Wednesday 30 September: The Government is in thrall to risk-averse public-health doctors

Posted on by Geoff Graham

An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its comments facility (now reinstated, but not as good as ours),
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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/09/29/lettersthe-government-thrall-risk-averse-public-health-doctors/

851 thoughts on “Wednesday 30 September: The Government is in thrall to risk-averse public-health doctors”

    1. They must be so disappointed, having been deprived of some top level, five starTrump-bashing…

      ‘Morning, B3.

    2. The report on BBC Radio 4 News this morning was heavily in support of Biden and condemned DT’s brutish attitude towards JB. It was their opinion that DT had done himself a lot of harm. The “noise” I heard was similar to Martha Carney and Nick Robinson interviewing a hapless Tory minister.

        1. Morning Hugh – I force myself to listen to BBC Radio 4 News and am aware of the BBC’s blatantly biased reporting and take the “news” with a pinch of salt.

  3. I think Trump was certainly on to something about people being taught to hate their country, the same thing has been happening here for decades, that is why we appear to be self harming so much, just look at the National Trust, the BBC, the Church, our Universities, the politicised police and judiciary, population change all working against our country using communist subversion strategies.

    1. Globalism is a malign ideology, totalitarian in effect and execution. The aim is a world without nations and one central administrative government regulating every aspect of public and private life. It is about the dismantling of everything we know to be true and real and replacing it with lies and delusions.

      The globalist world is created and run by certain billionaires who frequently use bribery and blackmail to achieve their aims. Those who refuse to participate are deceived, re-educated, intimidated or silenced if they continue to resist. Such issues as national security, love of country and patriotism are dismissed as quaint old-fashioned notions which no longer apply..

      Globalism has at it’s heart an evil & narcissistic desire for power and control, it is about the destruction of the individual and the submission of populations for profit to the powerful and wealthy.

      Needless to say, the EU and UN are central to the globalism dream because the influencing of global policy through supra national organizations has multi billion dollar profit opportunities, resulting in a vast transfer of wealth to the controlling billionaire elite.

  4. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Three good letters…pity that no one in government is listening, or wants to:

    SIR – The vast majority of students who graduate from medical school pursue careers that use the tenets of clinical medicine. A correct diagnosis is typically dependent on a clinical examination using all of the doctor’s senses. In other words, clinical 
doctors are wholly immersed in a life of risk.

    A tiny minority of medical graduates pursue a career in public-health medicine. That these scientists are intelligent is without doubt, but they inhabit a world of epidemiology and theoretical modelling, which keeps risk at a distance. No wonder, then, that when the Cabinet seeks their advice about minimising death, the message is to lock down and shield until the problem goes away.

    As a general surgeon, I have not encountered a single Covid-positive patient for more than four months. In this same time, my clinical activity is running at 20 per cent of what it normally would be and the expected numbers of referrals for patients with cancer has fallen dramatically. Yet I am now working in a region that has gone back into lockdown.

    The Government is following the advice of a population of doctors who are risk-averse. It is possible to protect both the economy and the vulnerable, and to resume treating more lethal diseases. However, this requires the Government to seek and follow advice beyond the world of public-health medicine. It should listen to the Royal College of Surgeons and to oncologists.

    David Scott-Coombes FRCS
    Llysworney, Glamorgan

    SIR – It is clear that the Government has no concept of science, nor how to deal with scientists, or it would not be in the state it is in now. Nor would it have allowed the chief medical officer and the chief scientific adviser to appear on television by themselves last Monday and deliberately engender fear in the audience.

    The Government must understand that the scientific method is to progress by repeated experimentation. That is fine for science, but should not be used on the general public as a basis of policy, otherwise that public will have to endure continual reverses as one ploy after another is tried out in a futile attempt to “follow the science”.

    This is not sustainable. A major factor in sustainability is consistency. Note that the Swedes recently emphasised that sustainability is crucial in meeting the challenge of this pandemic, otherwise the public, or a section of it, will behave like headless chickens, which is exactly what is happening now.

    Epidemiology is like economics, which is not a science since it relies on human behaviour – unlike physics, for example. Its prognostics are therefore matters of opinion, not fact.

    William Beckett
    Wantage, Oxfordshire

    SIR – How is it that I saw both my dentist and hygienist in July and yet two months later I still cannot make an appointment to see a GP face to face?

    Bruce Chalmers
    Goring-by-Sea, West Sussex

    William Beckett, I can’t have been the only one wondering how on earth two public servants came to be fronting a televised briefing. Surely advisors are there to advise, and preferably in the background. Also, I have never understood why members of SAGE seem to have free reign to discuss matters directly with the press. In my view their disagreements (and, for some of them, their grandstanding) should not be in the public domain. That’s what politicians are for.

  5. On the news this morning – Britain still needs immigrants to do the jobs Brits are untrained for, then it went on to say that people can earn more stacking shelves per hour than being a care home worker, so really they just want more cheap labour even with millions unemployed.

    2. It was Norman Tebbit, when part of the Thatcher Government, who once argued that 4 million unemployed was a reasonable number to bring down labour costs. Bringing in cheap labour from abroad by opening up the Warsaw Pact was the means to achieve this. The native plebs could just get on their bikes and look for work.

      2. Did you stub your toe when getting out of bed this morning? You are having a grump.

        I’d be most interested to see a reference to the Tebbit quote.

    3. Is not astonishing that the more comfortably one can live on handouts the less incentive there is to find a job.

  6. On the news this morning – Britain still needs immigrants to do the jobs Brits are untrained for, then it went on to say that people can earn more stacking shelves per hour than being a care home worker, so really they just want more cheap labour even with millions unemployed.

  7. ‘Morning again.

    I say – let the NT ‘fail’, at which point the board and all the senior hangers-on can be given their marching orders. Following such a purge, it would seem unlikely that such a brutal, but fully justified, action would ever be needed again. That should put a stop to another Felbrigg Fiasco and other similar nonsense:

    SIR – I can understand why many National Trust members (Letters, September 29) feel ignored now that a London-based clique has taken over, and say that they intend to cancel their subscriptions, but I suggest that it would be better if they fought back to save this great organisation.

    Members should question the Trust’s plans for change at the next annual general meeting, which is online, and table motions at future meetings. The Trust has local support groups that could gather members’ opinions and pass them to the governing council.

    Perhaps sympathisers could threaten legal action to prevent the closure of buildings. The acquisition of art under the in-lieu scheme, and grants of public money for repairs, carry an obligation of public access that the Trust cannot ignore.

    John Davies
    Manchester

    1. I left years ago as I could see what was happening. Do not subscribe to this failed organisation.

    1. Steady rain here and likely to remain so for the rest of the day, so a day off from digging in the garden.

  9. SIR – I was interested in Roy Bailey’s letter (September 28) regarding renaming Downing Street and am able to add a little to its history.

    My ancestor on my mother’s side, Count Hans Caspar von Bothmer, was appointed Hanoverian ambassador to London in about 1701. He befriended Queen Anne and became her adviser, allegedly burning many of her letters to protect her from enemies.

    In my family, it is believed that he exerted some influence to place George I on the throne after the Queen’s death – whether or not this is apocryphal, I cannot say. He was apparently a popular figure.

    Von Bothmer remained in London until his death in 1732, having spent the final 12 years of his life living in 10 Downing Street. I understand that this was not a single residence at the time but contained a number of “units”, of which he had one.

    Sybil Hampton
    Alresford, Hampshire

    And if Von Bothmer’s elevated position was as a result of the slave trade, no doubt the bulldozers are being started up in Whitehall and are rumbling their way up to Downing Street. The present occupant may wish to pack a bag or two…

      2. The worst thing about them is that, once I have taken the knee, my arms aren’t long enough to reach up and post my letters.

        1. If I go down on one knee there will be a loud crack, my back will go out – and I will be in agony.

    2. One brothel keeper and one not at all amusing self-declared comedian. I don’t know about the others. In any event I am firmly of the opinion that post boxes should be pillar box red. No repainting for any reason whatsoever. (And don’t start me on phone boxes.)

        1. ‘Morning, Walter, because the phone system in Kingston-upon-Hull belongs to the Town/City and not BT.

        2. Yes, I’ve been there. They are traditionally that colour since the independent Hull telephone company was started in 1902 by the Council. Now Kingston Communications part-owned by Hull council.
          As for UK phone boxes, far more convenient than lugging a mobile around everywhere, as well as being cheaper.

    3. They will make excellent places to put all the dog shyte that is deposited on the streets of those cities.

    6. I wonder what the reaction would be if “All Lives Matter” activists (if there are any) went and demolished any one of these post boxes. That would be an interesting experiment. See how they like their symbols trashed?

    1. No chance of them giving millions of migratory small birds a chance to fly across the Med without being trapped or blasted out of the skies?

  12. Too little, too late; the BBC’s self-inflicted damage is in my view terminal.

    From the Tellygraff:

    BBC stars face the sack or their Twitter accounts taken away if they air party political views

    Tim Davie said guidelines to be published in the coming weeks will make clear that staff must appear strictly impartial

    By
    Anita Singh
    29 September 2020 • 12:04pm

    BBC stars face the sack or having their Twitter accounts taken away if they air party political views, the new director-general has said.

    Tim Davie said guidelines to be published in the coming weeks will make clear that staff must appear strictly impartial – even if, like Gary Lineker, they do not work in news or current affairs.

    “I’m prepared to take the appropriate disciplinary action all the way to termination,” Mr Davie told a committee of MPs.

    “We are going to be publishing clearly social media guidelines and they will cover both news and current affairs and beyond. Within those guidelines the enforcement policies will be very clear.

    “We will be able to take disciplinary action. We will be able to take people off Twitter. If they want to work for the BBC [we] would suspend their Twitter account, absolutely.

    Appearing before the DCMS select committee, Mr Davie said he was unafraid to take a tough approach. “I am now the director-general so I’m running the show and, in my view, party political statements are not the right thing for people to be making as part of an impartial news organisation.”

    He said there would be “a range of enforcement” for rule-breakers: “Sometimes someone just needs a talking-to. Other times there are serious matters, or there’s a real problem.”

    Some have argued that Lineker and other stars would be exempt from the rules because they are freelancers on contracts, rather than full-time BBC employees.

    But Mr Davie said the rules apply to everyone who is “a face of the BBC”. He said: “The audience is less bothered by contractual status.”

    Leading BTL:

    Brian Baker
    29 Sep 2020 4:16PM

    “The BBC can do what it likes as long as we’re not forced to pay for it. Trust has gone. It’s now a propaganda mouthpiece for the globalist Establishment.

    Abolish the licence fee. That’s a must.”

    With you there, Brian Baker.

  13. SIR – The latest guidance on tea explains why I have never enjoyed the 82-odd thousand cups I must have drunk during my life.

    Owen Hay

    Colchester, Essex

    1. SIR – On the question of whether tea should be made with boiling water (Leading Article, September 28), I cannot remain silent.

      I spent my working life in the tea trade and visited most of the 40-plus tea-producing countries – particularly India, Sri Lanka and Kenya. In all the tasting rooms, it was the practice to pour freshly boiled water on to the leaves or tea bags. While the tea drinker is the final arbiter of how they prefer their tea, they will gain the best results by doing this. George Orwell was right.

      Richard Mumford

      Pembrey, Carmarthenshire

      SIR – We were intrigued by the advice from Twinings to use 80C water, rather than the typical 100C.

      I thought it best to test this before changing our procedure, which has always involved using water that is on the boil, straight from the kettle.

      My trial used Tesco Finest breakfast tea bags. I poured 300ml of boiling water on to a tea bag in one mug and another 300ml into an identical mug, which was left to cool.

      After two minutes the water in the second mug was at 80C (checked using a dial thermometer) and the second tea bag was added. Infusion for both mugs was four minutes. The tea bags were then removed and 25ml of skimmed milk added.

      In a blind trial, my wife declared that the 80C tea tasted better, though the difference was subtle. We will therefore be changing our procedure. This is evidence-based tea making.

      Dr Tony McAllister

      Hertford

        1. One of the pleasures of a cuppa is that it is a HOT drink. The Dr’s 2nd cuppa would be too cold for me by the time it arrived.

        1. Case reopened.

          That is a personal preference and not the only way. I happen to prefer tea-to-milk, as do many in the tea trade.

          Water boiling at 100ºC is a must though.

          1. Tea in France is to be avoided unless done at home.

            ‘Present customer with a cup of tepid water. In the saucer place a nondescript teabag on a bit of string, a container of UHT milk and a cube of sugar’.

          4. I spent a month in Montpellier once. I was thirsting for a decent cup of tea. I tried all sorts of different bottled water and also tap. Not a hope.

            The tap water tea had a floating scum. Not surprising really as Montpellier is in the middle of a miasmic swamp.

          5. Our water comes through a softener, then a filter system and it’s not too bad. We make decent tea with it.

          7. Similar in Yankland.

            I was sitting having breakfast in a Los Angeles hotel when a holidaying old Welsh couple, sitting nearby, were staring at their lukewarm cup of “tea” (with teabag string dangling) in despair. They told me it was their first ever trip abroad but were not happy about the “foreign food”.

            I told them that whenever I go abroad I immerse myself in the local culture. I drink tea at home but never when I’m away. Yanks drink coffee, so do I when I’m there.

          9. My Anglophile French friend is a rarity in my experience; she actually has a kettle. Most French families I’ve stayed with heat water in a saucepan.

      4. SIR — If Dr Tony McAllister thinks that proper tea is made by using a teabag in a mug then I suggest he is missing out on the joys of tea prepared properly.The centuries’ old rigmarole of freshly-drawn water, brought to a rolling boil, a warmed teapot taken to the kettle, good quality loose tea leaves (one for each person and ‘one for the pot’),a five minutes mashing time and poured into a china cup through a tea-strainer has never been improved upon and is utterly delicious.

        I once bought a cup of tea in a café near the top of a mountain in Scotland, at 3,500 feet above sea level where water boils at 96ºC. It was undrinkable.

        A Grizzly B

        1. For future reference… remember to drink your tea before you climb the mountain, or after you have descended. 😉

          As with many things it is a matter of what one is used to… those who live where water boils at 96ºC (or even cooler) are accustomed to the taste.

