Wednesday 30 November: How can Britain be weaned off gas with no reliable alternatives in place?

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here.

759 thoughts on “Wednesday 30 November: How can Britain be weaned off gas with no reliable alternatives in place?”

  1. Good morrow, Gentlefolk, Today’s story.

    This Ought To Make All Grandpas Feel Warm & Fuzzy

    A six-year-old goes to the hospital with her mother to visit her Grandpa.
    When they get to the hospital, she runs ahead of her mother and bursts into her Grandpa’s room.

    “Grandpa, Grandpa,” she says excitedly, “As soon as Mummy comes into the room, please make a noise like a frog!”

    “What?” said her Grandpa.

    “Make a noise like a frog – because Mummy said that as soon as you croak, we’re all going to Disney Land!

    2. Thank you, Sue and Elsie. You are all a very caring bunch on here and I have reason to be grateful.

        1. Don’t wanna be nosey but did the call help in any way, while you wait for next week? I do hope so.

          2. Are you moving far Tom and is it by choice? We are all concerned for you and your well-being, you are in our hearts.

          3. No, vw, just changing flats from one up in the eerie to another in the sub-basement with a view over the garden and my ex-WRAF pal is up on the floor above, so that’s alright.

  3. Bedford Council hits back at Nigel Farage after he slams county for flying Albanian flag

    Bedford Borough Council has hit back at Nigel Farage on Twitter after the former politician blasted them for flying the Albanian flag on Bedfordshire Day. November 28 is officially Bedfordshire Day, but it is also Independence Day in Albania. The county in eastern England is one of the most diverse in the UK, with 23 percent of its residents being from minority ethnic backgrounds. [Most of them in Luton and Bedford – rural Bedfordshire remains English.]

    Mr Farage tweeted on Monday: “No England flag for St George’s Day posted by Bedford Borough Council Facebook in April. But they did manage to get the flags out for Pakistan in August and for Albania today. What is wrong with these people? Sort it out @BedfordTweets.”

    However, the Council hit back on the social media site, replying: “Thanks Nigel for flagging how diverse our Borough is, something we are very proud of. By the way, we did have the St George cross flying on St George’s Day in April.”

    A picture posted on April 23 showed the St George’s Cross flying at Borough Hall and the Old Town Hall in Bedford.

    This comes as a plan put to Rishi Sunak to return Albanian asylum seekers to their homeland has been slammed by refugee charities as “unworkable”, according to The Guardian. While former cabinet minister David Davis claimed it would “reduce asylum backlogs and provide a deterrent to migrants”, other groups have raised the issue that it may breach the UN refugee convention and put vulnerable people at risk.

    The letter to the PM states: “If they have really been taken against their will, then they could not reasonably object to being returned to their own homes. The quirks in our modern slavery laws that prevent this are clearly in defiance of the aims of that law and should be removed.”

    Mr Davis added that the Home Office had “not been interpreting the asylum laws correctly”.

    However, Amnesty UK’s refugee and migrant rights programme director Steve Valdez-Symonds said the politician was wrong on several fronts. He said: “There does seem to be quite a lot of nonsense here. The starting point is whether your government is unwilling or unable to provide protection from persecution. It doesn’t set out who your persecutors have to be. It could be organised crime, or a blood feud. It can also be women who are persecuted by their own families. The question is whether the state is both able and willing to provide the protections that it is expected under international law to provide.”

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1702750/bedford-council-nigel-farage-albania-flag-england-st-george-s-day-independence-ont

    1. “That man over the road in Tirana has been looking at me in a funny way over the last couple of days. I don’t feel safe. I think I’ll claim asylum in the UK”.

  4. Good morning, everyone. Third today! And a Happy St. Andrew’s Day to all our Scottish members of the NoTTLers Club.

    1. Good morning Elsie! Thanks for your good wishes! Haggis bought, and neeps and tatties to be prepared!

  7. Letter of the day (my opinion, obviously🙂 – I liked the one about the Mosquito planes, too):

    “ I spent nearly 30 years at the BBC, mainly in the radio newsroom, then in news management. If “guest editors” had been suggested (report, November 28), especially when I was deputy editor on Today, I would have had to resign or take time off. It is an insult to staff, especially those on the lower levels who may hope to edit one day.

    Many of us would love to be a guest Speaker of the House of Commons, guest Chancellor of the Exchequer or guest manager of Arsenal. Fortunately, however, these posts are left to the professionals. Why not at the BBC?”

    On a different theme, I’ve been listening to a terrifying podcast on something going on in the school system in the US which you can bet your life is happening here too. I have to go to work now but will post later. Let’s just enjoy the morning.

    1. Good point about the guest editors. The ones I have heard are never any good anyway – they just want to push more left wing rubbish even than the professionals.
      edit – And none of those blasted celebs are ever interested in guesting in some job that is actually useful!

      1. “And here we have…. Gary Lineker, guest binman for the day!”
        Has a ring to it…
        Or maybe sewer worker, but then he’d likely only be going through the motions…

    2. Good point, Mir (and good morning). The ‘guest editor’ nonsense is just an excuse for yet more BBC wokery, both in those selected and the subjects they pursue – most led firmly by the nose, no doubt. I rarely listen to Toady these days, but never at Christmas. By blood pressure is grateful.

      2. I’ve not listened since 2016. I was an avid listener in the 90s, turning gradually more sceptical in the noughties till I started to go off it in the 2010s. I listen to the odd podcast but am busy shedding them as and when they annoy me with their Wokery (e.g. More or Less, Curious Cases, the Michael Rosen one whose name I can’t even remember anymore…)

        1. If, like me (and most on here) you detest wokery, for goodness sake keep well clear of the World Service!

  8. Letter of the day (my opinion, obviously🙂 – I liked the one about the Mosquito planes, too):

    “ I spent nearly 30 years at the BBC, mainly in the radio newsroom, then in news management. If “guest editors” had been suggested (report, November 28), especially when I was deputy editor on Today, I would have had to resign or take time off. It is an insult to staff, especially those on the lower levels who may hope to edit one day.

    Many of us would love to be a guest Speaker of the House of Commons, guest Chancellor of the Exchequer or guest manager of Arsenal. Fortunately, however, these posts are left to the professionals. Why not at the BBC?”

    On a different theme, I’ve been listening to a terrifying podcast on something going on in the school system in the US which you can bet your life is happening here too. I have to go to work now but will post later. Let’s just enjoy the morning.

  9. How can Britain be weaned off gas with no reliable alternatives in place?

    Cull our population to about 10 million and live like we did in the middle ages

  10. ‘Morning All

    I had quite missed the Balenciaga scandal,Bob moran didn’t..

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9c56d7e2b1ecc3ad7ba607b1eeb71756d7819458cb1570443d3ae75927c8edbb.jpg

    Spiked has a piece on it and the general rise of “Paedo Chic”

    Paedo chic is one of the most worrying trends of our time. We seem to be

    witnessing a surge in the paedophilic sensibility. No, this is not to

    say that anyone at Balenciaga is a paedophile, or that a parent is a

    child abuser if he lets his kid hang out with braless ‘transwomen’ at

    those bacchanalian orgies of self-regard mixed with self-pity that Pride

    gatherings have become. But it does feel like the paedophilic imagination,

    the view of children either as sexual beings or as fit for being

    exposed to sexual beings, is having a resurgence. And we need to talk

    about that.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/11/27/balenciaga-and-the-rise-of-paedo-chic/
    The worst perverts can’t wait to add the P to LGBT kill them,kill them with fire…

    2. Ha ha ha ha…pity he doesn’t practice what he preaches! Pious little sh1t.

      ‘Morning, Rik. Can we nominate him for International Hypocrite of the Year?

  13. Good morning all. A damp and not quite freezing start this morning. A tad under 1°C on the outside thermometer and currently not raining after a couple of showers through the night. Still as black as pitch outside though.

  14. Ahem

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/aee8f3a823911eac1e85ec021e4a99d0cfc18d6c5e39705faf6fdaeeeecda5d4.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7a6c859371caf009c7936ae464fee6347d9e46417a782441a583533dd26b1194.jpg

    https://media.gab.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=700,quality=100,fit=scale-down/system/media_attachments/files/121/542/370/original/0ac3c6cce8d9dabc.jpeg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/be67162cc34a7c8d60a38f4c5e2dcfcc7bebc0b84cf65477d036301607ed894f.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6592a14dfd3d70ed46c65537c96a3a357e7b8597a06047c43830bec51ec8a097.jpg

    1. Good shot from Matt, showing how dangerous the Online Harms Bill is.

      Number 3 is very funny – I’ll circulate that around if I feel there isn’t enough strife at Christmas….

  15. Britain has abandoned any pretence of controlling immigration. 30 November 2022.

    Ministers are forever ‘considering all options’ but now Rishi Sunak’s team needs to start delivering actions, not just words.

    These are the words of a fool. There is no intention of pursuing such a course. Britain or more accurately its Political Elites have never had any intention of controlling immigration. The very opposite in fact! They have quite simply lied to the indigenous population; misled them; faked (Ruanda) solutions. It is the greatest act of betrayal in history.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2022/11/29/britain-has-abandoned-pretence-controlling-immigration/

    1. “Heemeyer had feuded with Granby town officials, particularly over fines for violating city health ordinances after he purchased property with no sewage system. He had incurred the fines for improperly dumping sewage from his business instead of connecting to the city sewer system. Over about eighteen months, Heemeyer had secretly modified a Komatsu D355A bulldozer by adding layers of steel and concrete, intended to serve as armour,”

      Do Yanks not know the difference between sewage and sewerage? Sewage is the effluent. Sewerage is the system that flushes it away.

  19. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    A good leading letter today:

    SIR – As a retired chartered engineer who spent his life working in the energy sector, I often look to see where Britain’s electricity is coming from.

    At 19.13 on November 28, Britain was consuming 38.3 gigawatts. Of this, 0.6 were being supplied by wind (Letters, November 29) and, it being dark, nothing at all came from solar. Gas-
fired power stations were providing 22.1, and nuclear 4. The bulk of the rest was imported from Europe.

    Given that there is no economically viable gigawatt-scale solution to electricity storage even on the horizon, would somebody in the Government please explain how, if the country is to wean itself off fossil fuels for electricity generation, it intends to keep the lights on without massive investment in nuclear power?

    Bruce C F Gawler
    Chippenham, Wiltshire

    Well said, Sir. Now, on such a crucial matter such as net zero, which is already impoverishing this country and with much more to come, when do we get our referendum on this lunatic and highly damaging policy?

    2. …would somebody in the Government please explain how, if the country is to wean itself off fossil fuels for electricity generation, it intends to keep the lights on without massive investment in nuclear power?

      Mr Gawler, on this issue the Government does not employ people who will speak against the agreed narrative. In addition, moronic parliamentarians have, over decades, supported the “green” nonsense that has brought us to the edge of the abyss. They could have taken advice and changed course but they didn’t, and now we are about to reap the rewards of their ignorance and silence.

    3. Quite simply Mr Gawler, our politicians and civil service are hell bent on keeping up their long established standards, as in. Every single thing they come into contact with they eff it up and big time.

        1. ‘Morning Nanners, hope you’re more buoyant now.

