Wednesday 5 October: Tories must stick up for their party’s values if they want to be re-elected

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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706 thoughts on “Wednesday 5 October: Tories must stick up for their party’s values if they want to be re-elected”

  4. Tories must stick up for their party’s values if they want to be re-elected

    Then when re-elected they can completely ignore them again, as has been happening since Thatcher

    1. Is this the result of having WEF infected people infiltrated into the Cabinet? Perhaps social distancing from Davos – say a few hundred miles for all time – might have helped.

    1. I haven’t really heard much from Truss yet, maybe she his having trouble getting balanced coverage, it’s all been negative so far.
      But she is yet to assert herself, we keep getting leaders that do not really appear to stand for anything much and are easily bullied by the mainstream media and the forces of globalism.
      Being nice and empathetic while trying to please everyone just ends up in pleasing nobody.

      1. The Blob and the MSM were determined to nobble her.
        Regardless of what she says or does, they will pile in on her.
        Talk about over-mighty servants.

        2. The heart of the problem lies in the nobbling of the leadership election, though.
          Fact is, Truss was never up to the job. She got it because she said and did the right things at the WEF.

          This problem goes all the way back to the selection of Conservative MPs. Strong, independent, right wing candidates who would oppose WEF/Bilderberg/Common Purpose are weeded out at the selection process, and never even get into the House of Commons nowadays.

          So you have a watered-down pool of yes-men and yes-women to choose from, and then you get someone like Truss being elected, who wouldn’t stand a chance in an open competition of leadership talent.

          1. The membership should be given a minimum of 4 candidates and a 2 round selection process.

        3. …and her own lot are not much better – imagine having to put up with Govey & Shatts sticking the knife in? With ‘friends’ like them…

          ‘Moaning, Anne.

          1. I remember Maggie having to work round the likes of Gilmore and Prior during her first administration.
            Throughout her time, she had the Incredible Sulk dedicating his entire existence to undermining her.
            And of course, that’s without mentioning Heseltine.

        4. Remember when he was involved with education, Gove was very much opposed to the BLOB. Now he seems to be at the summit of the organisation of the BLOB.

  8. Good morning. At home now on a horrible dark and wet morning. 11°C outside, but it feels a lot cooler.

    1. Good morning, BoB. Please check your emails in around 30 minutes as I am about to send you an urgent one. PS – Glad you got home safely.

      1. Good morning!
        Not a bad drive back either!

        I’d picked up on the changing weather and thought a rainy night in the van was not what I wanted, so hightailed home.

    2. Morning, Bob! Wild and woolly here in Somerset, too. Luckily I have supplies and am.quite happy facing a day of sorting and pottering at home.

  9. Russia ‘may have packed explosives’ onto the Nord Stream pipelines during construction. 5 October 2022.

    But the noise of final construction work could have given the company the cover to place explosives on both Nord Stream 2 and the already operational Nord Stream 1, he believes.

    “The most important thing to have is construction noise that you can use to hide your actions.”

    He added that he did not believe that Russia had planted explosives on any other infrastructure key to western Europe, saying that the consequences would be “too painful.”

    The shutting down of the two largest gas pipleines to the West wouldn’t hurt one assumes?

    This is desperate stuff. What next? Time travel? Martians? The truth may be perceived in that not one MSM outlet or major European politician dare speculate or even mention; the awful reality that it was the Americans!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/10/04/ukraine-russia-war-latest-putin-lyman-kherson-invasion-counter/

    2. Good morning, all. Bright with a light breeze here in N Essex.

      This hypothesis is down there with all the excuses being used to cover CV-19 injection deaths and adverse effects e.g. SADS, gardening, the hot weather and the most egregious, coming as it does from supposed doctors, we’re baffled.

    3. Usually crimes are viewed from the analytical viewpoint, “motive, means and opportunity”. Hard to see that the Russians had any of those.

  11. Good Moaning.

    Money Makes The World Go Around …….

    “Nurse says Conservative voters ‘don’t deserve to be resuscitated by NHS'” ………….

    “Mrs Hughes said on Tuesday afternoon that she was set to lose her current job with a south London-based private healthcare and rehabilitation provider as a result of the furore surrounding her comments, though she would not name her employer.”

    She shouldn’t be dismissed for speaking what appear to be her tiny mind, because that would make her employer as wicked as she is; she should be dismissed for being terminally stupid and unable to control her temper. Imagine the fate of patients under “care”.

    1. How does she propose to tell whether they are Conservative voters or not?
      Check their tatts?

      1. Lengthy, in-depth grilling?
        The sort of interview that is, apparently, uncaring when applied to foreign patients who are leaching off the NHS and who should be paying for their treatment.

    2. Letting people die because of their political leanings sound a bit fascist to me.
      Imagine the outcry if she had said let unproductive lazy benefit scrounging Labour voters die.

      1. A thorough inquiry into the number of deaths amongst patients during her time on the wards might be a good starting point.

      1. She’s not an NHS employee. She was; couldn’t hack working on the wards so became a ‘trainer’.
        She then went to work for a private health company, presumably because she occasionally had to take her students onto wards containing evil Conservative voters.

      1. I think they’re a lot less powerful than they want us to believe. It’s definitely still worth fighting back.

          1. That’s how I feel too. They are still calculating that we will run into any trap if it offers us a tiny bit more return on our money, or saves us a miniscule amount of exertion, or gives us the illusion of a luxury life.
            Meanwhile, I’m rapidly coming round to view that I’d rather chuck everything I’ve got into the ocean than let the govt get its hands on it or use it to control me.
            When enough citizens start to feel like that, the government has a problem.

          2. I have decided to spend the bulk of my savings before the government can get at them. If I have money, I won’t be eligible for any help anyway. I am going to have someone in to cut my hedge (and save me the bother) and probably cut my lawns and tend my garden as well. Better to give an ordinary bod some cash than have the bloated state steal it. It’s good to have support on Nottl because then we know we aren’t alone and it stiffens the sinews. I did do my own decorating (now finished and the room is almost back as it was), but only because my painter is very busy and I wanted it done asap.

          4. I replaced my conservatory, had internal insulation fitted, the house repainted, repointed and the roof repaired, plus new drains and a new fence. I’m working on it!

    1. Easier than catching burglars I suppose.
      I assume the police do this to fulfil their target tick boxes, its those at the top that are doing this.
      I think mainly it is to try and frighten people off from telling the truth .

      1. The Police are mugs trying to follow up things like this. Who every made the complaint should produce the evidence not the police doing it for them.

    2. ‘Morning, BoB. Sussex Police frequently attract derision, but if it was them why would they have taken her to Guildford nick?

    3. The police had no evidence but apparently wanted her to give her side of the story. Sounds like a fishing trip to me.

    4. The police had no evidence but apparently wanted her to give her side of the story. Sounds like a fishing trip to me.

  15. John Redwood.

    The pound rises 11% in nine days and the stock market surges. Why no media stories on this huge vote of confidence in UK economic policy when they were so ready to blame the government alone for the falls two weeks ago?

    1. Why does Redwood bother to even ask the question.
      He should have been Chancellor , by the way

  16. Police vow to attend every burglary. 5 October 2022.

    All 43 chief constables in England and Wales have signed an agreement committing them to always visit burgled homes regardless of their location or what has been stolen.

    The deal follows reports that an average of 774 burglaries are unsolved every day. Martin Hewitt, of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, said that the change will mean that more cases should reach court. In some areas, the prosecution rate is as low as 1.7 per cent.

    Writing in the Daily Mail, he said: “Wherever you live in England and Wales you can be confident the police will attend if you experience the invasion of a home burglary.”

    Wow! Why am I not reassured? Is it because I think one copper will turn up with a form and sit there trying not to go to sleep as you recite your woes? In actuality of course with a pro-active Police Force most of these people could be caught! It is the will that is lacking not the means!

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/10/05/police-vow-attend-every-burglary/

      2. I have just spent a few days in London seeing a show and taking in the sights. There are literally hundreds standing round armed with machine guns, even more sat in police vans presumably waiting for trouble to start. Is there any police left who show their face, walking the beat for the rest of London reassuring residents?

          3. The problems start when our Police Farce decide that Heckler and Koch MP5’s are the right tools for any unfortunates caught doing 25 in a 20MPH zone. 🦽

    2. Honestly, I’d be terrified of having them in my house in case they found some evidence of fascism or hate crime, like a “Jesus wants me for a sunbeam” mug.
      In Austria a few years ago, the police were asking girls if they had ever done their hair in traditional plaited styles, which is apparently irrefutable proof of being a neo narzi.

      1. I have a knitted golliwog sitting on a shelf.
        I’m doomed.
        p.s. To make matters worse, he is sporting a Countryside March badge.

        1. We all have golliwogs. Hidden away in drawers and cupboards, on shelves. We are, after all, descended from slave owners.

          1. Not all of us have golliwogs, Horace. I never even collected Robertsons’ badges. I must have been a racist even as a child 🙂

  18. 365859+ up ticks,

    Morning Each,

    Wednesday 5 October: Tories must stick up for their party’s values if they want to be re-elected

    That there statement spells oncoming doom for the Country & many innocent inhabitants

    Checkout this tory (ino) parties innings against the current odious state of the nation
    lab is no opposition it is a segment of a coalition with lib / dems a 100% eu asset
    party.

    Underpinning ALL via the coalition ( mass uncontrolled immigration, ongoing) is the trojan horse along with entry / exit signs highlighted, introduced to England by one
    anthony charlie lynton ( the bog man) blair
    and still serviced today via
    Dover / Dungeness courtesy of the RNLI/and the ruling body,

    tory’s (ino) “must stick up for their party’s values if they want to be re-elected”

    I do see that as much more or a threat to the health & safety of the Countries indigenous than words of advice.

    3. Number 3……scary eh.
      Number 2 there are probably a few million in the UK sitting on sofas who have never worked in their lives.
      Gawd only knows how much all of this has cost British taxpayers.

    5. Kid, yes, you do. You don’t want to, but really you’re just ill. You shouldn’t be dressing up, you should be getting psychotherapy.

      The plant one is interesting. Problem is it’s a bit like autonomic pulses. You’ve no control over them so they’re not guided or intentional. It’s just waving a knife around. Replace it with a paintbrush and you won’t get art.

      Much like a black savage in London isn’t killing with any specific intent, they’re just doing it out of base instinct.

  21. ‘Morning, Peeps. Sun was promised for this morning, but overcast and windy is what we have. At least the bird-choppers should be doing their stuff.

    SIR – After taking all that time to choose a new leader, many Tory MPs are not happy with the result.

    Instead of accepting it and doing their best for the country, they are behaving like Remainers who did not accept Brexit. How many of the current rebel MPs criticised Remainers for doing this?

    These MPs should be ashamed of themselves for not accepting the democratic vote, and should move on and work with Liz Truss to get this country moving up, not down.

