Wednesday 7 October: Boris Johnson holds out dark prospects for windless winter nights

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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

Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/10/06/lettersboris-johnson-holds-dark-prospects-windless-winter-nights/

723 thoughts on “Wednesday 7 October: Boris Johnson holds out dark prospects for windless winter nights”

    2. Grattis på födelsedagen, Bob3.

      What happened to Bob1 and Bob2? Were they your grandad and dad? 👍🏻

      1. Thanks Grizz, funny you school say that but I think that would make me four, anyway end of the line now, I don’t think my daughters would have liked Roberta

      1. Garlands, someone on here told me to search my address book under J to find your email address. But the only J I could find has a Colchester address and I know that you don’t live here. ???

          1. Late post, Garlands: I now have your real name and contact details. I’ll email you tomorrow (Thursday).

  3. SIR – That, as Boris Johnson says, the UK is to wind what Saudi Arabia is to oil fills me with pride and optimism for future generations. It can be only a matter of time before supertankers full of UK wind are sailing the seven seas delivering our very finest air to all corners of the globe.

    Richard Holloway
    Nailsea, Somerset

          1. steve Ball is someone who would have been very much at home working with Julius Streicher in Der Stürmer

          2. I’m unsure as to why a self-hating white leftist would want to work on a National Socialist publication? Also given that Streicher certainly wouldn’t want him there.

        2. …and gratuitously cruel which is why I seldom post them.

          (Steve Bell of the Guardian)

    2. Let China have all the coal and oil instead while we single handedly save the planet from climate change.

      1. Of course, why didn’t I think of this? By putting out just under 2% of total world-damaging (allegedly) carbon dioxide we are magnificently well placed to do so…

  5. ‘Morning, again.

    Boris and his ideas about wind are not meeting with universal approval (and we Nottlrs have been vindicated by this bunch):

    SIR – Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, clearly has a sketchy understanding of the physics of wind power. One problem is intermittency, since wind does not blow constantly, and so a baseload generating capacity by other means must be maintained.

    The other major problem is cost. Mr Johnson states that it will be cheaper than coal or gas. That will take some doing, as electricity is already seven times the cost of gas, thanks in part to subsidies to wind-power generators.

    At present my house is heated by gas, costing about £800 a year. To provide all that energy via electricity would push the cost over £5,000.

    If we are to depend entirely on wind power, what will happen on a cold windless winter night when everyone tries to charge their electric cars, heat their houses and cook their dinners?

    Peter Crawford
    Sheffield, South Yorkshire

    SIR – Every house will be powered by wind, claims our PM. The capacity required and the variable demand are very much against this claim. When one considers the extra demand of electric-vehicle charging and domestic conversion from gas, it makes the gap between demand and capacity vast.

    Could Boris Johnson please present his homework to justify his claim?

    Michael Marks
    Glascwm, Radnorshire

    SIR – If you believe Boris Johnson’s avowal that “wind will power every UK home by 2030”, you believe in hot air.

    Has the economic case been made for deep-water wind turbines over other forms of renewable energy? No.

    Only in the windmills of his mind does this make any sense.

    Alasdair Ogilvy
    Stedham, West Sussex

    SIR – The PM wants everything that drives our modern economy to become reliant on the wind. The move to electricity generation being supply-led, not demand-led, exposes the true purpose behind smart meters.

    When there’s not enough wind to go around, some of the population will see their power disconnected to balance the grid. No doubt British companies will respond to become world leaders in candle manufacturing.

    Neil Bailey
    Stockport, Cheshire

    SIR – A hydrogen-powered aircraft is in the air, hydrogen-powered trains are set to be on the rails in three years’ time, yet the Government persists in forcing electrically powered cars on the country by arbitrary deadlines.

    Something wrong there?

    John Lavender
    Port Erin, Isle of Man

    SIR – That, as Boris Johnson says, the UK is to wind what Saudi Arabia is to oil fills me with pride and optimism for future generations. It can be only a matter of time before supertankers full of UK wind are sailing the seven seas delivering our very finest air to all corners of the globe.

    Richard Holloway
    Nailsea, Somerset

    2. Boris knows that if he is a good boy and talks up green energy a lucrative future awaits when he leaves office.

      4. He has to spout this nonsense for Carrie to continue to oblige

        Happy Birthday and many more

        2. It is beyond my understanding as to why women find this odious oaf attractive – but there are surely other willing scrubbers available if Carrie stops providing the puff and grunt.

          1. There’s no accounting for taste. I can think of 2 most refined women who have left their equally refined husbands for uncouth scruffs.

    3. “SIR – Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, clearly has a sketchy understanding of the physics of wind power. One problem is intermittency, since wind does not blow constantly, and so a baseload generating capacity by other means must be maintained.”

      Another letter writer who assumes DT readers do’nt know who Boris Johnson is.

    1. What I’d like to know is how do these ‘wind farms’ manage to grow the wind?

      What fertiliser do they use on these ‘farms’ and is it sustainable? We must be told!

      1. ‘Morning, George, we are currently entering a battle to oppose a 242 acre solar farm planned for our little village (pop., appro 130).

        They craftily estimate its output to be 49.9 Megawatts (just under the 50Mw limit before government permission is required by section 6 of the Electricity Act) and looking at the list of over 200 companies that the directors of the company hold, there are plans for hundreds more of these blights on the landscape and the demise of much wild life, plus the mis-use of good arable land that currently provides us with a lot of food, mostly wheat and potatoes.

        1. ‘Morning, Tom.

          This simply shews us that the lunatics are firmly in control of the asylum.

  8. SIR – In the Fifties, I was pleased to have the comfort of my red hot water bottle (with a knitted cover, made by my mother, with a capital K on it). Now 71, I still have a hot water bottle of exactly the same design and efficiency, including the winged stopper.
    With so many products being frequently updated, is this the perfect design, and, if not, what improvements are possible?
    Kevin Pearson

    Has no-one told Our Kev about microwaveable bean bags?

    1. Caroline tells me that cherry stones are better than beans in the bag as they do not smell and retain their heat longer but that she finds a hot water bottle better as long as it does not get punctured or leak at the seal.

      Remember that Bertie Wooster – taken in by a red-headed girl called Florence Craye – was persuaded to enter the bedroom of his sleeping friend, Bingo Little, with a knitting needle attached to a billiard cue. He then carefully entered Bingo’s room and punctured the hwb . Unfortunately Bertie had been given wrong directions by the perfidious Florence and punctured the hot water bottle of the sleeping psychiatrist, Sir Roderick Glossop. When he returned to his bedroom after a painful interview with the ‘nerve specialist’ he discovered that the red-headed Delilah had given the same instructions to Bingo and consequently his own bed was soaking wet.

      1. Darning needle, I think
        A knitting needle doesn’t have a sharp enough point to get through bedding and a HWB.

      2. I must declare an error – I am surprised that a Nottler Wodehouse fan has not picked it up.

        The red-head was Bobbie Wickham, not Florence Craye who wrote pretentiously bad novels; and it was not Bingo Little but Tuppy Glossop who was the target of the failed punctured hwb plot.

    3. I still have an old earthenware “piggie” which I used to use for warming up the bed in my icy-cold student digs. Not so good for cuddling, but it warmed the bedding and stopped it from feeling damp (the house was very damp).

      Microwaveable heat bags of varying shapes are excellent – and for elderly persons with shaky hands they are a lot safer than something which needs to be filled with hot water.

  10. The biggest threat to the BBC’s independence is the corporation itself. George Moonbot. 7 october 2020.

    These newspapers do not report the news: they create it. Every day, massive events happen: environmental disasters, theft and fraud by the very rich, power grabs and attacks on democracy. Instead of reporting them, the newspapers concoct scandals out of marginal topics, or out of thin air. They turn the public anger that should be directed at billionaires and corporations against refugees, Muslims, the “woke”, the poor. News in the UK is the propaganda of the oligarch, amplified by the BBC.

    The irony! Writing in the Guardian of all places!

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/07/bbc-independence-corporation-news-agenda-media-oligarchs

      2. 324331+ up ticks,
        Morning R,
        You have no need to say that, but what you are not saying is quite true, i’m sure, I think.

  13. Good morning, all. A lovely sunny morning.

    And the Buffoon posing as Prime Minister will be delighted, because there is a breeze generating a few KW – so every home will be bursting with electricity…

  15. Re-posted from last night’s after midnight post!

    7th October 2020

    CONGRATULATIONS TO BOB 3

    60 Years old today

    We wish you a very enjoyable birthday

    and

    Very Many Happy returns

    Rastus and Caroline.

      1. Bugger, Sue. Where’s it gone?

        I changed it (temporarily) in light of comments the other day about people never having seen a baseball cap with a brain in it. I used to be a fervent believer in this philosophy too. That is, until I made my first visit to Sydney in 2002 in February (their hottest month). I desperately needed a hat and the only worthwhile one I could find was this beige number with an embroidered kangaroo on the front. It was comfortable and it kept the sun out of my eyes.

          5. Is that a threat or a promise? And will you require my motorcycle and my boots? The boots may be on the small side!

          2. I’m just off from the NoTTL site now, Grizzly, so will read your email in two ticks.

          3. I wear it when I want to wind up Aussies. If I wear it during an Ashes test, Australia invariably lose! 👍🏻

        4. I have a series of cat flaps suited to all kinds of weather, from a fine straw one, or one made from a Deutsche Bundesbank money sack for use in hot, dry weather, through to Harris tweed for autumn & spring, a woolly orange number for winter, and a waxed cotton one for shooting (it is good with ear defenders) and rainy weather.
          Can’t beat a cat flap.

    1. Some of that is plausible, and some just nonsense – but the global coordinated response, trashing economies and businesses worldwide, was not an accident.

      1. 324331+ up ticks,
        Morning N,
        Is that saying the truth of the matter can be slipped past the peoples in a tissue of
        fairy stories & is as proving, to be effective.

  18. BBC’s head of diversity admits it is failing to connect with white working class audiences
    THE BBC’S head of diversity has admitted the broadcaster is failing to forge a connection with white middle class Britons while it steps up efforts to reach out to the BAME community.

    June Sarpong made the admission as she spoke candidly about the lack of ethnic diversity within the Beeb during a virtual Ofcom summit. The TV presenter was last year appointed the BBC’s first Director of Creative Diversity.

    https://twitter.com/SocialM85897394/status/1313762263887736832

    1. So who does that leave then if they’ve alienated the white working class and white middle class? Bames only? And the Islington bubble?

      1. Morning J

        They are shooting themselves in the foot.

        Considering we are still the largest group , 80.5% of the population, I think the BBC have forgotten who we are!