          Politicians and snivel serpents lie about everything anyway, so plus ca change and all that…

  20. 368533+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Do the herd really expect an answer theirs is NOT to reason why theirs is but to do, get jabbed, and die.

    Surely your local MP will have the answer and be only to eager to share it with you.

    Surgeries are under siege from patients complaining of
    the nose ring getting more abrasive by the day, yet has no affect among the morally illegal immigrants how can this be so ?

    The alternatives ARE IN PLACE and realising the WEF agenda going forward staying firmly there, while thousands of tons of foreign coal are seemingly about to hit Immingham dock,

    How can Britain be weaned off gas with no reliable alternatives in place?

    1. Thickos’ that believe in something called “The Science” have lead us to a very sticky place paved with missguided intentions, HELP!

  21. SIR – Promoters of offshore wind farms never mention their vulnerability. In a war, the first thing the likes of Putin and Xi would do is take them all out.

    Stephen Harris
    Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

    Pointless, Mr Harris, for two reasons: firstly their currently pitiful output isn’t strategically important, and secondly taking them all out is unnecessary – just destroy the cables that bring the power ashore.

    1. “Do not interfere with your enemy when he is making a mistake”

      I reckon the offshore wind farms are safe…

  22. SIR – Britain’s ability to deliver enough electricity at Christmas is not a new issue (Leading Article, November 29). Fears in the autumn have often alarmed energy ministers. I can recall, years ago, being invited to provide a view from electricity producers.

    There was one small consolation for the minister. The press painted pictures of power cuts during lunch on Christmas Day. But that was always unlikely because, with most of industry and commerce on holiday, electricity demand at Christmas tends to be low. It is early in the new year, when factories and offices resume work and the weather is likely to be cold, that the balance between supply and demand becomes critical.

    David Porter
    Chief Executive, Association of Electricity Producers, 1991-2012
    Plymouth, Devon

    And don’t forget the shortage of turkeys this year, with bird ‘flu having taken a heavy toll!

      2. We have pork and ham every year, ordered from the local butcher every year.
        Sadly, Cromford no longer has a butcher, so the DT will probably order from one of the Wirksworth butchers.

        1. We put the ham for this New Year’s Eve in a brine solution last week.

          My mother used to get her local butcher to put a ham in pickle for her but Caroline does rather better by pickling it in brine and berries herself and then, after six weeks in the brine, boiling it before skinning, scoring, spicing it with cloves and honeying it before baking it.

          https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f3731e7bd04759eb02e7a665bdec93320f7e1c94ad89d243aa0fb3ed45e05104.jpg Here is a photo of a Tastey New Year Ham!

    2. One positive result; I think turkey is vastly over-rated.
      Quite frankly, since, even if all goes to plan, we will be moving within days of the 25th, I am feebly relying on the charity of others.
      (And things definitely do not seem to be going to plan: I – and male Allans – must have upset someone v. v. powerful!)

      2. We have had capons at Christmas for many years now – to our taste they are far better than turkeys. And of course the French are happy to consume foie gras without worrying much about the fate of avian species.

        Apparently capons are no longer available in Britain as they have been banned because it was considered cruel to castrate cocks. However, with typically peculiar logic a country which bans the castration of a chicken is quite happy to castrate a bull as most beef comes from bullocks which, owing to what has been done to them, have no bollocks.

  23. Germany agrees 15-year liquid gas supply deal with Qatar. 30 November 2022.

    German firms have signed a 15-year deal to buy 2m tonnes of liquid gas from Qatar, sending out mixed signals over the priority Germany places on human rights in the Gulf and its commitment to a carbon neutral energy supply.

    The deal was announced by state-owned Qatar Energy and deliveries will start from 2026. The gas will be sold by Qatar to the US company ConocoPhillips, which will then deliver it to the LNG terminal in Brunsbüttel, Qatar’s energy minister said in the capital, Doha.

    I suppose that this is the best deal that Germany could get. They haven’t bought directly from the US because of the Baltic Gas Pipeline but they still had to go through an American company. All that has happened is that they have switched one energy supplier for another. It’s worth reflecting that though the US is financing the war it’s also cornering the World’s energy market in the process.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/29/germany-agrees-15-year-liquid-gas-supply-deal-with-qatar

    1. Having different gas suppliers rather than getting everything from Russia is better for Germany, I would have thought. They need the Russian connection too.

  24. To save Mir the trouble (see above):

    SIR – Your article on the restoration of a Lancaster bomber (Magazine, November 28) brings to mind the equally impressive Mosquito.

    My dad loaded bombs for the last raid of the war against Germany, undertaken by Mosquitoes from Norfolk. Sadly this remarkable wooden fighter-bomber – so fast it confounded the Luftwaffe – no longer graces British skies. Being made of plywood, very few survived.

    Were just one flying here, younger generations could look to it to see that novel thinking and technical brilliance can achieve wonders.

    Brian Emsley
    Kennett, Cambridgeshire

    The ‘Wooden Wonder’ was a brilliant aircraft, and certain marques were at least as fast as a Spitfire. It is indeed sad that none of the 7,800 built have survived in airworthy condition.

    Operation Carthage was one of their many successes, the destruction of the SS HQ in Copenhagen – link below (the commentary is not the finest but the newsreel footage is excellent):

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tRa27He8cHA

        1. There’s a mozzie museum I think ex factory, not far from St Albans. Typically almost on our door step I’ve never been there.

    2. Apparently, and I do stand to be corrected on this, 3 Mosquitos could not only carry a similar bomb load to two Lancasters but with two fewer engines and 8 fewer crew members, but, mainly due to the higher speed of the aircraft, had a higher chance of survival.

        1. Yes, the Lancaster’s max bombload was 14,000 lbs, the B17 was typically 9,600 lbs. To be fair, the latter’s armament was much greater.

      1. I think it eventually crashed at another airshow killing its pilot, there’s a video on Youtube

    4. Would never be built under today’s abomination of regulation. Worse, the MoD is more interested in the emissions of a tank than it’s combat effectiveness. The state truly is an abomination.

      1. The German radar detection wasn’t sufficiently reliable for vectoring the Mosquito, due to a combination of wooden construction, relatively small size, and their speed for a bomber. Some transmitted an IFF code that was easier to identify by our own side so as to reduce the risk of ‘friendly fire’.

        1. I was trained on IFF as part of my Air Radar Mechanics course, Cosford 1960 – 1961.

          Also AI17 and FIS.

    6. There’s an airworthy Mossie in NZ, I believe. The advantage of this beautiful machine was that it could be made by skilled carpenters, so furniture factories were turned over to production.

      1. Besides the collapse overnight of Sam Bankman-Fraud’s FTX, crypto was already in serious trouble. People lost 100’s of millions of their wealth.
        I expect there are contracts out on all the executives of these exchanges.

        I got out just in time.

        2. Crypto wasn’t the issue – the money laundering was! If they’d kept to the blockchain control system it would have survived.

      3. Maybe sitting in an NHS Emergency Dept. for 17 hours waiting for an appendectomy would lengthen their life spans.

          1. We will be visiting during the day.
            (Don’t tell him, but the horsepiddle is conveniently nearby for a quick shopping to get some food.)

    2. Makes a a change from ‘falling’ from a high-rise building I suppose. I wonder what the next variation of murder will be?

    3. I saw an add for Crypto on a board around the pitch at the England Wales game last night.
      There’s a rich person with a helicopter who lives near us. I hope he varies his routes. I don’t want to be clearing his mess up in my garden.

  26. 368533+ up ticks,

    DT,
    Guy Pearce: ‘Today’s old-boy network would still protect Kim Philby’

    ITV’s new drama A Spy Among Friends delves deep into the ‘greatest double agent of all time’ – and how he survived for over 30 years

    Current role model material was he not very near being made head of MI5 or 6, also had the elements for a high
    political elite daisy chain, tailored made for today’s political stage.

    1. They’ve cast an Aussie as Philby? Who will be playing Burgess, Maclean, Blunt, Blake and Cairncross?

      Ethnics? Bames?

      1. 368533+ up ticks,

        Morning G,
        To add authenticity the players MUST be selected from the serving politico’s being they are well versed in treachery.

        Digit dick is now available I believe,

  28. SIR — I was bowled over to read of the ban on exporting The Cricketers to America (report, November 25).

    It was painted when cricket had become colonial America’s first organised sport and national game. Benjamin Franklin codified America’s cricket rules based on a copy of the 1744 Laws of Cricket he brought back from England. George Washington played “wicket” with his officers at Valley Forge. In 1844 the first ever international game was played in New York between America and Canada.

    A Test match between the United States and England took place in 1859 in Hoboken, New Jersey. In 1893, when the Philadelphia cricket club defeated an Australian touring team, the gracious Australian captain said: “You have better players here than we have been led to believe. They class with England’s best.” This was proved true in 1897, when Philadelphia, on tour in England, beat Sussex by eight wickets.

    By the turn of the 20th century baseball had become the national sport, but cricket is back on the front foot, its growing popularity due mainly to America’s South Asian community. The first professional T20 league in the US starts next year, and the 2024 men’s T20 World Cup is scheduled to be shared by Jamaica and America.

    The figures in The Cricketers are Americans and it was painted by an American. It should be allowed to go “home” as a gesture of goodwill and support for the renaissance of cricket in America.

    John Coen
    Cheam, Surrey

    That is a well-researched an excellently-presented letter John. I wonder when it was that Yanks decided to drop the estimable sport of cricket and replace it with the lame schoolgirls’ game of rounders.

    My best guess is when they started drinking ocean-loads of Coca-Cola©, which had the side effect of limiting Yanks’ attention spans. I think that may be why all Yank “sports” (hah!) consist of five minutes of play followed by quarter of an hour “time outs”, which aids their facility for queueing [sorry: “standing in line“] for their next Coke© and bucket of chips [sorry: “fries”].

    2. Yo Mr Grizzle
      The Merkins could not invade Grenada until the c..a cola concession outlet was in place and CNN had reporteers there

      After theit devastating victory over the Grenadians was complete, 19 UK bobbies were sent to keep the peacr

      1. We sailed into Georgetown, Grenada, in 1984 – a year after the Americans stepped in.

        As we sailed around the islands I wrote a calypso about the islands we visited called Hey Skip, Wanna buy some limes. One of the verses:

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/532e88179c2e19cd3ab1a5d8f41dd9d006324d850f5940922c856acf234a832b.jpg

        When we sailed into Grenada the US army were there
        Wearing short pants and driving jeeps everywhere
        They screamed and whistled and waved machine guns as they drove past by me
        It made me think that it is not true that worse things happen at sea.

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2d25d485a31a9045e6037878c293b80a058039ce0348f5fc0d23128e23358843.jpg

    3. Good morning Big Bear,

      Putting a deceptive spin on it I wonder if Mr Coen got that interesting information by googling!

      [My googling produced the fact that though the google was perfected and made famous by English cricketer Bernard Bosanquet, circa 1900, the term is recorded earlier in Australian English (1896).]

      2. Bonjour, M. Rastaman. I think you may be conflating Google with the googly. I know the history of Mr Bosanquet and I also know that the Aussies have long called the googly the ‘bosie’ in his honour. Even though current Aussie parlance is to call it the “wrong ‘un”.

