An unofficial place to discuss the Telegraph letters, established when the DT website turned off its commenting facility (now reinstated, but we prefer ours),
Intelligent, polite, good-humoured debate is welcome, whether on or off topic. Differing opinions are encouraged, but rudeness or personal attacks on other posters will not be tolerated. Posts which – in the opinion of the moderators – make this a less than cordial environment, are likely to be removed, without prior warning. Persistent offenders will be banned.
Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here.
First !
Well Done. You neeed a full English after this.
Good Morning, all
Clear skies
https://www.thetimes.com/imageserver/image/%2Fc0fcd811-6326-41a5-b832-7a547e9e55ab.jpg?crop=2995%2C1997%2C455%2C139&resize=750&format=webp
SIR – As a grammar school boy, born and brought up in east London, I was inspired by Norman Tebbit (Obituary, July 8) to join the Conservatives in 1981, when Margaret Thatcher’s government was at its lowest ebb. A few years later, as a branch chairman in the then highly marginal seat of Ilford South, I was overjoyed to meet my hero, who addressed a meeting to much applause and laughter.
Thatcher’s decision to appoint him as employment secretary in 1981 proved decisive in the industrial battles of the mid-1980s, in particular the emphatic defeat of Arthur Scargill’s year-long miners’ strike.
Higher productivity – resulting from ending restrictive practices, and huge inward investment derived from improved industrial relations – would not have been achieved without Tebbit’s trade union reforms. Today’s Conservatives could learn much from his courage, wisdom and radicalism.
Philip Duly
Haslemere, Surrey
The present government could learn something too.
I was sorry to learn of Norman's death. He was so good after the Brighton bombs in looking after his badly injured wife. Is she still alive or not? (Good morning, btw.)
She died in 2020
Thanks for that, Citroen1. I feared that she may have been left without any proper carer, just as (I think) Prunella Scales was when her husband and carer Timothy West died.
Morning, Elsie.
It's difficult in those circumstances, particularly if the surviving spouse is frail. Paying for care is costly – fortunately, Mother is in a lovely home in Penarth (we couldn't bring her to Norway mid Covid, she's never been registered here, so no provision by the State here either) where they have appropriate care, stimulating activities and very kind staff. Posts on Facebook almost daily, of the residents doing things to keep them active and stimulated. Seems like the best solution, especially since now she has dementia.
But it costs – about £5,000 a month. My inheritance is dwindling fast.
We live in a different age now. In the past, there were loved ones to care and pay for those with dementia. Today, many people are divorced and estranged and enter into old age alone. Nobody cares, and they must muddle through somehow without care of any sort.
The best that can be hoped for is the authorities carting such a person into a home with a bed smelling of urine and some very badly-paid and overworked staff, many of them migrants, until the merciful scythe of the reaper comes calling, assisted or otherwise. All the money is taken in fees to pay the executives, as a matter of course, and anything of sentimental value only dumped in the skip.
It pays therefore to keep very quiet and still if going down with dementia.
Mothers home seems very nice and caring, as reflected in the cost. It's her money left to her by my Father, so I'm delighted she gets the benefit of it. I earn OK, so I don't need her money for my retirement – I followed my Father's approach, and set up a number of private pensions around the place, spreading risk and geography. I just hope that, if I croak on the way home, SWMBO can find her way to all of them!
I hate to disagree with Mr Duly, but I don't think any of today's Conservative MPs could learn anything from Norman Tebbit because they just don't have it in them. Tebbit was honest plus he had lived in the real world.
No chance Mr Duly.
Our political classes are known to be ahead of the game at all times, except of course when they eff up everything they come into contact with. Which is now the norm. Scus the pun.
Morning all, especially Geoff. Good set of DT Letters and BTLs today.
And thanks, Citroen, for posting the lovely Times cartoon.
409118+ up ticks,
Morning Each,
The quicker we return to normal the better,
https://x.com/xxxxTheKing/status/1942503029321642422
Good Morning All. 15C sunny.
Morning Johnny, a bright start 14C
https://x.com/wattsupwiththat/status/1942690433131303027
Well I can assure him that climate concern is nonexistent round here!
and here.
Here too.
Where is Mauna Loa?
Mauna Loa – the worlds largest active volcan – 4 169metres high, with observatory. Look it up on Google Maps.
I'd suggest not the best location to compare temperatures and try to apply them to the rest of the world. Who'd a thunk that the area around a volcano might get hot – is that based on the weather or the heat rising from magma? I wonder….
Like taking temps at airports. . Favorite of the Met Office.
To be fair to the Guardian (!), their article does not have the Manua Loa chart. It seems to have been added by Watts Up With That for no reason other than to try to make a point. Somewhat misleading, I’d say.
As misleading as the Met Office. and you can never trust the guardian
Good morning, chums. And thanks, Geoff, for today's new NoTTLe site. I did today's Wordle in 3 (a Birdie).
Wordle 1,481 3/6
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
⬜🟩🟨⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Good morning Elsie and all
Was hoping for a 3 but chose the wrong option!
Wordle 1,481 4/6
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⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
A swift coming into land with a gob full of flies. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c26f350b64ea5e978699484218d3bd6ef41609f6e058b56dce6e7d2b79615399.png
Good morning, all. Blue sky. Sunny. No more rain.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f383c23907763c5f4fb3ade07918916e1c52b69f05288b76af94a8886bece83f.png
The border security is only for the British returning home.
409118+ up ticks,
The commie GIT knows the end is nigh and is spreading plague type actions where ever he can,
the lower his personal stance is among the indigenous peoples is here, the higher it is among the WEF / NWO.
https://x.com/caroldecker/status/1942306585465831577
What has happened to British politics how can an out of control mob of proven liars be even tolerated ?
409118+ up ticks,
RE,
Welfare payments manipulated is a powerful governing tool.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/36bf7b98c76d13eb93097605d6733436d675ba44255a31ac3a4ed65b0312de32.png
Truly awful picture.
Truly awful little git!
Edit ‘Morning Paul!
Horrible vile little creature.
Agreed but I see his point, and he's right about UK being a draw for all the freebies we give the criminals!
Rupert Lowe MP
@RupertLowe10
·
Jul 8
We don’t need asylum backlogs, we don’t need migrant hotels, we don’t need endless appeals.
What we need to do is actually very simple.
Two words. Detain. Deport.
Scrap the entire asylum system – no more asylum seekers.
If you come, you get deported. It doesn’t matter who, or if they claim to be gay or whatever else. All must go.
There can be no exceptions.
Send them back to where they came from. If we can’t ascertain where that is? Establish a third party scheme, and send them there.
Don’t let them roam the streets. Don’t let them intimidate women. Don’t let them deliver takeaway food.
Make it uncomfortable.
Detain them. All of them. Securely. They broke the law, they should be locked up.
If there aren’t the facilities, build the facilities – I would do so near a runway. We estimate that it needs to be increased sevenfold. Better get a move on, then.
We put together a policy paper which showed a mass deportation scheme would save the country £10 billion a year upon completion. This will not only pay for itself, but save the taxpayer a vast sum. Restore Britain will aim to campaign exactly for that, and we will talk about it in plain English without the usual nonsensical riddles.
Because politicians need to urgently cut the relentless bullshit and I promise you, we will cut the bullshit.
There is one way to stop the boats, and only one way to stop the boats.
Detain and deport.
There is no other way. That’s it. Not a single one can stay.
If the law doesn’t allow for it? CHANGE THE SODDING LAW.
Because for illegal migrants – it’s mass deportations or a mass amnesty. There are your two options. Pick one.
I choose mass deportations, every single time.
If that happens, it will only be because the government knows that large numbers of Britons are about to become refugees…
I'm a bit unsure of that. There needs to be some flexibility – remember (not personally, I don't suppose) the Kindertransport back in the 1930s? The UK can hold it's head high in pride at achieving that: I worked in the 1980s with two of the Kinder – Professor George Solt and Professor Harry Block, both an absolute tribute to the UK and their big heart.
Morning OB
Brilliant obit in the Times about Norman Tebbit ..
Small clip that is worth pondering on !
"Various factors attracted him to politics — the “incompetence” of state-owned BOAC, the aimless drift of Harold Macmillan’s Tory government, flying planes full of West Indian immigrants to the UK when he believed Britain should make better use of its own workers."
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/obituaries/article/lord-tebbit-obituary-death-tlf79vddf
The Kindertransport brought in one Ralph Miliband.
The UK is now history.
