Wednesday 31 August: How the NHS Blob has been keeping doctors away from their patients

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

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

400 thoughts on “Wednesday 31 August: How the NHS Blob has been keeping doctors away from their patients

  1. Good moaning.
    Exciting start to the day; a fox (probably) had dropped a plastic bag containing a cooked chicken leg in the garden. Spartie found it, and there were – as a German friend puts it “some discussions” – between him and me over what to do with it.
    Bribery and corruption won; several dog treats and ferocious growling later, and the leg is now in the waste bin.
    (Yes, yes, I know all about taking food away from a dog – I’ve done it with Jack Russells and collies – but chihuahuas are more “challenging”.)

    1. I did once have a tug of war with Mongo over a tree. He was determined to bring it with him, I wasn’t. I said drop, he ignored me. So we carried on.

      And then we got to the turnstile over the wall… the look he gave me was evil.

    2. Our boxer, Rumpole, had the most extraordinary temperament. When our children took away a bone or squeezed a testicle he did not growl, he did not menace or threaten he just gave Caroline or myself a soulful and plaintive look so that we came to his aid.

      He adored our children. If either of them cried he came to tell us straight away so that we could attend to what he saw as our parental duty.

    1. I did once live in the office when I was homeless. It had showers though.
      During a housing shortage in Munich in the 90s, this was fairly common.

  2. ‘Morning All

    Green Lunacy and Sanctions at their best……….

    https://twitter.com/EssexPR/status/1564715683262480385

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/80c4f25e88854678cad0d0d7efe967a42f564f391717d2c311c40fe3e164c776.jpg

    Spiked has a revealing piece…..

    The total decarbonisation of society, as demanded by Net Zero

    ideologues, would encompass all of our industry, agriculture, transport

    and buildings. It depends on trillions of events and decisions somehow

    coming into alignment at the right time. Trying to control so many

    unpredictable variables would be too ambitious even for Stalin. Yet in

    the UK we are expected to believe our parliament, which has spent 70-odd years failing to build an airport runway, can guarantee ecotopia in under 30 years.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/08/29/how-climate-policy-fuelled-our-energy-crisis/?mc_cid=f99b7ba525
    Ain’t that the truth!!

    1. Well, for the same reason we pretend windmills are green – we ship the costs elsewhere. It’s why our oceans are full of plastic. I’m sorry, but this farce has been going on for decades. The state pretends it’s virtuous by dy shifting the cost elsewhere. It’s tiresome. Did people not know this?

  3. 355530+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    It is wrong in my book to seek revenge on the suffering innocent but
    the childrren of rotherham were targeted innocents plied upon by the paedophilia culture of the Pakistani nation.

    Twitter,

    UN appeals for aids after devastating floods in Pakistan kill at least 1,100

    1. Plenty of room in British cities for victims of the floods. They’ll be reallocating flights to bring them over. Pakistanis are a protected category, remember.

      1. Only Muslim Pakistanis jeremy.

        The Government has already shown that Christian Pakistanis are not welcome.

  4. How the NHS Blob has been keeping doctors away from their patients

    A phone App a day keeps the doctor away

  5. Priti Patel tells ‘woke’ police to get back to basics. 31 August 2022.

    Police are being told to focus on the basics by Priti Patel, as a report found that the public feels officers are distracted from solving crime by “woke” causes.

    The paper by the Policy Exchange think tank called for police to be barred from taking the knee or wearing campaign badges on their uniform, because of the risk of appearing to have partisan political views.

    It warned that this could be “hugely damaging” to public confidence and cited polling showing that four in 10 voters thought the police were more concerned with being “woke” than solving crime.

    The sentiment is understood to be backed by the Home Secretary. A government source said: “Priti’s views are that police should be focusing on getting the basics of policing right, on traditional policing and making our streets safer.”

    Actually she does nothing of the kind as a close reading shows. This is some unaccountable source speaking on her behalf. Probably wise as she like so many of her colleagues are in Office but not in Charge!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/08/31/priti-patel-tells-woke-police-get-back-basics/

    1. Getting a bit fed up with government saying one thing while they let rip cultural marxism through all our institutions.

  6. ‘Morning, Peeps.  A slightly churlish 14°C here, with the promise of a heady 22° later on.

    This morning it seems to have finally dawned on Priti Useless that the police have gone ‘woke’, and she has now told them to stop it.  Given her success with telling the boat people to pack it in, I’m not expecting any improvement.  Indeed, any problem that she turns her hand to seems to have the opposite effect:

    Priti Patel tells ‘woke’ police to get back to basics

    Focus on traditional policing, says Home Secretary, as report calls for end to ‘partisan’ causes

    By Charles Hymas, HOME AFFAIRS EDITOR   31 August 2022 • 12:01am

    Police are being told to focus on the basics by Priti Patel, as a report found that the public feels officers are distracted from solving crime by “woke” causes.

    The paper by the Policy Exchange think tank called for police to be barred from taking the knee or wearing campaign badges on their uniform, because of the risk of appearing to have partisan political views.

    It warned that this could be “hugely damaging” to public confidence and cited polling showing that four in 10 voters thought the police were more concerned with being “woke” than solving crime.

    The sentiment is understood to be backed by the Home Secretary. A government source said: “Priti’s views are that police should be focusing on getting the basics of policing right, on traditional policing and making our streets safer.”

    Both Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak have made crime a key plank of their Tory leadership campaigns, with calls for a back-to-basics approach.

    Sir Mark Rowley, the incoming Metropolitan Police commissioner, has promised to restore neighbourhood policing when he starts his new role in September.

    Six of the 43 police forces in England and Wales, including the Metropolitan Police, are in “special measures” because of their failure to investigate crimes properly.

    Last week, police officers in Lincolnshire faced criticism after being shown on social media performing the Macarena at an LGBTQ+ Pride event.

    The Policy Exchange report by David Spencer, a former detective chief inspector for the Metropolitan Police, set out a “back-to-basics” approach. It included the use of powers to sack chief constables of failing forces and clear guidance to prioritise solving crimes over “woke” political causes.

    Mr Spencer said: “Even the perception that an officer’s decision-making, such as whether to arrest someone, might be influenced by a partisan political view has the potential to be hugely damaging to public confidence.

    “Acts that may be intended by as a show of solidarity against discrimination, such as ‘taking the knee’ or an officer wearing a badge on their uniform, can easily be interpreted by others as an expression of a partisan political view.

    “To maintain the public’s confidence that police officers are acting with impartiality, such acts must always be avoided by police officers and their leaders. This should be made clear in both national and local guidance.”

    The report stated that the Home Secretary already has powers to set priorities for forces and should “have the courage” to use them, including, where appropriate, giving a direction to a police and crime commissioner to sack the chief constable of a failing force.

    It also said that police should make greater use of technology to focus their work on the crimes and disorder that concern residents, suggesting the use of apps for police and public to communicate with each other.

    Mr Spencer said: “Given a sense of community ownership is critical to the success of local policing, residents could then respond by prioritising which problems they would wish local officers to focus on.

    “Once the crime and disorder issues that most concern local people are identified, policing teams could also use app-based platforms to demonstrate how they are focusing on resolving those issues.”

    Recruiting 20,000 officers would help stop ‘vile gangs’

    The report also recommended that the Government should streamline the process for removing officers found guilty of criminality or serious misconduct, and make it easier for chief constables to dismiss them.

    It called for the bureaucracy around police reporting of crimes – some of which require recording the “perceptions” of a crime, rather than it being based on hard evidence – to be reformed and streamlined.

    It advocated for the recruitment of a new police corps of data scientists, programmers and hackers to tackle the threat from online fraud and child abuse. It also called for the end of a “closed shop” by opening all jobs above inspector level to external applicants.

    On Wednesday, Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, will meet new police officers on the front line. He will say that the recruitment of 20,000 extra officers would enable the Government to continue with its mission of “cracking down on vile gangs and putting dangerous offenders behind bars for longer”.

    * * *

    Personally I would have thought that getting the chief constables in and reading them their horoscopes would have been a good start.  Just what has she been doing for the past three years, apart from inviting the rest of the world to pitch up at Dover??

    The BTL posters are similarly unimpressed:

    Nicholas mills6 HRS AGO

    Pure deflection. The criminality in community is cultural. Of course the bad eggs in the met need to be weeded out but the political agenda stops police doing their job. But of course the left use everything to demean the police yet protect a community not solving its criminality. The police etc let the grooming scandal happen. This multiculturalism bias is a danger and that is the biggest thing to affect the integrity of the police. But of course bad cops should be removed. The left push these story for control of the police so it can be used for agenda politics.

    David Cooper7 HRS AGO

    Admirable sentiments, Home Secretary, but your successor will need to go much further than simply telling woke police to get back to basics. One way to make a suitable impact upon woke police will be to dismiss or demote every senior officer who can be identified as a graduate of Common Purpose, and replace them with those in the mould of historical figures such as James Anderton of Greater Manchester or Ray Mallon of the North East. Then take a long hard look at anything taught in the police training colleges that detracts from the prevention and detection of crime. The list will go on.

    Algernon Moncrief6 HRS AGO

    If you’re a law abiding upstanding member of the community you are vulnerable.

    If you’re a criminal you are protected.

    The police serve the criminals better than the law abiding people.

    That is the sad truth of policing in this country today.

    John McQuillan7 HRS AGO

    How’s she getting on with illegal immigration going up from 1,800 to 40,000 on her watch in three years?

    How’s the Rwanda policy going?

