Wednesday 28 June: Let the public decide whether they want to pay for BBC programmes

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its comments facility (now reinstated, but we prefer ours),
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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here.

578 thoughts on “Wednesday 28 June: Let the public decide whether they want to pay for BBC programmes”

  3. Good morrow, Gentlefolks, today’s story

    No Excuse

    Bill emerges from the bathroom – naked – and climbs into bed with his wife. As usual, she says, “I have a headache.”

    “Perfect!” Bill says. “I was just in the bathroom powdering my old man with aspirin. Now, how do you want to take it orally, or as a suppository?”

  5. Good Morning Folks,

    Cloudy humid start here.

    There seems to be more parakeets this year for some reason.

    noisy buggers

    2. There’s a need to cull 50,000 parakeets now before it becomes totally obvious to even the dimmest fanatic that there is a need to cull 5 million….in a few years time.

      1. This made me laugh (talking of culls):

        “BADGERS are threatening a “nightmare” delay to Britain’s £4billion new prison programme, aimed at tackling an overcrowding crisis, a Ministry of Justice official has admitted.”

  6. Let the public decide whether they want to pay for BBC programmes

    Can’t see that happening, nobody wants to pay to be gaslighted .

    1. I’ve already decided, Bob, as have many on here, but I just got rid of the TV.

  7. Alison a Pearson’s piece on the “cricket is racist” report and at the end the email address of the ECB in case anyone wants to provide feedback to the ECBon the issue..

    “Yesterday, which saw the publication of a “landmark” review by the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket, was such a day. The word “equity” in the commission’s title is an immediate giveaway. Equity is not to be confused with its more mature and likeable elder sibling, equality. Equity means imposing a quota on any given situation regardless of merit or competence. In the US, equity has seen high-scoring Asian students barred from college admissions to make room for black students who didn’t make the grade. Equity automatically lowers standards, but it’s considered racist to point this out. Even when one ethnic minority is being disadvantaged in favour of another. Equity means being deeply concerned about the make-up of the NHL (National Hockey League) while lacking all curiosity about the composition of the NBA (basketball). Just for reference, in 2021 the NBA featured 73.2 per cent black players, 16.8 per cent white players, 3.1 per cent Latino players and 0.4 per cent Asian players. Most of us wouldn’t see that as a problem. Black players are clearly far better at basketball than, say, the Chinese who tend to be of more restricted stature. The same applies in athletics where no one complains about the “disproportionately black” sprinters.

    It only becomes a problem when lots of white people do well at a sport, which can’t have anything to do with ability, obviously. It must be owing to unfairness, privilege or institutional racism.

    Naturally, the new report from the ICEC accuses English cricket of being racist, sexist and elitist. It’s English, how could it not be? The invaluable role that cricket has played in bringing together Britons of different ethnicities who might otherwise exist in silos, their paths never crossing, goes unmentioned. Cricket is one of the great solvents of racial tension, I think, a blessedly innocent shared passion, but then I am not a professional DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) official whose income depends on finding discrimination wherever I seek it.

    The England and Wales Cricket Board said it accepts the report’s findings will “shock and disappoint many”. They certainly disappoint me. To a dismaying extent, our institutions have been taken over by self-hating white people, politically correct bores who prefer to believe Azeem Rafiq instead of the patently decent Michael Vaughan who served with such distinction as England captain. Vaughan narrowly avoided being cancelled for making what most Britons would surely still regard as a lighthearted aside during his time as a player at Yorkshire. Vaughan was cleared of making the “racist’ remark, but his unsuccessful crucifixion will discourage white players from making anything but the most innocuous remark to non-white team-mates in the future. What an own-goal for racial harmony that is.

    Among the report’s more fatuous findings are that female cricketers playing at domestic professional level are “disproportionately white”. And white, privately educated males are over-represented in the game. Is that cricket’s fault? Might considerations such as personal choice, culture, family preference and access to sport at school be the key drivers here, not racism?

    I remember seeing a documentary in which it emerged that promising young Asian kids were going great guns at a junior level until their ambitious parents decided they were wasting their time wielding bat and ball and should apply themselves to something more secure like law or medicine. Might it be parental attitudes to cricket that need to change, not cricket?

    According to Dr Rakib Ehsan, author of Beyond Grievance: What the Left Gets Wrong about Ethnic Minorities, the ICEC report is ill-judged and counter-productive. “The report provides an overly doom-and-gloom picture of English cricket – a much-loved national sport that brings a diversity of communities closer together in our modern democracy,” says Dr Ehsan, “The England men’s squad that won the ICC World Cup in 2019 was diverse in terms of race, ethnicity, faith, class and country of birth. This would not be possible unless cricket was a fairly inclusive sport, so the accusation that it suffers from widespread discrimination rings somewhat hollow. The timing of the report is most unfortunate considering that Rehan Ahmed – a Nottingham-born teenager of Pakistani-Muslim heritage – was called up by England last week for the second Ashes test match at Lords.”

    Quite so. The diversity, equality and inclusion brigade may be cloaked in the garb of liberal reasonableness but, make no mistake, their goals are Marxist. Like woodworms, they gnaw away at the foundations of our society, hoping the whole damn thing will one day come tumbling down. And the brainwashed powers-that-be conspire to help them.

    Here’s a funny thing. In their Early Years’ coaching pack, the ECB does nothing but promote cricket to youngsters from ethnic minority backgrounds and those with disabilities. Yet, instead of actively sticking up for what they are already promoting, they cravenly capitulate to the new report. And, all the while, interest in cricket dwindles and dwindles. The sport may perish, but at least it will die a virtuous, disproportionately non-white death.

    The men I love best love cricket and they are the best of men. (And some of the women I love, too.) Nothing will persuade me otherwise.

    If you disagree, as I do passionately, with the ECB’s response to this wretched report, then please use feedback@ecb.co.uk to let them know.“

        1. Emm, err, that’s her article on the Markles.

          Finally, America sees Harry and Meghan for what they are: workshy, whining and thoroughly entitled

          1. Her article in Features has two parts; the Markle one is the main one.

      2. The Alison Pearson article is in a separate section called Features (took me a while to realise there were different sections).

      3. Equity? More like a hit wicket for cricket’s racial harmony

        Our institutions have been taken over by self-hating, politically correct bores

        Some days, it feels like there are forces at work that will not rest until everything we love about this country, every tradition, every harmless pastime, every innocent aside, every sweet courtesy, every thrilling sport, every beloved book, every patriotic song, every “You gotta laugh, aincha?”, are forced to prostrate themselves before our mirthless enemies and beg forgiveness.

        Yesterday, which saw the publication of a “landmark” review by the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket, was such a day. The word “equity” in the commission’s title is an immediate giveaway. Equity is not to be confused with its more mature and likeable elder sibling, equality. Equity means imposing a quota on any given situation regardless of merit or competence. In the US, equity has seen high-scoring Asian students barred from college admissions to make room for black students who didn’t make the grade. Equity automatically lowers standards, but it’s considered racist to point this out. Even when one ethnic minority is being disadvantaged in favour of another. Equity means being deeply concerned about the make-up of the NHL (National Hockey League) while lacking all curiosity about the composition of the NBA (basketball). Just for reference, in 2021 the NBA featured 73.2 per cent black players, 16.8 per cent white players, 3.1 per cent Latino players and 0.4 per cent Asian players. Most of us wouldn’t see that as a problem. Black players are clearly far better at basketball than, say, the Chinese who tend to be of more restricted stature. The same applies in athletics where no one complains about the “disproportionately black” sprinters.

        It only becomes a problem when lots of white people do well at a sport, which can’t have anything to do with ability, obviously. It must be owing to unfairness, privilege or institutional racism.

        Naturally, the new report from the ICEC accuses English cricket of being racist, sexist and elitist. It’s English, how could it not be? The invaluable role that cricket has played in bringing together Britons of different ethnicities who might otherwise exist in silos, their paths never crossing, goes unmentioned. Cricket is one of the great solvents of racial tension, I think, a blessedly innocent shared passion, but then I am not a professional DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) official whose income depends on finding discrimination wherever I seek it.

        The England and Wales Cricket Board said it accepts the report’s findings will “shock and disappoint many”. They certainly disappoint me. To a dismaying extent, our institutions have been taken over by self-hating white people, politically correct bores who prefer to believe Azeem Rafiq instead of the patently decent Michael Vaughan who served with such distinction as England captain. Vaughan narrowly avoided being cancelled for making what most Britons would surely still regard as a lighthearted aside during his time as a player at Yorkshire. Vaughan was cleared of making the “racist’ remark, but his unsuccessful crucifixion will discourage white players from making anything but the most innocuous remark to non-white team-mates in the future. What an own-goal for racial harmony that is.

        Among the report’s more fatuous findings are that female cricketers playing at domestic professional level are “disproportionately white”. And white, privately educated males are over-represented in the game. Is that cricket’s fault? Might considerations such as personal choice, culture, family preference and access to sport at school be the key drivers here, not racism?

        I remember seeing a documentary in which it emerged that promising young Asian kids were going great guns at a junior level until their ambitious parents decided they were wasting their time wielding bat and ball and should apply themselves to something more secure like law or medicine. Might it be parental attitudes to cricket that need to change, not cricket?

        According to Dr Rakib Ehsan, author of Beyond Grievance: What the Left Gets Wrong about Ethnic Minorities, the ICEC report is ill-judged and counter-productive. “The report provides an overly doom-and-gloom picture of English cricket – a much-loved national sport that brings a diversity of communities closer together in our modern democracy,” says Dr Ehsan, “The England men’s squad that won the ICC World Cup in 2019 was diverse in terms of race, ethnicity, faith, class and country of birth. This would not be possible unless cricket was a fairly inclusive sport, so the accusation that it suffers from widespread discrimination rings somewhat hollow. The timing of the report is most unfortunate considering that Rehan Ahmed – a Nottingham-born teenager of Pakistani-Muslim heritage – was called up by England last week for the second Ashes test match at Lords.”