    Bernard Howes
    Godalming, Surrey

    Quite right, Mr Howes. They are behaving like spoilt brats, and the damage is considerable.

  22. SIR – We all knew that Liz Truss was not Margaret Thatcher, but we hoped; and we all knew that Boris Johnson was not Churchill, but we hoped.

    In failing to support their party leader – again – Michael Gove and the rebels around him have probably hammered the last nail into their own coffin, and handed the 2024 election to Labour.

    This is a party in thrall to wokery, unable to define a woman, that takes the knee, that for years happily supported the dangerous eccentric Jeremy Corbyn as its leader, that hated Brexit and wanted to reverse it, that wanted longer, tougher lockdowns, that pursues the politics of envy, and that is home to MPs who are now happy to join picket lines. God help us.

    Major Nigel Price (retd)
    Wilmslow, Cheshire

    Well said, Maj Price! All Tory wreckers, please take note.

    1. Agreed. My opinion of Truss is not especially high, but the behaviour we’ve seen this week from Tory MPs is utterly pathetic. They’re out of touch with reality.
      Perhaps Gove’s strategy is to crash the party to get his preferred candidate elected leader and back into power in five years’ time.
      After all, it makes no difference whether Bilderberg Gove, Bilderberg Starmer or WEF Truss is leader, does it.

    2. Agreed. My opinion of Truss is not especially high, but the behaviour we’ve seen this week from Tory MPs is utterly pathetic. They’re out of touch with reality.
      Perhaps Gove’s strategy is to crash the party to get his preferred candidate elected leader and back into power in five years’ time.
      After all, it makes no difference whether Bilderberg Gove, Bilderberg Starmer or WEF Truss is leader, does it.

    3. Yep. As long as the Lefty Tories keep fighting being Conservative for their own seats they will continue to fail the country. The entire party is a bag of rats. If they can’t learn to do the right thing – shredding the state, cutting welfare and cutting taxes – nothing will improve.

  23. British Rowing’s trans stance is indefensible. 5 October 2022.

    Doubly galling is the fact that these rules are being imposed, in the main, by men. British Rowing has a male majority on its board: both its chairman and its chief executive are male, together with its athlete director and the head of its sporting committee. Why on earth should they be at liberty to enforce changes that deny women equal competitive opportunities on the basis of their sex?

    Already, the move is threatening to detonate a firestorm of protest. “Makes me so p—– off,” Martina Navratilova wrote this week. “Where and when will this end? Why is it so impossible for women to have their own spaces, their own categories?” Daley Thompson, Britain’s decathlon legend, went even further, offering to crowd-fund any efforts to sue British Rowing for its stance. “I know a little about institutional discrimination and can’t abide it or the people who enable it,” he said.

    There’s irony and not a little hypocrisy in Navratilova’s comment. It was Women’s Lib with its cry for equality that opened the door. It never really wanted it of course, what it sought was all the benefits with none of the abilities to be top dog. In sport that is men.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rowing/2022/10/04/british-rowings-trans-stance-nothing-short-indefensible/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

    1. If the transsexuals want to play sport they should do it in their own third category.

      Their big problem is that there really aren’t nearly enough of them to even get such a category off the ground.

    2. Transgender sport’s focus seems to be entirely on males wanting to compete as women. Where is the clamour for women to be able to compete as,males? Of course there is none because they would be thumped, metaphorically speaking.

      Are these males demanding they should all compete in women’s categories or that they should have the choice?

    4. I disagree to some extent wirh your view on women’s lib. What I supported – and still do – is equality of opportunity. For recognition that although talent and inclinations are distributed very differently between men and women, it is possible (if rare) to be a great female nuclear physicist, or a truly empathetic man. Women’s sports used to recognise that we are generally physically inferior to men (although we do tend to last longer 🤣), and so separate categories allowed for the enjoyment, the striving to be the best, and the competitiveness that are the essence of sport, in a spirit of fairness. As Anne points out below, it is the veer towards extremism which is risking throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

      1. I did a short exchange with a USN carrier in the early 70s, and had a couple very interesting chats with some of the African American enlisted men. The majority of them were strongly opposed to racial quotas for promotion – they too wanted equality of opportunity, so that if 15 promotions were available the best candidates got them all – they reckoned they could beat a good number of the “opposition” who might otherwise get promoted!
        Edit – I really can’t see how any female rower, however talented and hard working, can have “equality of opportunity” in a contest with a trans individual/team?

        1. To your last – of course they can’t. Which is why I support separate categories for men and women. The trans thing is a complication for a tiny minority which is being resolved in the wrong way.

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

        Women’s Lib’s destroying my libido
        And I just won’t stand for it any more.
        My macho’s getting mangled
        My morale is sinking fast
        My self-esteem’s not been so low before.
        I used to wear the trousers in our happy little home
        I used to rule the roost in kingly style
        But women’s lib’s destroying my libido
        And I find it hard to even raise a smile

        1. Well, put yer trousers back on, then! 😉 And thank god for Nottl, raising smiles since its inception!

          1. I always rather liked the way Jane Austen uses ironic impersonation so when I used to write satirical songs I always assumed the voice of the person I was teasing. For example in my song, Just Deserts I assumed the identity of Tony Blair.

            e.g.

            I talk about stake holders and I say you ought to save
            To supplement your incomes when you’re getting near the grave,
            But I’ll let Brown raid the pension funds – cos he’s the one you’ll blame
            Of course I’m for The Family – but I love Gays just the same.
            Though I take my hols in Tuscany – megalomania’s not my scene,
            But I find the term: “prime minister” tends rather to demean,
            The grandeur of my excellence. If it’s all the same with you,
            I’d rather be called “President” – but “Il Duce” would do.

  24. Lawyer Aaron Siri working for Del Bigtree’s ICAN non-profit has forced the USA’s CDC to release the data held on the latter’s V-Safe Covid Vaccine Adverse Health Impacts database. This database is expected to provide not only a large amount of data but the data will contain more accurate details of the impact the “vaccines” are having on the population.
    While this is another BIG win for clarity on this issue, will the results of research, like Naomi Wolf’s results from the Pfizer documents, be ignored by the PTB? The number of people affected runs into millions: for how much longer will the PTB be able to turn their faces away from the reality of the harms caused by the “vaccines”?

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f101f2ae7d9bb9418f23ac36705f7c46f0a4bfd9b3d08d0e81a4080036dd5c89.png

    The link opens a dashboard that displays some basic information: worth a look.

    ICAN Decide V-Safe Data

    1. Having received around half a billion in taxpayer-funded advertising support from the Government – with full ‘opposition’ backing – I won’t be holding my breath on the #ScumMedia suddenly having a Damascene change of view.

  25. I have been following (sort of – the technical stuff was too much for my small brane) the inquest of the teenage child who killed herself “because of social media”.

    My heart goes out to her father and mother. To lose a child for any cause is devastating; to suffer a teenager killing herself must be ten times worse.

    There were, inevitably, demands that the various outfits that supply social media ban access and close “bad stuff” down.

    I find it all confusing. Teenagers have always been the source of anxiety for parents. They always test limits and do silly things.

    A child who thinks of killing herself would seem to me to be decidedly odd and in need of help. But does that mean that the other X million teenagers should be prevented from behaving normally with social media?

    There was a very good piece in The Times yesterday by a man with whom I usually violently disagree. His a woke, green anti-brexit….. But I thought he hit the nail just about on the head. Hugo (unfunny) Rifkind. Here is the article:

    “A week ago, in The Times Magazine, I interviewed a man called Andrew Tate. For those who don’t know, and who don’t have teenage boys to ask, he’s an influencer, banned from most social media after campaigners accused him of spreading rampant misogyny. Beforehand, I wasn’t sure I should do the interview at all, because I didn’t want to boost his reach. What I realised, though, was that this horse had bolted. Kids already knew about him. It was only their parents who did not.

    You will find the same gulf at the heart of the horrifyingly sad story of Molly Russell, who took her own life at the age of 14, in 2017. The inquest into her death concluded last week. Her father, Ian, now a campaigner for internet safety, has talked about her retreat into the “ghetto of the online world” where she binged on content about self-harm and suicide. In the digital age, her story reminds us, our children can be having deep and damaging experiences we neither see nor understand.We delude ourselves, though, if we believe that dynamic is new. Teenagers have always had secrets. The porn stash under the mattress, the spliff in the park and so on. Andrew Walker, the coroner, also talked about material that “seems to romanticise, glamorise” self-harm and suicide.

    Yet that’s not new, either. When I was 14, I read in the NME about Richey Edwards of the Manic Street Preachers carving “4 Real” into his arm with a razor. I remember a kid in my class trying it with a pair of compasses, not getting far. Edwards would later disappear near the Severn Bridge. My own teenage hero, Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain, made self-loathing into an art form. One of his later songs was called I Hate Myself and Want To Die. That was a joke, probably, but he did shoot himself.

    It is not flip to ponder how those who wish to curb harmful internet content would have dealt with the teen icon nihilists of the past, had they been instead on the platforms of today. Go back further, indeed, and what of Vincent van Gogh, and his 1889 meme with a bandaged ear? What of Hamlet and “to be, or not to be”? Imagine that one on TikTok, next to a pot of pills.

    My point being, yes, we have a serious problem. The difficulty, though, comes in understanding what that problem is. Is it really what kids are seeing? Or is it, actually, the new manner in which they see it?

    In an interview yesterday Michelle Donelan, the new culture secretary, spoke of her determination to finally get the government’s delayed, doomed, disastrous Online Safety Bill before parliament by Christmas. For too long, she said, tech firms had been “chipping away at children’s innocence by feeding them this dangerous content”. That’s a great line. Speaking as a parent, it comes very close to capturing my fears. And yet, at the same time, I also have this nagging feeling that chipping away at your own innocence is exactly what being a teenager ought to be all about.

    More challengingly, I’m not sure it’s terrible for a parent to be a bit scared. A few weeks ago, for example, I took my own daughter to a gig by some bands she’s into, who are all YouTube pop-punks with challenging ideas about gender identity. The audience, all of school age, were of the sort described by a music critic friend of mine as “heaven help us if there’s a war”. And I stood there, at the back with the other dads, wholly unclear as to who was a boy or a girl, or indeed even who was aspiring in which direction, and I thought to myself, “quite frankly, I find this all a bit alarming”. Before then thinking, “as is perhaps only right and proper, because I’m a dad at a gig for teenagers”.

    It is implicit, when we express alarm about what the internet is doing to our kids, that they must be facing something worse than that which we faced ourselves. They are, but to decide that’s all about this post or that meme necessitates some fairly extreme amnesia about pop culture and plenty of other culture, too. It also leads us into a thicket of debate about free speech and censorship, from which no sensible or liberal legislation can emerge. As the government keeps finding out, and may soon again.