Uncertain about that, I read that he came via France with his father.
Fair enough. He was still a refugee who 'thanked' his saviours.
Nothing prevents the country from taking in people who are genuine cases. We might argue about the Ugandan Asians and whether they should have been sent back to their ancestral homelands‡ but, like the Jewish children of 1938/39, they were allowed in.
‡ Of course, at the time we didn't know about Yasmin Damji, now known by her married name…
One of our best friends was one of the 'Ugandan Asians' kicked out with her family who had to leave their thriving business and everything else. She married a lovely English boy. The whole family just started from scratch, worked hard and thrived.
The parents (and some aunts, uncles)of one of our older son's schoolfriends from primary and all through school arrived with nothing from Uganda, worked hard, built up a chain of local shops and became valued members of the community.
There will always be a few bad apples, but the vast majority of genuine refugees are not a problem.
As you say, genuine cases are always welcome as long as they integrate and live normal, decent, hard-working lives.
I dare say they thrived in Uganda because the locals were not motivated enough.
Nail on head! Indolent natives – how many of those former colonies (of UK and other European countries) have even remained economically or socially stable, building upon what the Europeans left, never mind any advances (apart, maybe, from increasing the breeding rate)?
409118+ up ticks,
Morning TB,
Even the GOOD sounding rhetoric is still rhetoric satisfying to hear BUT the boats keep coming.
bare in mind there are voting punters out there WAITING once again to support the established last four decades, very pro lab / lib / con mass party controlled immigration invasion
and the boats will still keep coming.
Not long now due to the tribals past voting actions there WILL be a bread shortage in both meanings of the word the financial one is already well established, the fodder one is the peoples to establish.
Farmers food and freedom ltd – Companies House – GOV.UK
GOV.UK
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk › …
Registered office address: Bower Farm Bower Farm, Stelling Minnis, Canterbury, Kent, United Kingdom, CT4 6BB. Company status: Active.
Stop the benefits and hotels – that's what's drawing them here. Detain and deport should be for those already here
Absolutely correct, they illegal invaders (immigrants) we don't want or need any of them. Get rid of them all and make our country safe again.
409118+ up ticks
The mindset likely is collateral damage aside it save on building reservoirs.
https://x.com/HustleBitch_/status/1942744367669862872
Suspect storms/floods include the ones in KSA and Qatar last year, just before the BRICS meeting in which KSA did not declare membership of BRICS…and the sudden storm that blew up and sank the Bayesian in the Mediterranean.
I think they do use weather modification for nefarious purposes, but it has been mainstream technology for crops in dry parts of the world for years now.
Although it's probably what happened recently in Texas, never a mention of cloud seeding on the news.
Dubai in April last year had been cloud seeded and the flooding was very high and caused a lot of damage and disruption.
409118+ up ticks,
RE,
I did comment this just post happening .
Morning, all Y'all.
It's supposed to reach almost 30C today and for the next few days. Lovely! Been ages since I had it properly warm.
'Morning all
Midweek Medley
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/081221c5f7256a1ea1c250eee6259b13169bd949626d6ad4dfd0a75d0fa47743.jpg
https://i.imgflip.com/9zqh9i.jpg
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https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/96eb9729265b3f3cfe5ab893231592a838936266d4e8bc3f2cca31e7603b8b2e.jpg
I want the coffee mug for my office mug, so that it can speak a thousand words.
PS nicked the CV one for the magazine, thank you!
Someone will pinch it…..
Number four…..oh I could tell you a story about that….not shoes but clothes in Regent Street.
My mother knew how to embarrass an eleven year old boy.
I remember we went into Burtons in Bournemouth and I had to try on a grey worsted suit with long trousers for prep school. I thought this was excellent and we bought it and the salesman wrapped it up. My mother then passed Austin Reed, preferred what they had to offer and so got me to try on the suit they offered and then took the first suit back to Burtons, got back the money and then went to buy the Austin Reed suit.
My mother ate salesman for breakfast. Shakespeare knew what he was talking about when he gave Hamlet the line:
"An eye like Ma's to threaten and command."
Hawaii?
Morning all 🌞 – cool and cloudy here today.
Good morning, everyone.
‘Morning Delboy! How is your lovely wife?
She is still asleep but breathing normally and not gasping for breath. I took her a cup of tea but I didn't wake her as she needs the sleep. ``i may give an update later today when we see how active she is.
Glad to hear that! Thank you.
How is your wife this morning?
Morning, Anne. See my reply to Sue Mac.
Caroline and I send our very best wishes to you and your wife.
Good morning DB.
I hope your OH is feeling better.
Good morning. How are things?
Morning, Phil. See my reply to Sue Mac.
Good to hear Delboy.🤗😊
Good to hear Delboy.🤗😊
409118+up ticks,
Do you know ?
https://x.com/ogga_1/status/1942838919248117801
There is one of those in a cupboard at my house.
The DT still uses hers.
"………. a girl's best friend…!"
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/dcf82fe2fa9a192b613a5e964ea67e4b02295f20e35852f8673b4fb04c8701be.jpg
What about the spiders ?
I always wondered how that thing can cook in teh middle. Or perhaps it is meant to be raw, being beef? Phizzee will know!
You pan fry the fillet first to give it a good brown colour. Wrap in clingfilm and refridgerate.
The fillet won't be cooked through at this point.
Roll out the pastry. Cover with a layer of crepes. Spread evenly the poisonous duxelle of mushrooms.
Add a thin layer of cooked drained spinach.
Unwrap the fillet from the clingfilm and place on the pastry. Roll up and seal the edges with some egg wash. Liberally paint the whole thing with the remainder of the egg wash.
Bake in a hot oven for 20 minutes. It should come out just pink in the middle depending on size and timings.
Serve to people you wish dead.
Is Stoma looking for a chef?
Ah, now I understand the joke! I didn’t know it had mushrooms in.
Why spoil fillet beef with the addition of spinach though?
Thank you for the description!
The crepes and the spinach create a barrier around the duxelle. It also looks nice when you slice it.
What could be used instead of spinach? I avoid spinach because it makes my hip hurt, and I don#t want a hip replacement just yet…! – but apart from that, the flavour is not the best complement to beef, carbohydrates and mushroom I would have thought.
Could substitute nettles perhaps, they have a delicate flavour. Not fat hen (my other go-to non-brassica leafy green veg), it is also too strong like spinach.
You could leave it out all together. It isn't necessary to the dish. I just like it for the layering and colour.
Though the crepes are to stop the pastry getting soggy.
You could use nettles if you want.
Or perhaps a very thin layer of mixed fresh herbs
Just leave it out. it's only there for the colour.
Yes, but they're vegetables getting in the way of food.
A well made Beef Welly with the mushrooms, pancakes and spinach wouldn't need anything else except a good beefy gravy.
We wrapped stretched bacon round the beef when we did it on Boxing Day last year. It was the best beef we’d eaten, and son, dil and grandson all agreed. They all cleared their plates! (Just in case you thought they were just being polite!).
Yum! bacon has got to be better than spinach
Free markets don't stay free very long without intervention. If you can't spot the paradox, ask a house-builder.
Morning all!
A warmer tad over 16°C this morning with a bright sunny start.
A bit busy this morning. I've booked train ticket to Harwich and ferry to Hook of Holland so I can visit Hameln for this year's Sapper reunion next week.
Now tackling travel to Hameln and finding somewhere for 6 nights accommodation.
Being an aficionado of Ordnance Survey, I do not like Google Maps!
Lots of other things to do, but I've taken the DT's breakfast up and hung a load of washing up the garden.
Will need to get dressed soon and go into Matlock for a few things.
I have 2 WW1 Sapper embroidered handkerchiefs .. what do I do with them ? (RE)
Enjoy the Sappers, but watch out for any pipers in the parade…
Are you suggesting he’s a rat? I am by the way (born in the year of the rat).
Good Moaning.
In C21 Blighty, even honey traps are not what they were.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14887117/Honeytrap-gang-kidnapped-battered-friend-150-debt-vile-attack-jailed.html
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/222009b278144ad803bc7892c019ce1a7832a1dc0870b42d4b86787819eb431c.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/df28cab38d3eb582c0cfb685e4a1c3e41c4318d79e7f1f977e8595b11b276fbc.jpg
Obvious and
not quite sodefinitely not obvious.What the chuffing Hell is THAT???
Apparently Trowbridge's answer to the honey traps of the 1960s.
