Wednesday 27 April: America is naive to suggest that Ukraine can win the war against Russia with its own forces

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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597 thoughts on “Wednesday 27 April: America is naive to suggest that Ukraine can win the war against Russia with its own forces”

  4. Boris Johnson has said he does not share concerns that Vladimir Putin will use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine as he suffers more losses.

    “The incredible thing about the continuing conflict is that the Russian public overwhelmingly back Putin,” he told Talk TV’s Tom Newton Dunn.

    “Therefore, he has far more political margin for manoeuvre within Russia than that argument would necessarily allow for.”
    “It’s very important… that we don’t accept the way that the Russians are trying to frame what’s going on in Ukraine,” Mr Johnson added. “They want to present this as a confrontation between Russia and the West, or Russia and Nato – that is emphatically not what is going on.”

    Yes it is. The Attacks in Transnistria and Russian fuel and ammunition stores on their own territory show that the war has metastasized as was inevitable. Ukraine is now in effect a NATO proxy army and the conflict will escalate by increments into full scale conflict. The chances of a Nuclear Exchange of some description are now about 60/40 in favour.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/04/26/ukraine-war-latest-news-russia-attacks-mariupol-refugees-weapons/

    1. I can’t help but think that those behind the great reset see a war in Europe as giving a bit of a boost to the upcoming dystopia they have planned and even a good distraction and excuse and someone else to blame for it all happening.

      1. More foreign nationals to arrive in UK this year than before Brexit. 27 April 2022.

        The number of non-EU workers, students and family relatives granted visas has already increased by more than 50 per cent to more than 840,000 since the UK voted to leave the EU in 2016.

        Lower salary and skill thresholds for foreign workers, the widening list of “shortage” jobs and the end of restrictions on students staying on to work after graduating have contributed to the surge, according to British Future, a think tank specialising in immigration and integration.

        The numbers this year will be swelled by Ukrainian refugees fleeing the Russian invasion – estimated at around 50,000 – and up to 150,000 Hong Kongers coming to the UK on British National Overseas visas.

        Morning Bob. This is our danger. Not some war in Central Europe that poses no threat to us!

        https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/04/25/foreign-nationals-arrive-uk-year-brexit/

        2. Isn’t it wonderful how foreigners can get visas to get in but Britons can’t get passports to get out.

      2. The western political clowns also hope ‘war’ will distract the masses from the results of our governments locking down their populations, feeding them Project Fear through the meeja and effectively closing down the economy for two years.

    2. I think there are two big forces at work here. Firstly, they want to crush Russia for daring to peg the rouble to gold. Secondly, I don’t think they ever wanted a hot war with boots on the ground.
      Gen Z won’t want to put on a uniform and go and die to protect the interests of a bunch of foreign billionaires, but more importantly, they cannot risk a massacre of Europe and the US’s young people. They already have too few young people to keep the economies going to support all the old people, and that problem’s only going to get worse.

      I still think they will try to crush Russia by a proxy war. Whether the Russians will play along with that, is another thing altogether.

        2. The technocracy is going to run out of steam pretty quickly when they’ve extinguished the spirit of invention that stems from Europe.

          1. They probably think AI is sufficiently advanced to no longer need many skilled workers.

          3. Probably not, but as the programmers can programme a computer to teach itself chess, from the rules alone, so that it can beat any human and any other previous chess programme with totally new gambits, it isn’t far off.

          4. I am not an expert on AI, but I’ve read that the current level is dependent upon the invention of neural networks back in the 80s. Neural networks took it forward to a certain extent, but they can’t go any further without a similar breakthrough.
            The current state is that AI is easily confused by unexpected information. So they can do chess OK, but real world stuff is still very limited, and that’s not about to change.

      2. I hope that our proxy war includes plenty of cyber activity from ourselves and the US. Russia’s cyber defences are considered to be of a lower standard than ours and we should be able to cause pleny of disruption with relatively little effort.

        1. Why would we want to destroy a country that is holding out for financial sanity and independence from the WEF globalists?

    3. The First world War did not appear overnight, full-blown and bloody. It came about by increments, then tipped over the cusp into total war. The major factor was the various combination of pacts, treaties, and alliances. These are what will do for us as well.

    4. “The incredible thing about the continuing conflict is that the Russian public overwhelmingly back Putin,”

      With a media that is rigidly controlled by the state, can he be certain of this??

  6. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    SIR – At the age of 70 I pride myself on my ability to keep up with technology.

    However, when it comes to car parks (report, April 25), I find it impossible to pay using apps when there is no mobile signal. The phone number given on the machine is also, of course, unusable from that location.

    Do car park operators consider this?

    Richard Westray
    Weymouth, Dorset

    Of course they do…it means more revenue from penalty tickets!

    1. Up til now, I have managed to avoid using any car park that doesn’t accept cash. Not sure how long that will continue!

        1. Cash is terribly important! It is the only means of buying something anonymously, apart from one of the anonymous cryptocurrencies which are not generally accepted.

      3. We used a cash car park in Tavistock yesterday and went to the pannier market as it was ‘antiques and collectables’ day to buy a pair of gold earrings as a gift. Haggled them down to £95 and then got a fiver more off as I paid in cash.

  7. Good morning all.
    Somewhat cloudy start today but still bright if a little windy.

  8. SIR – Hopefully when the public inquiry into the Post Office scandal considers the Government’s role, it will be reminded that the ministers responsible were Sir Vince Cable, 
Sir Ed Davey and Jo Swinson.

    John Stewart
    Terrick, Buckinghamshire

    SIR – As a life member of the British Computer Society and a former law lecturer, I continue to be dismayed by the Post Office scandal.

    Everyone knows that computer programs have bugs in them. They are not error-free, nor are the humans who operate them.

    There has been a hideous attempt to pervert the course of justice. It seems the management team not only did its best to evade the consequences; it also tried to question the integrity of the judge so as to spin matters out.

    When will these sub-postmasters finally get the substantial damages to which they are obviously entitled? And why are no managers yet in jail?

    John Wyborn
    Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire

    Compensation claims are in progress but I imagine that the Post Office will string them out for as long as possible. Besides, of the 736 convictions only a handful have been overturned so far.

    1. A fair comment by My Stewart. I find it astounding how often newly exposed “Government” negligence is laid at the door of the current Government, not the one that caused the problem.
      Grenfell and Windrush being two cases in point.

      1. I’ve little time for Amber Rudd, but the Windrush affair smacked of a deliberate set up by snivel serpents.

        1. Very much!
          The suggestion that the arrival papers be destroyed was from the Civil Service and agreed by the Labour Government. But, years later, as soon as they realised the furore that action had led to, were not slow in briefing against the then current Government.

  9. SIR – A recent telephone consultation with a civil servant was interrupted by what seemed to be a toddler disagreement.

    Upon inquiry, I was told: “I am working at home due to Covid. They are too young for school and another person here to look after them isn’t necessary. I am perfectly capable of doing my job from home, and have been doing so for two years.”

    I resisted asking what, if any, standards were set by the Civil Service for public employees working 
from home.

    As the cost of childcare in London is about £250 per child per week, it seems that “working from home due to Covid” can be very lucrative.

    Dr Jennifer Longhurst
    Kingston upon Thames, Surrey

    I trust that most or all of the Snivel Serpent’s London Weighting has been removed from his/her salary by now?

    1. My youngest daughter has been working from home since the first lockdown (my wife and I had been childminding for her previously, when she had to go into work every day). She very quickly found that she could not cope with the demands of two very young children and do her work, so we stepped in and resumed childminding.

      If the children are very young, it is impossible for someone to provide childcare and concentrate on one’s work.

      1. Perfectly true; the years when our sons were small, were years that passed in a fog of exhaustion – and, to be perfectly honest – very little personal mental stimulation.
        Younger son didn’t sleep at night till he was 16 months old; imagine trying to concentrate on any sort of admin job at home when suffering from sleep deprivation and two small boys wreaking daytime havoc.

      2. I agree. I know of a fan of WFH who does the bulk of her work as soon as the children are in bed or when her husband arrives home, whichever comes first. Personally I reckon that makes for a long and demanding day, but if works…

    2. Meanwhile … back in the real world where mugs taxpayers’ pockets are forcibly rifled …..

  10. SIR – What did Twitter users do before Twitter existed?

    Stefan Badham
    Portsmouth, Hampshire

    Twatter is just another noisy element of soshal meeja which will never see the light of day in Janus Towers!

    2. They were forced to come to terms with the humdrum nature of real life, rather than the constant fake excitement that exists on Twit.

        1. A couple of years ago, I had a rare face to face encounter with some local bureaucrats. I was sitting on a plastic chair in a corridor waiting for my appointment, reading a paperback, and two women came past and stopped to marvel. “My, my, ” they said, “we never see people reading these days.”
          Considering your usual clients, I almost said….

          1. True story When I was a child, living at RAF Waterbeach, one of the neighbours – the wife of a pilot – asked my mother for ideas for a Christmas present for her husband. Mother suggested a book. “Oh,” she said, “He’s got a book.”

      1. I still do, on the rare occasions I am confronted with it!
        My obnoxious sibling who blurts out every passing thought on Twit sighed ostentatiously and said “I’ve now witnessed three generations of my family shouting at the BBC.”

        1. I was staying a few days with my aunt and uncle at the time of Maastricht. The air was blue.

      2. I’ve started doing that, whenever I see a non-northern european face in the ads. I don’t watch programmes that have non white faces in the content. ‘Oh god, not another negr*’ or ‘Oh god, not another p*ki’. I find it quite refreshing, particularly when there is a string of them: it’s very good for the vocal chords.

          1. That too. I never buy second hand cars these days, but if I did, there’s only one firm I would look at, the one that has a chap being disparaging about the family he’s been lumbered with for the ad., ‘actors, not mine’ and he leaves them in the drive. That’s quite humorous, no doubt due to be banned for not reflecting the nation’s claimed ethnic mix.

  11. ‘Morning All

    The Labour labia row continues after disappearing from the Mail online yesterday, Mail comes out fighting….

    No Mister Speaker: In the name of a free Press, The Mail respectfully

    declines the Commons Speaker’s summons for The Mail on Sunday to appear over its Angela Rayner report, as it emerges she laughed about Sharon Stone comparisons

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/462304828a7084f7b27b4fba7daed92743b0d94212183903eb21a75928ccc296.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6013cbf0a5c05e4ed7c363c8aa3ffa151801d43217aa6df09552c517136c60a5.jpg

    2. If it’s true that she laughed at the comparison, she has gone up in my estimation.

      3. I think the only thing Crayons is laughing about is that this nonsense has diverted attention away from Labour shenanigans in Durham, during the lockdown they fully supported.

  12. SIR – Built in 1935, our house sits in an old orchard that contained bluebells. On moving in May 1976 we enjoyed flowering groups in our garden. In 2022, we’ve had the grandest display ever, including the odd white bluebell. Bluebell experts: is 2022 turning out to be a good year? What is the life expectancy of an undisturbed bluebell bulb?

    Peter and Dianne Willis
    Worcester

    Hard to tell. If left undisturbed they multiply by producing more bulbs and can be quite invasive. How long the original bulb lasts is difficult to determine, but it is probably many years. The few we have in our garden have certainly done well this year, probably as a result of clearing some overgrown areas.

    1. They are like weeds in my garden, which was once, back in the 19th century before the house was built, the local pinfold, the field used to collect cattle that had strayed so that the owners could identify and return them.

  14. SIR – Today the Trussell Trust revealed that it provided more than two million emergency food parcels to people facing financial hardship in the past year. Alarmingly, over 830,000 of these went to children.

    This paints a bleak picture of too many families struggling to afford the bare essentials such as food and heating. My diocese includes areas of significant need, and I hear from parents who are already at breaking point, skipping meals to feed their children. As the cost-of-living crisis continues to bite, the plight of people on the lowest incomes will get worse.

    Sadly, destitution is not a new problem in Britain. From 2017 to 2019, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation reported a 54 per cent increase in the number of people unable to afford the essentials. The level of emergency food support needed in a country as wealthy as ours simply isn’t right.

    Britain is the fifth richest country in the world and our social security system should be strong enough for all of us to rely on when we need a lifeline – because, as the pandemic showed, life is full of things we can’t plan for. Surely we all want to live in a society where we look after one another.

    Having seen the work churches do in our communities on food provision and debt advice, I call on the Government to choose to protect people who need support, to act with compassion, and to put in place a social security system that helps people afford the essentials in life – like food.