        Quite so. The diversity, equality and inclusion brigade may be cloaked in the garb of liberal reasonableness but, make no mistake, their goals are Marxist. Like woodworms, they gnaw away at the foundations of our society, hoping the whole damn thing will one day come tumbling down. And the brainwashed powers-that-be conspire to help them.

        Here’s a funny thing. In their Early Years’ coaching pack, the ECB does nothing but promote cricket to youngsters from ethnic minority backgrounds and those with disabilities. Yet, instead of actively sticking up for what they are already promoting, they cravenly capitulate to the new report. And, all the while, interest in cricket dwindles and dwindles. The sport may perish, but at least it will die a virtuous, disproportionately non-white death.

        The men I love best love cricket and they are the best of men. (And some of the women I love, too.) Nothing will persuade me otherwise.

        If you disagree, as I do passionately, with the ECB’s response to this wretched report, then please use feedback@ecb.co.uk to let them know.

        1. It was inevitable.
          Why is almost everybody so boringly anti-white racist? They must have horrible, dull little lives.

      4. Cricket has been dragged into the culture wars by an activist minority

        Racism has no place in cricket but an ‘independent’ panel is not impartial – and history has been ignored

        SIMON HEFFER • 27 June 2023 • 7:35pm

        No sensible person, and certainly no sensible cricket-lover, can believe racism has any place in cricket at any level. It should not have taken the England and Wales Cricket Board’s Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket, which reported on Tuesday, to work that out. And the remedy should be simple: that proven allegations should result in the instant dismissal of any player or official responsible for such behaviour. However, the commission is about far more than just that: equity covers gender [itself a subject in some jeopardy] and class, and the report wallows in them.

        These are deeply political matters. In that context, the adjective in the commission’s title – independent – is interesting: independent of what? Of the ECB, certainly: but independence is not the same as impartiality. All five members of the commission have long records of progressive thought and activism. Any mildly conservative impulse among them that might take into account the more benign aspects of cricket’s history must be rare indeed. They represent a minority activist view and not majority opinion. The commission was chaired by Cindy Butts, who has a long record of anti-racist activism. She is also a veteran of the Metropolitan Police Authority, so had oversight of what is now depicted as one of the most disgraceful police forces in England. The ‘organisation and culture reforms’ on which she led, according to the commission’s website, clearly have yet to kick in.

        She was assisted by Sir Brendan Barber, ex-General Secretary of the TUC; Michelle Moore, a ‘race equity’ expert; Zafar Ansari, the former Surrey and England cricketer who now practises as a barrister in a distinguished human rights set; and Michael Collins, a historian specialising in decolonisation and end of empire. That this group would fail to agree that cricket as we know it is a moral, social and cultural disaster was about as likely as Ben Stokes becoming pope.

        The ECB set up the commission after the momentum created among activists by Black Lives Matter, a decision that was an overreaction and has led to some highly dubious conclusions and the proposal of an astonishing bureaucracy to police the game. The need to eliminate racism is beyond question, though the advocacy of ‘black-led cricket clubs’ seems at odds with a colour-blind game: but the report goes much further than that. As a result, the ECB has dragged cricket into the culture wars. If it thinks cricket will end up the better for it, it is much mistaken.

        It points out that women professional cricketers are paid less than men. That might have something to do with commercial considerations – although women’s cricket has expanded its appeal in recent years it is nothing like that for men’s cricket. Men’s cricket will have to subsidise women’s if the pay gap is to be ended. An entirely separate women’s game, with its own governing body and finances, does not seem to be on the agenda. Why not? Because if it had to fund itself there would be even less money in women’s cricket than is now the case.

        While the ECB is preparing to spend money on a diversity and inclusion executive, it is also told to consider class. This report has a profoundly Marxist taste because of its reference to ‘classist’ behaviour in cricket. At least it makes no secret of its own prejudices, by telling MCC (a private club) to cease hosting the Eton vs Harrow and Oxford vs Cambridge matches at Lord’s. MCC has been riven by arguments over this, and its members have made it quite clear how they feel – and the matches continue. Despite the veiled threat to award test matches on the basis of obedience to the new cultural norms, MCC should tell the Commission to get lost. It might also point out that the demographic of students that now dominates Oxbridge is remarkably similar to the one the Commission wants to create in cricket.

        The commission complains that too few black youngsters play cricket; they hardly play it in the West Indies either, not because of incipient racism but because of the growing interest in American basketball; and the great West Indian teams of the 1970s and 1980s that inspired black people here are no more. People with the benefit of a private education dominate cricket not least because of the socialist policy, dating back to 1965, of abolishing grammar schools, the decline in club cricket (for a number of social factors unrelated to racism and classism) as a place for talented young players to cut their teeth, and the chronic refusal of teaching unions’ members to supervise games out of hours. It is all very well to tell the government to put more money into cricket in state schools: it won’t, and if it did it would be at the expense of funding for the NHS, or pensioners’ heating bills. What planet are the Commissioners on?

        How credible is this report? It sought evidence, and the self-selecting group who responded numbered 4,156 people. It is on the basis of this tiny number that this report (branded ‘damning’ by the BBC, which seemed to love every second of it as it confirmed the Corporation’s view of the loathsomeness of white middle-class males) was compiled. It does call for further monitoring; and as in any responsible organisation, an assurance that people are not being insulted, bullied, discriminated against or treated other than according to their merits should be regarded as essential. But weaponizing cricket for use in the culture war (even to the extent of complaining about players drinking alcohol) and as part of a wider process of Marxist re-education, is not something the ECB can afford, for the sake of the game and for general sanity, to be sucked into.

        ‘Some of the information and language used in this report is potentially distressing’, the document begins. Too right it is. And it will be all the more so if the ECB take this nakedly political social engineering seriously, because it would threaten to undermine cricket fatally.

        https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2023/06/27/english-cricket-racism-icec-report-culture-war-heffer/

        Cindy Butts, Chair
        Butts, a lay member of the House of Commons Speaker’s Committee for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, was formerly a trustee of the charity Kick it Out and a deputy chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) as racism within the force was tackled after inquiries into the murder of Stephen Lawrence.

        Sir Brendan Barber
        The deputy chair of the Financial Services Culture Board was previously General Secretary of the TUC from 2003 to 2012.

        Zafar Ansari
        Made 175 first-team appearances for Surrey across all formats and played three Test Matches for England. Since September 2021, Zafar has been practising as a barrister at Blackstone Chambers.

        Michelle Moore
        A leadership coach and former athlete who is a specialist in local authority management of PE and school sport and played a role engaging local communities at London 2012.

        Dr Michael Collins
        An associate professor of modern British history at University College London (UCL). His latest research project – “Windrush Cricket” – looks at the history of cricket in the context of Caribbean immigration since 1948.

  8. The Darkness Ahead: Where The Ukraine War Is Headed. 23 June 2023.

    First, is a meaningful peace agreement possible? My answer is no. We are now in a war where both sides – Ukraine and the West on one side and Russia on the other – see each other as an existential threat that must be defeated. Given maximalist objectives all around, it is almost impossible to reach a workable peace treaty. Moreover, the two sides have irreconcilable differences regarding territory and Ukraine’s relationship with the West. The best possible outcome is a frozen conflict that could easily turn back into a hot war. The worst possible outcome is a nuclear war, which is unlikely but cannot be ruled out.

    Second, which side is likely to win the war? Russia will ultimately win the war, although it will not decisively defeat Ukraine. In other words, it is not going to conquer all of Ukraine, which is necessary to achieve three of Moscow’s goals: overthrowing the regime, demilitarizing the country, and severing Kyiv’s security ties with the West. But it will end up annexing a large swath of Ukrainian territory, while turning Ukraine into a dysfunctional rump state. In other words, Russia will win an ugly victory.

    This substack is by John Mearsheimer the guy who wrote the book (literally) on geopolitics. If you want to read a cold hard appraisal of the present situation and how we got here minus the duplicity and propaganda then this is it. Needless to say you will not be seeing Professor Mearsheimer on the BBC in the near future.

    https://mearsheimer.substack.com/p/the-darkness-ahead-where-the-ukraine

      1. Morning BB. Igor Sushko is a Ukrainian fantasist/propagandist. No creedence should be attached to his utterances and the last thing the Chinese are going to do is take against Russia. They would be next!

        1. I’m sure you are right, but it’s in Aljazeera?
          Perhaps they are just stirring the pot?

          1. China’s Li backs closer communication, global cooperation. 27 June 2023.

            Chinese Premier Li Qiang has called for more “communication and exchange” to avoid misunderstanding, in his remarks at the opening of this year’s “Summer Davos” in Tianjin, the first in-person event in three years following the COVID-19 pandemic.

            Nothing Here BB. I’m pretty sure that Sushko has invented it out of some innocuous remarks made by the Envoy Mr Fu.

            https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/6/27/chinas-li-backs-closer-communication-global-cooperation

          2. I thought the Aljazeera article was pretty clear, and Sushko just picked it up from there. But Aljazeera is part of the lizard elite’s media portfolio, so that could be why.

  10. Ps if anyone has access to the Spectator comments, can you go to the latest “Marshall Matters” podcast with Lee Fang and tell Mr Marshall please to never ever ever use the term “cis-male”. And if he does it again, I will delete his podcast from my on box.

    Thank you!

          1. Good morning, Spikey! Not raining here…yet! That knocks the greenhouse plan on the head!! 😱

      2. It’s forced language by the trans activists. A cis-male is what you and i still call “male”. By using the trans-terminology, Mr Marshall is essentially giving into the language zealots.