    4. Isn’t it perverse that we stop a painting being exported to America but quite happily let all our utilities to be sold to foreign governments, allow some newly ordered warships to be built in Spain, allow Chinese and French to build a nuclear power station which, I understand, is likely to be delayed by 11 years until 2036 (so much for electric cars). The experimental design ordered by Traitor May.
      I am thankful to be in the autumn of my life.

        1. I think you’re only 2 years older than me,76, and you are, therefore in the autumn the same as me. We have decided we are not going to get old, we just don’t fancy it :-))

          2. Of course you’ll be spared. You’re far too valuable an asset to go to waste so young.

          3. Got to get through this Winter of discontent first. Can’t wait for it to be made glorious Summer.

          5. After 5 years in S Spain and previous work in Singapore, I love the heat and absolutely abhor the cold.

          6. We spend a lot of time in the sun as we play bowls from Easter until the end of September.
            I quite like the cold as you can always move around to get warm. It’s more difficult to cool down on a humid summers day.

  29. This is a three month old discussion between Crypto Rich, who is a liberal pakistani muslim (his own words…) and Rafi Farber, Israeli financial guy and religious scholar. You definitely wouldn’t agree with everything they say! but it is an interesting and wide-ranging talk – Rich is for crypto and Rafi doesn’t trust it. They touch on religious aspects and also some practicalities of surviving in a CBDC dominated world. I enjoyed hearing two different viewpoints that I don’t normally come across, and both of which are contrarian, which you wouldn’t ever get in the legacy media.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqAvFWR8gno

  30. Ukraine’s 2030 World Cup bid likely dead after country’s FA chief arrested. 30 November 2022.

    Two leading officials in Ukraine’s football association, including its head, have been arrested over fraud and money-laundering allegations related to the construction of an artificial grass factory.

    Andriy Pavelko, the president of the Ukraine FA, and Yuri Zapisotsky, the association’s general secretary, are accused of “embezzling” 26.5m Ukrainian Hryvnia (£600,000).

    The two men were ordered to be held in custody until 22 January to allow further investigation or be released on bail of £200,000 on condition that they do not leave Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, or contact witnesses.

    Football and Ukraine. A match made in heaven. Lol!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/29/ukraine-fa-head-arrested-over-and-money-laundering-allegations

      1. Just as the EU did not manage to have its accounts properly audited I wonder what would be revealed if proper audited accounts were presented for the money ‘donated’ to Ukraine?

        But don’t firms like Arthur Anderson go in for ‘imaginative’ auditing so maybe there would be nothing to see there.

      2. Indeed. Talk about pie in the sky! I suppose it was intended to be yet another money-laundering scheme, but chuck a bit of football at the masses and they won’t notice.
        I wish we didn’t live in such a darn disgusting era.

    2. I’m more surprised the Guardian flagged the story! That’s the sort of thing they’d bury to protect their favoured chums.

    3. As Zelensky’s financial laundromat washes $Bns for ‘The Big Guy’ and his crackhead son, these pilfering pygmies only scooped £600,000?

      No wonder they got sacked, that’s chump change to the likes of FIFA/UEFA. Up your game Ukraine!

  31. Good moaning.
    Oh what a grey day.
    Later will brush up on my geographical knowledge of CGH layout.
    And give the b’stards even more parking money.
    Patient has recovered enough to be sending out links to political articles at 6.51 ack emma.

    2. I’ve been paying £4.40 per visit. It’s robbery. Glad he’s recovering. Will they chuck him out quickly? I was 10 when mine went and it meant a week in hospital then.

      1. We hope he’ll be discharged tomorrow.
        Watch this space.
        Oh, and the appendix was about to go tonto. A 17 hour wait and the nurse not giving him the promised antibiotics probably didn’t help matters.

  32. Morning all 😊
    Same old story with the outlook, and the weather. Grey.
    On the aspect of gas, I don’t know about other parts of the UK certainly happening in parts of Scotland. One of the chaps doing the work told me. But in our area someone as in a company (Cadent Gas) has just spent millions replacing miles of gas pipes. Many roads and driveways have been dug up and new mains fitted to thousands of homes. If the aim seems to be, is to turn off all the supplies ASAP. There is Something very strange indeed about this mammoth task that is taking place.

    2. We had the gas main connection replaced last year. The original was installed in 1938 when the houses were built. New plastic pipe was inserted inside the old, decaying, metal pipe and new regulator put on the gas meter.
      I am happier that that has been done rather than risk a gas explosion.

    3. One would like to think that covert commonsense is functioning.
      However, given that Colchester Military Hospital was still being repainted in the days running up to its well known closure date ……

      1. A well known military tradition. Spend a small fortune upgrading/modernising the infrastructure, then close the base/airfield down.

  33. Right-wing leader who shot himself in the face found guilty over Capitol riot. 30 November 2022.

    A former Yale graduate and right-wing leader who shot his own eye out was found guilty on Tuesday of seditious conspiracy for the attack on the US Capitol by Donald Trump supporters, an important win for the Justice Department.

    The verdicts against Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhode and four co-defendants, after three days of deliberations by the 12-member jury, came in the highest-profile trial so far to emerge from the deadly Jan 6, 2021, assault on the US Capitol, a failed bid to overturn then-President Trump’s 2020 election defeat.

    Riot is something of an overstatement though I suppose that it’s better than deadly or indeed insurrection. This is a good example of creative writing for effect. The Seditious Conspiracy charge is of course political. These people ventured into the Political Arena and need to be dealt with as harshly as possible so as to décourager les autres. as they say.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/11/30/oath-keepers-leader-stewart-rhodes-found-guilty-capitol-riot/

    1. An example to anyone else who might even only be thinking about it.
      Is it Mr schawbs or sore arse in charge of the ‘justice’ department ?

    3. The state waned to make an example of those who opposed it. This is it. Of course, the Kenosha riots, the looting black mob, the property destruction the black mob caused, the continued theft, shop lifting and violence in that community – that’s all right. Favoured sons and all that – of course, the state went after Rittenhouse who stood against it.

      Anyone else wondering if the entire world isn’t back to front?

      1. What is interesting is the range of comments in an accompanying thread about Sad Dick – a lot of people [presumably leftie bed wetters] seem quite happy about London being a third world $hit hole! Some even still reckon it’s a candidate for “best city in the world” – care in the community doesn’t seem to be working.

        1. Londoners would say that – they’re the replacement demographic or they never come into contact with the problem, going from point to point in giant SUVs.

          However Farage would have been better off pointing at unemployment and welfare dependency, THEN pointing out the race replacement. That is something the Left cannot then argue with, as it’s proving the utter failure of massive uncontrolled gimmigration and the inevitable failure of this country.

    2. If they want to entirely replace the population of this country then they’re going to have to find people to pay their disgusting taxes. We’re off.

      We have a small 1 bedroom place in Basel and are selling up here (we were going to stay put in Hampshire) to move over there. Junior would go to a new school anyway, and has been learning French and German with a tutor as it is. My work can be done anywhere and her bank is Swiss (and, arguably, in my capitalist mind should have failed, but was given massive bailouts to keep it going). I struggle with languages but once ‘there’ will get it.

      Why should we pay 60-70% taxes when we could pay 6%, and a sales tax?

      2. Great for Junior to learn several languages; my suggestion would be to maintain a foot on the property ladder in UK, just in case we ever get a Conservative government one day in the future.

        1. I wish I had worked harder on my pronunciation when I was a boy. Although I speak French fluently as soon as I utter a word I am identified a being English. Strangely enough the women in this part of the world think my accent is charming.

          Caroline is the best linguist I have ever known. She speaks English, French, Dutch and Spanish with no discernible accent so that in France everyone thinks she is French; in England everyone thinks she must have gone to Cheltenham Ladies’ College (which she didn’t); in Spain they think she is Spanish; and in Holland, for some strange reason they think she is Dutch because only the Dutch speak Dutch! In addition she can communicate in German, Italian and Turkish but not as a native speaker.

          Both our boys are bi-lingual French/English (and Christo did Spanish to IB Higher level) so both of them with their practical abilitis in design engineering and computing will be able to move elsewhere if things become intolerable in UK.

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fZUdwIo9LM

      3. My younger son lives in Basel and has done since 1999. Good luck to you all – it’s a nice part of the country.

      4. Morning Wibbling

        Have your dogs got passports, do they need them .

        My parents abandoned the UK for South Africa in 1967, he hated Harold Wilson .. There was a time after my mother was killed in her car after a collision with a drugged up black yob in the 1980’s , Daddy wanted to come back to the UK, he couldn’t afford to.. house prices were escalating, and he was in his mid sixties .

      5. How exciting! It’s a fabulous place when you have integrated a bit (I guess you already know a few of the rules).
        What’s the school system like in Basel, is it more French or more German style?

    3. Does that mean that white people in those places will get the privileged treatment that minorities get? No, thought not.

      1. We are in the ludicrous situation they have in America, of having “majority minority” cities. You couldn’t make it up.

    1. Morning Phizzee. I’m not sure this story isn’t a counter punch to the dropping dead after innoculation syndrome!

    2. From the literature I’ve read PCR testing for Covid is flawed especially if a ridiculously high number of cycles is used for each sample tested….

      Morning Phil and one and all.

    3. This seems like an article designed to bring ‘covid’ and its ‘deadliness’ back to the forefront of the public’s mind – it is in danger of fast disappearing over the edge of the distant horizon. The test cannot distinguish between long-since dead or alive fragments of dna, and it will find ‘anything you like’ if cycled at 40 or above according to its inventor – which it was, specifically for that purpose of finding a fragment of coronavirus. Positive! Neither could the test distinguish ‘covid’ from the genus coronavirus. So as far as the test is concerned it all seems totally irrelevant.

      Good morning, Phizzee. A grey November one here in S. Cambs.

  37. Oh Goody!

    Nina Jankowicz, who briefly served as the Biden administration’s “disinformation czar,” has registered as a foreign agent of a nonprofit organization based in the United Kingdom.

    According to registration documents received by the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) unit, Jankowicz filed for her foreign agent status this month (pdf). The name of the foreign principal is listed as the Centre for Information Resilience (CIR) from the United Kingdom. The nonprofit is founded and directed by Adam Rutland, a UK citizen, and Ross Burley, a dual UK–U.S. national.

    The entity is financed by a “foreign government, foreign political party, or other foreign principal,” the documents show. It receives grants from the UK government, including the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development offices.

    According to its website, CIR “is an independent, non-profit social enterprise dedicated to countering disinformation, exposing human rights abuses, and combating online behavior harmful to women and minorities.”
    What it really is, as it readily admits, is a social media influence operation.

    1. This surely cannot be true can it?
      A BLT Comment alleges:
      “Scary Poppins always was a foreign agent…somewhere.
      She spent years in Ukraine after 2014, including working directly on Zelensky’s “election campaign” in 2019.
      This woman is not the bimbo she comes across as, she’s a dangerous deep state animal”

    2. She must be an expert in “misimformation” coz she doesn’t seem to know when she was born! 1988/1989.

  38. Oh what a jolly morning! Have just spent 10 minutes up to my oxter in the outside drain, to remove a large amount of soggy leaves! The water? was backing up in the bathroom basin and making a nasty mess! The twins are now using me as a mobile gym! Doesn’t half get you going in the mornings!