  7. The decadent West is dismantling the foundations of its own success. 31 August 2022.

    If we are to face up to the dangers, a first step is to stop encouraging the undermining of our culture and history by people who apparently loathe them. We must strengthen the teaching of history by schools and other institutions. Too many people are ignorant of the past and hence easy prey to noisy propaganda. Shame and guilt will not scare away the gathering vultures.

    Since the Political Elites of every faction more or less agree with this program there is very little chance of it being changed. There is an inevitability about decadence. Once it has taken hold it is almost impossible to reverse!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/08/30/decadent-west-dismantling-foundations-success/

    1. As a past smasher-upper of restaurants his ability to destroy things is undimmed…

      ‘Morning, SB.

      1. PS Speaking of lies and bullshit, I had the misfortune to have the World Service on during the night, when they put out a programme entitled ‘Green Energy: Some Inconvenient Truths’. Oh boy, the lies came thick and fast! The best one was the certainty that climate change will be irreversible in eight years’ time if we don’t return to the Stone Age pdq. Yes, not seven or nine, but precisely eight. Don’t make any plans beyond August 2030!

        The programme is on BBC Sounds but I strongly advise that you don’t even think about listening to this unbridled propaganda session if you value your sanity.

        1. Well, the lie keeps getting repeated. All very Goebbels. Always remember that the BBC is heavily invested in the green scam.

    2. Proud of putting the whole population under house arrest? Presiding over the destruction of our way of life? Not to mention the bullying and coercion to make people accept mass medication.

      1. The unchecked illegal migration, the absurd and hypocritical “net zero” plans, the fraud regarding payments during lockdown/WFH/furlough – the list goes on, none of it anything to be proud of!

      2. The unchecked illegal migration, the absurd and hypocritical “net zero” plans, the fraud regarding payments during lockdown/WFH/furlough – the list goes on, none of it anything to be proud of!

    3. Lies and bullshit to the very end. We cannot claim that he’s inconsistent on that score. Useless on just about everything else, though.

      “…new PM to grab the torch and run with it.”

      Coded message for the new incumbent to continue the destruction of everything we hold dear?

    4. He bungled Brexit (probably deliberately) and he failed to honour any more of his pledges.

      He was an unmitigated disaster but without Lord Frost as an alternative there is no answer.

      Bleed, bleed poor country!
      Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure,
      For goodness dare not check thee.

      Macduff was talking about Scotland during the reign of Macbeth but it could be equally well applied both to Sturgeon’s Scotland and the United Kingdom as a whole.

  8. Today’s leading letter:

    SIR – Among all the challenges faced by the NHS, little has been said about reduced productivity.

    As a cardiac surgeon I was performing up to 350 major cases a year in the 1990s, but by the time I retired 10 years ago that number was around 120.

    There were many reasons: a consultant contract (motivated by the erroneous suspicion that consultants were skiving) that decreased my sessions by 30 per cent and increased my pay by 20 per cent; a pension policy that resulted in the risk of actually paying to work extra sessions; the working time directive that reduced the support of trainee surgeons, despite their desire to gain experience; the General Medical Council requirement for revalidation, which, despite the lack of any concrete data that it is beneficial, has become a time-consuming and expensive industry; the necessity to undergo “mandatory and statutory training”, taking front-line staff away from patients; the highly vaunted IT systems, the navigation of which wasted half an hour each day.

    The “Blob”, working in committee rooms in Whitehall, divorced from the coal face, may well have thought these initiatives were beneficial – but every one has come at the expense of doctor-patient interactions. We are now seeing the catastrophic results of this approach.

    Edward Smith FRCS
    London SW20

    What an appalling indictment of the No Hope Service!

    1. And they spend many billions on creating committees specifically to say how effective their policies have been. The entire state is awash with waste.

  9. 255530+ up ticks,

    May one ask,

    Hypothetically if a new party came through using the NHS as a platform issue would the current electorate majority support it or continue the same supporting / voting pattern of PARTY COMES FIRST IN ALL THINGS.

    To repeat my well trodden rhetorical path WHY are peoples of Gerard Batten / Richard Braine calibre ( worth their weight in butter) overridden by regular political tosspots / parties / party leaders on the strength on a defunct party name.

    What does that say of the mentality of the electorate ?

    1. What does that say of the mentality of the electorate ?

      Very little Oggy. Nothing will change until the voters are affected personally and that will be too late!

  10. SIR – I was appalled by the picture (August 30) of the mountains of litter left by attendees of Reading Festival. I remember you also reported that Brighton and Hove City Council had to remove 10 tons of litter from its beaches after a bank holiday weekend.

    We have an epidemic of waste and litter in our towns and countryside. It shows bad manners and a lack of regard for others and for nature. By any social measures we are a failed state when so many people won’t maintain a clean and tidy environment.

    The Keep Britain Tidy organisation needs more of a profile. A renewed public information campaign might help to reduce the problem.

    Fionnuala French
    Farnham Common, Buckinghamshire

    Yes, Ms French, it was truly disgusting. I blame the parents for not bringing up their offspring to respect what is left of our beautiful country. I’m pleased to see volunteers turning out to keep our beach clean, accompanied by a few children each time (our grandson included on occasions). Instead of teachers filling their heads with leftie indoctrination they could send a class down once a week, armed with litter-pickers and sacks. How hard can it be?

    1. And it’s also likely the same idiots squealing about ‘climate change’. One bloke said there was a litter charge on all the tickets, so they didn’t bother. He couldn’t seem to understand the basic principles of tidying up after yourself.

    2. Litter problems at Reading, Glastonbury etc can be reduced but it would mean the festival organisers dipping into their profits and employing people to pick up the litter. I attended the ‘Ramblin’ Man Festival’ in Mote Park, Maidstone in 2016/17/18/19 and there was a small gang of litter collectors on duty all day; this allowed those with food or drinks containers – a major income to such events – to place their litter in the attendant sack or encouraged them to make the short journey to the waste bins available throughout the site.

      Of course, the fact that there was a small squad employed to pick up litter shows that not all festival goers were concerned about lobbing it on the ground. What it did mean though was that there was a comparatively small amount of litter to collect at the end of each day and the local authorities, i.e. the council tax payers, were not left with a clean-up operation.

      1. At EVERY Folk Festival I’ve ever camped at, the camping field was left as near pristine as possible with, at worst, a few filled binbags waiting to be collected.

    3. All schools should do that. I can always tell when the children are back at school. The park fills with rubbish as they walk to school. Sweets, crisps and drinks consumed and discard the rubbish as they go.

      1. Same with the dog walks round Allan Towers.
        It’s never difficult to know which hedges border school playing fields.

  11. Well possums I put my central heating on this morning for the first time in, I think, eight or nine weeks. I paid my Gas Bill yesterday and it wasn’t nearly as frightening as I expected. I’m sure that this will be rectified in the coming Winter. I’m still trying to formulate some plan to save effective amounts. Turning off the microwave is not one of them! Staying in bed isn’t one of them either. I am to some extent the prisoner of my own nature!

  12. SIR – I recently saw an advertisement for an old and somewhat tired three-legged footstool, which was described as “stunning” (Letters, August 29).

    I suspect these adjectives, like most things, are making their way from America. Not long ago, I walked into Macy’s in Chicago at opening time and headed for the jewellery section. I was greeted by a young man, who asked me enthusiastically if I was having a “fantastic” day. I explained that, so far, I had got up, had a light breakfast, then made my way via the Metro from my airport hotel to his section of the store. As such, my day – thus far – had been pleasant, without being remarkable.

    He seemed most disappointed.

    Francis Caton
    Abingdon-on-Thames, Oxfordshire

    I find myself rarely “stunned” by anything, it’s all part of word inflation by those whose vocabulary is sadly lacking.

      1. ‘Morning, Nanners. Coincidentally, my energy supplier has just written to me to say that my monthly DD has gone up (and hugely) whilst still in credit. Furthermore our heating won’t be used at least until early October. Consequently I have just put it back to where it was until nearer the time – and when the credit has been reduced to zero.

        1. Most things are. The only heat generated by a heat pump is from the cables leading to your house! (and enormous electricity bills for running the things of course).

          I know, I know…joking about stellar incompetence by our so-called government will seem less than funny in the depths of winter…

          1. Excellent article, thanks for posting. I suspect that we won’t be far behind, given that we have had to resort to using a tiny number of coal-fired stations (all gone by 2024) in high summer when the best the thousands of bird-choppers can manage is often in single-digit percentages. The signs are certainly not good.

        1. To be fair about half of that will be the installation (which often isn’t easy)

  13. Good morning all. A bit of a disturbed night, the DT & self ended up sat up in bed with mugs of tea.
    Overcast but dry with 11°C outside.

      1. We both got up to pump bilges and could not get settled again.
        So I got up and made mugs of tea.

  14. SIR – Some 40 per cent of our electricity comes from gas. The rest comes from coal, nuclear and solar power, and wind. If the latter energy generators are receiving the same prices for electricity as generators using gas, they are making massive profits.

    The public are still paying green levies, and the Government is enjoying inflated VAT receipts. Meanwhile, the operation of a proper market is corrupted by the price cap. The country is far from self-sufficient, yet we have abundant energy resources.

    Energy is the biggest policy failure since the Second World War.

    Stuart Moore
    Bramham, West Yorkshire

    Mr Moore, your final sentence says it all!

    1. SIR – Prices for electricity produced by renewables and nuclear power in Britain are high because they are tied to gas prices and not related to the cost of production. This absurd situation is due to contracts signed by successive governments and renewable energy suppliers between 2002 and 2013.

      In 2021 renewables and nuclear power produced 49 per cent of British electricity. Now, the average cost of producing electricity through a mix of renewables and nuclear power is roughly one fifth of the cost of electricity from gas-powered generators.