Ah…almost my neighbour. Must look her up.
Careful…..
Good morning, all. Sunny.
I have been watching the Lotuseaters' podcast segment discussing the EU's turmoil re internal mass immigration. The discussion brought up Farage's performance of late, highlighted by Steven Woolf, on the right of picture, "Farage has walked back on everything". E.g. banning the burqa and halal slaughter etc.
Luca on the left, "someone was saying that Farage is pulling Starmer to the left".
Carl Benjamin, centre "that's gold".
Cue laughter, and it is witty in a pitiful sense. In the wider sense it isn't something to laugh about because Reform UK was being touted, and were touting themselves, as the political nemesis of the legacy parties. No more it would appear: sadly, Reform is looking less and less like a reforming entity and is now beginning to resemble what we are currently suffering with. Continuity UK?
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c63eb21dc335f44c864248df5782e49ca2171cda2c6224d4f4067722387e9488.png
Plenty of good stuff here:
LotusEaters
Absolutely agree. Farage has no interest in doing what needs to be done.
He has a single objestive and that is to get Nigel Farage into No10.
He knows that he is a City Trader oik and very much wishes that he was grander. He has no real principles and doesn't much care about which sort of party he leads. He insists on being the one and only leader on wants to get recognised on the world stage.
More or less what I said this morning.
Southport inquiry will not use killer’s name
Teenager who murdered three young girls at dance class will be referred to only by initials or as ‘the perpetrator’
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07/08/southport-inquiry-will-not-use-killers-name/
BTL
Why not just refer to him as the Islamic Devil?
Or the Homicidal Shit.
Or the Welsh choirboy.
Because there's a lot more than one.
Why are the two thugs who assaulted police officers still on trial? Why have they not been hanged yet?
This was brought to our attention when Farage went back on his stance on migration and sided with Yusuf against Rupert Lowe.
Farage is a fraud and is not the radical solution the UK needs.
The pattern emerging from Reform has deterred me from getting involved. On the other hand, Habib, another radical who fell out of Farage's favour, is making some interesting statements with Advance UK.
May and Sunak came to grief when they alienated their core supporters.
Farage seems determined to do the same.
So did Tony Blair, Nick Clegg, Nicola Sturgeon and Natalie Bennett. It's normal behaviour.
I think his supporters will rabidly vote for him and then, when he betrays them Reform will be obliterated, with much crowing from the Left.
I can’t forget how he slagged off UKIP supporters when he walked away.
Morning all 🙂😊
Partly cloudy 18c.
Many thanks for your good wishes last evening. I'm feeling much better but haven't moved much yet.
I had to repair the leaking fittings on our garden hose, something that normally would have been a breeze but it became very difficult for me and I felt dizzy and out of breath. Unfortunately the Afib has now taken its grip and I believe that it was caused by the trauma of having my knee operation. I've looked it up and it's quite probable.
Oh well I'm waiting to hear back from the cardiology department. It might be some time, they don't normally rush.
Take care, Eddy. Getting wobbly at the top of the stairs can so easily have horrible consequences.
Thanks Obs, I still use one of my sticks to get up and down the stairs, I have developed a special way of leaning on the side wall and sliding down on my left shoulder.
Good job it's not wall paper. 🤭😊
After my period of suddenly waking up in a heap on the floor, I stopped using the stairs in the office and now use the lift.
HANDRAILS
Dear Eddy,
When my late wife was diagnosed with Dementia in 2016 and became a bit wobbly, an Occupational Therapist was sent to assess our home for any safety issues and potential improvements. She spotted that our stairs had a banister on only ONE side and immediately put in a request for another to be fitted on the wall side. A tradesman arrived two days later and fixed a pine handrail to the wall to make two banisters.
My late wife and I have/had been using ours gratefully ever since. So you should try Social Services to see what they can do. It is FREE.
NB: Whenever I go up or downstairs (wherever I am) if there is handrail, I USE it.
Same here although I’m the only one who ever used it. I find it a great help.
HANDRAILS
Dear Eddy,
When my late wife was diagnosed with Dementia in 2016 and became a bit wobbly, an Occupational Therapist was sent to assess our home for any safety issues and potential improvements. She spotted that our stairs had a banister on only ONE side and immediately put in a request for another to be fitted on the wall side. A tradesman arrived two days later and fixed a pine handrail to the wall to make two banisters.
My late wife and I have/had been using ours gratefully ever since. So you should try Social Services to see what they can do. It is FREE.
NB: Whenever I go up or downstairs (wherever I am) if there is handrail, I USE it.
Are his initials POS ?
He's a repulsive looking creature.
Or is that the picture of Micron posted a bit earlier?
Good Lord.
Frame them?
If I didn't have so much clutter already I would have been interested.
Good morning Nottlers, 15°C, overcast and damp. Unlike the forecast from just a few days ago threatening a heatwave, it is much cooler than April. My weekly trip to Tesco Irvine awaits, I'll be through the tills by 10.05.
Was Irvine ….the capital of Scotland 12 century ?
It's got a great reputation.
The military capital and a former Royal Burgh. It’s one of the five Scottish ‘new’ towns, though unlike the others a large town already existed, so the roundabouts of doom (think Harlow or Milton Keynes) are all well away from the town centre.
Whoever planned the plantations of trees in the new town knew their stuff, as the various trees bloom throughout the year.
The annual Marymass celebrations, organised by the Carter’s Society is almost upon us. It marks the crossing of the River Irvine by William Wallace on his way to attack the English army in 1297 and, later, support for Mary Queen of Scots in 1568.
Since 1928 a schoolgirl has been chosen as the Marymass Queen, and a girl from each of the local schools are chosen to be the Queen’s four Marys.
There’s a parade through the town, which ends up at the Moor where horse races commence; every class from Shetland ponies to Clydesdales run. It’s quite something to see Clydesdales on the move!
Interesting stuff Feargal, thanks 🤗
or The Actor?
The first hose pipe ban for many years has now been implemented in a part of Yorkshire and adjacent areas.
The clip last evening showed a huge area that once had a footbridge crossing a river, the brigde had been submerged for decades.
I just wondered how Ginge is going to manage all the building work she's arranged with one thousand pound fines for using hose pipes.
Same old story everything they come into contact with……..
409118 + up ticks,
Morning RE,
No reservoirs etc,etc,all down to the continuous voting pattern over these past three plus decades,
You gotta vote tory (INO) party to keep out lab (INO) party.
You gotta vote lab (INO) party to keep out tory (INO) party.
Voting in such a manner for a pro eu COALITION calls for no change in the status quo, ever.
The EU forbids us from building reservoirs and clearing culverts, dredging rivers. Of course, the environment agency loves this as it means a huge quango with nothing to do.
Now we have left the EU why are we not dredging/clearing? Because May signed us up to the environmental accords, didn't she. The EU isn't stupid. It knew if we couldn't build power stations we would never diverge away from them so the hoax is just another control system.
Ginge?
The Ginger Growler and her 1.5m new houses baloney.
409118+ up ticks,
I still believe that serious peoples unrest is on the cards, the protection of the realm, as with the protection of family units has been / is being
politically / pharmaceutically abused BIG TIME.
What will finally trigger a mass anti government revolt is when cars / football are banned.
ogga, they will find a way to do that so that many people will believe it's justified. Football they will never ban because it's too good a drug for the population.
Cars, they are already getting rid of. In big cities now there are hire cars that you unlock via an app. You purchase so many miles of driving, the app unlocks the car and off you go. Of course, the car can be turned off from the central control any time, so you have no freedom.
This is just the old communist shared cars for the street reprised for a new young gullible generation of phone-addicted city dwelling lefties of course.
Not even just the gullible young. Lockdown causes more illness than it prevents but people still stayed indoors when ordered to do so and made all their purchases online.
….. and dogs and bacon.
The police arrested an escaping murder suspect on a DFDS ferry yesterday apparently
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14888345/police-Channel-ferry-port-murder-arrest.html
The passengers were made to wait for ten hours according to the article – first upstairs, and then two hours in their cars and then again upstairs for several more hours.
Obviously one's first thought would be terrorism, and it must have been pretty scary to be cooped up inside, not knowing whether there was a bomb on board or not.
On the front of the Mail is a revolting photo of classless Macron winking at the Princess of Wales. And that following on from yesterday's billing and cooing with Starmer. He really is an awful object.
Is he homosexual, omnisexual or completely asexual?
The jury is out.
Or does he just not know how to behave in polite society?
