      1. Damage done I’m afraid Ogga, the thing that could change the situation is a civil war and with imports running high on the list, one side is running short of soldiers.

        1. 320569+ up ticks,
          Afternoon RE,
          Surely if that is the case then the peoples should know the reason they are going to die, as in who in hell’s name kept supporting / voting for these continuing line of political failures & treacherous
          parties fully knowing the parties past pedigree.
          Will them there supporter / voters be in the front ranks of a civil war. put your bollocks on the answer being NO and you will be on a cert winner.

          1. Well, you can make a comparison to South Africa, I lived there for two years. Under apartheid regime it all worked very well, they had a sound economy and most of the cities were bustling especially JHB. Most black people had a job of some sort. But I didn’t like the Afrikaners, they were (not all) similar to but a milder version of Nazis. Then a much love iconic former terrorist became president. And the people were given the vote. For the vast majority that’s all the were handed.
            But then in a form of trialist anger set about destroying their white built surroundings, monuments parks etc, etc. Immigration became impossible to control, the streets are filthy, many buildings have been burnt out or sealed up, parks and former well kept recreation areas are now filled with temporary accommodation where prostitution both male and female is rife as is drug dealing. at the opposite end of the scale the previous lower middle class white are now destitute. and we all know what’s happening to the white African farmers.
            I can see the same happening here if what is happening continues uncontrolled. Last nights riot in Brixton is a classic example of what is on the cards.

          2. 320618+ up ticks,
            Morning RE,
            I have done a lot of Africa time in construction, instance Two English six Jocks on a cement works in Uganda on a Saturday night the Jocks were more dangerous, did get a message written on a piece of wood in red telling us to go home though.
            As for poofs etc, the mate was dancing with one in Gibraltar who had two packets of fags in his @rse pockets to make his bum look bigger me mate said he didn’t know whether to kiss him or hit him.
            What I am trying to say in a poor fashion is we did not have none of this current sh!te, in the main we all got on.
            It amazes me that major kickback has not been triggered, how anyone can continue to support / vote for mass uncontrolled immigration parties
            whilst remembering the evilness revealed in the JAY report is beyond me.

    2. It is toasty outside.

      Until now I’ve had the AC on. Just opened the windows now the air has picked up. I’m ok as long as there’s a breeze. When the wind drops I can’t cope.

    2. In the woods near her house, to be precise. The death is not considered to be suspicious.

        2. Oi!! I resemble that remark!

          Actually, it’s true. Studies have shown that a well-projected voice leaves masses of tiny droplets floating in the air, which can travel quite a distance.

          I don’t see the problem with many instrumental musicians, though, so that’s a bit strange. Not thought through properly.

          1. Of course that assumes that actors and actresses will go on stage to perform even while coughing up Covids, in a “show must go on” kind of way. Whereas no one would dream of visiting to a cinema while suffering from coughs, sneezes and ‘flu, would they?

  66. Well, well. The NHS was – almost – joined up. I went 17 miles to the area testing centre – expecting it to be humming with people coming and going….. Not a soul. My apptmt was for 10.30. “Park and wait in car”. At 10.20 a nurse came out and took my temperature and clipped a thingy on my finger (the purpose of which was not explained). Then I was invited into the humming health centre, where a doctor in fullish PPE asked m to sit down. She actually DID know why I was there and checked my chest thoroughly. I have – guess what? – a chest infection and she prescribed penicillin – to be collected from my own GP – 25 miles away…

    She also said I needed a chest X-ray – and would tell my GP. Then she did the virus test – shoving sticks right to the back of my throat – so far that one gagged; and other things up each nostril so far that one feared for the eyes…!! I can see why DIY tests are useless.

    She said that I obviously don’t have it – but that the test results will be sent to my GP – who, yesterday, told me that they would come to me direct!

    No other person arrived or left the “humming” (sarc) health centre – so I guess the two skilled medics will spend the rest of the day playing scrabble… Talk about a good idea misconceived.