  11. 373927+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Doctors on £100,000 salaries to strike demanding 35pc pay rise
    Thousands of senior NHS medics to walk out for 48 hours in ‘huge blow to the service’

    It really must be one hell of a hardship trying to manage on two grand a week plus.

    This really is giving each patient on the waiting list a kick in the bollox or their boobs in a mangle to add to their problems.

    Looking at it clinically healthy people power could play a part in
    boycotting doctors regarding any services rendered.as in the butcher the baker the plumber the electrician etc,etc, after all we are ALL interlinked to a certain extent,

    Really does seem very much like avoidable / premature death plays a big part within the WEF/NWO program.

    Lest we, or they forget,

    I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure. I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.

    Are we dealing here with the hippocratic oath or one taken in a
    hypocrisy fashion.

    1. Not to mention their pension contributions, which need to be factored in to understand total remuneration received.

      They must think we are stupid. Unfortunately a lot of the general public appear to be.

  12. Ukraine can now end Putin’s crumbling regime. Hamish de Cretin-Gordon. 27 June 2023.

    And the room is certainly there for Ukraine’s forces to strike openly against Russia proper. The events of last weekend were extraordinary; a few thousand mercenary thugs marched on Moscow, moving through the country with ease and, in doing so, almost brought the Russian war machine to a standstill. Now think about what a professional force supplied with the latest Western gear could achieve in the same territory.

    These are the rantings of the demented.It’s not in the MSM but it is pretty obvious that the Ukie counter-attack has been a complete failure and that they are hopelessly bogged down and yet here’s Hamish saying they should launch an assault on Russia proper. When one thinks that this moron was once the Commanding Officer of the Royal Tank Regiment we must be thankful that no war broke out then!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/27/ukraine-can-now-end-putins-crumbling-regime/

    1. I was under the impression that Putin’s respect and popularity has risen quite a lot. But our media are still in denial.

  13. ‘Morning All

    Time for a Medley

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b5f9bbac2937345ad59a44d966e31e41655fd52b03e471a6ad6195be678db805.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/02a218005d80bc9ea1f5ed83df6235403f6ed7dbc29dd3f0382adcf7eccc4b20.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7e8f04e03f559e2459014d666a802dd4c7992bf537ca259896f6c89c870a5b38.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c883435b5324bcabe5a4d2e1f8e3d614819f773570cc579fd5edaf17b040767c.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0c8d01b5a4a6e9427bc53e6bac0ae9e663c05165882a7e1885a71c714da63748.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/748aad2329a7004cf70dda657df4548974ce1282d9b1438f4669baa4b7c1ca66.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2a16516f196ee17767fd483426a9e2d4e433ea3ce15881021d032d0a16bca7df.jpg

    1. And of no fixed abode.
      Why are they suggesting that the poor victim is lying by using the word alleged?
      Baseball bats will soon be as portable and as popular as handbags around the country. This government and Whitehall have a lot to answer for.
      How could anyone with an IQ that reaches double figures have allowed any of this to take place.
      Send all of these invaders back.

    2. I remember when the same happened in Perth W Oz about 10 years ago. I was in the insurance industry at the time and it cost us a bomb.

        1. Used to be known in Germany as a “Bavarian finish” (on your car).
          But now, I believe they spray the clouds, so it never happens.

      2. My 9 year old Fiesta was damaged by hailstones in Germany in 1994. I had just pulled up in the Mess car park and was inside the car when it came down. Talk about scary – I thought the windscreen was going to break. It looked not unlike a golf ball. I got the write off value and later sold it. One elderly German man was cycling home and was later found dead in a field.

      1. The distribution of non-broken panels is quite fascinating. Should be used as the basis for a random number generator.

    1. It’s funny how all countries are implementing the same measures at about the same time, isn’t it? It’s almost as if they are being told what to do by a supra-national organisation.

      1. It seems to be true as you say, but who exactly are these morons who seem to have more influence than anything else ever known ?
        Surely not AI.

    2. How does one prove that a person is praying? As long as you refuse to admit it, then any prosecution must be based on supposition. The Thought Police would have a hard time proving their case in court.

      1. a)They didn’t understand what they were voting against. b)They were voting against AB and thought he was proposing all children were being transitioned.

        2. They were delegitimising Andrew Bridgen because of his stance on vaccines and vaccine injury.

        1. He’s multi-talented: he can lift his shirt and bite his pillow simultaneously.

      3. I haven’t bothered to open the tweet fully, but did only 71 MPs of the 650 MPs currently infesting Westminster bother to attend?

        I recall Christopher Chope(?) being condemned in the #ScumMedia as he railed against there only being a slack handful of members voting for new laws on a Friday afternoon. Apparently, they thought he was impeding ‘progress’, rather than making a stand for democracy.

    3. 37.3927+ up ticks,

      O2O,

      This shows the beautiful consequences of an element of decency in action in parliament and the odious results OG.

    2. Or Latin where, we must not forget, there are three genders masculine, feminine and neuter.

      Perhaps we should call trans people neuters?

    3. A lot might depend on the questions asked and who they were put to in this survey, and the author’s gender agenda.

    4. I learnt my German in Germany, BB2, in the 1960s and never bother about der, die or das and I couldn’t tell you which is which. Nor do I care, I’ve been understood as far South as Bavaria and even to the East of Berlin and I only speak Plat Deutsche.

      1. I passed O level German and also the Army colloquial course. I used my German extensively. My experience of those who claim to speak Plattdeutsch is that they actually only speak Pub Deutsch.

        1. Don’t denigrate it, John, as I’ve said, I’m understood in both Bavaria and Eastern Germany, despite my Plat Deutsche, so I’m happy to ‘Get By’. Don’t knock it.

          1. I’m not denigrating anything. One of the tutors om my colloquial course, (German civilian) explained, very patiently, that on almost every course for Brits, basic and colloquial, somebody would raise the issue of Platt. Platt is aonother form, Low German, but those who claimed to understand it really on;y spoke pubdeutsch, or vocabulary and s;ang picked up by contact with Germans.
            Ungrammatical Germen (e’g’ using “de” for every definite article), is not Platt. Just slang/pub Deutsch. I was understood all over Germany (Except in Friesland, where I struggled) despite, as I was told, having a Lower Saxony accent.
            The term Platt, as our tutor told us, is a much misunderstood term. Ungrammatical German is not Platt.

          2. Mein Schwegerin von Hanover (sehr haupt deutsche) sagt bei mir, “Tom, du sprecht deutsche, wie ein baualander.

            Hell’s bells, it’s where I learned it

          3. Speaking standard (High German) poorly does not equate to speaking Platt. I’ll go by what our tutor told us.

  20. Morning all 🙂😊
    A blanket of grey has parked its self above us.
    Let’s hope it’s meaningful.
    The bbc don’t have even the slightest plain and simple interest in letting the public decide on its future.

          2. We only have three, and two of those are for keeping the pond topped up. The thunderstorm last week provided some relief but the pond is low again and we’ve had no rain since then. I’m eaking out the plant watering one.

          3. Mine come from a shed roof and greenhouse. They all overflow into each other so I just have use the front one. The pond is topped up by the second shed/workshop roof. But there is only about 6 inches of water left in it now 🤔😏

    1. The blue-haired lefty who gives “LBGTQ+ Sensitivity Training” to migrant interpreters will need an interpreter to understand what they are saying in their own languages…

  22. Good morning all,

    Cloudy again at McPhee Towers with the chance of the odd glimmer of sunlight, wind westerly, 17℃ with 22℃ forecast.

    Not much to excite in the Gatesograph letters today although this last paragraph of the letter on Lord’s reform from one Timothy Bristol of Ely, Cambridgeshire makes one twitch a bit:

    This would produce an element of electoral legitimacy and could be done with minimum constitutional disruption. More importantly, it would give governments the opportunity to carry out their electoral mandates.

    Electoral mandates. You mean. Timothy, those minute bits of the manifesto that no-one noticed and no-one would vote for in isolation which they now claim they ‘have a mandate for’ because a government was chosen by around 42% of the turn-out on the day which may be 67% (2019 GE) or lower. 42% of 67% is roughly 28% of the electorate. I don’t call that a mandate for anything.

    This is the way in which the private organisations known as political parties have used the ‘party manifesto trick’ to systematically wreck The United Kingdom since the early days of the 20th century.

    1. Yet the electoral mandate you want to push is not one the public want. Thus it is not an electoral mandate at all, it’s a state mandate and should be stopped.

      There is no legitimacy in government whatsoever. Truss was elected, Sunak knifed her and was installed without permission or consent.

      1. I’m a bit confused by your first sentence (what am I pushing?) but agree whole-heartedly with the last two.

      1. I thought it resembled a giant slug! But perhaps I have got slugs and snails on the brain since they are determined to reduce my plants to skeletons!

        1. I tried taking the shell off my racing snail to speed him up but it just made him more sluggish…..
          (I’ll get me coat)

    3. Just deleted my comment because every one else perceived this pile of dung in the same way as I did. So observation redundant.

  24. Latest email from C4M, the Coalition for Marriage

    Dear marriage supporter,

    Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch has written to Ofsted to ask for a snap inspection of Rye College, the school where a teacher was recently recorded calling a pupil “despicable” for believing there are only two sexes. The teacher also reprimanded the pupil for refusing to endorse her classmate’s identification as a cat.

    Mrs Badenoch wrote that, in her view, the teacher’s behaviour was in breach of the Equality Act as it failed to respect belief in biological reality, which is a protected belief, raising “issues about safeguarding at the school”.

    By teaching as fact the “contested” belief that “gender is not linked to the parts that you were born with”, the teacher was also in breach of political impartiality requirements, Mrs Badenoch said, adding that the belief had “no scientific basis”.

    The intervention came as two 14-year-old girls wrote an open letter to Gillian Keegan, the Education Secretary, telling her they are “too frightened” to tell their classmates that there are only two sexes.