I see the papers are full of photos of the JWK (and his hangers on) loaded with ribbons and medals and baubles. Sickening.
They're the less moth-eaten left overs from from His Mum's and Aunt Margaret Rose's dressing-up box when they played charades at Windsor Castle during the war.
Now then Uncle Bill, everyone needs a hobby and awarding themselves gongs and baubles is the main hobby at Court!
The late Queen was fond of designing those honorific badges and baubles. Peter Ustinov wore a sash too.
Quite rightly so too, given his forebears.
Ustinov was David Niven's batman during WWII
Diana allegedly fell about laughing when she saw him with a chest full of medals across his jacket. She told him he looked ridiculous.
409118+ up ticks,
ON HEALTH & SAFETY GROUNDS, all councils you vote in must, on all new built social housing, mandatory supply to each house ONE COW & ONE PIG.
https://x.com/NoFarmsNoFoods/status/1942868057329688829
There's an article about the cost of 'climate change' policy in the Welly graph too: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/07/09/net-zero-cost-taxpayers-800bn/
Everyone is missing the point. It's not about energy. It's not about the environment. It's got nothing to do with 'gases'. It is a control system to prevent you doing what you want to do. From stopping you living how you want to live. It is state power, enforcement, suppression, oppression. The pretence is to keep you ignorant of the reality.
The Left don't care what it costs. They have a weapon and will keep using it until they are stopped.
However much concrete evidence is produced to prove that carbon dioxide is beneficial and man-made global warming is a myth political parties will keep their fraudulent restrictions on our liberty in place.
Everybody is beginning to understand that the Covid jabs have killed many people – but the politicians will never be prepared to admit it.
And look at the horrific length of time taht governments seem to require to compensate people for blood scandals, sub postmaster scandals etc.
I wonder about this urge to tax tourists, too. Is it really just about deterring travelling altogether?
It's not a very good video clip to support the idea of pasture as a carbon sink!
409118+ up ticks,
Lack of using this commodity is in many ways, to blame for our present condition as a failed nation,
you had better believe it.
https://x.com/toadmeister/status/1942856268693094608
My Zimbabwean friend loves the KJV. These black Christians just won't cooperate with the agendas of white liberals, much to the chagrin of the latter…
Friend of mine was a baptist, they used the KJV.
There are a good number of errors in translation in the Authorised (King James) Version. These articles give a good summary:
https://bible.org/article/why-i-do-not-think-king-james-bible-best-translation-available-today (Daniel B Wallace knows his subject on Bible translation, and I have a copy of his excellent book Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics … )
https://www.bible-researcher.com/kjvdefects.html
So they always say, but nobody has matched the quality of the English in that version yet.
Even I know the Lord's Prayer and I haven't been inside a church since I destroyed the too tight horrible thick polyester checked shirts my mother would make me wear.
Each Saturday at Blundell's when I was there the school assembled for Latin Prayer which was read by a school monitor.
Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum, adveniat regnum tuum. Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelis, sic etiam in terris.
Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, et remitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos remittimus debitoribus nostris. Et ne nos inducas in tentationem, sed libera nos a malo, quoniam tuum est regnum, et potentia, et gloria, per saecula saeculorum.
Gratias agimus tibi, Domine Deus, quod nos hoc loco studii pietatis et litterarum munificentia Petri Blundelli, piae memoriae, educamur. Teque rogamus pro summa tua misericordia, ut, cum nos hoc tanto beneficio adjuti in laudem Tui Nominis perfecerimus, beatae resurrectionis aeternaeque felicitatis praemia consequamur per Jesum Christum Dominum nostrum.
Gratia Domini nostri Jesu Christi, et caritas Dei Patris, et communicatio Spiritus Sancti, sint semper cum omnibus nobis.
Amen.
Thanks Rastus – doesn't it sound the business! I was ill one winter for a couple of months, a number of years ago, and bought myself a 'Teach Yourself Latin' book. I really liked it, but then back to work and now mostly forgotten. Will try to find it and renew my interest:-)
I did Latin A level at school……..(failed) but I enjoyed it. I wasn't any good at prose composition.
You did better than I did. Have a dim n distant Boris Johnson wanted Latin to be taught all UK schools, don’t think that idea made much progress. A shame, I think boys especially would have welcomed it.
The problem is, showing that there's a point to taking Latin at school, the kind of point that boys who prefer to be outside kicking shins, might understand.
Not all the boys in my class relished O Level Latin (which was compulsory for the A stream).
Did you relish it, Conway? or not…..
I took A Level Latin. I am a born linguist. Apart from art, languages are my only talent.
I think you have more talents than you know, Conway…care of animals for one 🙂
It’s very kind of you to say so, Katie.
Very kind of you to care for animals, Conway 🙂 Dogs especially good judges of character!
Most dogs seem to like me, it’s true. I think Winston is calming down a bit, although he still gets very distressed if I leave him very long. I’d love him to feel, “okay, it’ll soon be over and we’ll all be back together again; it’s no big deal”.
Similar here, dogs make a beeline (?) for me, have thought likely because they smell my dogs on my clothing. I wonder if you had another dog he’d be happier- hard to say, though – could make him worse if he thinks you like the new dog more than him…
I try to be fair and treat them both equally. One doesn’t get any more or less than the other. Fortunately I’ve only got two dogs or I’d have to acquire another hand to give equal strokes!
‘morning Conway…I empathise, one time would help out with rescue dogs, had five at one time. Had to draw the line at a wolfhound, handsome dog. I’m not sure I’ll get another dog, the one I have now is a terrier but 13 years old. I think smaller dogs (if in good health) tend to live longer than large dogs, on average?
I had a most fabulous dog that was a wolfhound (or deerhound) cross with a GSD. Bright and laid back. Until I got my Patterdale Border cross I had never had a small dog.
I had one sounds similar, a cross. Wonderful dog, very gentle personality except when it came to rabbits. Bizarre health problem…couldn’t eat, would stand over his food, mouth drooling but couldn’t eat. Took him to several different vets, all scratched their heads, did tests..all they could say was ‘possibly an auto-immune disease or similar’. I decided to have him euthanised when he lost a certain amount of weight and no end/treatment in sight, and that’s what happened. Similarly with my patterdale terrier, liver disease. It reaches a tipping point doesn’t it, Conway. I miss him every day. Not a day apart since he came to live with me, 15 years. Still have the little border, a couple of years younger, she now mostly sleeps and wakes to eat, can see the direction of that travel. What’s your opinion of acquiring a new dog in older age? 🙂 (both me and the dog!)
Get a rescue and give him or her a good home. Elderly dogs are often overlooked. Make sure they are provided for in your will. Dogs are good for your health and wellbeing.
I did look at the websites. A friend of mine used to run one, some years ago. She was really happy if someone would take one or more dogs/cats as pets, and take a donation. Now, the charity she ran actually charges for animals – can run into hundreds of pounds. No elderly dogs that I could see. Yes, remaining dog provided for – have family who will oblige. And yes, very good for health and wellbeing. I got my first dog when I was pre-school, four years old. So, over 70 years with one or more dogs 🙂
The prices charged for re homing a dog are extortionate. Oscar cost me £130 and he was nearly 12. Not that I begrudge giving him a home – I loved him dearly, but he had all sorts of issues that were never mentioned and cost me a fortune in vet bills. Having said that, if I had to do it again I would. Neither Kadi nor Winston cost me anything. Why not ask your vet if there’s a dog that needs a home?
I did ask them, Conway (they used to have a noticeboard with a number of pets needing a new home, no longer there). They don’t know of any. The practice is now run by a single, female vet and three or four nurse/receptionists including one I’ve never seen without headphones and always typing. Another place not as it used to be, post-lockdowns. It’s an enormous building, with at least half not in use. Vet bills are quite extortionate eg cost over £400 to euthanise my dog, with all the other costs blood tests etc leading up to that doubled the amount. I doubt I’ll have another dog when the one I still have goes. Was very disappointed in the way the rescue place was being run (as in run-down), with the exception of one young female carer. So vet costs, food costs also figure. Makes me very sad, when I think of all the splendid dogs I’ve taken from rescue in the past.
I wouldn’t despair. Winston came out of the blue. The same could happen to you.
Thank you Conway. Very kind of you to say, hope so 🙂
I am firmly of the belief that if you want a dog, one will find you. I wasn’t even looking for another one when I went out with the Patterdale cross and I met a delinquent who, I thought, was a lovely dog being spoiled. A week later, somebody asked me if I wanted him – we had him for 17 years.