    Then to the local GP to collect the tablets. They WERE ready (shock all round); the MR then asked the bovine receptionist what happened about the test results. She “thought” they went to the GP but that it was best to phone every day (yeah, right – 15 minutes wasted each time). BR added that there was “nothing on the computer” about any X-ray. MR gently persisted – BR did a Lammy – then, finally, through gritted teeth, said, “Oh yes – there i something about that.” Apparently someone will be in touch with a date for the X-ray.

    I am NOT complaining about all this. BUT – I cannot for the life of me understand why the virus test could not have been done at the GP surgery – where they have a dozen nurses (and virtually no patients). And I could have seen my GP at the same time about the chest – and he could have arranged an X-ray to be done there and then. It all seems so obvious – yet impossible. Heigh ho….

    1. You don’t know how lucky you are. The NHS paid zillions of taxpayers’ dosh to a Management Consultant (/sarc/) to design that system complete with flow charts and a computer simulation devised by a bloke called Ferguson.
      https://youtu.be/d-diB65scQU

        1. We could institute mass forelock tugging at 20.00 on Thursdays to thank the government for allowing us to do …. well … something.

    3. The clippy thingy on your finger is to check your oxygen levels.
      They must have been reasonable or you wouldn’t have got back to send this report.

      1. I am obliged to my learned and well-informed friend for her helpful intervention.

    4. Why didn’t they organise the X-ray while you were there? Too simple and did not waste time. ‘Must have a referral from your doctor’? But they’re going to write to your doctor and he’s going to do as they ask. What a waste of time and resources. The NHS is a moribund bureaucratic disorganisation.

      1. Indeed, gg. At Aylsham (the virus test hot-spot!!!), there was just a nurse and a doctor. Not another soul. Certainly no X-ray stuff.

        But the Dr did exactly what she promised – and 45 mins later, at MY GP surgery in Fakenham (25 miles from Aylsham) the tablets were waiting and the request for X-ray had arrived by e-mail.

  67. This chap is always on the ball and very notoceable that US media & medics are switching from BlackLivesMatter back to Covid FearPorn:

    Infections up 15 per cent in a fortnight, with 37,000 recorded in a day. For those who are inclined to see it that way, the graph of US Covid-19 cases is confirmation of the folly of reopening society far too soon, and ‘throwing away’ all that hard work during lockdown, as Matt Hancock likes to put it.

    But there is a little problem with this analysis: while the graph of cases in the US shows something which could be described as a second spike, the graph of deaths has stubbornly refused to follow suit. Quite the reverse: having peaked at over 2,000 deaths a day in April it is now down to around 600 a day and falling steadily.

    Until the middle of May, the two graphs seemed to be coupled. Deaths trailed the number of new recorded cases by a fortnight, rising and falling in tandem. But then something strange happened. The fall in new cases began to falter and then to reverse. The number of deaths, on the other hand, carried on falling, as in a classic epidemic curve.

    How come? There are four possibilities – or possibly a combination of all four. Either more cases are being recorded, as a result of ramping-up of testing; the disease is becoming less virulent; we are getting better at treating it; or the disease has started infecting less vulnerable groups.

    There is support for all of those hypotheses. The US has now conducted 29 million Covid-19 tests, more than any other country. Moreover, the number of tests being performed has risen as the epidemic has progressed. The US has now conducted 87,000 for every million population – nearly half as many again as in Germany, a country that has been praised for its testing. Conduct more tests for a disease – especially one in which 80 per cent of infected people are asymptomatic and what is the result? You pick up more cases. A rise in the number of recorded cases does not necessarily mean the number of actual cases is going up – it might simply mean your detection rate is going up.

    Is the virus becoming less virulent? There is not of lot of evidence for this, though it is the view of Alberto Zangrillo, a virologist at the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan, who was reported earlier this month saying that the swabs he was taking from patients now showed ‘infinitesimal’ levels of the virus compared with those taken in April. Are we getting better at treating the disease? It would be surprising if we weren’t, given that it is a novel disease and no one at first knew what they were dealing with. Initially, for example, patients were being rushed onto ventilators, a treatment which many hospitals are now avoiding if they can after high mortality rates.