    The thing is, though, this is the wrong debate altogether. Because the real problem here isn’t content. The problem is delivery. It’s overload. Yes, I saw a photo of Richey Edwards’s bloody arm. I didn’t, though, see it again and again, in my every spare moment from then on. It did not go viral. It left me alone, as I went home to have my tea. And these days, it would not.

    If Donelan doesn’t get this yet, she should. Speaking about the inquest Jacqui Morrissey of the Samaritans put it perfectly. “It’s rarely about one piece of content,” she said. “It’s that cumulative effect.” Or to put that another way, one burger is not so bad, even when it’s full of fat and hormones. But a constant stream of burgers, all day every day, pumped into your child by a platform deliberately engineered to cause a craving for more?

    No parent, nor even any government, will ever manage to sanitise flawlessly what the young consume, and frankly nor should they. Kids deserve far better, though, than having their every flickering moment of dysfunction mined and sold back at them for clicks.

    This is the real tech crime; the relentless monetising of craving, compulsion and absolute constant absorption, sometimes about self-harm, but equally about literally anything else. It’s a system, a design, a business model. That, we can fight about. That, they can fix. For God’s sake, just make it easier for them to put down their phones.”

    I am just thankful that my sons were teenagers 40 years ago when there were far fewer dangers for me to worry about.

    1. ‘Morning Willum
      Cynical Rik notes she died 5 years ago how strange an inquest 5 years later just happens to give a big boost to the biggest threat to free speech in decades the
      “Online Harms Bill”
      Heaven forfend they would use this death for political purposes……..

      1. Today, there is another report on a 17 year old boy who died on Boxing Day 2017.
        The stale old excuse “Because of Covid” probably applies.
        And legalistic lethargy.

    3. Me too, Bill. The horrors to which today’s children are exposed makes our childhoods seem idyllic by comparison, even allowing for our deprivations…

      1. It’s not long since the then, start of the Dopey Wokies banned conkers at schools and discouraged tree climbing. And many other past times youngsters found enjoyable at our age.

        1. Which I think is why I encourage Junior to ‘play’ Yesterday after school he spent the afternoon stabbing bad guys as Wolverine. And got a bit confused in being Batman as well.

          He climbs trees – has fallen out of them more than once – it just made him work out a better route and makes mud pies. Can’t they they’re very appetising but I’m sure to him they’re a proper cherry bakewell. His boundaries are respected. He pushes against ours but that’s part of growing up and learning who he is.

      2. My mother’s not a particularly pleasant person. My mother in law is, basically, an alcoholic. The Warqueen has had an ‘interesting’ life and it took a lot of work for me to understand – not resolve – the issues in my behaviours.

        It’s sad that you can see so many people not having that understanding of their actions, basically remaining teenagers in their confusion over who they are and what they want, their drives, goals and why they have behaved as they have.

    4. Agreed totally, when we see children as young as 5 or so with their faces abitually stuck in front some sort of mobile device surely the parents should remove the device from them. We all know how the website are shoving advertising into every nook and cranny what else are they doing ?

    6. Yet equally there’s this place, there’s endless fora about Newfoundland care, dog rehoming, about how to deal with stress and pain. The internet isn’t the problem. Technology merely provides the tools. What humans do with them is the problem. For every nuclear reactor there’s the nuclear warhead – and far more warheads.

      You cannot prepare your children for every eventuality. You can’t stop the world getting to them. Junior went through a phase of mocking another lad’s haircut over lockdown and I stamped on that damned fast.

      Yet we live in a dysfunctional time. One where boys are not supposed to make mud pies. Where being a man, having pride in yourself, working, making, doing is mocked. Where national pride is derided, where a man can pretend he’s a woman. Where the police… don’t. Goodness, you look at children’s TV these days and it is bland, miserable stuff. No role models, no thinking, just mindless, Left wing tripe where the boys are interchangeable with the girls all to promote ‘the message’.

      Is it any wonder we’ve a generation not having the faintest clue who they are? The Left want this. They like destabilising society. It’s how they get control over your thoughts. Until the nuclear family is accepted as the absolute and only pinnacle of decency nothing will change. All these gay families, these trans families, the single families – all are bad for the child (and when the Warqueen rejected Junior utterly for the first 3 months of his life. Something broke inside her as she wanted to, but couldn’t.).

      1. Certain things do upset the barrel in families .

        Warm loving families are often or not a warm feather bed that children can fall back on ..

    1. What a terrible and fatal thing to happen to anyone. I realise that 2017 was pre Covid-19 but it seems like a terrible coincidence that so many people have since suffered from similar health problems.

    2. In contrast when I went in with o2 stats in the mid 70s and I wanted to get up to wee the nurses almost sat on me to stop me.

      I think a lot depends on where you go. There’s a lot they could have done – induced coma, for example.

  28. Never a truer word spoken

    SIR – After taking all that time to choose a new leader, many Tory MPs are not happy with the result.

    Instead of accepting it and doing their best for the country, they are behaving like Remainers who did not accept Brexit. How many of the current rebel MPs criticised Remainers for doing this?

    These MPs should be ashamed of themselves for not accepting the democratic vote, and should move on and work with Liz Truss to get this country moving up, not down.

    Bernard Howes
    Godalming, Surrey

    Wish I could add something Bernard

    1. The root cause of the problem was that Johnson did not purge the Conservative Party at the time of the 2019 general election. Not only that but he honoured people like Ken Clarke who had treacherously attacked the party from within for years. This gave out completely the wrong message.

      If Brexit had been a real ideological passion rather than a hubristic vanity project Johnson would have backed all Farage’s Brexit Party candidates in seats where there were sitting remainer Conservative MPs. He didn’t do that and just look at the sheer dross there still is in the Conservative Parliamentary Party.

      1. If I recall correctly, he purged 21 which left him without a majority, he also said that anyone who wanted to stand had to publicly back his brexit plan.

        I think that’s fair enough, party unity requires a certain amount of discipline, if you go witch hunting too far, you risk losing party support amongst those that back you, so I personally think his action was “proportionate”

        As to backing Farage and Brexit Party in certain area’s I think that would have backfired in many seats, it would also potentially left him a much reduced majority and potentially having to negotiate with the Brexit party which could have led to more wrangling over Brexit and more delays.

        On balance I think he got the politics of it right when you take in practicality and political realities

        1. Yes, but he completely squandered his majority, bungled Brexit by allowing the EU to stay in control of trade in Northern Ireland and for EU fishing vessels to continue to plunder UK fishing waters.

          And now we discover that Steve Baker, the new minister, is sucking up to the Irish and doubtless planning to sell Northern Ireland down the river yet again.

          It is amazing how successful politicians are at attracting our complete contempt!

          1. Brexit was the best he could possibly do, have you forgotten the Benn Surrender act?

            Immediately following Brexit we had covid, which sucked all government bandwidth out of everything else for two years, no sooner was that over we had the MSM endless campaign over the nonentity Partygate, then Ukraine war, then the cost of living crisis.

            If you think any PM can cope with that lot and run a domestic agenda at the same time then you set the bar for PM punishingly high, so high in fact no one will ever meet it.

            Equally, he had the right policies on migrant boats, and the NI protocol, but both require serious law changes that would take years to implement because the Lords will do everything to hold up these plans

            Baker needs a kick up the backside, Truss should sack the prat, he also wanted to take the knee for BLM

          2. If the Lords will hold up those plans, another reform is on the cards.

            Heredities only plus the Law Lords. These are peers who have the long-term interest of the country at heart, who would welcome the UK leaving the ECHR, the ECJ and the repealing of the Human Rights Act.

            The removal of Bliar’s Supreme Court and leaving the Law Lords as the highest appeal, after the monarch.

            What’s not to like.

          3. The problem with your plan is that the Lords can hold up any legislation which is not a manifesto pledge for over a year.

            Now, take into account Commons time for the bills and then whether you can get them through that far, then you have to implement them.

            They will likely run out of parliamentary time now for anything the Lords objects to

          4. That’s the whole point of the Lords, to vet and amend proposed legislation, in order to prevent ‘bad’ law being made.

          5. Yes, but if you need to get stuff through up against a deadline of a GE in 2 years time, and you need it on the statute asap, because they have no effect while passing through parliament.

            So if you want to win that election you don’t want your laws held up in the Lords then having to spend another 6 months testing them in the courts, like the Rwanda plan.

            The people out there want action asap

          6. In your opening comment, you yourself said the 850 pseudo Lords would hold up bills to prevent necessary legislation. You cannot have both sides of the argument as a con and also a pro.

          7. The point being one house is democratically elected full of Tories, the other is unelected and stuffed full of woke green lefties who can’t get enough illegal immigration and determined to do everything they can on defeating or delaying policy of a democratically elected government.

            I have no problem in scrutiny, provided that’s limited to practicality of the proposal and not counter ideology

          9. Better to have a new framework, where you can argue about how the legislation does what the government wants it to do, not the principle of what you want it to do.

            So if the government has the Rwanda bill as a means of disincentivise channel crossings, if lords have a better way of achieving the goal of the legislation then lets hear it, if they don’t have a better method or the better method has already been tried, then they agree its the best method of achieving the goal and pass it quickly.

            A change of approach

          10. A new framework? If it is designed by a MPs’ Committee, you can guarantee it won’t work. Tried and tested is best as per 1911.

          11. Problem is, it all takes time and attention, when there’s precious little of both.

          12. Yes, but he should have had the wit to use his 80 seat majority to get round the Benn obstacle. But he fluffed it.

            Incidentally Hilary Benn’s father must be turning in his grave at the thought of his son’s actions. It was Tony Benn who was one of the most anti-EU people in politics. His democracy test was simple: if you can’t get rid of the bugger by the ballot box it is not a democracy.

            How could we ever have got rid of any of the grandee EU officials? And still now Ursula Fonda Lyin cannot be got rid of by the EU voters, can she?

            On the subject of Baker – I must admit that I once thought he was a potential Conservative prime minister. How very wrong I was.

  29. What remarkable service, and he still managed to live to 104:

    Major John Errington, signals officer who avoided a Nazi massacre in northern France but spent five years in a prisoner-of-war camp – obituary

    In 1948, he was due at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem when it was bombed, and suspected that his Arabic tutor deliberately kept him back

    ByTelegraph Obituaries 3 October 2022 • 4:56pm

    Major John Errington, who has died aged 104, was a pre-war Regular Army officer serving with the Royal Scots (the Royal Regiment) who narrowly evaded a massacre in 1940 during the withdrawal to Dunkirk and survived five years as a prisoner of war.

    In September 1939, Errington went to France with 1st Battalion the Royal Scots (1RS) as part of the British Expeditionary Force. Appointed regimental signals officer, he was issued with a motorcycle.

    The German advance forced them to withdraw from forward positions at Wavre on the River Dyle in Belgium, and by May 21 they were deployed on the River Escaut, south of Tournai.

    On the way there they were bombed by the Luftwaffe, but the bombs landed on a nearby travelling circus. Those present never forgot the images of wounded elephants charging through the fields and four white liberty horses dragging the unconscious figure of a girl rider.