        1. J has signed up to start paying the telly tax again, but we watch very few BBC programmes. He’s been glued to the French Open this week and that’s on ITV. Most of the Vet series we enjoy are all on C5, and the dramas on BBC are mostly abysmal.
          The Saturday night Scandi ones on BBC4 are mostly good, but we gave up after the first part of the Aussie one on the last couple of weeks.
          We watch the Beeb news at 10 – how much of it he believes I don’t know, but it was worth it last night to see Jon Sopel’s head exploding.

          2. What I am missing is the normal activities we used to do – the events where we took our hedgehog stuff, the talks to schools and WI etc, the concerts, table tennis (though we have just restarted the Saturday morning club). Other than that, things are fairly normal here.

            J had a phone call just now from someone who thought he might want to cancel their tennis match on Saturday, because one of their children had been in contact with someone………. J said he’d never given it a thought as he is neither old nor vulnerable and was fed up with Covid.

            The two ladies I went to meet on Monday for lunch at the home of one of them are 86 and 85 – sisters and my third cousins but we only recently got in touch. We had a lovely day chatting and looking at photos. It seems strange that it’s younger people who seem more worried by all this fear. We should all just be getting back to normal life – getting out and meeting people to boost our immune systems.

          3. I miss the little treats that provided spontaneity and fun.
            Some, like theatre and opera, we had to save up for; others, like a pub lunch with friends or family were often snap arrangements. Even just pottering round the shops, be it for a tin of paint or a new frock used to be a pleasant experience.
            And the there are some friends who have fallen for the whole hoohah and who are just no longer fun to visit – even a coffee with them becomes a chore.

          4. I went to a local cookware shop a couple of weeks ago – and realised that it was the first time since March I’d been in anything other than a food shop.

            I only bought a small grater and a cheese slicer – but it almost felt like an adventure.

            I’m going to the cinema in about 10 days – a Sunday afternoon special – in a little local cinema that doesn’t ever have big crowds but even they have had to reduce their seating considerably.

          5. I suspect that the little cinemas will survive as they provide a sense of occasion, but the big complexes will struggle.
            Even before Covid, vast cinemas’ clientele were moving on to Netflix and Amazon.

          6. I hope it does. This will be my first visit since they re-opened. I’m not much of a cinema goer but they usually show the Royal Opera House livestreams. I had a ticket for the last one, back in March, but that never happened (the refund came through very quickly and without being requested), so I’m keen to give them a bit of support. It’s also only about 10 miles away, which makes it very convenient.
            This one is a film of a music concert from Vienna – and I’m rather looking forward to it.

          7. It’s the lack of spontaneity which puts me off. If I want to go to a museum, I don’t want to have to book a time slot (and wear a mask). It used to be fun to make spur of the moment decisions to have a day out and go to places like Cosford or Blists Hill. Even the local pubs which provide food expect us to book. Before the panic, I used to have a very busy diary; now, apart from the odd Zoom meeting and my weekly riding lesson, I don’t do anything!

  19. Boris Johnson’s keynote speech to wrap up Conservative Party Conference.

    …….and we are working for the day when life will be back to normal, flying in a plane will be back to normal, and hairdressers will no longer look as though they are handling radioactive isotopes……. and when we can go and see our loved ones in care homes, and when we no longer have to greet each other by touching elbows as in some giant national version of the Birdie dance.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0a7e48648d8b0fee43a4a5dd708aa0a7782da93096786ab7609b11993d45f930.jpg

    Never mind the Birdie dance….get thee to the hairdressers!

      1. Good morning, Bill

        Did you see the article about the Johnson family a couple of days ago? They are a truly repulsive family.

    2. Dominic Cummings could give him an overall number 4 clip which would cool his head down.

      1. I went this morning and the young lady was just wearing a mask. She also complemented me on my hair colour. I don’t dye it but do use a shampoo and conditioner that lightens it.

        I asked her what colour she thought it was. She wasn’t sure and so i told her i was a carrot top in my childhood. She said she could see a lot of red in it but with natural highlights.

        I tipped her a fiver for putting a spring in my step.

      1. My B-i-L sometimes sings with Dave at his local folk place. Love the Strawbs – as you know. First seen in our school hall in 1970, 3 weeks before the Festival Hall concert.

        1. Thank you … saw them several times at Chichester T.T College … Then in Pompey Guildhall wih Rick W. A great friend of mine had red { strawberry blonde] hair …

    1. What else are they going to ban people from discussing?

      Looking forward to meeting you tomorrow. I’ll be the one with the little doggie. If there is more than one little doggie i will be wearing my official Dennis the Menace badge. 🙂

      1. “What else are they going to ban people from discussing?”

        You’re not allowed to discuss that, Phil.

      2. Not a red carnation in your buttonhole and a copy of today’s Times under your left arm?
        Standards are definitely slipping.

      1. Bugger. I’ve just got meat out of the freezer to make a casserole.
        If I put it back quickly, maybe it won’t kill us later … um ……

  25. Macron is right about Islamist separatism. Spiked. 7 October 2020.

    Five years ago, the staff of Charlie Hebdo were gunned down by Islamist extremists. It was the deadliest attack on French soil for 50 years. But it would soon be surpassed by the attack on the Bataclan concert hall in Paris (killing 90) and the truck attack during the Bastille Day celebrations in Nice (killing 86). Overall, more than 240 people have been killed by Islamist terrorists in France since 2015. Only last month, an Islamist with a butcher’s knife stabbed two employees of a TV production company working on the same street as the old Charlie offices.

    Only a fool, then, could deny that France has a problem with Islamism – though terrorism is merely its most extreme and deadly manifestation. And it is in this context that French president Emmanuel Macron delivered a speech last week decrying an ‘Islamist separatism’ that deviates from the ‘values of the republic’. The danger, he argued, is the creation of a ‘counter-society’ within France.

    Morning everyone. Well better late than never one might remark but in this case it is too late. There is in demographics, as in nuclear physics, something called Critical Mass. In the former it is the point at which the number of incomers gives them the ability to safely ignore the opinions of the host population. Both the UK and France have passed this point. They may treat and fence with Islam but it is now an established force within both countries and is growing in both influence and numbers. One has only to note the craven attitude of the British Government when dealing with them to see the truth of this. It is after all conducting a low level terrorist campaign which they studiously ignore. Islam has not yet exercised its full powers here in Britain but it is without doubt the single most unified political party in the land. One doubts that Labour and the Tories combined could muster so many supporters. It will become ever more powerful and influential as Europe and particularly the UK become increasingly destabilised under the auspices of the Globalists . They will be the midwives to the Caliphate!

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/10/07/macron-is-right-about-islamist-separatism/

    1. France doesn’t have a problem with islamism, it has a problem with islam, tout court. I see no mention was made of the priest killed in church in Normandy, either.

  26. Bill Gates says ‘rich countries’ could be back close to normal by the end of 2021 if a COVID-19 vaccine is approved soon and he slams the FDA for being weak. 7 October 2020.

    Rich countries could be back to close to normal by late 2021 if a COVID-19 vaccine is approved soon and widely distributed, Microsoft founder Bill Gates said on Tuesday.

    In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Gates, 64, warned that the success of the vaccines currently being trialed in the US is not guaranteed.

    Yet he urged the country to begin preparing now for ways to reduce the hesitance of the public regarding its safety, as concerns grow among Americans that the discovery of a vaccine has become too political to be trusted.

    And yet they all talk about it as if it were a done deal! You really don’t want to be taking anything produced by this guy or guaranteed by his friends!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8811631/Rich-world-close-normal-late-2021-vaccine-works-Bill-Gates.html

      1. Morning Bob and Happy Birthday. I’m not a virologist or an epidemiologist but I would have thought the odds; bearing in mind for example the Common Cold; would have been stacked against producing a successful vaccine!

        1. Thanks, I was only thinking the other day that if herd immunity doesn’t work as they are saying then why would a vaccine work? a vaccine usually works on giving you a small dose of the virus, in any case it could change every year just like the Flu

  27. SIR – After a summer of examination results carnage, it is timely to challenge the fitness for purpose of GCSEs.

    Written examinations are not the only way to assess pupils’ learning; nor do they recognise the aptitudes and skills that parents, educators and employers more obviously value.

    A crisis of confidence in the examination system affords a real opportunity to reinvent the way we measure personal development.

    Examinations are generally felt to be the fairest way to judge the extent to which content has been consumed and can then be regurgitated. Yet any adult would concede that readiness for life is much more than the ability to complete written tests.

    Surely human ingenuity can devise ways to recognise the role of character, social skills and collaboration in enhanced life chances.

    Why not put more faith in teachers to assess a wide scorecard of aptitudes, rather than a battery of written assessments? Real life is much less controlled than an exam hall.

    Of course, there is a need for the assessment of knowledge gained and progress made. This could be better achieved through a blend of written tests, diagnostic interviews and practical problem-solving scenarios that assess the application of learning.

    Leo Winkley
    Headmaster, Shrewsbury School

    C’mon Leo. Trust the Marxist teachers to mark their own pupils and select their new recruits?? Pull the other one.

    1. Yep. It is called a conversation. Before employment agencies sprang up, one would send a letter in one’s own handwriting to a potential employer. There would be an “interview”, really a conversation. Paper bumf would be entirely secondary.
      Now the agencies collect CVs. They read the top ten in the random pile of many 50, or 350 applications for particular job. They select maybe six of the ten as being most suitable and forward them to the employer. The other CVs do not get read at all. Agencies are volume businesses and maximum throughput for minimum effort is profit.

  28. SIR – In the Fifties, I was pleased to have the comfort of my red hot water bottle (with a knitted cover, made by my mother, with a capital K on it). Now 71, I still have a hot water bottle of exactly the same design and efficiency, including the winged stopper.

    With so many products being frequently updated, is this the perfect design, and, if not, what improvements are possible?

    Kevin Pearson
    Newbury, Berkshire

    The HWB is frequently in use at Janus Towers, and provides relief for sciatica. Placed under my left thigh when sitting down it brings about better relief than any medication.

    1. Grandparents had ceramic bottles which were filled with hot water to warm the beds up, and they also had a pair of bed warming pans .

      To the many of us who shivered and shuddered when the frost sat on the inside of the windows in winter when we were children , we all coped with the cold .

      1. ‘Morning, Belle. I still have my grandmother’s ceramic ‘HWB’…and well I remember the frost patterns on the inside of our Crittall windows. PJs draped over the fireguard, too. Yes, we all coped, and may well have been better for it.

      2. We did too. Only hot water on a Sunday for baths. Strip wash in cold water for the rest of the week. One gas fire in the living room.