Good advice, I stopped looking recently, was thinking similarly. I’ve stopped looking at various websites, didn’t like the cut of ’em. What breed was the delinquent, he sounds delightful. 17 years is quite the record!
A Border crossed with a Cairn. He had had no discipline whatsoever for 4 months (which is how old he was when I got him). He was, shall we say, a challenge!
Ha. Cairns always look full of it, never had one though. Did you use treats to train him? I’ve never done that, one of my neighbours swears by it, another uses gravel in an empty plastic water bottle (shakes it and says ‘no’…enough to scare me anyway :-D)
Yes. He used to be a nightmare wanting to pick a fight with other dogs. I trained him to “watch me” with a treat. If I managed to break his gaze before he locked on, we were fine. Then, I had to have my other dog put to sleep (he was old and went off his legs) and this dog changed completely. No more WW3 and very amenable. People would say, “what have you done?” and I’d reply, “he’s now an only dog”.
Interesting to read…I wonder if he was protecting the older dog…something similar here..two terriers older one a Patterdale younger one by two years a Border. The Patterdale always kept the Border in check. He was euthanized end of May this year(liver failure). The Border has really come out of her shell, stays with me every waking second and good to be with. We went for a long walk this evening she had no lead, and stayed close by without being told. Feels like I have a new dog 🐕 🙃
Since I got Winston, Kadi seems to have come out of his shell; he’s allowing people (strangers) to pet him and he is no longer so clingy (he used to be nicknamed “Velcro”).
I smiled but shouldn’t..worked at Play School decades ago, some children like that too. Good that Kadi not as clingy as he was. G’night Conway likely see you tmrw 😴
Goodnight, Katie. I’m off to a concert tomorrow evening.
Missed this, Conway – sorry. Good morning, and have a very good evening, look forward to hearing about it 🙂
I did Latin A Level and passed. O fortunatam me consule Romam!
One of my GCE's. Compulsory at my school.
Have you ever found it useful, jack? not sure I ever found any of mine useful apart from English Lang/Lit and Maths. Art always enjoyable, still draw.
I found it invaluable when I learned Russian. Very similar structures (cases, declensions, conjugations etc).
Have you visited Russia, Conway? My husband has (business, Moscow), he liked it very much – everywhere very clean, people polite and friendly, welcome visitors.
Yes, I studied there (in Moscow) as part of my degree. 1968 – before glasnost’, before perestroika, full on Soviet Union. It convinced me communism doesn’t work!
Ah, explains it, much earlier than husband – he initially visited after Putin came to power. I think VP has done a lot for the Russian people, which is what he said he would do – bring back their self-respect after the Yeltsin days. I wish we had a PM of similar stature, although not a communist one:-) I think Peter Hitchens has written about his time in Russia, he liked the Russian people very much.
Vlad is for protecting his country and his people. That’s why the destroyers of Western civilisation hate him so much.
That’s it. He’s not going to back down..Trump knows it and trying to find a way out, looking a bit glum lately.
Just as the Labour Party, the Conservative Party and the Lib/Dumbs need to be replaced with something better so does the Church of England – but if politics has a lesson it is that a Reform Church of England might be no better than Farage's Reform Party.
Hello Rastus…possibly things will improve with the new AoC, but I think that's a few years away, even more damage done prior?
Some halfwit writing to The Times is urging the crapulous Bishopess of Dover…..
No surprise there, Bill. Unfortunately.
I was remarking to a friend who dropped in this morning that the reason they were taking so long to find a new ABC was that they couldn’t find anyone woke enough to satisfy them.
Quite possible. Doesn’t seem to be losing its grip does it.
The Lord's Prayer in Old English (Anglo-Saxon) is a historical version of this well-known prayer, reflecting the language used in early medieval England.
The Text of the Lord's Prayer in Old English
Here is the Lord's Prayer in Old English:
Fæder ūre, þū þe eart on heofonum,
Sī þīn nama gehalgod.
Tō becume þīn rīce.
Sī þīn willa on eorðan swā swā on heofonum.
Ūrne gedæghwāmlīcan hlāf syle ūs tōdæg.
And forgyf ūs ūre gyltas,
swā swā wē forgyfað ūrum gyltendum.
And ne gelæd þū ūs on costnunge,
ac alys ūs of yfele.
Sōþlice.
Translation to Modern English
For context, here is a modern English translation of the prayer:
Our Father, who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
Amen.
Historical Context
The Lord's Prayer has been translated into various forms throughout the history of the English language. The Old English version reflects the linguistic characteristics of the Anglo-Saxon period, which was spoken in England from approximately the 5th to the 11th centuries. This version is significant for understanding the evolution of the English language and its religious texts.
So the prayer's only been round for a thousand years, or more. And the thickos want to ditch it.
The version I know has "trespasses" instead of "debts".
When I was taught this prayer it went like this:
Our Father
Which art in Heaven
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done
On earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread and
Forgive our trespasses as we forgive
Those who Trespass against us.
Lead us not into temptation and
Deliver us from evil
For thine is the Kingdom
The power and the glory
For ever and ever
Amen.
Not quite. In the King James Version and the Book of Common Prayer, it's "IN earth as it is in Heaven", "THEM THAT Trespass against us". You've unintentionally repeated one of the modern versions :-))
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5af439bbff092cd6d3cb103cb449f2d0b87dd0c2699c978162589d41886de89f.png
That’s the one I say.
That's the one i learnt.
It actually isn't, because that's a modern version with the changes I've noted below.
Every morning at school, A hymn. a prayer and a homily from the headmaster.
I can still remember big chunks of my class register, as every morning, first period just after assembly, the roll would be called. Class composition changed for the sixth of course, as that's when specialization hit.
409118+ up ticks,
Afternoon JB and interestingly well penned.
Even the Anglo-Saxon is understandable.
Why on earth would the Church of England even have a poll?
They are looking to bolster their attempts at wrecking the services.
I attended a Spectator event at St Barts yesterday evening wherein a panel of speakers discussed the fact that the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Orthodox and Evangelical churches are all experiencing very significant growth in under 30s attending services where traditional liturgy, music and teaching is offered. At Barts that means the 1611 King James Bible and 1662 Book of Common Prayer and at the London Oratory it means the Tridentine Mass in Latin. It was noted that the church hierarchy in both the Roman and Anglican churches are being very slow to catch on. Indeed the late Marxist pope, Bergoglio, tried to ban the Tridentine Mass.
The older material has a poetry about it, a majesty of expression, that modern material lacks. And the words matter, as well as the meaning, when one is communicating with one's God. The right words also act as balm to the spirit, giving a sense of peace and occasion.
Yes, there was a lady academic who talked about poetry and how we've lost that capacity for crafting poetic language. Dr Cosima Gillhammer, Fellow in Medieval English at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.
That’s one thing I really like about the Irish: they can really use English to be poetic, musical and interesting to listen to, so they can!
Whenever they put the new version in a service I continue to say the old one, including as set out in the BCP.
Are you sure about that?
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1de24d0635d2f6210b01aa7f026c64de0106bdb18821ef8691a0017477c96b24.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c27dc0ee9fd33928bb59eea84aad384499138c77d6dc52bb6469ef84a383a910.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b0886cfb74252fcd5ab5c7f5806651606eda3c555ba26feef21467e81c22d23e.jpg
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ba8cd5a51e428e4fcae261df05b6527a8326939987e48b8c65ded6db55ace959.jpg
I think I have caught ADHD – must get vaccinated against it.
Germany.. nah
England.. defo not
Ireland.. yep this is the country where it kicks off and spreads
.
https://x.com/real_eire/status/1941997282221588951
There are plenty of well integrated black people who are doing good work in Britain. New arrival fatigue? I had that the moment the boats started coming.
Good morning everyone – and it IS a good morning.
I knew this was going to happen, though not when.
We had a video call from our younger son yesterday evening to tell us he had got engaged to his very lovely partner a few minutes before!
Custom made ring, down on one knee at the end of one of Whitby's piers (they went away for the week) as the sun was setting. Most romantic.
They had been on one or other of the piers 3 times yesterday, and he was waiting until they found a quiet time …. and when their 20-month old son was happy.
As they walked back a little way, a man approached them, having seen what was happening. he had a drone and offered to take some photos, while his own young child entertained our grandson.