    The teenagers said that in school “dissenting voices are stifled” and “extreme ideologies are presented as fact”.

    “There have been many cases of students being bullied and ostracised for disagreeing with gender ideology, where gender-critical pupils are punished by teachers, excluded by students, and abandoned by friends,” they added.

    “What is going on at these schools?” asks the Times, as it reports on a school in Lincolnshire where a group of pupils identify as dogs, bark in lessons and roam around as a “wolf pack”.

    The problem, of course, is not that teenagers get up to silly things. The problem is that some teachers are taking it very seriously indeed, and even calling pupils “despicable” when they refuse to do so as well.

    And many pupils are also taking it very seriously. The epidemic of teen transgenderism is anything but frivolous.

    At C4M we’re pleased to see the Government finally taking action over this issue, which has been simmering for some time. We urge it to be robust in reasserting the primacy of biological reality over subjective notions of ‘identity’, which are wreaking havoc amongst our young people.

    If you would like to support us financially, you can do so using the button below.

    PLEASE DONATE
    Yours faithfully,

    Colin Hart
    Chairman
    Coalition for Marriage (C4M)

    1. When I was in primary school we would play tanks. You link arms and run at the girls. I didn’t think I was a tank.

      When you look at the world as it is now, with all the chaos and authoritarianism, the hectoring, the demands left, right and centre no wonder people don’t know who they are – they’re never left alone long enough to get on with it.

      1. I hate to think where I might be now, had my various youthful follies been encouraged by parents and teachers….

    2. “…the teacher’s behaviour [sic] was in breach of the Equality Act as it failed to respect belief in biological reality, which is a protected belief…”

      Reality is now a matter of belief.

      “Sir, water flows downhill.”
      “Don’t be silly, boy. Water flows where it wants to flow.”

      1. Always bugs me – the way we have to pretend fact is now a belief we are allowed to hold. Bonkers. How on earth did it get to this?

      2. KB has to deal with this matter as the law stands at the moment.
        Don’t give the smartarse unions or their Whitehall bytches the chance to overturn even the first tottering steps towards reality.
        We know it’s daft; she knows it’s daft; 99.9% of the population know it’s daft.
        And you can thank Harriet Harpic and 649 other deluded/lazy/cowardly MPs for this nonsense.

  25. I heard this earlier, on the itv morning prog during an interview with Idris Elba Lorraine Kelly made this observation regarding the Bond films.
    “I can just imagine you being a bond villain sitting there stroking a white pussy”. Or words to that effect.
    Whoops……

    1. Ah! Mr.Elba! Whinging again about not getting the part, coz ‘e is black, I see! Fails to mention that he is pushing 50!! 🙄

      1. Also fails to mention, he’s not as good an actor as he might think and therfore not much of a crowd puller.

      2. Superb.
        When I was a child, frequent advert on the Tube was a black chap with a bottle of fruit drink.
        The strap line was “I drink Idris when I’s dry”.
        After at least 5 minutes research, it would seem that any record of it is at one with Nineveh and Tyre.

  26. Good morning to all. It’s actually a gloomy day here in West Sussex but warm, no rain predicted though until tonight.

    Since I stopped watching TV years ago, I wholeheartedly agree with todays letter. The BBC should have been defunded long ago for its obvious hostility to anything truly British. Unfortunately we can’t defund Sky which is just as bad in my opinion. Left wing political garbage from both channels.

    Came across this earlier while I was getting it together to get out of bed. It’s a good example of someone fighting back against the climate change propaganda at a local level.

    Net Zero ‘Slavery’ EXPOSED By Local Resident

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xu906diM3Ps

  27. A week ago I wrote to my energy supplier broker (Octopus) querying their estimate of my annual cost of electricity. Yesterday I received an email confirming a calculation that I had already made about the likely true annual cost of my electricity. The reply failed to acknowledge their original estimate was out by almost a third. I replied :

    Thank you for your reply. What I think you are trying to say is that based on the estimated consumption, the true estimate of the annual cost of electricity is in fact likely to be around £500 more than the estimate shown on my bill.

      1. Unfortunately no. I quoted their figures from my actual bill. It seems their algos are incorrect – either that or they don’t want to remind customers of the true size of their future bills!

    2. After six months my Gas account is £5 in the red. For the next 6 months my supplier (EDF) has increased my monthly payment from £62 to £97!

  28. Matt Hancock: I am undecided as to whether I would prefer to torch him or torture him.

    Perhaps torture … with a torch … would satisfy my dilemma.

    1. Morning Grizzly

      I would like to confine him to an overheated bedroom for months . No visitors , no decent food , no outside enjoyment , just ONE hour to walk around the garden ten times, no access to medical care , and I hope he has the most painful constipated bowel.

        1. I was being kind .

          I wonder whether he has ingrowing toenails .. removal of bad nails is a very painful procedure , as are root canal treatments, and of course the introduction of a catheter to his you know where.

          1. I would nail him by his genitals to the harbour wall at low tide. There’s plenty of harbour walls for his colleagues. It’s the only way they’ll learn.

          3. My poor husband has had many of those indignities thrust upon him in the last couple of years. He had a bad toe nail recently – mentioned it to the GP and that led him to the lady who came and dealt with it at home the other week. He’s had no problem with it since, but at least, if it grows back again he has her card.

  29. Good morning all,

    Nice cool morning here , no rain to dampen the dust down , and a bit of a breeze .

    We have a ceramic plaque on the outside wall near the front door which we have unscrewed and re screwed when we have moved house .

    The plaque features a batsman at the wicket .. with the words A cricket lover lives here it isn’t naff or unsightly , and of course Moh loves it as does son , and I don’t mind either because I used to be an excellent cricket tea preparer, and when I was a child my father was a keen player , as was his twin sister .. who could score , and play beautifully when she was younger , batting and bowling .

    My younger sister living in SA,is an avid cricket fan , and will always visit Newlands (CapeTown ) when there are matches , and when she visits the UK , will tie in her holiday to attend matches at the Oval / Lords / and Headingly.

    The click of the ball on willow is so ENGLISH isn’t it , it is what we are .

    So you can imagine the reaction to articles like this .

    English cricket is ‘racist, sexist and elitist’, says landmark report
    Independent Commission finds problems ‘widespread’
    ECB chair recognises need for significant reform

    https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/jun/27/english-cricket-is-racist-sexist-and-elitist-says-landmark-report

      1. Hello J,

        I was busy cleaning our windows yesterday , more than fifteen , and I feel shattered this morning .

        Moh is playing golf this morning . I have loads more skivvy tasks to get on with later , just don’t have time for the things I enjoy.

        So pleased the weather is cooler , 19c .

        The film crews are down at Durdle Door again, we don’t care because when it is open the carparking fees are enormous , the walk down to the beach is far too steep for me with my wonky hip,

        I cannot believe that in 2020, we were the only car on the road 3 miles from home with the dogs in the back of the car , when a police car patrolling the area chased and bluelighted us and warned us of a huge fine if we were seen out again exercising the dogs in a favourite dog free place , because our own recreation field was full of people and their dogs , bit overcrowded in those lockdown days , which still feels like a nightmare .. Lockdown blues.

        1. Yes – it was a nightmare – and if M Hancock is anything to go by, they would impose it again like a shot.

          I remember you telling us of that incident with the police – they were certainly over-zealous.

          You’ve seen my photos on fb – we can only go out on foot at the moment as our cars are completely blocked in and the drive is full of rubble.

          Our windows need cleaning – but I don’t feel in the mood for doing them.

          1. The windies have just done mine. I wouldn’t bother with yours until the workmen have left.

          4. Full marks to the milkman for getting through on Monday night. Last night when we were going to bed I saw lights outside and it was the milkman! He’s due to leave us milk again tonight. It appeared to be one chap showing the other one the route so hopefully he will be out tonight. When it’s so warm J gets up and fetches it in when he hears it coming. I just sleep through it all.

            The mop thingy looks good – does it have a blade bit as well? I can do the downstairs ones easily enough but upstairs is another matter and the top floor just doesn’t get done.

    2. It’s trying to provoke a response. This is the least racist and most welcoming country in the world – if people want to believe a report like that, then let them. Let’s just get on as we always have.

    3. It’s seems that the ‘They’ are aiming to completely destroy the culture people around the world have flocked here to the UK to absorb. ‘They’ appear to be influenced by those who whine the most.
      I was reading about all the problems in SA power outages water shortage and many other aspects of life in a beautiful country that has been ruined by the ignorant oafs who are running and ruinining every way of life except their own.
      My niece from Somerset West is here now and coming to see us at the weekend.

      1. Morning RE

        Yes life has become very difficult for many tax paying SA residents , more than difficult . Gorgeous country ruined . Similar to Zim and many other African nations .

        Re loadshedding , nothing works because thieves are stripping copper from the grid .

        Durban – A 32-year-old man has been sentenced to 32 years direct imprisonment for various poaching-related offences, one of which included killing three rhinos.

        Freedom Siyabonga Ndlovu was convicted in the Skukuza Regional Court in Mpumalanga this week.

        https://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa

    4. Perhaps we should ban the crime ridden Notting Hill carnival because it focusses on black culture.

  30. Contingency plans being drawn up for Thames Water collapse. 28 june 2023.

    UK government and Ofwat holding discussions amid fears firm cannot survive because of its huge debt pile.

    Contingency plans for the collapse of Thames Water are being drawn up by the UK government and the water watchdog, amid fears that Britain’s biggest water company cannot survive because of its huge debt pile.

    Ministers and Ofwat are holding discussions about the possibility of placing Thames Water into a special administration regime (SAR) that would take the company into temporary public ownership.

    The news comes as the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, prepares to meet the competition and utilities regulators later on Wednesday to discuss cracking down on any companies exploiting rampant inflation by raising prices and the possibility of increasing water bills by up to 40% to pay for tackling the sewage and climate crises.