          I grew up with a water supply which, in addition to being very soft, came from a spring and was quite unadulterated by any of the chemicals found in “mains” water. I’ve never succeeded in growing acclimatised to tea with chlorine… I just don’t drink tea anymore. Even using a water filter doesn’t give you “clean” water. It’s not that the water is in anyway unfit to drink, it’s just that I can taste the difference… even more so in tea than when simply drinking a glass of water. Coffee is much less susceptible to changes in the water quality – why that should be I do not know.

          1. I grew up in a soft water area. Curiously it was an oasis surrounded by a general hard water area. That way my tea was never infected by nastiness.

            Since I moved from there I have lived in a succession of hard water areas, some much worse than others. Norfolk was particularly bad, sometimes the water was green as it emerged from the tap and without a filter jug was simply undrinkable. You invariably got a film of scum or ‘oil’ on your tea or coffee.

            Here in Skåne the water is fairly hard but is drinkable straight from the tap. Beverages are not affected.

          2. I use a filter, the water here is hard though it is soft in most of Wales, I’m not sure exactly where ours comes from as Severn Trent have so many sources over a very wide area. If nothing else the filter prevents the limescale from wrecking the kettles so quickly.

            A few of my clients have private water supplies and I enjoy the cups of tea I’m given at those farms, but in general I’d rather stick with coffee – I always preferred it anyway.

            I do miss the soft water for laundry (esp. woollies) – but that’s life.

          3. I have fond memories of drinking exceptionally soft water up in the Highlands of Scotland. It almost tasted sweet, like a good wine. Ah, such memories.

          4. Aberdeenshire doesn’t count as “Highlands” but our water is equally soft and sweet when unadulterated. Probably the reason why I never really adapted to the “lower class” stuff further south 😉

            I still go back, and one friend up there has a private supply, I enjoy a cup of tea in their house!

          5. Did you suffer as I did, Jen? Visiting from hard-water Kent (chalk aquifers), I was always berated for using too much washing-up liquid in soft-water Devon.

          6. I generally smother the kitchen sink in soapsuds the first time I wash up on a visit “home”. My mother just laughs nowadays, but it did take her a while to understand at first… then she came to stay with me and discovered that her idea of “enough” washing-up liquid barely produced a couple of bubbles on top of the water 😉

  15. 324122+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,
    ” The government should not go to war against it’s own people” (yesterdays
    letter theme) on ANY issue, not just this virus otherwise surely it could come under the heading of treason.

    The likes of b liar running his finger around betwixt collar & neck
    would / should be more in evidence.

    It is plain seeable FACT that the peoples had a hand in putting the hydra
    type governance in power time & time again not only were we being overseen by brussels but domestically, by a group of very contented political eu rubber stampers. ( still very much in evidence).

    Courtesy of this political governance coalition and via uni, schools, nursery’s they are teaching “risk aversion in extreme” with no tolerance
    included.

    The sad dangerous thing is, the only opposition is questionable in the face of the party before Country voting pattern.

  16. For reasons which are well known, I didn’t see the US debate. But from what I read in The Grimes, they two seem to have come across as what they are – silly, petulant old men – neither of whom should be anywhere near the seat of power.

  17. ‘A media luvvie meltdown’ has brightened my day and put a spring in my step! From Spiked:

    The news that right-wingers Paul Dacre and Charles Moore could become chairmen of Ofcom and the BBC has produced a predictably furious response.

    Alastair Campbell, famous crusader for truth and honesty in politics, has decried Dacre’s rumoured appointment as BBC chairman by accusing the ‘dreadful man’ of ‘poisoning public debate’. Diehard Remoaner Femi Oluwole seems to think the Tories want the pair to censor left-wing opinions, referring to the situation as ‘some straight-up Goebbels sh**’.

    Former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger was furious. Rusbridger may have recently been awarded plum jobs as principal of an Oxford college and on a free-speech ‘oversight board’ at Facebook (despite his opposition to press freedom), but for him, Dacre’s and Moore’s potential appointments are signs that British politics had suddenly become an ‘oligarchy’. Guardian journalist George Monbiot used the same term, referring to the two men as servants of ‘oligarchs’.

    Times Radio presenter and writer Stig Abell compared the possible appointments to ‘Trump filling the Supreme Court with conservative judges’ – as if holding a non-executive role at the BBC or Ofcom is equivalent to being among the highest legal authorities in the land. Even the makers of Have I Got News for You, the BBC’s long-running flagship politics panel show, felt the need to tweet, ‘if Paul Dacre and Charles Moore take those jobs we’re unlikely to see another five [years], and nor is the BBC’.

    This objection may remind some readers of an old Harry and Paul sketch parodying the BBC’s political panel shows. In the sketch, the line, ‘Oh my god, the Daily Mail!’ is repeated ad nauseam by panelists as a response to everything, satirising the obsessive hatred of tabloid journalism that passes for humour on these kinds of shows.

    Part of the reason so many both on the left and in the liberal establishment hold such intense hatred for the tabloid press and for right-wing broadsheets is that they believe them to be incredibly dangerous. A large portion of this fear rests on their low view of the general public. The narrative such people use to explain their own repeated electoral defeats blames dull-headed Brits who are easily fooled by rampant misinformation and fake news – and supposedly extreme-right commentators whose views they lap up. We saw this theme played out on a grand scale in the wake of the Brexit vote, when Leavers were branded brainwashed idiots swayed by whatever ‘far right’ rubbish they happened to find in the paper or on TV.

    This belief that the public are mostly stupid is motivating a significant chunk of the hysterical reaction to the proposed appointments. The fear is that Moore and Dacre will use their new positions to spread malicious lies to the Average Joe, who apparently cannot tell truth from fiction.

    The woke set’s outrage at their political opponents getting important jobs is not exclusive to the media. Earlier this year, one of Boris Johnson’s senior advisers (and former spiked contributor), Munira Mirza, was given the job of establishing the government’s race-equality commission. This was met with rage from the Twittermob, whose members were outraged to discover from a quick Google search that Mirza did not agree with them. No need for any actual evidence that she was not up to the job – her opinions were enough to make her an inappropriate choice.

    The fact they put opinions above all else means the outraged can ignore the vast experience Dacre and Moore would bring to their roles. Both have extensive knowledge of the media from their time in charge of major national newspapers, and Dacre has even held a senior position at the Press Complaints Commission – surely good preparation for work at Ofcom. Not only that, but transitioning from print to broadcast journalism is fairly common (think of Mark Thomspon’s journey from the BBC to the New York Times, Ian Katz going from the Guardian to the BBC and Channel 4, and Amol Rajan leaving the Independent to become the BBC’s media editor). As newspapermen, Dacre and Moore, then, are hardly outlier choices. But in the culture wars, suitability for a job is not about experience or ability – it’s about having the correct views.

    Many on today’s mainstream left seem to believe that public institutions – especially cultural ones – are exclusively theirs, and that they have the right to prevent others from exerting any influence over them. But what makes it possible for them to take the intolerant positions they do and still feel they hold the moral high ground is that they have confused their own opinions with neutrality. The BBC, in particular, is losing its sense of what counts as political bias and what does not, and so it is constantly finding itself in culture-war hot water.

    It is perfectly reasonable to think there are better candidates out there for these two jobs – or to object to government by ‘chumocracy’. There is also an argument to be made that less outspokenly political options might be more suitable. But the appointment of people with clear political leanings to such positions is hardly novel. After all, James Purnell, a former Labour minister, is the current director of radio and education at the BBC. The problem for many of the outraged left is less that Dacre and Moore are political, and more that they have the wrong politics. The mob would not be baying were Dacre and Moore themselves on the left.

    The hysterical cries of cultural elites who ironically fear they will be cancelled by Dacre and Moore perhaps reflects a dawning realisation that they cannot, after all, cling on to power forever in the face of growing popular opposition. In Moore’s case, the woke blob fears the withdrawal of government support for the BBC because it knows the institution cannot survive on its own merit. As I have argued previously on spiked, it is clear the BBC needs to change if it is to remain viable in the long-term. Regardless, Moore will not be making TV, and nor – despite the fever dreams of some commentators – will Dacre be instigating a fascist takeover of press regulation.

    What should concern woke identitarians is that there is a growing movement which rejects the widespread institutional absorption of their views. That, at least, is to be welcomed.

    1. I have a book by Stig Abell, called “how Britain really works”. Only if you’re an obsessed, anti-Brexit lefty, though. It bears little resemblance to how my part of Britain works.

  18. I wrote to Sir Graham Brady last night (although he is not my MP). I said that if he and his like minded colleagues don’t take immediate steps to remove Johnson, there is a risk that no one will ever vote Conservative again.

    I await his reply with interest.

        1. As he’s not your MP, protocol suggests that you will not get a response from him. He may refer it to your MP and I know what you think of him!

      1. 324122+ up ticks,
        Morning AS,
        Really what did peoples expect with many’s mantra being ” make
        boris PM he makes us laugh”

        We have & have had for decades a politico’s delight, a close shop
        three party coalition with NO credible opposition, what could possibly go right.

        Amazing how peoples still follow the party name when the political contents are the complete reverse of what once was, as in democracy, diplomacy, political decency.

    2. 324122+ up ticks,
      O2O,
      What you mean then Og is we as a people do NOT know what has already been signed up to & this a continuation of the may / johnson farce.

      Be aware as an omen the “mousetrap” is being revived.

    3. Jeremy Warner in the DT today seems to think that Traita May was not as bad as Bonking Buffoon Boris Johnson.

      Of course they strike me as being ‘bad’ in very different ways: Traita May tried to appear incompetent but it was a mask to hide her sheer determined evil; on the other hand the Bumbling Bonker is WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) and his incompetence reveals just his incompetence – it doesn’t hide anything.

      So the question is: which is worse: Sheer evil or total incompetence?

      1. 324122+ up ticks,
        Morning R,
        As I have tried to point out in prior post you DO NOT get to their level of power without a through grounding in treachery.
        The may leadership farce pointed out the strength of collusion regarding the treachery merchants.

        By the by the “mousetrap” is having a re-run, maybe an omen.

        1. And Bond’s Spectre? film has been shown several times recently – showing NWO and Global Control.

  21. There was a helpful analysis of the “figures” (indicating how misleading and badly reported they are) on BBC Radio 4 “More or Less – which started at 9 am today. The first five minutes are well worth listening to on catch up. The MR persuaded me and I am glad I did.

    1. Good morning, Bill.

      Unless I have misread the latest [? ] ‘guidance’
      the figures are now given as a rolling- weekly
      figure.
      This figure, of course, looks far worse than it is
      because some people assume it is a daily figure.

        1. The thrust of the short piece on R4 was simple. In March when there were 6,000 “cases” – they were testing about 20,000 people. Now there are 9,000 “cases” but there are half a million “tests”. So, in fact, the rate is FALLING….

          But you won’t read that in the paper; nor will Halfcock tell you – and especially not Witless and Unbalanced.

          Quite surprising that the beeboids put it out.

          1. But they couldn’t possibly have produced a Covid19 specific test in that time and, even now, according to our 2 doctor friends the RT-PCR test is only up to 60% Covid19 specific. Then factor in the false positives and you are left with … very few patients. The numbers game is disgusting lies.

          2. Another thing they won’t tell you is how many of the “cases” are false positives. The view is around 1% to 4% give the wrong answer.

            Let’s say 2% for the sake of example and 300,000 tests. So of the 9,000 cases, 180 would be negative. Not really a big difference. But of the nearly 300,000 people tested who do not have the plague, 2% – ie, 6,000 – will show up as positive. As a result our supposed 9,000 cases is actiually 2,820.

          4. Thanks Richard. The NHS England stats that he puts up are only for hospitals, and only for England. A lot of deaths are in care homes, which would increase the proportion of the most elderly even more. He also goes into the farce of how deaths were originally counted for anyone who had ever tested positive, but that was sorted out and the figures corrected several weeks before Weston’s video was recorded. His sentiments are right though.

          5. Life expectancy of men in UK = 79
            Average age of death of men with Covid = 81

            Ergo: get Covid and live longer!

      1. Our red post boxes are iconic historic creations .

        I wonder whether our white fingerposts will be under threat as well, it appears that anything British is being debased and ridiculed.

          2. Anything British is clearly being debased and ridiculed, as you say. Whatever we as a nation have done in the past is now to be demolished, criticised, wiped from history etc. If we are so bad and wrong, why is half the world so desperate to come and live in what we have created? All claiming they want “a better life”, but in reality they just want their lifestyle – in a better country – paid for by us. House, healthcare, schooling, money, How many of the immigrants change to our lifestyle after arriving? They want our country and its infrastructure, already built, worked and paid for. They just arrive and benefit, but demand we change to their ways or accept their cultural norms no matter how repulsed we are by them.

        2. Yet the Canadians got into all sorts of trouble when they painted their Prime Minister black.

          2. One of ours was for Peter Reed the rower – or maybe both were. Must have a look next time I’m passing. They are side by side.

          1. “I say, I say, I say; do you know the difference between a burka and a letter box?”
            “No, what is the difference between a burka and a letter box”?
            “Well, I’m never going to give you a letter to post.”

          5. Durin a lesson in 4th form (1963) one boy nodded off, the teacher, from Leicester threw the duster at him, just when it was about to hit he woke up raised a hand and made a perfect catch! The whole class roared with laughter and the teacher joined in.

    3. 324122+ up ticks,
      Morning TB,
      Surely that imperils stationary burka wearers, and will be frowned upon or seen ( momentary ) as one in the eye
      by the submissive pcism & appeasement following.

        1. On tv programs I’ve noticed several in light blue ones, which always seem to have the full face covering, with eyes behind a criss/cross pattern. I assume the colour means something and not just a “fashion choice” but I’m probably wrong.

    6. Will thre be any painted differently to honour those who lost their lives fighting Nazism?
      Thought not.

      1. Their names are on war memorials in even the smallest villages Paul.

        One could also argue that since Post Office red is very close to the colour found in both the flag of St George and the Union flag all the other post boxes commemorate them too.

        Perhaps all the boxes in Scotland (except for the black one and the gold ones, of course) should be painted blue for St Andrew… 😉

        1. Post boxes are red so that they stand out & easy to find. German post boxes are yellow, another primary colour, for the same reason.

          1. Yes, I know. And the final line of my comment was intended to be tongue-in-cheek. Although, of course, red is also one of the colours which is most likely to be confused by the colour-blind.

            I’ve seen a couple of the gold ones and I have to say that they are very easy to spot in a city street.