      3. A factoid to make you view the GOM in a new light.
        Gladstone used to fill his HWB with hot tea (the old stone kind) and in the morning he would drink the contents.

      4. Pig! (We still have one, a ceramic hot water bottle, called a pig up here. Tee-Tee.)

      1. ‘Morning, B3. To be honest, I don’t much care how the water is heated – so long as it is and remains affordable.

  29. Morning all. Boris has the wind up….

    SIR – Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, clearly has a sketchy understanding of the physics of wind power. One problem is intermittency, since wind does not blow constantly, and so a baseload generating capacity by other means must be maintained.

    The other major problem is cost. Mr Johnson states that it will be cheaper than coal or gas. That will take some doing, as electricity is already seven times the cost of gas, thanks in part to subsidies to wind-power generators.

    At present my house is heated by gas, costing about £800 a year. To provide all that energy via electricity would push the cost over £5,000.

    If we are to depend entirely on wind power, what will happen on a cold windless winter night when everyone tries to charge their electric cars, heat their houses and cook their dinners?

    Peter Crawford

    Sheffield, South Yorkshire

    SIR – Every house will be powered by wind, claims our PM. The capacity required and the variable demand are very much against this claim. When one considers the extra demand of electric-vehicle charging and domestic conversion from gas, it makes the gap between demand and capacity vast.

    Could Boris Johnson please present his homework to justify his claim?

    Michael Marks

    Glascwm, Radnorshire

    SIR – If you believe Boris Johnson’s avowal that “wind will power every UK home by 2030”, you believe in hot air.

    Has the economic case been made for deep-water wind turbines over other forms of renewable energy? No.

    Only in the windmills of his mind does this make any sense.

    Alasdair Ogilvy

    Stedham, West Sussex

    SIR – The PM wants everything that drives our modern economy to become reliant on the wind. The move to electricity generation being supply-led, not demand-led, exposes the true purpose behind smart meters.

    When there’s not enough wind to go around, some of the population will see their power disconnected to balance the grid. No doubt British companies will respond to become world leaders in candle manufacturing.

    Neil Bailey

    Stockport, Cheshire

    SIR – A hydrogen-powered aircraft is in the air, hydrogen-powered trains are set to be on the rails in three years’ time, yet the Government persists in forcing electrically powered cars on the country by arbitrary deadlines.

    Something wrong there?

    John Lavender

    Port Erin, Isle of Man

    SIR – That, as Boris Johnson says, the UK is to wind what Saudi Arabia is to oil fills me with pride and optimism for future generations. It can be only a matter of time before supertankers full of UK wind are sailing the seven seas delivering our very finest air to all corners of the globe.

    Richard Holloway

    Nailsea, Somerset

    1. As Neil Bailey says:

      The PM wants everything that drives our modern economy to become reliant on the wind.

      Not surprising that this desire comes from a man who is full of flatulent hot air and not much else.

    2. It’s not about charging cars. The big increase in electricity demand will be because of people working from home during the day. Many people do not have the heating on when they are out at work apparently, and the cost of keeping them warm in the workplace is borne by employers . Offices are more economical, as 100 people can be kept warm more efficiently in an open plan office that in 100 separate houses.

      1. Don’t forget manufacturing. Food, before even you think about lighting, uses electricity for cooking, chilling and freezing.

    4. That girlfriend of Boris’s has had an influence on the hot air he is spouting,

      She is 20 years younger than him and is probably throwing Green unworkable nonsense at him.

      The amount of rubbish this country throws away would require incinerators for every town , then converting heat into energy.. Would not that be a better idea than wind turbines which are useless, and wasteful .. and when the blades are spent, there is no way of recycling them .

      Green energy is an illusion we have been sold.

      1. ‘Morning, Belle.

        Rubbish was ‘incinerated’ in a plant to provide energy near where I lived in Sweden. That was nearly 20 years ago. Furthermore, a far, far wider range of materials was recycled.

        1. There was very strong resistance to building an incinerator near Gloucester. It opened last year.

          1. ‘Morning, Bleau.

            My skiing days are long gone – I used to tackle black pistes – but I think a green/blue run would take some getting used to, as it is usually a sign of lack of snow & therefore to be avoided.

        3. There is an incinerator in Dinan which burns household waste as well as other waste in order to supplement the electricity supply which, in this area, comes from the Tidal generating turbines on the barrage between St Malo and Dinard at the mouth of the Rance.

          They have been discussing the viability of exploiting the great tidal range and constructing a similar plant at the mouth of the Severn for about fifty years. However the environmental lobby has done much to prevent it happening and to save birds’ habitats.

          It is strange that there are fewer objections to wind turbines killing birds but one thing is certain: the main wars environmental warriors fight are often the civil wars amongst themselves.

      2. “Green energy is an illusion we have been sold they have tried to sell to us NoTTLers”. (Good morning Maggie, btw.)

  31. 324331+up ticks,
    Many via the ballot booth gave these political cretins / party’s the keys to the Country, they surely won’t mind their houses being requisitioned by these same governance party’s, all becoming by 2030 state owned, it has happened before, requisitioned property that is.

    Delingpole: Boris’s Craziest Stunt Yet: ‘Every UK Home to Be Powered by Wind by 2030’

  32. SIR – As a precursor to announcing tax rises to pay for Covid, Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has said that government has a sacred responsibility to future generations to leave the public finances strong, and that this Tory Government will always balance the books.

    Successive governments have not balanced the books. In the past 10 years under the Tories, national debt had doubled to almost £2 trillion – before Covid. The liabilities for the ruinously expensive public-sector pensions have resulted in every man, woman and child in Britain each being saddled with roughly £30,000 of debt.

    So much for sacred responsibility to future generations.

    Bill Parish

    Bromley, Kent

  33. I wonder how many dodgy pilot applications are not discovered? From the Tellygraff:

    A pilot has been accused of falsifying his licence and log book to land a job at British Airways.

    Craig Butfoy, 48, is said to have made similar false claims to get work with Irish regional airline Stobart Air.

    He has been charged with eight counts of fraud by false representation between April 2016 and March 2017 in a prosecution brought by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).

    Five of the charges allege Butfoy committed fraud “intending to make a gain, namely obtaining a job with BA CityFlyer”, a BA subsidiary which operates an Embraer 170 aircraft from London City airport to destinations in the UK and Europe.

    Details outlined in court papers include an allegation he falsely claimed to have flown 1,610 hours as a captain in a job application submitted to the firm.

    He is also accused of giving false details on his CV, including that he had held a private pilot’s licence since 1998, and fabricating documents, including a training course certificate.

    Butfoy, who lives in the village of Matfield, near Royal Tunbridge Wells, in Kent, is charged with three similar offences alleging fraud “intending to make a gain, namely obtaining a job with Stobart Air”.

    The airline runs flights in 11 European countries with Aer Lingus, according to the company’s website.

    Butfoy is alleged to have included false details on his CV, including a claim he had flown more than 650 hours as a private pilot, and fabricated references in support of a job application.

    He is also accused of providing false entries in a logbook, including flying time when the flights had taken place in a simulator.

    A BA spokesman said the company was unable to comment while court proceedings are ongoing.

    Stobart Air has been approached for comment.

    A CAA spokesman said: “We can confirm that the CAA is prosecuting Craig Butfoy.

    “It would be inappropriate for us to say anything further until the case is concluded.”

    Butfoy’s case was listed at east London’s Thames Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday for the case to be administratively adjourned to another date, without a hearing.

    2. Many Pakistani pilots were found to be unqualified after the PIA crash in the winter.

  34. Wellingborough MP Peter Bone in June when I wrote to him about masks:

    “… the vast majority of my constituents have accepted the wearing of face coverings and are complying with the rules, just as they have done with all the other lockdown rules.

    I am confident that the government is just as keen as you to see life return to normal.”

    And yesterday:
    https://twitter.com/PeterBoneUK/status/1313567330950090752

    4. I’ve just seen a crumpled discarded face mask in one of the kitchen hubs in Television Centre. Now a common sight on the pavements out in Wood Lane but dropping it on the kitchen floor really is the pits?

      3. Those blue ones are everywhere now – I saw one thrown on the ground outside Waitrose the other day. Mine are washable, and I just got some done using my own photos – if we have to wear them, they might as well be stylish.

        2. For some reason the bluey-white clinical type masks make me feel slightly queasy whenever I see them, they have an unhealthy look about them. Perhaps that is the intention. The washable ones scream ‘oppression!’.

        3. I usually see at least two every time I walk the dog; patterned ones, dark blue ones and the bog standard clinical types. Most of the latter have lost one of the strings, which is probably why they have been discarded, but today I saw a chap come out of a supermarket with his mask swinging from one ear – no doubt he’ll lose it sometime soon. Edit – because I know what you’re like; he’ll lose the mask, not his ear! 🙂

      4. It might have dropped out of a back pocket, perhaps, when the owner was getting his cash/card out of his pocket? I saw one of these clinical-looking type of masks festooning a blackberry bush down a quiet country lane in Devon.

        Are they biodegradable?

    1. Been going round for about 5 years Anne, the firm was fine £10,000 – not operating any more however don’t drop your guard

    2. Why on Earth doesn’t British Telecom simply put a universal block on anyone trying to phone that number? Of course, the scammers can simply change the number but then they will have to print and post countless new leaflets.

        1. Do you mean that it would cost ££££ or that they are raking in ££££ from the scam? I suspect the latter.

    3. Hi Anne, I know an affluent lady whose email was hacked a few years ago; the wrongdoers sent all her contacts this sort of appeal:
      “Help, I am stranded at a luxury hotel in Big City and all my cards and passport have been stolen and I need money immediately to pay the bill. Please wire $10,000 to Pony Express office etc”.
      Several of her friends actually did so, and were furious when she refused to repay them!

  36. The Great Barrington declaration is gaining pace.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8810977/Coronavirus-Anti-lockdown-petition-calling-herd-immunity-reaches-30-000-signatures.html

    I note more and more references to something called “long covid”.
    Long covid is being used as a means of undermining any approach other than vaccination. Herd immunity won’t work because of it they claim.

    It will be typical of the botching that we are already experiencing if a rushed vaccine was used and if it was discovered a year later that the vaccine itself actually caused the “long covid” that it is trying to prevent.

  37. ‘Moria 2.0’: refugees who escaped fire now living in ‘worse’ conditions. 7 October 2020.

    Thousands of people who fled the fire that destroyed the infamous Moria refugee camp in Lesbos, Greece, last month are living in dire and unsanitary conditions in a temporary settlement with little access to water or basic sanitation.