    It has taken only thirty years of Marxism to reduce the UK to a basket case. At least the Soviet Union managed seventy!

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/28/contingency-plans-reportedly-being-drawn-up-for-thames-water-collapse

  31. Not everyone’s cuppa I know but here’s Tucker saying things out loud that the Mediaocraties won’t!

    “If Joe Biden is re-elected next year and then forced to leave office during his term due to disability or death that means Kamala Harris will become president of the United States and nobody wants that not even her husband.

    In real life nobody likes Kamala Harris.

    That’s not an attack on her in fact it’s possible to feel pity for someone who’s so universally reviled. It is instead an observation of unchanging physical reality like gravity or photosynthesis nobody wants Kamala Harris to be president no one will benefit if she becomes president so logic suggests there’s going to be a change.

    It’s going to have to be somebody else and whoever that person is is going to have to enter the race soon before the election after Biden drops out.

    Who could that person be? We don’t know obviously this is all just guessing but we do know whoever that is we’ll have to have two essential criteria he’ll have to be as shallow ruthless and transactional as Joe Biden is and he’ll need to have flattery skills that are so polished and advanced they’d be considered Superior even in the Saudi Royal Court and there’s only one man in modern America who fits that description Gavin Newsom the governor of California and perhaps not coincidentally Joe Biden’s new closest friend.

    “I am here Mr President” Newsom told Biden at an event that they did together last week. “I am here as a proud American as a proud Californian mesmerized by not just your faith and your Devotion to this country and the world we’re trying to build but by your results by your action by your passion by Your Capacity to deliver.”

    I get mesmerized by you Joe Biden – imagine saying that as a compliment you couldn’t do it.”

    Full broadcast here:

    https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson/status/1673856877841764352?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1673856877841764352%7Ctwgr%5E013cedcc3477e761de95a0d5ff5518aa518f774d%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fpolitical%2Ftucker-carlson-dares-ask-why-exactly-are-we-war-russia

    1. What is he referring to when he says that Winston Churchill jailed the opposition for the duration and left them there to rot? I have never heard that allegation before.

        1. That’s all I could think of. His statement is somewhat misleading since his remark implies he jailed the parliamentary opposition.

      2. Italian waiters etc… were interned while their records were being sorted through.
        A neat bit of fact twisting, by the sound of it.

    2. All this says to me is that they’re abandoning the Biden disaster and looking for someone more convincing – and it’s not Gavin Newsom.

      1. I daresay if they do connive to elect dear Gavin I’m sure he will be known as Gavin Troublesome!

    3. I always assumed Biden was going to be forced to stand down, just after he passed the point when his replacement would have the potential for 10 years in office.
      Harris has proved to be so poor, even as a potential puppet, like Joe, that the plan had to be abandoned.

    2. I couldn’t watch it. I abhor the thought of animals in cages, whether or not they are used for research. My passion is seeing animals in the wild – I would never go to a zoo again.

      1. The point is that no animal should be kept caged or used for experimentation.

  33. Phew!
    Just been playing with my new toy, an 18″ Husqvarna chain saw to replace the Efco that’s been giving me problems.
    Very nice too!

    1 x 8″ elm and a smaller, 4″, ash and elm later…!

      1. Nah! Getting rid of dead & diseased trees whilst stocking up on logs for the fire at the same time.

          1. I presume you have seen the photos of the chunk of hillside that passes its self off as “my garden”?
            https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/07a09538ddc17cb67ae7f823363eeb12ab08d01834b786499d9c79f9b855dd37.jpg

            Taken a couple of years ago whilst I was still working on the upper terrace wall.
            The trees I’ve dropped today are in that tangle beyond the sheds and the strapping you can see reaching off to the right were pulling a large diseased ash up the hill to ensure it fell away from the road.

          2. It’s a work of art, Bob! Our house was built into the hillside a couple of centuries ago and fortunately for us, the garden was already terraced when we moved here. It needs a bit of upkeep but I haven’t got so much energy these days. Now that the weather has cooled down a bit I must get back out there and do some work on it.

  34. Violence erupts in Paris after teenager is shot dead by police. 28 June 2023.

    Violence erupted in a suburb of Paris on Tuesday night after police shot and killed a teenage delivery driver who tried to flee a traffic stop.

    The 17-year-old, named in France initially as Nael M, was driving in a rental car in the western suburb of Nanterre early on Tuesday when police pulled him over for breaking several road rules, prosecutors said.

    Nael M. That’s original. There’s a story online that it’s Nahel.

    No comments allowed needless to say.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/06/28/paris-shooting-violence-nanterre-police-clashes-youths/

    2. Good morning Araminta and everyone.
      Not sure how a 17 year old could lawfully hire a car. Nevertheless, extrajudicial killing for joyriding is a severe punishment.

      1. They are going to change it but I believe that you cannot at the moment have a full driving licence in France until you are 18.

        (Mind you you can re-gender yourself at the age of 12 and the school does not have to tell your parents)

    3. Why do these killings by cops always seem to happen during rioting weather? Just asking…

    2. Written by our erstwhile poster here – AW Kamau.

      Kagame has very cleverly kept in power by playing on the fears of others.

    3. Irony. The ground staff used a petrol blower to get rid of their stupid mess.

    4. I’d like to know how they gain access to the cricket ground (and other venues) without being detected. I presume they have to pay for entry, either online or at the entrance. They obviously keep covered any protest group names and slogans on their clothing until just before they launch their action, but where do they hide the orange powder?

        1. In order to find a small object like that, each person entering the ground would have to be subjected to an intrusive body and baggage search, both time consuming and resented by genuine spectators. I cannot think of a way to detect a protestor before they carry out their action.

    5. It’s a great pity he didn’t launch them over the boundary, ideally with a bat.

  37. Good morning Nottlers, apropos of nowt and certainly free from the Telegraph letters, on my return from the north face of Tesco Irvine I dropped some supplies off at my folks. My dad informed me that Glasgow’s new ULEZ rules do not punish ‘foreign’ number plates. Included in the ‘foreign’ number plates are those of Northern Ireland, though when I last checked it was still part of the UK.

    This may seem puzzling until one recognises that the Glasgow city council is led be the Scottish Nasty Party, and that they are cheek by jowl with their republican chums in Sinn Fein/IRA.

    Having spent a few years in Norn Iron, spread over three decades, working against sectarian terrorists, it’s rather disappointing to find the same mindset is being imported to the mainland. The only change may come when the sectarian khlowns from the subcontinent finally amass enough numbers to put it all into perspective.

      1. It has always been sectarian, much like Liverpool, there are strong links to Ireland and Northern Ireland. It’s the idea of Glasgow City council taking it upon themselves to discern between GB and UK plates that bothers me. The council, much like the assembly in Edinburgh, have no right to involve themselves in international affairs. We have the UK government for that.

        1. Certainly noticeable between their football teams. Catholics (Irish and otherwise) supported Everton and the rest Liverpool however there wasn’t the violence that was between Rangers and Celtic.

          1. Going back to yesterday – I just received the letter from BT about the stopping of the Line Rental Saver. Apparently they will apply a credit which will depend how long we’ve used LRS. I seem to have used it since at least 2012, when it cost £120 for a year. In February this year I paid £219.84.

          2. Yeah mine’s a tenner – wow how generous but I bet that’s how much it’ll go up

          5. Paradoxically, Cardinal Vincent Nicholls, when Archbishop of Birmingham held a season ticket…at Anfield.

      2. Your’e right. Some 50 years ago when I visited, I was asked if I was Catholic or Protestant. Replied, Orthodox, that flummoxed them.😁

    1. Extremely well-written, Jules, one must ask did they get help?

      However, their points are well-made and deserve the Ed Sec’s attention and action.

      1. I would think they did get help – but it seems the views are theirs. They probably got parents to do some of the phrasing. I hope Gillian Keegan does take notice.

        1. She probably won’t.

          To be fair I do not know anything ether for or against her but there seem to be very few decent conservatives in the Conservative Party any more.

    2. It intrigues me that for the most part the multiple gender people deny God and the existence of the human soul yet nonetheless believe that their is an essence of individual being which can be at odds with physical reality. What do they believe is the source of that essence if not the soul and if the soul not only has a sexual identity but can be placed in the wrong body then God not only exists but is an incompetent piss artist and the whole of nature is a bad joke.

      1. When men stop believing in God they don’t believe in nothing; they believe in anything.

        G.K. Chesterton.

      1. Especially the one on my birthday………..it was quite a warm day but that record was definitely massaged.

    2. I wonder how much tourist money they will lose?
      I can’t imagine the gimmegrants will be big spenders in pubs, restaurants, tourist attractions etc.

      I also wonder if the tourist towns could put together a combined lawsuit to seek compensation from the Government UK taxpayers for the financial damage done.

        1. It’s a lot more than we usually pay for a night in a hotel and it’s what we charge for a night in our gite, which is certainly not cheapo and nasty.

          1. It’s cheap for the UK. But staying in France was always better value than here.

          2. We use Travelodge when in the UK and seldom pay more than £50 a night and usually much less. Admittedly that is room only, but we find they are clean, and usually conveniently located.

          3. You won’t be doing this next time you pop across Sos.
            Our friends who arrived back home in Perth WA today, had a strange Travelodge experience. They had no idea why the staff had seemingly turned them away by acting strangely. Until it was later explained to them.

          4. Half the hotel rooms in New York have been booked for migrants. Tourists will eventually twig and stay away like they are doing in San Fran.

          5. The one we principally use is old and decrepit and nowhere near the standard required by gimmegrants.

        2. That’s the most I’ve ever paid for a hotel – in Blackpool for Dinner B&B for a reunion. I never stay in hotels – B&B for me or I sleep in the car

    3. What I would like to know is when will the Home Office officials be sued for the rape. It is, after all their spite that is responsible.