    On arrival, the battalion was nearly robbed of a well-earned night’s rest. Divisional HQ complained that they were under attack but it turned out that their mess sergeant was out with his rifle killing pigs.

    After two days under continuous mortar and shellfire resulting in heavy casualties, they were ordered to pull back to the Merville-Béthune road, west of Lille. There they were ordered to form part of the outer defensive perimeter to cover the evacuation from Dunkirk. Fifth columnists, many of them in British uniforms, were active. The CO found the muzzle of a revolver in the pit of his stomach when an excited young staff officer demanded to see his identity card.

    With orders to fight to the last man and the last round, 1RS and 2nd Battalion the Royal Norfolk Regiment put up a desperate defence near the village of Le Paradis. Errington was at Battalion HQ in a farmhouse, but when it was set on fire he moved to a building across the road from where his small group beat off a series of German attacks.

    Positioning himself at an upstairs window, he knocked out a number of enemy light armoured vehicles with a Boys anti-tank rifle.

    On the night of May 27, under cover of darkness the survivors, led by Major Bruce, the adjutant and acting CO, made their way to a nearby barn and hid there. Two days later, a local inhabitant knocked on the door and asked for a cigarette and they learnt that they were surrounded by German troops. Errington was among those captured and taken prisoner.

    Some soldiers of the 2nd Battalion the Royal Norfolk Regiment were defending a farmhouse against attacks by Waffen-SS units in Le Paradis. They had become separated from their regiment, and when they ran out of ammunition they surrendered. Almost 100 of them, many of them wounded, were lined up against a wall by a unit of the SS Division Totenkopf and killed by machine-gun fire. Details of this war crime only emerged towards the end of the war but these were never fully investigated.

    After being made prisoner, Errington took part in a long march eastwards to Germany. During the five years that he spent as a PoW at Oflag V-B, in the south-west of the country, he kept himself busy by learning Arabic. He performed in pantomimes, started a carpentry group and, having learnt to sail as a boy, studied sailing manuals to further his knowledge. His sister, who lived on the Isle of Mull, sent him food parcels and cigars; the latter he used as currency.

    Charles John Richard Errington was born on August 12 1918 at Beeslack, his family home, near Penicuik, Midlothian, Scotland. His father and maternal grandfather had both served with the Royal Scots. Always known as John, Errington was educated at Wellington College before joining the RAF and going to Cranwell. After qualifying as a pilot, he transferred to Sandhurst and was commissioned in 1938.

    He rejoined his regiment after the war and was posted to the Middle East Centre for Arab Studies (MECAS) in Jerusalem. On July 22 1946 he would normally have lunched at the King David Hotel but his Arabic tutor kept him later than usual into his lunch hour. Shortly after midday, the hotel was almost destroyed by a bomb planted by Irgun, the Zionist insurgent group. Ninety-one people died and many more were wounded. Errington always believed that his tutor knew what was about to happen and deliberately kept him back.

    He was posted to the Combined Intelligence Centre at RAF Habbaniya, Iraq, where he met his future wife, Brenda Reeves, who was working at the British Embassy in Baghdad.

    Attendance at Staff College in 1950 was followed by a posting to Military Intelligence in the War Office. He served in Malaya from 1953 to 1956 during the Emergency and was Mentioned in Despatches “for distinguished service”. After a final posting, to Libya, he bought a car and drove back to England, passing through France and visiting Le Paradis en route. In March 1959, he retired from the Army.

    Errington went to agricultural college in Aberdeen and then managed the family farm in Kincardineshire. He became a keen dinghy and offshore sailor and sailed his yacht, Prince Vreckan, well into his nineties. He also enjoyed swimming and, aged over 100, still swam in the public baths in Kirkcudbright.

    John Errington married Brenda Reeves in 1948. She and a daughter predeceased him, and he is survived by their two other daughters.

    Major John Errington, born August 12 1918, died August 29 2022 https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5e849575e2e3adeba61757f9add9673dc3eeb56d1026d632e3f6d920de7c415a.jpg
    On the day of his wedding to Brenda Reeves, in Habbaniya, Iraq, where he was stationed
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3afe067bfb3da366a2cfbb8bfd31e0fc18e1e8ce3c7cce3d83e325d6407013da.jpg

  30. Morning all 🙂
    Bit windy but not quite the 200 mph mentioned by the media last week 🤔
    At last my new garden strimmer is arriving this morning. Three weeks it’s taken. It was arranged for delivery at our local post office. But nobody realised that it had closed down for a complete refit. And amazon couldn’t quite arranged for the driver to drive a further half mile and deliver it to our house.

      1. I wonder what our friend Grizzly makes of this?

        As a former schoolmaster I wonder if he is as amazed, saddened and ashamed of his erstwhile profession as I often am of mine?

        1. Need you ask, Rastus?

          Society has fallen into a bottomless chasm and it seems there is little hope of a return to what was once considered to be normality.

    2. No comments allowed! Hopefully the “temporary” senior plod will get demoted, although given recent trends they will probably end up as Chief Constable!!

        1. Is it to boost their appalling crime figures? Have they not got enough to do? Is it the hope of getting an easy clobber for a complete nonsense? Why? Why didn’t plod just say ‘People are entitled to say what they like under the law.’…unless, of course, we are not, which has been a creeping malignancy ever since the Blair terror.

    3. Let us hope that the lady has first rate legal advice and takes the perlice farce to the cleaners.

      1. I’d far and away they went after the man in a dress who complained he wasn’t being called a woman for wasting police time. That needs to become consistent and repeated for all these trans people. The mentally ill shouldn’t be able to use the state in this manner.

      2. Mark Steyn encouraged her on GB News last night,to take legal advice as well as holding up a photo of the jovial faced Police chief and denouncing him for allowing his Police force to act in this way. Mark was enraged at what the police are concentrating on these days. [as we all are]

        1. They are doing their very best to get Mark Steyn taken off air. Long may they fail to do so.

      3. As stated above, in her Twitter thread she asked plod what evidence they had. They told her they had none but wanted to hear her ‘side’ of the story.

        As far as I’m concerned this was just a fishing trip in which they hoped she would incriminate herself.

        Fortunately, she was clever enough to realise that.

    4. Clearly they picked on her this week because she had form from an earlier spat about a transgender child. It looks as though they’ve picked the wrong one here – and she will take them to the courts over this.

      1. This sort out outrage must be properly addressed.

        But is our justice system already too weak and corrupt to cope with this?

          1. I really do wish her the very best of good fortune and let us hope she and her family get justice.

    5. Clearly they picked on her this week because she had form from an earlier spat about a transgender child. It looks as though they’ve picked the wrong one here – and she will take them to the courts over this.

    6. A possible prison sentence for a hurty word? That is beyond sinister. Whatever has happened to this country?

      This poor lady has suffered all kinds of abuse for some considerable time, but naturally the police seem to ignore it. The whole episode is utterly shameful. Equally shameful is the decision by the police to accept (and probably pay for?) so-called training sessions by a very one-sided pressure group.

      Let’s see if the Home Sec’s fine words at the conference actually mean anything. I may have a long wait.

  32. Saudi Arabia and Russia plan deep oil cuts in defiance of US. 5 October 2022.

    Saudi Arabia is seeking to raise oil prices at a crucial meeting in Vienna, in a move set to anger the US and aid Russia.
    Riyadh, Moscow and other producers are poised to announce deep cuts at a meeting of the Opec+ cartel on Wednesday, according to people with knowledge of the discussions.

    The size of the cut is still to be agreed but Saudi Arabia and Russia are pushing for reductions of 1mn-2mn barrels a day or more, although these could be phased in over several months. The reductions would probably trigger US countermeasures, analysts said.

    “This is not the Saudi Arabia of old and the US has maybe been a little slow or unwilling to acknowledge that in energy matters,” said Raad Alkadiri, an analyst at Eurasia Group.

    The Saudi’s are sticking it to the Americans here. If anything the Arab World hates the US (and us) more than Putin or Russia could possibly imagine. They are not going to forgo this possibly once in a lifetime opportunity!

    https://www.ft.com/content/476d8174-1ad5-4dbe-8092-37853b2a7673

  33. Saudi Arabia and Russia plan deep oil cuts in defiance of US. 5 October 2022.

    Saudi Arabia is seeking to raise oil prices at a crucial meeting in Vienna, in a move set to anger the US and aid Russia.
    Riyadh, Moscow and other producers are poised to announce deep cuts at a meeting of the Opec+ cartel on Wednesday, according to people with knowledge of the discussions.

    The size of the cut is still to be agreed but Saudi Arabia and Russia are pushing for reductions of 1mn-2mn barrels a day or more, although these could be phased in over several months. The reductions would probably trigger US countermeasures, analysts said.

    “This is not the Saudi Arabia of old and the US has maybe been a little slow or unwilling to acknowledge that in energy matters,” said Raad Alkadiri, an analyst at Eurasia Group.

    The Saudi’s are sticking it to the Americans here. If anything the Arab World hates the US (and us) more than Putin or Russia could possibly imagine. They are not going to forgo this possibly once in a lifetime opportunity!

    https://www.ft.com/content/476d8174-1ad5-4dbe-8092-37853b2a7673

    1. He’s been watching too much TV.
      It’s become apparent that it’s trending for a footballer who loses the ball in a tackle to roll on the floor feigning injury.
      The rules should be changed if you go down like that you go off the pitch for 5 minutes. That’ll stop it.

      1. 365859+ up ticks,

        Morning RE.
        He is, I believe an equity card holder, canine division, playing Hamlet next week.

  35. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b9b4322464cf5d1f21e84539a33a549b002b4f3b7b7b709f8896dfcb03bc646c.png https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/afb83f1d904f6ba6947efde4682a1d2e6538a01290d90f5b6c7c6fab47e2e606.png Yet another nail in the coffin of proper English reporting from the once-vaunted, former flagship of British broadsheet journalism, The Daily Telegraph. What are these ‘meters’ that this canal ‘lift’ is being measured in? Gas meters? FFS!

    The decline in standard English is proportionate to the rise in vapid Americanese. An average, or medium Sudoku puzzle is nor announced as being ‘regular’ (really? it has a bowel movement daily?). ‘Train station’ has universally supplanted railway station in this tabloid-standard rag and more and more trite examples of deplorably trite Yankee are seen on every page.

    1. Train station is a home grown colloquialism though? Isn’t the yankee version a railroad depot?

      1. I think that “train station” did originate in the States, Our Susan.

        It has firmly embedded itself here – worse luck.

      2. No. ‘Train Station’ definitely started in the US of A and was introduced over here by films and television (in common with most idiotic Yank things, such as only having the word ‘bunch’ to mean multiples of anything, even water!). A railroad depot is a goods (or marshalling) yard.

        1. “Yes!” she said, “I was graped”

          “Don’t you mean raped?”