    Just over 7,500 people are now living in tents among the rubble and dust of a former shooting range in an informal settlement that has become known as “Moria 2.0”.

    The camp, located at the edge of the sea, is exposed to the elements. Residents are allowed to leave the camp between 8am–8pm every day apart from Sunday. People wash their clothes and bodies in the sea because there is not enough running water. In the past week more than 1,600 recognised refugees have been moved to less crowded camps and hotels on the mainland, where they have said conditions are better.

    Not a word here among all this whinging that they were the ones who set fire to the original camp!

    https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/oct/07/moria-20-refugees-who-escaped-fire-now-living-in-worse-conditions

    1. “are living in dire and unsanitary conditions in a temporary settlement with little access to water or basic sanitation.”
      A home from home.

    2. Here’s an idea. Why not reactivate the former shooting range?

      Lots of moving targets – what’s not to like?

  38. New novichok was used on Navalny, say weapons expert. 7 October 2020.

    Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a novichok-type nerve agent, the global chemical weapons watchdog said yesterday in a finding that could prompt further sanctions against Russia.

    The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said blood and urine samples taken from Mr Navalny indicated that the toxin had similar characteristics to two forms of novichok on its list of banned chemicals, but that it appeared to be a modified version.

    This story becomes more stupid every day. It’s Novichok just not as we know it! This presumably is to fill in the gaping holes in Navalny’s narrative. The Time on Target Novichok! Just set when you want the victim to drop dead (except they don’t) and Hey Presto, they fall over whenever you want. I never thought I would say it but this ridiculous twaddle is beginning to surpass Salisbury which is no mean feat!

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/new-novichok-was-used-on-navalny-say-weapons-experts-t6fhd2cpk

    1. This is something of a non-story, yet it runs and runs. Unlike the story of the policeman shot in the police station, followed by discoveries of explosives and weapons in a number of places. All quiet.

    1. I liked Geoff’s spoof regarding our Nottler site.
      “A capitalist white supremacist cis heteropatriarchal site that transforms a potential exchange of knowledge into a tool of exclusion & oppression – to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its comments facility. Intelligent, polite, good-humoured debate is welcome, whether on or off topic. Differing opinions are encouraged, but rudeness or personal attacks on other posters will not be tolerated. Posts which – in the opinion of the moderators – make this a less than cordial environment, are likely to be removed, without prior warning. Persistent offenders will be banned.”

    1. 324331+ up ticks,
      Afternoon AS,
      He’ll be out in a matter of months, fit as a butchers dog and raring to rape once more with maybe a no witness
      attitude next time.
      Deportation out of the question I suppose ?

        2. The GAP year student went to Australia to work on a sheep farm.

          He was given the job of helping an old farm worker castrate the young male lambs.

          The old chap explained: “You take a brick in each hand and bang them together as hard as you can on the lamb’s testicles.”

          “Gosh, that must hurt!”

          “Only if you leave your thumbs between the bricks.”

          1. A dairy farmer I knew told me that he, in his pre-war youth, had assisted an old shepherd who used to castrate lambs with his teeth. He then fried the tiny testes for breakfast, apparently a great delicacy. My informant recalled that said shepherd had a thick white beard, which was fairly soggy by the end of the process.

        1. Nah, tell him he will be released once the sentence has been served but only after he has chewed off and eaten his own balls.

      1. And another 50 for the rape convictions.

        3 times? Good grief, these people are just savages. Jailing is a waste of money. Flog him. 50 lashes a day for 6 months. If his back won’t take any more, use his chest, then his face.

          1. He certainly is. In our beloved Royal Navy a flogging could be fatal. But they discontinued flogging in the 19th century , along with keel-hauling.

        2. Ten years. It’s pathetic. The tariff for violent rape is life imprisonment. Why don’t the judges apply it?

    5. “He was jailed for ten years and… three counts of rape and one count of sexual assault by a jury.”

      Bit unusual to be sexually assaulted by the jury, and be punished for it – but if the crime demands it…

    6. How could we deprive him of his plaything? Especially after all the deprivation and racism we’ve inflicted on him.

    3. I am reasonably sure one could create such a scene for every world leader since planes and cars became their common form of transport.

    4. Don’t think Hilter flew in choppers. They hadn’t been sorted out then.
      And didn’t pretty well and premier get off a plane and get into a car? I did it, once…

      1. I’ve never been in a helicopter. But I once got out of a 4 seater plane and got into a car – does that qualify?

        1. Closer to what Adolf did.
          Acc to Wiki, the first practical helicopter flight was made by Sikorski in the US in 1939.

          1. I wasn’t around then.

            Someone once said that Dad’s generation had “seen a lot of changes” (he was born in the early 1930s); but he reckoned that my grandfather, who was born before the Wright brothers got off the ground and lived long enough to watch men walk on the moon and drill oil out of the sea-bed, belonged to the generation who had seen the greatest technological change.

    1. If Sunak had common sense he could have foreseen this fraud and been more cautious with his generosity. He is facing the consequences now and it is the taxpayers who will be required to pay the bill.

  44. In other news I see that the BPAPM says that he”hopes” the two metre rule will end by NEXT AUTUMN….. God help us all.

  46. Russia marks Putin’s 68th birthday with ‘successful’ test launch of 6,000mph hypersonic Zircon missile. 7 October 2020.

    The Russian military staged an extraordinary 68th birthday present for Vladimir Putin today with a ‘successful’ test launch of his new-age 6,000 mph hypersonic Zircon missile.

    Yes my friends it’s Vlad’s birthday today! He is 68 and there’s not many Russian leaders who have made it that far. I’ve sent him a card with best wishes from all Nottlers (I knew you would all want that!) and that long may he continue!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8814351/Russia-marks-Putins-68th-birthday-successful-test-launch-hypersonic-Zircon-missile.html

    1. Ask him if he would like a spell in No10. It would make a change to have a strong minded leader, we would just have to remember he is the boss and not pi$$ him off!

    3. It’s my 68th next year. I wonder if Her Maj will permit me to launch one of ours if not a BenWell Firework will have to suffice….

  47. Finished ten barrow loads of log shifting – so that the chap with the axe can split them sometime when the weather is fair.

    Couldn’t have done that eight weeks ago…

      1. Exactly eight weeks ago, the MR thought that she’d seen the last of me when she left the horsepiddle.

        1. Amazing how quickly they and the human body can turn it around when they finally work out what’s wrong.

          3. You may well ask…{:¬)) I was still at the stage that departing this life seemed the better option.

          4. It’s one of the reasons I am fairly anti easing the restrictions on assisted dying.

            An unscrupulous wife/child might have encouraged you to shuffle off at that low point, and I can be reasonably certain that there are plenty about, eager to get their hands on any inheritance.

    4. Couldn’t have done that with a mere smear nose! (Any bi-coloured python rock snakes in your garden?)

      1. Down by the great grey green greasy Limpopo river, all set about with fever trees?

        1. You know what happens when you ask questions with your ‘satiable curtiosity ?
          You learn things!

          2. Spanked many times, poor little pachyderm.

            A little warm, but not at all astonished – but he got his own back in the end.

          3. ‘Scuse me! A wonderful story Jennifer, and I have my Dads copy of the Just So Stories! I love them all.

          4. The headmistress of our village school used to read them, and the elephant is the first one I remember – though I became familiar with them all.

            My copy is modern, but it has Kipling’s own drawings in it.

            For reading aloud I love the “sing-song of old man Kangaroo”.

          5. We called one of our cats Taffy after the daughter of the man who created the alphabet, because she was a small child with no manners, who ought to be spanked! Our Taffy was a ginger baddy!

          6. Taffimai was, of course, drawn from his own elder daughter Josephine, who died before her seventh birthday and who is also the “best beloved” for whom the stories were first written. The poem Merrow Down (also in Just So Stories) leaves one in no doubt as to how he felt about her loss.

          9. That’s the one…

            Nqong called Dingo–Yellow-Dog Dingo–always hungry, dusty in the sunshine, and showed him Kangaroo. Nqong said, ‘Dingo! Wake up, Dingo! Do you see that gentleman dancing on an ashpit? He wants to be popular and very truly run after. Dingo, make him SO!’

          10. Brilliant! My Dad’s book from 1935 has illustrations by Kipling himself and they are so detailed!

          11. Mine is a 1970s book club edition, but it has the same illustrations and large print – which might come in useful one of these days.

  48. OTT – I had to go to Inverness earlier today and I saw a young lass with an e-cigarette, “vapeing” THROUGH her face mask.

    With all the clouds of steam coming out from behind the mask, it looked as if her damn’ head was on fire.

      1. You are not implying by any chance that when his trip was over there were four and twenty less?

        1. Interesting point.

          As he was telling us yesterday about reading the Marlboro label…

  49. Just a little comment regarding being able to see your GP. I have been suffering “trigger finger” for a few months now, so I decided to try to get it sorted.
    Booked a phone call consultation for this morning which duly happened. After describing what the problem was, I was offered an appointment time before lunch today.
    Called into the surgery and apart from the obligatory mask wearing, one way system to help with social distancing and sanitiser before checking in with reception, all seemed normal.
    Perhaps this GP practice is not the normal experience for most of the country but there can be no complaint from me regarding the service offered.

    1. I phoned up the vet’s this morning to order more steroids for my dog and enquired whether he needed another telephone appointment because it was beyond the six-month check-up date. I was staggered to hear they are doing inside appointments and I’ve got a slot on Friday morning!

      1. Morning C, I should have drank coffee before reading your comment, for a moment I imagined your dog on the phone to the vet.
        It does prove those who need to earn a living try harder to carry on as near to normal.

        1. The last time (mid-lockdown) I needed a repeat prescription I had to make an appointment to collect the drugs (having previously ordered them on the telephone) and do the transaction through an open window. It will seem more like normality to be able actually to see a vet and have him/her examine the aged mutt, rather than trying to describe things over the telephone. The dog can’t make phone calls because a) he lacks an opposable thumb and b) he’s deaf 🙂

    1. I can guess how Muslims would react if their children were forced/encouraged to do similar obsequious actions towards a Catholic Icon or perform a Jewish ceremony or bow down before a Hindu God.

      1. If any group of people deserve special consideration it is the indigenous people.

        France is a lay state – as is Turkey* but Britain is a Christian country with an established Church so Christians should be favoured rather than subordinated.

        Can anybody here honestly imagine that Saudi Arabia would favour Christians over Muslims?

        * Ataturk thought that Turkey was heading in the wrong direction and so he decreed that Turkey was a Lay state and that nobody in any government office should show any manifestations of his her or her religious alliance.