    Has the disease begun to infect less vulnerable groups? There is some good evidence for this. A graph compiled for the US Centers for Disease Control shows that back in April over a quarter of the over-65s tested for the virus were positive. That has now fallen to less than 5 per cent. On the other hand, the proportion of 5 to 17-year-olds who test positive for the virus has held steady at around 10 per cent. Covid-19 began with a very lethal tour of care homes and their vulnerable residents, but as time has gone on infections are much more widely spread among the population.

    Whichever combination of these hypotheses explains the divergence between infections and deaths, though, one thing is for sure: citing a rise of recorded infections in the US and using it to raise the spectre of a deadly second spike is not telling the full story. Deaths have fallen sharply and continue to plummet.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-are-us-deaths-falling-when-infections-are-rising-

    1. If the Speccy looked further, they would have seen reports that younger people are now catching the disease. Going back to work, refusing to wear masks, going to the bar are activities that expose a younger group.
      One of the southern state governors was bragging about this being reflected in less severe cases and a lower demand for hospital beds.

      Here is a link that a friend sent to me about the impact the increase in cases is having.

      https://docs.google.com/document/d/19gJ68huvNpvUuceOTyNWqL21KScZbwjsrbVQQCUDFII/mobilebasic#heading=h.kxyidtw4lf24

      No comment from me on good, bad or indifferent.

      1. “going to the bar are activities that expose a younger group” Not around here, the average age at my pub is probably 60+.

      2. Ummmm….. also going to mass protests, but of course it’s impossible to catch C-19 there because that’s anti Trump.

        Isn’t it ?

    1. I thought the stasi disappeared some while ago. Is there no real crime to fight, maybe very
      little as blacks have become untouchable.

  69. HAPPY HOUR – I don’t think so!

    I awoke this morning feeling slightly better as the effects of the antibiotics were wearing off.
    I’ve been feeling rough since my painful Achilles tendon became infected after exercising….trying to keep fit!
    I had seen two doctors and a nurse previously who prescribed painkillers and antibiotics.
    I left my repeat prescription at the pharmacy and called in the surgery to see if a doctor or nurse
    could look at my ankle which was still very painful. Fat chance!

    The chap who allowed me to enter the surgery after taking my temperature asked me the reason of my visit.
    I explained my Achilles tendon was still painful after several weeks and I wanted to see someone.
    He said the doctors and nurses were exceptionally busy but he could offer advice as he was
    a physio for The Cornish Pirates Rugby team …..BINGO!

    He suggested I bathed my ankle in hot water followed by cold water and I should wear an ankle
    support . ….Why the fuk couldn’t two doctors and a nurse tell me I needed to wear an ankle brace
    when I saw them weeks ago..

    2. I have to break it to you… As a trained clinician I have long held the view that most GPs are terminally stupid & short-sighted.

      2. They are merely the route to the specialists. And they sign the prescriptions.

    4. It’s annoying that the doctor you saw didn’t suggest it; I’m surprised though that you couldn’t have thought of that for yourself, PT.

      1. I read your earlier post.

        If you haven’t got Coved 19 they’re not interested….

        1. And if you HAVE, they don’t want to know – just tell you to isolate for months. Or die.

    6. “Why the fuk couldn’t two doctors and a nurse tell me I needed to wear an ankle brace
      when I saw them weeks ago…”

      I guess your two doctors – and the nurse – don’t play Rugby – nor Tennis, sweetie ! … x

    7. Good evening P-T

      One of my best friends, Steve Tomlin, used to captain the UEA XV when we were there together. He also played quite regularly for the Pirates and used to prop alongside Stack Stevens who propped for England.

      Steve, to whose eldest son I am godfather, is still fanatical about rugby. He has written several books about the game – including a History of the Pirates and a biography of Stack Stevens – and he used to follow the Pirates Team as a reporter for BBC local radio. His parents used to live in a lovely house called Tregembo near Rellubus

    2. My experience when looking for jobs as a younger man.
      (other sexes are available now, but weren’t back then)

      1. As an older applicant I always ended up interviewing the person who was supposed to be interviewing me. Worked every time.