          2. I have never seen one but I imagine they stick out like sore thumbs.

            Interestingly, in the German city of Speyer (one of my favourites), the telephones boxes are made as inconspicuous as possible, largely transparent, so as not to impose on the impression that the main street is a continuation of the cathedral’s aisle, when viewed from inside & the doors are wide open.

          3. Not sore thumbs. They are rather attractive. The one in Aberdeen (for a para athlete) is, appropriately, in Golden Square and looks rather nice against the granite buildings there.

            Modern UK phone boxes were largely transparent – but they’ve mostly disappeared completely.

    8. If my hound wasn’t a bitch I would encourage it to anoint the bloody things every time we passed.

    9. If my hound wasn’t a bitch I would encourage it to anoint the bloody things every time we passed.

  24. Good morning my friends

    I see that Helen Reddy has died at the age of 78. She came to fame with her song: I am Woman.

    Is this still an acceptable title for a song or is it cruelly exclusive?

      1. I agree with many of the feminist arguments – but not all of them. I certainly prefer women to be what I would call real women but wokes would call something else.

        1. But, if one hasn’t been designated by the authorities as being one beforehand, presumably it doesn’t matter.

  25. Good Moaning.
    Last night, MB was watching a programme on Scottish railways.
    Among other attractions, it showed the annual games at Blair Castle.
    As we watched people thoroughly enjoying a simple day out and thought about the pride and effort that had gone into making the day so enjoyable, we couldn’t help comparing it with this bleak, joyless year that has resulted from media hysteria, governmental stupidity and ‘expert advice’. A pox on the lot of them.
    p.s. I do fancy having my own army; what a pose. How do I go about getting one?

        1. I had an idea, posted it on Ar5eBook and got 30 likes:

          I have a cunning plan. Charter one of the waiting cruise liners, gather 6,000 illegals from hotels and put them on the ship. When all aboard, sail to Marseille and offload those with ID. Those who refuse to identify their country of origin will be told that the ship’s next stop will be off the coast of Somalia and they will be dumped by lifeboat, clad only in their underwear, and left. Sounds like a plan?

          Would NoTTLers agree?

          1. William Stanier put up Patrick O’Flynn’s piece about illegal immigrunts and, since it says, “Newly released figures show the scale of the problem is growing all the time, with the number of people in asylum accommodation – including hotels – having grown by 12,000 to 60,000 this year alone.” then we need 10 of those cruise charters. The Cruise companies must be wetting themselves with excitement.

          3. Thank you, vw, I might take you and Alf along as deputies, with a brief to throw out the snivel servants in the Home Office and rigourously vet new appointments to ensure that they believe in the United Kingdom. We would institute an effective immigration policy that vastly increases the Border Force and their equipment. Our borders need to be locked down a la Australia.

          4. We could also reintroduce a Police Force who would apply the law without fear nor favour to all. And what about a Criminal Justice system, that would seen to be a good idea. Perhaps we could also introduce an Internal Aid department to ensure the indigenous population are looked after first.

        1. Ah, the good old 4-6-2 Pacific “Princess Coronation” 8P class by Stanier. The old LMS burgundy livery never looked so resplendent.

          1. 45 bob in 1939 = £140 today. I wonder what an equivalent (Chinese made) loco would be today.

    3. Good morning Anne ,

      One of the things that have tickled me pink in these joyless times , is that I am recognised when I am wearing my mask .

      What sort of an army would you like , I always thought it would be good fun to be involved in one of those instant crowd things , where everyone sings or plays an instrument in a street or a shop ..

      Have you been having some very strange dreams recently , I have had quite a few .. some pleasant and some not so.

      3. Morning Belle! My SiL didn’t recognise me from about 2 yards away, when he was driving into a shop car park on Monday! It was only when I took my hood down that he realised who I was! I was actually waving to him at the time!

        1. Perhaps lots of women wave at him and he was worried about having o choose just one…{:¬))

    4. All the agricultural shows (large and small) have also been sadly missed. Never went to Blair but long years ago I attended the Lonach Gathering and one summer I worked in a hotel next to the field on which the Aboyne Games is held… managed to see quite a bit through a window during my two hours off in the afternoon.

      1. We normally go to the Tendring Show. The Suffolk Show is too big and rather repetitive (how many humungous tractors does one need to see?).

        1. I like going to the Royal Welsh. Yes it’s a big show but it’s also the shop-window for a lot of the industry I’ve lived in all my life.

          The Welsh cobs are gorgeous and it’s always worth taking a look at really top class cattle … and there’s lots to look at without going near the tractors though some of the stuff, like cattle handling kit etc, is quite interesting even to me. Then there are the people who take away all the filthy farm plastic and turn it into fencing, seats, sandpits etc, etc. etc. Don’t ever let anyone tell you they can’t recycle black plastic; it’s just a matter of intent not a matter of possibility.

          It’s part day out and part networking, I meet clients from time to time but I also meet people from the Welsh Farm Liaison team (Welsh Government), Natural Wales etc and find out the answers to some vexing questions.

          Because farming needs to sell itself and shows are one good way of doing it I’m an RWAS member – so this year I got nothing in return for my subscription. Have to hope it goes better next year.

  27. Ross Clark, in the ”Daily Mail” asks…….

    ”Until recently, Boris Johnson had a reputation as a libertarian. So whatever happened to the man who loathed the Nanny State?”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8787267/ROSS-CLARK-recently-Boris-Johnson-reputation-libertarian.html

    The top rated BTL comment………..

    ”He’s either taken a large payment or is being blackmailed. I have said for months that he looks like a hostage, the worry for him is that his puppet masters probably realise that he is not useful anymore.”

    1. He looks haunted, the job has got to him, and it is not as much fun as he first thought.

      Why on earth did he carry on with that squeeze of his, he should never have got divorced .

      That has told us a hell of alot about his character.

      1. I think it is becoming apparent that Marina kept him reasonably steady.
        The cost to her, understandably, became too high.

        1. “I met a woman
          She had a mouth like yours, she knew your life
          She knew your devils and your deeds, and she said
          “Go to him
          Stay with him if you can
          But be prepared to bleed” ”

          Joni Mitchel

      2. He is completely trapped now, with the new baby. Can you imagine the uproar if he and squeeze parted ways? The headlines about Boris would be even more vile than they are now. He is a stupid stupid man.

    2. Lukashenko in Belarus claims that he was offered a billion dollars to lockdown and wreck his country and he refused. That’s why the global establishment is now after him and trying to replace him with their puppet, the woman who lost the election with just 10.12% of the vote. The msm are howling that it’s undemocratic for the loser not to win.

        1. Maybe genuinely disaffected and wanted her to win – like the pro-EU demos we’ve had – or maybe EU funded, as with their interference in the Ukraine and elsewhere?

      2. ‘Morning, Sue.The globalists are trying to pull the same stunt they pulled in Ukraine which was organised by their creation, the EU. It might have worked too, had not Putin stepped in to protect the Russian population of East Ukraine.

        And at the moment, sadly for them, the EU is too preoccupied with “other matters” to be of much use in pursuing their agenda.

      3. Putin denounces ‘external pressure’ as Macron meets Tsikhanouskaya. 30 September 2020.

        On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin denounced “unprecedented external pressure” on Belarus, which has been rocked by an unprecedented protest movement against Lukashenko since his controversial re-election and inauguration.

        “Belarus has found itself in a difficult situation, in conditions of unprecedented external pressure after the presidential elections”, the results of which have not been recognised by the European Union and the United States, Putin said in a video address to participants in a Russian-Belarusian forum.

        https://www.euronews.com/2020/09/29/belarus-putin-denounces-external-pressure-as-macron-meets-tsikhanouskaya

  28. I got locked out of Twitter for having the ‘wrong’ opinion on Covid. 30 September 2020.

    I woke yesterday morning to find that I had been locked out of Twitter for “violating our rules against abuse and harassment”. I was dumbfounded. Which of my recent tweets had been abusive or harassed anyone? I glanced down the email to see something I had posted last week in response to yet another We’re All Doomed! report on the BBC news. “How hard is it for people to understand? We WANT students to get the virus. They will speed us towards community immunity. It may not be very far off.”

    Morning everyone. I have to confess to having little sympathy for someone so afflicted. It must be somewhat like being banned from writing on the toilet walls while at school! Peoples complaints about it being cruel or inhabited by the politically malevolent always sound to my ears like drug addicts moaning about the effect it has on their lives but continuing to inject themselves! The solution is of course not to indulge!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/got-locked-twitter-having-wrong-opinion-covid/

    1. I gave twitter a go some time ago now and got the boot within a few weeks, can’t say I really missed it to be fair, except when people paste twitter videos on here, I can’t even open them.

      1. I was initially banned before I even had an account, which I was rather proud of… ! But they unbanned me, and now I can’t be arsed, it’s just full of hysterical crap.

        1. I have never tried Twatter, although I did make a brief foray into Ar5ebook a few years ago. I lasted just a few weeks when I realised that it was no more than a vehicle for unbridled self-promotion.

          ‘Morning, Herr Oberst.

  29. When I went down with the virus last winter and was coughing for months, I really could have done with the only cough medicine that has ever worked for me – Potter’s Vegetable Cough Remover, made from about fourteen active herbal ingredients in a liquorice base. Any cough it stopped dead, breaking the cycle of cough and aggravation, and would have spared me a lot of anguish.

    It was made by a 200-year-old company in Wigan, having built up an encylopaedic knowledge of medicinal herbs since Victorian times, and had access to growers and suppliers all over the world, acquired when Britain still had an empire, and the jungles were still intact.

    The EU then passed herbal medicine regulations, lobbied to favour the big pharamaceutical corporates and calculated to eliminate small competition in Thatcher’s Single Market. Each active ingredient had to undergo a complex and expensive registration procedure, and pay a subscription tax to the Brussels lobbying cartel. Potter’s could not afford to register all fourteen active ingredients, and so pruned them down to half a dozen or so, removing the antispasmodics that made their cough remover so effective.

    Potter’s has now closed down, and sold their trading name to an Australian pharmaceutical global. They removed the other herbal ingredients, leaving it little more now than a syrup of sugar and water, but bearing an illustrious and convincing trade name. I don’t know what became of their expertise and their contacts, but presumably all have now passed into history.

    This morning, the Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew has stated that one reason that 40% of plant and fungi species are shortly to become extinct is because global companies only recognise the commercial benefits of a handful of species, and the benefits of many thousands of others are being lost to ignorance. Medicine is the prime loser, and very more ailments, including coronavirus, are now going untreated.

    Apologists for the Global Market still insist there isn’t a problem, and prefer to spend their political energies insulting those, like Sir David Attenborough, that are desperately trying to find a remedy before it is too late.

    1. Everything appears to be against the small businesses and small traders, this pandemic will finish them all off.
      What will happen then, state run shops and pubs, billionaire philanthropists and big corporations moving in and hoovering the lost trade, if anyone has any spending money at the end of it.

      1. The state will subcontract out the work to the likes of Serco or G4S, who will take any money going and then cut corners over the work, knowing nobody will hold them to account. In the end, a limited service will be provided by what’s left of the Army.

        1. Don’t forget Crapita, JM. Another organisation for wasting many millions of taxpayers’ moolah.

          1. These organisations are graballs for any kind of business contacted out by any UK Government, whether housing illegal immigrants or reading electricity meters. These companies seem to be owned and controlled by friends of the Government.

    2. Thatcher’s SEA? Really? Some authors, including Charles Moore, I have claimed that she was misled over the EEC measure (it came from a change to the Treaty of Rome), that she thought it would be economically helpful and that it had no other political significance. Actually, I find it hard to believe that she hadn’t read the small print. She realised her mistake with the Bruges speech.

      It’s naive to suppose that small producers and manufacturers wouldn’t have succumbed anyway. Many do and would have done without the SEA but yes, it was a damaging piece of legislation.

      Once we’ve left, you can set up your own medicine company.

    3. A friend had the same problem with a herbal preparation for her horses. The small company that made it couldn’t afford the rigmarole.

  30. There are lots of things that I know very little about.
    I note from the news that the NHS has failed to provide breast cancer screening for 1m women as a result of the Covid-19 lockdown. I was under the impression that mammography was carried out by radiographers. I was also of the view that radiography was not involved to any great extent in the treatment of Covid-19.
    If that is the case then equipment and medical technicians have been almost completely idle for months, while women were put at unnecessary risk.
    Why?

    1. Yes . These people are being allowed to die so this Covid Farce can be continued. It shows the true nature of the people behind it!

    2. Morning Horace. I was incredibly lucky to have a planned mammogram in December last year. I was diagnosed in January with a lump and had operation in February. I chose to have follow-up radiotherapy and that was completed in May. Nicola and her band of loonies chose to close down all breast and bowel screening at a very early stage. I have no idea what the staff have been doing for 7+ months but the whole thing has been like playing Russian roulette with thousands of people’s lives. It is a scandal that no one seems to be addressing.

      1. our neighbour is an operating room nurse. Back in late March she was crosstrained to work in intensive care. She then sat idly waiting for customers for several months until normal service struggled back to life.

        1. As Rose points out above, it is generally a mobile screening unit that is used and it must be one of the easiest places to make safe – small and uncluttered. The bowel screening didn’t even need a mobile unit – the sample goes to a central testing area, by post! What the hell these people were thinking defies logic.

          1. From what I’ve been able to gather from a couple of friends who work in the NHS, the decision to stop screening was because they didn’t want people who were not going to be able to access treatment (because of the refusal to let them into hospitals) to get a diagnosis and have weeks/months to worry about it. Better (in their theory, I am simply quoting it) to be ignorant of the danger than to have to suffer it with no treatment. You were fortunate to be able to complete your radiotherapy – but had you been at an earlier stage in the whole process you wouldn’t have been able to start because of the lack of access to surgery. I hope that you have got rid of it completely, but of course you won’t know that for some time.

            But it isn’t just in Scotland. The Royal Glamorgan Hospital has 6 SARS-CoV-2 patients in intensive care and has had 8 deaths as a result of it in the last few days (probably all contracted at one event). This morning they have cancelled all elective surgery and from 14:00 there will be no admissions via A&E except for paediatric. Logic simply doesn’t seem to enter the picture.

          2. I understand the thinking behind the decision, but as soon as it became obvious that the system wasn’t going to be overwhelmed and that the Nightingale white elephants were empty, then the system should have been back up and running. GPs, hospitals, specialists, the lot. Instead thousands of unnecessary lives have been carellessly lost.