        Erdogan is deeply jealous of Ataturk which is why he is so determined to undo all the good Ataturk did.

        1. Erdogan has to be one of the most dangerous threats to peace currently wandering the polititariat.

          (Yes I know there is no such word, but as a neologism it fits. It is not my own, I spotted it elsewhere.)

        1. And actually, quite right too.

          So should the rest of us, when we have to kow tow to Islam.

      3. 324331+ up ticks,
        S,
        With great vigour backed by the submissive pcism & appeasement brigade.

    2. Several tweeters are saying that this is fake nooz which was identified some time ago – it’s a yoga class.

      1. 324331+ up ticks,
        Evening A,
        Could very well be, a yoga class some time ago
        by the same token it could very well be a class in England currently, as with sharia law & FGM
        all very active, being overseen by the lab/lib/con coalition party.

      2. It is obviously nothing islamic – the girl in the front row has bare arms and shoulders which would most definitely not be the case if it was.

        1. It doesn’t mean they weren’t being shown how to do it. The dressing up could come later.

          However, it’s hard to find evidence that the picture is what it is claimed to be.

  51. SIR – I am so tired of being told that GP surgeries are closed. They are not.

    Every day, my colleagues and I deal with every concern raised by the patients who contact us. It is currently 12:39, and I’ve already conducted consultations by phone, text, face to face and in a patient’s home. We are not open to the extent that patients are allowed to sit sharing germs in the waiting room. Should we be?

    Dr Lesley Weiss

    Harrogate, North Yorkshire

    2. Dr, Lesley Weiss.

      People have always been in surgery
      waiting rooms, many of these people will
      have told the Receptionist if they believe
      they are infectious, and will have waited
      either outside or in their car until called
      directly to the Doctor’s room; there are
      always spare rooms should the person
      be infectious …so yes, you p**t!

  52. SIR – I was a nurse. I am now in my 70s and in good health, but last week suffered symptoms that could indicate high blood pressure.

    Since we have been assured that the NHS is open, I called my surgery. A doctor called me back and agreed that I needed a blood pressure check. I tried to arrange to see a nurse for this, only to be told that nothing could be done for a week.

    Yesterday, our dog needed a repeat prescription. I was told that the vet would need to check her first. Would 5:15 that afternoon be convenient?

    Mary Sutherland

    Bishop Auckland, Co Durham

    1. I would advise Mary to buy a blood pressure appliance which can be purchased relatively cheaply on the internet and most are easy to use. I check my BP every other day. Add a thermometer, if you haven’t already got one, and you can then tell your doctor what your readings are. He can then prescribe your treatment but continue checking your BP and temp and keep a record of the readings.

    2. Easy answer Mary, vets need to work to earn money, NHS gets paid irrespective of what little they do.

      1. On the rare occasions that I actually see a GP (not for five years), and not last time I wished (Covid-19 meant surgery closed and diagnosis over phone) It is usually for no more than ten minutes. As he receives the per capita payment every year, the consultation costs around £2400 an hour. Nice work if you can get it.

        1. Out of which the practice has to pay staff wages, building & contents insurance, professional indemnity insurance, equipment & replacement, computer services, energy bills, phones, rates, & possibly rent. It soon all adds up.

          3. Auntie Agnes (RIP) was house keeper to a local doctor (in the days when they still had surgeries in the town centre). She was also his receptionist, kept his books and sent out the bills.

          6. In my experience, from in front as well as behind the scenes, practice managers are not known for their sense of humour.

    1. As a keen basketball fan I am delighted that these overpaid, overhyped individuals are now finding out what their ridiculous BLM posturing and frankly offensive comments about Whitey, are doing to their very lucrative sport. I have supported our local teams since my daughters started playing when they were about 10, frequently driving up and down Scotland at odd hours of the day and night! Unfortunately these “role models” are wrecking the game for the grassroots players, of which there a huge number.

      1. But yesterday, the former ‘First Lady’ of the United States, otherwise known as Mrs Obama, said that it is “morally wrong” and “racist” to say “Black Lives Matter riots are violent”!

        In my opinion, it is morally wrong and racist to suggest that BLM has anything to do with black lives. Why do they only pretend to care about black lives when a white person is involved? What about the numerous cases in places like Chicago where black people are shot and killed on a daily basis, something about which BLM has nothing to say? So who are the real racists?

        Anyone who has researched the founders of BLM, and the source of its funding, will know that it is a Marxist organization devoted to the destruction of the culture, traditions and heritage of the western countries in which it operates, especially the US and the UK.

        Marxists don’t do peaceful riots!

      2. But yesterday, the former ‘First Lady’ of the United States, otherwise known as Mrs Obama, said that it is “morally wrong” and “racist” to say “Black Lives Matter riots are violent”!

        In my opinion, it is morally wrong and racist to suggest that BLM has anything to do with black lives. Why do they only pretend to care about black lives when a white person is involved? What about the numerous cases in places like Chicago where black people are shot and killed on a daily basis, something about which BLM has nothing to say? So who are the real racists?

        Anyone who has researched the founders of BLM, and the source of its funding, will know that it is a Marxist organization devoted to the destruction of the culture, traditions and heritage of the western countries in which it operates, especially the US and the UK.

        Marxists don’t do peaceful riots!

        1. That is a certainty! The people promoting the BLM agenda, like Le Bron, Jordan and Amechi are so convinced that they are in the right that they cannot see that the NBA, who pay them vast quantities of money, are losing revenue hand over fist precisely because of their hectoring tones and sheer arrogance. Much the same as F1 and the sainted Hamilton, and football and Sterling. It’s not all due to Covid.

  54. Good Moaning.
    Korky has snuck up to the front door of Allan Towers and left us some grapes.
    Ours this year were an absolute disaster (unless you like sour raisins on the vine), so respect for his green fingers.
    Even more impressively, he managed to nip in and out of our porch without Spartie (Bat Ears) Allan hearing him.

  56. Off topic

    Only in yer France.

    A French MP is suggesting that robot animals should be hunted, instead of the real thing.
    He thinks they could mimic the actions of wild deer, boar etc.

    Good luck with that…

    I suspect he must have been ploughing a robot sex doll and it shagged his brains out

    2. He clearly has no idea about the damage and destruction done by rapidly increasingly numbers of deer and wild boars. And his suggestion wouldn’t stop the Chasse members shooting one another and members of the public.

      1. Our verge up the hill and the little “green” look as if tanks have crossed over.

        It is staggering how much damage wild boar can do in a very short space of time.

        1. I know, they ploughed up my garden a couple of years ago in the space of an hour.

          1. That will teach you not to grow summer truffles, flowers, fruits, vegetables, things of beauty…

            Weeds old chap, that’s the answer.

            Weeds!

    3. He obviously was a spy listening to Henry V at Agincourt and overheard the King telling the British troops to imitate the action of the tiger!

      1. I think, Richard, it was Harfleur and not Agincourt. I seem to remember a picture of a breached wall, hence Henry V calling,

        “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
        Or close the wall up with our English dead…”

        1. The Agincourt speech begins with, “What’s he that wishes so? My cousin Westmorland…” and ends with, “…and Gentlemen in England now abed…” with lots of wiffle about St Crispin’s Day.

        2. Thank you for pointing this out.

          I am slipping – I confused one Wodehouse character with another this morning too.

        1. They’d be on the WWF List of endangered species before you could say Tommy Robinson…..

    1. “Personally, I think we’re screwed at every level” she says.
      What other ways of thinking are there?

  58. Good luck, Sir Ian

    It’s not the job of museums to censor history

    We should be adding to our nation’s rich story not subtracting, says the head of the Science Museum


    SIR IAN BLATCHFORD
    7 October 2020 • 7:00am

    As Covid-19 haunts our daily lives and recession looms, many are engaged in a fraught debate about the “right” history to tell about this country, and there has been some speculation about the agendas of those who run the great national museums.

    It might seem a strange priority right now, and yet it matters for a nation as ancient as ours. So, as the director of the Science Museum Group, running the largest group of science museums in the world and holding its greatest science collection, I feel that it is time to be less anonymous.

    Pre-virus I spent a great deal of my year outside Britain, promoting exhibitions, scholarship and business with our international partners. And whether it was India, China, Brazil, Russia or Japan, I was always struck by the respect for our contribution to the global history of the arts and sciences.

    Indeed, my international colleagues can be perplexed by our diffidence and ambivalence when it is so remarkable that our “sceptred isle”, with its small population, has achieved so much. This affection is poignant, and let us not underestimate its value as we make new trade deals across the world.

    Britain has a rich and long history as a leader in scientific, medical and engineering innovation, and that is told across our five museums of the Science Museum Group. Today we can see that innovation alive and kicking in the urgent collaborations to find a vaccine against Covid-19, which is the subject of a major collecting project by our museums.

    The stories and objects we select about the pandemic will reflect the broad and inclusive way we think about history these days. It will interrogate the wide array of scientists, technicians and other experts involved in developing new treatments and shed light on the experience of communities disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.

    Some of the seven million items we hold, on behalf of the nation, were gathered in the 19th century and reflect the mindsets of that era, and in many cases that was a time when the British Empire was in the ascendant. Each generation brings its own values to scholarship and the result is both gaps in the stories we tell and the opportunity for fresh perspectives.

    Visitors at the Science Museum on the first day of its reopening
    Visitors at the Science Museum on the first day of its reopening CREDIT: The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum, London
    The global discourse this summer about the importance of black lives has undoubtedly sharpened our focus on colonial history. But our agenda is not political, our agenda continues to be telling richer stories in more engaging ways; if you looked at our labels in 1920 you would laugh at their technical jargon, and only a few decades ago the story of science seemed to be almost entirely male.

    But here is the crucial question: how to get the balance right between telling an honest, full story about our past, and avoiding a parade of clumsy ahistorical judgments? One answer to this is my mantra: additions not subtractions. This means a strong preference for revealing the story of the men and women forgotten by, or airbrushed out, of history and give them their due respect because they are part of the sum of human knowledge.

    For some time, we have reflected on the need to address omissions in our galleries because history is not a rigid box of facts; it evolves as fresh evidence comes to light, even if that means reflecting on uncomfortable aspects of our history. A fine example of this is new research by the National Railway Museum on the unofficial “colour bar” that was prevalent in the Fifties and Sixties and which denied promotion to black employees that British Rail had recruited among the Windrush generation.

    Similarly, we are including the facts of Empire in our displays and so, for example, the textiles galleries and interpretation at the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester now make explicit cotton’s links with slavery. However, our tone will recognise that the museum visitor is not a witness who needs to be led to a conclusion by activist language. Long experience has shown us that telling a story straight, with facts and evidence, always wins the day.