          “No, there was a whole bunch of them!”

    2. Apparently my bank cards dont have expiry dates, they have ‘expiration dates’.

      2. Good Heavens! They breathe? Do you have to make sure that they have access to air, not shut in a wallet or. plastic holder?

      4. Should you decide to accept the mission, Jim, the secretary will disavow all knowledge of your actions. This bank-card will self-destruct in five seconds. Good luck, Jim.

  36. ISIS link of ‘killers who murdered British couple and fed them to crocodiles’: Suspects accused of South Africa horror ‘had Islamic State leaflets’ and texted about ‘killing the kuffar’
    Rod, 74, and Rachel Saunders, 63, were renowned botanists and seed hunters
    They vanished in 2018 heading to Ngoye Forest Reserve after filming with BBC
    They were allegedly targeted, kidnapped, beaten to death and then put in their sleeping bags and thrown into a river infested with man-eating crocodiles
    A married couple and their lodger all deny kidnap, murder, robbery and theft
    It has now been revealed the suspects had links to terrorist group Islamic State
    Detectives found ISIS pamphlets and flags, and messages discussing killings

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11282291/ISIS-link-killers-murdered-British-couple-fed-crocodiles.html

    Around two percent of the population in South African is Muslin, and it has never suffered a major Islamist attack. However, it has become a hot-bed of dirty money financing terrorism in southern and east Africa, the Times reports.

    Large-scale trafficking of drugs, weapons and people have been facilitated by South Africa’s weak security institutions and permeable borders. This has allowed terrorist groups to fill their coffers.

    Excuse me for thinking the very worst, but isn’t that what is happening here in Britain ..

    1. 365859+ up ticks,

      Morning TB
      Plus finding consent via the polling booth time & time again.

    2. Sorry, Maggie. Couldn’t resist: give your smell choker a slap.
      “Around two percent of the population in South African is Muslin…” We’ll draw a veil over that.

    4. Tinfoil hat, Ukie flag and a toy tricoteuse. What a charmer.

    6. I think she’s an unpleasant, bigoted loudmouth who hasn’t the wherewithal to consider what she is saying nor how horrible it is.

      She sounds a deeply unhappy, bitter, angry person – most of it likely self directed and as she hasn’t yet learned to internalise and deal with it directs that hatred outward at an easy target.

    7. With all that tin foil, is that her ‘oven-ready pose’? (asking for a cannibal friend…..)

  39. Living with an EV
    wibbling asked me give feedback on how I was getting on with my new Hyundai Kona EV.

    After leaving the dealership with a range of 275 miles I have done 44 miles and now have a range of 227.
    The reason that it doesn’t add up is because when parked and just playing with the controls the EV uses 200 to 300 watts continuously powering only the electrics. The four mile range deficit means that because the EV is doing an average of four miles per kWh then I have lost that range just learning how to drive the thing whilst parked.

    It have now used 44/4 = 11 kW energy getting the EV home and then going to Morrisons at a cost of 11 x £0.34 = £3.74 if I recharge at peak electricity rates.

    I am now trying to work out how to charge the EV at economy rates with a https://thirdrockenergy.co.uk/products/type-2-to-commando-plug-ev-portable-charger-with-lcd-screen-8a-to-32a-variable-7-4kw-5-metre

    1. Now, I appreciate diversity, but shouldn’t you consider living with a man? Or does the car have the necessary accessories?

      4. My co-driver routinely reports on my driving deficiencies.
        The Kona EV however has advanced driver assiist feature with foward and rear radar detectors as used in self driving cars. I have driver assist warning features turned off whilst travelling with co- driver as I don’t need a second opinion

        1. Surely the driver assist features are a third opinion? What do you do if your counter opinions are tied? stop and ask a pedestrian?

          1. Our Nesfoundland club friends used a camper van whilst at meets but when their dogs were inside alone they could reach the driver’s seat and would sound the horn.

            They was a message on the van to tell other members thet they were just having fun doing that.

    2. Much obliged, Angie. On a good month we get about 400 miles out of the 40l tank in the runabout. It’s been great during lockdown as that lasts 3 months or so. Most of our journeys are short though, to the shops, the dog washers.

      My worry was that fully loaded there’s me, two dogs weighing in at well, me again and small boy, who isn’t that small any more thus would lose the range getting about.

      Interesting having a ‘running cost’ – I suppose inevitable as it’s still using power.

    3. Do you need a smart charger like a Zappi which you can program? Some cars have the facility to program the start and finish times.
      As changing over to a EV or overnight economy tariff would cost me more than my present fixed rate deal, I have decided to stay as I am, on my 24hr rate, the cost working out to be approximately 7pence per mile over the past 8 months.

      1. Thanks for the info.
        This afternoon I tried delving down into the Charge Management option tree of the Kona EV screen button and found that a Departure Time must be set before coming to the Off Peak charge time and preference settings.

        I shall now be able to selectively charge the EV under its programmed control using either the Kona’s own domestic 2.4 kW lead or my own 7kW Third Rock lead.

    1. Well found!

      My mother and many people of her generation would have described the Duchess of Sussex as ‘no better than she ought to be!’

    2. He dribbled all the way to their wedding day.
      Apparently as Harry knelt down on the steps in front of the Clergy, it was notice he had some felt-tip writing on the soles of his shoes spelling out…….. Isle Alter Hymn.

    1. There’s a good comment by Sarah Vine in the Mail about what Truss is doing wrong.
      What she doesn’t mention is Frost being frozen out – he could be the enforcer that the government needs, rather than Gove.
      Sarah Vine seems to think that Gove is so all-powerful that no Conservative government can manage without him.
      That’s certainly what Gove thinks. But at some point – which cannot come soon enough! – he is going to be yesterday’s man, utterly toxic to any chance of electoral success.

  42. Gusty mild rainy afternoon , very mild , but the wind is whistling down the chimney.

    The leaves are turning , Autumn colours .

    Moh mowed the lawns yesterday evening , the grass was thick, green and lush , what a difference compared to 6 weeks ago ..

    1. Had to drive over to Cirencester this morning – drizzly and sometimes heavier rain – also detours to avoid road works.

      Our planned trip to Sheffield at the weekend for a family gathering has been scuppered by the rails strikes. No trains at all on Friday or Saturday. OH won’t do a long drive now and nor can I.

      1. I don’t blame you.

        There is an alien reckless species inhabitating our roads now .. Mostly young women in driving in an aggressive fashion , behind the wheel of huge cars.

        1. We’ve both slowed down too much in the last few years to cope with long motorway drives now. I know my reactions are slower than they used to be and it’s stressful just coping with traffic on the local roads that I know. There are lots of aggressive drivers who come much too close behind – male and female.

          3. Yesterday evening on local roads there was more than enough aggressive driving, just there and back. What is wrong with people? – a bit of courtesy and give and take goes a long way. Why do people have to drive right up close behind and hoot and flash when you slow down to take a turning?

          4. I don’t know, but on Sunday, on a rural road, I slowed down because the car in front of me was going to turn right. The idiot in a hurry behind me overtook me! Fortunately, there was nothing coming in the opposite direction and the chap was able to turn right and leave the road clear for the impatient prat.

        2. I except most have noticed the standard of driving on our roads has plummeted over the past ten years. Most younger people driving can’t even read something as simple as a 30 sign. Probably because they know they will get away with it the police are too busy elsewhere. Perhaps we need an employee boost to the traffic department.

        1. They earn good money but these strikes are certainly political and timed to cause disruption to the party conferences.

        2. Time to automate the trains, driverless, sack the lot. They did away with Guards and now just have hectoring ticket inspectors.

          Dockland Light Railway manages with no accidents that I’ve heard of.

    1. ‘I’m losing my job because of the Twitterati’. No, you aren’t, you wazzock. It’s because you brought your (private sector) employer’s name into disrepute by making a stupid statement.

  45. Gosh, Liz Truss doesn’t have much luck with political slogans, does she.
    Having run a series of commercials for the Royal Mail (“Deliver, deliver, deliver!”), she seems to have turned her hand to Syrup of Figs now.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/3efa9c4f4c1217e120bd010d05355646b4127a3f90adae29dbc98139c6fc3b14.jpg

    One could almost think she was being sabotaged on purpose.
    I would still rather that she succeeded as a genuinely conservative Prime Minister than that she failed.

    1. Perhaps she also has problems with piles, hence referring to ‘growth’ 29 times in her speech…

      1. On the good side, it isn’t “Build Back Better” – but that slogan appears to have been ditched in unison by all the WEF puppets from NZ to Canada.

    3. I’m not a fan of Truss but she has been PM for just a month so I am keeping an open mind. I thought the speech was a good one under the circumstances. I worry that she is a WEF ‘junior leader’ as is Boris and the King who first went to Davos in 1992.

      1. She’s made some rookie mistakes though. I think a lot of people could rally behind a tough leader, not so much behind a milk jelly.

    3. Try sending him a Christmas card? Well OK, a Halloween card if you can’t wait that long?

    1. What a terribly offensive thing to say, how could he possibly explain something as stupid as that ?

      1. I looked up the story , and this is what he actually said

        ” ‘It was a very quick time that we did it. And you have got to remember the context.

        ‘What was extraordinary about that month was that we had a new Government and also we had the sad passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, so we had a nation in mourning and then literally four days I think after the funeral, we had the mini-budget.”

        Really, as a professional politician, he ought to know better than to give the media a gift like this. KK is not stupid, but he hasn’t been rigorously enough tested if he thinks a lame dog-ate-my-homework kind of excuse will fly at this level.
        I’m afraid, it’s just another example of a favoured candidate being chosen all the way along the line from university to the House of Commons to ministerial jobs rather than the best candidate.

    2. To be fair, that 10 days was the time when he could have laid out the ground for his budget, what we got was the budget then going into a vacuum of 10 days or mourning where he effectively couldn’t sell it, and we have now seen the consequences of that.

      There were consequences to that timing which he couldn’t control.

          1. I was referring to the poseur pretending to be Chancellor. Not only was he either pissed or drugged or both – he spent a lot of time talking out loud on his mobile phone.

            Not appropriate behaviour for anyone at a funeral, let alone that of the moist significant woman of the last 100 years. And the tosser’s Sovereign.

  48. I woke yp this morning to find I had no water. My first thought was that I’d been cut off because I’ve been arguing about a bill. I called and found that there had been a major pipe burst yesterday and that several postcodes in the area were without water.

    I’ve just spent two hours queuing with the great unwashed (literally) at Asda for bottled water being given out by Thames Water.

    2. As I read the opening sentence I thought: ‘I didn’t know she was expecting….’

  49. I woke yp this morning to find I had no water. My first thought was that I’d been cut off because I’ve been arguing about a bill. I called and found that there had been a major pipe burst yesterday and that several postcodes in the area were without water.

    I’ve just spent two hours queuing with the great unwashed (literally) at Asda for bottled water being given out by Thames Water.