          3. I wasn’t defending the decision. I don’t think it is defensible. There were a number of options which could have been taken to keep virus patients separate and none of them were even considered.

            Our GPs have been pretty good but that seems to be very much a lottery from one practice to another. My optician found a tear in my retina in mid-August and I was in the eye-clinic within the hour for laser treatment – back on Monday to see the consultant and got the all clear; though I will be moving from an eye-test every 2 years to an annual one (but that’s normal for over 60s anyway).

            At some point the fall out will have to be accounted for, but goodness only knows when and that won’t bring back the casualties anyway.

          4. You’re right Jennifer. It is indefensible. I was very lucky indeed, and the treatment I received at the Western General in Edinburgh, Forth Valley and the Beatson in Airdrie was absolutely first class and I could not have had better. As you say, I won’t know for a while, which is why I am so incandescent with rage at the utter pig-headed indifference and stupidity of fools like Sturgeon and the idiot dentist Leitch.

    3. 324122+ up ticks,
      Afternoon HP,
      Because electrical power is NOT needed for dangerous
      political power, only rhetorical bullsh!te is required.

    5. There must be thousands of people whose diagnosis (can’t see a GP), treatments (all hospitals given over to Covid patients) referrals (can’t see GP) have been suspended and, of course, not forgetting those whose treatments were it even begun – all these people have been disgustingly badly treated and may die an earlier death than should have been the case. The NHS has been saved – it’s more than time the NHS started saving the public.

      This whole shambles has been rather enlightening. GPS still do not want face to face consultations, private hospitals have been commandeered by the NHS and are empty and unable to take patients without NHS say so, surgeons are totally underused as are other staff as you say and yet … we are all still paying for the NHS one way or another and whatever happened to the £30-odd million that was raised by the old soldier? The NHS is a bottomless pit it will swallow up all the money there is left in the U.K. with no discernible benefit for its patients. We need a totally different set up for health care.

      1. That’s a bit funny, but on the serious side, you’d be surprised at the number of dental nurses who can’t orientate x-rays correctly. If I were an examiner, that would be an automatic fail with no mercy if they got it wrong in an exam.

  32. Good morning all. Here is an article which could sum up the entire panic-stricken, hugely wasteful over-reaction to this crisis:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/09/30/government-acquired-14-times-ventilators-needed-pandemic-machine/

    £549m of our money wasted on ventilators which sit gathering dust in warehouses. The key line is ““This is because the anticipated demand did not materialise,”

    No it didn’t, did? And yet here we are six months later with no end in sight to the ‘three weeks to squash the sombrero” lockdown. Let’s hope the demands for greater parliamentary scrutiny of this mad and destructive government’s policies succeeds today.

  33. I suppose at least this will be a timely lesson to the younger generation at university, chance to let them get a feel what is it like to live under a Marxist totalitarian regime where all their freedoms are gone before their Uni lecturers get to work on them.

    They’ve all been no-platformed and gagged, marvellous.

    They will now know how that feels.

    1. What little I have read and heard suggests that he was ineffective and unnecessarily bombastic.

      He did himself more harm than good and put the “sympathy vote” Biden’s way, which is something I feared before the “debate” commenced.

  37. Morning all

    SIR – Last October, the opposition parties and the anti-Brexit establishment were demanding Parliament take control from the elected government. Today it is overwhelmingly Tory MPs who are requesting parliamentary oversight of the draconian measures being introduced by the executive.

    Those of us who were against lockdown from the outset warned of its catastrophic social, economic and educational consequences, which mainly affect the young and working-age population, while the disease remains many times more lethal to the elderly. The Government’s current approach will further exacerbate existing intergenerational grievance and prove lethal for the Conservatives’ future electoral prospects.

    Philip Duly

    Haslemere, Surrey

    SIR – Hurrah for the Baptists (Letters, September 25) for taking a timely lead, which was conspicuous by its absence from a virtue-signalling Archbishop of Canterbury and a tame House of Bishops, who during the lockdown misread the mood of the nation and swapped the Christian message for political comment.

    Many churches, like my own, remained open, defying the Archbishop’s diktat. Sadly, the bishops’ stock is at an all-time low. A healthy dose of Baptist conviction and courage would do them no harm.

    Rev R C Paget

    Brenchley, Kent

  39. Too little, too late; the BBC’s self-inflicted damage is in my view terminal.

    From the Tellygraff:

    BBC stars face the sack or their Twitter accounts taken away if they air party political views

    Tim Davie said guidelines to be published in the coming weeks will make clear that staff must appear strictly impartial

    By
    Anita Singh
    29 September 2020 • 12:04pm

    BBC stars face the sack or having their Twitter accounts taken away if they air party political views, the new director-general has said.

    Tim Davie said guidelines to be published in the coming weeks will make clear that staff must appear strictly impartial – even if, like Gary Lineker, they do not work in news or current affairs.

    “I’m prepared to take the appropriate disciplinary action all the way to termination,” Mr Davie told a committee of MPs.

    “We are going to be publishing clearly social media guidelines and they will cover both news and current affairs and beyond. Within those guidelines the enforcement policies will be very clear.

    “We will be able to take disciplinary action. We will be able to take people off Twitter. If they want to work for the BBC [we] would suspend their Twitter account, absolutely.

    Appearing before the DCMS select committee, Mr Davie said he was unafraid to take a tough approach. “I am now the director-general so I’m running the show and, in my view, party political statements are not the right thing for people to be making as part of an impartial news organisation.”

    He said there would be “a range of enforcement” for rule-breakers: “Sometimes someone just needs a talking-to. Other times there are serious matters, or there’s a real problem.”

    Some have argued that Lineker and other stars would be exempt from the rules because they are freelancers on contracts, rather than full-time BBC employees.

    But Mr Davie said the rules apply to everyone who is “a face of the BBC”. He said: “The audience is less bothered by contractual status.”

    Leading BTL:

    Brian Baker
    29 Sep 2020 4:16PM

    “The BBC can do what it likes as long as we’re not forced to pay for it. Trust has gone. It’s now a propaganda mouthpiece for the globalist Establishment.

    Abolish the licence fee. That’s a must.”

    With you there, Brian Baker.

    1. Actually, Mr Davie you are making the usual mistake in disciplinary proceedings. One does not start by issuing a Verbal Warning. One starts by considering if the offence warrants immediate dismissal. This is the official ACAS advice.

  41. A sad day tomorrow. Funeral of friend and neighbour. He had a heart attack while walking his Westie. As he fell he cracked his head. Blood everywhere. Air ambulance arrived swiftly but not fast enough to save him. He was 55.

    R.I.P Adrian. A good friend and neighbour.

    Let his passing remind each of us to approach each new day as a blessing. To enjoy life as well as we can and to treasure and love each other.

    1. Sorry to hear that Phil. We are going to the funeral of a wonderful friend of ours on Friday. Restricted to 20 of us, “bubbles” at the grave, don’t touch the coffin and more “bubbles” at the bun fight. We have known him 40+ years and we couldn’t go and see him in his final days. It is wicked.

      1. Joan, his wife is just having the immediate family. We are going to line up in the street to pay our respects.

        A friend who had put off her wedding rearranged it but cut the guest list down to the ‘Rule of 30’ which was heart wrenching for her to have to disinvite so many of her friends. Now it’s down to 15 i think she is going to cancel it altogether.

        You are right. It is wicked. The government are interfering and micromanaging parts of of our lives they have no business meddling in.

        1. Bert was from an Italian family whose grandfather came over and opened an ice cream/fish shop in the same town as he always lived. When Berts DiL started work in the area people at her work asked if she was the same family who had the chip shop – 70 years ago! You can imagine how many people wanted to see him before he died and pay their respects. There is an online live cast thing but…. It’s awful.

          1. Over the years we have welcomed many Italian migrants. They opened many businesses and worked hard. I believe quite a few of them worked at a brickmaking plant in Bedford too and other industry. Most importantly they integrated. Compare and contrast with the workshy lowlifes flooding in now. Who demand special treatment.

          2. Please, Phil, go back and edit that, to emphasise the word ‘integrated’. It’s what most have done with the major exception of BAMEs

          3. In my experience Indians and far Eastern Asians have made a reasonably good fist of it too.

            There is a singular Religion which goes the opposite way.

          6. Here in Great Britain we have for a long time been a safe refuge for refugees. No matter their colour or ethnicity or religion. What we are seeing now is the scum floating on top of the wave supported by Left wing globalists.

          7. Indeed. Bedford has a significant Italian community and some brilliant back-street delicatessens. And Glasgow.

          9. I learnt today that the Zizzi restaurant close to the theatre in Milton Keynes has closed for good. I always went there for lunch before seeing a matinee show.

          10. “Italian cafes/ice-cream parlours are legionary in South Wales.”

            It’s the Roman influence.

  42. THE COVID MARSHAL

    ♫ “To a town in Northeast England came a jobsworth one fine day
    He wore a hi-viz jacket as he strutted on his way
    Old folk trembled at the sight of him, afraid to socially mix
    For the law forbade their gathering in groups larger than six

    He turned into the high-street and with his eagle-eyes
    He saw a group outside a pub, larger than permitted size
    His notebook at the ready, he thought he was in heaven
    For the drinkers there outside the pub were in a group of seven

    He approached to take their names down, but he’d pished up the wrong tree
    The drinkers told him “F*ck off!” or they’d do him injuree
    By now the angry group had grown, they numbered eight or nine
    And they said they’d stick his notebook where the sun did never shine

    But he didn’t heed their sound advice, he said “The law’s the law.”
    So they gave him a good kicking and then they broke his jaw
    He wandered off all black and blue, his body racked with pain
    And vowing to himself he’d never push his luck again

    When he got back to the Marshals’ base no sympathy he got
    They told him he was useless and sacked him on the spot
    They said he’d let the team down, it had been a bloody farce
    For no one respects a Marshal with his notebook up his arse!” ♫
    — (Hat-tip to Marty Robbins)

        2. Only recently have we in the West been able to afford to eat meat daily.
          Crocodile isn’t good. Think chicken-flavoured marshmallows… ukk!

          2. Even in the West not everyone can afford to eat meat daily – and many choose to eat it less frequently for a number of reasons but finance is certainly one of them.

            I’ve eaten UK farmed ostrich and enjoyed it, I tried a kangaroo burger once at a food fair which didn’t seem to have much flavour, but with home grown lamb and beef of the quality we have here I don’t really see much need for exotics. Local venison is an occasional treat.

          4. I wouldn’t condemn anything on one taste, but I wasn’t particularly impressed. I expect that, like any meat, there is wide variation depending on the animal, the diet, the slaughter and the post slaughter treatment of the flesh. I’d certainly give them another go… kangaroo is not scarce.

        1. Wasn’t it Quinoa that comes from the Peruvian highlands – and is now so valuable as an export to the West that the Peruvian peasants can’t afford to buy it – anf it’s their staple food? Be carefu the same doesn’t happen to these other weirdnesses.
          Eat local stuff. Pale green pine shoots are good, if you like chewing wunderbaum.

          1. Quinoa can be grown elsewhere too which brings the price down, so the problem in Peru was short-lived. It can even be grown in the south of the UK, but like all small-seed crops it is highly vulnerable to weather conditions at harvest (unless you can get them really dry, really quickly, they grow mould at a rate of knots) so whether or not it is an economically viable crop in the long term (unless it can be sold for a very high price) is exceedingly questionable.

            Frankly, having tried it once, I wouldn’t go out of my way to bother a second time.

          3. It’s not that bad, but oatmeal is infinitely preferable and we can grow really good oats here.

    3. I expect vegan tastes pretty horrible, even with plenty of seasoning. One of my former BBC bosses, from many years ago, insisted that cows produce milk because they eat grass. Nothing to do with feeding their young apparently.

      1. Have to say that both are required, even after having a calf the cow won’t milk unless she has adequate nutrition – and “adequate” in terms of milk production means a lot of food. The modern western dairy cow (unlike the breeds still used in many countries) does not need the presence of a calf to stimulate milk production, or to trigger “let down”. She will continue to give milk for about 16 – 18 months after calving though a calf every 12 months is the target to prevent the taper down in production from being uneconomic. Generally cows are dried off 4 – 8 weeks before calving so there is a break in the cycle in the late stage of pregnancy.

      3. Vegans believe it is wrong to use cows to produce milk as they are “raped” to make them produce their calves. If they had their way all farmland would be ploughed up for growing cabbages and carrots, and there would be no green spaces at all. Not sure what they’d plan to do with upland hill farms, only fit for raising sheep.

        Our commons are grazed every year by cattle who roam free – the roads are unfenced and there are always a few casualties as drivers are careless and go too fast – the dark cattle are hard to see once the light evenings are gone. The grazing is essential to preserve the chalk grasslands and wild flowers and butterflies in the ecosystems.

        1. Posted too soon.

          Here in Wales some of the commons also carry ponies. The predominant shade for Welsh ponies is grey… almost invisible except in full daylight.

        3. The plan for upland farms is a mixture of tree-planting and “rewilding”. So the entire upland areas of Britain will be emptied of people as there will be neither farming nor tourism. No one is going to want to walk if walking requires a machete to proceed. Upland plants which currently thrive in permanent pastures will become extinct, as will most of the remaining skylarks, curlews and not a few species of butterfly (and other insects).

          1. They don’t think these things through logically – except as a means to achieve their own aims.

          2. They don’t think at all.

            We already import approx 50% of our food, if they get their way it will be back to 70 – 75% (yes, that’s counting all the area we use for grain to feed animals because they also want to use hopelessly inefficient farming methods) and we haven’t been at that level since 1939.

            Fewer than a handful of universities now teach agriculture and farmers are vilified in so many places (here too).

            It was a bitter irony during the first lockdown, that supermarket workers were praised for “keeping the nation fed” – as though the food grew magically on the shelves overnight – and there was not a single mention of the guys who milk cows 14 times a week or cut cauliflowers in the pouring rain.

        4. Paint white chevrons on the dark cattle. It might work. I was driving home along a country road at the time when blue twilight turns to dark blue night. I saw little lights dancing over the road ahead. I slowed down to look at the group of fireflies. Then stopped abruptly as I saw that the little lights were multiple reflections of my headlights in the eyes of a family of four deer.

          1. They’ve tried various things……… last year a much-loved donkey was injured, fortunately not seriosly. He was fitted with a luminous head collar, but it soon got tatty and faded. There are light up signs warning you of your speed, there was a “cardboard cow” but I think she got stolen. all the locals know they are there till the end of October, but it’s usually local people who hit them. Not all the accidents are in the dark.