      The next prime minister must address this. Consumers are not reaping the rewards of their green levy payments over many years for renewable energy development.

      John Leng
      Christchurch, Dorset

      Fat chance, Mr Leng!

    2. Good morning all.

      IMHO there are several major policy failures since 1945, but the greatest is the inability of politicians and the civil service to correct any of those failures. They are simply firefighting, year after year. Edit: and decade after decade.

      1. It’s beyond failure, this is deliberate. What the CFD would do to energy was obvious – in fact, that was the intent from the outset. Combine that with moronic, Left wing green idiocy, the troughing of ministers and back handers to civil servants and you get the carnage we have now.

    3. Bright and sunny after a light shower at 7am this morning. Day out at the coast today with friends and acquaintances from our social club. Picnic on the beach with tea and coffee provided by the beach hut owner.

      Energy is the biggest deliberate policy failure since the Second World War.

      Run close by mass immigration from the Third World! Difficult to believe that our political class et al. hate the people so much that they want to destroy us.

      1. Did this start with Major or with Blair? Or were the seed there with Heath and Wilson?

        When did Schwab and Soros become cancers inside so many people in public life?

    4. To allow wind to compete, contracts for difference were imposed. This ensured that regardless of the generator, everyone would be sell at the highest price.

      As the most expensive generator was always wind (until recently), at some £600 /mw/ h nuclear, coal and gas were very happy. The wind millers were also very happy as they could compete – but the state had rigged the market.

      The solution is to scrap those CFD and have all energy supplies sell at cost – with a reasonable profit of say 5%. No taxes, no duties, no levies, no fiddling, nothing. If the grid needs upgrading to handle wind, then the unreliables owner pays it. If they can’t sell their energy for £600mw h then tough [beeeeeepp]. That’s WHY markets are better than state intervention. They reward the best, the most efficient and the cheapest.

      If folk want an aggregate supply, fine – pay for wind. But if someone came alone ang said ‘Psst! I can sell you 1000 mw of nuclear for £60 I’d say cheers, thank you. That’s 4 months electricity for £60.

      Energy isn’t a policy failure. The insane green agenda is.

      1. ‘Morning, Wibb. I would say that the adoption of one has caused the failure of the other.

  15. SIR – Enjoyable as it must be for Tim Baker (Letters, August 29) to feed a grey squirrel, it is important to note that these squirrels are invasive pests that kill thousands of trees annually by stripping their bark.

    They also transmit squirrel pox, which is fatal to our native and highly endangered red squirrels.

    Pennie Heyworth
    St Saviour, Guernsey

    Children are still taught that the tree rat is in fact a cuddly-wuddly creature. I haven’t yet plucked up the courage to tell* our grand daughters that granddad trapped and shot 52 of the destructive little bastards at our previous house, although this still didn’t prevent the destruction of two of the four beech trees. I suppose it might have slowed the process a little, but they will soon have the other two, one of which was reckoned to be more than 200 yrs old.

    * If I do our daughter will probably kill me!

    1. We have a large walnut tree to the back and to the front of our house and we have a family of red squirrels in each tree. I don’t know if they socialise with each other – they seem to keep to their own territory.

  16. Despite the advice remaining on the gov web site to pregnant women to take the covid shot, GB news discussed the reversal of the advice last night. It would seem that the gnomes in Whitehall were not ready for the revelation. Neither does our favourite Auntie wish to broadcast the significant news. Wonder how long before the claims 4 us lawyers get on the case.

    1. A letter on the subject:

      SIR – Defending Britain’s Covid lockdown policy, Sharon N M Aldridge (Letters, August 30) writes that scientists advising the Government “were endeavouring to protect the public from a deadly virus”. This claim goes to the heart of the matter.

      Before the vaccines, Covid had a mortality rate of roughly 1 per cent, skewed heavily towards the very old and already ill. After the vaccines, mortality fell to roughly 0.1 per cent. Despite this, the official line was that everyone was at risk. Why?

      The Government was bounced into action by modelling from Professor Neil Ferguson, a scientist with a track record of faulty modelling. Why was this not challenged?

      In collaboration with the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), the Government imposed blanket restrictions. The costs of this continue to filter through in inflation, broken supply chains, low productivity and inaccessible GPs. Why did Sage not produce a cost-benefit analysis or include representatives for education, mental health, economics and so on?

      Alternative strategies were available, such as the “focused protection” advocated by the Great Barrington Declaration. Sweden showed that less coercive strategies produced similar health outcomes at much lower cost, and with less collateral damage to society. Why were these alternatives denounced without consideration?

      The theory that Covid leaked from a lab in Wuhan was dismissed as crazy. Scientists linked to the lab campaigned to prevent investigation. Why did the scientific community permit vested interests to trump open inquiry?

      I find the idea that Sage produced the only viable Covid strategy fanciful, and its implications for the future resilience of our country frightening.

      Iwan Price-Evans
      Croydon, Surrey

  17. Putin causes a hole lot more trouble: Cost of fixing potholes soars to ‘unprecedented’ levels as majority of UK’s bitumen was previously imported from Russia. 31 August 2022.

    The cost of fixing potholes has soared to ‘unprecedented’ levels since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to new analysis.

    Around 60 per cent of bitumen, a material used to repair roads across the UK, was sourced from Russia before the conflict escalated in February 2022.

    Councils now have to ration bitumen and find it from other markets, pushing up costs and delaying road repairs.

    Well who would ever have guessed that Vlad was responsible for fixing the roads? I always thought that it was the Council! Stlll it explains the delay. The workmen driving all the way from Moscow to fix them must add to the cost.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11161637/Cost-fixing-potholes-soars-majority-UKs-bitumen-previously-imported-Russia.html#comments

      1. Funnily enough, Maggie, I’m shortly going to Dumfries. I’ll check for plastic waste.

      2. I can’t comment on that particular mix, but English highway authorities have opted for Foambase®, which is basically recycled material; the men who repair the roadsurface later say that it is useless.

    1. A large pot hole was discovered around these parts. Turned out the ground beneath was subsiding.

      An engineer chum said ‘righty, they need to stabilise the subsidence by drilling steel posts in it. Then mesh netting to contain the movement followed by pouring concrete in the cavity. Once that’s done they can repair the pot hole.’

      I said ‘Don’t be daft. They’ll pour gunk over the top and drive off.’

      I was right, the pot hole reappeared when it rained. They don’t properly solve the problem because doing so is expensive – trivially compared to continually digging the road up and putting it down again though.

      1. To repair it properly with concrete etc would probably require road closure for several days, which is expensive.

      2. The council has repaired a pot hole near me 6 times in the last year. They just pour cold tarmac in it and heel it in or if they are feeling generous they’ll run the van over it a couple of times. When it fills with water a guy who lives near it puts some little rubber ducks in the water – at least it gives you a smile. When the hole dries out he puts a cone in it. This happens all over the Highlands – the roads manager needs sacking.

    2. …and I was taught that most bitumen came from in, and around, Venezuela in S America.

      Must be as cheap as importing wood pellets for Drax.

  18. Not bad, par 4

    Wordle 438 4/6

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

    1. It had me going for a while.
      Wordle 438 5/6

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

      1. 355537+ up ticks,

        Morning M,

        Like it,

        To me it is ropeless skipping no doubt with future added options awaiting the next blade shadow to turn up.

  19. Good morrow, Gentlefolk.

    Flat in chaos as I’m moving my office to another room. All is chaos, so my attendance will be sporadic.

  20. Morning all 😃
    Today I’m busy painting the front door and side panels and the up and over garage door. Moving later on to the never used side entrance.
    Just ‘obeying orders’……. only Joe King.
    It’s going to be raining by the weekend must get it finished. Slayders peeps. 😉
    And It’s our 48th wedding anniversary today. 💕

    1. Happy anniversary RE.

      You sound kind biddable and busy , not a scuttle and runner .. I expect you are also quick and efficient doing the things you do .

    2. Painting on your 48th WA.
      Blimey, she’s got you well trained!
      What do you do on your birthday?
      };-))

        1. Are you giving her a gentle warning about what happens to Queens who ask for painting?

          1. I’ve been painting. I’ve made such a good job I’m being further encouraged. Well I expect no less.

      1. Might get a bit brahms and litz.
        On the 12th. Another example of my parents having a romp around the Christmas period.

  21. Good morning! I am amazed to say that the Telegraph appears to have reinstated my character and status as not only paying for it but commenting on its pieces.

    How gratifed one should be, given that the column readership seems to have been taken over since last year by a dismal number of hard-core bonehead propaganda feeders, I am not sure, but I will persevere, and rely on Nottlers for a breath of sanity!

    This appreciation of Gorbachev from one of Reagan’s appointees had some resonance for me:

    https://www.tarableu.com/mikhail-gorbachev-r-i-p/

      1. I have been treating MH to a selection of voices from the Goons today. He is thrilled;-))

    1. Good grief – with each video clip I see Boris Johnson becomes more ugly and physically unappealing. Does Carrie have a brown paper bag to cover up his head during their intimate moments?

      And he talked about “shed loads” of new windmills on their way. Is that want you want for the area around Lulworth Cove and Isle of Purbeck?

  22. Well said, Allison!

    COMMENT

    Boris can never be forgiven for sacrificing Britain to his net zero fantasy

    We have already contributed billions to this elite pipe dream and now we must suffer the hardship caused as it darkens into a nightmare

    ALLISON PEARSON 30 August 2022 • 5:21pm

    Did you by any chance drop the metaphorical marmalade on to Monday’s front page when you read that Boris Johnson, in a farewell message to “safeguard his legacy”, will insist that Britain must not give up on net zero in favour of “short-term fixes” to tackle the cost of living crisis? Me, I dropped the kettle. No loss, as it will soon cost more than caviar just to turn it on. “Beluga cheaper than bath time!” will make the headlines before long, mark my words.