          1. Telephone but I’ve a face-to face next Wednesday at Moffat Hospital (which is just clinics). Thank you for asking.

          2. Oh……I was hoping you were going to meet someone like the lovely CPN my father in law had visiting, ostensibly to see M-i-l who had alzheimers, but she became a very good friend to him, and stopped him from losing the plot. He cared at home for his wife, until Caroline persuaded him that it was time for a care home.

  39. That’s 6 shovelsfull of ballast put into each of 9 sandbags and hoiked up onto the wall ready for carrying up the “garden” and tipping in the builders bag up there.
    Now having a break to let my fingers warm up!

    1. “Shovelsfull”? I’ve got an ongoing dispute with a very good friend over the word teaspoonfuls, which he (wrongly) asserts is “teaspoonsful”. No matter how many books on correct English usage I show him that clearly explains why my version is the correct, standard English, version — and his is simply silly — he will not bend!

      1. I always assumed it was the first part of the word that got the plural, e.g., Courts-martial, Mothers-in-law etc.

        Even BoB talks of shovelsfull

        1. It is true that the first part in a compound noun — as you have given examples of — get the ‘s’, but in all other cases the plural ‘s’ comes at the end. That’s why (as measurements of capacity) we have lorryloads and not ” lorrysload”. Spoonfuls follows that rule.

      1. We look after our little grandson for the day on Monday’s. He’s the dear little chap who is being treated for leukemia, his immunity to cold and things like that, are very low. Monday, he came with a cough and a runny nose.
        Both his parents have important highly demanding jobs. And usually work from home, but both had to go into London.
        But anyway, he’s a lovely little chap and he insists on doing the washing up in the kitchen when he first arrives. Sleeves up plastic apron on, he stands on a kitchen chair.
        I thought with my current problems it might be best if i have little contact with him and stayed upstairs in the little ‘office’.
        Not long after he’d had dried his hands, he climbed the stairs shouting Grandad, grandad, where are you. He grabbed a ukulele and started plinking about on it took it into a bedroom and wanted to sit on the bed. I helped him up, then wanted to get hold of two guitars and plink about on them. Then wanted to get the rest of the 5 out of the cases and do the same. I managed to grab some bacterial hand wipes from the bathroom to wipe things down. While I was doing so, he’d settled in the chair I’m in now, in front of the PC and was flashing the mouse around all over the place. Bedlam. He’s such a lovely little chap what could I do ??? I don’t think I actually caught anything, unless I’ve already had it.

        1. I always veer towards the psychological rewards of human contact. A laugh a day keeps the lurgies at bay.
          But then, I would say that.

          1. In my contacts with people in the medical profession I always try to inject some humour in to as much as is possible.
            I’ve had some lovely chats with nurses from South Africa, New Zealand and Australia.
            The current cardiologist is from Greece and my very limited Greek lingo came in handy. I might brush up on get Yer finger out matey I’m suffering here.

          2. I manage to go and get my three blood tests carried out.
            The first young lady really struggled. She handed Mr Stone over to a more experienced colleague.
            I expect there will be quite a lot of bruises by tomorrow.

        2. Have you read the Conservative woman article put on by Kifaru just over an hour ago. Antibacterial wipes and the like help to destroy the immune system especially of children. They need dirt and bugs.

          1. That’s the reason they are encouraging Canadian kids to wear masks. Apparently two years of masking and isolation have not quite finished the job, so it is repeat the punishment time.

          3. I was already aware of this Alf.
            I only used them to wipe where he’d been coughing sneezing and putting his hands on things. The mouse rather liked it.
            His immune system is severely lacking because of all of his treatment for leukemia.

  41. The Bayeux Tapestry is not historically accurate. The whole story has been embroidered.

    That’s not my coat! This is a stitch up!

  42. The BBC has announced its Christmas line-up…
    “Ooh, I can’t wait for Mrs Browns Boys” Said no-one ………ever.

    1. I’m glad I’m not the only one who finds this ‘comedy’ excruciatingly unfunny, but then I’ve never found any drag acts to be with my taste in entertainment.

      2. Lily Savage was good in his day. Very very rude with cutting remarks and good punchlines. Best watched in the pub.

        1. Sharp-tongued, but I was still unable to comply with ‘the willing suspension of disbelief’ as far as a drag act is concerned.

        1. They were regulars at an unlicensed club in a Portsmouth basement. Very funny even when not in uniform.

  43. Britain’s tax burden rose faster than France and US even before Hunt’s wealth raid
    Taxes as a share of the economy have risen by 1.4 percentage points to 33.5pc

    Szu Ping Chan: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/11/30/britains-tax-burden-rose-faster-france-us-even-hunts-wealth/

    BTL

    El Guiri Cabron

    Only two more years and the longest suicide in British political history will be over. The fake Conservatives no longer represent anyone except Albanian drug dealers in 4 Star hotels. The party will be eviscerated as even Starmer now sounds more fiscally competent than the millionaire communist Chancellor.

    Reply to El Guiri Cabron

    I hope to God they won’t last two more years. Give the Reform Party enough time to get properly organised – say two months at the most – and then get enough Conservative MPs to resign and stand again as Reform Party candidates in the general election which their resignations have precipitated.

      1. I agree that Farage is vain and arrogant – and Laurence Fox should not try to have a beard if he is incapable of growing a proper one.

        1. 368533+ up ticks,

          Afternoon R,

          For us genuine UKIP members (now ex) one of the nicer terms was fruitcakes, sticks & stones etc.
          The farage chap is not to be trusted.

          As for Laurence Fox, and in regards to beards, I believe his aim is to seriously singe those of the tory masquerader.

      2. Bally hell, I can’t upload the image, but as Thomas Sowell states, theft is the unlawful seizure of your property, but when the state does it they call it taxation.

        Tax is theft. It is not fair, not right, no moral and it shouldn’t be permitted until the public agree with a 80% majority.

  44. UK must lead creation of tribunal to punish Russian war crimes, Ukraine’s first lady Olena Zelenska says. 30 November 2022.

    Ukraine’s first lady has urged the UK to lead the way in the creation of a special international tribunal to prosecute Russia for aggression against her nation – as she stressed that “just to stop the war is really the first step”.

    The irony! There are more War Criminals walking the streets of London than in the whole of Russia!

    https://news.sky.com/story/uk-must-lead-creation-of-tribunal-to-punish-russian-war-crimes-ukraines-first-lady-olena-zelenska-says-12758029

    1. …and of course, to punish Ukrainian war crimes as well – 14,000 killed by Azov Brigade on Zelensky’s order. That’ll do for starters Mrs Zelenska.

  45. 368533+ up ticks,

    I cannot see this as with politics peoples SAY they stay in a party to change it from within, load of old cobblers, they are old family tree voters.

    But in regards to the church not to be outside because of the rubbish inside but to be inside casting the rubbish OUT.

    I do find it ironical me being a fan of Guy Fawkes, currently a great many of the herd want to be also.

    1. SAY they stay in a party to change it from within,
      Those that say that ogga are those who would not be able to hold a job down in the real world.

    3. My niece asked why we didn’t stay in the EU to change it from within. I said, we’ve tried. It’s designed to ensure that cannot be done. It does not want to change.

      1. Cameron offered an “reformed EU” as an incentive to remain in the Union. Well, if reforms are on offer, then what are these reforms? He couldn’t say. Well, if such reforms are on offer, they must have already been agreed so we’re going to get them regardless.

  49. The NHS Chronicles, Day 141 – Mother in Law ambulanced into hospital last night (no, not a long wait thanks, about 5 hours) with suspected pneumonia. Travelling down the M6 to see her this morning at 8.20 we received a phone call from a doctor at the hospital. After a few moments of conversation my wife asked the doctor to confirm my M in L’s name.
    Turns out the doctor had phoned the wrong next of kin and was speaking about an entirely different patient, a fact only revealed when my wife queried the matter.
    Lesson – if you get bad news (or, indeed, any news) from the hospital, always check that they actually mean it.

    2. Oh dear, how idiotic.

      Equally I got a spam email. Reported it and the tech people asked how I knew it was spam. I said it was from HNRC about a tax rebate. Robbers and thieves would never bother to email, they’d use the slowest, least efficient, most expensive method going – to keep the money for as long as possible.

    3. Oh dear, how idiotic.

      Equally I got a spam email. Reported it and the tech people asked how I knew it was spam. I said it was from HNRC about a tax rebate. Robbers and thieves would never bother to email, they’d use the slowest, least efficient, most expensive method going – to keep the money for as long as possible.

  50. Deep breath…
    Just been talking to someone who reads the German mainstream media. Apparently the Suddeutsche Zeitung has an article that explains the rise in deaths among older people in Germany during 2022.
    According to the SZ, it is unvaccinated people who are being killed a year after they got covid, because the spike proteins find their way into the blood vessels and cause blockages!
    Covid, the evil bug that kills you A WHOLE YEAR later – but only if you didn’t take the vaxx.

    I merely commented that if this is the case, just think of the effect of injecting the little spike protein factories directly into the blood vessels….

      1. What an excellent return on our £220m quid! No doubt we will be shovelling even more taxpayers’ dosh across the channel with such outstanding value for money like this…

    2. I kept hoping there’d be the sound of high velocity gunfire, screams and the problem dealt with as the vermin are dealt with.

  52. Thurrock council admits disastrous investments caused £500m deficit. 30 November 2022.

    Tory-led Essex authority is on brink of bankruptcy and has appealed to government for emergency bailout.

    A Tory-led council has admitted a series of disastrous investments in risky commercial projects caused it to run up an unprecedented deficit of nearly £500m and brought it to the brink of bankruptcy.

    The staggering scale of the catastrophe at Thurrock council in Essex – one of the biggest ever financial disasters in local government – is contained in an internal report made to the council’s cabinet, which reveals it has lost £275m on investments it made in solar energy and other businesses, and has set aside a further £130m this year to pay back investment debts.

    The question one would like to ask (unaddressed here) is what is a Borough Council doing investing in anything? Their job is (or used to be) filling in potholes and ensuring the bins are emptied! When did they become City Financiers? The pity here is that none of the people responsible will suffer the slightest inconvenience. Their private property should be seized and confiscated while they are gaoled for embezzlement and Malfeasance in Public Office!

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/nov/29/thurrock-council-admits-disastrous-investments-caused-500m-deficit

    1. It’s more widespread than you think. When the Icelandic banking system imploded several councils were caught with their pants down.

      I see nothing wrong in them making investments but just like pensions it should be 90%
      low risk spread over a portfolio so you don’t lose your shirt.

    2. Here in Woking the borough council apparently wholly owns 15 companies I discovered yesterday. I have tried to find out who they are but at the moment a list seems well hidden. I shall be emailing my local councillors.

  55. Meghan Markle leaves hotel in the US after being guest speaker at ‘power of women’ charity event – hours after ex-counter terror chief, Neil Basu, revealed she faced ‘very real’ threats to her life in the UK
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11484799/Meghan-Markle-leaves-hotel-guest-speaker-power-women-charity-event.html

    Surprise, surprise – Mr Basu is of ‘Asian descent’.