    2. Why not have a mosque burning in front of a Koran, would that be more acceptable?

      1. I doubt there will be any police stations left in Stockholm after this. Just ashes.

        1. As I read the article it should be the judges the crazies should be attacking. The police are merely acknowledging the legal situation laid down by the courts.

          Not that that will make any difference to the Muslims, of course.

  44. They made a film of events which happened to a school friend of mine, Jon Swain, in Cambodia. The actor who played the role, Julian Sands, has died in the mountains of California in the last week.

    Jon was boy who was very popular with his contemporaries but most unpopular with the authorities – indeed we both enjoyed being a bit disruptive and rebellious as we had a housemaster whom we did not respect and admire as we should have done! Jon was the year below me and he was expelled from Blundell’s the year after I had left. He joined the French Foreign Legion and then went on to be a war correspondent for the Sunday Times during which the events recorded in the film The Killing Fields took place.

    We haven’t been in touch for over a decade but I have always enjoyed being a bit unconventional but Jon completely left me in the shade.

    1. Is he still alive? What was his involvement in the events in Cambodia? (I’ve not seen the film) and had never heard of Julian Sands before this week.

    2. I found a very interesting interview with Jon Swain by a French Television journalist. After his book had been ‘at last’ translated into French.
      It was 3 years ago. He made some excellent points. The world has changed so much since he started his career.

    1. This reminds of a saying attributed to officer training at Sandhurst for those who hadn’t yet made the grade:

      “No, I’m afraid he’s not yet a born leader!”

      1. or the Boss who had to tell a trainee electrician: “Son you won’t be an electrician all the while there’s a hole in your ar5e….”

      2. “The poor chap can’t be expected to use the brains God didn’t give him!”

  46. Just back from town where I saw a pleasing sight. Mother and teenage son walking in the pedestrianised area where there are benches up the centre and litter bins punctuating the row. Son puts an empty drinks can on one of the benches and is ordered by mum to pick it up and bin it! First class!

  47. Eat the Rich …..and go hungry…..

    Here’s the details:

    More “super rich” Norwegians left Norway in 2022 than during the previous 13 years combined. The reason wealthy Norwegians are fleeing the country is not a secret.

    Following its 2021 electoral victory, the Nordic nation’s Labor Party made good on its promise to soak the rich. Norway is one of just a handful of OECD countries that still taxes net wealth, and the Labor Party increased the country’s wealth tax to 1.1 percent despite warnings that such a move would “trigger capital flight and threaten job creation.”

    Capital flight is exactly what happened, and it has left the Norwegian government with less revenue.

    More here:
    https://www.aier.org/article/norways-wealth-tax-is-backfiring-are-americans-paying-attention/

    1. It is funny that, despite endless evidence the state continues to hike taxes thinking it will keep bringing in more income only to see tax take fall and spending rise due to welfare. It’s almost as if they refuse to accept reality in their forecasts, but it explains why they keep getting them wrong.

      1. Margaret Thatcher was the only prime minister to understand that lowering tax rates can raise government revenue.

        It should be simple for even an economist to work out.

        25% of £10,000,000 = £2,500,000
        BUT
        20% of £15,000,000 = £3,000,000

        It will be interesting to see how much the government will lose by raising corporation tax from 19% to 25%.

    2. Singapore-on-Thames was what we were promised after Brexit.
      What we have is Moscow-under-Stalin.

      2. The state has gone all out to ensure the economy would fail, that people would be poorer, that there’d be a plague – everything it wanted, and was mocked for – it has caused.

        Things could have been so different, but the globalist imposed stooge was happy to follow orders to get his next 2 day a week 7 figure salary non-job. reason we’re in this mess is down to big government forcing it. We could easily have gone the other way but the state wanted this outcome.

        I imagine the next step, after a suitable period of time will be to create more chaos and finally force us into recession whereby they’ll go to the IMF to say ‘please, we want back into the EU but the public will notice if we do it’ and blame that organisation for the fulfilment of their own long term plan.

        It’s almost inevitable now.

    3. This explains it in easy terms.

      TAX EXPLAINED
      Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to £100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
      The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing. The fifth would pay £1.The sixth would pay £3.The seventh would pay £7. The eighth would pay £12. The ninth would pay £18. The tenth man (the richest) would pay £59. So, that’s what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner bowled them a wrong ‘un.“Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by £20.” Drinks for the ten now cost just £80. The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men? The paying customers? How could they divide the £20 windfall so that everyone would get his fair share?’
      They realised that £20 divided by six is £3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the landlord suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay. And so the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings), the sixth now paid £2 instead of £3 (33% savings). The seventh now pay £5 instead of £7 (28% savings). The eighth now paid £9 instead of £12 (25% savings). The ninth now paid £14 instead of £18 (22% savings). The tenth now paid £49 instead of £59 (16% savings).
      Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. “I only got a pound out of the £20,”declared the sixth man.He pointed to the tenth man,” but he got £10!” “Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a pound, too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more than I do!” “That’s true!!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get £10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!” “Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison. “We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!” The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
      The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!
      And that, boys and girls, journalists and professors of economics, this is how the tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking elsewhere where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.
      For those who did understand, no explanation is needed. For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.

      1. I presented this to a Lefty who said ‘the rich man should be forced to attend and get no drink but still have to pay.

        They are not capable of rational thought.

        Here’s a sad bit of news (for me) The Warqueen and I combined pay the amount in tax that the gross average wage pays. Considering she’s on a 4 day week and I have been for months now (her Friday, me Monday) and she traded in pay for holiday to get 50 days holiday a year and still pays that level of tax it is clear something is disgustingly wrong with this government that it thinks high tax raises money.

        1. I’m going to send that to my MP and ask him to pass on to Sunk, Rhyming Slang and the Treasury as they have absolutely no idea about economics nor running a country.

        2. vw has been retired 13 years and has never paid tax on her meagre private pension plus state pension. That is until April this year when rhyming slang froze the personal allowance which is, effectively, an increase in the basic rate of income tax. I wish a pox on all their houses and investments and hope the suffer monumental losses.

    4. The next-door kommune lost Norway’s richest man to that. It cost the Kommune £27 million a year in forgone local income tax. One man.

    1. Like the second one- in the deep south USA it would also be the Southern Baptists.

      1. If i found a purse or wallet with ID i would give it back. Because i can understand how distressing that can be.

        If it was just a wad of money in a paper bag i would keep quiet. If a law abiding person had lost it locally i expect i would hear about it on the Facebook local or local newspaper then i would return it.

        If it were from an illegitimate source i would keep it.

        I fear my halo would become slightly tarnished but i would enjoy spending it !

  50. 373927+ up ticks,

    This will be forerunner in a catalogue of lessons to be learnt this coming winter, shortages are linked to obedience therefore MUST be learnt as an anti frostbite measure, keeping all of ones fingers is really comforting.

    Britain to be left without emergency coal reserves this winter
    National Grid deprived of support as Drax and EDF close remaining stations.

    YOU WILL LEARN LESSONS.

  51. Well, I’m just back from an unscheduled visit to my lovely dentist in Stirling, as I’ve been having some? pain in my tooth/jaw. It was pretty grim last night, and despite co-codamol it got worse. When I phoned at about 12, I got an appt. for 2. In and out in 10 mins. with a prescription for amoxicillin and – wait for it – no charge!!

    1. Glad you got the help you needed. Your dentist sounds like mine. Always keeps spaces for emergency appointments and often doesn’t charge for when a crown falls out.

        1. You could score my drugs for me. 10 on the dollar. You’ll be rich beyond your wildest dreams. Given so many bloomin’ prescriptions i have !

      2. She is very good, horribly young but she came to the practice, she’d just qualified!

        2. My Bupa dentist has young ones, recently qualified – they are good but it’s nice to have a bit of continuity as well. At least the hygenist has been there for years.

          1. We’ve been with the practice for 38+ years. Eileen is the sister, of the husband, of the daughter of our original dentist! Who never charged us either! How he made money I’ll never know!

          2. My lovely dentist of some years ago was the third generation in his practice. Sadly he died tragically, aged in his early 40s, on holiday, while saving his children in the sea, they survived but he didn’t. The practice was sold to a couple – then they retired a few years ago and now it’s Bupa. Still in the same premises for many years.

    2. Sounds like a temp fix – have you made another appt. to find the cause? 😘

    3. Ouch! Is there a bacterial infection, or root canal work coming up? I can’t take amoxicillin (the rash lasts six months) but my dentist always insists on alternative antibiotics in the run up to root canal work, extractions, bone grafts, inplants (I’ve been through the works)!

      1. Unfortunately, I had it last September, had an x ray which showed a receding bone so a gap appeared which became infected! Now it’s come back, and I also had a few days of pain on holiday! Nothing like this and the dentist suggested if it comes back again I may need it to be removed!!😱 Aargh!

        1. I had a ‘pocket of infection’ last time I went to the dentist and it’s occurred before. The new dentist (always a new one each time these days) went through the various options, none of which sounded very appealing. Anyway, off I went on holiday in February, during which I took Doxycycline (malarial profilactic) and it cleared up and hasn’t come back yet.

          1. ‘Pocket’ was exactly the word she used! Must be a technical term! I’m
            keeping my fingers crossed!

      2. Blimey pet! You have been bashed about! A bit of toothache and I feel miserable! 💐

    1. Interesting! Con trails are temperature dependant and the aircraft could have climbed/descended into a different temp. But its a very sudden change and I would have expected the trails to peter out. There is a procedure for cloud seeding to produce rain which is done with silver nitrate, I think. Otherwise, I dont know, but photo shop is very clever these days. I see in the news that those in the know, can conjour up porn out of their keyboard.