        1. There’s always a bit at the end when they ask if you have any questions. The interviewers always look befuddled when you do actually have some meaningful questions.
          I have caused some head scratching in the past by asking questions that they don’t know the answer to and clearly have never thought to ask.

          1. Rule one of being audited.

            Always assume that the questioner thinks they already know the answer to the question and the best answer is the truth.

            For good recruitment people the same applies.

          2. #2 for audits: Even if you have the perfect system, make sure there’s an inconsequential finding or two they can make – like, you don’t have full control over your technical library. That way, they are happy at being seen to do their job, but nobody really gives a shit about the NCR/finding anyhow.

          3. Odd that.

            I disagree totally.

            If it’s inconsequential it should not go into the report.
            That smacks of “gotcha” auditing, one of my pet hates.

          4. But they are happy, they did their job and found a NCR – and don’t bother you so much about the important stuff.
            ;-))

    3. You’ve not been paying attention.

      They never tell you you didn’t get the job, you have to ask for a progress report…

      1. The last job I didn’t get (mainly because they asked, “Do you think you can do this job?” and I replied, “Well I wouldn’t have wasted your time or mine applying if I didn’t.”

        They wrote and said, “We are delighted to tell you that you are the runner up…..”

        I never bothered, after that, to apply for anything.

        1. When we got married Caroline and I applied for some headships and went to quite a few interviews.

          Thank God we were not offered anything – we’ve had so much better a life running our own show.

        2. I had a few different jobs when starting out. Mostly the type of job where they paid a pittance and expected 14 hours a day.

          I went for one with a big catering company that I thought would set me up and teach me a lot. I had been interested in food and catering from an early age and thought my enthusiasm for the subject might carry me through. It didn’t. Still, they did pay my travel expenses.

          I joined my brother in his enterprises and we split the profits.

          My last interview was around 1986.

      2. When I applied for my last job, I was invited back 3 times. They were always beating about the bush so the last time I had to ask, “Have I got the bloody job, or not?” I got it.

      3. Second Son has found that they say “If you don’t hear from us, you didn’t get to the next stage”.
        How downright rude is that? Bastards! Since it’s all done through the computer, how much effort would it take to send an email to “All on the failed list” aaying “sorry, not this time”?
        Bastards.

        1. It will get worse, too.
          As unemployment rises , more applicants and the recruiters will hold the whip hand.

        2. Employers are terribly rude these days. Many of them don’t bother to reply unless they want to call you to interview.
          Tell him never to forget, the interview is just as much about you interviewing them as the other way round!

  71. That’s me for the day. Must go and water the veg.

    A demain, on espère….

    1. Looks like you’re having a bonzer time at the Barbie, Philip. I’ve just been preparing some meat for my next BBQ on Saturday. That is … Saturday July 4th!

      I’ve boiled some pork belly ribs in a liquor (for a Chinese twice-cooked pork recipe) that I’ve made from: a large knob of ginger, finely chopped; six large garlic cloves, crushed; a tablespoonful of five-spice powder; a large pinch of chilli flakes; 8 tbsps dark soy sauce; the juice from a 230g tin of pineapple chunks; a few shakes of malt vinegar and then topped up with water to cover. I boiled the pork ribs for 30 minutes, drained them and let them cool before placing into a plastic food bag and freezing until needed. I then strained the liquor and put it into a large saucepan and brought it to a rapid boil to reduce it down to one-sixth. I shall then store the concentrated liquor in a plastic container until needed. On the day I shall BBQ the defrosted ribs over hickory smoke then coat them in the reduced liquor to which I shall add some honey and butter. I’ll probably serve it on a bed of salad or maybe a stir fry of beansprout, bamboo shoots and a few noodles.

      I’ve done a similar recipe before and it is most yummy.