    Surprise, Surprise – as soon as the George Floyd case erupted Basu was proclaiming how racist a country Britain is.

    Surprise surprise – Many have concluded that he is low life trying to turn people against the royal family and ethnically white British people and jumping on the Sussex bandwagon to gain notoriety and – who knows what – other ‘benefits’.

    1. Wasn’t Basu the race-baiting khlown in Met Plod, who relied on positive discrimination to rise up the ranks until the ‘Peter Principle’ intervened?

  56. On a dank evening, I thought I would watch the football last night. Injected somewhere in the preamble, the BBC’s icon of Britishness, Stormzy, gave us the benefit of his rap ‘poetry’. The usual dark messages of victimhood expressed by the even darker narrator. There followed some screeching from a female presenter and then all the players dropped to the ground in exaltation of the career criminal. I had had enough by the time they kicked off. Wales’ captain and saviour couldn’t be bothered to play more than one half, I expect his idiotic man bun needed attention. Perhaps Senegal will give the team that remains a good thrashing and Southgate and his prima donnas return home.

    2. Thanks K, I enjoyed your post-match report! I loathe ‘rap’ and glad I don’t follow the footie.

      1. I should think “covid deaths” would occupy a huge proportion of the Guardian’s coverage and probably “climate change” the rest (though it wouldn’t feature on the left hand side!)

    1. But if a black person born in the UK and holding a UK passport says “I’m from Ghana” that’s absolutely fine, and they won’t have to resign from their job.

      1. I still say that before one is allowed British Citizenship (and therefore a British Passport) they must prove that their four grandparents were born here in the UK.

        Is that too much to ask?

        1. Parents, perhaps. Grandparents is taking it a bit far!
          But some people are integrated in two generations, while others hold themselves aloof for ten.

          1. Precisely. Proof positive is needed – we have all the dregs of Africa, The Caribbean and Pakistan claiming British Citizenship.

            I can’t find another nationality I can claim but I don’t want to be associated with these losers.

            I suppose if I went back through my Family Tree, I could claim Swedish or Norwegian ancestry but since that means going back to 530 AD, I might find hurdles to overcome. Similarly, Spanish, French and Grecian origins. I’m a mixture but I can trace my father back, directly to 1580 in England.

            I prefer to be English rather than British.

          2. Same here .

            The offended black woman was dressed in African garb, wearing cowrie shell necklace , and she had an African name .. for heavens sake WHY the hell is the Palace so woke and terrified of their own white shadows ?

          3. That’s just part of the reason, Maggie, that I want British Citizenship to be dependant upon your 4 grandparents being borne within the UK.

            Is that unreasonable – I believe it happens in other countries for citizenship to be granted or denied?

          4. I think this woman blew it all out of proportion to get in the papers. Susan Hussey has been working in and around the Royal Family for yonks….she knows what is appropriate and what isn’t. This female said she was traumatised by it. She was trying to make a point and bring Queen Camilla into disrepute.

          5. Why was she wearing African clothes if she was born in Britain and is British? Isn’t she the racist one?

          1. Maybe we should take some lessons from the same playbook that Our and other Western Gov’ts are using

      1. Hussy is patently an idiot, she married Marmaduke Hussey (one time Chairman of the Board of Governors of the BBC). Her father was a high ranking civil servant and a member of the BBC advisory council, promoted no doubt because of his hereditary title.

        1. Some readers may be alarmed by what is yet to come, so take a deep breath, relax… then imagine living it daily!

          Appearance
          1. You’re really pretty for a black girl.

          2. Are you lips real?

          3. You’re like black black!

          4. Can I touch your hair? (OR they lunge in without asking).

          5. You’re so lucky to have a natural tan.

          6. I didn’t realise black people could grow real eyebrows.

          7. You’re not black, you must be mixed with something, because you’re so light-skinned.

          8. Any “coloured” descriptor (I’m not a box of crayons).

          Education
          9. You speak so articulately.

          10. You’re actually really smart.

          11. Who taught you how to speak English?

          12. You know so many words?

          13. Wow, you got into Oxford, were you a diversity candidate?

          14. Don’t research race; you’ll end your career before it’s even started.

          15. Are you first in your family to be educated?

          16. You don’t sound black AT ALL.

          17. Teach me some slang.

          Work
          18. We can’t attract or keep black employees, it’s like they don’t wanna work.

          19. I’m SO sorry, I didn’t think you worked here (after calling security).

          20. You should meet X, you’ll REALLY get on (both being black).

          21. I love your hair straight; it looks so much more professional.

          22. How do you make your money? (I work like everyone else).

          23. We’ll address it, but just be careful not to play the ‘Race Card’ (after reporting a racial incident).

          24. I like you! You’re surprisingly professional.

          25. You could definitely pass as one of ‘us’.

          26. You must be struggling through COVID (responding to inequality statistics).

          Identity
          27. Do you have a Mum AND a Dad?

          28. Are you from Africa or Jamaica?

          29. You’re a good mix (like a cockerpoo or labradoodle).

          30. Do you snack on dry bones?

          31. Where are you really from?

          32. Can black people really be Muslim?

          33. Do you eat with your hands at home?

          34. Can we just use your initials?

          35. That smells funny… What are you eating?

          36. I was so shocked to see black Jews on TV.

          37. (Siobhan, Saoirse and Leigh get to keep their names but…) Your name is too hard to pronounce, so I’m going to call you X (typically a Westernised adaptation).

          Bizarre
          38. Do you have any weed?

          39. Why can’t black people swim?

          40. Have you been to jail, even for a little while?

          41. What colour is your blood?

          42. How can I be racist, my X is black?

          43. Yo my G/N*****! (or other attempts at Ebonics).

          44. I’m sorry for my ancestors (when you just wanted a coffee).

          45. Do have cars where you’re from?

          46. What’s happening in Africa? (I’m not a newscaster)

          47. I’ve always wondered what it would be like in black skin.

          48. I think black people are really cool. (All black people, everywhere?).

          49. I don’t see colour.

          50. Why do “black Lives Matter” – don’t all lives matter? (Are all lives undervalued?)

          https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2021/10/22/50-things-not-to-say-to-black-people/

          Similar to being a white in Africa/ India … They ALWAYS ask if I live in London .. it is as if London is the name off a country, and the have no idea we live on an Island .. well the do now , because they have to catch a rubber boat to sail here .

          1. I’ve had the “London” thing in overseas work: “When do you fly back to London?” “I don’t live near London – I fly to Amsterdam/Paris then a short flight to Birmingham.” I live a 15 minute taxi ride from the airport.

      2. Hussy is patently an idiot, she married Marmaduke Hussey (one time Chairman of the Board of Governors of the BBC). Her father was a high ranking civil servant and a member of the BBC advisory council, promoted no doubt because of his hereditary title.

    3. Mandu Reid, leader of the Women’s Equality Party, who was next to Ms Fulani and witnessed the exchange, claimed they were treated almost like “trespassers”.

      She said: “We really felt ‘oh, okay, we’re being treated almost like trespassers in this place’. We’re not being treated as if we belong, we’re not being embraced as if we are British.”

      Ms Reid described the exchange as “grim” and like an “interrogation”, adding: “She was really persistent. She didn’t take Ngozi’s answers at face value.”

      Yeah , and we can all walk like an Egyptian !

      2. Yes, but you just hold a British passport. You aren’t a native of these shores. Being born in a stable does not make you a horse.

      3. Amazing recollection of a conversation in such detail. I’m just a littlebit suspicious of SH’s alleged persistence in her line of questioning. I would have thought that a member of the Royal Household would no be so undiplomatic. My jury is out on this one.

      1. Would you like to sin with Elinor Glyn
        Upon a tiger skin?
        Or would you prefer to err with her
        Upon some other fur?

      2. ‘Charity founder’?? Says it all,I’m afraid! And I know personally how arrogant and entitled these people can be.

    1. I’m sick of these creatures. They are spoiled, stupid, egocentric idiots and should be sent away somewhere dark and cold, away from everything oil has given them.

    3. What on earth will future historians (that is, if the species still exists) make of the deterioration of what was once the cleverest, most innovative, most inventive organism to have ever evolved. I wonder how they will look back on the premier species inhabiting the earth in:
      The Post-Workingbrain Supereon,
      The Quarterwitoic Eon,
      The Stupidoic Era,
      The Cretinaceous Period,
      The Idiotocene Epoch,
      The Gormlessian Age?

      1. It has been observed that the spike proteins can stay in your body for up to a year after a jab, iirc. I wonder if the blood transfusion service avoids taking donated blood from anyone that’s had the jab in the last 12 months?
        There was some talk about that at the start, but suddenly nothing more was said.

        1. Good point, I had a friend who had to receive regular blood transfusions in the early 80s. Given bloody HIV contaminated blood.

      1. My elder sister and BiL have taken every jab available. They are the only members of our family who have been badly effected by covid.
        I have reached the conclusion that the content was designed to stir up underlying health issues. And it’s been very suspiciously successful.
        But as I have mentioned previously as far as I am aware, not one of those in the HoC or the HoL has suffered any serious side effects. From the ‘vaccines’. As we know thousands of people have. It’s all extremely suspicious.

      2. I find it truly shocking that so many people whom I judged to be rational and intelligent seem to have accepted without question the climate change and Covid jab scams.

        1. Our highly educated and supposedly very intelligent son and DiL are brainwashing their young children into thinking cow farts are contributing to the alleged climate emergency – they now only eat meat once or twice a week. Poor children are quite anxious about the climate farce and about catching convid (and will we die from it).

          4. No, Alf, Nitrogen accounts for 78% of the atmosphere and Oxygen 21 %. You figure out the remaining 1% with CO2 at just 0.04%

          6. Thank you, Alf for the recognition. I have been fighting this one for decades against the ‘Green’ woke idiots.

          8. Sorry MiB it refers to methane which is why Netherlands wants to close farms down.
            All part of the stupidity pandemic sweeping the world.

          10. Thank you Conners. NtN pointed that out and I got it confused with methane. It’s an age thing!

          13. The Value of Science — According to Richard Feynman.
            “To every man is given the key to the gates of heaven; the same key opens the gates of hell.”

          14. The Value of Science — According to Richard Feynman.
            “To every man is given the key to the gates of heaven; the same key opens the gates of hell.”

          15. In my yoof (and that of many NOTTLers, I suspect) we were forever being threatened with some form of nuclear annihilation or at the very least milk that glowed in the dark and mucked up your teeth.
            Apart from a small percentage who took these things to heart, the rest of us got on with our lives.
            Are today’s youngsters really that different?