    1. It doesn’t surprise me.

      I was chatting with the paramedic in the ambulance taking me to Hinchinbrook. He was through & through white British, about 30 y.o. I used the term “bush telegraph”. Then I had to explain to him what it meant.

      1. There must be dozens of such expressions that are age specific, I’m sure the same applies to much youf-speak as far as I’m concerned.

        A significant number of the words are gathered through reading and my suspicion is that reading isn’t as popular as it once was, notwithstanding the avalanches of new titles each year.

        I suspect your man wouldn’t have understood beat about the bush either, except thinking about it in a smutty sense.

          3. I’ve heard “snorkling good fun”, presumably from a similar root.
            Also in answer to: “What’s for supper?”

            “Snorkleberry pie”

          4. Snorker is an old word for a piglet, which may have transferred to sausages. C.f. ‘pigs in blankets’. A snorkle is also a word for the grunt some people make when they inhale while laughing. Nothing to do with swimming.

            The only ref. I can find to the pie is this, but I’m none the wiser, but I suspect it’s one of those euphemisms like ‘eat crow’.

          6. I think the pie was purely a silly answer to children who kept asking the same question at a point when mother was still undecided.

          15. I remember being impressed by the way he rattled off Swahili at normal speed without blinking.

          17. Yep! Definitely part of the culinary delights the togmeister and team had on the breakfast show!

          19. RN had many wonderful expressions ..

            When a male sailor arrives at a foreign port and goes in search of companionship he may well indulge in a bit of ‘counterpane hurdling’ or he may ‘give the ferret a run’. For health reasons, Jack would be well advised to wear a ‘franger’. A condom is also known as a wellie, a fred, or a forget-me-not.

            If Jack doesn’t have a franger then his partner may expect him to ‘Get out at Fratton’. This is a quaint expression for ‘coitus interruptus’ and the derivation becomes clear when you realise that Fratton is the last railway station before Portsmouth and the Naval Base.

        2. Lots of the mustard given to politicians remains uncut and their parsnips remain unbuttered.

        3. On a more culinary note, chew the fat relates to the need for heavy mastication in order to break down the tough rind of beef that was stored in a barrel of brine for months on end.

          But of course , this is what we are all doing on here , chewing the fat.. mulling things over , great discussion!

      2. Words do go out of fashion – but I bet the woke brigade wouldn’t like the term ‘jungle drums’ now.

          1. Copper bottomed, something worthwhile, as in a ‘copper-bottomed guarantee, refers to copper plates which were fixed to wooden ships hulls to minimise worm attack and prevent the build-up of barnacles and weeds

            Pig’s Ear, a term for something messy, refers to an upper deck urinal used by sailors when on watch. Incidentally, Jack’s expressions for a call of nature, all of which allude to experiences at sea, include, syphon the python, pumping the ship, ease springs, check the ship for leaks and springing a leak.

          2. Ah, that reminds me of the place I used to go to school. When the River Waveney was navigable up to Bungay, wherries used to. “Go to Bungay for a new bottom.” referring to the copper on the wherry’s hull.

          4. I do remember a friend’s father saying, as I passed him on the way back from the loo…….”Squeezed yer lem then?”

    1. Dust never seems to vanish, how and where does it come from ..

      Dusting is a never ending task, the same as clearing spiders webs , never ever see a spider weaving indoors , but the webs are there , perhaps even created overnight .

      2. Just leave the dust……….no point obsessing about it. Dusting just makes it recirculate and land somewhere else.

        1. Morning all.

          A colleague of Alf’s used to say “I don’t do housework, it makes you ugly”.

          (I suppose I should add that she and her husband owned a cleaning company!).

          1. I’m convinced that our glorious Lab carries little bags of fluff around to distribute after I’ve hoovered! We have wooden floors downstairs and the layer of fluff floats about like a magic carpet, no matter how much I clean! Fortunately, only one of the cats has fur!

      3. A good friend of ours keeps her house far cleaner and tidier than we do. But she does have a framed embroidery hung in her kitchen with the words:

        Only boring women have immaculate houses

        stitched decoratively into the piece of linen.

    1. Criminal negligence. Government gets things done pretty fast when it wants to. Thus one can only assume it wants these people to die.

      1. 324122+ up ticks,
        Morning PM,
        Proof of that pudding is plain to see in the case & treatment of that state arch enemy ( of treachery) one Tommy Robinson encapsulates the two, fast track incarceration among unacceptable cell mates.

    2. Sikora is vilified by the Covid luvvies over his diagnosis of the Lockerbie bomber. Remember the guy was released as having only months to live but survived years. Sikora says that the cancer really was widespread but the treatment al-Megrahi received in Libya kept him alive and also, some people just do survive that condition for longer than others.

      1. 324122+ up ticks,
        Morning SE,
        These politico’s are well up on playing mind games in an odious manner what really does annoy me is those that still acknowledge having an mP to contact.

        On par with contacting a malevolent Santa Clauses.

        Mind games also play in an individuals mind and the fact of waiting / not knowing can do a great deal of damage.

        1. A friend was diagnosed with it
          nearly nineteen years ago; he
          has a chemo shot every three
          months. He is eighty-one and a
          little frail but still enjoys walking,
          bird-watching, pints of Guinness
          and still drives.
          Edited.

        1. A Guinness is Good for You.
          https://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view;_ylt=AwrEzNx2bnRf52kAYCeJzbkF;_ylu=c2VjA3NyBHNsawNpbWcEb2lkAzczYWRiMmE0NDAyZWI3ZjY5M2MzZjE1MjY0NGJkYmFlBGdwb3MDNARpdANiaW5n?back=https%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fp%3Dguinness%2Bis%2Bgood%2Bfor%2Byou%26fr%3Daaplw%26tab%3Dorganic%26ri%3D4&w=545&h=341&imgurl=theaposition.com%2Ftombedell%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F15%2F2012%2F03%2FG-is-good-for-you.jpeg&rurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thecourier.co.uk%2Ffp%2Fnews%2Flocal%2Fdundee%2F475361%2Fhundreds-backing-perth-road-mans-bid-save-guinness-good-advert-articleisfree%2F&size=20.4KB&p=guinness+is+good+for+you&oid=73adb2a4402eb7f693c3f152644bdbae&fr2=&fr=aaplw&tt=Hundreds+backing+Perth+Road+man%26%2339%3Bs+bid+to+save+%26quot%3BGuinness+is+…&b=0&ni=220&no=4&ts=&tab=organic&sigr=4K70r.qaDTXV&sigb=IhDjfNa8efn0&sigi=vWzWRdwYSo7H&sigt=vl0ic1YHESLM&.crumb=40QkM71ZW6z&fr=aaplw

      2. 2.3 million of an estimated 3.2 million Welsh residents will be under lockdown from 18:00 tomorrow.

        On the map there is a large area which is still “free” (or relatively so) but it covers all the bits where not so many people live.

    2. Travel shut down – – except for the elite – – key workers – – and coaches carrying the newly flown in relatives of those that have arrived already.

  51. Various Mail Headlines. Gawd this makes me so angry.

    ‘Stop being such Chicken Lickens’: Bank of England chief economist
    says people need to stop catastrophizing Covid-19 after GDP falls a
    record 19.8 per cent as he predicts 20 per cent GROWTH in next quarter.

    That might look good, but never forget that a 50% drop requires a 100% increase to get back to square one.

    How close is the NHS to being ‘overwhelmed’? Just 1,800 out of
    110,000 occupied beds are taken up by Covid-19 patients as thousands
    more than normal die at home of other causes.

    Not to mention Nightingale wards, ventilators and all those under used/unused facilities

    Britain announces 52 more Covid-19 deaths in early count – including a three-month high of seven in Scotland

    WOW that many?

    Travel agent breaks down as she reveals Covid crisis is killing
    company she’s run for 20 years – saying she’s made only £120 this month
    but still has to pay an employee £500 under ‘cr***y’ furlough scheme.

    Well Done Rishi, keep piling on the misery and give away other people’s money.

    1. There will be millions unemployed and businesses going bust when the furlough scheme ends. Not to mention all the people currently not working in theatres, events and all their ancilliary trades, musicians, people in travel, tourism and aviation………. it’s a long list.

      1. I fear there will be civil unrest when the private sector is worse than decimated and the public sector is hardly touched.by comparison.

        1. As we contemplate having to cancel our course booked for this October, February, March and April – meaning that we shall receive no income at all – we have to feel happy that MPs are not suffering and were gave themselves a £10,000 bonus.

          We shall survive as we have some money put aside for our retirement – not that we want to retire just yet as we love what we do – but will any young people have the get and go and set up in business on their own own? And what will be consequences if they don’t?

          1. Why take the risk?
            Head for the public sector.

            We had a really good summer of bookings.
            Every single one cancelled.
            We repaid all the deposits that “Holiday Lettings” did not return automatically ,as a goodwill gesture, hoping we might get them next year.

            We then got four weeks worth so had all the hassle for next to no income.
            Ho hum…

            At least it paid for running the pool, which we enjoy.

      2. The TSB has announced branch closures because ‘people have changed their banking habits’ (https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/uk-news/2020/09/30/around-900-jobs-to-go-as-tsb-closes-164-bank-branches/). It’s no wonder – my effing bank had to be made to give any sort of service at all. They kept trying to push Internet banking and telephone banking and doing things via the ATM. I pointed out at the time their jobs would be at risk if people didn’t use the (less than user friendly) branch.

      3. Good afternoon, J.

        I thought the furlough scheme
        ends today,,,,,,,,,,,don’t tell me I have
        missed one of the 28,280 new rules
        HMG have imposed upon us!

        1. End of October I think G. and Rishi’s new rules will start 1st November. There will be a lot of lay-offs then as firms find it more economic to keep on one full timer than two part-timers.

          2. You can guarantee that the accountants will work out the route best for the company (and in many ways quite right, if it means the firm survives) and worst for the people who work for them.

    3. I tw@tted on twitter to ‘andyvblue’: The policeman is in uniform but improperly dressed – a chargeable offense in HM’s Armed Forces. Our pride was in our uniform and our job – not in a vociferous minority.

    1. What about brown letterboxes to support Muslim women from Pakistan who wear burkas and who, according to our prime minister, look like letter boxes themselves?

    2. 1st man, “Do you know the difference between an elephants arse and a pillar box?”
      2nd man “No”
      1st Man, ” In that case I’ll post this letter myself”

          2. True.
            Perhaps it’s an undercoat of some sort, ready for the blacking up.

            To double their pleasure.
            {:-((

          3. There will now follow a mass scraping of pillar boxes throughout the land to determine the colour of the undercoat.

  55. I am curious. What happened to AIDS? Did it stop being “fashionable” when Covid-19 stole its thunder?

    Or was it just the hysterical over-the-top malady of its time that Covid-19 has now become?

    1. Of course the Princess of Wales was criticised for jumping on the bandwagon and supporting AIDS charities rather than the Distresesd Gentlefolk’s Association.

      Were she still alive I wonder which causes she would support today: – transgender, BLM or Covid?

      1. I can’t help thinking that had she been alive today that Ginge and Whinge would have happened.

        I cannot imagine that limeliight seeker allowing herself to upstaged by a second rate actress with chips on both shoulders.

          2. I can’t help thinking that had she been alive today that Ginge and Whinge would NOT have happened.

          4. So…© telly tart) .. you are saying that, if Diana had not died, Brash and Trash WOULD have happened?

          5. No.

            Re-read it slowly, taking into account that there are two “that”s.

            The second sentence tells you the answer to your question.

          7. We’ll have to agree to differ.

            I thought you were the lawyer, and thus used to sentences which mean what the writer wished them to mean, not necessarily what the reader thought they meant.

          8. We do differ but there is no need to be offensive.

            Your first sentence clearly indicates that, had Diana lived, Brash and Trash would have happened.

            Your second sentence – with which I wholly agree – says that she would not have permitted it.

    2. The COVID-19 virus has strands of both malaria and HIV RNA in it.
      It’s a case of COCOF – catch one, catch one free!

    4. With modern drug regimes those who are HIV positive can, largely, stay well and avoid progressing to the AIDS stage. In 2017 (the latest figures I could find) there were around 100,000 people in the UK living with HIV – most of them carrying on with normal lives.

  56. We ventured out of the village late morning , and motored over to Bournemouth, got stuck in traffic , and visited John Lewis .

    The rain bucketed down , this was the first time we have ventured out to a shop other than food shopping .

    All credit to them , they were elegantly organised , the hand gel dispenser unit had a foot pump, brilliant idea , no need to touch anything .

    We browsed around and felt really delighted to be amongst nice things and loads of attractively displayed goods . We were looking at lighting , our hall wall lights need replacing , because one of the glass flute cases has broken , and trying to replace a 20 year old shade shade and aging units is proving rather difficult .

    We didn’t find what we wanted , but have some idea now how things can be changed . There were quite a few customers out and about , masked , and the staff were really friendly and helpful.

    John Lewis has a cafe , but we could see they weren’t serving warm food , just sandwiches and cake , coffee and tea etc.

    Moh wanted a coffee , so he had to sign in with his phone to access their Wi Fi and the app.. abit of a fiddle faddle . The staff were very helpful and a bit apologetic , but were pleased that people were using the cafe .. all clean and socially distanced , another hand wash again , masks still on untill we got to our seats .. Mugs of coffee for 2, one round of sandwiches to share and 2 cakes .. Er yes .. £15.. Okay it was our first real outing into the great never never land .. and when I took my mask off to eat, I was trembling like a leaf.. why on earth was it so unnerving , heaven only knows!

    1. ‘We ventured out of the village this morning…’

      Flipping heck, Belle,…You and R, were rather
      brave !! :-)))

      1. Well you know Garlands , the whole area has been gridlocked with holiday traffic up untill a week ago, we have felt like prisoners , no kidding .

        I have had to choose the right time to food shop etc , and usually head for Weymouth .

    2. After you’ve been couped up for a while, being free can b unnerving. That is why so many long-term prisoners have problems after their release.
      I can remember doing a week-long stint in 24-hr A&E. On the Sunday morning I was free for a few hours so I went for a walk & a newspaper. In the newsagent’s I hardly knew what to say.

      1. Yes Peddy, I thought of that,and one has to really feel sorry for all workers.

        I saw lots of Bournemouth buses , and they contained less than half a dozen masked passengers .
        How on earth bus companies are coping financially , must be very worrying.