    Apparently, our departing Prime Minister thinks everything his Government has done in renewable energy will make sure that “in the medium and long term, we will be more self-reliant and that will ease costs for consumers”. Short term not looking that clever though, is it? Thousands of businesses which cannot afford their stratospheric electricity bills are about to be sacrificed on the altar of the green religion.

    How vainglorious does COP26 UN Climate Change Conference look now with its airy promises that windmills, solar panels, heat pumps and the like would somehow seamlessly fill the gap left by fossil fuels? (Details TBA.) How delusional the official pride we were showing global leadership by so speedily reducing our puny one per cent contribution to the planet’s CO2 emissions and setting the arbitrary target of 2050. Who knows, perhaps China, India and the other monster belchers have been slow to adopt our net zero fanaticism because they realised that, without adequate alternatives, it would destroy their economies and end up with one in four citizens saying they won’t dare turn on the heating this winter. Which is precisely where a callous green agenda has got our country: Save the Planet, Freeze a Pensioner!

    With a looming threat of power cuts due to the UK’s scary reliance on imported gas, Alok Sharma, the COP26 president, looks increasingly like a naïve fool (others have used pithier epithets). In a video message recorded as he was about to trigger the demolition of SSE’s Ferrybridge coal power plant, Sharma recently boasted: “The UK is on the march in consigning coal power to history. In 2012, around 40 per cent of our electricity was generated from coal. Today, it is less than two per cent and by the end of 2024 we will have eliminated coal entirely from our electricity mix.”

    Bravo, Alok. I’m sure the British people will be thrilled to know that you have almost eliminated the fuel which provided abundant cheap energy for them and their forefathers. In an irony almost too bitter to swallow, several hundred million pounds are being spent on keeping a couple of the evil coal-powered stations, which Alok somehow hasn’t got around to blowing up, on standby. Because the alternatives are still much too unreliable. On Monday, despite all those whirring forests of turbines and the sun-loungered miles of solar, green renewables were contributing just 16 per cent of our needs. About enough to put the kettle on, if you hadn’t dropped it and were now saving energy by heating water in a billy can over a smouldering heap of bio-renewable Twiglets.

    The British taxpayer has already contributed billions to this elite pipe dream and now we must suffer the hardship caused as it darkens into a nightmare. In a scathing editorial, The Wall Street Journal warned its American readers: “The underlying cause of Britain’s energy misery is its fixation with climate goals, especially the ambition to achieve net zero CO2 emissions by 2050. To meet that goal, Britain has grown hostile to domestic energy exploration banning shale-gas fracking and slapping windfall-tax profits on North Sea oil and gas producers that will deter investment. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has hurt, but the UK’s policies made its citizens vulnerable to global shock.”

    How humiliating to be held up as such a cautionary tale.

    Like many posh Englishmen before him, Boris’s blood is stirred by the romance of noble causes in foreign climes (Lord Byron fought for freedom in Greece while having a mad, bad and dangerous reputation at home). Boris has been moved to heartwarming eloquence by the plight of Ukrainians. The problems of families shivering in Petersfield, Pontypool and Pitlochry seem to leave him cold. An oblivious Carrie Antoinette might well advise: “Let them wear thermals, darling!” It smacks of levelling down, not up.

    Saying that Britain needs to rethink its net zero timetable does not make you a climate change denier. Cleaner, greener energy is a worthwhile aim so long as it doesn’t come at the expense of human health and happiness.

    I don’t mourn the passing of coal-fired power. How could I? Coal killed my grandfather. He was 13 when he went down the mine, along with so many boys in South Wales in the 1920s. It was unimaginable to me, when I was old enough to ask him about it in my own teens, that a child would walk a few miles across the fields before starting a shift that meant wriggling on his belly, shunting himself along by his elbows, through a low, narrow tunnel to the coal-face where he would extract the black gold with a pickaxe. The worst thing was he had no complaints. You have never met a more cheerful being. When he was taxed by his granddaughter with how hard and exploitative the work must have been, he always laughed, rubbed his hands together (as if starting a fire) and said: “Champion days, Allison fach, champion days!”

    The coal dust got him in the end, of course it did. Pneumoconiosis claimed all the men who had started that dirty work as boys when they reached their 50s and 60s, except my “Dat” who, as a young miner, discovered he had a voice. An astounding and beautiful instrument, it won him the International Eisteddfod in Llangollen against all-comers from Italy, Germany and Russia. Miraculously, the singing had expanded Dat’s lungs. He used to take my hand and lay it on his diaphragm to feel how deep into his torso the air could go. The breath of life, it propelled him just over the three score years and ten that his beloved Bible promised.

    As he lay dying of lung cancer, I found a recent letter in the dresser drawer from the Coal Board, responding to my grandfather’s request for compensation. Next to his dear name (none dearer to me) it said: “Fit for light work.”

    So we shouldn’t feel nostalgic, not one bit, for an industry that brought about the painful, premature deaths of so many. Yet, I’m equally sure my grandfather would be bewildered that the coal which provided him and his mates with a damn good wage was to be replaced by nothing but a lot of hot air.

    It’s so selective, this green religion. The race to develop new technologies that will decrease our dependence on fossil fuels ushers in new hazards that it’s convenient for the eco-warriors to ignore. Metals such as lithium and cobalt are needed to make the lightweight batteries for electric cars and for storing power from wind and solar plants. Who gets those elements out of the ground, then? Oh, look! Sixty per cent of cobalt and lithium comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo where unregulated mines use children as young as seven as miners. “The children breathe in the cobalt-laden dust that can cause fatal lung ailments.” Now, why does that sound familiar?

    So, at long last, after putting up with so much green fantasy, the heart lifts to hear that Liz Truss has tuned into the new “energy realism”. Even the Germans are taking their coal stations out of mothballs. Prime Minister Truss will approve a series of oil and gas drilling licences in the North Sea as soon as she enters Number 10 to try and claw back some of the energy security our country so recklessly threw away.

    Instead of using his final speech to call for Britain to press on with an unachievable net zero target, some acknowledgement would be welcome from our Prime Minister that jumping out of a plane without a parachute was a pretty bonkers idea. Further impoverishing the poorest, who spend the largest proportion of their income on energy, to give wealthy zealots a warm glow of self-righteous satisfaction. Really, Boris, is that the legacy you want?

    * * *

    Helen Andrews 15 HRS AGO

    The legacy he’ll have is that of being the man who had the mandate to make life better for everyone in this country and completely blew it.

    If he’d just told everyone he had to concentrate on getting Brexit done and sensibly dealing with Covid, everyone would have backed him.

    Instead he ripped up the manifesto and followed the crackpot agenda of his latest squeeze; I hope she was worth screwing the country for.

    1. We aren’t advancing an inch further forward as long as people persist in the naive delusion that policies are being decided by elected ministers.

    2. Save the Planet, freeze a Pensioner ——

      Especially around here, where no outlet has ‘flu vaccine available for pensioners.

      The only vaccine available is from Lloyds Pharmacy, who charge £15-99 a shot…so much for the NHS bragging

      that ‘flu vaccinations are free to OAPs.

  23. “ sir – Your Leading Article bemoans the current shortage of GPS, then states: “They also have a very cosy deal.” So why don’t market forces solve the problem? Why are doctors shunning this deal?
    My work has recently led me to meet numerous GPS in Leicestershire. They are almost all miserable. The problem is not their remuneration; it is that the job they are asked to do is just not enjoyable any more.
    This is down to how the NHS expects them to work. They know that in delivering what the NHS demands, they cannot deliver what their patients need. That’s what needs reform.
    Peter Furness”

    Market forces don’t work here. So don’t bring the system into disrepute. we don’t have a free market in health provision (as the NHS is a monopoly and supply is constrained by the limitations on the numbers of doctors being trained)

  24. Priti Patel tells ‘woke’ police to get back to basics
    Focus on traditional policing, says Home Secretary, as report calls for end to ‘partisan’ causes.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/08/31/priti-patel-tells-woke-police-get-back-basics/

    She can tell them till she’s blue in the face but what difference will it make?

    And trying to play the role of Queen Canute, sitting on her throne on the Dover beaches and commanding the waves of immigrants advancing up the shore to go and urinate elsewhere has not been a success.

    Britannia may no longer rule the waves but is it not time for Britannia to waive the rules of the EU and the ECHR and send the boats straight back across the Channel?

    1. Credit where credits due, Patel’s Canute impression is spot on. Canute was proving to his court that he did not have the power to control the tide.

      1. Of course you are correct. But is Priti Patel aware of the fact?

        It is not entirely her fault – but government does not seem to want to reverse the tide. She should have resigned.

        But of course now that MPs and government ministers are so well paid there becomes an immediate conflict of interest over resigning on a matter of principle. I expect many politicians now say to themselves: “Bugger the principle; my generous salary and expenses are far more important to me.”

  25. Do we have a Reform Party in the UK and is Nigel Farage involved in this party? If so what will be in the Reform Party manifesto. UKIP has an interim leader in Neil Hamilton and has a long list of manifesto subjects but no reform of the HoC and HoL or MPs’ expenses. Why can’t these two parties amalgamate and what
    are their plans for the next election which could take place at any time soon? GBNews could start debating this although Nigel Farage seems more interested in Donald Trump.

    1. 355530+ up ticks,,,

      Morning C,

      The peoples / party’s you mention are in reality tory (ino) assets as has been proved.