    Rt Rev Paul Butler
    Bishop of Durham

    An elderly friend of ours who has helped to run a food bank has recently given up after many years because the work is quite physical. In passing he noted that some of their clients would not be so short of money if they spent what they have more wisely – cooked meals from scratch, avoided fast-food restaurants and didn’t have the latest mobile phones. So it is as much about education and support as any other factors. Food banks, valuable thought they undoubtedly are, often treat the consequences and not the cause. (And they are also a very useful tool when the BBC fancies taking yet another pop at the government…filming yet another food bank sends a subliminal message to the viewer that their existence is entirely the fault of the government.)

    1. I will indulge in a spot of stereotyping. Stop the tats and pawn your metal piercings.

      1. No food banks under Tony Blair either – they were set up as a means to have a pop at Blue Labour.

    3. Sainsbury’s chicken legs £1.79 a kilo. Enough to feed a family of 4 no doubt. Some mashed potatoes and peas, less than £5. Save the bones and make stock for home made soup.
      Very difficult to see why there is any food poverty.

    4. A lot of these people who go to food banks do so because it’s free food (or you pay a small sum). Like the Big Issue sellers – one in Inverness used to get picked up in a Range Rover

  15. Good Moaning.
    It’s amazing what you can find on the interwebby.
    I was looking for a picture from 1967 for younger son’s birthday, and this cropped up. I hadn’t typed in buses or Colchester; this was pure happenstance. Neither of us can work out where the photo was taken.
    Those buses had seats like garden benches, and your ‘friends’ would loop your coat belt through them – something you only discovered when you got up at your stop.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8ad6c42322a9b4a8ecf48b7f3b72c1f0ffbc0e77332f67a30cf7dec5cade4849.jpg

      1. Yes, I thought that was one reason. But why buses for a birthday search? Is it suggesting our son is a bit of a nerd? (There actually was a boy in his year who was obsessed with buses.)

        1. I can’t make a guess as i don’t know what the search criteria was.

          My nephew when visiting would always go and sit in front of the washing machine if it was on. He’s still weird.

          1. I merely typed ‘happy birthday’ into Google images. Recoiled at the trite and tasteless.
            Clicked on ‘male’ and scrolled through.

          3. They know not only your location but your son’s date of birth? (and therefore year of interest, and likely birthday coming up?)

            I never use Google, and am connected via a VPN in the US. So I just typed “happy birthday” and chose “male” in Google.
            The entire page was generic images, with a couple of sailing boats near the bottom of the page
            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6aa531ed2b8ca7de10a43e048db789dfeaa26d114784674bf551cb0eda27ebd5.jpg

            There was this interesting image half way down the page. You could be prosecuted for this one in some quarters…
            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a5986e1767fea9087eb030a8ad07e0d3201f96981d2ed51f4540b402b8604e04.jpg

          4. So in conclusion, perhaps you are giving too much information to Google….

            DuckDuckGo is odiously politically correct, but more private. Qwant says they are private, but annoy you with too many ads (might be just based on your current search, of course).
            Break the Google habit!

          1. Nothing at all, Bill. (That looks like an AEC Regent RT, somewhere between very late 30s and late-40s. Proper buses, where you could jump on and off almost anywhere without waiting for doors to open…

    3. Good afternoon, Anne.

      I’ve been racking my brain, or what’s left of it, trying to identify the road in the picture. To help I found a 1961 map of the CBT routes : see link. The bus stop appears to be, by using a magnifying glass, a ‘Fare Stage’ for routes 2, 2A & 5A. From the map on the link that could only be between the Turner Road and Mile End Road junction and North Station. Ties in with WS’s info below. That area has changed so much since 1967 it’s unrecognisable now. Bricklayer’s Arms Pub would be somewhere on the left. 1961 CBT Routes Map

  16. Russia cuts off gas to Poland and Bulgaria. 27 April 2022.

    Russian gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria have been cut off in an escalation of tensions between Moscow and the West.

    It is the first time the Kremlin has cut off a country’s gas supply since the start of the invasion. It came after Warsaw refused a demand by Vladimir Putin to pay for gas in roubles.

    Mateusz Morawiecki, the Polish prime minister, said: “We have been threatened with the suspension of gas supplies by Gazprom and have taken steps to diversify supplies. We will protect Poland against this Russian measure.”

    I guess Vlad wasn’t bluffing! Of course if Germany follows suit it is difficult to see how they could make up the gas shortfall. We already know that there is insufficient shipping and facilities to bring in alternative supplies even if they existed. It looks like some gigantic economic meltdown is in the offing. It’s a good thing that we are not the ones being sanctioned.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/04/26/russia-cuts-gas-supplies-poland-tensions-mount-west/

    1. Poland’s going to look mighty silly if Germany agrees to buy the roubles with euros.

        1. Well they’ve got no other choice, have they, unless they’re planning an air lift from the US!

          I don’t know whether it is still the case, but until recently, every new house built in Austria had to have a chimney and connection for a woodstove. They’ve got plenty of forest and only ten million people…but I guess all those wood fired water heaters have been thrown away long ago!

    2. My current energy cost is £1.60. It’s barely half ten. It should be closer to 70p. It certainly was a year ago. The state keeps fiddling about trying to punish one group to pay another. That’s plain, disgusting, failed socialism. Cut taxes immediately. If the wind market doesn’t have it’s electricity bought because it’s too expensive, tough. The pointless monuments to folly should never have been built, but we all knew that.

  17. One of today’s BTL posts, which in my view is spot on. If the penny hasn’t dropped yet, Edwin, I am willing to be that it will soon do so after the local elections!

    Edwin Pugh
    6 HRS AGO
    A couple days ago I posted the results of a poll that suggested that if Boris dropped his commitment to net zero it would cost him over one million votes – https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/net-zero-climate-boris-johnson-b2064371.html
    At the time I suggested that this result might be due to how the question was asked rather than the real opinion. Might it not have been better to ask people whether they are prepared to pay £2000 a year each to fund Net Zero. Better still, perhaps the government should remove all green levies from energy bills, and send an invoice to every home in the country for £500, labelled “Bill for Climate Policies – 2022”.
    Now it seems that the right question has been put to the public and shows that there might be the first buds of a dawning that ‘green’ is going to cost. The new poll indicates that 70% want the green levies on energy bills removed.
    https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1599929/Green-levy-news-poll-scrap-cost-of-living?mc_cid=9cb85bcddf&mc_eid=4961da7cb1
    Is it too much to hope that the penny might be dropping in the public at large that net zero is a huge waste of money.

    1. It’s a depressing indication of intelligence/stupidity levels, that so many people couldn’t work that one out for themselves.

      1. I’d dispute that it’s £500. It’s going to be closer to £1500. Our bill is already £1.20 higher every single day. People don’t understand these things. The usual one is the dimwits screaming that ‘amazon should pay their fair share’ because they think that companies pay tax. They don’t. What they really mean is ‘someone else should pay more, so I don’t have to.’ They’re too damned dumb to understand that every cost encountered is passed on to someone else. The sap buying the thing then pays all those cumulative taxes.

        If your average oaf were to be sent the final itemised bill for, say a take away Pizza they’d see that the taxes on it were vastly higher than the cost of the materials. People are dumb. They don’t understand how economics works. They are ignorant of the damage taxation does and just think it’s something ‘other people’ should pay rather than rightly cutting them for everyone.

    2. No one cares if they lose a million votes. They’ll gain 10 million. Scrapping the green twaddle will be the only thing to rescue this useless government.

  18. One of today’s BTL posts, which in my view is spot on. If the penny hasn’t dropped yet, Edwin, I am willing to be that it will soon do so after the local elections!

    Edwin Pugh
    6 HRS AGO
    A couple days ago I posted the results of a poll that suggested that if Boris dropped his commitment to net zero it would cost him over one million votes – https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/net-zero-climate-boris-johnson-b2064371.html
    At the time I suggested that this result might be due to how the question was asked rather than the real opinion. Might it not have been better to ask people whether they are prepared to pay £2000 a year each to fund Net Zero. Better still, perhaps the government should remove all green levies from energy bills, and send an invoice to every home in the country for £500, labelled “Bill for Climate Policies – 2022”.
    Now it seems that the right question has been put to the public and shows that there might be the first buds of a dawning that ‘green’ is going to cost. The new poll indicates that 70% want the green levies on energy bills removed.
    https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1599929/Green-levy-news-poll-scrap-cost-of-living?mc_cid=9cb85bcddf&mc_eid=4961da7cb1
    Is it too much to hope that the penny might be dropping in the public at large that net zero is a huge waste of money.

  20. I don’t trust Elon Musk as far as I could throw him but he’s certainly winding up the right people………

    My fav so far is the Washinton Post editorial railing against billionaire control of the media

    The Washington Post is of course the personal toy of Jeff Bezos…………

    For those that missed it

    https://twitter.com/LozzaFox/status/1518998672213790721?s=20&t=TMVku0fa9m8ZdBldf3xHgQ

    Couple of others

    https://twitter.com/tesssummers98/status/1519200042124562432?s=20&t=qqcaFirax5Tznd8sBNlxnw

    https://twitter.com/prisonplanet/status/1519096411731681281?s=21&t=ssoNM5LjoU8p7iwJ8boaFA

    1. I agree about not trusting Musk. But I suspect that he thinks some changes, like trans humans, are too big for him to stop, so the next best thing is to have a debate, and for people with principles to be involved in the industry.

    2. Talcum X made me laugh; I had heard of a white commentator pretending he was black but had never seen who it was. It’s on a par with the US Senator Fauxahontas Warren who, much to her chagrin, is only 1/2400th Cherokee.

  22. What a life!  And the fact that he lived to 100 is nothing short of miraculous:

    Flight Lieutenant Doug Newham, navigator who won the DFC for bombing raids on German industrial targets – obituary

    He also served in the Middle East and North Africa, later joined BOAC and managing Royal Flights, and aged 90 survived a crash in a biplane

    ByTelegraph Obituaries
    26 April 2022 • 2:00pm

    Flight Lieutenant Doug Newham, who has died aged 100, completed two tours of duty as a navigator in Bomber Command and was awarded the DFC.

    Newham had completed a tour on Wellington bombers in the Middle East and qualified as a specialist navigator when he joined 10 Squadron, based in Yorkshire, in November 1944; the squadron operated the Halifax bomber. His first operation, on December 12, was to Essen, soon followed by an attack on Mainz.

    Newham was the squadron’s navigator leader: in addition to flying on operations he was responsible for monitoring the standards of all the squadron’s navigators, supervising additional training and advising on route-planning.

    In the New Year, the primary targets were Germany’s synthetic oil production facilities. Newham attacked the plants at Wanne-Eickel, and Böhlen, near Leipzig.

    During March he flew operations that included attacks on Chemnitz, Essen and Dortmund. On March 24 the target was Kamen; Newholm was selected as the lead navigator of a force of 340 bombers. The attack was in daylight, and he recalled: “It gave one an isolated feeling of responsibility to look back and see all those aircraft following.”

    The following day he attacked road communications near Osnabrück on a daylight mission; this signalled the end of his second tour of operations and he was awarded the DFC.

    The son of a First World War veteran who served on the Western Front, Douglas Frank Newham was born on November 13 1921 at Edgware, north London, and educated at Kingsbury High School.

    On leaving school he trained as a technician at the GPO Engineering Research Station in London. During the early years of the war he was involved in the development of the Chain Home early-warning radar system constructed around the coast that was so crucial during the Battle of Britain.

    He also volunteered as an ARP warden, and at the height of the Blitz was on frequent night duty. With restrictions on those in reserved occupations lifted in 1941, he joined the RAF and trained as a navigator.

    With his Canadian pilot, he joined a Wellington squadron. He flew his first operation on November 15 1942 when he dropped sea mines near La Rochelle. After another mining operation, this time off Lorient, and a bombing raid on Stuttgart, Newham and his crew transferred to 150 Squadron.

    Following the successful Allied landings in north-west Africa in November 1942, his squadron was ordered to Blida in Algeria as part of the North-West African Strategic Air Force, where they flew sorties against German targets in Tunisia, Libya, Sicily and Sardinia. Attacking from low level, their Wellington was damaged by anti-aircraft fire on two occasions.

    On March 20, Newham was acting as the bomb aimer when his crew achieved a direct hit on the docks at Ferryville near Bizerta in Tunisia. Despite later claims made by the USAAF, Newham’s photograph provided the necessary evidence of the results of their accurate attack.

    The squadron suffered heavy casualties, and Newham’s aircraft was one of only three of the original 12 to survive.