        1. The Gloucester buses – Stagecoach – have the side seats at the front roped off, and everyone has a double seat to themselves. They reduced the frequency of the services. Other than wearing a mask it was relatively normal.

      1. Supermarket shopping yes , get on , fill the trolley pay and leave, where as a lingering look at nice things in a shop like John Lewis is different , isn’t it .

        Moh was saying don’t touch this , don’t touch that, just look !

        1. I haven’t been into a “nice shop” for goodness knows how long. I just get what I need and get out. I get round the food shop a lot quicker than I used to – nobody stops to chat any more.

        1. Would have got my coffee elsewhere.
          Would they have refused to serve you if you didn’t sign up to this voluntary system?

          2. Saw it in the pub when we had lunch today and, along with everyone else, ignored it. If you’re unhappy about it can you delete the app?

          2. Just name and phone number in our local cafe – and that’s all I gave yesterday when we had lunch in Gloucester. I kept my phone in my pocket.

          3. Given the amount of people the news bits of the “track and trace” say they cannot contact – I suspect a lot of people are telling them lies about names and then follow it up with made-up phone numbers.

          4. It’s confusing but there is now a new “app” for smartphones as well as the “track & trace” that didn’t work too well – it remains to be seen if the app works but I’m not giving it my phone unless it’s compulsory. It can presumably be uninstalled if I have to.

          5. Read yesterday that the new app actually works on less phones than the old one that they dumped. Clever aren’t they? I have my main mobile – years old as it was given to me when my mate upgraded. I have NOT got the app – If it was made compulsory ( frightening thought of things to come ) then I would leave the phone at home. I used to get around years ago without a mobile as presumably all of us here did, due to our ages now. If I was out somewhere and asked for proof of the app – i would just tell them I did not have it with me. What then – an instant Boris law that I could be fined £10k for not having my trackable phone with me?
            As for uninstalling it? Don’t know. Could it be made so it didn’t show on the screen but actually was still there tracking? Highly probable. Scary times – and very very nasty ones too.

      1. Annoying, isn’t it. I was nagging her for years to update me with some news about her and the family, but all I got each Christmas and birthday was “I wish you every happiness for the future” as if I was being sacked from work.

        At least I got a picture and an age (62). Since she was born in 1957, that picture would have been taken last year. I also know she was qualified as an auxiliary paediatric nurse when I knew her, and it seems she has been running this creche since 1994, so she was there when I last met her in 1996. I last attempted a reunion back in 2009 when I was on tour in Northern France with the choir, but she was too busy to make it. I would have loved it if we could have gone round Giverney together to see the lily ponds. Many in the choir remark that I bear an uncanny resemblance these days to Claude Monet. I gave up sending cards a few years ago, but I might send her one soon, in a rather forlorn hope of getting some news.

        The most catastrophic reunion was in 1988 when I was married and she hitch-hiked from France and tapped on the window at 9pm. My wife was extremely angry. We spent a day together, and I then had to drive my old flame to friends in London, spending the night with my parents and return home the next day to face the music. My wife wrote me a very bitter poem that ended “don’t forget too that I might have had lovers”. Nine months later, my son was born, but I have always had doubts about his paternity, especially since he resembles his half-sister a lot more than he does my daughter.

    2. The Fluck and Law ones are good.

      Apparently the Swedish Muppet’s followers are up in arms about her portrayal. So it is not all bad…

        3. The snowflakes are saying it is croool to attack a “teenager with autism.”

          So – it is OK for a teenager with autism to travel the world haranguing everyone, and to appear on global platforms and make shouty speeches – but no one can poke fun at her daft ideas.

          Wokery is alive and wel.

    5. I am assuming the puppets will be as good as before – but I wonder what will the humour be like? Old style and vicious? – or – this modern day c**p.

  60. Ready for war: Russia a bigger threat than at any time since Cold War’s end, warns report. 30 September 2020.

    RUSSIA is now better-equipped, and represents more of a threat, than at any time since the end of the Cold War, a chilling new analysis has warned.

    The dossier says: “Russia is today a far more capable military power than it was in the early 2000s or at any time since the fall of the Soviet Union, with readily deployable and well-equipped forces”.

    Don’t worry. We are going to throw laptops at them. That should sort them out!

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1341877/Russia-news-vladimir-putin-threat-military-cold-war-world-war-3

    1. If they want to invade us they’ll have to download the NHS trick and treat app otherwise we’ll get Border Farce to divert them to France.

    2. Do you remember how politicians were rubbing their hands with glee after the fall of the Berlin Wall?

      How much money this will save us! But let’s not save it – let’s call it The Peace Dividend. And let’s see how we can squander it!

        1. 324122+ up ticks,
          Evening Atg,
          Many of us have known for years by the same token many have known but have refused to acknowledge the fact.

  62. The idiot posing as Prime Minister is threatening another complete lockdown – “unless you do as you are told”. Millions dead by end of October. Christmas cancelled – 2021 postponed indefinitely…

    Yawns… Ackshally, I am making this up – but I wonder how close to the truth I am…!

    1. I am booked into a nice little hotel over Christmas. If they tell me they are closed over the festive season and i have lost all my money (third holiday this year) i will go anyway. Break in and cook my own Christmas dinner. It’s very near True Belle so if i get nicked i will say it was all her husband’s idea.

      1. Not Acorn Inn, Evershot, Dorset? Lovely, lovely place! I was captivated! I was there four years ago, early November. Wonderful autumn colours, ancient beech trees, along the lanes.

        1. Knoll House, Studland.

          But thanks ever so much for the tip. The Acorn looks great. If i am staying in the UK i am always looking for places where my little dog is welcome. (given what boarding fees are now).

          And to return the favour…http://www.theyarbridgeinn.co.uk/

          Previously written up in the Sunday Times as one of the best Sunday Lunches in the UK.

          For me it was a bus ride. A ferry. A hydrofoil. A short train journey at Ryde. And a taxi. But well worth it. At least on a nice Summer day. :0)

          1. I have anchored in Studland Bay waiting for the tide to be with me as I sailed westward past Old Harry Rocks, Anvil Point, Lulworth Cove, St Albans Head and on to Weymouth.

            Much as I like the warmer weather of the Mediterranean I do sometimes miss my old sailing haunts in the English Channel.

          2. We used to scare the shit out of owners of gin palaces anchored in Studland Bay by racing straight at their boats in a Shearwater cat & swerving away at the last moment.

          3. I can’t wait for Rastus’ response. Possibly a grenade or at the very least a flare.

          5. IoW is on our list. Thanks so much. I have bookmarked it. Here is another for you https://www.beckhallmalham.com Should be named Dogs R Us. They do excellent Christmases. We counted 25 dogs in the dining room for Christmas dinner. We could only manage one…..
            Recommended by Delboy of this parish. Rather a long way from Hampshire, though.

          6. You’re welcome.

            Thanks for the recce. It looks superb. Always on the lookout for dog friendly places.

          1. I was obvs in a hurry to eat – just back and credit card problems – contactless and chip and pin declined several times. Worked in the end! Alf phoned M&S bank and explanation was once you’ve used £150 worth of contactless payments the card resets and you have to use c&p to reset it for the next £150 – although even that didn’t work straightaway. Not a lot of people know that! Didn’t have to do the washing up after all.

          4. We did p, thank you Sue, very leisurely after a slow start to the morning so booked a table on the hoof. Alf had sausage and mash with onion gravy and I had roasted sweet potato and other veggies with coconut yogurt and garlic flatbread oh,and couscous which I didn’t eat much of. Not a fan really. It was a toss up between baked salmon and what I ended up with. No pudding, though we always look at the menu, we both felt too full. We were quite surprised at the number of people there, we usually eat later than we did today but the atmosphere was excellent. Everyone else trotted dutifully in wearing a mask (we didn’t mask up) and trotted out following the one way system (we didn’t). Expecting a visit from the perlice this arvo.

            They’re doing Saturday brunches from 3rd October between 10/12 so might give that a whirl one week.

          7. I’ve been using my credit card contactless quite a lot lately; I was half expecting, when I stocked up on wine against the next lockdown today, that it would be refused, but it went through with no problem.

          8. Sit was something we didn’t know about so from that point of view it won’t be a surprise the next time.

          9. No doubt your wine stock up was above the contactless limit. Apparently it’s only when the contactless total goes over the £150 with no specific time limit.

          10. Store contactless limit was £45 I think. I did manage to curtail my wine habit to less than that 🙂

          12. Been using mine quite a lot lately! Had lunch out yesterday with two old school friends in Gloucester – we sat outside as it was pleasantly mild.

            I had to bite my tongue though as my two sensible friends seemed to have become obsessed with the NHS app, and another one which you report to every day to say you are well! I wouldn’t touch either of those with a bargepole and also kept my phone in my pocket rather than download the restaurant QR code – I gave my name and phone number and the girl wrote it down.

            Just went through the rigmarole of setting up a new payee via bacs – only £15 but I had to do it twice and tick to say I’d read the warnings about scams!

          13. I shan’t be signing up to the NHS app either, nor will Alf, I’m surprised 😮 people are willing to do so. How is it that people place such faith in these things with all the reports about testing etc. Seems quite perverse to me.

          15. When I set up my online payments (at least 10 years ago) the bank automatically entered the account details for paying Barclaycard bills. Now they ask me every month what I’m paying and whether I trust the payee. You really couldn’t make it up.

          16. I can still pay the ones saved in the ‘trusted’ list with no problems but setting up a new payment is a rigmarole.
            I don’t use my Barclaycard much but I have one this month – I generally do that via the Barclaycard website rather than by Bacs.

          17. My Barclaycard is the one I use for the business. So fuel, stationery, computer stuff, anything I get for clients etc. There’s always at least one tankful of fuel on it. It’s not that it’s difficult to do, it’s just that its so senseless to keep asking the same silly question every month. I’m an adult, I know what I’m paying and why I’m paying it. I’ve set up two new ones in the last month and you’re right, it’s a really pain.

        2. Thanks Bill. Who was that comedienne who used to say “she knows yer know”? Was it one of the Krankees Or was it someone called Marlene, can’t quite remember.

  64. I think Mr O’Flynn is being a bit naive…

    Dirty tricks will not stop Priti Patel fighting to fix our broken asylum system

    The British people as a whole are crying out for a politician to deliver change, which the Home Secretary will do as long as the Tories back

    PATRICK O’FLYNN

    Breaking up a failed centre-left consensus and imposing radical change from the Right has always been the toughest gig in British politics. And if you are a woman, expect mockery to be one of the weapons used against you.

    When Margaret Thatcher became first Tory leader and then prime minister, the whispers went around various branches of the British ruling class that she wasn’t bright enough to lead the nation – not a patch on supposed giants such as Edward Heath or Harold Wilson.

    Indeed, almost 40 years ago, 364 economists wrote to The Times newspaper, that bastion of the establishment, to decry her central policy: her monetarist economic strategy. Her emphasis on controlling the money supply in the fight against inflation had “no basis in economic theory or supporting evidence behind it”, they sniffily claimed. Her response was, in effect, to scrunch up the letter and throw it into the waste-paper basket. After all, the Lady was not for turning.

    Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, is a long-term admirer of the Thatcher spirit and legacy and would do well to take strength from her example. She is once again on the receiving end of a Whitehall-inspired leak clearly designed to discredit her and mock her outlook and priorities.

    The Financial Times was briefed about her asking officials in her own department and the Foreign Office to undertake an assessment of various potential locations for a possible new offshore asylum processing centre. These included the British territories of St Helena and Ascension Island in the South Atlantic.

    While the FT reported the story relatively straight, its staff adopted an outright mocking tone on social media. On his Twitter feed its chief political correspondent Jim Pickard branded it “one of the maddest stories you’ll ever read”. One of the story’s authors, Peter Foster, tweeted: “You couldn’t make it up.”

    https://twitter.com/PickardJE/status/1311038408391823365

    FT news editor Matthew Garrahan tweeted that it was a “mad scoop”. Political editor George Parker opted for the slightly more restrained “yes, this plan to send migrants to a volcanic outcrop…was seriously discussed”.

    Their implication was clear – that the Home Secretary harbours crazy ideas that no serious governmental politician would even consider. Of course, they used to think that about Brexit.

    Labour, which has a genuinely outlandish policy of eliminating detention for asylum claimants thereby facilitating their disappearance into the twilight world of illegal immigrants should they get wind that their claim is about to be refused, was of course happy to join the pile-on. Shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said that Patel’s notion was a “ludicrous idea” which was “inhumane, completely impractical and wildly expensive”.

    But the fact is that the existing asylum regime is broken and processing applicants offshore appears to many practically-minded people as by far the most realistic way to fix it. Over the summer, we have seen many thousands of young men pay people smugglers to take them across the Channel from the safe country of France to land on the southern coast of England.

    Those landing undetected have disappeared into the urban ether, those picked up by the authorities on beaches – or indeed escorted ashore – have overwhelmingly claimed asylum.

    Once they are in the UK, various aspects of our human rights regime can be exploited by their state-funded legal teams to keep them here, including the right to a family life should they have started a family with a UK resident in the interim. [A right that proves 1+1 often equals 10 as the in-laws follow.]

    Newly released figures show the scale of the problem is growing all the time, with the number of people in asylum accommodation – including hotels – having grown by 12,000 to 60,000 this year alone.

    The reality of this on the ground is widely felt and resented by people living in towns and cities outside middle class, liberal Left encampments. Abusing the asylum system has become a nearly fool-proof way for people who can afford to pay several thousand pounds to a people smuggler to evade the UK’s immigration laws.

    While FT journalists and Labour politicians generally do not care much about this, often having a vague feeling that national borders are a grisly relic of political antiquity, the British people as a whole are crying out for a politician to deliver change.

    So imagine if the standard procedure for someone landing in Britain and claiming asylum was for them to be flown straight to an offshore centre while their claim was assessed. There would be no ability to abscond and no way of exploiting the Human Rights Act to appeal against a deportation order. Someone granted refugee status could be brought from the offshore centre onto mainland soil and supported appropriately. But for failed asylum-seekers there could be an offer of ongoing accommodation until such time as a return to their country of origin or another country willing to take them could be arranged.

    At a stroke, the giant pull factor of being able to game and beat the system would be eradicated. The illicit cross-Channel traffic would drastically reduce – saving lives in the process. And public faith in our asylum arrangements would be reinvigorated.