        2. I’ve been told that both my wife and I have been very ‘brave’ by not taking the jabs.
          Then again, some people we’ve known for some time, when we said that we wouldn’t be taking an experimental gene therapy, now go out of their way to ignore us.
          There’s nowt so queer as folk

        3. From the Gospel of Thomas:
          ‘Let the seeker keep seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will be disturbed. When he is disturbed, he will be amazed,

    4. I am in that group. I only had the first 3 to be able to travel to Canada in August to see my son and grandchildren again. It is only a matter of time before the son asks if we’ve had our Autumn boosters – I expect to be lectured on my ‘stoopidity’ when I tell him I am not having any more. He and his wife have had their 4th back in May/June and I think they have recently had another booster. Older child has had 3 and younger one had 2 while still aged 4 – got jabbed the day the eligibility was dropped below age 5.
      If I cannot enter Canada next summer (I reckon Turdeau will still have jab mandates in place as long as he can get away with it), then so be it.

      1. …and you children (son etc) is their general health enhanced, or are there un-explained side effects?

        1. As far as I’m aware, they are all ok though goodness knows what health issues could develop long-term. I do wonder if the children will have fertility issues in the future – these jabs have no long-term safety data. If my offspring were still children, there is no way I would have allowed them to get the jabs, it’s not as if healthy, fit children were/are at risk from convid.

          2. I see they are pushing young children to get the ‘flu jab because of rising hospital admissions.

          3. I have to say, I have never known any children to catch flu neither when I was a child nor in 30 years working in primary schools. When younger grandchild was born, DiL insisted we couldn’t fly over to visit until we had both had flu jabs. Neither of us had bothered to get a flu jab until that year.
            One line of thought is that more people are catching flu this year because our immune systems have been weakened by prolonged mask wearing and earlier lockdowns/restrictions limiting normal, regular exposure to numerous germs. Maybe the Convid jabs have played a role in damaging immune responses.

        1. Thank you. I’m well over the hill but it is a concern for our ‘children’ and grandchildren who have their whole lives ahead of them.

      3. I have reached the stage where I would rather feel free in my head.
        Free to question; free to make my own decisions.

    1. I don’t think totalitarians worry all that much about the mood of the country,
      I don’t think they asked the Chinese people under communism.

    2. Rather than misjudgement it’s more in tune with deliberately ignoring the electorate and the rest of the public. 99.9 percent of the population still have no idea what this government is attempting to achieve. Cultural and social destruction is the most obvious outcome. But for what gain and why ?
      It’s akin to a successful athletic hacking a leg off.

          1. Don’t know Tom, wish I did. Alf and I are not young enough to galvanise others, we need young people to rebel big time. We’ve had a Con party survey put through the letterbox posing local issue questions and we’re in the middle of composing a lengthy reply. It will probably be discarded unread!

          2. I know what you mean, vw, there is such a spirit of disinterest in what happens today, which affects daily life, I wonder at the apathy.

          3. TBF I’m not sure either of us were that much interested in politics when we were younger and there certainly wasn’t instant news in those days. At least the news then was fairly truthful. (News these days isn’t, it’s all monitored/censored/manipulated/fake). We were busy bringing up a young family on not very much money. No telly for 2 years, no phone for 4 years after marriage, probably similar to others on here. We just lived for the day. Alf would be a brilliant councillor and/or MP but …
            On a brighter note we had a guy round to service our gas fire. Did a great job and was only the second person we’ve spoken to who does not go with the scamdemic or the Russian narrative. Was a pleasure to chat with him. Young, about 30ish.

          5. Very interesting and encouraging. After the scamdemic he says he began to question what was happening with the quackcines and constant propaganda and then began to question or at least think more about everything else that’s going on. Also said he’s doing his own research on things. Really heartening it was. Didn’t get to discuss much more – he was actually here to work!

          6. Keep hammering in for answers, vw, don’t give up. they are answerable. Make sure that they Answer!

      2. Folk are coming around to realising the state is aimed solely at forcing us back in to the EU.

    3. Its interesting that the left, who would normally oppose war, globalism, increased taxes for capitalist vanity projects, are strangely quiet and obviously perplexed. Apart from gluing themselves to inanimate things, all they do is irritate their fellow citizens.

      1. Yet the ‘modern’ left love all those things. They like war, because it makes the state bigger. They like globalism because it increases their power over others. They love higher taxes because it’s more money and power for the state, more non-jobs, and an entrenching of jobs to create a voting bloc.

        The green nonsense isn’t about the environment. They don’t care about that. What the Left want is what they always want: power and control over others. They’re a bunch of nasty fascist socialists pretending to be nice by hijacking issue after issue to call for more power.

    4. GE is not going to do much good as Starmer’s policies on Net Zero, immigration and Covid are exactly the same.

      According to GB News last night apparently there is overwhelming support for a referendum on net zero.

      2. Be careful with that one. Overwhelming agreement (cos folk are stupid) will make it difficult to overturn if it goes the woke way.

          2. They’ve learned that there are no legal consequences for ignoring democratic will and simply won’t care about the answer. We do not live in a democracy. It’s all a sham.

      4. While I like the idea of such direct democracy, to make an informed decision requires significant knowledge. Too many people think energy companies are responsible for the cost of energy.

        Then, as we’ve seen with Brexit the state fights any decision it dislikes and there’s no recourse to remove them or force their hand or, more importantly, punish them when they disobey.

        While the population is so ill informed and thick they cannot be permitted to vote on topics of national interest.

        Then there’s the welfare addicts who don’t pay their own bills who’ll know they’re getting more money due to energy bills – which they can spend on whatever they want, so they won’t vote against net zero.

        Statist won’t because they’re indoctrinated by the whole tosh – it’ll mean their losing their jobs if it were repealed.

        Then there’s the state who simply won’t permit democracy at any level.

        1. Reminds me of that famous Spoonerism, about Queen Victoria – “Let’s drink a toast to the queer old dean”.

        2. When Migraine finds that there’s not much mileage left in playing the race card maybe she will shuffle the pack and come up with either the bi-sexual or trans card? By that time Harry will only be left with the eunuch card.

        3. There have been some “different” characters in the family. Prince George, Duke of Kent, was allegedly bisexual and had some famous pals, Noel Coward to name one.
          Prince George was killed in a plane crash in WW II in circumstances that have never really been clear.

  65. Another difficult African …

    Sit tight .. and count to ten

    Ex-soldier sues for £1m, claiming cold weather on duty means he now needs central heating on all year
    Macmillan Awumee, originally from Ghana, says his ethnicity left him more vulnerable to freezing conditions

    A Ghanaian soldier who claims his ethnicity makes him more vulnerable to the cold is suing the MoD for £1 million.

    Macmillan Awumee, who served in the Royal Corps of Logistics, claims his exposure to the cold while on duty left him with ailments that mean he needs his central heating on all year round, the High Court heard.

    Mr Awumee travelled from his homeland of Ghana to join the British Army in 2011 after following his “childhood dream” to become a soldier.

    He expected to make the Army his long-term career, but was medically discharged eight years later having suffered non-freezing cold injuries while on winter duty in 2017.

    His cold injuries caused chronic pain, tingling and numbness to his extremities, as well as triggering depression.

    He also says his condition has left him feeling the cold more than other people and has left him exposed to high energy bills because he now has to turn up his central heating “both in winter and summer”.

    Mr Awumee, 41, who lives in Southampton, is now suing the MoD for over £1 million in damages, claiming far more should have been done to protect him from the cold while he performed his duties.

    The court heard that he attributes his diminished physical state to an overnight shift carried out in February 2017, during which he was exposed to “prolonged wet and cold conditions” while loading military supplies on to a ship.

    “As a result, he developed non-freezing cold injuries to his hands and feet,” Paul Kilcoyne, his barrister, wrote in court documents.

    Mr Kilcoyne said his client was especially vulnerable since he is a “black African with an ethnicity known to be more prone to the development of non-freezing cold injuries if exposed to cold, damp or freezing conditions”.

    The ex-soldier’s symptoms of pain and numbness are now mainly confined to the winter, but his barrister explained: “He has a requirement for extra warm clothing and a requirement for increased domestic heating both in winter and in summer”.

    His symptoms were made worse by a back injury which occurred while he was laying and removing tracks for an infantry beach training exercise, and he is now also dogged by “ongoing back pain”.

    His fragile state is said to have left him depressed and anxious, made worse by knowing that his Army career had ended.

    The ex-soldier’s lawyers claim his superiors failed to provide sufficient cold weather kit – particularly in the form of gloves and warm boots – but the MoD is denying fault.

    Andrew Ward, barrister for the MoD, pointed out that Mr Awumee would have received training on dealing with cold weather conditions, and was issued with Army kit designed to withstand extreme weather.

    The temperature on the night his hands and feet were numbed was above freezing and evidence suggested that conditions were not wet, said Mr Ward.

    Mr Awumee had in fact lost his Army career due to an ankle injury accidentally sustained in 2015, which left him unable to “run, jump hop or squat,” he claimed.

    The case reached court for a brief pre-trial hearing and will now return for trial at a later date.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/11/29/ex-soldier-sues-1m-claiming-cold-weather-duty-means-now-needs/

    1. If he’s that susceptible, why join up in the first place? Go back to Ghana and Join the Nkrumah Army.

    2. Presumably he has an army pension, so why on earth not go and live in a warm climate if he has those health problems?

      1. He should be buried six feet or more under ground and left for the winter to see whether he is lying or not. If he survives he’s a liar, if he doesn’t he should be re-buried free of charge.

    3. I suppose that the woke would consider me to be a ‘difficult African’. I was born in Africa but I am not the right colour and I don’t have acceptable opinions on virtually anything!

    4. It begs the question as to why an African man was allowed to join the British army in the first place.

      1. Recruitment problems. They promise them citizenship after five years, I think. I met someone who was doing it for the visa. He was determined to stay at the back when any shooting started, I can tell you!

        1. Similar in US. In my son’s final year at high school and he achieved very high SAT scores, we were bombarded by phone calls from all branches of the military. I always fielded the calls and when I said that my son was not a US citizen the response was, oh that doesn’t matter. Recruit them and then, if they want, they can get citizenship.

          For Tom- SAT- Scholastic Aptitude Tests.

        2. I can imagine. A mere 5 years doesn’t seem adequate to earn the privilege of British citizenship. Minimum 10 years.

          1. They do put themselves potentially at risk though. They are perfectly well aware that they may be cannon fodder.

    5. I have Reynaud’s disease which was not diagnosed until I was in my 18th year of service. I suffered badly from cold extremities. Should I sue the MOD? Answers on a postcard.

      btw, Telegraph, It’s The Royal Logistic Corps, not Royal Corps of Logistics. It seems they don’t have a dedicated defence correspondent any more.

  66. Another difficult African …

    Sit tight .. and count to ten

    Ex-soldier sues for £1m, claiming cold weather on duty means he now needs central heating on all year
    Macmillan Awumee, originally from Ghana, says his ethnicity left him more vulnerable to freezing conditions

    A Ghanaian soldier who claims his ethnicity makes him more vulnerable to the cold is suing the MoD for £1 million.

    Macmillan Awumee, who served in the Royal Corps of Logistics, claims his exposure to the cold while on duty left him with ailments that mean he needs his central heating on all year round, the High Court heard.

    Mr Awumee travelled from his homeland of Ghana to join the British Army in 2011 after following his “childhood dream” to become a soldier.

    He expected to make the Army his long-term career, but was medically discharged eight years later having suffered non-freezing cold injuries while on winter duty in 2017.