    On return to Britain, he attended a navigation course and was commissioned. Awarded a first-class pass, he spent the next 12 months instructing at a navigation school before joining 10 Squadron.

    At the end of the European war, No 10 Squadron converted to the Dakota transport aircraft and began practising glider towing and paratrooper dropping for operations in Malaya, but the Japanese surrender occurred as he was heading for the Far East. He flew on food drops to outposts in north-east Burma, to PoW camps, and later on repatriation flights.

    He left the RAF in 1946 and joined BOAC, serving as an operations manager in Britain and at overseas bases. In 1949 he moved to Heathrow, a series of huts at the time, and worked in conjunction with the Civil Aviation Authority.

    He was also responsible for all flights made by members of the Royal family, including routes, schedules, aircraft interior design and in-flight catering. He managed 64 Royal Flights, and in 1969 he was appointed LVO.

    Following the amalgamation of BOAC and British European Airways to became British Airways in 1977, Newham was made general manager responsible for the control of operations. His large staff was responsible for the smooth running of oversea bases, sometimes in the face of local strikes, terrorist attacks and revolutionary activity, in particular in some of the Middle East bases. He also developed security measures for each individual aircraft type in the event of a hijacking or for emergency evacuations.

    Many years later, one small ornament in his sitting room might well have been overlooked by a casual observer, but shows the high regard that he was held in – a statuette of an SAS soldier bearing the inscription, “To a Kindred Spirit and Willing Accomplice”.

    Newham took early retirement from BA in 1982, after 36 years’ service, when he set up an airline security consultancy, which he ran until his final retirement a few years later.

    He enjoyed a very active retirement enjoying the outdoors, walking in the Himalayas and in the Lake District. In later life he took up skiing, an activity he gave up when he was 95. He studied for a degree in Geology at the Open University, graduating at the age of 75.

    He was a modest man with a mischievous sense of humour. When pressed to talk about his war service, he simply replied: “I was one of the lucky ones.”

    He was a founder member of the Bomber Command Association and president of his local Royal Air Forces Association (RAFA) branch in Cumbria. He was a regular “charity tin rattler” for both RAFA and the RAF Benevolent Fund.

    To mark his 90th birthday his children organised a flight in a biplane; it was a gusty day and the aircraft ploughed into a hedge on take-off. Newham escaped and went to the assistance of the pilot. He commented: “It seemed a sensible idea at the time with all the fuel pouring out of a fuel tank.” On his 100th birthday, an RAF Hercules flew over his house in salute.

    Doug Newham married Juliette Harris in 1947. She died in 2009 and he is survived by their two sons.

    Doug Newham, born November 13 1921, died March 14 2022

        1. Ditto. The only benefit of the warmer weather is that clothes dry quicker but it’s not especially warm today.

    1. The Left argue that government is righteous to do it because it is unfair that other people have more than them.

      There is no decency in these people. They’re greedy thieves who use the state to make others poorer for their own profit – whether their pet projects or personal profits.

  25. SIR – What did Twitter users do before Twitter existed?

    Stefan Badham
    Portsmouth, Hampshire

    They were pub bores and street gossips. Most of them still are!

    1. Good morning Grizzly

      Well you know, Twitter users post photos of the migrating birds they have observed , and probably discuss their luck in the pub afterwards , or maybe even an archeological find or even an alert over a lost pet ..

      Twitter is a happy useful place when used thoughtfully.

      3. Good morning, Maggie.

        My post wasn’t aimed at you (and I think you know that).😘

      1. Craftsmen in those days and earlier were astonishingly skilled. The artifacts from ancient Egypt are wonderful.

        2. I saw some amazing diadems from the era of Alexander Delta when I was in Thessaloniki.

    1. I’d rather not listen to the incoherent screeching of these people who think that their (c)rapping is music.

      1. I didn’t listen to it but it was clearly the granddaughter’s boyfriend who killed them.

      2. You don’t need to listen, just look at the pictures with the sound off.
        You’ll get the picture.

  29. A north-west London barber who offered lorry drivers thousands of pounds to illegally bring people into the UK from northern France and Belgium has been convicted of people smuggling.

    An National Crime Agency investigation found that Gul Wali Jabarkhel, 33, of Cricklewood, used his Colindale barbershop as a front to commit crime by trying to recruit lorry drivers to bring migrants to the UK.

    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/north-london-barber-paid-lorry-drivers-%c2%a32500-each-to-smuggle-people-into-uk/ar-AAWzY7u?ocid=st

    4. Ever wondered why there are so many “Turkish” barber shops springing up all over the UK?

    5. That’d be one of the Hampshire Jabarkels, then.

      For goodness sake. Can we just get rid of these people?

    6. Due to be sentenced June 1st. What’s the betting it will be little more than a slap on the wrists?

  31. Mutiny! Agency staff ‘go on strike’ on P&O Ferry that lost power and drifted in Irish Sea for two hours before lifeboats and tug came to the rescue

    The European Causeway was left drifting in the Irish sea following an emergency alert from the ferry
    The float away ferry was seen bobbing about five miles off Larne Harbour after setting sail around midday
    It comes after a disastrous few weeks for ferry operators P&O after mass sackings sparked public fury
    Back at port, some of the new crew members reportedly asked unions for advice about terminating contracts
    Darren Procter, of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union, said the incident was down to ‘inexperienced crew’

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10757161/Agency-staff-refuse-work-P-O-Ferry-lost-power-drifted-Irish-Sea.html

    1. ‘About five miles off Larne Harbour’ would place it in the North Channel, not the Irish Sea.

    1. Insanity. I read on Reitschuster the other day that German hospitals are now so shortstaffed they want the govt to lift the mandatory vaxxing law so that they can get back the staff they lost.
      But nobody’s going to go back to a job where the government will just put on another vaxx mandate next time the WHO declares a pandemic of hurting toes (with sooper dooper new Pfizer-jab developed and fully tested in 20 days).

      A friend of my elder daughter was a nurse in Germany – she is now training as a pharmacist.

    2. Dan Andrews looks like a right little jobsworth wanquer! I can’t see him winning another election, unless the WEF lend him some of those voting machines that worked so well elsewhere!

    3. Dan Andrews looks like a right little jobsworth wanquer! I can’t see him winning another election, unless the WEF lend him some of those voting machines that worked so well elsewhere!

  33. Good morning all, another calm, cool ‘easterly’ day. Good for golf yesterday and tomorrow but this morning I’ll be attempting the north face of Tesco Irvine. Will be interesting to see how many faces will be in view now that Elsie McSelfie has ‘permitted’ the sheeple to remove them…not that many have. It’s disturbing how deep the brainwashing has been in so many.

    1. My DAUGHTER wore one into the supermarket yesterday. I remonstrated, and she said with 18 year old logic “I look terrible today.”
      I’ve noticed it’s mostly the kids around where we are who are still wearing the things.

      1. It was a mix of ages masked up, with a 40/60 of fellow unmasked strolling around.

  34. With World War 3 and nuclear destruction on the cards – one would have thought that the Motherf*ck*r of Parliaments could have found other things with which to occupy itself than Leggate – (or gateleg).

        1. Rubbish. I thought there was a very big goldfish in our pond. And then I took a closer look.

    2. Rastus would know a quote about idiots being bothered by trivia while other issues escape them.

      I think it’s because that affects their presentation, where they can do nothing about nuclear war – nor would want to.

      Of course, we could stop funding Ukraine with weapons. We could using NATO backing bring both sides to the table, but that would admit that, actually, we’re quite culpable. We could be producing our own energy supplies to counter Russia’s threat. We could counter Russia’s threat with military response, but the state has deliberately eroded our fighting potential and America is utterly unreliable as it’s led by a shemale, a senile old man and a psychotic communist, is massively indebted and simply cannot afford to fight another war, nor has the physical presence to combat Russian politicians. The EU is weak and once outside it’s expansionist communist dreams, pointless.

      Western governments are listening too much to whining, spoiled children and failed socialists and have no confidence, no courage, no spine. We are being defeated by the machination of weak, stupid toddlers to do down everything we’re capable of under the dogmatic spite of childish, immature brats who’s only interest is in filling their trousers with other people’s money.

  35. I see that Cur Loathesome Hamilton is having a bad year. (Goodness, how sad). I know nothing at all about motor racing – but I was under the impression that Cur Loathesome was the finest driver the World has ever seen and could win a Grand Prix behind the wheel of a double-decker bus, he was that good.

    Now it appears that his “team” have provided a crap car – and he is doing consistently badly.

    So perhaps it was just the CAR all along and not the monkey behind the wheel.

    2. When he raced for Mclaren and was teamed up with Button, Button took him to the cleaners in the same team car.

  36. Johnson threatens to privatise Passport Office over backlog. 27 April 2022.

    Boris Johnson has threatened to “privatise the arse” off the Passport Office if it cannot clear its backlog and deliver better value for money, a senior government source has told reporters.

    The prime minister also put the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) and other “arm’s length” bodies on notice in comments to cabinet ministers, according to the source who attended Tuesday’s meeting.

    There doesn’t appear to be one Ministry or Government Department that functions in any meaningful way. There is also the suspicion that they are corrupt in that they divert funds for their own purposes and some are actually engaged in large scale criminal activity. Without getting up close to one it’s difficult to know for certain though one might guess. Mine would be that the employment of large numbers of ethnic minorities (who protect each other from disciplinary measures) has left them with a culture of indifference to their Political Masters. They can do as they please without fear of the consequences. Boris may fulminate as he will but the truth is that he is just a figurehead!

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/apr/26/boris-johnson-threatens-to-privatise-passport-office-dvla-applications-backlog

    1. The last time I visited The London Passport in Victoria was over 20 years ago there were literally NO white staff in evidence,I could have been in an office in Islamabad,I wonder how much third world corruption goes on,a British Passport legally issued is worth a pretty penny…………

      2. Ditto Peterborough. Being white and native born English, the MR and I were treated with great suspicion.

      1. The updates were probably being entered manually and someone put the same total figure for both Macron and Le Pen and then added to that, until someone looked at what was being broadcast.

        Given the timings and how much they are changed they do look very suspicious though.

        1. Maybe. But they only know the number of voters not HOW they voted.

          Finger trouble sounds right to me. And I am not usually so suggestible!

          1. Of course they know how they voted, you don’t think that what people mark on the paper has any resemblance to how they are allocated, do you?

    2. I have never posted anything on Twitter but a relatively recent change is that in order even to read the twits I have to sign in. I do not necessarily want to do this if I want to read but not post.

      I wonder if Elon Musk is going to change this this?

  38. TIMES INVESTIGATION
    Suitcases of Covid loan cash seized at UK’s borders
    Recipients of pandemic support also spent the money on gambling sprees, home improvements and cars, a Times investigation finds

    George Greenwood
    , Investigations Reporter |
    James Hurley
    , Enterprise Editor
    Tuesday April 26 2022, 7.35pm, The Times

    Suitcases filled with cash from taxpayer-backed Covid loans were seized at the border as people tried to smuggle them out of the country, a Times investigation reveals today.

    Border force officials have stopped people at airports across Britain “carrying large amounts of money suspected from coronavirus bounce-back loans”, a Home Office source said.

    Other recipients of financial support during the pandemic used the money to fund gambling sprees, home improvements, cars and watches, it has emerged.

    They are among dozens of company directors who have been disqualified after misusing the loans scheme that was set up to support businesses during the pandemic.
    ————————————————————————————————————
    I cannot access the rest of the article because I don’t subscribe to the Times

      1. The one thing I gleaned from the – rather tedious – reporting was the good news (from the MSM’s viewpoint) that most of the sinners where hideoously white and middle class.

        1. Well that cannot be true, because any middle class person involved in a financial scam wouldn’t be carting around suitcases of cash, they would use cryptos or something similar.

          2. Sorree! Any astringency is directed at Big Brother’s minions at the Times not at you.

    2. I doubt the rest of the article will tell us the destinations of the flights where the suitcases of cash were seized!

      How thick would anyone have to be to try and take a suitcase full of cash out of Heathrow anyway?
      Is this just another anti-cash propaganda piece?

  40. Archbishop of Canterbury: Church of England is not a ‘passive observer of migration policy’
    Writing exclusively for The Telegraph, Justin Welby insists ‘we can and must do better’ to ‘welcome and serve asylum seekers’

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/04/26/justin-welby-church-england-not-passive-observer-migration-policy/

    Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.

    [KJV: Matthew XXII.xxi]

    Why was this atheist appointed as Archbishop of Canterbury?