    I have received a number of letters and emails making strident assertions about the violence of Empire, the museum’s complicity in concealment, and an insistence that we “call out” the racism of certain historical figures. At times like these one needs to pause, and then separate the wheat from the chaff. There are some truths and genuinely fresh evidence that must be addressed, as a decent evolution of history. A notable example is recent research revealing that James Watt was engaged in slave trading as a young man. This is a new discovery and so the question is how it should be deployed.
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/art/2020/10/06/TELEMMGLPICT000241270673_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqYm_QzWGsdBP0WndCQ5-L34ZEo6TueeB2unu68XcrLjg.jpeg?imwidth=680
    A plaster bust of James Watt is part of the Science Museum’s collection

    Our approach has been to make some sensible changes to gallery labels, but most certainly not to censor one of the greatest engineers of the Industrial Revolution. The display of his achievements, alongside those of his business partner Matthew Bolton and including his legendary workshop, preserved as it was on his death in 1819, will remain in place. But we now know him to be a more complex person than the hero I cherished as a schoolboy.

    There is much to be said for the “retain and explain” approach to statues in situ and museum displays, because it is thoughtful; and context is all, allowing us to look history in the eye. And at the same time, the goal of diversity truly matters, even if the language of inclusion grates with some.

    The Science Museum in London receives more school visits than any other museum in Britain and in a normal year almost half of them come from ethic minority backgrounds. These children might save us all with their scientific breakthroughs, and notion of public service and courtesy should mature to include the achievements, and difficult history, of communities too long invisible in our galleries.

    Sir Ian Blatchford is director and chief executive of the Science Museum Group

    1. Even he mentions this woke focus on slave trading. People should get over it – it happened, and it was not only the British who made it happen. Why should we be portrayed as the guilty ones all the time? What about the Africans and Arabs who sold the slaves?

    2. “A plaster bust of James Watt is part of the Science Museum’s collection”

      The plaque below reads:
      “Watt’s research programme was funded by the profits he made from the slave trade. Africans made a crucial contribution to the development of steam power.”

    3. “The Science Museum in London receives more school visits than any other museum in Britain and in a normal year almost half of them come from ethic minority backgrounds.”
      The poor devils, the world’s going to pot.

  60. UK close to Brexit deal tying it to the European Court of Human Rights
    Deal on extradition and intelligence sharing seems increasingly likely but risks infuriating Tory voters

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/10/07/uk-close-brexit-deal-tying-european-court-human-rights/

    If this happens it will be the end of Boris Johnson – not only as prime minister but also as an MP and I expect that his mistress – who only was attracted to his political power – will walk out as soon as she realises that his political power has evaporated.

    2. I don’t have a problem with intelligence sharing, but I do have a serious dislike of the ECHR!

    4. 324331+ up ticks,
      Evening R,
      As I have said in prior post’s johnson was the third & final stage of the semi re-entry missile, the wretch cameron, blast off,may the treacherous, intermediate, now johnson on target for the drag anchor deal.
      Imo endgame is being played out so the likes of johnson
      do not give a sh!te what the ovis think, better times acoming, for the few.
      All this has been on the cards since major & co politically
      knifed Mrs Thatcher,many did NOT want to see.

      1. 324331+ up ticks,
        O2O,
        “Landing zone” sounds ominous to me Og, it most surely does Og.
        Three tier seml re-entry missile you say …

        The ‘Landing Zone’ in Sight? Boris Promises Brexit ‘Full Control’ From January First

    6. We get better Intel from the U.S than we do the E.U.

      I see no way the E.U can keep proper tabs on well over 100,000 potential jihadi’s when we are struggling to keep watch on 40,000.

      1. The EU isn’t interest in tracking them. It doesn’t care about them at all except as a weapon to destabilise the nations of the EU to further the aims of the politicians polluting that wretched organisation.

      2. We appear to have far more than our fair share.

        The EU wants our fish, they can have our potential terrorists.

          1. Nah, one terrorist fed to a thousand fishes.

            Until the fishes are replete.

            And before any pedants have a feast day, I know that fish is usually, but not always, the plural of fish.

    7. I don’t like being tied to either, but I’m far more concerned by the ECJ than the ECHR.

      1. Exactly. It’s a key distinction that is lost on most Daily Wail readers. The problem is it still means it will be impossible to return ‘asylum’ seekers to France or anywhere else. More importantly, it means Johnson won’t be able to repeal Blair’s HRA.

        1. Agreed.
          We need to lose both

          But, given the choice, I would never choose the ECJ.

          Dreadful though the ECHR is.

          1. He can. But he is bound to about 95% of its provisions by our membership of the ECHR; of which, incidentally, we were one of the principal founding members.

    9. Rastus, perhaps it is important to note who the correspondent is,
      By James Crisp, Brussels Correspondent
      Always one of the EU’s greatest fans and as such easy to feed anything likely to make life difficult for the UK.

  62. Off topic, but well worth pondering.

    I was exchanging views with an old sparring partner from the DT. We had commented on similar articles and DT letters long before Nottle started and he/she would be an excellent addition to our community.
    They made this observation amongst a series of comments, and I can understand why they should make it

    …to an outsider, this group sometimes looks a bit like an exclusive club
    whose members resent any intrusion, though it’s probably just that
    people of our generation, life experience and outlook tend not to suffer
    fools gladly, and fools always seem to get their comeuppance here!…

    Perhaps we can be somewhat off-putting and are losing worthwhile contributors as a result.

    1. “Lurking” for a while pays dividends! At least you know what you’re getting into! That said, it’s the same with any new venture – school, job, club, anything you don’t know or are not part of. “Present fears are less than horrible imaginings”

        1. When the on-line reader’s replies began I, with several others from France and the UK, were invited to visit the new Telegraph HQ in London. I suspect most of the staff have moved on since then.

    2. If you can’t stand the heat…..

      It’s why we are relatively troll free. Easier pickings elsewhere.

        1. As Sue suggests, lurk for a while. Tell them they will become an addict within a week. 🙁

    3. One of the problems this site has is its extraordinarily high standards. You really have to know your stuff to make a comment here! A false step and your giblets will be on the page!

          7. As is usual, he was wrong! 🙂

            Blows on fingers and shines buttons.

            (Does anyone still do that?)

    4. Has he/she seen the after dinner fights that can break out when folk are into their second bottle?

      3. Yes I have, and you haven’t seen me when I’m well into my third bottle…

        I’m resolutely a “he” (unless I’ve transitioned unwittingly) and I feel honoured to be invited to join this august community. I just hope the initiation ceremony is not too bad!

          2. Remember. You may join. But now – you can never, ever, leave! Good luck in the frey!

          3. Sosraboc thanked me for coming across. That has an ominous, irreversible and rather final ring to it, like “crossing the rainbow bridge”. What have I let myself in for here?

            Frey – Hotel California: I saw what you did there!

        3. It’s pretty dreadful actually. A cross between joining the SS (balance grenade on top of helmet and stand to attention while it explodes) and singing Rule Britannia at the proms!

          1. Phew, that’s a relief. Sosraboc told me I’d have to stand naked upside down in a barrel of cold custard whilst reciting the Lord’s Prayer backwards in Swahili!

        6. You are most welcome. There are several on here who are not all they seem or particularly wholesome and I do my best to avoid them. They are cliquey and readily identified.

          Occasionally some snide remark will occasion a response from me. Yesterday evening I was drawn into a war of words with the Mengele character. I was not drunk but perfectly sober and working late on a project at the time.

          1. Thank you. I have been lurking here for a long time and I think I understand the ‘dynamics’.

            The last thing I want to do is upset anyone, intentionally or otherwise.

          2. Welcome along Mr. Nosgrove. I gather you know sosraboc but that won’t be held against you!

    5. But there is also the counter argument that if they are put off by the robust tone of the site, then they were never worthwhile contributors?

    6. Not a view I recognise, sos. There have been numerous occasions when a newcomer has been recognised as such and welcomed in print by old hands. Trolls however……….

      2. There are certain aspects that can be very tiresome, even to old hands, and even old hands sometimes need to take a break from it.

    7. Anyone is welcome here as far as I am concerned. What I (myself, personally) do not care for is newcomers who immediately act as though they have known old-timers for years and are completely familiar with their (our – my) eccentricities.

          1. Certainly not!

            But you are an excellent example of someone who got to know the ropes before dipping a toe and then got to know which regulars were more humerous and which others more serious and finally which ones might bite if you joined/fell into one of the feeding frenzies.

          6. Not I.

            I take the view that one should not block nor ban. Let them show their true colours and let others decide whether or not they wish to exchange views.

            Most of the worst trolls eventually get bored and disappear of their own volition.

          12. He has absolutely no sense of humour. You have to spell everything out in very simple language…!

      4. Fear not, over-familiarity is one of my pet hates, particularly from professional people who should know better, but call me old fashioned.

        1. Then, there is a risk that we may be ad idem.

          One of my pet hates (away from here) is the way everyone calls you by your Christian name on first meeting.

          1. I had to google that one. No, my nic is a play on the name of a London tube station (I’m a bit of a train anorak).

            I once had an alter ego called Ray Nerslane, but any suggestion that we were related is utter Cockfosters.

          5. Sorry, I’ll try not to go down that track too often.

            Cue awful train-related puns…(I told you I’ve been lurking here for a long time!)

          8. I like trains, me.
            Until a few years ago, I had one of the few steam drivers licences in Norway (tiny 0-4-0 well tank loco, from 1904…). Don’t hold back on my count.

          13. Of course you are correct. The mind plays tricks. I was probably conflating the remembrance with Arno’s Court, a grand house in Bristol.

    8. If they can’t cope with a bit of robust debate are they really worthwhile contributors?

      1. There are times when an individual with dissenting views, presented reasonably, gets ganged up on and “robust” swiftly turns to acrimonious.

        Most of us can be very dogmatic about things that are matters of opinion , not fact and some become aggressive if that opinion is challenged.

        1. I agree that some (and I think we all have our suspicions who) can become aggressive, but surely one can walk away and leave them to it, then return another time. I know it’s what I do.

    1. Extracts from the report say, “They grew up in Britain and were UK citizens, but the Government withdrew their citizenship.”
      and also, “In order to secure British help in obtaining evidence on the pair, Mr Barr agreed that US prosecutors would not seek the death penalty in any cases against them and would not carry out executions if they were imposed.”

      If their UK Citizenship was withdrawn, despite assurances to Britain, they may now do as they wish and the UK cannot complain. Hanging will be too good for them.