    His cold injuries caused chronic pain, tingling and numbness to his extremities, as well as triggering depression.

    He also says his condition has left him feeling the cold more than other people and has left him exposed to high energy bills because he now has to turn up his central heating “both in winter and summer”.

    Mr Awumee, 41, who lives in Southampton, is now suing the MoD for over £1 million in damages, claiming far more should have been done to protect him from the cold while he performed his duties.

    The court heard that he attributes his diminished physical state to an overnight shift carried out in February 2017, during which he was exposed to “prolonged wet and cold conditions” while loading military supplies on to a ship.

    “As a result, he developed non-freezing cold injuries to his hands and feet,” Paul Kilcoyne, his barrister, wrote in court documents.

    Mr Kilcoyne said his client was especially vulnerable since he is a “black African with an ethnicity known to be more prone to the development of non-freezing cold injuries if exposed to cold, damp or freezing conditions”.

    The ex-soldier’s symptoms of pain and numbness are now mainly confined to the winter, but his barrister explained: “He has a requirement for extra warm clothing and a requirement for increased domestic heating both in winter and in summer”.

    His symptoms were made worse by a back injury which occurred while he was laying and removing tracks for an infantry beach training exercise, and he is now also dogged by “ongoing back pain”.

    His fragile state is said to have left him depressed and anxious, made worse by knowing that his Army career had ended.

    The ex-soldier’s lawyers claim his superiors failed to provide sufficient cold weather kit – particularly in the form of gloves and warm boots – but the MoD is denying fault.

    Andrew Ward, barrister for the MoD, pointed out that Mr Awumee would have received training on dealing with cold weather conditions, and was issued with Army kit designed to withstand extreme weather.

    The temperature on the night his hands and feet were numbed was above freezing and evidence suggested that conditions were not wet, said Mr Ward.

    Mr Awumee had in fact lost his Army career due to an ankle injury accidentally sustained in 2015, which left him unable to “run, jump hop or squat,” he claimed.

    The case reached court for a brief pre-trial hearing and will now return for trial at a later date.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/11/29/ex-soldier-sues-1m-claiming-cold-weather-duty-means-now-needs/

      2. I suppose us Essex natives could call it “Basildon Revisited”; though I’m not sure if anyone ever visits the town twice.

    2. To this day, I have never seen that. Watched the start of “When Boris Met Dave”, and it turns out that everyone at Oxford in the 80s was trying to copy the film of Brideshead Revisited. Explains a lot, I suppose.

      1. I like Waugh but I watched Brideshead mostly because it was shot at Castle Howard, near York. My father’s favourite destination for a Sunday afternoon walk when I was young. A beautiful estate.

  68. BBC 5 O’Clock news devoted to privileged posh woman mis-speaking to native of Hackney with hurty words. Must be £millions due in compensation.
    Royal family and staff deeply racist. More than 20 minutes of 30 min programme.

    1. How utterly ridiculous. There are important things happening in the world, but the BBC will never tell you that Ghana has required their gold miners to sell the government 20% of the gold output so that the government can use it to purchase oil from Russia, or that food inflation is now 21% in Germany.
      These are the things that affect our lives, not some woman getting offended and getting someone else sacked.

  69. The black woman and the royal lady-in-waiting was the leading story on R4s ‘PM’. She should ask some of my white, English-speaking contemporaries from my schooldays in the 60s and 70s where their families were from: Hungary, Poland, Yugoslavia, Malta, Cyprus and, of course, Italy. And this wasn’t London but a midland market town of about 30,000 people.

  70. Richard Curtis admits Love Actually’s ‘uncomfortable’ lack of diversity makes him feel ‘a bit stupid’ and ‘out of date. D Fail

    ‘A bit stupid’ – Don’t underestimate yourself, Richard – you are genuinely deeply moronic.

    1. He could always do some penance and make lots of TV ads where diversity is compulsory apparently..

  71. I have just got it in the neck by many people when I commented on the Lady Hussey article on F/B

    The guest was wearing African type clothes and an unusual hair style , plus she had an African name , why is she denying her African heritage . Lady Hussey was being conversational and polite , it is called small talk . The Palace is rather woke to deliver very unfair treatment to an elderly lady . Why is everyone so terrified of upsetting new arrivals ?

    2. She felt ‘violated’ – why didn’t she just tell Lady Susan she was born in Hackney of Nigerian parents? Why make such a song and dance about it?

      2. Were her parents Nigerian? Or is she Caribbean heritage who happens to have adopted an African name quite likely associated with those who enslaved her forebears and sold them into the Atlantic trade?

    3. Those who ‘have It it in the neck’ for you are hardly likely to be real friends. Drop ’em, if I were you, Maggie. You will be aware of my views and they support you.

    4. Those who ‘have It it in the neck’ for you are hardly likely to be real friends. Drop ’em, if I were you, Maggie. You will be aware of my views and they support you.

    5. As I said below Belle, I have personal experience of the entitled second-generation immigrants from the West Indies. I have found them rude and arrogant, and very much more racist than I am!

    6. Reminds me of the feigned offence taken by a group of Native Americans when checking into a hotel when the receptionist asks whether they have a reservation. (Film The Ice Road).

    2. Usual 4.

      Wordle 529 4/6

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

    2. Scrolling down from that is a clip of a VERY angry Japanese man. Not sure how to get the link on here but this is the text above the clip:
      Dr Masanori Fukushima, Professor Emeritus at Kyoto University, warns about vax harms to the 🇯🇵 Ministry of Health:
      “You are ignoring science! It’s a disaster. You spend billions on the vaccine & force people to inject it…due to the vax, natural immunity has been suppressed”
      https://twitter.com/hugh_mankind/status/1597663704044408832
      (I think I cracked how to link it)

        1. No but as I found it below that, I just added the clip in. Imagine if we had somebody willing to stick their head above the proverbial parapet like that.

  75. We are in good hands apparently:

    Joe Biden’s head of nuclear waste disposal has been charged with stealing a suitcase full of women’s clothing from an airport baggage carousel

    Sam Brinton, 35, became the most prominent gender-fluid person in the U.S. government in June, overseeing the storage of radioactive material from nuclear power plants.

    The appintment of the MIT graduate, who uses the pronouns “they” and “them”, was hailed at the time by diversity campaigners.

    On Monday night, it emerged that Brinton had been charged with the theft of a Vera Bradley suitcase which, including its contents, was worth $2,325.

    The charge of “theft of movable property” carries a maximum sentence of up to five years in jail and a potential fine of up to $10,000

      1. Did HE check the sizes in HIS haul though? HIS ‘tackle’ might not fit…….Sorry, couldn’t resist.

    2. That such a disturbed creep could be given such a vital role is most alarming. On second thoughts, perhaps not so surprising given the ‘confusion’ of the POTUS.
      I suppose HE will avoid jail in case he claims imposing a term would violate his rights.
      (Who is Vera Bradley?)

      1. No idea, but having typed it into Disqus, you’ll probably get advertisements for the brand now!

        1. Our suitcases are IT brand – cheap, durable (still going strong after several years) and easy to identify on the luggage carousel.

  76. Sorry but I don’t buy all this BS re Susan Hussey. She was the Queen’s lady in waiting for years, accompanied HM on many visits, here and abroad. She sees a female in African garb and asks where she’s from. Big deal. The woman in question could have worn simpler and more western garb and then maybe Lady Susan wouldn’t have assumed she was African.
    I think this woman did it deliberately as another go at the Royal Family. She is certainly getting her 15 minutes of fame- in the media.
    All this BS makes me sick. And I used to be a very tolerant person.

    3. Just caught up with what’s going on. Faux outrage on behalf of Ngozi whatseename, methinks. The power of these narcissists has gone to their heads. And they wonder why normal people are getting sick of this crap.

    4. Well I propose that England have a 5 minute kneeling session before their next game to make amends.

      1. This is why I did not become a nun- I can’t kneel for less than a minute without needing help to stand up 😉

        2. When, in the BCP, we are invited to make our humble cofession to Almighty God, meekly kneeling upon our knees, I always remind the Almighty that He knows that if I get down, I shan’t get up again!

    5. Yep. my thoughts as well. another uppity bint like Markle .

      Why are all these people clamouring around royalty when the likes of ou and I don’t get a look in .

      Woke Charles needs needs to wake up and stop giving these African imposters ideas above their station .

      I mean Prince Philip would have asked the silly nignog the same question , wouldn’t he .

    6. I find my level of tolerance is going down, as I get older. Particularly with the ‘woke’ brigade. Perhaps I should now be offended by all the times I have been asked where I come from, often confusing me with being either Aussie or Canadian!!

        2. In France, people who don’t know me think I’m either Dutch (first choice) or German. I suppose an English person speaking good French is a step too far 🙂

          1. He should be back home by now. He was being discharged this evening.
            With good old hindsight, we think his appendix had been quietly festering for several months.

        2. Of course I realise that there have to be terms etc but they seem to be applied with a ten-inch brush and for very little reason. That is when comments are allowed at all. And the auto-moderator, or whatever it is, is in US English so you can’t even say: Ho, ho, ho in Santa’s voice without being instantly disappeared. Enough already.
          :>)

          3. Have I got a ”private background”? I have only just signed-up so I am not used to this place yet. How do I get rid of my ”private background”? Whatever it is.
            Here is my real background – potted of course.
            Brought-up in Ireland after my mother said she was going to the shops one day in about 1953 and never came back. I haven’t seen her since (I am 74) so my Irish grandparents brought me up.
            Then at 16, there not being much in the way of work available, I went off and joined the RN where I served for 11 years. Then I got a job working in the Film Library at BBC Newcastle. After that I was invited to go and work for TTTV as an Assistant Film Editor. I worked on documentaries and the News for the next 12 years. Then I emigratd to Spain where I have been for 30 years. I have always vote for the Tories except for one occasion when I was hoodwinked by Tony Blair and voted for him. We haven’t had a proper Conservative PM since Margaret Thatcher (of blessed memory).
            Is that sufficient? I can let you have my inside-leg measurement if you are really interested.

          4. We all have varying opinions here- some think I am rather left wing; not really. We do not always agree with each other but the humour in the evenings is fun. There are many other ex service people here, including RN.
            Warning- do not get caught up in the fish puns… endemic here;-)

          8. No, Steve, I too have been quite itinerant and it may all be followed in iNot A Bad Life. my autobiography to 2014 when I was 70. Just 5 USD on Kindle. The following 8 years are chronicled in another book I’m writing and maybe published soon- it depends on how long it takes for the whisky to finish me off!!!

          9. Yes, but are you a Socialist? That is what matters.
            Now I am going to bed so if anyone messages me there will be no reply ’til morning – Socialists or not!
            :>)

          10. One thing I am definitely NOT is a socialist. If anything I have and retain the old-fashioned Conservative morals but, given the current Conservative (In Name Only) Morals I wouldn’t vote for them if yo stuck a lighted candle up my bum. They are degenerates, thinking in the short-term, how to retain their seats. Not many will be left at at the next GE – I shall vote ‘Reform’ if there is a candidate standing, otherwise it has to be NOTA (None Of The Above), all over the ballot paper!