      This was the nige stance on the peoples that built his rep & gave him a platform via their sheer hard work, take this from a long term now ex member.

      https://youtu.be/Fc7iuUHk3Yk

      1. Good morning, ogga

        As you know I find that Nigel Farage is an excellent journalist but he is a flawed politician who should never have given in to Boris Johnson over standing down his Brexit Party candidates in the 2019 general election and allowing several remainer Conservative MPs to hold their seats.

        I think Nigel may have moved on since this clip? Have you?

        1. 355537+ up ticks,

          Morning R,
          In the nicest possible way learn from history, in taking no heed or repeating treachery you are doomed.

          “Have I” ?
          I never repeatedly supported / voted for treachery party’s
          as the lab/lib/con coalition turned out to be, did you ?

        2. 355537+ up ticks,
          R,
          Why is it a conman plying his trade is not recognised as such even when witnessing his actions on air, this chap you
          find so acceptable crucified
          30000 plus UKIP members whilst singing the praises of johnson.

          Ask a few of his ” candidates”
          did they enjoy the, up the mountain treacherous romp,
          while a genuine patriotic party & peoples went to the wall.

          Many of the peoples want change using the same proven, decidedly dodgy politico’s & parties,will never happen all the time we are breaking wind and NOT chewing toffees via the rear exit.

  26. Julia Hartley Brewer excellent , arguing with a Pakistani about the floods .. and saying that Pakistan are spending billions on a space prog, when they should have been spending money on the infastructure .

    1. The worst cyclones in South Asian history killed two orders of magnitude more people. The Backerganj Cyclone, which made landfall near present-day Barisal, Bangladesh, in October 1876, cost the lives of around 200,000 Bengalis, half lost to immediate drowning and half to subsequent famine and disease. Less than a century later, in November 1970, the Great Bhola Cyclone struck East Pakistan, killing between 300,000 and 500,000 people, including 45 percent of the population of the city of Tazumuddin, forty miles southeast of Barisal. Like Japan’s earthquakes, Bangladesh’s biggest cyclones are too far apart in time for living memory to provide sufficient awareness of the risk. In the case of the Great Bhola Cyclone, the part of Cassandra had been played by an American: Dr. Gordon E. Dunn, whose 1961 report warning of just such a calamity, and recommending the construction of zones of artificial high ground, the Pakistani authorities had politely ignored.

      Niall Ferguson. Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe Kindle Edition.

    1. 355530+ up ticks,

      O2O
      Same as responding to rochdale,totherham, sheffield
      etc,etc,ongoing by giving their paedophiles tickets to ride the mass illegal immigration train organised via the United Kingdoms governments and current supporters.

    2. No. Pakistan has a government. It can pay. If you want to be an MP for Pakistan, go there. Otherwise no, not a penny. We already pour money into that pointless, corrupt, nasty country.

      1. As well as their work shy, benefit sucking population that we’ve let into our country.

      1. 355537+ up ticks,

        Morning BB2,
        Precisely, they can link their nuclear / space program to our mental health funding every little helps as the old lady said on peeing into the Medway.

    3. Pakistanis, whether living in Pakistan or living in the UK, care nothing for Britain. Telling us to give more money to a country which despises the British is a bit rich, to put it mildly.

      1. 355537+ o[ ticks,

        Morning VW

        Only to be permissible if they also have a United Kingdom lab/lib/con politico under each arm also.

    1. I can’t take any of the stuff about Trump seriously because of all the Democrat lies and crimes which the media are ignoring.

        1. Given the strange sniffing that Biden is well known for, the sexual behaviours of Hunter Biden and that it’s Biden’s own daughter’s diary that is the alleged source I must say I could find it believable.

        1. Yes, I know – my comment’s not very clear, sorry – I mean that in view of all this stuff about Biden, I just get irritated by stories like the raid on Trump, which appears to be a blatant attempt to distract from Democrat crimes, and eliminate Trump from standing as President. It’s all so out of touch with reality, and they keep getting away with it.

    2. Is this about the daughter of Trump or the daughter of Biden?

      There have been several photographs of the Senile One inappropriately touching young girls.

  27. I have been trying 111 without success to get some antibiotics and some antacids to my mother, who is suffering from an internal bleed in the upper gastrointestinal tract or stomach. There is black vomit and considerable pain.

    She is 97 and does not want to go to hospital, and certainly does not want to die there. She is quite adamant about this, and will not ring 999 for an ambulance for this reason. She lives in North London and cannot contact a GP, if there is still one operating there. She has no idea how to get hold of one, and is worried in case she is rushed to hospital.

    I offered to try 111 to get some advice. The phone line has “heavy call volumes” right now, so cannot answer my call. They recommend the online service. All I got from there was a bot stating the obvious after ruling out heart attack, and said ring 999 for an ambulance and go to A&E, which is the last thing my mother wants, even if A&E didn’t stick her on a trolley till she died. I left negative feedback, which is only telling them what they know already.

    Any ideas how I could get hold of a GP in NW3?

    1. That’s rather worrying, Jeremy. My own mother refuses to tell my sister and I when she goes into hospital – she also has an upper GI ulcer. We are then asked later – by mother – ‘why didn’t we call her.’ It’s a source of frustration I ceased worrying about.

      I suspect time to not call 111 and call 999. I know your mother doesn’t want that but paramedics must make the decision. One alternative is to call your own doctors surgery, explain the situation and ask if they can contact your mother’s doctor?

      1. I managed to get a telephone consultation from the surgery nearest to where she is, booked for tomorrow morning.

        They remembered her and wondered why they haven’t heard from her for a while. I said that since lockdown and “mobility issues” she rarely gets out now other than across the road to the chemist, paper shop and local Tesco.

        I think she was rather upset by the loss of her garden to a rich couple next door who used a loophole in the law and some expensive lawyers to grab it and enhance the value of their flat. She has to clear out what’s left of her stuff in the sheds.

  28. The billionaire Issa brothers who own Asda have agreed to buy the Co-op group’s petrol stations for £600 million.

    The sale will see 5 per cent of Co-op’s entire retail estate – including 129 petrol stations and three development sites – handed over to Asda, which already runs 323 petrol stations across the UK.

    Brothers Mohsin and Zuber Issa saw off a number of rival bids to seal the deal, reportedly increasing their offer from £450 million to £600 million.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11163775/Asda-buy-129-op-fuel-stations-600M-deal-Billionaire-brothers-snap-dozens-garages.html

    £5m Blackburn Issa brothers mosque well underway as demolition draws to a close
    The project is being funded by the Issa Foundation which was set up by self-made billionaires Zuber and Mohsin Issa https://www.lancs.live/news/lancashire-news/5m-blackburn-issa-brothers-mosque-21903621

    Mohsin and Zuber Issa were born in July 1971 and June 1972 respectively in Blackburn, Lancashire in North West England into an Indian Gujarati Muslim family[4][5] to parents Vali and Zubeda who came to the United Kingdom from Bharuch, Gujarat, India in the 1960s to work in the textile industry and then ran a petrol pump.[6] They were educated at Witton Park High School.[7] Their childhood was a modest one, growing up in a terraced house in Blackburn.

    Sharia tax free money .. or what ever tax perks Muslims receive?

    1. They owned many petrol stations with shops before they bought ASDA. They may be over-extending themselves financially. Interest rates will go up, increasing the loan repayments, and the downward pressure on retail prices and revenue will result in them being squeezed in a pincer.
      I expect ASDA will either go into administration and/or require restructuring before next Easter.

    2. Burn the mosque site and prevent rebuilding. In fact, burn all mosques and halal stores. Let’s have a Muslim Kristalnacht and let ’em know that they are NOT welcome here.

  29. Too hot to work outside now so it’s a can of cold Draught Guinness and the crossword

  30. Wordle 438 5/6

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

    Daily Quordle 219
    4️⃣6️⃣
    3️⃣7️⃣
    quordle.com
    ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟨 🟩⬜⬜⬜🟩
    🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
    ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨 ⬜🟨⬜⬜🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
    ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩⬜🟩⬜🟩
    ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    🟨⬜⬜🟨🟩 ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜
    ⬜⬜🟩🟩⬜ 🟩⬜⬜⬜🟨
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
    ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩⬜⬜🟩⬜
    ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
    ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜
    ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

  31. It’s time Meghan and Harry lose their titles
    The couple is now snubbing the very institution from which they derive their power and celebrity – it’s bizarre and damaging to the monarchy

    ALLISON PEARSON : https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2022/08/31/time-meghan-harry-lose-titles/

    BTL
    The simple truth is that Migraine suffers from NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) for which there is no easy cure. This makes her a nasty, grasping, selfish and ungrateful woman. I would not be surprised if living with her drove Harry to suicide; and if it did it she would say that it was anybody’s fault other that hers.

      1. Buy tangible assets ie gold and silver.
        They have intrinsic value. Currency is only IOUs.

          1. Coins that are UK legal tender are also less likely to be stolen by the government…

        1. The window for buying precious metals is closing – the super rich are buying them now, which means the masses will soon.

        1. I suppose it all seemed so easy when they were planning all this in their ivory towers. They didn’t calculate on 20 million of us (in the UK) seeing straight through all this and refusing to roll up our sleeves. Behavioural sciences can predict only for human nature in general, not those in circulation around the perimeter of the neurotypicals. And we will see through the rest.

      2. Get through the economic collapse. Wealth outside the financial system, food, firewood, water, security, local contacts with neighbours and food growers.
        Obstruct as much as you can. Use cash. Don’t install any apps on your phone if there’s any alternative (not that I think you would!). Join movements like wallstreetsilver.
        Wake other people up.