What a day! https://media2.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTg5OGZmOWM5eWx4YWZucTVoZXpxZmFjNWVxa282dHQ5MHpxMTdoajlkdzliOW01MyZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/FgJ6FbfJGwztK/giphy-downsized-small.mp4
Fabulous news, Mum!
Thank you! We’re delighted!
Lovely news.
Absolutely!
Lovely.
Thank you.
How romantic! Very good news!
Thank you.
He proposed to his first wife at sunset at the Cow & Calf rocks on Ilkley Moor. The cow didn’t deserve him, and much as I liked her and got on really well with her, I never fully trusted her not to do the dirty on our son. Only married for just over 2 years, only bought their 1st house a few months before, and had even been talking of starting a family just about 3 weeks prior to destroying him. She had been having an affair – with an old dog for 6 months before wrecking his life. But she actually did him a favour, as his new lady is far more decent and comes from a more stable background with very sound morals. (Apart from them having their baby before getting married – I’m old-fashioned! 🙂 I fully trust her.
What very happy news, MiB! Well done to him and wishing you all much happiness!
Thank you Sue! We are just delighted!
Wonderful! 🙂🙂
Isn’t it just! Thank you.
Oh, dear … https://x.com/toadmeister/status/1942545170978988420
Nobody in their right mind believes a word starmer says.
Scorcio.. in Bournemouth.
..and mass brawl, assaults, bare knuckle fighting, affray, and assaulting emergency workers.
Police release a parade of ne'er do wells they want to question..
here's 6 of 12. You get the theme.
.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/be013cb8117a31c33bd57db49c2b70a4d70c9eb7e6c2f89d783dfa3d3ce32df7.jpg
"Once more unto the breech dear friends".
All this has been caused by our stupid and useless politicians.
Ahem
Breach??
Actually a brilliant typo I'd love to see them fired from a gun
(channeling my inner Peddy)
Ahh, the Strength!
What is needed is a gladiatorial arena to get this nonsense off the streets.
Been very sunny in Bournemouth?
Debts = Scottish
The version in Matthew in the King James version has ‘debts’
Well, King James WAS Scots…!!
I'll have to check my Bible – I don't recall that.
Matthew 6 v9-13 has debts/debtors, Luke 11 v 2-4 has sins/indebted to us. I can’t find trespass in the KJV.
Ah… another example of the money thing… 😉
That's the cash taken out of the Nationwide for my trip to Hameln next week and hotel accommodation booked.
I now need to convert a chunk of my cash into Eurines at Cromford Post Office.
I've also bought half a dozen cheap paving slabs to support a loft water tank I've acquired that I plan putting up "garden" beside and linked in to the one I already have for collecting rain water.
They now need carrying up and putting in place!
I still say it like that.
Oh dear oh dear… https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14886093/moment-delegation-speeds-windsor-castle-boot-open.html
Macron is an embarrassment to France.
Maman knows that and is still Totally Pi**ed off with the twerp.
https://videos.dailymail.co.uk/video/mol/2025/07/08/821741716288945686/640x360_MP4_821741716288945686.mp4
I was booked to have another CT scan first thing tomorrow morning. Just got a call to say that it's cancelled because the equipment has broken down. I'm rescheduled for Wembley Diagnostic Centre on Monday afternoon. I wonder if some poor soul was in the machine when it failed. Also how much of the inevitable backlog can be rescheduled. When I was offered Monday, at first I thought that meant that the machine at Hammersmith will be fixed by then but no, apparently not.
With the huge amount of funding, we should expect better. Sorry you've been let down, what a worry. All crossed for Monday, Sue x
I had a private MRI scan booked for a Sunday 40+ miles away (across country). When we arrived, we were told that the machine had just broken down. So I booked a further appt the following Sunday-but-one. I couldn't believe it, exactly the same thing happened again. Almost 100 miles round trip. I booked a mid-week appt, it was a case of third time lucky. I have a friend whose daughter is a radiographer, she said these machines are always breaking down. We suspect that when the nhs is done with them, they sell them on cheaply to the private sector.
I did get my travelling expenses reimbursed, but I had to ask, it was not offered.
Good luck, Sue!
Oh heck.
Too bad to just be given a smack?
ALEXIS for Teenagers
For those of you who have (or had) teenage children or an Alexa device, Tracey Ullman recalls:
https://youtu.be/Kz3EXDcw5q0
Q: What is the similarity between the Farage/Yusuf led Reform Party's MPs and Agatha Christie's 'Ten Little Indians'?
A: One by one they all get bumped off.
You know that Christie actually called that story "Ten Little Niggers".
Watch the front door, Sue!
Sue, I have a copy with that very title 😁👍
Blair lying again. Islam means submission not integration. It sees compassion as weakness to be exploited.
" Islam means submission". Yes.it quite literally does.
Something that needs to be reiterated.
If she is including Jo Cox in that then I'm afraid she is wrong.
Jo Cox's murderer was known to have serious psychological problems and had, indeed, been trying to get help the previous day.
Jo Cox was a victim not of the so-called "Far Right" but of the Don't Care In The Community system.
Also, it could be argued, her killer was also a victim of that failed system.
Something I meant to point out.
Richard D Hall's documentary on the Jo Cox murder is a must watch…
Mair certainly had a preoccupation with Nazi memorabilia but this use of 'far-right' is a dangerous distraction. A couple of days ago I posted a reference to a long piece on the BBC website that was desperate to introduce the idea of a movement as big and as dangerous as Islam. All it could come up with was Mair and an attack (not fatal) on a Sikh a year earlier by a member of National Action, a group whose membership probably wouldn't fill a small village hall.
Three? Perhaps the second is Makram Ali, killed by Darren Osborne in Finsbury Park in June 2017 in a copy-cat pavement raid as revenge for the Borough Market murders earlier in the month.
The third? I don't know.
Indeed there is argument that Mair was not the shooter; he was the patsy set up to take the flak. This would not surprise me.
I have known the (now retired) 'former senior figure in counter-terrorism' that Allison Pearson cites for over 20 years. He has a lot more chilling things to say than quoted here.
409118+ up ticks,
All coming together now is it ?
https://x.com/Murry_Rhodes/status/1942900156414017593
Madeline Grant
Emmanuel Macron would love to be King
8 July 2025, 8:14pm
When Japan’s Crown Prince Naruhito visited Windsor Castle in the early years of the 21st century, the Queen Mother gave orders that, over where he would give his speech, should be positioned the sword with which the Japanese forces had formally surrendered to Lord Mountbatten in 1945. Only an intervention from her daughter prevented this plot from becoming a reality.
This afternoon, President Macron gave his speech underneath a statue of an old Queen. The verb in French cuisine for such unnecessary but beautiful touches like this is ‘historier’. True, Elizabeth I was more francophone than most of her dynasty – or successors – until perhaps the current monarch, but putting him underneath her was inspired.
It was a monarch, the present King who proved the government’s secret weapon. As he had been with President Trump, so he would be with President Macron. Over the course of Sir Keir’s attempt to launch a charm offensive to our long standing love/hate objects across the Channel, the King took the leading role. General de Gaulle might have succeeded in being a head of state without a state, but whether Sir Keir can manage a charm offensive whilst being devoid of charm is quite another matter.
Mr Macron arrived late to Parliament, presumably because Buck House was more his cup of tea. He referenced his affection for the King multiple times in the speech, including when he said ‘We love monarchy especially when it is not at home.’ Je pense the lady doth protest too much. I saw the covetous eye which Mr Macron cast at the ermine and thrones. If I were the King I’d be counting the spoons this evening.
The actual content of the speech itself was remarkable; precisely because it sounded like we’d heard it all before. In terms of content, Macron hit every big centrist button. Imagine Sir Keir Starmer with a comedy accent. A sort of Officer Crabtree in Allo Allo but more hapless. The general theme was about collaboration – this time not the Allo Allo type but on mutual areas of policy interest. The migrant crisis got about a minute and a half of vague promises of cooperation and a need to cut things off at source. Internet censorship, which brings out M. Macron’s Napoleonic dictatorial tendencies, got a long and rhetorically polished section. He even mentioned Sir Keir’s own personal cinematic Gospel: the drama Adolescence.
The problem was, while it was Starmerite – or should that be Starmeriste – in its topics, it was a reminder of how much better the French President is at selling centrist preoccupations than our own PM. He didn’t apologise for history but set his global aims in the context of French and British imperial history; he made an argument couched, not in the jargon of human rights law, but in the language of civilisational struggle. He didn’t make any lame football jokes either.