      1. Looks good, Grizz!
        July 4th – when half the world has a huge party for my (late) Father’s birthday…

          1. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/154d1185e16814379ec69d966bd80557a49a4bbb28a158df1fdfe7edd6024fc5.jpg

            I’ll join you, Grizz. The only son of a West Hartlepool mineworker, he made it to Professor, Head of Department, and Deputy Vice-Chancellor. The man whose personnel number in Nigeria at the University (Ahmadu Bello University) he helped start, was “4”.
            A hard act to follow. Best I could do was Vice President… in another country, whose name starts with the same letter, at least!

          4. I shall raise a glass to you both, Sir. Indeed, I will be honoured to be in such exalted company.

            [The seam of coal runs deep in the blood.]

      2. Most yummy indeed.

        I do something similar myself using same ingredients. I marinate then cook a kilo or two of belly pork then portion up and freeze. As long as you have some greens or pak choi or tat soi and a few beans and cashews you never need a takeaway.

    3. Hi Belle….we’re expecting the pleasure seekers to hit Cornwall dreckly…

        1. It’s hardly Clacton-on-sea…….you won’t find any kiss me quick hats down here.

    4. We share your pain. Our little town is being invaded by the big city types, very few manners and a bit too aggressive behaviour.

      St Jean Baptiste day in Quebec (unless he is being disowned for being a white European) and since the US border is closed, they all seem to be coming our way.

      Ah well I suppose that we can hibernate for a few days.

      2. We don’t get invasions of big city types here. WV has a certain reputation for being full of gun toting rednecks, so the liberals avoid us like the plague, and we have very few minorities as the state’s benefit systems are far from generous – i.e. you are expected to earn your own living, not sponge off the state.

        Back to cleaning the AR-15…

      2. As a Brummie, I thought the 60s version of The Bull Ring (note original name), was a pretty ghastly brutalist place, but the current version is awful. Especially the bit covered in hub caps.

        1. Last winter (18-19), I made my first visit to Brum for 10 years. I went by rail. I knew the old New Street station well enough. I lost my compass this time. The signage was almost non-existent. I eventually found a map but it was upside down with south at the top. Needing to get to Colmore Row, I knew I’d taken the wrong exit when I saw the sun in front of me. Was it just me, I thought? No. Later that evening, a few minutes on Trip Advisor and various rail forums told the same story – dozens of rail travellers, new and old, baffled by their first encounter with the maze.

          It’s become a shopping and eating venue with some well-hidden access to the platforms below. Christ, I thought the old concrete bunker was an abomination but this…

      3. As a Brummie, I thought the 60s version of The Bull Ring (note original name), was a pretty ghastly brutalist place, but the current version is awful. Especially the bit covered in hub caps.

  76. Nicked,oi laffed because it’s so accurate

    “We have in the studio today Karen from the”

    “IT’S RACISM”

    “Ok, thankyou Lillian, as I was saying we have Karen from the BBC and we”

    “IT’S RACISM”

    “Thanks Karen, we also have Peter who believes that all lives matter, first I’d like to come”

    “IT’S RACISM”

    “to you Karen, please can you provide us with some examples of the Racism that you”

    “IT’S RACISM”

    “Yes Karen, of course but can you actually provide us with some examples of the racism”

    “IT’S RACISM, THEY ARE RACIST”

    “quite… but please can you provide the audience with examples?”

    “IT’S RACISM INNIT AND IF YOU DON’T KNOW THEN YOU’RE A RACIST”

    “But can you provi”

    “RACIST”

    “Thankyou Karen and thanks to you Peter for taking part in this debate, after the break we’ll be”

    “RACISTS! WE NEED REPARATIONS AND IF WE DON’T GET IT THEN IT’S RACISM”

    “After the break we’ll be discussing more pressing issues with Karen whom will be staying with us in the studio”

    “IT’S RA

    2. What does the circle in the flag denote – one of the wheels off a car the ‘travellers’ have nicked?

      1. They used a loader with grab to steal wire crates of clay peg tiles from the car park at Somerhill (Yardley Court School) near Tonbridge in 1989. The brazen theft over a weekend put the re-roofing of the Jacobean house back months.

        Kent Police were rubbish then and remain so if not even worse.