        It’s just the end of a long economic cycle that we’re living through. In past years, they would have started a war – they probably think we should be grateful that they only started a stupid pandemic scare.

        1. Thanks, bb2. Yes, I am doing some of that (you are right about the apps, I have none, I had to ask our son exactly what an app was the other day!) the firewood i.e. warmth will be difficult, we have a smallish rural cottage with no mains gas so we have LPG, once upon a time it was solid fuel, but the chimney access has been blocked with a mock coal effect LPG fire in its place. I am stocking up on non-perishable food, also on those things that make life more bearable, hair shampoo, soap, tissues, toothpaste. I will look up wallstreetsilver. It is hard to wake up people around here, it is a wealthy, head-in-the-sand area and my husband, who saw through the covid/vax scam from the start, is bemused by my food preparations and puts up with them as he can see it relieves my anxiety to do something but he would draw the line at redesigning and excavating the fireplace.

  32. The rational BBC.

    Climate change: How to talk to a denier

    By Merlyn Thomas & Marco Silva, BBC Climate Disinformation reporters

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-61844299

    The responses to Darren Grimes indicate the scale of the problem (the 97% of scientists is now 99%).

    https://twitter.com/darrengrimes_/status/1564642984813117443

    Dear BBC Believers, it’s not that people you call ‘deniers’ dispute the warming. They merely question the cause and some of the data while having great worries about energy policy. This is not mentioned in your shabby little article, apparently written by teenagers. Indeed, it could be called ageist.

    1. Ask the BBC where it’s pensions are invested. That’ll shut them up. The very language is disgusting. ‘Denier’ No one denies climate change. It’s weather. We’ve had it for millennia. What we deny is that shutting down our economy, slaughtering wildlife and forcing idiotic ideology will make the slightest difference to the planet.

        1. I was thinking of birds, bats and what not in the wind turbine blades, but yes, the Left are desperate to force an unnatural diet on us all..

    2. BBC Climate Disinformation reporters – well, no one can deny that they are doing their jobs, and spreading climate disinformation?

    3. BBC Climate Disinformation reporters – well, no one can deny that they are doing their jobs, and spreading climate disinformation?

  33. Right. I give a VERY serious warning for ANYONE upset by graphic images of surgery NOT to click on this link.
    This is only for those with a strong stomach.

    The pictures on this page include what is euphemistically called “Bottom Surgery” or “Gender Affirming Treatment” being used to create an artificial penis for a mentally ill young girl.
    People should be aware of what organisations like Stonewall and Mermaids are advocating for such young persons.
    I do not apologise for posting it.

    Mermaids, the mutilation cult now petitioning the UN

    https://grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/mermaids-the-mutilation-cult-now

    1. The male equivalent is equally revolting. But I suppose it’s a nice little earner for the surgeons who could be doing useful ops instead. And all to address a psychiatric illness.

      1. Can’t they just pair up with one of the opposite persuasion and have a mutual transplant?

        1. My thoughts exactly. Let ’em both suffer for their new SEX identity, even though they cannot change their DNA.

    2. Anti trans ? They can do whatever they like – it won’t change what they are. As for special rights for trannies – no. They’re not special. They’ll have the same rights as anyone else.

      1. Now, there’s an idea. Why be a mere blokewoman with a single penis, when one can aspire to be a superman with 24 on the go at any one time?

    3. I assume that’s an image that I saw last week. Utterly horrific. Why these people can’t see how future generations will view their antics, I really do not know.
      When our descendants look back, I hope they will know that there were still sane people who opposed it.

    4. I don’t think I’ll watch it thanks – but this kind of thing should be illegal. Only consenting adults should be considered for this kind of surgery, at their own expense, after years of living as the gender they want to be.

    1. Ah! I thought it was me – and a strange message came up.

      This Deployment has been disabled.

      Your connection is working correctly.

      Vercel is working correctly.

      451: DEPLOYMENT_DISABLED
      Code: DEPLOYMENT_DISABLED
      ID: lhr1::4c8wt-1661948537416-6b96975232aa

      If you are a visitor, contact the website owner or try again later.

      If you are the owner, please contact support.

  34. Greens preach that economic growth is an ill, so why are they not celebrating the coming recession?

    It is hypocritical for politicians who advocate high energy prices to now whine about rising fuel bills

    ROSS CLARK • 30 August 2022 • 3:58pm

    How lovely to hear the Green Party complaining about rising bills and falling living standards. Former leader Caroline Lucas has been bleating about a “cost of living scandal that is pushing millions of households into fuel and food poverty”. Green party peer, and also former leader, Natalie Bennett has been speaking of the “twin evils of out-of-control inflation and recession”. Yet another ex-leader, London Assembly member and perennial mayoral candidate Siân Berry has been making similar noises.

    Just the one problem: shouldn’t the Greens actually be celebrating economic collapse? That is, after all, what they have been preaching for years. Economic growth, according to their creed, is an evil. In April 2021, for example, Lucas wrote to the Guardian asserting that “the endless pursuit of economic growth, as the lodestar of economic policy, is what is driving the climate crisis”. The focus of economic policy, she asserted, should be “the wellbeing of the people and the health of the planet rather than endless growth”. The party’s 2019 manifesto, too, made it clear that if you want a growing economy, the Greens were not the party for you. “Economic growth will no longer be the way we measure progress. Instead, we will prioritise measures of real prosperity and wellbeing, like improvement in health, reduction in inequality and the restoration and protection of the natural environment on which we all depend.”

    Fair enough, if that is what you believe: that as a society we have been trapped by our material goods, foreign holidays and swish cars into forgetting the things that really matter, like our health and communing with nature. If you want to advocate public policy which prioritises simple pleasures over consumerism, then fine – I can respect that point of view.

    But if you do, then why complain when the elected government achieves exactly what you were demanding: a pause in economic growth, otherwise known as a recession? In a speech in May, Lucas railed against the “ignorance and arrogance of Tory MPs lecturing us about value brands and learning to cook properly”. But surely that is really just what she and her green colleagues have been telling us for years: to accept that we must do with less for the sake of the planet, to learn to enjoy simple pleasures like wholesome home cooking over takeaways and fancy restaurant meals?

    The cost-of-living crisis exposes the great big hole in green thinking. The current misery being suffered by households comes from an economy which shrank 0.1 percent in the second quarter and which the Bank of England forecasts will go on to shrink by up to 2.5 percent peak to trough. What misery do the Greens think would result from an economy which, as per their ambition, was constantly mired in recession?

    Many will have a passing sympathy with the Green’s aversion to the endless pursuit of material goods and their advocacy of simply pleasures. But it is a lot easier to enjoy the flowers and hedgehogs on your nature walk when you know you have got a warm house and a satisfying dinner to go back to.

    I don’t know about the hoi polloi of the Green party, but I suspect that few people really want to go back to the privations of earlier ages, even if the Green party tells us it would be good for the planet. What faces many households this winter will be no worse than what was normal in the recent past.

    When I was growing up I got used to waking up with ice on the inside of my windows. And that was in the early 1980s, not the 1930s – still less the 18th century. But people have become used to the luxury of warmer homes and a diet based on more exciting things than boiled potatoes. Lucas will say we need a massive home-insulation programme to stop people shivering and cut energy use at the same time. Fine, but to achieve that we would need massive economic growth – to adapt existing, modest homes to achieve the energy performance of the best new homes would cost at least £20,000 a time.

    Boris Johnson has been accused of ‘cakeism’ – where you advocate two contradicting policies at the same time. But it is the Green Party who are the real cakeists – wanting to end economic growth on the one hand and bleating about a shrinking economy on the other

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/08/30/green-partys-caroline-lucas-natalie-bennett-sian-berry-preach/

    Last night’s East Midlands Today featured another dozy environmental sap promoting the Lucas policy of ‘more renewables, more insulation’. And he was old enough to know better.

    1. Left wingery and greenery especially comes from a deep rooted hatred of other people.

      Only by hating people so completely can you want to destroy their lives in favour of your own ideology. The problem the greeniacs have is that technology, science, markets and capitalism have created peace, wealth and security. They don’t understand that the endless time they have to waffle on about how awful everyone is comes precisely *from* the wealth energy and mechanisation has brought us which translates into time, time to do what we want and live how we want.

      When Lefties are pushed into a world where they don’t have any time to pontificate because they’re growing crops 16 hours a day, fetching water and spending time washing their own clothes they’ll swiftly realise how thoroughly evil their attitude is.

      Thus that’s how we stop Lefties being morons: we put anyone spouting climate change into a commune with absolute no man made tools whatsoever. No fuels, no energy and no running water.

    1. 355537+ up ticks.

      R,

      Ergo: we shall be swamped.

      But surely this has been the intentions of the lab/lib/con coalition since the devils disciple b liar, & coalition members decades ago. lifted the entry latch

  35. 10 … 9 … 8 … (V. Deep Breath) … 7 …
    Limbering myself up to write a politely worded snottogram to our solicitor re non-existent trees and other matters that seem to obsess the town hall desk pilots.
    As our son pointed out to his son – the government exists solely to stop you doing things. A valuable lesson for the boy when he reaches adulthood.

  36. I bought a book today called “Strange Coincidences”.
    When I got home I found that I already had a copy….
    Weird!

  37. Here’s something nice….we were sitting outside and I had just made us a small pickernick, when a man stopped. I’d seen him about but not spoken to him before. He asked if we liked tomatoes- do we!!! He has an allotment and it’s his hobby but he lives alone and is often overwhelmed with produce. He gave us the remains of the toms he had: MH weighed them, 5 kilos. Plums, round ones and at least one beefsteak which is the size of a gourd.
    He also has spuds, apples and other stuff. He asked if I’d like some cooking apples and I would in the autumn to make pies or crumbles. So kind and a very nice man to boot.
    He often has surplus but said people hide when they see him coming now;-) We shan’t. Will be looking up recipes for marinara sauce etc this evening.
    So many rotters around but so many good and kind people too.