  50. Married 47 years ago this day. Flowers in vases and table booked for celebratory meal in town ce soir…..

      3. !st (Irish) wife – 37 years, 2nd (Swedish) wife 13 years.

        By my reckoning that make 50 years of (supposed) married bliss.

      4. I have been married for 63 years but not to the same woman. I have been married to my present wife for 40 wonderful years.

          2. Top end of Bath? They tend not to display prices there but McDonalds is in Southgate, you’ll be fine.

    5. Congratulations . 🎈🎉🥂

      It will be lovely for you both to have experienced the past previous years.. remembering when you were both younger .. the way you were.

          3. Talking of ‘I Do’ – I think I’m correct in writing that the only person who says ‘I do’ in the customary wedding service is the person handing over the bride….

          4. According to the Prayer Book – no one says “I do”. The happy couple each say, “I will”.

          5. “When asked “Who gives this woman to be married to this man?”, he commonly will answer, “I do.” The more modern way of answering is to say, “Her mother and I do.”

          6. The Prayer Book is silent – the parent/guardian/carer/prison officer – shoves the bride forward

          9. The Prayer Book is silent – the parent/guardian/carer/prison officer – shoves the bride forward

    8. Does she get a medal with an Amethyst in the centre?

      Congratulations, and may you have many more.

          10. A pal of mine spent £4000 on carp for his pond, forgot to put the net over the pond and a heron ate the lot

  52. British man rescued from Mont Blanc with severe hypothermia after attempting climb in tracksuit
    Feda Hussein spent a night on the Bionnassay glacier after losing his way and his body temperature dropped to just 25C

    A British man was rescued on a glacier suffering from severe hypothermia and just minutes from death after trying to tackle Mont Blanc without the right equipment.

    Italian mountain rescue officials said it was a miracle that Feda Hussein had survived after spending a night on the Bionnassay glacier as he tried to scale Western Europe’s highest peak wearing hiking boots and a tracksuit.

    They initially thought he might be a migrant or refugee trying to cross into France on a perilous route that has been taken by many asylum seekers in recent years, often with fatal consequences.

    But Mr Hussein told Italian authorities that he was on holiday and had wanted to climb Mont Blanc to celebrate his birthday.

    They criticised him for setting out on the climb without crampons, an ice axe and the other specialist equipment that is needed to climb at high altitude in the Alps.

    Mr Hussein, 26, a graduate aerospace engineer from Portsmouth, made a call for help on Saturday night but an alpine rescue helicopter was unable to reach him because of the darkness and stormy weather.

    Mount Blnac
    Mr Hussein spent the night at around 3,100 metres with just a tarpaulin for shelter CREDIT: Newsflash
    He spent the night shivering at around 3,100 metres (10,170ft) on the slopes of the glacier with just a tarpaulin for shelter.

    Alpine rescue specialists eventually managed to reach him on Sunday at around dawn.

    His body temperature had dropped to just 25 degrees Celsius – more than 10 degrees less than normal.

    Hypothermia sets in from around 35C, while severe hypothermia sets in when the body temperature dips to less than 28C.

    He was taken to hospital in the town of Aosta, the capital of the Italian region of Val d’Aosta, where doctors tried to increase his body temperature as quickly as possible.

    His plan seemed to be to reach the summit and then descend on the French side of the mountain.

    “I left on Friday from Val Veny, intending to climb up the Italian side of Mont Blanc,” he told rescuers, according to the Italian media.

    “I spent the night between Friday and Saturday in a tent, on the Miage glacier, and the next day I continued following the path.”

    ‘Five minutes from death’
    But the weather quickly deteriorated, with strong winds and snow. He lost his way and spent Saturday night on the glacier, fighting for his life.

    He used his mobile phone to call emergency services and an alpine rescue helicopter was able to reach him at dawn on Sunday.

    Mountain rescue experts said he was about five minutes from death and lucky to have been found in time.

    So many hikers have run into trouble on Mont Blanc that there have been calls to make them pay for rescue operations.

    In August, the mayor of Saint-Gervais-les-Bains, a town on the French side of Mont Blanc, suggested that anyone wanting to climb the mountain should put down a €15,000 deposit to cover possible rescue and funeral costs.

    Jean-Marc Peillex complained that too many inexperienced, ill-equipped climbers were attempting to scale the mountain.

    He said it was “unacceptable” that the costs were borne by French taxpayers.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/10/05/british-man-rescued-mont-blanc-severe-hypothermia-attempting/

    2. 1. Not British. 2. A berk. 3. Graduate in aerospace? How? Do they give degrees for writing your name at the top of the page?

    3. ‘He said it was “unacceptable” that the costs were borne by French taxpayers’.

      Reminds me of huge, equally unacceptable, costs being borne by British taxpayers for looking after those we should have no responsibility for.

    4. These people make me so angry.
      For God’s sake, it’s hardly brain surgery to realise that mountains are cold and rocky and therefore climbers need special equipment.
      I resent brave people risking their lives for such twonks.

      1. You’re absolutely right!!!
        The cost is insignificant when compared to the lives of those expected to rescue the idiot.

  53. I really must get on with painting some external door frames for the shed I’m making.

    1. Spray gun! Mask off the bits you don’t want to spray and spray away. You’ll get three coats on in the time you’d usually get 1.

      1. Well it is their wedding anniversary. What better way to spend time together than painting door frames.

      2. We did during the application of 150 litres of paint when painting the entire interior of the house earlier in the year. She’s currently in her sewing room altering garments for a bride to be as well as for the two ring bearers….

        1. Ooh that is a blessed marriage.

          We painted a small, bathroom, I got shit for the uneven line between ceiling and walls and we ended up paying to have the house painted.

          This new place will be painted for us,

          2. Our builders wanted £6k (labour) only to do the job. (The local going rate – I checked wit an independent decorator) The architect would had added 12&1/2% …so it really was a no brainer. I’m now an expert at watching paint dry…..

  54. Gossip news ! A BBC presenter has got a stripper pregnant then dumped her by text. I don’t think you need to be a mastermind to work out who it is.

    6. A primetime BBC presenter reportedly got a stripper pregnant – and then dumped her before she gave birth. The BBC star is alleged to have fathered a child with a stripper before dumping her.

      He ditched her by text when he found out she was pregnant – and then made the woman sign a gagging order. The stripper has spoken out to the Sun newspaper.

      The BBC star had a six month fling with the dancer and is alleged to have scrawled his catchphrase across her chest. The woman has not identified the BBC presenter, and neither has the Sun newspaper.

      Mastermind: Clive Myrie perhaps

      1. Take your pick from this lot:

        Magnus Magnusson (1972–1997)
        Peter Snow (1998–2000)
        Clive Anderson (2001–2002)
        John Humphrys (2003–2021)
        Clive Myrie (2021–)

      2. Take your pick from this lot:

        Magnus Magnusson (1972–1997)
        Peter Snow (1998–2000)
        Clive Anderson (2001–2002)
        John Humphrys (2003–2021)
        Clive Myrie (2021–)

      4. But Clive Myrie hasn’t been on Mastermind for long so could it have been John Humphrys?

    7. Good grief – does he have a “catchphrase”? Apart from, “I can’t read a script properly”

  55. It seems that the great covid game is ramping up for another round.

    Our mob are warning of (yet) another pending explosion is cases – could be worse than previous outbreaks, wear a mask yadda yadda!

    The despised head of public health is claiming that thanks to her leadership, covid deaths were kept to a minimum but if she had not acted we might have seen 800.,000 deaths this spring (2 percent of population).

    Not a single fact from any of them, all could be, might be, worst case . Trouble is the village idiot probably believes this garbage.

  56. 365859+ up ticks,

    Cannot be denied the old genuine UKIP
    treacherously imploded 2019 / 20, had in the design & triggering of Brexitexit the only major Country benefiting success,taking ALL parties into account, glad I took part.

    Gerard Batten
    @gjb2021
    ·
    21h
    I think they just died – but the funeral won’t be held until the next general election.

    Truss inherited an impossible situation, created over decades. It might have been mitigated if the right policies were adopted from 2019 but to late now.

    She can raise interest rates to slow inflation, & crash the economy, or she can let inflation rip, & crash the economy.

    The Tories could have left Boris in charge so he got the blame & tried to reinvent themselves in the election after the next one; but now under a new leader they are ALL to blame, & they might be out of power for 15-20 years.

    Labour would have to return us to the Stone Age to make the Tories look good – & they probably will.

    for decades.

    1. Give me a hard question: the answer is obvious, it’s the big hairy monster on the left, identifying as a nurse.
      Don’t you dare tell me I’m wrong because the person on the right, could be a woman, so to assume she? is the nurse is no longer acceptable.
      I’ll just go back to my Shiraz as the world is FUBAR.

        1. I’ve come to the conclusion that all this crap just needs ignoring, by everyone.
          If it has no oxygen, then it will die.
          The problem then is, what will come to the surface as a replacement?

          3. “They” will become the”normal” way to describe one person of any of the 60 genders.

  58. Well folks, big shop today, Sainsburys, Aldi and Waitrose. (We’re loyal to all of them!). Sadly several masked shoppers about. Pre-emptying the doomsters,

          1. There are three types of limerick: those you can tell in mixed company; those who can tell to vicars; and limericks. The one behind the spoiler is behind the spoiler because it is in the third category.

            There once was a man from Cape Finisterre
            Whose desires were bizarre and quite sinister
            His lifelong ambition
            Was anal coition
            With the wife of the French foreign minister.

          2. You think that’s bad, Richard, try this,

            There was a Bishop of Birmingham
            Who fucked all the girls, whilst confirming them.
            Amid roars of applause
            He’d haul down their drawers;
            And pump his episcopal sperm in ’em

    5. I thought Dolly and Henry were chewing their bedding! Charlie used to be dreadful for that; every blanket and every cushion in his bed had holes in!

    1. Taking of war reporters am I the only person to think that Martin Bell, ‘The Man in a White Suit’ is a sanctimonious, self-righteous twat? He has been on GBNews a couple of times and he is now senile, poor chap, He has lost even the remotest signs of being rational.

      1. Not at all, Rastus! And Jon Simpson is a pompous twonk as well! I read one of his autobiographies and he came across as a right ‘arris!

          5. Make it a VC, after all he was with the bbc and only wore a flac jacket while reporting from a local hotel and could have been shot at any time.

        2. I remember seeing footage of the great Simpson in a taxi in Algeria, talking about the slamic terrorists in the 90s. At one point, he asked the taxi driver to confirm that the terrorists were hanging out in the hills visible in the distance.
          It is impossible to overstate the man’s scorn as he replied “Thousands of them!”

      2. Not at all, Rastus! And Jon Simpson is a pompous twonk as well! I read one of his autobiographies and he came across as a right ‘arris!