    2. They can do if the air temp changes abruptly (or all engines stop 😱)
      Fiscal McPhee would explain better being a ex-jockey

    5. Saw that t’other day. I suspect the aircraft has not long taken off and was using water injection to boost the performance of the engines and keep the engine temperatures to within safe limits as it climbed away from the airport, hence the dense vapour trail.
      Then, as the pilot began to reduce engine power, the water injection was stopped, hence the sudden cessation of the vapour trail.

      1. Could be Bob but I think it’s gained quite some height already or the contrails wouldn’t be there, I estimate 15 – 20,000 ft

  53. Good late afternoon, chums. Problems getting into the computer repair shop, so will have to try again another day. Now to get on with my chores. I am currently writing short articles for various publications – and enjoying it immensely.

  55. Putin’s generals are either incompetent or disloyal. Both will terrify him. 28 June 2023.

    Putin just about survived Prigozhin’s “march that wasn’t”; his regime is just about intact. That’s the end of his good news. His reputation and legitimacy have been irreversibly damaged, and he will no longer know who he can trust. While the increasingly reclusive autocrat retreats further into the Kremlin’s dark corridors to lick his wounds, purges of officials suspected of disloyalty could be days away.

    This is utter and complete twaddle. It doesn’t even qualify as propaganda. That anyone should write let alone publish it shows the depths to which we have sunk.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/28/putins-generals-incompetent-or-disloyal-both-terrify-him/

    1. According to what they were saying last year, Putin must be dead by now, from all his various ailments!

    2. The thing is that say, during WWII, Goebels’ propaganda was almost the only news Germans would receive. Reality was when a son (or father) with one leg, or a son’s friend told of the death of son or father came home with the true story. Our MSM are amateurs at the game. It fools plenty of people though, perhaps because the truth is sometimes too unpleasant to digest.

    3. Prigozhin is not and never has been the leader of Wagner. He is neither soldier or commander. He had assumed a position not granted by the Kremlin.

      Wagner are more akin to a French Foreign Legion. Their armaments and ammunition is provided by Russia.

      Putin has managed the Prigozhin affair in a masterful way, a lesson perhaps for our own incompetent political masters.

  57. Birdie Three today.

    Wordle 739 3/6
    ⬜🟨🟩🟨⬜
    🟨🟩🟩⬜🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. Well done. Par four for me.

      Wordle 739 4/6

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

      1. Par 4 here too

        Wordle 739 4/6

        ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
        🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
        🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜
        🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

        1. 5hey must have made it harder in the past hour.
          Wordle 739 5/6

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

          Bogey- just like todays golf game.

    2. And me.

      Wordle 739 3/6

      🟨🟩⬜⬜⬜
      🟨🟩⬜🟨⬜
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  59. Like David, I can no longer comment during the day- I can’t take all the doom and gloom and doubtful stories that are so often posted. So I come in later maybe for some fun.
    Fingers crossed, I have had the best today that I’ve had in ages. I haven’t taken those ghastly prescribed pills for 2 days now and my tummy has settled greatly. I took 2 paracetamol at 2.30, 2 more at 8.30 and have only just taken 2 more. And that was preemptive. And I have some appetite.
    We sat outside, for the first time in ages, and it was nice.
    The rail man came and we now have 2 sturdy hand rails beside the front door.
    Supposed to rain overnight-we’ll see.
    Hope Y’all have had a good day.

    3. Well done – that sounds more positive!

      There were spits and spots of rain while I was outside but they came to nothing.

    4. We had a hand rail installed here about five years ago – there are 11 steps up to our front door – four and then seven. the rail is on the seven part. When we had it made, it was not so much for us, but a very wobbly neighbour (now late) who used to deliver the parish magazine. We’re both glad of the handrail now.

      1. We didn’t need them at all when we moved in here but age creeps up on you. They are reassuring to have.

    6. Currently raining here at the moment.
      Took down a couple of dead elms and a diseased ash with my new Husqvarna chain saw today.
      A very nice bit of kit!

    7. Good to hear you are feeling somewhat better today. I may have missed a comment, but when do you hear about the scan results?
      I get my first Mohs surgery on Saturday. Feeling rather scared!

      1. Tuesday I see the oncologist/facial surgeon so I guess then all will be revealed. I feel for you as it is quite scary and, as I say to these people, put me in a library with 60 5th graders waiting to check out their books and I’m fine. This stuff scares me to bits.
        Keep me posted and you will be in my thoughts throughout. I can only wish you the very best of luck.

        1. As you, Ann, are continually in our thoughts, with the best of best wishes for your future recovery and health.

        2. Thank you, very much appreciated.
          I would certainly rather visit the dentist – and that is saying something. I was quite rattled to be told I had so quite a few nasties. Dinner is ready – back later!

        3. Scary is an understatement!
          Tuesday may be less than a week away but I’m sure it will seem a very long week for you.
          I actually had some sympathy from older son when I told him what needed doing. His DPhil research was on skin cancers, from the cellular/protein expression (and other technical aspects that I can’t remember and are beyond my understanding) side.
          Ah well, I am nodding off again, so had better try for some Zzzzzz.
          Goodnight and sleep well.

      2. Worry not, Mum2, as you too, are much in our thoughts for future recovery and good health.

        1. Thank you kind Sir. But as far as I’m aware, I am in no way as tricky a situation as Lotl.

          1. That matters not, Mum2, you are just as much a person and, more importantly, you’re a member of the NoTTLer family and we CARE for our family.

          3. Bless you, that is very kind, thank you. You are right though, we are all a sort of family here, much valued it is too.

          4. That same family has helped me through some very hard times. when I was close to allowing my principals on suicide to be over-ridden.

        2. Thank you kind Sir. But as far as I’m aware, I am in no way as tricky a situation as Lotl.

    8. The first good news from you for a long time.

      I will stay off the Pinot rather than risking your supplies.

    9. Glad to hear it’s been a better day, Ann. Let’s hope it’s the first of many.

  60. I had an Ocado/M&S delivery today. I took advantage of their flash sale items and bought four Charlie Bighams curries at half price. £4.50 for two persons X four. £19 instead of £38.

    When they arrived they were all stacked on their ends (by robot warehouse).

    Their was a small amount of leakage so i put in a complaint about how they were packed.

    I hadn’t requested a refund but they did refund the lot.

    And hoped i would have a lovely day !

    Free curry…what’s not to like !

    3. It’s all good information for them, as next they’ll program in specific foods that shouldn’t be stacked on the side and lo! Progress.

      On the upside, it’s a good one to hear when people do something right. That, after all is how customer service is measured.

      1. Agreed.

        Waitrose used to have customer service like that but went awry. Which is why i changed. Also, i only pay 99p delivery on a Wednesday and they will put it away fro you if you ask.

        They also charge 10p per carrier bag and refund you when you give them back to the next delivery driver. Invariably i have 6 or 7 and they refund me double.

    4. Sainsbury’s have got their buy 6 get 25% off consequently Wolf Blass Cabernet Shiraz is down to £4.50 per bottle!

          2. I’m going to book your gite under an alias and fill it with a couple of hundred ravers. Lottie suggested it.

          4. Good luck with that, 198 will have to camp in the field.

            Still, it would be more pleasant than Glastonbury for them, and I’m certain the local hunt would oblige when it’s time for them to leave.

          6. Hoping to find lots of half empty bottles I would guess.

            Serve him right if rather than half empty they are half full, of urine!

      2. I have 48 bottles of red in my racks to get through. Hopefully the offer will still be available next month…

        1. I stocked up on Kiwi Sauvignon a couple of weeks ago and also have quite a lot of reds so we’re ok at the moment.

    5. What’s not to like?

      Everything! You’ve bought processed food full of goodness-knows-what crap! Make your own curries, man.

      1. I do usually but i have three freezers that keep me fed when i can’t be bothered or too ill to cook. Besides…Charlie Bighams ingredient list looks fine.

  61. Phew! Just sitting down now with a mug of tea (cf Bob) after doing a couple of hours heavy duty work in the ‘garden’ (or overgrown patch of greenery). I went out with the hedge- trimmer, with the intention of finishing the job i started the other day, but no sooner had I started when the battery was finished. I also found out I can’t cope with standing on a ladder to do the top of the hedge. It’s a job my husband usually does but he’s not really fit enough for that these days. We will have to start paying someone to do these jobs.

    1. I’ve offered to trim the neighbour’s hedge so they’ve more space for their car (as they’ve started slicing across the lawn) and they said the batteries needed charging. I felt the same so had a nap instead.

      1. We still can’t get our cars out because the drive is blocked off – they did ask OH if he needed to go anywhere and he said, “Not till Thursday” so we’ll see if we can get out tomorrow. They have left a small opening in case we want to go out on foot.

    2. Have you tried an extended hedge cutter?
      There are lightweight ones that are fairly effective and you can adjust the head 90°, so it will cut the top.

      1. Yes – we have a GTech one which does that – I still find it’s quite a strain on the arms though. I did the lower parts last week, but couldn’t reach the top. As our garden is terraced, the far side of the hedge is much higher than the near side. I got two steps up the ladder and came down again. I did the rest of the work at ground level.

        1. Me too, Jules! But it’s great for the bingo wings! As is lifting the twins on and off (and on…and off…) the swings and flying fox!!

          2. I got a really horrible shock on holiday lying on my lounger on the beach, reading Mark Twain on my Kindle, and my upper arms hove into view!! Urgh!

    3. Don’t know what hedge you have but a hard prune might be in order. Bring the height down by half.

      1. We will probably have to do that again soon – we had a chap to reduce it by a foot or so a couple of years ago but it’s gradually crept up again.

    5. I did a similar job in my garden this morning (until it started to rain). If I hadn’t the couriers would have been unable to get up the path to deliver next-door-but-one’s parcel to me.

  62. And dere waz oi tinking dat all dem blek folk were born to resent white folk.

    Sir Trevor Phillips says Meghan Markle had to ‘learn to be black’ when she joined the Royal Family ‘but made a bit of a mess of it’ – after she grew up in wealthy LA district ‘with race never part of her background’

    When she appeared on the scene, it never occurred to me that she was black, it was only when she started making such a fuss that I realised.