    So it is heartening that Priti Patel appears to be standing her ground on the idea of offshoring claims, with the word in Whitehall being that an offshore centre will be set up, albeit not in the far-flung locations mentioned in the leak to the FT. A Home Office spokesman confirmed: “We are developing plans to reform policies and laws around illegal immigration and asylum.”

    Knowing Ms Patel a bit, I do not think she is the kind of politician to be scared off by this dirty tricks campaign against her. I do, however, fear two things might scupper her bid to sort out the system. The first is that those self-styled “liberal” Tory MPs who just love to be approvingly quoted in the pinker parts of the mainstream media might go to town on her. The second – far more serious – is that Downing Street will fail to support her and bottle the whole thing.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/09/30/dirty-tricks-will-not-stop-priti-patel-fighting-fix-broken-asylum/

    2. 324122+ up ticks,
      Afternoon WS,
      The priti thing is a follower of the party line which has been for years anti UK treachery and as such is a round peg, round hole placement.
      Just now they are going to look at & debate the Dover
      incoming potential troop campaign, not when the first potential soldier hit the beach, but now.

      In my mind the truth is they construct this back biting WITHIN the party, they create & handle each side of the make believe problem with the ovid ALL sympathetically agreeing with the underdog.

      ALL the while the invasion numbers increase one outcome WILL be, we DEMAND a super mosque,NOW, and that is on the governance menu to grant it.

    3. St Kilda is uninhabited and much nearer than Ascension Island. A few hundred rolls of razor wire around the island and another 500 on the beaches and in the water – that should keep ’em in and there’s no risk of them hurting themselves in the water since most can’t or won’t swim. Deliveries only by helicopter (that doesn’t land) and there’ll be no escapes.

        1. Happy with Gruinard, but as I pointed out a few days ago, Lundy has excellent diving and sea cliff climbing!! It would be a shame to waste that!

        1. Not half. A number of rare, even unique species on the small islands. They’d all be wiped out within a week. The islanders caught birds by climbing down the steep cliffs on home made ropes. The films of this are almost beyond belief. However, the sheer difficulty of this enabled the bird population to survive, even though the islanders did not.

          1. Those fit young men coming in would have no trouble stripping the cliffs of eggs and getting the pufflings out of their burrows.

        2. I guess, J, the sheep could be relocated or used as food for their stay. The birds will easily island hop.

          3. St Kilda sheep are very small and “threatened”. The St Kilda wren is unique to the islands.

        3. Any alternatives, J? I might favour Rockall as it’s so small most would fall into the sea. Ailsa Craig might be an alternative.

    1. I’ve seen similar with various “heritage” trains, it’s surprising how often it seems to happen..

      Rather like birthdays matching in as few as 23 randomly chosen people.

  66. That’s me gone Disappointing end to the day. More rain expected throughout the night.

    No drink tonight – I have a repeat spirography test tomorrow. Apparently the first one didn’t work properly – bit like “track and trace”..

    Have a jolly evening obeying the gestapo.

    A demain.

      1. When it says 8+ i don’t think they include the over 80’s in that. Besides, I had one and got bored with it after 5 minutes. Totally not amazing not. I swapped it for recreational drugs. They were amazing !

          1. I am so pleased i made you laugh. When you get to know me over a boozy lunch (you’re paying) you will know that most of what i say is total bolleaux. 🙂

          4. ‘Do’ not ‘can’.

            Besides……. not only has a Nottler paid for my Gin lunch on several occasions i have also been sent flowers and chocolates. Plus, I’m more amusing in the flesh…..as it were. *innocent face.

  67. BBC:
    “…daily deaths are now at 71, the same number they were in March, two days before the nation went into lockdown.”
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-54352135

    Daily Mail:
    “…the average number of victims each day (40) is still massively lower than the daily death tolls seen during the peak of the first wave, when more than 1,000 Britons were succumbing to the life-threatening infection every day.”
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8789715/Britain-announces-Covid-19-deaths-Wednesday.html

    Both are at fault for not comparing like with like with very specific data. The BBC is particularly careless in the use of ‘daily deaths’. These are the figures for the last 10 days:
    20 – 18
    21 – 11
    22 – 37 (Tues)
    23 – 37
    24 – 40
    25 – 34
    26 – 35
    27 – 17
    28 – 13
    29 – 71 (Tues)

    A big rise can often be seen after each weekend going back several weeks.

    1. I don’t expect any MP has been asked to travel several hundred miles to get a covid test. Daily Mail today. Bournemouth to Perth Scotland for a 73 yr old. Where he would need to drive or travel on public transport at his own expense.

      They really are trying to kill us all.

    3. “Yet another COVID vaccine volunteer suffers brain damage”

      Well, on the plus side, I’m sure Bozo and Mad Handjob will find him a place in their crisis management team, along side Professor Half-Whitty and Sir Patrick Unbalanced.

  70. Is there a “second wave’? Or does testing show a shadow of the first wave? That is, because the tests will show positive in people who had Covid-19 five months ago, they cannot be relied upon to tell us anything about what new infections are happening.
    Strangely, this “second wave” was predicted months ago, despite no one knowing anything about Covid-19 or there ever having been such a thing as a “second wave” at any time in history.
    It just gets weirder and weirder…

    1. I suspect it arises out of the “Spanish” ‘flu at the end of WW1, when many people died over the two winters.

      1. Maybe, probably. However, it is not a “fact”. We were told that it was not ‘flu. Seasonal ‘flu comes every winter. There is no logical linkage between ‘flu and Covid-19.
        However, it makes a good story for tightening restrictions.
        The ‘Second Wave” coming to a cinema near you (oops, cinemas closed by pandemic). A story of horror, death, misery, poverty brought about by stupidity and those planning to conquer the world.

        1. Agreed.
          I was merely making the observation over “second wave”.

          We’re being conned; and sadly the cov-idiots are not the students/protesters/party people. It’s the advisors.

          1. Sorry if I was a bit blunt. I am pretty wound up with the continual bombardment of dodgy information and guesswork, followed by brutal treatment of citizens. Not to mention that most of the population are going along with it without any real questions.

    2. They are playing a blinder, just imagine how hard it would have been to persuade millions of people to go unemployed from their high carbon footprint jobs to save the planet from climate change.

      1. There will be a reckoning when people happily furloughing wake up to find their jobs exported to the Chinese and what few companies remain taken over by Indians and Arabs.

        This is already happening in the hospitality sector where the only investors are Indians and Arabs.

        John Lewis and Marks and Spencer will disappear just as did Woolworths a few years ago. Harrods meanwhile are setting up satellite high end shops in our major cities as we speak, all Arab funding I imagine (Dubai).

        Meanwhile Boris the Bonker has given what little is left of our car manufacturing to the EU. I fully expect the prat to concede our fishing grounds to the EU and much else that he promised to reclaim.

        I despair of this utterly incompetent government of self interested wasters.

    3. The second wave would happen whether or not it actually arrived.
      Our rulers need it, so they can continue to cover their @rses with their lies

    1. I’m guessing that most of the voters on this poll didn’t watch it, listen to it or read about it.

      It was a car crash.

        1. Read as many reports as you can.

          I got the distinct impression that Trump tried to bully it, rather than debate it.

          It was a Gawd almighty slanging match lots of hot air, on both sides, very little substance

          1. That man that has been bullied by the Left, the establishment and the mainstream media for the last five years and now he is the bully for defending himself, that is not how I see it.
            He is the only right wing politician since Thatcher that has kept to pledges that stood for on election.

          4. I can’t argue with that.

            But given he has a MSM that totally opposes him, both in the USA and outside, surely his better tactic would be to let Biden show himself up for the clown that he is?

            The more Biden is given free rein the stupider he looks.

          5. Biden lost his temper and showed his true character by telling Trump to shut up, imagine what he will be like if he is president.

          8. if we had been interrupted at every turn and hardly allowed to complete a sentence by an opponent who was ignoring the debate rules, shut up is probably a lot more polite than we would have managed.

          9. Interruptions are the norm for the Left MSM when interviewing, can’t they take a bit of their own back?

          10. It’s another reason to give Biden free rein. Gentle goading with 100% irrefutable facts will build on that.
            Let the man hang himself; all it will need is gentle prompting.

          11. What would be the point in that, the mainstream media would still only be reporting bad things about Trump like they have all along.

          12. Because the people who vote trust what they see, they don’t trust the MSM.

            A self-inflicted Biden meltdown would bypass the MSM entirely.

            The Internet and social media would see to that.

          1. Sopel, ‘another beauty’ as Trump described him, should be high on the list for the axe if Tim Davie is serious about political bias in the BBC.

            Sopel is also in receipt of a fabulous salary and expenses despite being a worthless piece of shit.

        2. It was one and a half hours, I will never get the time back.

          Nothing achieved by either side, no votes changed after that spectacle.

    2. Hunter Biden said his Daddy won the debate. The widow of Moscow told him so. It was also verified by the Russians who bought plutonium from the Clintons.

    3. Hunter Biden said his Daddy won the debate. The widow of Moscow told him so. It was also verified by the Russians who bought plutonium from the Clintons.

          1. It’s not always the biggest, Belle, but it’s often there or there about. I think it’s a factor of hydrodynamics and wavelength propagation that is beyond me.

          3. We’ve had a fair few bass from the rocks and beach lure fishing, but nothing huge. All the bigger fish have come from live baiting from a boat.

          4. I love “body-surfing”, no board, just throw myself into the breaking wave.

            In my experience the 7th is a bit of a myth, but there is no doubt that there is a certain symetry to the waves as they arrive. I take any wave that looks as if it will propel me into the beach.

          10. Superstition eh?

            What about the pilot, born on 7/7/1917 who flew with 77 Squadron (Coastal Command). While hunting the German submarine, U777, his aircraft was shot down at 0700 hours on the seventh day of the week. It crashed into the sea on the 77th parallel, by Svalbard Island and all seven crew members were lost.

          13. It’s all to do with the magic power of the number seven, Maggie.

            I knew a chap who was a noted soothsayer. He was the seventh son of a seventh son, all of them bastards like himself.

          14. It is an Irish thing if J P Donleavy is to be believed. I think there is a reference in ‘The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthasar B’ or ‘A Singular Man’ from memory.

            Edit: Seven is a very important number in Architecture. Look at any Renaissance archway with voussoirs and rustications and you will find a geometry of 11 divisions, Pi being the ratio 22 over 7.

          15. My dear late father was born on the 7th … and died on the 7th … I have my birthdate and year with sevens in them .. what do I know, nothing really BUT.. well , one never knows.

    3. That’s extremely disappointing. But I think the Speaker is far more honourable than the previous one ever was. And of course the HoC will vote for renewing the Act. I think it may be for 2 years, can anyone confirm?

      1. “Speaker Lindsay Hoyle launched extraordinary attack on PM for holding the Commons in ‘contempt’ “

        1. Good. Boris is totally out of his depth and the MPs aren’t too far behind. They’ve become far too used to just rubber stamping edicts from (the)sprouts.

        1. Somebody has been very clever in not using that Act knowing that Parliament would have no chance to object to all the measures they intended to put in place. I don’t think the clever one is Boris!

    1. I am surprised that they are still reporting deaths and providing estimates over here in Ontario because the numbers are normally very low, maybe one or two a day.

      We also hear more about infections with hundreds of cases this week and projections of daily cases increasing to thousands by late October.

      Same in the US, thirty to forty thousand new cases each day but no headlines reporting deaths.

    2. My neighbour, who is in his early twenties, is beginning to catch on. He has noticed that cases are not deaths and that the numbers are suspicious to say the least. He mentioned that some cases are being reported twice and the media is full-on scare-mongering. He thinks we should just get on and acquire herd immunity.

      1. 324122+ up ticks,
        PM,
        There is no alternative / opposition they are a
        much alternately repeated coalition, we could never have sank to the odious depths we find ourselves now without their continuing input.

        More sinister is the fact, they ain’t finished yet.

    2. Please could someone explain how one’s sexuality is a ‘preference’? I thought that everyone (except for probably a tiny number of exceptions) were born with their sexuality built in. And how can one make a choice, however ‘free’ one is supposed to be? Is it possible for a heterosexual to wake up one morning and decide to be homosexual, automatically finding the same sex attractive?

      This all stems back to the PC rubbish, in my opinion – but who am I to understand these mysteries in the modern world of LGBTXYZ, liberal hand wringing and wokeness?

      1. There does seem to be some evidence that second children can have an abnormal sexual preference due to large amounts of hormone in the womb. I can’t remember who did the research.

      2. 324122+ up ticks,
        Afternoon S,
        To fully understand “wokeness” you must first obtain a step through mirror allowing entrance to “wokeland”.

        Yes, submissive, pcism & appeasement in the forming of daisy chains within parliament tries to give sexual wokism substance,
        ask jim the washing machine salesman / politico for verification.

    3. If someone just went up to a policeman and did the same – wouldn’t it be classed as an “assault”?

  79. Every time I go to a News website I expect to see that Boris Johnson has resigned.

    How long will it be before he does and who will replace him? Will a good Brexit for Britain be finalised before he goes?
    .

      1. They won’t be so keen on Rishi when it’s payback time – pensions freeze, increased VAT, penny on the income tax…….more IHT.

        1. Reckon you’re right. And we oldies will be the only ones with any assets/savings to raid once the job losses/company closures get going.

          1. It’s been 12 years since we got any decent return on savings and investments. Wait for the negative interest rates like they have in the EU.

          2. Of course the government wants us to spend any money/savings we have. And they’re doing their utmost to make sure we do. They won’t be looking so clever when the mortgage defaults start happening. People these days have maxed out their credit cards and are up to their eyes in debt every which way. It’ll be carnage when they lose their jobs as well. God help them.

          3. Indeed, VW.

            God is the only person/Deity
            who might help…it is a sure fact
            HMG will leave them in the sh*itty
            swamp…created by HMG!

          4. I understand that the conditions for negative interest rates have not yet been met, so they have been put on hold for the moment.

    3. The dm seems to be campaigning for either Boris’s resignation or his ejection. The dm was sold to a Remainer a year or so back. Conclusions can be drawn from this (although they may, of course, not be correct). Bluff and double bluff.

        1. #metoo. I need new reading glasses, I have done for some time. And the font on this newish iPad I have is tiny. I know I can expand it but then I lose page perspective. These days I don’t notice my typos until they are embarrassingly in print.