      3. I edited the punctuation of this post and when I reposted it all ‘waiting replies’ disappeared? Is this normal and will they return?

      1. Well, no. They are US Rangers working undercover in outfits they got from Walmart.

  62. This is for Our Susan. And other NoTTLers who loathe what BBC Radio 3 has become.

    This months’ Critic magazine contains a brilliant article by Michael Henderson which buries Radio 3 alive. Maddeningly, it is not available to copy and paste – and scanning it would not come out legibly.

    If you know anyone who takes this excellent periodical – ask for a borrow. The article is on page 85.

    1. A few tasters for you to savour: – My comments are in brackets)

      Why does Tom Service, the butler at Waffling Hall, waffle so much? Is he paid by the word?
      Why does Kate Mollesen (spit) speak like a little girl?
      Why does Georgia Mann (ugh) treat Essential Classics as an audition for Blue Peter?
      Why does Katie Derham (probably the worst) burst into peals of unnecessary laughter in almost every sentence?

      I am still revelling in it…{:¬))

      2. Never heard of any of them – but I don’t do TV, nor listen to the Biased Broadcasting Crap.

  63. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/10/05/hard-workers-will-not-welcome-policy-gives-benefits-higher-rise/

    This sort of thing is just not fair. Why should someone on UC get a huge rise in income on my money when I get barely anything? I have to earn it, then I’m robbed of it and it goes to far too many wasters.

    I wouldn’t mind if benefits went only to those in true need who couldn’t provide for themselves, but it doesn’t. It goes to far too many people who simply don’t deserve it.

      1. It’s annoying as amongst the dross of murderous savages there are, inevitably, honest people who do need help. The problem is they’ve all got to be dealt with in the same way – deportation to France.

        It’s long past time we stopped being we, Left wing idiots and reminded the world that Britain is tired of being the blasted door mat of the world.

        30,000 at two flights a day means 30 days and they’re all gone. Push them off the plane at France and let the French deal with them as they’ve forced us to deal with their problem.

          1. I’d go a lot further east, try the Rub’ al Khali, they would have a longer walk back.

          2. Aye, any airstrip away from here. I suggest France because the french are responsible and need to learn their lesson.

            Perhaps we should invade, watch the cheese eating surrender monkeys grovel and then push out the illegals?

          3. Aye, a beach in Somalia at midnight and release them in just their underwear

            Let their fellow Islamics look after them.

            Ah, perfidious Albion. But we do it so well!

      2. I was about to say it’s because of all the bames in the civil service. I’m sure they get their cut.

      3. They come ‘to make a difference’ an to educate us.
        It’s the worst and most destructive thing that has ever happened to this country. Except for AH Bliar.

        1. And even this is down to Blair.
          If Allah is God, he sent Mohammed to create the “religion” and spread it, and then he sent Satan to ensure it would eventually win.

          I hate Blair, the most evil person to have been born in Britain.

    2. Solve that problem of giving to the undeserving and the left will still hate you.

      Cut down on immigration if nothing is free for skivers, cut down on taxes if only the deserving get benefits – I tell you, there will be busloads of opposition to such an idea.

    3. Hold the ‘bus, Wibbles, I’m an OAP (78 years old) who is just about ready to apply for UC, I’ve served my country, paid for my pension but find it hard to survive and doubt if I’ll get much help – the PTB would rather I just FOAD.

  64. Amongst the bumf in my email inbox I get headlines from the Third Sector, a publication that covers charities. One of today’s headlines is; ” ‘Despair’ as Victim Support loses seventh UK contract to police”]. But Merseyside’s police and crime commissioner pledges that the new service will be ‘entirely focused’ on helping victims and survivors to ‘cope and recover’””
    I could not read the rest as I do not subscribe. I decided to phone the charity and find out what was going on. From the headline it would appear that the police are seeking contracts to care for “victims”. Hardly their function, I’d have thought.
    There is only one phone number on the website. The phone number is the victim “helpline”. After the usual blah I was hoping to get transferred to the Press Officer. But no.
    The phone rang out and then went onto a recorded message saying “all lines were busy and all counsellors were busy, please go to website…”
    My enquiry was trivial. Had I been a really upset victim looking for support, I would have been cruelly disappointed.
    Anyway, why are the police pushing into the charity business when they cannot manage to do police work?

    1. Police move into social work? How will they dance to that? Should stick to core “competence” in crime prevention & detection.

      1. Police are already uniformed social workers. Have been for years.

        I expect the new departments to be called The Morality Police division and the Mental Hygiene division.

        Those divisions will be policing us not the nutters (Islam/Trans/black stabbers).

        As is already happening.

  65. Oops; missed my fifth Birdie Three!
    Wrong choice out of two 🙁
    Wordle 473 4/6
    ⬜🟩🟩⬜🟨
    🟨🟩🟩⬜⬜
    ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    1. A par 4 today. 5 yesterday.
      Wordle 473 4/6

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

  67. BT mentioned Michael Henderson in The Critic magazine earlier. Hendo’s piece on Radio 3 isn’t available yet but here’s his short essay on the decline of standards elsewhere in the BBC (from the February edition).

    5 Live’s cull of the cultured

    There has been a revolution in the Beeb’s sports coverage

    Peter Jones is probably not a name that means much to anybody under the age of 40. He died in 1990 after suffering a heart attack when covering the University Boat Race, and times have moved on, sweeping Jones and his old-fashioned brethren to the brink of obscurity.

    He wouldn’t fit easily into today’s diminished regimen. Sport on Two, his bailiwick, transferred to 5 Live in 1994, and the tone and vocabulary of broadcasting has altered almost beyond recognition. The sympathetic listener, who enjoys sport but who takes it with a dash of water, has been overlooked in favour of the club-shirted obsessive. Language has been flattened. Speaking poorly is thought to confer the badge of “authenticity”.

    Before he became a sports reporter, Jones had taught at Bradfield College, which meant he was acquainted with a world beyond ball games. He wasn’t alone. In the golden days of Sport on Two a tour of football grounds each Saturday afternoon would acquaint listeners with comforting presences: Bill Bothwell in Liverpool, Stuart Hall in Manchester, George Bailey in the North East, Larry Canning in Birmingham, and Peter Lorenzo in London. Helping Jones with commentary duties at the main match would be Bryon Butler. These men – and it was almost exclusively a world of men – appeared to be rounded companions. Sport claimed only part of their lives.

    Test Match Special, to offer the most obvious example, was guided by Brian Johnston, who had won the Military Cross, and John Arlott, a police constable in Southampton who began life at the BBC as a poetry producer.

    Cricket was important to them, but they did not pretend it was the most important thing in the world, and that knowledge enhanced their commentary. Listen to TMS these days, and you will find Isa “the giggler” Guha, trapped in the cell of assumed celebrity.

    Three years ago, 5 Live waved a less than regretful farewell to its principal presenter, Mark Pougatch, and the superb racing correspondent, Cornelius Lysaght. Here were men in the prime of life, suddenly declared “surplus”, as minions clicked their heels and did what the gauleiters of diversity demanded. Pougatch had gone to Malvern, Lysaght to Eton, and that’s not what the Beeb’s merciless commissars want to hear in their brave new demotic world.

    Listening to sport on 5 Live is now a chore beyond endurance. Clichés swim like salmon in Scottish streams, and Pougatch’s breezy successor, Mark “Chappers” Chapman, is not above calling guests “mate”. In Arlott’s day that would have been a sacking offence.

    Pat Murphy, the Midlands all-rounder, preserves a link with the dim and distant, and two cheers for that. Otherwise, one yearns for the sonorous expertise of Ian Robertson on rugby union, Peter Bromley at the racecourse, and the measured judgment of Mike Ingham, a football man who felt no need to gild the lily.

    When Jonathan Agnew, cricket correspondent for the past three decades, decides to leave the crease, bat held high, the cultural revolution will be almost complete. Maybe the larky Guhaha will be invited to strap on her pads and have a go. You don’t think it possible? Just you wait.

    The summer game popped up in midwinter on Radio 4. Yorkshire’s Cricket Test, presented by Kamran Abbasi, took its cue from torrid events at Headingley, and allegations of racism by a former player, Azeem Rafiq, which have sundered the most celebrated club in English cricket. The county that gave us Wilfred Rhodes, Leonard Hutton, Fred Trueman, Geoffrey Boycott and Joe Root is mired in scandal.

    It’s a complicated tale, and has not always been presented fairly by some journalists, who must know that the conventional “narrative” is not beyond scrutiny. Rafiq, who has turned on his former employer with unsettling savagery, does not make an ideal witness. His own history, which is emerging in dribs and drabs, offers a hostage to fortune he may eventually have to trade.

    In the current climate, however, when racism is a charge that sticks irrespective of the actual events, writers who may never have set foot in Yorkshire have become experts on a subject that is more complicated than they imagine.

    Abbasi made a reliable witness. A cricket-loving doctor born in Lahore, he saw prejudice at first hand when he grew up in Rotherham. Yorkshire cricket has traditionally viewed outsiders with a suspicion that has occasionally hardened into prejudice, and Abbasi did well to prosecute the case without lapsing into bitterness. He loves the game too much for petty score-settling, and was assisted ably by David Hopps, a fine writer on cricket, Yorkshire, and Yorkshire cricket.

    We hear a lot about racism, often from folk who speak with forked tongue. Genuine prejudice, rooted in fear of the other, is a scourge, and in his fair-minded way, Abbasi performed a notable service.

    A better-run BBC sports unit would ensure these stories were told with such clarity.

    1. Thanks for that. Michael Henderson was my favourite (and still much-missed) DT cricket corespondent from the late 1990s–early 2000s; his replacement, Derek Pringle, was a pathetic joke by comparison. Henderson’s cultural reports are also second-to-none. Occasionally he would write on a topic that I did not share his viewpoint on, but that was rare. And, on occasions, his gruffness could almost match that of Auberon Waugh. I wish he were still a DT regular; becoming freelance reduced his audience.

        1. Funny you should show me that link. I searched for it after reading BT’s comment and I’ve already read the column about the South African cricket side of 1970. I shall read the rest at my leisure.

      2. George Bailey was a family friend! Wonderful man with a tremendous voice! His wife was at school with my mother.

        1. George Bailey was my maternal grandfather and my uncle!

          My mother’s father was George Bailey and his second son had the same name. Neither of them was the one you mentioned.😉

          1. Oh my goodness, Mr. Grizz! You had me going there! I thought we were going to end up related! His wife was called Maureen, sister of Sylvia who was my Mothers long time golf partner!
            By the way pet, thank you so much for that list of Nottlers you posted yesterday! It was a real treat! 😘

          2. Thank you, Mrs Macfarlane; the pleasure was all mine. Wouldn’t it have been funny if we had been cousins? I could have called you “cuz”.😘

    2. Cornelius knew his stuff, unlike some racing presenters. ITV seems to think everybody who watches knows nothing about racing (but a lot about football, which they try to introduce at every turn). As I know nothing about football (and care even less), but know a great deal about racing (I used to work in the office of a NH trainer) I am less than thrilled with the coverage. Apart from the forcible “diversity”, it’s one reason why I record the programme. Whizzing through the boring bits makes it just about tolerable.