        1. I am sure, from what he said , that further offerings will occur. He has sacks of spuds stored he said. Bugger, I bought spuds yesterday.

    1. That’s good! Very kind of him! If you’d like the MR’s recipe for preserving tomatoes I can send it to you, or post it here for all.

      1. My problem is lack of space. We were talking about buying another small freezer and then the washer broke. So a freezer is going to have to wait.

          1. You are more than kind and generous but I simply cannot allow that. We will get there. Thank you anyway….

          2. I know it is a tricky area.

            How about looking in places like British Heart Foundation shops. They do have some real bargains. I bought most of my dark wood furniture from them..and the electricals…..seeing as this gen thinks Ikea is wonderful…

          3. It’s also about physical space. We have a nice place and the kitchen is new- we are the first to have it. However, it is not a large area so it is also figuring out where to put an additional item.

          4. I know it is a tricky area.

            How about looking in places like British Heart Foundation shops. They do have some real bargains. I bought most of my dark wood furniture from them..and the electricals…..seeing as this gen thinks Ikea is wonderful…

    2. My lovely neighbour supplies me with figs and apples. I give her my surplus toms and chillis.

    3. We warned the couple that have bought our house about the amount of produce coming their way.
      Raspberries have just reached their peak and we are picking about a pint a day, they become tiring in October.

      I wish that you could buy half plants for the garden, much more manageable.

        1. Blackberries round our way have been mingey, rock hard little disasters.
          Quite a relief, as I would have felt bound to use them and then had to shift them all to the “Dower House”.

    4. I haven’t had many toms this year, although past crops have been distributed to the neighbours. The raspberries will have to do the rounds this year – they have been even more prolific than usual.

  38. Been a tiring fay, non-stop. No lunch, nor coffee breaks. Now in the last of thesun outside favourite local, with a pint of London Pride! Cheersh!

  39. 355537+ up ticks,

    More facts

    Gerard Battten
    ·
    57m
    This is true, & in more ways than the MSM will comment on.

    Gorbachev never stopped being a communist, but he could see that its economic system did not work & was doomed to failure.

    ‘Socialism’ on the road to Communism had to be approached in a different way. He embraced Man Made Climate Change as a means to create a global threat that would need a global solutio

    That ‘solution’ would not be driven by grubby bearded revolutionaries but by sophisticated international financiers, big businesd & politicians.

    His vision was that of Trotsky’s international revolution, but brought about

    by forces that Trotsky couldn’t perhaps have imagined but which he would have instantly grasped.

    Mr G was indeed a ‘visionary’,

    https://gettr.com/post/p1p367kf1a8

  40. Disturbing video shows young Saudi women beaten and dragged by their hair at orphanage
    Security forces reportedly lashed the women with belts and sticks after they staged a hunger strike over poor living conditions

    https://youtu.be/GIM0_ID7nWE

    Identifies how bestial and sub-human these Muslims are in their own country.

    Are you happy to have this inflicted on our women, when we are subjected to Sharia after the illegal immigrants manage to change us to a Muslim Caliphate?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/08/31/disturbing-video-shows-young-saudi-women-beaten-dragged-hair/

    1. I don’t know what the fuss is about. It has been going on for hundreds of years.

      Wonder what Western feminists have to say about it now they themselves are under attack from trannies. (women with penises)

      Every revolution eats its children This one they rape first…

      1. I’m wondering, Philip, if we would expect our women to put up with that here, in UK when we are turned into a Caliphate?

    2. If they want to behave like this in their own countries it would seem that there is little we can do.

      What I find alarming is that our politicians are allowing these sub-human monsters to invade Britain in vast numbers without making any objections at all.

      I have argued for some time that for every mosque built in Britain there should be a church of similar size built in Saudi Arabia.

      Why should we tolerate barbaric religions in Britain when Christianity is banned in the Middle East when we have an established Church?

      1. 355537+ up ticks,

        Evening R,

        Remind me when did the bog man lift the ;latch
        initially, followed by the wretch cameron pledging to limit the number then promptly raised it.

        How many years ago in total ?

        “Our” politicians / parties are in place courtesy of the electorate.

    3. It won’t be long before that happens here and the Left will ignore it and so will all the women’s rights groups.
      Only the far right will complain

    4. 355537+ up ticks,

      Evening NtN,

      “subjected to Sharia after the illegal immigrants manage to change us to a Muslim Caliphate?”

      You foretell a muslim victory then ?

      I can only see that if the voting does not radically change
      then that will be democracy seen to work, ie the peoples
      wish.

    5. Look what happened in the UK, Tom

      THE ZOMBIE WARD, THE NOTORIOUS WARD 5
      Put into a drug induced sleep with barbiturates for up to three months at a time in a small dark windowless room crammed full of beds with barely room to move between them. Subjected to endless rounds of electro-convulsive therapy (ECT).
      This was the fate of up to 500 teenage girls and women in their early twenties. This isn’t the plot for some psychological horror novel, but a real life series of events that happened at London’s Royal Waterloo Hospital in the late 1960s and early ‘70s. It was the work of controversial psychiatrist William Sargent as he conducted bizarre experimental treatment on patients without any formal consent. His aim was to ‘rewire’ their brains and cure them of depression and anorexia.
      Sargent operated the secretive ward 5 at the hospital which in turn had a sinister sleep room with no windows, called the narcosis room, nicknamed the zombie ward.
      Officially the department of health says it no longer has records of Sargents work at the Royal Waterloo Hospital. However several former patients have spoken out over 50 years after they were subjected to Sargents barbaric methods.

      Actress Celia Imrie was just 14 when she was admitted to ward 5 and given huge doses of drugs and rounds of ECT. She recalls sneaking out of bed to peer into the sleep room and seeing ‘dead looking women lying on the floor on grey mattresses, silent in a kind of grey electrically induced twilight’.
      To this day she doesn’t know if she had treatment in the sleep room because patients were drugged on the ward before being carried there.
      Sargent was virtually unaccountable to anyone, his fame from TV interviews and best selling books ensured a steady stream of patients. He was friends with Aldous Huxley and Robert Graves. Survivor Elizabeth Reed was admitted to ward 5 in 1973 when she was 22. On arrival she was sedated and subjected to ECT every other day. “It was so frightening” she says, “after ECT you didn’t know who you were”.
      Eventually Elizabeth was moved into the narcosis room and put into a drug induced sleep. “I was sort of awake, but couldn’t move or speak. It was torture, lying for hours in the darkness.” Women were occasionally woken up to be taken to the toilet or to be fed. “we were like zombies” says Elizabeth. “I couldn’t walk, afterwards they put you back to sleep again”.

      Another witness account of the appalling conditions in the zombie ward comes from Professor Malcolm Lader of Kings college London. He recalls that as a junior doctor Sargent showed him the sleep room several times in 1966. “ To be frank I was horrified by what I saw” he says, “the women were cramped together. There was a terrible smell of unwashed bodies”.

      “He was doling out drugs in large doses that were way above the recommended maximum dose. I resolved never to send anyone there”. Professor Lader also sheds light onto why no one stopped Sargent. “He was an overpowering figure and I regret I was too junior and cowardly to say I thought the whole thing needed investigating”.
      “There were also rumours that Sargent was untouchable because he was supported by British intelligence or the CIA who were researching mind control techniques”.

      Another ex-patient, Stephanie Simons sheds light on an even more sinister aspect of Sargents attitude to women. She visited his Harley street private practice in 1967 suffering from depression. She recalls how he asked her to strip to the waist to administer anti-depressants. “He was very stern and asked me to sit in a chair naked to the waist and talked to me for an hour like that”.
      The sleep room closed in 1973 when Sargent retired. we will probably never know the full horrors, or exactly how many victims, or who they were, that suffered at the hands of Sargent, as he destroyed all records shortly after retiring. The Royal Hospital closed in 1976 and ward 5 is now a student bedsit.

      1. Sounds horrific, Maggie, and, even more so, that it was allowed to and carried on for so long. What a barbaric lot are the NHS when coupled with government funding

      2. Occasionally in 1960s and 70s, the acute admission ward at Severalls would carry out narcosis treatment.
        The patient would sleep for up to a fortnight in a side room; they would wake enough to eat, drink etc … but otherwise they would be sleeping. The idea was to give broken mind and body a complete rest. It was a rare event and I only remember a couple of them during my 3 month training session on that ward.
        ECT was carried out, but at least the patients were sedated by that time.

  41. Human health is now being factored in to building design through the new Building Regs this year with energy efficiency playing a large part. A problem appears to arise from so much insulation and air tightness being prescribed in homes that residents will start suffering from effects of condensation and mould. Ironically along with drastically increased requirements for more insulation and sealing there needs to be controlled levels of mechanically forced ventilation.

    However the Government’s Boiler Upgrade Scheme does not address the use of heat pumps to cool down a dwelling during hot weather. Neither does the Government address ventilation solutions that stabilise dwelling temperatures by regulating internal/external air flow and guard against harmful pathogens through filtering.

    Roger the builder discusses the increasing number of building regs which are becoming even more unlikely to be implementable:

    https://youtu.be/V95T3Lk5mNc

    1. A colleague of mine recently had one of these ventilation systems installed in his house – it sucks in air from outside, heats it, and circulates it. Uses electricity, needless to say.
      We have draughts, so don’t need the expense.