      2. I agree, but an American supermax could well encourage them to do unto themselves what they did unto others!

  64. Just seen the local Nice TV news – effing Toy Boy visiting – wasting good helicopter time which could have been used to help the distressed folk. Promising the earth – AS USUAL. And, AS USUAL, sod all will be done. Also some fat bloke representing the insurance companies promising to do “whatever it takes” – to avoid paying anybody anything.

    There was also an aerial view of the sea off Nice/Monaco/San Remo – showing that the force of river water coming from the hills is colouring the sea for about 30 miles out…. I tried to get a snap of it but was too slow. An amazing shot.

    A short interview with a bloke who built a house for his family. The house, garage, garden has completely disappeared. AS HAS THE PLOT. So the poor sod is left with nothing at all.

    On that note, I’ll leave you until tomorrow – when it will rain here in yer Narfurk.

    A demain

      1. Won’t open.

        Tende is still inaccessible by road. The extraordinary thing is that the railway from Nice to Tende and Breil is still open – and is being used all the time to bring food and water to the towns.

        1. It’s about Tende.
          But it is saying no road or rail access, helicopter only

          The guess is six months.

    3. When I read the first few lines I thought that you were talking about pretendy PM Trudeau, the actions fit his style.

    4. Oh Uncle Bill! I’ve just got the funny/humerus connection! About 6 hours late! You were casting pearls before swine again! Bone-shakingly amusing!

          5. Doll Tearsheet was a bawd in Henry IV Pt 2 – one of Falstaff’s .’associates’.

            Dorothy “Doll” Tearsheet is a fictional character who appears in Shakespeare’s play Henry IV, Part 2. She is a prostitute who frequents the Boar’s Head Inn in Eastcheap. Doll is close friends with Mistress Quickly, the proprietress of the tavern, who procures her services for Falstaff. Wikipedia

          6. Good Lord, do you tell me that? And there’s me thinking a bawdy house was a place where one could find cheap lodgings.

          7. The great architect Sir John Vanbrugh wrote bawdy plays. I sat through one of his plays in the seventies. Nice period costumes and wigs with all sorts of C18 innuendo.

            A chap suffering from premature ejaculation was ‘wet boots’ and so on.

    1. “And do you Rastus, agree to be a stereotypical black husband and leave Angela as soon as the baby is weaned?..”

  67. BBC News at Six

    Reports of an infection rate of 500 in 100,000 per day means that for a UK population of 67 million there would be 335,000 cases.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8810da7fcd44c807172eb063fd9acd9846ccd582d1c232838473225caffbcc47.jpg

    Using my latest COVID infection model for the UK (R=1.25) this means that if this rate of infection were to be applied nationwide then the UK would be on day 57 of an 80 day pandemic.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f7cd5e68a43cb041b02800dc49a92e007079cbf1b45e0e00a652bec446cb77eb.png

      1. My MODEL is for the number of COVID infections in the population and not the number who have tested positive in a PCR test.

        I haven’t bothered to try predicting ‘COVID’ deaths by using a model because there doesn’t seem to be a uniform mechanism that results in people who have had a history of being tested postive for COVID-19 subsequently dying.

        I like to look at the situation as those who catch the virus experience a change in their natural lifespan.
        We don’t yet know if some people who have been deemed to have caught the virus actually end up having an extended natural lifespan.

        To look objectively at the influence of COVID on lifespan in the community I have downloaded the latest ONS data (2018) on the number of UK deaths at each age for males and females over the course of a year:

        https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ada82af02b41c9522013bed0ae2df5a421ad2f0c7874aab8507f94726f7628c5.jpg

        1. Which only goes to prove that the female of the species is deadier (sic) than the male…..

    1. Well, BoB, at least you don’t have to travel to Barbados to pick up some Stockport Rum!

      :-))

    3. I had eighteen bottles of whiskey in my cellar and was told by my wife that I had a drinking problem, and to empty the contents of each and every bottle down the sink, or else. I said I would and proceeded with the unpleasant task.

      I withdrew the cork from the first bottle and poured the contents down the sink with the exception of one glass, which I drank.

      I then withdrew the cork from the second bottle and did likewise with it, with the exception of one glass, which I drank.

      I then withdrew the cork from the third bottle and poured the whiskey down the sink which I drank.

      I pulled the cork from the fourth bottle down the sink and poured the bottle down the glass, which I drank.

      I pulled the bottle from the cork of the next and drank one sink out of it, and threw the rest down the glass.

      I pulled the sink out of the next glass and poured the cork down the bottle. Then I corked the sink with the glass, bottled the drink and drank the pour.

      When I had everything emptied, I steadied the house with one hand, counted the glasses, corks, bottles, and sinks with the other, which were twenty-nine, and as the houses came by I counted them again, and finally I had all the houses in one bottle, which I drank.

      I’m not under the affluence of incohol as some thinkle peep I am. I’m not half as thunk as you might drink. I fool so feelish I don’t know who is me, and the drunker I stand here, the longer I get.

    4. Excellent deal, BoB

      At first glance I thought it was ‘Barnados Rum’ and that you were stealing from orphans {:^))

    5. Apparently in the Wild West, cowboys consumed rum (not whisky) which was produced by slaves in the Caribbean. Funny that Hollywood glosses over that detail.

  70. Nicola Sturgeon BANS boozing indoors across the whole of Scotland – and shuts pub in most of the country – for at least 16 days from Friday heaping pressure on PM to follow suit. 7 October 2020.

    Nicola Sturgeon warned that coronavirus cases have started to surge among the older generation today as she banned pubs and restaurants from serving alcohol indoors in Scotland for at least 16 days from Friday.

    The First Minister told MSPs at Holyrood that the situation was ‘better than March’, but admitted she needed to take a ‘backward step’ as she unveiled a dramatic ‘circuit breaker’ squeeze to coincide with the school half-term north of the border.

    As well as a ban on serving alcohol, hospitality venues will only be allowed to open from 6am to 6pm.

    It’s time for the revolution!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8815059/Nicola-Sturgeon-set-BAN-alcohol-Scotlands-pubs-force-6pm-closing.html

    1. My old man and I are watching the stupid wee b**** in open-mouthed horror! She is absolutely clueless! Her weegie pals wouldn’t do as they were told so we all have to suffer. I wonder when she and the cult will realise that there will be no economy when this is over?

  71. A BTL comment on YouTube:

    C. Wilson
    2 years ago
    What breaks my heart as I grow older is the America I grew up in has pretty much vanished. My son understands it,I have filled him full of it plus I still live and love and admire the way it was. But what breaks my heart, is we are filling up with people not born here. It will roll over the tipping point soon.
    I have mourned my Grandmas old Europe now gone, but my boomer generation will be stomped out not too far after that. We welcomed our dads home from war, then I was born in 1948. Our brothers and boyfriends went to Vietnam, and our sons to Middle East. I feel so lucky to have loved moms heartbreaking war songs,the beauty of those songs sung by those girl band singers, then my Beatles and Beach Boys came into my heart. I hit 69 this year. I mourn our boomers passing. Our kids know a pinch of it, but we boomers truly know the death of America is not far behind. USA will become mishmash of sorts. There was a total of 111 countries people STOPPED at our border this year. The ones they didn’t catch will pretty well will take us over the tipping point of “nobody here was born here”
    That will seal the deal,the America I love and my daddy fought for in the Pacific has gone from memory. That’s how you know something has gone forever. Nobody here knows anything about the America we lived and died for. A pity those in power didn’t fight for America.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3Dbx_dgUyE

    2. Sadly, the same lament could be written about the Britain that we used to know and love.

      The only difference is that our Government is not even attempting to stem the flow of illegal alien invaders. Instead, it is facilitating their journey and welcoming them in with open arms.

      2. There was some benefit to the injuns. They were stone age tribes with no written language who hadn’t even invented the wheel and far from being a sweet in-tune-with-nature paradise, their lives were hard. Apart from anything else, the Europeans gave them metal tools and that helped a lot. It isn’t really true that the settlers gave them disease – they had plenty of that already.

          1. Yeah. Hammers and chisels and such. Totem poles became taller and more intricately carved. It’s a shame that later settlers destroyed them as pagan abominations.

  72. A D/Mail reader asks
    Will Woman’s Hour new presenter inject a soupcon of humour into the radio prog instead of droning on and on about women as oppressed victims ?

    I very much doubt it C.C.of Oxon feminists don’t do humour….

      1. Feminist cows probably prefer artificial insemination to a real bull.

        Indeed, it seems that homosexual women are keen to follow the feminist cows when they want to procreate.

  75. Evening, all. Boris holds dark prospects for all of us and not just when the lights go out because of lunatic green ideas (somewhat akin to Chomsky’s colourless green ideas sleep furiously and making just about as much sense). I feel sorry for all those who were conned into voting for him because they thought he was a “Conservative”. I feel even sorrier for the country as a result of his trashing the economy and introducing draconian control measures.

    1. Evening, Conway.
      For some reason even though Hammersmith is a Labour stronghold, it always attracts a full range of candidates at every election, therefore I’m always able to vote with conscience. Some might say I’m always able to waste my vote. Brexit Party last time and UKIP before that.

      1. That’s good to hear. So many places only have candidates from the three main parties – no choice at all, really.

      2. Oh Hammersmith, brings back memories. The Grove. Goldhawk Road. A vague desire to be part of a studio audience at Shepherds Bush, never fulfilled.

    2. 324331+ up ticks,
      Evening C,
      I would feel sorry for those that thought that this party was
      the real mcCoy if they hadn’t supported the same ersatz party time & again.

      1. Good guess but no – they’re compulsory air vents to stop the boat becoming a steel coffin….

      1. Looks like a top action light spinning rod with a 3000 reel. After perch and chub at a guess.

    2. Victorian masonry made use of mechanical saws and relied a lot less on hand trimming of stone. The masons and builders were then unhindered by the concept of ‘tolerances’ and made each stone to ‘fit the work in place’ so joints could be minimal.

      When I have insisted on close joints the contractors tell me that I must allow for tolerances on the cutting methods. They cite the fact that a large circular diamond tipped saw will ‘warp’ and will not guarantee a precise cut.

      Our mediaeval masons who built Bath Abbey, Wells and Bristol cathedrals achieved great accuracy using hand tools.

    1. Law schools couldn’t keep up with the demand to produce more lawyers to defend all the more easily identifiable reprobates…?

    3. I suspect one reason might be that many of the cameras are in places where it is difficult to keep them clean.

      Think how blurred an outside sports broadcast becomes with even a bit of drizzle between the camera and the action.