Yet perhaps as befits comparison to our own Prime Minister, it was a remarkably substance-free speech: lots of stuff about how wonderful working together was in theory, but little about what it looked like in practice. Most substantive was an explicit call for a two-state solution in the Middle East, but that’s been Anglo-French policy since the 1990s. Also, for all Macron’s talk about robust and independent foreign policy, the power or willingness to do something on the ground is minimal. Like most cross-Channel initiatives, this was still two bald men extolling the virtues of combs. It’s just that one of them has the decency to wear a wig. Or rather, un toupée.
There were still some lapins to be pulled from chapeaux. M. Macron announced that next year would be the year that the plan to swap the Bayeux Tapestry for the Sutton Hoo treasures on a mutual loan would finally come to fruition. In some ways it was the perfect metaphor for Anglo-French relations, even Macron made the joke that the idea had first been discussed during Theresa May’s premiership: Brexit was sorted quicker than this. Now, a stony-hearted cynic might say that the exchange is even more symbolic of the two countries’ recent relations: we give gold, they send us paperwork.
Yet for all the glitter of the state visit, the great elephant in the room, the one issue that will end up shaping the future of cross-Channel politics soon, whether our centrist leaders like it or not, remained unaddressed. And on a sunny day in the Channel, more and more dinghies came.
The king and Micron share the same agenda. Charlie should remember 1792 and reflect on what happened to the first Charles.
Civilisation is just a veneer.
Other Dutch painters are available.
Computer problems – again! Very, very, very slow:
Got Wordle in six – a bit of a let-down after yesterday's ACE. Can't download either. If you don't see me on here tomorrow I'm heading for the UK – if I can get on the boat with my car.
Invert
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ef951c79a1f7fc96a7ded37a92229d54cfa9fbcdad6b2448af8be0f98ec4620d.png
I hesitate to wish you a good journey. Hopefully it will be tolerable. Le Shuttle?
Brittany Ferries to Plymouth.
Lara Brown
Museums like the V&A shouldn’t be allowed to return ‘looted’ treasures
9 July 2025, 5:47am
https://www.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/GettyImages-643062236.jpg
The Victoria & Albert Museum's director, Tristram Hunt (Getty images)
Henry Cole, the first director of what would become the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), could never have imagined that in his place would follow a man who seems determined to rail against the safeguards that have helped keep the museum’s collection intact. But this, sadly, appears to be the task Tristram Hunt is committed to.
Hunt, director of the V&A since 2017, has declared the 1983 National Heritage Act which prevents him from returning artefacts to their country of origin, to be ‘outdated and infantilising’. In fact, it is a key reason why collections, including the V&A’s, have been maintained.
Britain is home to several thousand museums. Most, subject to the odd deed of trust and their constitutional obligations, are free to do as they please with the items under their care. But a handful are considered of such national importance that they are protected in law. Acts of Parliament such as the National Heritage Act, the Museums and Galleries Act 1992, and the British Museum Act 1963 strictly limit disposal of objects except in rare and carefully defined circumstances (none of which include the political motivations of a director).
Hunt appears to think that the law that prevents him from casting aside the V&A’s long history, and ‘return(ing)’ items, is not fit for purpose. Among the treasures mentioned by Hunt during his speech at the University of Cambridge’s Global Humanities Network last month are Tippoo’s Tiger, a wooden tiger made for Tipu, Sultan of Mysore, and an Asante crown taken from Ghana. He is seeking an amendment to the law which would give museum trustees ‘autonomy’ over the fate of such items.
Conspicuously absent from this debate is any real reflection on the role that the claimant countries themselves play in these negotiations, and what that says about their commitment to contested objects.
In 2007, Ethiopia lodged a formal restitution claim for hundreds of objects now residing in the V&A, including a crown and gold chalice taken by the British in 1872. The request was denied due to the laws prohibiting restitution from the V&A. But after Hunt became director in 2017, a possible workaround was put forward: the ambassador was informed that ‘the speediest way, if Ethiopia wanted to have these items on display, is a long-term loan.’ This arrangement, first hinted at by Hunt in 2018, would have allowed the objects to be sent to Ethiopia on a long term or indefinite loan with an expectation that the arrangement would be renewed ad infinitum.
Ethiopia refused to play ball. ‘The Ethiopian government, for perfectly understandable political reasons, took the view that…“You offering to lend stuff you stole from us” wasn’t politically viable so we’ve reached a kind of impasse with these objects,’ Hunt said.
Other countries have been more accommodating. Last year a number of Ghanian objects were sent to Kumasi from the V&A for display – an arrangement which will see the objects legally protected (from damage, loss, or sale), while permitting display in a country which values them.
A paper I co-authored for Policy Exchange earlier this year with Sir Trevor Phillips found that items returned unconditionally are often at serious risk. Benin Bronzes returned by museums across the world have disappeared into private collections. Some bronzes even seem to have gone missing from museums in Lagos and Benin City. Their fate remains unknown, but the story offers a stark reminder of the dangers of transferring artefacts into the ownership of other countries without question.
So why is a loan unacceptable to the Ethiopian government? If Ethiopia truly wishes to display these objects for public benefit, why reject a loan that guarantees just that? Their insistence on legal ownership – rather than public display – rather weakens the moral force of their claim.
The V&A is simply too historically significant to have its collection held hostage to the whims of a single, self-styled visionary. Hunt knew the law before he took the job. If he was so determined to spend his days dispatching artefacts abroad, there was no shortage of museums that would have indulged him. Instead, he accepted stewardship of one of England’s great civic treasures – the first museum in the world to fling open its doors to the masses and truly democratise visual education. Cole famously installed gas lamps so that working men and women could visit after dark, helping to break the aristocratic stranglehold on art and culture.
Hunt risks undoing that work: gutting the V&A of its international collections and ensuring that the experience of world history is once again a privilege reserved for those who can afford the airfare.
*******************************
Horace Cope
6 hours ago
How much have we given Ethiopia in aid since 1872? And how much of that has been stolen by those running the country? They need to be reminded of that next time they make one of their restitution claims.
I've stopped attending V&A exhibitions because they insist on displaying items in any random order they find aesthetically pleasing and apparently cant be bothered to research and provide historical context. Every item should be described and dated and have details of provenance given. There is absolutely no evidence of scholarship provided. Possibly the curators are thick. Possibly the powers that be wish to keep the public ignorant.
Or maybe they just can't be arsed. "That looks nice. It'll do!"
Another rhyming slang person!?
https://x.com/wattsupwiththat/status/1942871426395992534
OK, so are you seeing the same impacts as 1976? Ground drying up, with much lower water tables, houses with cracked foundations and walls? Not uncommon in Suffolk/Essex at the time.
Thats not climate change its over population.
Not in 1976 it wasn't.
Now not then.
It's certainly been very dry. We need some rain.
Frankly, there are some bloody tedious arguments over weather stats that discredit both sides (and it's unfortunate that there should be sides). I get quite niggly with the weather presenters using "since records began" (1884, was 1910). Comparisons between this season/month and another aren't very helpful. At this time of year, a month could have well above 'average' rainfall because two days of thunderstorms followed four bakingly hot weeks.
Some of you might remember the winter of 2013-14 (Dawlish sea wall, Somerset levels) and the Met Office proclaiming that it was the wettest winter ever, ever, ever (but only since 1884 – or possibly 1910). Given that winter means Dec-Feb in Meterological World it was true by the records available but other researchers later pointed out that in Nov-Jan 1929-30, rainfall totals were higher i.e. 13-14 wasn't the wettest three-month period to include winter months.
With the debate over global warming [sic], the public are much more sensitised to the weather than in the past and are susceptible to claims for new records, which is why presenters must be more careful. My own personal observation (and without any data to back it up!) is that – perhaps – we are having more short, hot spells than in the past. When once, under the influence of a settled area of high pressure, it might take more than a week for temperatures to rise from the low 70s to the 90s, now we're sometimes getting there in three or four days, although in these cases, anticyclones are shifting quickly eastwards and pulling hot air off the continent.
They are following what their political masters want.
In today’s environment Paul, it’s possible quite a few girls might like it too 🙂 I just remember it being fun.
Sir Adrian Fulford, chairman of the public inquiry which is being held at Liverpool Town Hall
Rudakubana perpetrated 'an almost unimaginable but nonetheless mercilessly calculated' killing spree at a Taylor Swift-themed dance club in the Merseyside seaside town last July.