    1. Yo, Bob3. I generally don’t ‘do’ whisky, but – after a visit to Tobermory Distilery – I can wholeheartedly recommend Ledaig. I have one and a half bottles of their 18 year old version. Which I occasionally explore.

      1. I disagree, I think Farber has a down on Harari and doesn’t actually understand what Harari is saying.
        His video here is childish, pathetic even, attacking the man and not the actual argument. It might look amusing but has little substance.

        He may well be better elsewhere, but this example doesn’t encourage me to want to find out more.

        1. The main point that he (RF) gets to in the ninth minute is Harari’s idea about money being imaginary. That’s just a blatant attempt to pretend that fiat currencies and CBDCs are real money. If money’s imaginary, then clearly gold isn’t money, right? And anything the government tries to palm off on you as money, is just as valid as anything else!

          Harari is only warning us in the sense that his role is to impress everyone with how clever he is, and to make us believe that the great reset and the CBDCs etc are all inevitable. I’ve watched videos of him spouting the most appalling drivel at the WEF, and a room full of well dressed people drinking it all in as though he was the Messiah.
          “Klaus Schwab’s little familiar” is an apt description for him. Ghastly little creature.

          1. I don’t know how much of his stuff you’ve read as opposed to seen him speaking, where to be honest I don’t think he comes across well, but my own view is that those of the WEF have such hubris that they don’t actually realise that what he is saying is a warning to the rest of the world, not supporting Schwab et al. at all.

            As I said elsewhere, I believe Harari is a Casandra, telling the truth but being ignored.

            In my view Harari is absolutely correct about money being imaginary and all about confidence. Gold only has a value because of its rarity, by and large it’s useless, if humans decided (yes, I know it’s unlikely) that gold had no value all those who swapped other riches for it would be looking foolish.

            Every single bank on the planet would collapse overnight if the populace decided to try to withdraw their money, at the lowliest level, look what happened to Northern Rock.

            Well Mr and Mrs Elite, Do you prefer to eat your gold with silver or platinum?

            It only has a value if people believe it has a value, we’ve seen that throughout history.

            Would a Pacific Islander swap his cowrie shells for gold if gold had no local value?

          2. “Gold is money. Everything else is debt,” said JP Morgan. Gold has the widest acceptance as being money and legal status as money of anywhere in the world over millennia. Try offering a Pacific islander shells instead of gold today, and see what he says.
            What are central banks around the world stocking up on now? Gold. Gold’s use as money outlasts economic cycles and entire civilisations and cultures.
            Rafi Farber’s point is that Harari isn’t speaking about the real world, and I think that holds true. What Harari says has no meaning in the real world, where gold and silver have overwhelmingly been used as money in every country where they’ve been available.
            Harari’s role is to sucker in educated atheists (because no God-fearing Christian or Jew would fall for his carp) by making them believe that the fascist takeover is not only inevitable, but even desirable, and safe because intellectuals like him are on board as the “conscience” to rein in the bankers.

            The concept of economic cycles comes up quite often in the Bible, and Harari’s names as “the reset (end of cycle)” and “the one who steered the ship through a reset” are either a giant coincidence or else they’re not his real names. The latter, if true, would indicate enormous hubris – that’s pretty common in academic circles in my experience.

          3. I agree that gold and silver are generally accepted to be the greatest “stores of value”, but when starving to death and given the choice between food and a gold nugget which would you choose?

            As to the takeover, my understanding/interpretation of what he is saying is that the WEF NWO/Great reset is going to be extremely bad news for the vast majority of the world’s population and they should beware of what the elites are proposing, because they won’t benefit.

            The total value of all the gold ever mined is fraction of the US national debt. A store of gold isn’t going to solve the problem.

          4. Harari calls the masses “useless eaters” though, and seems quite happy with their fate – a fate which he, of course, will not share, as he is part of the elite. I think he’s just too arrogant to think that the useless eaters are smart enough to listen to him and do anything about it. He can say what he wants and sound like the oracle because he knows how powerful his masters are, and how easily they steer the useless eaters to panic, mass medication or any other desired outcome.

            You’re saying that in extremis, people will revert to barter. But extreme cases (literally starving, no possibility to buy food or rescue with gold) are also not real world cases. People abandoned barter because in the vast majority of real world cases, it was less efficient than using money.

            The US national debt – well, it’s not real money is it. It’s fiat money, 80% of which has been printed out of thin air in the last couple of years. The reason gold doesn’t cover it is because the price of gold and silver have been artificially kept down in order to disguise how much value the dollar has lost. The true situation is closer to “gold is 50K dollars an ounce” than “gold doesn’t cover the national debt.” Anyway, the BRICS solution is for a basket of commodities like silver, copper, oil etc to be used alongside gold, so that gold wouldn’t have to bear the whole currency burden. The Davos crowd have a similar scheme with Ripple, Stellar and a couple of other cryptos that are supposed to be pegged to different metals.

          5. I’ve come across this one already. He’s pushing the message that it’s all inevitable. If he were warning, why would he be the favoured pet of the WEF? I still think that he is there to sucker intelligent people into the whole agenda.
            an example:
            “Similarly, if the World Health Organization identifies a new disease, or if a laboratory produces a new medicine, it can’t immediately update all the human doctors in the world. Yet even if you had billions of AI doctors in the world—each monitoring the health of a single human being—you could still update all of them within a split second,”
            Never mind if he’s warning you – he’s speaking about a framework in which the WHO is inevitable. The WHO is a highly corrupt body that exists to push vaccines under the guise of world health plans – reducing hygiene, proper nutrition and other far more important factors than vaccines to irrelevancies . We don’t need the WHO. Yet Harari’s real message here is that it’s a fixture, AI is going to happen and there’s nothing you, puny little useless eater can do about it. He’s part of the bizarre early warning system that the Davos crowd uses to get people used to their ideas.

            We’ll just have to disagree on this one…

          6. Let’s do that, but as a parting comment, what bit of;

            WHY TECHNOLOGY FAVORS TYRANNY
            Artificial intelligence could erase many practical advantages of democracy, and erode the ideals of liberty and equality. It will further concentrate power among a small elite if we don’t take steps to stop it.

            I interpret that as a call to arms, not a call to surrender.

    1. It’s very odd for me because I often read of him being in the vanguard whereas I read him as being a Casandra figure, warning us about what the elites are up to, rather than supporting their objectives.

  42. Thank you for all your lovely comments and good wishes.
    I also had to go to see the specialist regarding my knee and I managed to have another steroid injection. That might last 6 months. Happy with that. 💉 🦵
    We had M&S lamb shank for dinner. Very tasty. Bottle of real champagne. I made dauphinoise potatoes and green veg mostly from the garden. I’ve never made the spud dish before, it was excellent. Leave the garlic in, if you crush it, it dissolves.
    I’ll be leaving you soon. Give it another hour. 😏🥱😴
    Night lovely people. 😍

    1. You and your dearly beloved sound like a great team RE

      Glad to hear you are enjoying your day , and of course pain relief for your knee .

      Time for you to relax .

    2. Pleased you had a good day.

      If you enjoyed the dauphinoise, and like cheese, you might also enjoy a tartiflette. It’s really easy to make in a good quantity and it microwaves very well and whilst it is freezable you’ll probably want to gobble it up!

  43. Goodnight and Godbless, Gentlefolk. I need my sleep after a just two hour sleep last night and much physical exertion today.

    Bis Morgen Fruh (Veilicht).

  44. Evening, all. The Connemara (Coolio) did some very nice extended trot strides today. We’ll make a dressage pony of him yet!

      1. I do go hacking occasionally, but the roads are lethal and where I ride there isn’t the opportunity for off-road riding. When I had the loan of a hunter (see my reply to lacoste) I regularly used to hack out. Not all my riding is indoors – we have an outdoor arena as well 🙂

    1. Do you ever go hunting, Conners?

      I greatly enjoyed hunting and hunter trials as a post-grad student in Ireland in the early ‘Sixties.

      1. Not any more, although I’m still a Wynnstay supporter. It was great fun and I had the loan of a perfect hunter; a Welsh x thoroughbred who loved going across country (dressage and show-jumping were a definite no-no).

  45. Thank goodness: the demise of Gorbachev, has diluted mass hysteria on the Princess Di anniversary …

    1. Her demise was the beginning of the soppiness in British society. Markle’s timing is choreographed.

  46. Listening to Handel’s Dixit Dominus. John Elliot Gardner conducting… super.
    Off to bed soon.

  47. One of the most horribly exploitative things about the unfortunate Princess of Wales’s death was the way the odious Tony Blair tried to capitalise on it by associating her with his political party.

    Having spent some time saying that New Labour was the People’s Party Blair’s cynicism was summed up in the ironic impersonation in the lyrics of this song about the populist prime minister written at the time:

    The People’s Party, People’s Dome, The People’s lottery
    I am the People’s laxative so the People swallow me
    Pragmatic opportunism has given me success
    A sad girl died and so I dubbed her “The People’s Princess”

    1. Blair was a war criminal and about the most odious British Prime Minister judged against even his rank predecessors and those following his disastrous tenure, disastrous above all for our country.

      The fact that Blair is still able to walk the earth or rather fly the globe in a private jet, flogging his dubious knowledge of world affairs to tinpot dictatorships, speaks volumes. Clearly the protection detail paid for by the taxpayer is more than effective. Other ghastly traitorous creatures in our history have been either imprisoned or else hung.

      1. 355583+ up ticks,

        Afternoon C|,

        The bog Man PM, Bow street court

        anthony charlie lyndon occupation
        willy watcher , politician.

Comments are closed.