    2. Dear Archprick

      Among the many thousands of unwanted arrivals are, perhaps, 100 ASYLUM seekers.

      The rest are illegal conomic migrants.

      Why should you – or we – “welcome” them?

      Yours

      A former believer.

      1. “Forgive Our Foolish Ways”

        The hymns we sang at our wedding were: Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, My Song is Love Unknown and Love Divine All Loves Excelling.

        3. I had Love Divine, All Loves Excelling, too. Unfortunately, none of my, or MOH’s, family knew it!

    4. To wreck the Cof E – alienate the people who were churchgoers…… sell off the church estate…….. pander to Muslims……..he’s fulfilled his role just as intended.

    5. I am glad to see that several people have given my post upvotes.

      For once most of us are entirely in line with the BTL comments in the MSM.

      I would be fascinated to hear a Nottler mount a stout defence of the Archbishop on this site. Geoffrey Woolard* and Jennifer SP might have done it – but I doubt if most of the regulars would have done so.

      * amended

        1. It must be his pet name for Woollard. I call him ‘Waldorf’ since he looks like the muppet.

    6. Today’s sermon was on the power of the Holy Spirit. My thought was that Welby needed a good zap with it.

  41. Archbishop of Canterbury: Church of England is not a ‘passive observer of migration policy’
    Writing exclusively for The Telegraph, Justin Welby insists ‘we can and must do better’ to ‘welcome and serve asylum seekers’

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/04/26/justin-welby-church-england-not-passive-observer-migration-policy/

    Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.

    [KJV: Matthew XXII.xxi]

    Why was this atheist appointed as Archbishop of Canterbury?

  42. If anyone has been, or knows someone, who has been vaccine injured – this is the definitive site for information.
    https://worldcouncilforhealth.org/resources/spike-protein-detox-guide/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=givingtues21

    There is very little help available from the nhs. The words used in connection with post vaccine problems are ‘baffled’; ‘mystery’; ‘we’ve no idea’ unless it is a heart attack or stroke the cause of which can be absorbed into the course of a normal day. It is more than their licence is worth.

  43. I have heard people say that in having their electricity and fuel bills paid for them that MPs are like businesses that can charge these costs against the business tax.

    This is poppycock.

    Say, for example, a business’s fuel and electricity costs are £10,000. It will be able to offset this against corporation tax which, at the moment is 25%. So the cost of the £10,000 bill which will have to be paid out of the business’s coffers is £7,500.

    A MP who puts in an expense claim for £10,000 will be reimbursed the money in full.

    So on a £10,000 fuel bill an MP in paying nothing is £7,500 better off than the business.

    [“Not a lot of people know that” – To borrow from Michael Caine in Educating Rita]

    1. As i mentioned the other day, last year the members of parliament between them took home between them close to 132milion pounds in Expenses. That didn’t include the lords or the snivel service.
      No wonder they moved Elizabeth Filkin along.

  44. PM Threatens to privatise passport office unless backlog is cleared first.

    BORIS JOHNSON has threatened to “privatise the a—” out of the Passport Office unless it clears backlogs that have forced families to cancel holidays.

    The Prime Minister is said to be “horrified” that families wanting to go on summer holidays are facing 10-week waits for their passports and could miss out unless they pay up to £142 to fast track the paperwork.

    In comments to the Cabinet yesterday, he also put the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) and similar bodies on notice that they could be privatised.

    Sources said privatisation would not be the starting point, but warned that Downing Street could look to businesses to take over if passport bosses could not meet the 10-week target for standard applications costing £75.50.

    “He is adamant this is a serious issue facing families and it’s one that needs to be gripped,” said a source.

    “He is ensuring those responsible will be asked to make sure they are doing everything possible to clear this backlog and help hard-working families get their passports.”

    Mr Johnson later told Talktv he did not rule out privatisation, adding: “I don’t care if an institution is in the public or private sector but I want it to deliver value for money and to keep people’s costs down.”

    Although the Home Office said working from home had not affected passport processing, Mr Johnson confirmed he had criticised “post-covid work from home mañana culture.”

    Steve Barclay, Downing Street’s chief of staff, is expected to meet Passport Office officials this week to hammer home the message.

    Ministers said the problems stem from an unprecedented surge in demand after the lifting of Covid restrictions because five million people had delayed renewing their passports during the pandemic.

    They said the “vast majority” of applications are being processed within the 10-week limit, with the average time for renewing an adult passport doubling from 13 days in February to 26 days at the start of April, according to the website passportwaitingtime.co.uk.

    But its analysis showed that as many as one in 20 applicants was having to wait more than the promised 10 weeks – equivalent to 50,000 of the one million applications processed last month.

    A Passport Office spokesman said: “We urge people who need a new passport to apply for one as soon as possible, with the vast majority of all passport applications being dealt with well within 10 weeks.”

    Here in Sweden you simply visit the local cop shop with your old passport, application form and fee. The cops photograph you then, between two and seven days later (depending on the level of demand), you return to collect your new passport. No delays, no excuses, no bullshit, no red tape.

    1. Nothing to worry about, it plays in to the Digital ID agenda of the WEF types together with our NHS info the DVLA has probably been part of the plan too, I’m not paranoid but it helps to think like that.

    2. My red EU passport doesn’t expire until 2026. I assume I’d be OK to carry on using it until then, provided that I jump through all the other hoops – which is unlikely.

      2. …and mine, Sue, not until 2028 when I shall be 84, if I haven’t presented mine at the Pearly Gates before then.

      3. Mine lasts till 2028. I have enclosed it in a black UK cover that looks like UK passports used to. It annoys the hell out of border-farce heavies.

    3. Your fast track applications still work?

      The Canadian system is so screwed up that people are having to camp overnight outside the passport office in an effort to get a fast track spot, even then they may not be successful.

  45. The Angela Rayner furore took me back to my, thankfully, very shore foray into teaching.
    A young “lady”, at of 14yo, took offence at my insisting that she and her friends sat apart during the lessons so, in order to get back at me, came to school, for the 1st time ever, wearing a skirt, not just any skirt, but one that more resembled a pelmet, just so she could accuse me of trying to look up it.

    Ironically, she spent the entire lesson with he coat wrapped round her legs to stop the boys in the class from doing exactly that!!

    1. When I was at grammar school mini skirts were in fashion so we all rolled up the waistbands of our skirts to make them as short as possible. An edict was issued that skirts could be no more than 3ins above the knee. Offenders were placed on a chair and measurements were taken. Hard to believe now.

      1. Ours were supposed to be just above the floor level when we were kneeling on it at assembly.

      2. More Billings-gate with all that wafting about. Perhaps try fish-nets if she wants to catch Boris.

      1. Not bad at the moment.
        Had a solo bus ride to Barmouth and have only just for back to the farmhouse we’re staying in after getting off the bus a shop short of where I needed to be.

    4. When I was a naive and newly appointed English teacher a group of Sixth Form girls knocked on the door of my flat in the school.

      “Good evening,” I said, “have you come to borrow those books I was talking about in class today?”

      “No, sir,” they replied with coquettish smiles, “Where’s the gin?”

      As I did not wish my career in teaching to end before it had even started I sadly had to send them away.

    5. Well Bob at my C of E school the girls all seemed to wear pairs of large blue knickers,…… not as we noticed when we were sitting in the class room and they were out side playing net ball.

    6. Well Bob at my C of E school the girls all seemed to wear pairs of large blue knickers,…… not at we noticed when we were sitting in the class room and they were out side playing net ball.

    7. My wife recounts the first time that the sixth form girls were allowed to wear their own clothes, not the regulation school uniform that had been mandatory in the lower school. Mini dresses were the style so naturally that is how she dressed for the new world.

      Apparently she only managed to get half way to the bus stop before panicking and running back home to change into the despised but comfortable uniform.

      The mini dress did eventually get worn but only after a pellet was sown onto the hem.

  46. More good news! Just had our quarterly utilities bill and it’s half what we were anticipating. Phew. Husband doing a Knees up Mother Brown as I type ;-))

      1. It was a huge relief- something that had been lurking in our minds but we didn’t discuss too much. We are careful with use but you gotta eat and keep warm.

  47. More skulduggery. The BBC Proms programme for 2022 was announced yesterday and full season passes at £250 each have been reintroduced BUT, where before one could simply turn up at the Box Office, hand over the money and receive a physical pass which guaranteed entry to all concerts, it will now be necessary to pay online then go online again between 9 am and 10.30 am on the day of each concert one wishes to attend in order to be given a digital pass. Theoretically covid digital passes have been abolished but how is this any different. The covid pass was also meaningless as anything other than digital ID. This is just about handing over £250 for the dubious privilege of being allowed to beg each day for social credit delivered via a digital tracking device. Also, what of the people who don’t have access to such devices at the times prescribed?

    1. How horrible. And of course, the usual over-educated suspects will be queuing up for it!
      This is the opposite of inclusive, but the BBC won’t care about excluding people who aren’t hooked up to the internet 24/7.

      1. I gave up on the Porms (sic) long ago.

        Often ghastly “music” sandwiched between something proper. Lots of appalling music by the diverse and “under-privileged”. It is just an inclusive version of “Friday Night is Music Night”.

        I just play CDs.

        1. The year after I did my A levels, I used to catch the train to London with a group of friends and queue for cheap Prom tickets.
          My daughter did something similar with cheap student opera tickets in Vienna a few years ago.
          Everything that belonged officially to the old Britain has been colonised by the woke now; we have to recognise that and simply found new alternatives. Unfortunately they have all the buildings and the organisations.

          1. We went to the Vienna Opera 10 years ago – it was anything but cheap – but we saw Juan-Diego Flores in L’elisir d’amore and also caught up with some old friends.

          2. I think my daughter and her student friends had standing tickets – they cost about three euros each…

          3. We made a long weekend of it and had a front row seat in a box! Also went to the Klimt exhibition at the Belvedere.

          4. How lovely! I always wanted to “do” Vienna properly one day – not sure I ever will now!

          5. I was there a few years ago, but working so I didn’t see as much as I wanted. Even so we had a good look round. On the final night my [German] boss was meeting friends so a Spanish colleague and I, plus wives, went to a Tapas bar we wanted to try – he did look rather surprised when we mentioned our plans, but it wasn’t until next day that he admitted that he thought we had said we were going to a topless bar!!

          6. We managed the last night one year. Long ago when patriotism was allowed and before EU flags were waved

          7. I went to the Proms when I was a student. I had a standing ticket and it didn’t cost a fortune (just as well as I was permanently broke!).

          8. Unfortunately they have all the buildings and the organisations.

            Getting rid of the licence-fee would be a good start (of a fightback) …. But first we must get an anti-woke government

      1. Probably not. I looked at the concert programmes and the price and was seriously tempted but then some friends on our Gallery Prommers page on Facebook highlighted the new terms, reiterated in a group email this morning. The general feeling is disgust at the discriminatory nature of the whole thing – though they all accepted the covid pass regime last year!

        1. The problem with these pass things is that to do something you want to do, you have to comply with this crap or go without.

          I spent hours and hours trying to get the NHS app to work on my phone (having already tried earlier in the day with instructions from my travelling companion) and had to resort to taking a selfie on my phone while holding up my driving licence just to prove it was me. I wouldn’t normally go near anything that made me do that. But the trip was imminent and required jumping through stupid hoops to get the QR codes.

          That is how they force you to comply with these things or go without.

        2. The problem with these pass things is that to do something you want to do, you have to comply with this crap or go without.

          I spent hours and hours trying to get the NHS app to work on my phone (having already tried earlier in the day with instructions from my travelling companion) and had to resort to taking a selfie on my phone while holding up my driving licence just to prove it was me. I wouldn’t normally go near anything that made me do that. But the trip was imminent and required jumping through stupid hoops to get the QR codes.

          That is how they force you to comply with these things or go without.

  48. This is going to run and run.

    Government broke the law by discharging untested hospital patients to care homes at start of pandemic, High Court rules: Two women whose fathers died from Covid win legal challenge over failure to protect elderly and disabled residents
    Lord Justice Bean and Mr Justice Garnham read out ruling in London Wednesday
    It said the government policy ‘failed to take into account the risk to the elderly’
    A case was brought by two women whose fathers had died from Covid-19

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10758647/Government-policy-discharging-patients-hospitals-care-homes-start-Covid-unlawful.html

      1. Naturally.
        Except if there is any chance that it could bring down the Conservative government and create an opportunity for a Brexit reversing Labour one.