    4. 324122+ up ticks,
      Afternoon R,
      I did say he was the final stage of a semi eu re-entry rocket with the wretch cameron first, may second and my way of thinking is brexit has already been finalised some time ago.

    5. He won’t go, he’ll need pushing.

      In the actual case where he does go I expect Gove to make a play for the top job, he’s wanted it forever and it would be true style to put another total failure in a top position.

    1. I knew an old lady, who was the mother of an ex-girlfriend of a friend of mine. She lived in Hyde and kept cats, and her GP was Dr Shipman. However hard he tried, he couldn’t finish this lady off.

    1. Would she be happy to hand over unprecedented power to a Labour government, I wonder? Probably, on the grounds that they would control people for their own good.

    1. That is the number that they say has got here. It could well be a LOT more. But what we know for sure is that a lot will have families arriving as well, now that the “anchor” has got here. How many of those that have arrived will commit murder or rape to ensure that they can claim that deportation would get them persecuted back home – – so therefore they stay, after ruining or ending an innocent person’s life – and get very well rewarded lives off the UK taxpayer.

  83. “Britain has offered a three-year transition period for European

    fishing fleets to allow them to prepare for the post-Brexit changes as

    part of an 11th-hour deal sweetener.

    The catches of EU fishermen would be “phased down” between 2021 and

    2024 to offer time for European coastal communities to adapt to the

    changes.

    The lengthy transition period is contained in a new negotiating paper

    tabled ahead of the current round of negotiations in Brussels between

    the teams respectively led by the UK’s chief negotiator, David Frost,

    and his EU counterpart, Michel Barnier.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/sep/30/britain-offers-eu-fishing-concession-brexit-sweetener
    During which time their mega-trawlers will exterminate the stocks
    You utterly useless traitors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    1. One would hope that the overall quotas remain unchanged initially and will drop annually by a third of the initial quota so it becomes nil except on our terms after the three years.

      The EU can determine who in the EU gets what share of what is on offer.

    3. F.F.F.F.F.F…………………………………………………………..
      The lot of you.

      Sorry chums.

      Edited….too many ellipses!

    5. Good heavens , we will be fished out , ruined , sucked dry .. barren seas and starving dolphins , seals seagulls and the rest .

      They are idiots .. twats of the first order.

    1. And the middle classes and anyone aspiring to become that. Wealthy are OK but the rest will be shackled forever to state benefits/universal wage and forever a servant of the state.

  85. Top comment BTL@DTletters

    Incognito D W
    30 Sep 2020 6:49AM

    Simple answer to why you can see your dentist and hygienist and not your doctor.

    Self employed vs NHS. One has to earn the money, the other is given it regardless.

    1. Spot on. Of course GPs are really state employees although they have special tax arrangements. Sweet huh!

    2. We cannot see a dentist here. Unless we look through the window. No drilling, no fillings, no anaesthetic…

      1. I have about 60 creme eggs Grizz – bought because they only get produced for Easter and I let a friend of mine have 2 or 3 occasionally because there’s none in the shops.

      2. At Lidl chocolate Easter eggs were reduced to 25% of original price, which was good value for the dark chocolate items. They last at least a year if you don’t eat them.

  88. Another 71 deaths from Covid yesterday. Cases increasing. It looks as if the experts have been correct in predicting a second wave of infections.. Boris busily telling us to follow the rules such as social distancing whilst MPs ignored social distancing as they left to vote to continue the Covid Act .
    Boris was quite sensible today at PMQ’s and at his Covid briefing at 5pm.

        1. Very easily done.

          Do you know, we get so many figures coming out of “official” sources that I could easily have accepted that you had found one.

    3. Reported deaths. Oh, and is that ‘died with COVID symtoms’, or ‘died due to COVID’?

  89. BBC:
    “…daily deaths are now at 71, the same number they were in March, two days before the nation went into lockdown.”
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-54352135

    Daily Mail:
    “…the average number of victims each day (40) is still massively lower than the daily death tolls seen during the peak of the first wave, when more than 1,000 Britons were succumbing to the life-threatening infection every day.”
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8789715/Britain-announces-Covid-19-deaths-Wednesday.html

    Both are at fault for not comparing like with like with very specific data. The BBC is particularly careless in the use of ‘daily deaths’. These are the figures for the last 10 days:
    20 – 18
    21 – 11
    22 – 37 (Tues)
    23 – 37
    24 – 40
    25 – 34
    26 – 35
    27 – 17
    28 – 13
    29 – 71 (Tues)

    A big rise can often be seen after each weekend going back several weeks.

    1. To be fair, the trend is certainly upwards, but I very much doubt that we should be as concerned as the scare-mongers would have us be.

      Famous last words!

      2. “…the trend is certainly upwards…”

        Indeed it is but sloppy and muddled reporting like this is inexcusable.

    2. There are statistics, statistics and MSM interpretation of statistics. The figures are the reported deaths on those dates, NOT the dates of deaths, which would yield a much smoother line as it would remove the spurious drops at weekends. For once I would go with the DM’s interpretation.

      1. Yes, the weekend ‘catch-up’ has been mentioned on here many times. The writer of the BBC piece should be made aware of it.

  90. (Old cases + new cases) = new cases = More Lockdown
    More Lockdown + more testing = more new cases
    and repeat.

    2. Well, they have already got at least one mosque, paid for by outsiders.
      Of course, while the Scottish Government wants immigrants, thousands of them, they don’t want to have them pushed on us by Westminster.

  94. Goodnight, Gentlefolk, I think I’ve made my case for isolating our unwelcome guests. Talk again tomorrow – oops, we’re 19 minutes into tomorrow. Love you all and big higs.

  95. Evening, all. It’s been a very wet day here; I think it could rightly be described as a cloudburst. The drains couldn’t cope, the water was all across the road and the rain was bouncing several inches high. I had a phone call from a dementia charity just as I parked at the stables. When asked if I had time to talk, I said no, but could she ring me back. We agreed, I thought, on a time of 17.30, which would have given me time to get back, do the necessary shopping, get home and get changed. I was indeed home and able to talk at 17.30, but I had a missed call on my mobile from this charity at 16.04 (when I would have been driving). Now, what is the point in making an appointment to ring me at a time when I said I would be available yet ringing me nearly an hour and a half earlier when I said I wouldn’t be? I’m still waiting for a call back.

    1. At times our weather matches the UK so closely that I wonder if I am really so far west of the UK.

      In the space of four hours, brilliant sunshine, rain to match your downpour, a bit more sunshine then hail. The round of golf finished with gale force winds to complete our trip through the seasons.

      I have never been at the receiving end of a charity call where they were pleasant enough to agree to call back, our charity beggars go for the immediate hard sell.

      1. They were supposed to be helping me re MOH’s dementia. Everybody seems to be completely disconnected from the reality of having to cope. This morning, when I was heading out with the dog, a couple from the ICS team arrived to see about how best to get MOH out of the car. ‘I don’t recall your ringing to let me know you were coming,’ I remarked – ‘oh, we thought we’d just turn up because we haven’t heard from you for a while. Is your car out?’ ‘No, it’s in the garage where I normally keep it because I didn’t know you were coming’. In the event, they both masked up (we were talking in the open air) and discussed technique. It seems that I am doing exactly what they would have advised (why wouldn’t I? I’m not stupid), but they suggested a handle to attach to the car door – for which I would have to pay, of course. The dog was not best pleased at having his walk interrupted, I can tell you! He is far less tolerant of interruption than I am and he let them know it in no uncertain terms.

        2. https://www.wish.com/product/5de6027e91ce9ce4a66bbb35?hide_login_modal=true&from_ad=goog_shopping&_display_country_code=GB&_force_currency_code=GBP&pid=googleadwords_int&c=%7BcampaignId%7D&ad_cid=5de6027e91ce9ce4a66bbb35&ad_cc=GB&ad_curr=GBP&ad_price=6.00&campaign_id=6493229882&guest=true&gclid=CjwKCAjw2dD7BRASEiwAWCtCb9doZolt7UCz6fhrN5lAZITuj7S19qcObBq32khAjmQODqJ6dCabQRoCmMsQAvD_BwE&share=web

          My mother, whose problems are solely physical, uses something like this. There are a number of different ones and you need to check that it fits your car, but it is very helpful.

    3. Nobody actually listens any more, Con, let alone understands. Just “follow the script”.

  96. Testing has uncovered 170 cases of Covid-19 among workers at a pork meat processing plant in Cornwall.
    Five hundred staff at Pilgrim’s Pride in Pool, near Camborne, were tested in a contact tracing exercise by the NHS.
    Most of those who tested positive were unaware they had Covid-19 and were not displaying symptoms.
    They and those they have been in close contact with are isolating in line with government guidelines, said Cornwall Council.

      1. That’s right, it’s not a proper plague where you could just check your armpit for buboes.

      2. The problem is not whether you have been infected but whether you then go home and give it to granny… who then gets very ill indeed.

        One of the reasons why TB in cattle is such a problem is that, in the main, the cattle don’t get sick at all. Doesn’t stop them being taken out and shot.

        1. Clearly the solution is to take out and shoot everybody who tests positive for Covid-19, before they get a chance to infect their grannies and make them very ill.

    3. meat processing plants were the source of many infections during round one. They say that it is low temperatures and high humidity behind all of these cases, which doesn’t auger well for my curling season.

      1. Abattoirs and meat processing plants are cold, humid and, particularly in the former water, is being sprayed around all the time so virus can stick around on water particles. Mask wearing is nigh on impossible as the masks get wet and the noise tends to mean that you can’t communicate through a mask, shouting means taking in more water/virus particles.

        I would think that it would be possible to curl in a mask – if not ideal… would that be an option?

        1. the current guidelines do not require masks when on the ice and rules are being modified to increase distancing between players. Shouting is still permitted.
          Hopefully we will be OK but there is the nagging concern that equates conditions in the shed to the food processing plants.
          As an icemaker, there are times that I spray the water around but I am normally alone when doing that task.

          1. There certainly shouldn’t be any risk when you are alone. Distance is, probably, more effective than a mask. Total number of bodies in the space is also relevant. In factory conditions they are not thinking of cubic metres of air per breather but unless there are lots of you curling at once I shouldn’t think you will be nearly as crowded.

            Good luck.

    5. It’s what I call the “Shadow Wave”. Tests have revealed that they had Covid-19 around three months ago. They are all ok now.
      Or maybe they caught it a fortnight ago and are virulently infectious.
      The crucial point is that the tests cannot tell the difference between someone who had it months ago (the “shadow” remains behind) and someone who has it now.

  97. Persisting it down much of the day in Bath. Couldn’t work on rehabilitating the garden but was able to watch a flock of around six dozen swallows / Martins performing aerobatics across the adjacent field. I was surprised they were still here given the inept lockdown measures….

    1. We have lots of them at this time of the year, when they have essentially left the village as far as feeding is concerned.

      The grass/weeds/wildflowers in our patch are teeming with bugs and we don’t cut between about mid April/mid October

      We do the Autumn cut around now and I suspect they are waiting for the tractor man to do the mowing. It is insect heaven for them. We then get hundreds swooping, a sight to behold, and then, one day, they’ve all gone.

  98. Blitz: The Bombs That Changed Britain
    BBC2

    A series of programmes illustrating how bombing during the 1941 Blitz remodelled British society as Government initiatives sought to discover how to deal with the type of war for which the country was ill prepared.

    Episode 1 focussed on the consequential effects of a bomb that failed to explode near the London Docks resulting in evacuation of a deprived housing area a mile wide. The evacuees were relocated to a local school which was hit by a bomb that did explode. The disaster resulted in a Conservative MP proposing the equality health treatment for UK civilians through the creation of a national health service.

    Episode 2 (Just finished tonight) looked at the effects of morale on families whose homes suffered a direct hit by a bomb that did explode.
    Government advisers established that the psychological effects of losing one’s home far surpassed those experienced when friends and family were killed.

    There are lessons in these two episodes for a country that has withdrawn the facilities of the NHS in favour of battling with a virus and that is also at the point of indefinitely locking up youngsters who have just left home.

    1. We’ve had light drizzle most of the day, but OH managed to empty the carload at the tip while it was dry.

  100. Having spent the best part of the last six months at home, devoid of work as my clients all cancelled works, I found myself with a client in central Cambridge today, a follow up meeting as they wish to proceed.

    In their existing outlet you are obliged to wear a mask whilst standing and moving around but after being seated the mask can be removed.

    The tables are distanced by 2metres but folk sitting at tables are less than a metre apart and facing each other.

    This is proof to my mind of the stupidity of current regulations on distancing. The whole scheme of social distancing and all of the other limitations imposed by government diktat is a complete nonsense and hopefully will in future be ignored.

    I read every day that a majority of the populace wish to see stricter controls. I can only conclude that those wishing the continuance if these idiotic ‘controls’ are employed by government viz. local council employees and pen pushers in the civil service and especially the dysfunctional NHS.

    I reckon there are more civil servants and the rest than the actual number of productive workers. This will not end well.

    1. That sounds like a restaurant or a pub. In restaurants it’s not so bad, it’s normal to sit at a table to eat. In pubs it’s ghastly. Socialising in pubs is a fluid thing and 6 at one table and not able to wander is a nightmare.

      1. It is a coffee bar. The existing premises also serve a limited food offer.

        The proposed outlet will be takeaway coffee and cakes mostly. No seating but a few leaners. It is geared to students of which there will again be thousands when the Chinese return.

        My wife designed the first Seattle Coffee outlet in Covent Garden Over 30 years ago. This was sold on and became Starbucks whereas the original Seattle Coffee outfit understood coffee.

        Our present clients understand the importance of preparation in serving coffee. You need highly sophisticated espresso machines (made in Seattle), properly ground beans for each recipe and filtered water heated to the correct temperature to avoid scorching the beans.

        Milk is gauged to cut the coffee and sugar is added by the server as requested to avoid those dreadful condiments units you see in most places.

          1. Yup. Many do. I make my own filtered coffee mostly using Taylor’s of Harrogate beans.

            When dealing with commercial outfits it is a different matter. You have to up your game. This is because they are selling many thousands of cups of coffee every month. If folk dislike the product then you go bust.

            Edit: I discovered years ago that Londoners prefer very strong coffee whereas folk in the West Country prefer a lesser strength.

    2. There really are people who have been scared to death by this campaign to intimidate us all. They believe that mask- wearing protects us and others, and that all this is for our own good.

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