      2. It’s derived from the Indian national flag.The symbol is widely used in Hinduism and Buddhism. Gypsies claim to have ancestral roots in the subcontinent. It also represents their itinerancy.

      3. It’s to tell you that they have taken the wheels off your car and left it on bricks.

    3. And the young policeman who was murdered last August – three men on trial at the moment.

    4. No problem, salt of the earth , wonderful and diverse people , as welcome here as they were a couple of years back

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0df1f0d51155285ed37c056806dbd82c04c1180e8faa768cb3ca4be8bfbca2f9.jpg
      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/102570af0cfb13040f721cb9415615fe04f206ae1e4b25ca724cd9dd538105fc.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/cb5e1b315e044b85359a06ad595f0b591155d8b10e0e0f49fbce1f48fe154034.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ff3404a0297983e53d7f8ad1b23907dbcf2bf9a8343baddfbf9bf2ab5caa4f51.jpg

      1. They are a bit like a Portable “Problem” Housing Estate and they keep country dwellers on their toes.

    6. I declare myself a minority and I will stop paying taxes. I will litter, loot, riot and vandalise.

      I expect the police to kneel before me and praise my lifestyle while the council pay *me* while I use all the services others will pay for. .

    7. A heritage dating back to when the Irish kicked the travellers out, i.e. the 1970s.

    1. More to the point, what chance do the people they eventually mix with have?

      Add BLM into the equation and there are troubles ahead.

        1. I’m sorry for the children.

          There’s a very good chance they’ll play honkies and indians with those guns and one of them will kill the other.

    1. What is it with Prosecco?
      Nobody drank the stuff until about ten years ago.

      1. Cheap and easy. Like me.

        If you add a touch of Crème de cassis it becomes palatable.

        1. Instead of cassis for your kir try the peche or the framboise – these are more palatable to my taste.

          1. They’re still around, and for my cheapskate palate I prefer a case of good Cava over a couple of bottles poor Champagne.

            Give me good crémant at half the price, over poor chamagne every time.

          6. The only one I can recall is a Burgundy, but it was years ago that I had it.
            It must have been bought somewhere around St John’s wood.

            Whether it was called crémant I’m not sure, because it was described as sparkling Burgundy

          10. Cava is often good. Cremant de Loire and Cremant de Bourgogne are better buys and much less expensive than champagne.

            I wonder what happened to Hirondelle? I occasionally recall some of the horrors I experienced in the seventies. Corrida was another horror along with Liebfraumilch and Blue Nun.

          13. Before my time. My release from German white was the taste of a bottle of German Rotwein from a lock-up in Wellendingen in the Black Forest in about 1978 where we stayed in a rented property courtesy of friends in Heidelberg.

            We all had contracted colds but our host introduced us to an artichoke based schnapps called Topinambur. You could drink it or else rub it over sore joints. It was a cure for every ailment.

            Edited: Topinambur schnapps.

          14. Before my time. My release from German white was the taste of a bottle of German Rotwein from a lock-up in Wellendingen in the Black Forest in about 1978 where we stayed in a rented property courtesy of friends in Heidelberg.

            We all had contracted colds but our host introduced us to an artichoke based schnapps called Topinambur. You could drink it or else rub it over sore joints. It was a cure for every ailment.

            Edited: Topinambur schnapps.

          15. Nasty Spumante! Very unpleasant – even the sec!
            We had cava at our wedding!

      3. What is it with fizzy drinks per se? I can’t stand effervescence in any drink, be it fizzy pop, “sparkling” water, bottled or canned beer, champagne, or any other fizzy wine. I simply don’t do bubbles.

      4. It’s one of the cheapest wines available in Norway (that and Cava) – and being white & fuzzy, it’s nice chilled at this time of year.
        That, and good marketing.

    2. Why didn’t you tell us you were having a cheese and wine shin dig? Selfish….that’s what you is….

  80. How good are you at satellite image interpretation?

    The following video shows images before and after a suspected shift in the Three Gorges Dam wall.
    What do you reckon?