    1. Is my buying two paperbacks off Amazon greed, or just my buying two books? Equally I make a great effort to avoid the useless instagram, but I do use ideas I find there. These are just tools. The problem is people on them and you cannot change people.

      (and it’s not intagrim, it’s pinterest that I have to break to use. I was interested in how other folk have used the Ivar thing – before the floor was condemned. Have I mention the floor today?)

      1. Equally I make a great effort to avoid the useless instagram, but I do use ideas I find there. These are just tools people. The problem is people the tools on them and you cannot change people them.

      2. Catherine Austin Fitts holds that one should not fund one’s enemies. I don’t use Amazon any more.

          1. I used to, but they sell the books so cheaply, and then just send you anything, and when I got a couple of wrong books, I just stopped using them. The final straw was when they tried to force you to link your bank a/c or card to your amazon account.

          2. During the lockdown times I bought quite a few secondhand books from various suppliers – all were in good condition and arrived in good order.

            I see your point about the card linkage – though I haven’t found a problem with it – yet.

            It’s more annoying when they push Prime at every opportunity.

          3. I’ve removed my credit card details from my Amazon account. Couldn’t find a way to close the account. Waterstones in Piccadilly is huge and mostly has the books I want. What they don’t have, my local branch will order and I can collect in-store.

          5. I use Advanced Book Exchange (Abebooks.co.uk), which I believe may also be owned by Amazon.

    2. “the dark art of branding which crowds out our lives with wants”
      So true. If you avoid the media, as I do, you hardly see advertisements, and they sound utterly fake, trivial and nauseating when you do see them.

  50. How do I cancel my DT subscription , I have tried to no avail .. it is over £12 per month now, and banned from commenting , what happened to free speech.. The DT is as Woke as the Guardian .

    1. A tenuous link perhaps, but the text in the top picture reminded me that last night I was browsing the Radio Times looking for something to watch on the goggle box [Mrs B having vetoed Under Siege 2] when I spotted this: “Novels That Shaped Our World”. The text read “A focus on the ways in which fiction has been linked with the dynamics of colonialism .. ” That was enough and I switched to Under Siege 2!!

      1. You’re joking? Under Siege 2 is about 30 years old! Heck, Iron Man is nearly 10 and has a better plot!

        Watch 12 Angry Men on the doovd.

        1. Sadly it was arguably the best thing on any free channel at that time – when Mrs B worked in Washington I was appalled at how much garbage was on American TV – now we seem to be the same! Amazing how many times a film gets shown in any one week, although I can always spare an hour or two for “Sink the Bismark” or something similar!

          1. Love a decent war film. A Bridge too Far, Where Eagles Dare and Das Boot are great. The Harrison Ford and Clint Eastwood thrillers are also quite good. In the Line of Fire is a great film that deserves re-watching.

          2. Have you watched ‘Too Late the Hero’, a splendid war film? A good western does it for me, ‘Ride the High Country’ being one of my favourites as is ‘The Man Who Shot Liberty Vallance’.

          3. My dad loved Das Boot. I don’t know whether he realised that it was about the U96. Dad was on board the SS Anselm when she was torpedoed and sunk by the U96. Happily he was rescued from the water.

          5. I would prefer to watch ‘The Cruel Sea’, the antithesis of the silent underwater killers. I’ve read so much about the Battle of the Atlantic and the Arctic convoys that I have no sympathy for the U-boat crews that were lost.

          6. I love some of the old B&W films from the 30’s & 40’s.
            Modern war films: not so much, although Clint Eastwood’s Letters from Iwo Jima is exceptional and a lot better than Flags of Our Fathers.
            He probably needed Flags so that Letters would be politically acceptable by Hollywood.

    2. Minor attracted… oh. Paedophiles. As paedo – child – phile – liking. Resilience strategies – not raping children?

      FFS.

      Oh what a tangled web we weave….

      1. The second one – doing God’s work, is more than appropriate – 2 bullets for the knees, two for the genetals and after a suitable time-lapse, a head-shot.

    3. Isn’t this the darkie chap who works for the GLC and featured a few days ago in the DT’s financial checkout? On 64K plus bonuses. Wants to retire to fly everywhere using business class…

    4. Isn’t this the darkie chap who works for the GLC and featured a few days ago in the DT’s financial checkout? On 64K plus bonuses. Wants to retire to fly everywhere using business class…

  52. The fact that people were not able to be at the death or the birth of the closest family members is appalling and has put me in a rather reflective mood. I was at the birth of both my sons as well as at this death:

    A Necessary End

    The screen records a heartbeat
    Plastic tubes feed drugs and salt and water
    And a hose connected to a pump feeds oxygen.
    And so a few more hours of life are meted out.

    I hold his hand and he returns the pressure
    Yet he cannot speak.
    His consciousness informs him he’s alive
    And he is not alone.

    I fight exhaustion, rest my head
    Upon the bed, ensuring I don’t crush
    A plastic artery.
    I try to read with one hand on my book
    I try to guide my thoughts out to him
    But I’m too tired for thought.

    A hushed but kindly voice
    Asks me to step aside.
    “Your father’s dying”
    These dull words pound me but I feel no pain
    My mind’s anaesthetised as if
    It too was being numbed through tubes.

    I go back to his bed;
    Await the necessary end
    To come when it will come.
    He dies.
    And I am left with just a void –
    A sense of loss I’ve never felt before.

    R.C.T. 6th February 1984

    1. That’s beautiful………..

      I missed my mother’s death – a phone call from the hospital came just as we were setting off to see her.

      My (ex) husband was not present at the birth of either of my sons – at Tidworth Military Hospital I think it just wasn’t done. When my second son was imminent, the midwife sent him out of the room as I wasn’t shaven enough for her liking. I thought she was about to shave the baby’s head.

      1. When I had the call that the Warqueen was in labour on finally getting there I am fairly certain there were 3 security people hanging off me by the time I got to the antenatal clinic. They were very decent about it all but there was bugger all stopping me seeing that small person come into the world.

          1. With my ex I wasn’t there at the birth – there were rumours that I wasn’t there at the conception either

          3. Alf was there at both our children’s births, 1969 and 1972, although he had to step out of the room for some air just when 2nd arrived.

          4. Our daughter was born 1969 and son in 1972. It comes as a shock sometimes, when I realise their ages!!

      2. I missed MOH’s death. There was no indication it was imminent. I just got a phone call to say it had happened. There are worse ways to go than going to bed and not waking up.

    2. That’s beautiful………..

      I missed my mother’s death – a phone call from the hospital came just as we were setting off to see her.

      My (ex) husband was not present at the birth of either of my sons – at Tidworth Military Hospital I think it just wasn’t done. When my second son was imminent, the midwife sent him out of the room as I wasn’t shaven enough for her liking. I thought she was about to shave the baby’s head.

    3. I was rushing back to Wales from Norway as a result of a call that my Father was dying, and didn’t get there in time to hold his hand. Mother couldn’t do it, so he died alone. I deeply regret that.
      Later that day, I was the only one who went to say goodbye to the body. He looked mightily pissed off…

    2. Looks white to me. Why didn’t she get rid of herself first?

      As it is, we built everything. No, not some things, flippin’ everything. Shove it, woman.

      1. She shoved it when she died in 2004. She wrote this (quoted in the video) in 1967:

        If America is the culmination of Western white civilization, as everyone from the Left to the Right declares, then there must be something terribly wrong with Western white civilization. This is a painful truth; few of us want to go that far…. The truth is that Mozart, Pascal, Boolean algebra, Shakespeare, parliamentary government, baroque churches, Newton, the emancipation of women, Kant, Marx, Balanchine ballets, et al, don’t redeem what this particular civilization has wrought upon the world. The white race is the cancer of human history; it is the white race and it alone – its ideologies and inventions – which eradicates autonomous civilizations wherever it spreads, which has upset the ecological balance of the planet, which now threatens the very existence of life itself.

        There are many thousands like her now insinuated into Western governments and administrations. They are the collective cancer.

        1. “They are the collective cancer.”

          Thank you, William, a phrase I was struggling to construct.

        2. Odd that the white race has not managed to eradicate the cultures of China, Japan, India and elsewhere….even though India was a British colony for many years.

          Of course Britain handed over its colonies to the indigenous peoples there.

          Nowadays however, Britain is more of a colony of the Indian subcontinent.

        3. Then she was always welcome to leave it, but like all her type, she likes the world she lives in, the freedom’s it has bought her. She’s just a pathetic hypocrite.

          1. Her particular lot are the moneymen in the USA – arguably they are a canker and a blight on the earth (that is, if she didn’t count the Jewish race as white as some non-white peoples would). There are also some individuals that the world woul no doubt have been better off without – starting with a certain K. Marx.

          2. Her particular lot are the moneymen in the USA – arguably they are a canker and a blight on the earth (that is, if she didn’t count the Jewish race as white as some non-white peoples would). There are also some individuals that the world woul no doubt have been better off without – starting with a certain K. Marx.

      2. She shoved it when she died in 2004. She wrote this (quoted in the video) in 1967:

        If America is the culmination of Western white civilization, as everyone from the Left to the Right declares, then there must be something terribly wrong with Western white civilization. This is a painful truth; few of us want to go that far…. The truth is that Mozart, Pascal, Boolean algebra, Shakespeare, parliamentary government, baroque churches, Newton, the emancipation of women, Kant, Marx, Balanchine ballets, et al, don’t redeem what this particular civilization has wrought upon the world. The white race is the cancer of human history; it is the white race and it alone – its ideologies and inventions – which eradicates autonomous civilizations wherever it spreads, which has upset the ecological balance of the planet, which now threatens the very existence of life itself.

        There are many thousands like her now insinuated into Western governments and administrations. They are the collective cancer.

    3. Worth repeating in this context.

      A Poem for Any Black History Lesson

      In the matter of racial comparisons
      The media shouts to the moon,
      About all the historic achievements
      Of the Redskin, Spic and the Coon.

      Yet strangely, when strolling museums,
      The white man’s creations stand thick;
      But all we can find of those others
      Is a blanket, a bowl and a stick.

      No telephones, timeclocks or engines,
      No lights that go on with a flick.
      No aeroplanes, rockets or radios.
      Just a blanket, a bowl and a stick.

      Not one Sioux Indian submarine,
      No African ice cream to lick,
      Not a single Mexican x-ray machine,
      It’s a blanket, a bowl and a stick.

      So, remember when history’s the subject,
      And revisionists are up to their tricks,
      The evidence tells quite another tale,
      Of a blanket, a bowl and a stick.

      A poem by A. Wyatt Mann

      1. Africa: the massive dark continent. The place that civilisation forgot.

        Until, that is, civilised European nations (such as: the UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Italy and Belgium) visited and introduced farming, democracy, education and many other civilised attributes.

        The natives gained an education: they then kicked out those providing it; stole all the farms; and returned the continent to the poverty, squalor and lawlessness that were commonplace before the arrival of the Europeans.

        Now suitably diminished, the continent ha become such an unwelcome place again that the new hordes of educated Africans cannot wait to leave it and invade the continent that gave them civilisation in the first place.

        1. and invade the continent that gave them civilisation in the first place.

          All the places they now seem to love to hate so much.

        2. Well – that’s one way of looking at it! Though I have found on 12 trips to various African countries that the natives are welcoming, friendly and civilised.

          1. I have educated African (Ghanaian) friends who are very pleasant and friendly.

            I was generalising, and my facts can be verified.

          2. Well we can all generalise………….

            But my experiences say otherwise. Clearly I met the wrong people.

    4. She said she has been in love seven times in her life. ‘No, hang on,’ she says. ‘Actually, it’s nine. Five women, four men.’ Not counting the the rest – because they were uncountable. Man/woman/donkey all God’s creatures!

      1. When i was on Skye someone left the door ajar. I had to suddenly sharpen up my non-existant shepherding skills.

  57. Emmanuel Macron pelted with tomatoes. 27 April 2022.

    Tomatoes were thrown at French president Emmanuel Macron as he visited a market square in a Paris suburb on Wednesday on his first trip since being re-elected as president.

    Footage from the incident shows staff rushing to shield Mr Macron after a member of his security detail was struck by the flying fruit.

    Bring on the tumbrils!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/04/27/watch-emmanuel-macron-pelted-tomatoes/

    1. How very unfair! Everyone who has seen a picture of Macron must have an overwhelming desire to throw a tomato at his smug face.