  68. ‘Night All

    Homemade beefburger 12% Aberdeen Angus mince topped with cheese and caramalised onions,spuds fried in lard for supper………

    Not a healthy option you say?? It bloody well is compared to this abomination!!

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9cb8bb68f79c547c9fd0a823db12fa7493d37831f9dacfd4213533cb58cb3bcd.jpg

    Few memes/laffs

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/14f8f275227efbe980fdc47a57c0314b583054a06fb94b5b089d9e2b0a38cbcd.jpg

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e113b950297e845ecfcfdb41022a13ff5a83a0ef389205b2e4b7193a55e805e4.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/101ffd6d8632155f71c038ad50189c786a4260507d8832d51d000751d6afea24.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8f3630b697323fcd402d07679fdab3db4ac3a3965137dea59d0277a0658e602d.png

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/6e2c080a8ba2867f89f46a4e16a68df8c45ffb292037993f94952ae6446ede89.png

    Finish with a Bob Moran,Oof

    http://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c05403916d08bf7b5ee819e5f62fdbff3eb45ededd00d6977d60baf8bf231ef7.jpg

    1. The one about marriage is spot on….MH starts talking and then heads to the kitchen, still talking….I hear only a few words.

          1. After she’s gone a few paces, it’s impossible to hear anything distinctly. The number of times I have to say “I can’t hear you!”

      4. I cannot stand that – I banned my children from shouting from other rooms when they were young and impressionable. Otherwise “I told you that” would mean “I shouted it down from the third floor when you were in the kitchen using the food processor.”

  70. That’s me for today. Not very nice – cold and then quite a lot of rain. Clear now and a better day possible tomorrow.

    Have a jolly evening – avoiding Radio 3…!!

    A demain.

  71. 365859+ up ticks,

    I read a hidden agenda, reform = reset as for PIE and her take on immigration I’m seeing every village / town with a full complement of
    paedophiles, Dover / Dungeness daijy untake will ,in time, assure us of that.

    l truss,
    My mail,
    As I outlined this morning, our plan is about getting our economy growing and rebuilding Britain through reform.

    For too long, the political debate has been dominated by how we distribute a limited economic pie. Instead, we need to grow the pie so that everyone gets a bigger slice.

    Our Growth Plan will deliver the reforms we need to create a high-growth, low-tax economy.

  72. Re Liz Truss and her speech .. I wonder which airline gave her a badge when she was a child ?

    I have juggled my career with raising two wonderful daughters. I know how it feels to have your potential dismissed by those who think they know better. I remember as a young girl being presented on a plane with a “Junior Air Hostess” badge. Meanwhile, my brothers were given “Junior Pilot” badges. It wasn’t the only time in my life that I have been treated differently for being female or for not fitting in. It made me angry and it made me determined. Determined to change things so other people didn’t feel the same way.

    1. Anyone else tired of people bleating on about inequalities of the past, particularly as they haven’t done too badly in life in the long term.

    2. “Junior Air Hostess”.

      Probably British – ‘Hostess’ rather than Stewardess – the American term.

      Probably BA. Liz is not old enough for BEA or BOAC.

      1. I flew with BOAC many times when I was a youngster . I was given a Junior Jet Club badge and a log book , and girls and boys were allowed up
        to the flight deck to see things working .. then the Captain would then stroll down the cabin to sign our log books .

        1. Ah, the old days of flying… when it was so much more relaxed, and planes crashed all the time.
          Sigh…

    5. It’s still happening. When I went to Shawbury for a do (before Covid) the women were presented with lapel badges and the men got cuff links.

      1. Actually that’s a bugbear of mine. I know it was meant in a spirit of generosity, but I learned to quietly say to the most likely person during a concert rehearsal that if we women got flowers (beautiful, but we were often travelling the next day so had to give them away) and the blokes got interesting bottles… It generally worked 🙂

    6. Oh please don’t tell me that she played the Meghan Markle fake feminism card!
      Talk about stupid! and insulting to women!
      She’s only about forty years out of date.

    1. I agree with probably 90%+ of what he writes, but what really pisses me off about him is the constant digs at Israel and the alleged Jewish oligarchy.

      And, before you complain, I’m not a Jew.

      1. I agree it grates. But I don’t know whether he’s right about that as he has already proved about other stuff. The neocons – are they all Jewish, for example? There is so much that we now have to believe which we would not have imagined a short time ago…. individual discrimination is the only way for each of us, it seems to me.

        1. The neocons, so called, contain all sorts of races, religions and background.
          Although most people might argue otherwise, I would put many of the war-mongering Democrats into the category, given their penchant for unnecessary wars furthering the American military machine.

        1. Saudi Arabia has a competition each year for exactly that.
          Contestants win prize money for how much and how accurately they can recite passages from the Quran.

        2. Saudi Arabia has a competition each year for exactly that.
          Contestants win prize money for how much and how accurately they can recite passages from the Quran.

  76. And today I suppose because I haven’t replied to their message, the NHS sent me a letter to remind me to make an appointment for covid jabs. Seperated from the A4 double sided reminder. Including in as well as English 29 different languages.
    I might be completely wrong, but I suggested that most of the people who speak these languages have never paid a penny towards the treatment they appear to be privileged to, from the NHS.

    2. The point is – if you want to take advantage of the benefits available in the UK – learn to speak English. It’s a waste of taxpayers money to have all these leaflets translated into multiple foreign languages.

      1. The most depressing and disturbing part of it is the fact that all these people are now in Britain.

    3. I had a letter today telling me that I had a telephone consultation at the end of the month, despite the person who was doing the appointment (my physio) having already phoned me and told me it won’t now take place! Left hand, meet right hand.

      1. I cancelled an appointment today for 4pm for a B12. My knee was killing me and the weather was atrocious. Just after 4 I got a text asking me to evaluate my appointment. NHS seems to be hopeless.

    4. I had the same about a week ago.
      I can’t remember if it was 2 or 3 sheets of every shade of double dutch.

    5. I got a text from the gp surgery today urging me to have a flu jab and a covid jab – book here within 48 hours. No thanks.

  77. Made a big pan of homemade tomato and basil soup. Still have half the fresh tomatoes left but they are so good.
    Looking at pesto recipes for the basil- there’s a lot.

      1. I keep it in the kitchen because it smells so nice. Herbs are my forte as I can’t be arsed with growing flowers. Have rosemary, thyme x2, sage, coriander, chives and lavender.
        They will have to come indoors before a frost.

        1. At this time of year, before the frosts, I like to use herbs in compound butters, freeze in ice cube trays and stored in plastic bags in the freezer until a little extra oomph is required!! Tarragon is especially good, minced with shallots, mixed with the butter, good with chicken and veggies.

    2. You could always use the tomatoes to make “tomata”. Dead easy. Recipe available….free!

      1. Got all of it except pine nuts. Might leave them out as nuts don’t agree with me.

  79. Evening, all. I managed to finish the decorating this evening and have put the pictures back up and some of the furniture back in place. Alas, the castors on the Victorian piano seem to have seized up, so I’m going to have to get a friend in because we’ll need a push-me-pull-you. At the same time we can move the grandfather clock back into place (unlike the piano, which was fine until the castors seized, I can’t move this huge clock on my own). I’ve had the room unusable for weeks so I’m really looking forward to getting things straight at last.

    1. Bit of castor oil should do the trick.
      “I can’t move this huge clock on my own” left me shaken until I cleaned my glasses.

    2. WD40 works wonders. Or was that Double Diamond? (Whatever happened to the awful undrinkable Double Diamond?)

      2. The first beer I had was with my parents in the Windmill pub in London and it was a half pint of you guessed it Double Diamond. I thought then it tasted wonderful.

      4. Double Diamond, known colloquially in my area as ‘Dirty Dick’, had an unpleasant effect on my digestive system. Ind Coope bitter wasn’t much better: we were ill-served by brewers back in my early drinking days. Off to the best wet pub around my area, the Albion in Rowhedge, this evening. Always an interesting selection of small brewery beers on offer.

  80. Chris Mason (who he?) of the BBC is giving Ms Truss a battering.

    I’ve been watching “Borgen” on iPlayer. an excellent training course in management and in politics. Female protagonist (and DanishPM) streets ahead of her opponents both in integrity and political nous.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-63148432

  81. Brexit Bill Gammon -some recollections may vary✡
    @Bill4Brexit
    Will be Mohamed in 10 years time

    BBC News – Baby names: Oliver knocked off top spot by Noah
    bbc.co.uk
    Baby names: Oliver knocked off top spot by Noah
    Noah becomes the most popular baby boy name replacing Oliver, which held the top spot for eight years.
    8:40 PM · Oct 5, 2022
    ·Twitter for Android

    1. Except that when one uses all the variations of Mo-the-ho it’s top by a Satan’s tail.

      1. Spot on. Not just parental numbers, it’s a bleeding breeding ratio of 4, or more, to 1 compared with the indigenous population.

    2. It’s mainly the BBC that promotes the fiction compiled by the ONS. Independent websites clearly agree that the name of that paedo warmonger is the most popular in the UK, and has been for at least five years.

    3. I thought it already was Mohammed, T_B, just in a variety of different spellings.

  82. Has anyone ever seen anyone hold a torch like they do in films, like a javelin? No-one dies that. Everyone holds it like you would a sword.

    1. The idea is that if the baddy jumps out on them, they can whack them with the heavy back end of the torch.

    2. The idea is that if the baddy jumps out on them, they can whack them with the heavy back end of the torch.

    3. They usually have a Glock handgun in the other hand. Seriously, I think you get a more flexible and manoeuvrable grip.

  83. 365859+ up ticks,

    Is this farage chap some species of chameleon ? 2019 on a knifing spree 30000+
    UKIP members in one rhetoric rant on LBC in one hit, prior to singing johnson / tory (ino) party praises whilst marching his misguided brexit members up a mountain and standing them .down on the other side.

    Not Credible’ — Brexit’s Farage Says It’s ‘Too Little, Too Late’ From Truss to Save Tanking Tories

    The UKIP party / members & farage.

    Grant unto UKIP that which is UKIPs.

      2. Strange that the acquittals didn’t make the same headlines as the original trial and guilty verdict. Wonder why that was?

        1. I will confess to absolute amazement when the allegations initially surfaced.
          I am tempted to buy that book.

        1. Or, following the failure to do anything about Saville, was it simply the police moving into panic mode to be seen to be “doing something about it”?

        2. Well he was a White, Heterosexual Male with all the traditional values and virtues.

    2. He lived in south London for a while- not far from us. He bought two semis and made them into one house. Often seen in the shops etc. No rumours or gossip as I recall.

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