    The Chinese say it is just an optical artefact that gives the appearance of the dam wall being out of true.
    Western engineers called in by the Chinese for a safety report said the steel and concrete work was defective so they were deemed to be racist.

    https://youtu.be/n6QyfrS7ARI

    2. And a ‘yellow warning’ was aptly issued.
      The danger appears to be similar to China’s annual flu deaths figures, vastly underestimated.

    3. If it collapses the faces won’t just be washed the loss of face will be total.

    4. Madness. I know a civil engineer and he has absolutely no interest except for the structure. It takes too long to train and get noted.

  81. Just back from W/r0se.Longest q I’ve seen since lockdown started but I was let in at the front.

    Noticeably more traffic on the roads.

    1. We went to Bristol this morning – the motorway was reasonably busy but not chokka, and the ordinary roads were quite busy. Traffic back to normal, really.

      1. The road to Aylsham (for the virus test “hot-spot” (sarc) was also busy – particularly after a large chunk of machinery fell from the trailor being towed by a huge tractor….

          1. When I gently pointed out that a large bit of iron was lying directly in the way of oncoming traffic, he replied, “Booger – not moi day, bor”.

    1. Shouldn’t you have a yellow line a metre from the edge of the decking!😉

      1. There are two post heads awaiting their Solar lights. Anyone that gets drunk enough and falls down four feet is the entertainment.

        The two sofas swing round when in use so not much chance of anyone going over the edge…..but i do keep my camera ready just in case. 🙂

  84. Francis Foster: “How do we get out of this situation?”

    Laurence Fox: “I don’t think we will. I’ve got a feeling, it’s the cycle of life. After a long period of peace, people want a fight. It’s so aggressive, there isn’t a conversation to be had. People are taking sides already. Those who fight the cruellest and nastiest way are probably going to win. I feel sorry for our kids.”

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

  86. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled 2-1
    Wednesday that a lower court must grant a request by the Department of
    Justice (DOJ) to drop its case against former National Security Adviser
    Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn (Ret.).

    1. I firmly believe that the current insurrections in major Democrat-controlled cities are organised by those in fear of Trump and in fear of justice. Their useful idiots are the supposedly disenfranchised blacks, the permanently ‘downtrodden’ drug merchants, vicious thieves and violent hooligans.

      Every event, toppling of statues of great statesmen, destruction of private and state property, looting and the provocation of the forces of law and order, is most certainly organised. The same is occurring everywhere including particularly the UK and Australia.

      1. I don’t think that they are just in fear of Trump, anything right of Obama gives them nightmares,

        As for Trump, he appears incapable of rising above the mayhem, in fact his divide and rule approach is making matters worse.

        It needs Trumps drain the swamp ideas driven by someone with the personality of Obama – as if that will ever happen.

        1. The only reason Trump is there is that Obama, like all presidents, was limited to two terms.

          –Jack.

          1. True, but if Trump really wanted to achieve any changes he needed a much less antagonistic approach than he has adopted. It might work in sales when it is grab the prize and run but he has completely failed to build support outside of his base.

            It’s a bit odd when the past president is so much younger than the current pretenders.

          2. Obama was a fraud. He promised ‘change’ and nothing happened. He obtained the black and Hispanic vote on the promise of ‘change’ and delivered precisely zilch to those communities.

            We in the UK saw this fraud for what it was just as we sussed the Clintons for the serial fraudsters and assassins they have proven to be. We loved Reagan and were instrumental in deposing George W Bush.

            We were right then and we are right now. Trump has to continue his Presidency in order to save America from itself.

  87. I rather liked this letter.

    Sounds a bit fishy
    SIR – Police are quoted as saying that, since the pandemic started, spotting drug couriers has been “like shooting fish in a barrel”. I am always intrigued by this expression.

    Is it really that easy, or do you need to practise first? What sort of fish do you use? What sort of barrel? What do you shoot them with?

    I note that the report comes from Wiltshire, a landlocked county to which I have recently moved, so – though not yet au fait with its customs – I was surprised that activities with barrels of fish should be widespread here. Are there clubs you can join?

    Colin Beardwell
    Devizes, Wiltshire

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