      2. The inhabitants of Bottleton East always armed themselves with assorted overripe vegetables and fruit when they attended the local amateur night. On one occasion Jeeves organised it so that a woman who has become affianced to Bingo Little went onto the stage to sing Sonny Boy not knowing that 5 of the previous turns – including Bertie Wooster – had already sung this fine sentimental ballad.

        The audience’s reaction was not well received by the young lady to whom Jeeves had said that Bingo had especially requested him to ask her to sing it.

        1. Especially when like i have, planted 20 seeds 4 weeks ago from a two different new packet and so far only 6 have sprouted.
          The packets were sicksquid.

          4. I usually save seeds from successful plants but I’ve not been well and i must have forgotten to do that.
            Oh Booger as Unlucky (from the Fast Show) Alf would have said.

          6. I spent six quid on a few plants that are growing in my top greenhouse. I will not remove side-shoots until they are two to three inches long. The side-shoots will be planted in compost, well watered and shaded from direct sunlight for about three weeks; then I will have double or triple the number of plants that I bought. I’ve been doing that since a friend gave me this idea and it has never failed. The extra time for the shoots to root also extend the season.

          9. I thought I’d seen the last of daffodils for this year, but as I left ASDA this arvo, they had bunches of them reduced to £0.10. Which reminds me – I must put them in water…

          11. There did seem to be another variety, much lighter in colour, almost white. The Tulips and Blue bells are looking good at the moment.

          12. I bought an Ailsa Craig seedling today. I’ve repotted it, but it does not look to be thriving as I would like. Fingers crossed it makes it.

          13. I also had a problem with mice getting into the green house. The initial seedlings I had planted were all nipped off by the little buggers.
            A good feed for tomatoes is chicken Poo you can buy it in dried granules from most garden outlets. I liquidise it in an old watering can, it’s a bit smelly but that’s ‘farming’ for you eh. It’s good for roses as well Conners.

          14. I use chicken manure pellets, along with bonemeal. When I dig the veg plots I always put that in as I go.

    4. Shoes being thrown by indigenous French might have got his attention, especially in areas that have a large influx of those who must not be mentioned.

  59. How Orwell’s stab at socialist propaganda ended up as an attack on ‘the stupid cult of Russia’

    First published in 1937, ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’ is a masterpiece – so why did many leftists hate it?

    SIMON HEFFER • 23 April 2022 • 5:00pm

    George Orwell undertook the field work for The Road to Wigan Pier in the winter of 1936, just after the death of King George V, and wrote the book in the months leading up to the abdication of King Edward VIII that December. It was the year of the Battle of Cable Street and the Jarrow March, and a turbulent period in British history.

    The worst of the Great Depression was over – unemployment had peaked in late 1932 – and Britain was recovering. Yet Orwell documented the slumlike conditions in which the very poor still lived in the north of England (and the role class played in British politics) and offered his solution to the problem: socialism.

    It is a book of two halves: the first describes the vile conditions in which the people of the Lancashire coalfields live, with some of the horrors of Sheffield thrown in too. The second is broadly autobiographical: Orwell alludes to his “lower-upper-middle-class” upbringing, his time at Eton and in the Burmese police; he comes across (accurately as we now know) as a chronic misfit.

    The experiences he recounts had convinced him that socialism was the answer to poverty: but most people rejected it because, as he put it memorably, it summoned up a picture of “vegetarians with wilting beards, of Bolshevik commissars (half gangster, half gramophone), of earnest ladies in sandals, shock-headed Marxists chewing polysyllables, escaped Quakers, birth-control fanatics and Labour party backstairs-crawlers”.†

    It also reeked of “the stupid cult of Russia”, where at the time Stalin was murdering vast numbers of people who disagreed with him.

    Victor Gollancz had commissioned Orwell to write the book as a work of propaganda, to be read at his monthly Left Book Club, for which the choice was made by him, Harold Laski and John Strachey. But none of them had expected the author to state quite so pungently why socialism was having such trouble catching on. First, Orwell thought (not least because of his own predicament) that the middle classes were far less secure than in fact they were.

    He saw their abundant snobbery and prejudice as all that prevented them from sinking into the working classes – after all, “we have nothing to lose but our aitches” – a reference to the inherent snobbery of modes of speech that Orwell took to define the middle class.

    But in his invective against socialists, Orwell was also inveighing against the pompous, self-righteous Laski, a Marxist bore, and against Strachey, a mentally unstable fanatic who had recently argued that if the British people would not accept revolution, then they might have to be coerced into it. Orwell’s stark realism shocked and affronted them, to the point where Gollancz felt he had to write an explanatory preface in an attempt to stop the author’s criticism of socialists from offending the LBC’s predictably humourless mass clientele.

    Although The Road to Wigan Pier was widely hailed as a masterpiece, many leftists hated it. It was bad enough that Orwell sneered at their beloved Russia with its Stalinism whose cruelties they either could not, or would not, understand; but he also took a typically unsentimental view of the working class that the Left routinely romanticised as a means of reinforcing the propaganda about them.

    The key theme that runs through the documentary chapters of the book, and is revisited in the autobiographical ones, is of smell: the lower classes smell disgusting, their homes, clothes, food and everything about them smells disgusting. It is as if the author is permanently on the verge of being sick.

    Sometimes when he is describing the overcrowded, insanitary living conditions of the industrial poor, he could be writing about the 1830s rather than the 1930s. The genius of the book lies in the vividness and candour of these chapters, and especially in his detailed description of the physical and psychological horror of being a coal miner; its cultural endurance rests in the truth of the picture it paints.

    Orwell is perhaps the greatest English writer of the last century. Anyone wishing to understand why will have a clear idea from this book. But it also serves as an invitation to read his other factual works, his novels and above all his criticism, to see how his mastery of prose – and also, of course, his political views – developed over his short lifetime.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/orwells-stab-socialist-propaganda-ended-attack-stupid-cult-russia/

    † Orwell would recognise all the others in the modern Left-world except for the birth-control fanatics. Marie Stopes is a heroine of the ‘liberal’ Left for ‘giving women control of their reproductive systems’ but I’ve never heard a feminist comment upon her remark that one of her ambitions was “to furnish security from conception to those who are racially diseased”. Eugenics – once such a noble cause amongst the enlightened liberals.

    1. I was looking into eugenics last year, stemming I think from a discussion on NOTTL, and realised that it is much more deeply embedded in the establishment than I had been aware of.
      The father of someone I knew at school was listed as a speaker at a eugenics meeting! I saw evidence of supporters who have been rewarded by the establishment with peerages and knighthoods – the influence of Philip or Charles, perhaps?

  60. How Orwell’s stab at socialist propaganda ended up as an attack on ‘the stupid cult of Russia’

    First published in 1937, ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’ is a masterpiece – so why did many leftists hate it?

    SIMON HEFFER • 23 April 2022 • 5:00pm

    George Orwell undertook the field work for The Road to Wigan Pier in the winter of 1936, just after the death of King George V, and wrote the book in the months leading up to the abdication of King Edward VIII that December. It was the year of the Battle of Cable Street and the Jarrow March, and a turbulent period in British history.

    The worst of the Great Depression was over – unemployment had peaked in late 1932 – and Britain was recovering. Yet Orwell documented the slumlike conditions in which the very poor still lived in the north of England (and the role class played in British politics) and offered his solution to the problem: socialism.

    It is a book of two halves: the first describes the vile conditions in which the people of the Lancashire coalfields live, with some of the horrors of Sheffield thrown in too. The second is broadly autobiographical: Orwell alludes to his “lower-upper-middle-class” upbringing, his time at Eton and in the Burmese police; he comes across (accurately as we now know) as a chronic misfit.

    The experiences he recounts had convinced him that socialism was the answer to poverty: but most people rejected it because, as he put it memorably, it summoned up a picture of “vegetarians with wilting beards, of Bolshevik commissars (half gangster, half gramophone), of earnest ladies in sandals, shock-headed Marxists chewing polysyllables, escaped Quakers, birth-control fanatics and Labour party backstairs-crawlers”.†

    It also reeked of “the stupid cult of Russia”, where at the time Stalin was murdering vast numbers of people who disagreed with him.

    Victor Gollancz had commissioned Orwell to write the book as a work of propaganda, to be read at his monthly Left Book Club, for which the choice was made by him, Harold Laski and John Strachey. But none of them had expected the author to state quite so pungently why socialism was having such trouble catching on. First, Orwell thought (not least because of his own predicament) that the middle classes were far less secure than in fact they were.

    He saw their abundant snobbery and prejudice as all that prevented them from sinking into the working classes – after all, “we have nothing to lose but our aitches” – a reference to the inherent snobbery of modes of speech that Orwell took to define the middle class.

    But in his invective against socialists, Orwell was also inveighing against the pompous, self-righteous Laski, a Marxist bore, and against Strachey, a mentally unstable fanatic who had recently argued that if the British people would not accept revolution, then they might have to be coerced into it. Orwell’s stark realism shocked and affronted them, to the point where Gollancz felt he had to write an explanatory preface in an attempt to stop the author’s criticism of socialists from offending the LBC’s predictably humourless mass clientele.

    Although The Road to Wigan Pier was widely hailed as a masterpiece, many leftists hated it. It was bad enough that Orwell sneered at their beloved Russia with its Stalinism whose cruelties they either could not, or would not, understand; but he also took a typically unsentimental view of the working class that the Left routinely romanticised as a means of reinforcing the propaganda about them.

    The key theme that runs through the documentary chapters of the book, and is revisited in the autobiographical ones, is of smell: the lower classes smell disgusting, their homes, clothes, food and everything about them smells disgusting. It is as if the author is permanently on the verge of being sick.

    Sometimes when he is describing the overcrowded, insanitary living conditions of the industrial poor, he could be writing about the 1830s rather than the 1930s. The genius of the book lies in the vividness and candour of these chapters, and especially in his detailed description of the physical and psychological horror of being a coal miner; its cultural endurance rests in the truth of the picture it paints.

    Orwell is perhaps the greatest English writer of the last century. Anyone wishing to understand why will have a clear idea from this book. But it also serves as an invitation to read his other factual works, his novels and above all his criticism, to see how his mastery of prose – and also, of course, his political views – developed over his short lifetime.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/orwells-stab-socialist-propaganda-ended-attack-stupid-cult-russia/

    † Orwell would recognise all the others in the modern Left-world except for the birth-control fanatics. Marie Stopes is a heroine of the ‘liberal’ Left for ‘giving women control of their reproductive systems’ but I’ve never heard a feminist comment upon her remark that one of her ambitions was “to furnish security from conception to those who are racially diseased”. Eugenics – once such a noble cause amongst the enlightened liberals.

  61. How Orwell’s stab at socialist propaganda ended up as an attack on ‘the stupid cult of Russia’

    First published in 1937, ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’ is a masterpiece – so why did many leftists hate it?

    SIMON HEFFER • 23 April 2022 • 5:00pm

    George Orwell undertook the field work for The Road to Wigan Pier in the winter of 1936, just after the death of King George V, and wrote the book in the months leading up to the abdication of King Edward VIII that December. It was the year of the Battle of Cable Street and the Jarrow March, and a turbulent period in British history.

    The worst of the Great Depression was over – unemployment had peaked in late 1932 – and Britain was recovering. Yet Orwell documented the slumlike conditions in which the very poor still lived in the north of England (and the role class played in British politics) and offered his solution to the problem: socialism.

    It is a book of two halves: the first describes the vile conditions in which the people of the Lancashire coalfields live, with some of the horrors of Sheffield thrown in too. The second is broadly autobiographical: Orwell alludes to his “lower-upper-middle-class” upbringing, his time at Eton and in the Burmese police; he comes across (accurately as we now know) as a chronic misfit.

    The experiences he recounts had convinced him that socialism was the answer to poverty: but most people rejected it because, as he put it memorably, it summoned up a picture of “vegetarians with wilting beards, of Bolshevik commissars (half gangster, half gramophone), of earnest ladies in sandals, shock-headed Marxists chewing polysyllables, escaped Quakers, birth-control fanatics and Labour party backstairs-crawlers”.†

    It also reeked of “the stupid cult of Russia”, where at the time Stalin was murdering vast numbers of people who disagreed with him.

    Victor Gollancz had commissioned Orwell to write the book as a work of propaganda, to be read at his monthly Left Book Club, for which the choice was made by him, Harold Laski and John Strachey. But none of them had expected the author to state quite so pungently why socialism was having such trouble catching on. First, Orwell thought (not least because of his own predicament) that the middle classes were far less secure than in fact they were.