    I am fairly sure I am not alone.

    The scheming cow found an opportunity to steal the limelight, and milked it for all it was worth.
    There, fixed it for you Trev.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12242517/Trevor-Phillips-says-Meghan-Markle-learn-black-joined-Royal-Family.html

    1. And the Royal Family embraced her with open arms and gave her a fairy-tale wedding. She was walked down the aisle by Charles – nobody worried about her skin colour. She threw all that back at them and threw it all away. Ungrateful bitch.

      2. Just imagine if she had hooked up with Prince Blackerthantheaceofspades, grandson of Queen Umbongboto of Darkestofdarkistan and she had been the victim of honkey abuse and whined and whinged there as she has done in the UK.

        How long do you think she would have lasted until she was eaten?

        Would anyone have paid any attention?

    2. She straightens her hair but that’s the only outward sign. Her professional profile as an actress described her as Caucasian. I guess she’d claim that helped her get work.

      1. It’s a huge pity that all those “race traitors” don’t get called out and lose any chance of employment in the new woke environment.

    1. Sunak’s a fully fledged, five-star POS. Ignore the little gobshyte, it’s better.

      I just hope all citizens who get the chance to vote in a by-election do their duty and put the cross somewhere other than LibLabCon.

    1. No-one knows no grammar no more- all the papers are the same, which is why I only skim through. I can’t read them anymore.

      1. Today we have seen the worst of the smoke coming down from Canada as we headed out for lunch. It was quite murky, so much so I kept thinking my glasses were dirty! Wonder how RichardL is coping with it…

        1. As he’s leaving the Pinot for me, probably drinking “copious amounts of Sangria”. As he said the other night.
          Yes, it must be awful.

          1. Yes, been doing our share, by drinking Chateau Cardboard Chardonnay!! All the more Kanga for y’all!

          3. No the sangria was quite nice actually!

            The sky just looks dirty, apart from that it is life as normal.

        2. Cough, splutter. Good for golf, I can just about hit a ball out of sight nowadays.

          It isn’t as bad as two weeks ago but they are promising that it will get worse tonight,. A few people are wearing masks, I don’t know if they are averse to smoke or covid.

          There is an interesting site. Firesmoke.ca. that gives smoke density projections, we appear to get off lightly with the really bad smoke missing us as it heads your way.

  68. Sometimes, the little pleasures are the best.

    We were sitting at the table on the terrace, eating our supper, and what should hop into view about 30 feet away but a youngish brown hare.
    Beautiful and healthy looking creature. It was wary, but clearly had not noticed us, or if it had it had discounted us as a danger. It ate for a while and then disappeared down one of the paths that I cut through the field. We could see its progress by the butterflies that it disturbed.

    1. That was a nice picture you painted! This morning, we had a surprise visit from a turtle in our garden, we had not seen it for a couple of years, maybe even before Covid, although it might not be the same one. The yellow patterns on the shell are quite noticeable.

      1. I get enormous pleasure from such things.
        I whistle “Lili bolero” in the garden when I spot one and over the years they have gradually become accustomed to the noise. They are slightly less likely to flee, but it has the advantage that they don’t become too accustomed to humans, many of whom would happily kill them and eat them here.

        2. Theme tune to Radio Newsreel on shortwave BBC when I was a kid – hissing in and out of tune.

    2. Our neighbours arrived home from mid France today, madame tells me it’s looking very dry here. I think I saw them walking past towards the local earlier…..that dry eh ? 🍻🍸🍺🍹

      1. Understandable, the only thing I really miss from the UK is pubs with real ale.

          1. Here too, mostly bottle-conditioned. Local brews, auch as Nøgne Ø, Ægir. Lovely drop of ale, so they are.

          2. We use to have a beer festival near were we live (St Albans) and all the beers were brewed within 30 miles of the pub where it was held.
            After the first tasting tray shared with my sons it always seemed to be my round ……….
            There also use to be a Camra beer s festival in the city each year.
            One of the Camra pubs now closed had a white board in the gents for remarks some one once wrote “Why is Watney’s Red barrel like making love in a punt” ? …………..
            ” ‘cos it’s fucking close to water”!

        2. Not many left these days. When I move into our village c1985 there were eleven pubs. Now there are three.

      2. Surprisingly accurate.
        From my own observations, they tend to twist the head so that one eye is watching whilst the ears twitch constantly. If they are not “on alert” the head points downward when feeding and the ears are much more static, but in pointed in different directions so they cover 360°

        1. …and that was created entiely and solely from the text in your comment!

          2. No
            I tried putting in s single word but instead of getting at least a Botticelli after putting in nude the AI app threatened to close my account!

      1. This switch is not linked to the aircon settings.
        It only acts on the related car seat and is designed to avoid having to use aircon for whole cabin space which consumes more main battery power.

        1. I can remember how hot our car seats and dash use to get in Oz if you couldn’t park in the shade.

  72. Have just had a lovely email from my daughter in law with 2 photos of my newest grand cat….he reminds me of Basil, my Maine Coon. Big fluffy thing and very cute.
    People can be so nice and we should remember that.

    1. First time that I have heard of a Maggie being called a grand cat – even if it is a pedigree brand.

  73. Going to bed so I hopefully can keep the good stuff continuing.
    Sleep well and try and be good.

    2. I’m not a fan of Clarkson, but this programme I found thoroughly entertaining and informative.

      1. PQ17 a war time convoy to disaster. All about the artic convoy that was attacked by the Nazis.

      2. Just the code letters as far as I’m aware.
        It was the designation for arctic convoys in WW2

    4. Clarkson is very amusing when he writes about farming – and his farm –Diddly Squat.

  75. 7 days with out of drop of the hard stuff.
    But I have discovered that it could be the medication that might have caused the gout.
    Furosemide is a diuretic I have to take it daily because my heart is not acting properly and I usually get a build up of surplus fluids.
    But because the diuretic removes nearly all of the fluids. It gets concentrates the acids. And crystallises. Now I don’t really know if I’m Arthur or Martha. I couldn’t get a GP appointment for three weeks, but I’m seeing a paramedic in the morning.
    Another 3 months passes and Still no reply regarding my complaint nor a sniff of the proposed cardiology appointment.
    What a terrible mess the NHS has put me in.
    So it’s an early good night from me.

    1. Gout can be caused by a variety of things. I’m not stopping alcohol because of it. I have, what the doctors call, gouty arthritis.

      1. Do you take medication. I had to stop mine after 3 days it had upset my stomach.

          1. That’s the one I posted on the other day, apparently it’s a very common prescription for gout.

      1. I’m on a hiding to nothing.
        Now the bloody consultants are striking. WTF has happened to this country.

        1. Doctors and nurses who strike simply don’t give a toss about the harm they are doing, and will lose any public sympathy they may have still had after so many wilfully ignored anything that wasn’t convid. ‘We were only following orders,’ they will claim.

          1. Hmm ‘We were only following orders,’

            A favourite Nazi get out – they thought.

          4. And govt was ‘only following the science’ will be the cry – which is as near as dammit as following orders.

          5. It looks as though the nurses have had to settle as they didn’t get the required number voting to strike.

          6. Not that I’m cynical, but how long before they start agitating again? Do you know what percentage rise they managed to get in the end?

          8. Then it will only be a matter of time before they strike again. 5% is way off their unreasonable and unaffordable demands. Think they were after 17%.

      2. I’ve just been described* a diuretic (don’t know which one because I haven’t picked it up yet), so I shall have to watch out for side effects. I really can do without any more things to affect my mobility!
        * I mean, of course, prescribed – perhaps I have water on the brain!

  76. NHS Consultants going on strike?

    Whatever happened to the Hippocratic Oath?

    In the oath, the physician pledges to prescribe only beneficial treatments, according to his abilities and judgment; to refrain from causing harm or hurt; and to live an exemplary personal and professional life.

    We must face the hypocritical reality of the erstwhile respected profession.

    1. The fuckers were happy to preside over the injection of everyone with poison and to invoke stupid distancing and masking measures on the rest of us.

      The doctors have lost all respect. So few held to the Truth, almost all capitulated to the advices of the evil
      State and its apparatchiks.

      I am ashamed to live in a country where so many professionally qualified ‘doctors’ merely succumbed to the evil State.

      1. Such unquestioning obedience given to government diktats from the medical class was staggering. For the majority to remain in that state when the few who did question the government’s stance were traduced and threatened with professional ruin was an act of cowardice. Something as basic as Hancock’s denial of the usefulness of vitamin D3 in strengthening the immune system should have raised serious questions.
        How are these doctors and nurses feeling now that the truth re CV-19 and the “vaccines” is out and excess deaths are running at 2,500 per week? Baffled won’t cut it.

  78. Right, chums, its bed-time for me. So I wish you all a Good Night. Sleep well and see you all tomorrow.

  79. Goodnight and God bless, Gentlefolk.

    I hope I’m not on the night-shift again tonight, I’d rather sleep until the alarm goes off at 06:00 and then prepare the day’s story for you.

  81. Evening, all. I am all in favour of ditching the TV tax. I can’t remember the last time I watched Al Bebeera.

  82. 373927+ up ticks,

    Pillow ponder,

    Dt,

    Another nasty virus on its way? Matt Hancock wants to do it all again
    Former health secretary is shutting his eyes and ears to the broken economy and shattered healthcare system lockdown left in its wake

    What many will find more terrifying is the fact that I believe the voting majority will take his side, for the good of the party and their own short term wellbeing.ie working from bed.

  83. My favourite Hitchcockian TV Ad for Rolex:

    Immaculately-suited Cary Grant ducking an attack by a crop-spraying aircraft.

    From North by North West.

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