      3. Welcome steve! We look upon a deletion on the DT as a badge of honour! My latest was yesterday!

        1. What annoys me – more than other things – is that there is a total scrote who comes back day after day, using different names and gets banned every day. He uses totallyy disgusting terms to refer to other commenters, gets deleted, and the following day back he comes!

      5. Me too! Ten minutes ago I could no longer Like or comment on the Letters. My comments weren’t removed, though. Does this often happen?

          2. I had a comment deleted back on the old DT letters page, where most of us here got to know each other. I referred to a character in EF Benson’s Mapp and Lucia books by the name she was called…..”Quaint Irene.” Deleted.
            Quaint is a more modern spelling of an old English word meaning something else, which I knew.
            The DT was nuts then and seems to be worse now.

          4. You would be surprised, or maybe not, at the olde English rude words I know….not to mention the newer ones;-)

          6. But you are right- amazing that some oik at the DT made a connection.
            I used to have a book of Shakespeare Insults- it was wonderful; but I lent it to someone and never got it back. Grrr.

          7. Fifty (?) years on, whenever I hear the word ‘prologue’ I can’t help reading it in the voice of Frankie Howerd in Up Pompeii
            😄😄

    10. If I were in an African country and someone asked where I was from, I’d be proud to tell them. Maybe that’s the difference.

      1. In CT there were a few casinos on reservations. The gal that did the Xmas shop with me was a devoted gambler but also a smoker. She and her husband could go to the Mohegan Sun Casino on a regular basis; not just for the gambling but cheap tobacco and ciggies. My ex and I were often invited to go but always declined. The Native Americans are getting their revenge for how they were treated by the Puritans and others.

          1. “Thanks for the 4 star hotels and free food, but now we want the whole country”

            Nottlers

          4. The road I lived on in CT was named after an Indian Scout. Everytime my mother wrote a letter, she spelled it differently.

        2. More power to their elbow: America preaches to the world about fundamental rights and civil liberties…..
          They seem to forget how much devastation they and not forgetting the Spanish/Portuguese did when arriving on that continent.

          1. And the reservations are tax free. There is another one which is run by the Golden Hill Paugussets. Also a casino and cheap tobacco but near the NY state line. The Mohegan is near Mass state line.

        3. I think I may identify as a red injun, Sorry , Native Yank.

          Let me trawl through the Family Tree…

  79. Parks become latest no-go areas for women in Kabul
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-63756621

    The UK sacrificed more than 450 military personnel for this.

    Grant Shapps denies Tory split over onshore wind farms
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63779169

    Johnson and Truss want to overturn the ban on land-based wind turbines. Simon Clarke, mentioned in the article, has tabled an amendment to the Levelling Up Bill [sic] and wrote a puff-piece in the DT last week, for which he was savaged BTL. Note how the BBC article writes of potential…

    Climate campaigner Jan Goodey jailed over M25 protest
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-63801999

    Good but a shame it wasn’t six years.

    1. From the first story about restrictions on women’s rights in Afghanistan:-
      “The current policies of the Taliban are the same as 20 years ago. We’re trying to tell them that’s not acceptable in the 21st Century,” says Laila Basim.

      No use telling the Taliban that we are in the 21st Century. They (and Islam) are firmly locked in the 7th Century.

      1. Afghanistan has its own barbaric culture.
        Why are we bothered?
        We (England) during the ‘Great Game’ never changed them.
        The Russians didn’t and America left with their tail between their legs.

        When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains, and the women come out to cut up what remains, jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains and go to your gawd like a soldier.

        Rudyard Kipling

        1. Aah, of course. They choose rape and stoning and being married to a fifty year old male at the age if thirteen.

  80. Parks become latest no-go areas for women in Kabul
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-63756621

    The UK sacrificed more than 450 military personnel for this.

    Grant Shapps denies Tory split over onshore wind farms
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63779169

    Johnson and Truss want to overturn the ban on land-based wind turbines. Simon Clarke, mentioned in the article, has tabled an amendment to the Levelling Up Bill [sic] and wrote a puff-piece in the DT last week, for which he was savaged BTL. Note how the BBC article writes of potential…

    Climate campaigner Jan Goodey jailed over M25 protest
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-63801999

    Good but a shame it wasn’t six years.

  82. : Advice for seniors

    The ability to speak several languages is an asset, but the ability to keep your mouth shut in any language is priceless.

    Be decisive. Right or wrong, make a decision. The road is paved with flat squirrels who couldn’t make a decision.

    Happiness is not having to set the alarm clock.

    When I get a headache I take two aspirin and keep away from children just like the bottle says.

    Just once, I want the prompt for username and password to say, “Close enough.”

    Becoming an adult is the dumbest thing I’ve ever done.

    If you see me talking to myself, just move along. I’m self-employed. We’re having a meeting.

    “Your call is very important to us. Please enjoy this 40-minute flute solo”.

    Does anyone else have a plastic bag full of plastic bags, or is it just me?

    I hate it when I can’t figure out how to operate the iPad and my tech support guy is asleep. He’s 5 and it’s past his bedtime.

    Today’s 3-year-olds can switch on laptops and open their favorite apps. When I was 3, I ate mud.

    So, you drive across town to a gym to walk on a treadmill?

    Why do I have to press one for English when you’re just going to transfer me to someone I can’t understand anyway?

    Now, I’m wondering . . . did I send this to you, did you send it to me or have I only seen one copy?

    The Commandments for Seniors……

    You don’t need anger management. You need people to stop pissing you off.

    Your people skills are just fine. It’s your tolerance for idiots that needs work.

    “On time” is, when you get there.

    Even duct tape can’t fix stupid – but it sure does muffle the sound.

    It would be wonderful if we could put ourselves in the dryer for ten minutes, then come out wrinkle-free…and three sizes smaller.

    Lately, you’ve noticed people your age are so much older than you.

        2. Aye, the worm was kept for Christmas.
          But you try and tell the young people today that, and they won’t believe you.

    4. I can speak Plat Deutsche, get by in French, Swedish and Spanish but I still love and think English is the best language.

  83. I’m going to have to retire from the current bunfight and go to bed – hopefully to sleep

    God bless, Gentlefolk. until the morning’s light.

    3. There’s a bunfight? Hurrah! Now, the important thing is to discuss the best type of bun to throw. Brioche or sourdough?

    1. Reminds me of a warning in the local rag in CT- if you see a bear (Black Bears) stay away. The bears had been munching on the fermenting cider apples and were all pissed out of their heads. Staggering round the woods and finally falling down, passed out.
      Next morning would have been a good day to avoid them too….ever heard the expression ” a bear with a sore head?”

    2. Prof Pagel – you are welcome to live how you want to. I, equally, am entitled to laugh at you.

  88. Son has been informed by the company who are sending him the new pair of motorcycle boots he ordered , that Royal Mail are on strike, cannot be relied on so therefore they are going to use DPD instead .

    Royal Mail have now lost more business.

    1. … and we all use e-mail rather than write letters, as was.

      Bloody fools, they don’t realise that they are ‘striking’ themselves out of a job.

    3. I use DPD occasionally. Had an email tonight saying there were overwhelmed with business and so stopping deliveries to UK internet customers. They have only lost 2 of my despatched parcels in the last year…

    4. Our postman apologised profusely for the postal strikes. A strike means that he has to pick up the undelivered mail and work long hours to get back on track.

      Postal strikes cause many of the same problems as rail strikes. Trains remain out of position and it is extremely difficult to put things back in order and sequence after the strike is called off. There is of course great inconvenience to the general public but there is also great inconvenience to the rail workers.

      Union leaders of all persuasions need to look in the mirror. They are always fat overpaid bullies, most with the inevitable Scottish accent and none worth the vast fortunes they extract from their members’ subscriptions.

      They are in so many ways the mirror reflection of the grotesque members of Parliament they seek to confront on every possible occasion. Meanwhile the rest of us who pay their inflated salaries are left to watch as these fools wreck their industry and thrust yet another dagger into the hearts of the British people.

  89. Another day tomorrow….a cleaner coming to deal with black mould in the wet room. And yes, if we were young and fit, we could sort it, but we aren’t. MH is already abed and not doing well. My bloody face is hurting like hell.
    We had bought implements and stuff to clean the wet room but are not fit enough. So another early start.
    Thank you for the fun and humour tonight.
    Oh, to be young again.

    2. We’ve had our time, Ann. I feel sad that the youngsters know no better than present circumstances.

  90. Evening, all. I suppose no one would think to ask why we need to wean ourself off gas in the first place?

    1. It’s because carbon based lifeforms, like ourselves, need to make way for the carbon free future generations of gawd knows what.

      1. BS, Mola, CO2 is no threat, In fact it is the life-giver to all plant life, upon which we all depend.

    2. Exactly my first thought! I was also thinking about collective responsibility. There surely must be a big group of Con MPs who understand the effects of this crazy net zero policy so why don’t they do something about it? If they don’t then heaven help us all.

    4. In 12 days, China with its’ 247 coal-fired Power Stations, produces as much CO2, as we do in a year

      UK is !% of the the wordls total, until the doors of Westminster Open!

  91. Early bedtime for Bonzo tonight.
    My plan is to try going for a swim before work tomorrow morning so I’ve set the alarm, sorry Bear, opportunity clock for 0545h.
    Being 99.9% night owl and 0.1% lark, I’m not putting any money on myself for actually getting up but it’ll be a waste of £5.20 as I’ve booked the lane.

    Nytol, here’s hoping I can crawl out of bed to go and do another crawl in ‘t pool.

    1. Hi Stormy I had a stinking cold recently and had a dose of Night nurse one night when going to bed. It knocked me out for a good couple of days never mind just the night! Never again. Felt so dozy it was ridiculous.
      Edit: Night nurse .

      1. Night Nurse, Benylin night version – I keep some in for when I have had a run of bad sleep, a small swig (usually half the dose) works a treat.

    2. Yo Stormy

      Get up when you feel like it, wear tinted goggles and it can be whatever time you want it to be

    3. Yo Stormy

      Get up when you feel like it, wear tinted goggles and it can be whatever time you want it to be

    6. I misread that as “My plan is to try and swim to work tomorrow morning”
      Hope you managed it!
      We are having a lot of early mornings at the moment, as two of my children are at home and doing jobs with shift work.

  92. Early bedtime for Bonzo tonight.
    My plan is to try going for a swim before work tomorrow morning so I’ve set the alarm, sorry Bear, opportunity clock for 0545h.
    Being 99.9% night owl and 0.1% lark, I’m not putting any money on myself for actually getting up but it’ll be a waste of £5.20 as I’ve booked the lane.

    Nytol, here’s hoping I can crawl out of bed to go and do another crawl in ‘t pool.

  93. Today I’ve been sneezing a bit, so have started taking a couple of Lemsip capsules at 4 hour intervals. I shall now climb the stairs to Bedforshire. Sleep well fellow NoTTLers, and don’t forget to shout “White Rabbits” and “A Pinch And A Punch” when you awaken.

    1. Goodnight to you. Hope you sleep well and wake up feeling healthier.
      I usually beat MH on the ‘pinch and a punch’ game 🙂

  94. That’s it, a final goodnight and God bless, Gentlefolk. The quiz cometh in the morning, whenever.

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