    He saw their abundant snobbery and prejudice as all that prevented them from sinking into the working classes – after all, “we have nothing to lose but our aitches” – a reference to the inherent snobbery of modes of speech that Orwell took to define the middle class.

    But in his invective against socialists, Orwell was also inveighing against the pompous, self-righteous Laski, a Marxist bore, and against Strachey, a mentally unstable fanatic who had recently argued that if the British people would not accept revolution, then they might have to be coerced into it. Orwell’s stark realism shocked and affronted them, to the point where Gollancz felt he had to write an explanatory preface in an attempt to stop the author’s criticism of socialists from offending the LBC’s predictably humourless mass clientele.

    Although The Road to Wigan Pier was widely hailed as a masterpiece, many leftists hated it. It was bad enough that Orwell sneered at their beloved Russia with its Stalinism whose cruelties they either could not, or would not, understand; but he also took a typically unsentimental view of the working class that the Left routinely romanticised as a means of reinforcing the propaganda about them.

    The key theme that runs through the documentary chapters of the book, and is revisited in the autobiographical ones, is of smell: the lower classes smell disgusting, their homes, clothes, food and everything about them smells disgusting. It is as if the author is permanently on the verge of being sick.

    Sometimes when he is describing the overcrowded, insanitary living conditions of the industrial poor, he could be writing about the 1830s rather than the 1930s. The genius of the book lies in the vividness and candour of these chapters, and especially in his detailed description of the physical and psychological horror of being a coal miner; its cultural endurance rests in the truth of the picture it paints.

    Orwell is perhaps the greatest English writer of the last century. Anyone wishing to understand why will have a clear idea from this book. But it also serves as an invitation to read his other factual works, his novels and above all his criticism, to see how his mastery of prose – and also, of course, his political views – developed over his short lifetime.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/orwells-stab-socialist-propaganda-ended-attack-stupid-cult-russia/

    † Orwell would recognise all the others in the modern Left-world except for the birth-control fanatics. Marie Stopes is a heroine of the ‘liberal’ Left for ‘giving women control of their reproductive systems’ but I’ve never heard a feminist comment upon her remark that one of her ambitions was “to furnish security from conception to those who are racially diseased”. Eugenics – once such a noble cause amongst the enlightened liberals.

      1. I do for me. I don’t believe anything from the mouth if any politician nor councillors.
        They are all full of condescending sh1t.

    1. Like most of the rest of what I grew up with, it has gone with the wind, never to be listened to again.

      1. I didn’t grow up with it as my mum was not a fan. I must confess though to listening to Waggoners Walk for a year or two in the early 70s.

        1. Now – Mrs Dale’s Diary – there was a good series…!!

          “I’m worried about Jim”….

          4. But just think how much worse you would have been if you had NOT listened…{:¬))

      1. Apparently not. But I’m surprised that they claim they have not been vaccinated because they were too young.

    3. We have rather better reporting and data collection capabilities, despite the NHS.

          1. Is this the lady that’s been complaining to the BBC that men want to sleep with her?

          3. I don’t think so Angie.

            The BBC claims that she is Welsh, and so are the men who are all offering to sleep with her.

  66. The NHS can do it if they want. Phoned hospital Monday, they phoned back Tuesday and got appointment for Sunday. Lady said she would try to get a letter off asap. She did and it arrived today- first class no less.
    Forms to fill in but the one about pre-existing conditions has one section….Women only- Could you be pregnant?
    There will be ructions I tell ‘ee- wot about all those pregnant men?

    1. I had a letter today with House of Commons headed note paper. The envelope too. Second class post.

      The NHS are wasting money. Why didn’t they text it? They can text a code which gives you access to the online site and read the letter there !

      1. She wanted to make sure it got to me before Sunday. Normally the NHS uses owls 😉

      2. Waste, inefficiency and process. Thing is, some parts of the NHS are efficient and do call you. Others seem to think you exist solely for their own benefit.

        1. I really do believe it depends on where you live, Wibbs.
          Right now, I am just so relieved something is happening so it they want to waste a first class stamp- fine.

        2. My GP sent me to a blood clinic as a matter of urgency at my General Hospital. They told me they weren’t a walk in clinic anymore because of covid and i needed an appointment. I said i had been phoning since Friday morning. They said they were on the Wards at the weekend and the phone wouldn’t be answered.
          I said how am i supposed to make the appointment? They said call tomorrow.
          They obviously recognised the look on my face and relented.
          A lot of the NHS front line staff are good but they need to weed out the slackers.

        3. Process is their priority. Waste and inefficiency joint second. For instance, Alf receives letters from the NHS that waste a whole sheet of paper with just his name and address on it. They should be able to put that on the 1st page to show through window envelopes A4 size but no they waste money on A5 envelopes.

          1. I have had two letters now about a telephone appointment (I had to cancel the first one as I would have been in a shareholders meeting). Both letters had several pages about Covid procedures. For a TELEPHONE conversation?

          2. We are not allowed to forget that covid may well be hovering in the vicinity. ‘Covid procedures’ = project fear. Just so we don’t forget.

    2. Same here.
      Wordle 312 4/6

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

    4. #MeToo sweetie … x
      Wordle 312 4/6

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

    5. Yup, a par 4 4 me 2
      Wordle 312 4/6

      ⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨
      🟩🟨🟩⬜⬜
      🟩🟨🟩⬜🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩.

  68. I wonder whether Mr Musk will introduce new and more onerous restraints on users of his new toy….

    1. He’s already said that everyone will be validated, which would be a perfect use case for digital ids.

      1. They know who you are, anyway. When I was suspended from Twitter two years ago I complained several times to no avail but they have my email address, phone number and name not just my pseudonym. I eventually was reinstated after several months.

    2. He has already made it clear that anything that does not violate law is allowed. He has also said the Twitter will be ‘open source’

      What is open source?
      https://opensource.com/resources/what-open-source
      He may have brought Twitter but he has no intention of controlling it. That will be up to its users.

      I really don’t understand why people don’t trust him. He is without artifice. He doesn’t even patent his inventions. People are free to use them and improve on them. Whatever he says should be taken at face value because he has no hidden agenda. He genuinely thinks that he and human beings are here to improve themselves and the world.

        1. Thanks Ann. I would be doing fine except they took away my medication for the two days I was in hospital. So now the bladder infection is back in full force. Going to the loo is a nightmare. But today I was given a stronger version of the drug I was taking, 500mg instead of 250mg. so hopefully it will clear up quickly.

          But I will be thinking of you on Sunday. Trying to figure out a piece of music so that when you get back the “savage beast” can be soothed.

          1. Hints: Bach, Mozart or Vivaldi. Corelli, Albinoni…..I do like a a bit of baroque.
            However, I do like the Drifters and Scott Walker also. Eclectic me.

          2. Will bare your list in mind. In fact I’m going to copy and paste so I have as a reference point.

          3. Sorry, bear! I’m still half asleep and about to go to the doctors for another round of poking and prodding.

          4. Good luck with the prodding- hope it goes OK.
            I actually like all sorts of music but not too keen on the Liszt type of stuff. Like other groups too like The Kinks, 10CC and more.

        1. We went and got enough nerve tonic yesterday which I am relieved about. Pain non stop today- thank god I can go on on Sunday and not 6 months hence.
          Have only done about a third of what I wanted to do but I did what I can manage.
          This government is the biggest load of shit I can ever remember and, although sorry about the language, I will not modify it!

          2. STILL no attention? Gee, Ann, you need to pay, and sod the cost. You can’t go on that way.

          3. Yes. Letter today and an appointment on this Sunday. Bring a persistent sod can pay dividends.

          4. I am testing the Canadian Healthcare system for you to see how it compares to the nhs.

            Last week my hairdresser noticed a lump/growth behind an ear and told me to see my doctor. Being a good boy, I phoned and set up an appointment.

            I turned up at the surgery this morning and the doctor had a quick look. His first thoughts it is benign and no problem but just to be sure he decided to take a sample and check. That took all of five minutes then he told me to sit in a fairly low chair whilst waiting for the nurse to bandage the hole- apparently less distance for me to fall if I fainted (yes he is a comedian as well as a doctor)..

            Anything else I can do – he renewed a prescription for me.

            Biopsy results in about a week, let’s see how that compares to your experience.

          5. Good luck Richard.
            By the way, you did make me laugh out loud a couple of times last evening. Well done.

          6. My experience of the Canadian Healthcare System during my ‘Five Winnipeg Winters’ was excellent:

            It is efficient, friendly – and far less bureaucratic than our NHS.

          9. Said that, too, before communion (“Lord, I am not worthy to eat the crumbs under Thy table …”) 🙂

        2. You’re lucky: at 10.20, when I was about step into the bath, the doorbell rang – it was the charming District Nurses, Morag and Clare, to give me Jag 4 / Boost II …

    4. I was unhappy since 4.30pm – I couldn’t get into Nottlers…

      Eventually c19.00 took my daughter’s advice and SHUT THE WHOLE THING DOWN!

      It worked!

      1. I had problems yesterday, and the notifications weren’t updating. I did exactly the same plus I hit the side of my iPad with a small hammer! It worked a treat!

  70. That’s me for this chilly, murky day. At least I got the brassicas planted out – I bet the slugs will do for them. My six trombetti seedlings have given up the ghost – leaves turned yellow. Disappointing. No rain – again.

    The MR is really unwell with depression. I am hopeless at coping with that. But she HAS gone to keep fit class this evening which I hope is something.

    I shall be standing by with a glass on her return in half an hour. Fingers crossed.

    Market tomorrow first thing.

    Have the best evening you can devise.

    A demain.

        1. That was last night for me.
          Evening out at pub with statuesque Polish friend and a colleague from Bergen. Many weissbiers. Lurched home. at midnight… happy times!

      2. Didn’t the group known as Madness record a song about the House of Faun? Some sort of repetitive ‘Welcome’ chorus, IIRC.

    3. Poor MR. That’s no fun.
      Give her a hug from me… she’s clearly a saint, needs to be loved a bit.

    4. Hope the keep fit class helps her but be ready for a fall back afterwards. You must just do what you can to help.

    6. I have suffered from depression in the past (it’s why I had to give up teaching; I came close to a nervous breakdown). I can only say take each day at a time and know that it will pass. Don’t dwell on what is past; it’s gone – let it go. Concentrate on the future and the good things. Accentuate the positive and leave the negative behind.

    7. From my own sufferings in the past, I can only say
      Sunshine.
      Lots of fibre (pulses, brassicas, stone fruits, walnuts, dark choc etc because poor gut health can cause depression)
      Fitness
      Let the future take care of itself and concentrate on getting through today.

      Anti-depressants a last resort.
      My great sympathy to you both – it is a horrible illness. One feels so helpless.

    8. As a former sufferer, (6 years on and off, mostly on and still comes back to haunt me when I am stressed); I found that achieving one thing in a day was helpful. This is not a quick fix, but something like making a cake, scones, or getting involved with a tapestry. Definitely not reading, though. Reading seems to make the depressive process worse. Perhaps because reading internalises emotions, it pushes them inwards, whereas doing something creative, however small, externalises them. Also walking outside in nature, it doesn’t have to be too far, the rhythm of just walking is soothing. As bb2 says, look no further than one day at a time.

      1. “I found that achieving one thing a day was helpful”. I too have found this helpful, poppiesmum. When I used to list more than one daily “target” I found that if I achieved them I would up the number day after day until I “failed” to achieve them all. I now stick to the maxim “Progress not Perfection” and achieving one small thing a day is Progress.

        1. Yes…. one feels better for having achieved something, however small, it seems to start off the process of recovery. It doesn’t have to be a major project – half an hour of creative needlework in the afternoon, and you suddenly realise that you have been absorbed in something outside of yourself, and not absorbed with yourself. Something not too taxing to start with is the answer.

          Night-night, Elsie.

          1. I like to give a gardening example of “Progress not Perfection”. I used to set myself a daily “task” target such as mowing my front and back lawns. Now it is more likely to be “spend an hour in the garden” mowing the lawns. Whether I only mow one of the two lawns, mow both front and back, or mow both lawns and have a little time left over to start a bit of weeding, the result is always a successful achievement: I have succeeded in spending one hour gardening.

    1. Odd that the holy grail of ‘equality’, which is ingrained in all sorts of legislation, gets trumped without question by covid.