      Then there’s the fact that so much of it still goes to video tape and the same tapes are used over and over and over and over…. you get the picture – or rather you don’t!

        1. The newer ones are digital, but a great many of the old ones have not been updated yet … if ever.

    1. Yep. His Holiness has endorsed economic migration across all borders. Also the abolition of borders and a world government. Also we have to love and appreciate each other like brothers. As discussed between His Holiness and the Grand Imam Ahmad Al-Tayyeb.

    2. Well, as they say in Latin America – “Omnes viae Romam ducunt

      …. I’ll get me toga ….

  81. Q: Given the billions of people who have lived since the beginning of time, why are so few burial sites found? Only a few religions burned their dead.

    1. One of my friends, up in Aberdeenshire, is an archaeologist. About 10 years ago she spent several days removing (with some difficulty and very great care) about a dozen iron-age burial urns – full of cremains. They were about 20 feet below the current surface at the foot of a trench being dug for a new gas pipeline.

      The planet, or a lot of it, has been ploughed and dug and shifted around for a pretty long time and things often go deeper. Look at the amount of earth there now is above some of the old Roman roads.

      Any human remains which are found must be removed and documented. You can’t just keep digging and hope they get lost again.

      Eventually, of course, as Sue says, many simply return to the dust from which we all supposedly came.

        1. Funnily enough I recently asked an archaeologist in the family about this – why does stuff gradually sink deeper and deeper?

          I didn’t really get an answer I found convincing! I will ask again. I’m sure there are multiple factors at work.

          I should point out that the planet is very, very gradually, getting bigger. Debris rains down from space 24/7 across the entire surface of the Earth. Most of it is just dust so we’re not really conscious of it unless we see a shooting star come down. I’ve seen the figure of 40,000 metric tons per year mentioned. However, over mere hundreds of years and given the size of the planet it’s not going to be noticed. Of course most of it ends up falling into the sea, so its not even visible on the surface.

          I’ve just worked out that it would take nearly @13,000 years to deposit 1kg on every square meter of the Earth’s surface. So @13 million years to drop a metric ton per square meter. Now that’s the sort of coverage where we would really begin to notice the difference!

          If we make the assumptions that the amount hitting the Earth is pretty consistent and the tiny increase in the total surface doesn’t matter – then we can say that @2.4 trillion tons of space crud has landed on Earth since the dinosaurs died out 60 million years ago.

        2. Funnily enough I recently asked an archaeologist in the family about this – why does stuff gradually sink deeper and deeper?

          I didn’t really get an answer I found convincing! I will ask again. I’m sure there are multiple factors at work.

          I should point out that the planet is very, very gradually, getting bigger. Debris rains down from space 24/7 across the entire surface of the Earth. Most of it is just dust so we’re not really conscious of it unless we see a shooting star come down. I’ve seen the figure of 40,000 metric tons per year mentioned. However, over mere hundreds of years and given the size of the planet it’s not going to be noticed. Of course most of it ends up falling into the sea, so its not even visible on the surface.

          I’ve just worked out that it would take @13,000 years to deposit 1kg on every square meter of the Earth’s surface. So @13 million years to drop a metric ton per square meter. Now that’s the sort of coverage where we would really begin to notice the difference!

          If we make the assumptions that the amount hitting the Earth is pretty consistent and the tiny increase in the total surface doesn’t matter – then we can say that @2.4 trillion tons of space crud has landed on Earth since the dinosaurs died out 60 million years ago.

          2. 33,000 metric tonnes of atmosphere leaking into space every year.

            “I can’t breathe!”

            (Actually it’s good to know we’re still 7000 tons up on the deal)

          5. I am always so shocked to see how much dust accumulates .

            During the summer, after a windy day , our cars were covered in red dust.

            Sahara dust ..

    2. One of my friends, up in Aberdeenshire, is an archaeologist. About 10 years ago she spent several days removing (with some difficulty and very great care) about a dozen iron-age burial urns – full of cremains. They were about 20 feet below the current surface at the foot of a trench being dug for a new gas pipeline.

      The planet, or a lot of it, has been ploughed and dug and shifted around for a pretty long time and things often go deeper. Look at the amount of earth there now is above some of the old Roman roads.

      Any human remains which are found must be removed and documented. You can’t just keep digging and hope they get lost again.

      Eventually, of course, as Sue says, many simply return to the dust from which we all supposedly came.

  82. Good night all.

    Undaunted, I give you tonight’s supper W/rose’s crevettes with crusty bread smeared with butter & rouille, washed down with a couple of glasses of Montgravet 2018 SB. When you detach the heads, crush them between your incisors progressively as you draw them out of your mouth, at the same time sucking out the delicious juices. Don’t chew them!, & beware of any spines. (In Bombay, when we had a prawn curry, the servants would make their own curry with the heads – full of flavour).
    Followed by nectarines & figs baked with honey & medium sherry, a dab of double cream on each piece of fruit on serving.

      1. Or swan and widgeon.

        King John was a glutton and died from eating too many lampreys and other delicacies.

        Henry VIII became a bloated Welsh git on account of devouring all manner of game and sweet stuff. When I worked on the representation of the Tudor Kitchens at Hampton Court Palace the displays of food which was consumed on a particular day in 1542 (The Feast of St John from memory) was staggering. Well worth a visit.

        1. John died of dysentery contracted whilst on campaign in eastern England during late 1216; supporters of his son Henry III went on to achieve victory over Louis and the rebel barons the following year.

          John, King of England – Wikipedia

    3. Oi, Peddy, what’s with all these recipes with figs in ’em? Ave you planted a fig tree in your back garden or somfink?

        1. Don’t you dare threaten me with your Luger, Herr Peddy. And thought that German pun(nets) were what you put strawberries and raspberries (not figs) in.

          1. I’ll explain the loaded pun. Feige is German for fig & feige also means cowardly. A Lügner is a liar. Add 2 & 2 together & think of one person.

          2. Cowards and liars (just like figs?) each have their season? Two and two makes four, which is one person? (Who is this person? Pretty Polly? George Soros?) I have to confess that my residual German (from school lessons) is not at all good enough to understand fig puns, Peddy old bean.

  83. I reckon that ‘Krankie’s’ new Coronavirus rules – no alcohol in Scottish cafes, bars or restaurants after 6pm will be unenforceable, counter effective and will cause resentment and lead to widespread booze parties in private premises, halls of residence student flats &etc – with NO social distancing.

    It will also wreck the remnants of the debt-ridden Scottish economy.

    ‘Tis the straw that will break the camel’s back …

    1. When I watched the headlines this evening my first thought was that Scottish independence and the SNP have just been kicked very firmly between the legs.

      Imagine being ruled by that creature with absolutely no form of appeal.

      Given a totally free rein, she could make John Knox look like the life and soul of a party.

      3. The First Minister puts me in mind of those ghastly Bay City Rollers who took pot shots with an air rifle at members of the public from their mansion.

        Dress her in fake tartan and give her a rattle and she would resemble a football hooligan.

        2. I’ve long passed the point where I thought “geive (sic, pedants) them what they are asking for”

      4. Thing is, Sos, repulsive as she is, Wee Krankie’s chain is pulled by her husband, Peter Murrell, who is CEO of the SNP. An utterly corrupt man, Murrell is as nasty a piece of work as one could find.

        He was the prime mover in the scandal that saw Alex Salmond arrested and charged with alleged sex-crimes, of which he was later acquitted. Murrell was instrumental in arranging for Scotland Yard as well as Police Scotland to investigate Salmond, and actually publicly touted for witnesses against him to come forward, saying “The more victims we can find, the harder it will be for Salmond to defend himself.”

        Wee Krankie speaks, but Murrell writes the scripts.

        1. We have the same in England, but the sexes/genders/Greens/Vegemites or might nots/ OK I give up are reversed.

      1. Sturgeon and Johnson, along with their minions and scientific advisors are seemingly on a death wish.

        If this lockdown nonsense persists they will pay a very heavy price including prosecution and custodial sentencing.

        I imagine many denied NHS treatment for cancers and other illnesses, those with elderly relatives who were allowed to die through neglect and lack of protective isolation, and the hundreds of thousands of businesses both large and small put out of business by government incompetence, will face justice in due course.

    5. Police Scotland will just rent more helicopters to carry out air patrols to spot house parties. Motorised police will then arrive to break up the parties and arrest people.
      Just as they have been doing in Glasgow for a few weeks.

  84. “UK Government Importing Asylum Seekers Directly from Greece Under ‘Family Reunification,’” by Virginia Hale, Breitbart, October 5, 2020:

    The British government has revealed it is flying in asylum seekers directly from Greece, while record numbers of illegal immigrants continue to arrive on UK shores in boats.

    On Friday, the government announced that 28 more people had been imported to Britain, as “the latest in a series of flights which has brought asylum seekers to the UK from Greece to reunite with family”.

    The migrants hail from Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, Syria, and Bangladesh, and “will now be allowed to have their asylum claim assessed alongside their family members”, a government news briefing said.

    “Throughout the pandemic, the UK has remained open and fully committed to family reunification,” the so-called Conservative government proclaimed, boasting that “through resettlement schemes, the UK resettles more refugees than any other country in Europe and are in the top five countries worldwide”.

    At the general election last year, the Tories were voted back into power with the promise to reduce immigration, while polls have consistently shown that a majority of the British public would like to see a large reduction in the number of migrants.

    The announcement came as it was revealed that the total number of illegal immigrants officially recorded as having made it to British shores by boat this year had passed 7,000 — more than triple the figure recorded in 2019.

    Some 9,500 asylum seekers who have arrived in Britain are reportedly being accommodated at taxpayers’ expense in 91 hotels around the country. Between 20 and 50 hotels — including four-star establishments — are reported to be benefiting from a £4 billion ten-year contract with the government to house migrants.

    Others are living at disused military facilities such as Napier Barracks, where illegal immigrants are provided with taxpayer-funded mobile phones, as well as having access to “TVs, WiFi and sports equipment”, according to BBC reporter Simon Jones….

    1. It would have been better if they had flown the families from the U.K. to Greece.

      1. And my mother still has her black dolly (not a golly) which was bought in coronation year – that’s George VI’s coronation year.

        I’ve still got mine too, but she only dates from the early 60s.

        Nonetheless, it is not unusual to go into a shop and see only white dolls on display.

    2. Nonsense. Golliwogs have been around a lot longer than that. Remember the Bromyard Three – who got locked up in a dawn police raid on Pettifer’s for the crime of being racist. It took a campaign in the Daily Telegraph to free them.

      They were then auctioned off. I imagine the auctioneer’s statue would have been torn down and thrown in the Frome by now though.

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