      1. Although he is full of it, we don’t want to go anywhere near his Blarney Stone either!

  75. Nice walk around the Pill ( local term for an inlet) last evening with a poignant overlay of the boats that have lain un-sailed due to the bat flu or ill health or in the case of Milly ( the green Hurly 22) 25+ years of I’ll get around to it eventually overtaken by a (survived) heart attack.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ca190b9b214a240261c35c1bfe695b9c081101a3a432030885edcd73a0a23b25.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d70d77dae5b6de86b0e797febc481f10c2c723dd19c364e2c00b8d312a5b87b2.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2f30085f43f53be93c2d2dc8d7f189e75ad507bbdb886d94427beda07ccbabb5.jpg

      1. I have a Nikon DSLR D7100 and a variety of lenses and filters and I have an iPhone 13, these were taken with my iPhone, make of that what you will!

        1. The definition is very good. I take all my photos on my now 3 year old iPhone 6. When it goes to the great Apple Orchard in the Sky (as it inevitably will one day) I will take a close look at the 13.

  76. Evening, all. Weather has turned cold here today 🙁 I had a good ride on the Connemara – we did pole work and his eyes lit up at the mention of poles! Unfortunately for him (he loves his jumping) they were on the ground. I did manage to do a bit of work in the garden afterwards. I bought some summer bulbs and planted them (as well as the inevitable weeding, of course). I don’t know how successful they will be, but we can only try.

      1. Because I’ve been there, done that and got the scars! 🙂 In my time, I’ve hunted, done cross country and show jumping. Now I’m too old, more sensible and realise I no longer bounce the way I used to! 🙂

          1. Yes, we had quite a complicated grid system consisting of triangles and single poles. He had to go down the centre line through the middle, getting his strides and rhythm right, turn then cross the diagonal aiming for the middle of the poles, ending up with doing a 15m circle and stepping over the poles. This last was the most difficult, because normally the poles are splayed if you’re using them on a circle and these weren’t. I was very proud of him (and, of course, he got extra Polos).

        2. Going on 81, I would love to do some more ‘low-level’ jumping on a trusted steed …

          1. I trust the Connemara – it’s just me, with my arthritic joints, lack of core stability these days and difficulty of folding at the right time, I don’t trust!

          2. You have never given him a name, Conners.

            For his retirement, I suggest:

            ‘The Quiet Man’ …

          3. I was just thinking that I had never seen Conway give a name for the Connemara – at one time I thought that was his name!!

          5. Thank you. With the time difference between East coast and the UK, I miss quite a bit!!

          6. He’s called Coolio (he’s by Cool Dude). I posted a photo of him in his stable a couple of times and his name is above the door.

  77. 352218)+ up ticks,

    Good job the uKiP nec & farage put paid to UKIP under Gerard Batten leadership, the upset they would have caused if they continued.

    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021
    ·
    1h
    Why would anyone be surprised by this? If the authorities said or did anything about it they would have the career limiting accusations of ‘Islamophobia’ & ‘racism’ levelled at them.

    Prison guards are deferring to islamism report finds.

    Muslim gangs have a free run in prisons, & ‘convert’ other prisoners a part of protection rackets. The reason I appointed Tommy Robinson as an advisor was so we could draw attention to this problem. Sadly he soon had more pressing things on his plate to deal with.

    1. Why are they permitted to pray? If they want to pray, post them back to where they came from.

      Don’t forget that Islam predominates in UK prisons. They do commit far disproportionate offences compared to their population.

  78. Sorry if I sound like a snob but I am sick to death of listening to people on TV who cannot speak English properly. Even so -called educated people. I am not not talking about accents but if you are going to use a word at least pronounce it correctly.

  79. https://capx.co/the-big-lie-that-underpins-the-new-eco-militant-movement/

    In answer to ‘what more can we do’ – bin all the green legislation. MPs just want a tax cow. Our industry has collapsed, energy is utterly obscenely priced and quite bluntly any MP demanding we pay more for their fantasies should be hung until they die kicking and screaming.

    Do the same for the green fanatics, destroy the windmills, get digging coal gas and nuclear. When Mps disagree and lefties kick up a stink, seize their property. Caroline Lucas will find communism her ideal – especially when all of her properties are taken from her.

  82. We hear a lot a out people needing to make a choice between eating and heating but I’m sure that for many they are offering the selves the wrong options.

    A lot of families could resolve their problem by eating normally and choosing instead between heating and Sky Sports and Netflix.

    1. I posted earlier about our utilities bill being about half what we expected. We are careful with our use but you have to eat and be warm. We don’t buy junk food. We do like our nerve tonic though:-)

      1. It’s nice to be warm but generations before ours survived without central heating.

        1. True but we only have the radiator on in the LR and bathroom- downstairs. Upstairs, the radiator only goes on when the first one goes up to bed. Even then, it only comes on if it’s cold enough.
          Where I grew up in south London was bloody cold.

          2. It was flippin’ cold in Yorkshire when I was a little lass. My parents never had central heating in their lifetime, we never had a fridge. We had a coal fire in the living room and I had a stoneware hot water bottle. Fern patterns on the leaded windows courtesy of Jack Frost in the winter. I look back fondly on those times. We viewed the hardships through the prism of hope and optimism. As a people and country we knew who we were, and we were proud of it.

          3. Sounds like my childhood! Clothes for the morning went under the bedspread to keep warm. Mum warmed her shoes in the oven (with the door open). She was an expert at using a newspaper to draw the coal fire up the chimney – I nearly caused a fire when I let go too soon…….. not long after that she had a gas fire installed.

          4. Norf lunnon where we was born was even colder. Closer to the arctic circle don’t yer know. :-))

          1. We had coal fires and when I was young even the lighting in the front room, whilst converted to a single electric ceiling rose, retained lamps either side of the fireplace fuelled by Town Gas. They gave a lovely greenish light and the wicks could be purchased in a local hardware store.

            The last time I saw similar lamps was in The Blackfriar Public House near Blackfriars Bridge, a sort of Arts & Crafts meets Art Deco Confection, but a delightful environment nonetheless.

            At home meanwhile, albeit back in the fifties, even our fridge, a monstrously sized white painted wooden box, was fuelled by Town Gas.

          3. If ‘they’ really wanted to go green they could make more use of existing technology like this.

          4. Absolutely right Phil.
            We could go back to reusable milk a pop bottles. Ban all these Greenies from buying water in plastic bottles. They buy bottled water ‘cos tap water is nasty but, funnily enough, bottled water shouldn’t be use to make baby milk feeds as it’s too high in impurities.
            What a lark eh!

          5. Thank you, most interesting. I have seen several iron stubs which are the remains of sewer gas lamps. These often have decorative cast iron bases and presumably are listed in cities.

          6. My mother had a gas fridge, but not till after I’d moved out. All we had when I was young was a north-facing pantry.

            We didn’t have gas lamps in our 1930s maisonette, but we used to go to music evenings at the Playhouse in Cheltenham and there were working gas lamps there. You may know it – originally a swimming bath I believe.

    2. But if you haven’t watched the latest ‘Superhero Movie’, how can you you possibly talk to your contemporaries?

  84. I am off for the night- now my bloody phone is acting up. “Blessings” never come singly do they?
    Sweet dreams Y’All.

  86. I came across the following on a website earlier regarding the MSM narrative on the Ukraine dispute which seems apposite:

    “ Maybe this is “winning” if you’re the kind of idiot who believes that men can get pregnant, too. In the world of delusional fairy tales, I suppose anything can be twisted around by delusional woketards to look like its opposite. But in no universe rooted in reality is Russia “losing” this war. Russia is achieving a methodical, decisive victory while the USA and NATO are standing around with their d#cks in their hands, laughing about emptying their old warehouses of rusted-out, barely-operable military hardware that will die on the battlefield with the victimized soldiers of Ukraine (who are being exploited and killed by NATO and the West, it turns out).”

  88. Sorry for late postings. On a personal note, I spent half an hour or more on the line to my local GP practice before getting through to a ‘care navigator’. Lovely lady and very considerate, eventually understood my dilemma viz. I had been hospitalised for five nights and eventually, after numerous tests and scans, diagnosed with late onset asthma and a few other related issues. I underwent several scans, X-Ray, CT scan, MIR scan and subsequently, a few weeks later, Ultra Sound to check heart function. After six weeks had elapsed I chanced to phone for the results of the Ultra Sound scan.

    Just after 6.00 pm I took a call from my GP to advise that my heart function was great. The hospital thought that one of the arteries had narrowed and that I might require a stent. Thank God that I have escaped invasive surgery for the while.

    My GP mentioned during the call that his colleagues believed that the NHS was being set up for privatisation of several of its clinical treatment parts. Having witnessed the total abuse of the NHS by politicians and their agencies over the past two years (and long before) I had to agree with him.

    1. There are so many patients that don’t turn up for appointments, go to their GP instead of taking a Lemsip, go to A&E with a splinter, that I fear they are driving a cause for some degree of charging.
      I think there should be a deposit to be paid on making a GP/hospital appt, to be repaid if you turn up, kept if you DNA.

      1. I have no trouble with any of your comment. I simply believe that the layer upon layer of NHS ‘management’ has destroyed the economic model.

        The NHS is overloaded with comparatively useless managers. They are appointed by government and designed to suck the lifeblood from an ailing system to ensure its demise.

      2. We have to pay – unless a child or OAP. If you book & don’t show, you still have to pay. Makes that problem a whole lot smaller.
        My Dr costs about £60 for 20 minutes, including consumables.

      3. There should be a simple charge for seeing a doctor and that should be reflected in the WS GPs are paid rather than being paid by how many patients are on their ‘list’.
        When our son lived in Ireland for a couple of years I think the fee for seeing a doctor was €30. He was also attacked one evening and spent about a week in hospital and I think there was a charge if €130 for the first 3 days and no charge thereafter.

    2. Telephone consultations are being set up for privatisation.

      It is much cheaper to consult a doctor in India, Pakistan or the Philippines than in the UK.

    3. Good morning, sorry for the late reply to yours.

      GP practises do not seem to be helping themselves. GPs simply do not seem to want to see their patients or, in our case, provide enough appointments to go round. Even if we phone at 0830, when the lines are open, all the appointments seem to have gone. Bit of a tricky one, that. If that’s what GPs in general feel they have more than enough clout via their union to do something about it. Good news about your heart BTW.

  89. Another late posting for which I apologise.

    The reaction of the EU, the Trans-Peppa Pig Johnson and the O’Biden administration to the Russian reaction to sanctions imposed on them is quite telling. Putin has quite simply turned off the gas supplies to dissenting countries. This action will affect not just Germany, Poland and Italy but will ultimately affect the UK.

    Against Putin, our politicians and those of the EU are minnows. The potential real effects of their misplaced sanctions are likely to disable the West. Why on earth do we employ useless, ignorant and corrupt politicians who have no interest whatever in our well-being. We pay these bastards to represent us and to represent our interests. They do neither but continue to line their own pockets and rob us blind in doing so.

    There must also surely be some accounting after two whole years of the policies on Covid which have affected us all. These bastard politicians are destroying us, our identity and our beloved country.

  90. mañana
    I procrastinated in commenting this morning because I was engrossed over the last few days in chasing up the delays to fixing my roof and windscreen.

    I had filed a claim with my house insurers after a tile fall whilst Dudley and Eunace were visiting in February. I got an emailed claim confirmation after being told not to send photos I had taken of the damage. They said they would contact me but eventually got back to me yesterday – two months later. By that time I had felt it necessary to have had the roof fixed by my own choice of tiler who works from home – that’s roof justice for you.

    Also in February my 2009 Mazda 5 got an MOT advisory notice to repair a chip on the windscreen. Since the chip was there at the previous MOT, had not visibly worsened and was not even visible through the glass from either the passenger’s or driver’s side I was inclined to leave it another year what with COVID and the prevailing mañana culture. However, after being bombarded by dire warnings of a windsceen writeoff by Autoglass and the fact that I could log a repair by the time the advert had finished I gave it a try. Unfortunately I made the cardinal sin of failing to enter a contact number for a smart phone with a url enabled text link – I thought a landline with an automatic diversion to mobile on no reply would be enough.
    After email confirmatiin that my money had been taken nothing happened except another email that the booking had not yet been completed. After delays in chasing up a booking confirmation and a call back to say a technician had gone off sick an Autoglass van did turn up but I felt sorry for the poor chap when I heard him complaining to his handler that he wasn’t being time to even have a lunch break. He showed me several bad chips in his Autoglass van that he hadn’t had time to fix himself.

    Perhaps with things as they are mañana is the operative word!

    https://metro.co.uk/2022/04/27/boris-johnson-accuses-people-of-suffering-from-post-covid-manana-culture-16541636/

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