Rudakubana was referred three times to Prevent, the Progressive/Islamic Alliance's counter extremism programme, in the years prior to the attack.
But because he did not have a clear ideology (wasn't white, wasn't fa fa fa far right) his case was closed prematurely each time.
Then some girls were lost.. somewhere. Still haven't found them. Business as usual. Thirty one months in jail for those that post a bad comment.
Afternoon all. I am waiting for a couple of deliveries so there’s no point getting stuck in to anything that will take a long time, so I will be dipping in and out of Nttl to kill time. I have done a bit of gardening in the morning and taken the dogs for a walk.
I doubt the unconservatives have any desire to learn from Norman. They probably view him as an unconstructed right wing bigot.
Got it in one, mon ami.
Bluss, it is warm outside. Not nice heat – just hot.
Not here it isn't.
Promised 30c, got 21C or so, but nobody told the aircon… Freezing me nuts off, so I am.
Presumably now that Toy Boy and his Mum are back in yer France, the gendarmes can stop slashing rubber boats and let the invasion continue unhindered.
I see he gave Woke Willy the Legion d'Honneur. How that must rankle with those who earned it…..
Presumably now that Toy Boy and his Mum are back in yer France, the gendarmes can stop slashing rubber boats and let the invasion continue unhindered.
He was probably handed another stash of cash to encourage him.
Dished out like confetti these days
Worth a look.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s8kRb8z4Zs
The entire apparatus of the Ursula led EU has achieved nothing but failure yet all of the people who fail ultimately succeed. The Ursula creature and her accomplices become better off whereas their people become poor.
Ursula is still there, Lagarde at the ECB is still in position, Rutte remains the highly paid chief at NATO, an organisation utterly dependant on the flow of US dollars but which has no viable armies or navies to justify its continuance.
Whether the leaders in Europe or the hapless Starmer in the UK failure is the guarantee of success. The useless swine always fail upwards.
It never changes Corim.
"She knows there no success like failure and that failure's no success at all."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZzyRcySgK8
I've seen quite a few such attacks on von der Leyen in the EU parliament. She seems to just sit there and take it all dispassionately, as if the criticism has no effect on her.
Dreaming of soldiers with broomsticks.
very Germanic.
Worth a look.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s8kRb8z4Zs
It seems as if some of them have popped back for another visit to our shores.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/travel/news/scientists-discover-what-350-000-year-old-devil-human-species-could-have-looked-like/ar-AA1xLfr1?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=84ba68041fcb4d6689770eae48372422&ei=38
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/9b9aa80b8df682190fd0e20ce1b417227dc49572cc07d781f7549a37571f2fb0.png
Not so funny, too close to realty.
Posted 4 years ago – even more true now. Even more Climate Change morons:
https://scontent-cdg4-3.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/471623217_10162839460234954_4654589315925207110_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_s640x640_tt6&_nc_cat=111&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=127cfc&_nc_ohc=qHF12Bzt_JoQ7kNvwHB27Bk&_nc_oc=AdnitYsvAB_f5Z4G17PjHGxnssi09mJn_ytWdSyLWwtBo7dnyUBcqiJseaxU6CCBNAt-iOhT7fpGJztF7KbpruAr&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-cdg4-3.xx&_nc_gid=-KQpEzAzByEbDMFZai16_Q&oh=00_AfQ5CuF8wgQY0AW8YU5XqFFJpPRW2useioSBGM1sy3oWDQ&oe=6874353F
When I went to the physio yesterday I used the lift both going and coming back. I would never have even considered that as recently as last year. I also drove there. Six months ago I would have walked it; it isn’t far.
You have probably seen it before but it is worth a repeat:
https://scontent-cdg4-3.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/518217452_10019172734797998_217877834890585941_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_p180x540_tt6&_nc_cat=106&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=aa7b47&_nc_ohc=OjRZtYy4RicQ7kNvwH6YOkz&_nc_oc=AdlG3Q_uuhO7vmsT3wke4c8qzxwMyMWoabhZcJDCT1Rd0XWpuX6LHKK-LYpbxyHqT7_AaGmmxpQifUeY4gK2GIJc&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-cdg4-3.xx&_nc_gid=D_yHRLsL8hWk5Mr2L9tvFA&oh=00_AfRRs1ORAqVHaUjKuXHXaoEroy_0qlAbP2aCPhJNIMgLjw&oe=68743414
He's 'got some bottle' being able to say that 😆
Fair play. There's always two sides to an argument.
Somebody has to stick up for Pakistani paedos.. they've had a hellava bad PR recently.
.
Britain Now Has Pro-Grooming Gang Protests
The poster says that media focus on "Asian grooming gangs" is "causing divide in our communities"
..and causing angst.
. https://x.com/CDP1882/status/1941177831662444796
The orientals have got fed up with being lumped in with the muzzies?
They’re not ‘grooming’ gangs they’re RAPE gangs. Why not call a spade a spade, so to speak.
Is there any other sort of rapey grooming gangs? I thought they were all Asian.
The poster says that media focus on "Asian grooming gangs" is "causing divide in our communities"
..and causing angst.
. https://x.com/CDP1882/status/1941177831662444796
Fair play. There's always two sides to an argument.
Somebody has to stick up for Pakistani paedos.. they've had a hellava bad PR recently.
.
Britain Now Has Pro-Grooming Gang Protests
That's the new washing machine plumbed in and tested (using an extension cable). Phoned customer services this morning about the short lead – very offhand about it and put the phone down on me
Prolly some EUSSR rule.
He was on a short fuse?
it was a she
In China?…….
No, I don't know where as it was an 0344 number x
Ah…that one, used by a lot of businesses…seems like a massive call centre…good luck xx
409118+ upticks.
Afternoon FA,
Shocking.
How short is the lead exactly, Alec? I think ours several feet. Did you phone the manufacturer or the place you bought it from? Manufacturer might be better, take a look on their website – bet others have complained similarly…good luck x
It could do with another 2 feet Kate – phoned manufacturer but as I said they put the phone down. I bought it on Amazon so I will be making sure they are aware of it. I guess the lead would be long enough under normal circumstances but the way I had the washer and tumble drier in the garage was the problem. I expected it to be a straight swop but it wasn't. I could have swopped the 2 machines over but then the outlet on the drier wouldn't have reached the vent hole and the drier lead would have been too short. I'll just stick another socket in the circuit x
Can you use extensions? What a drag and frustration, many buyers must be similar position. Check out the reviews? and leave yours! 🙂 x
Your not advised to use an extension but I did to test it and I will either put another socket in or make a short extension. My review won't make nice reading x
At least in that way you get it to work…sounds like a man job, I’d be lost. Would love to read your review x (and any reply you receive, many ignored…)
Go and get them, Spikey!😘
As I expect you know, do not cut off the fitted plug and extend the lead, because that would invalidate the warranty/guarantee.
I know but thanks anyway
409118+ up ticks,
The peoples much desired Global warming,
Question,
Can you purchase tar fire barges via Amazon ?
on account that the English Channel invasion is very much one sided.
https://x.com/TRobinsonNewEra/status/1942914834468635041
Boynty, boynty, boynty
Sixteen hundred and nonyty
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/PortalPictures/july-2025/ls-431758197_macronjpg.jpg?imwidth=640
https://youtu.be/jenWdylTtzs
They wheeled out Victoria Sponge, then.
I expect she wanted to show off her new frock.
Someone somewhere is missing a pair of curtains.
(yes, I usually avoid ad hominem, though I feel some sympathy for Lady Sponge plus a need for a chuckle; hot summer's day together with yet more hot air from politicians)
What on earth does one talk to Toy Boy’s Mum about?
Wigs
And living with a gay man….
Sheltered housing.
Sheltered housing.
Wigs.
Was it a present from Ali Baba's cave?
The only one not touching/being touched from the look of it?
She looked like a spare part.
And what is that stupid hand clasp all about?
If you watch the video clip your imagination will run riot and you will reach your own conclusions, mon brave.
Masons have funny handshakes so why shouldn't the sons of toolmakers have them too?
Und… (Still waiting for the French version.)
https://youtu.be/qOG2S7zGnyc
Dashed into Wareham this afternoon , spot of shopping , stuff I had forgotten to buy at Dorchester market this morning ( market was great, bought 3 large papaya .. yes , rugby ball size, 2 that need to ripen and one nearly ripe and golden . not the tiny offerings one buys in Sainsbury or Waitrose
Cost £16 .. yes , I know ! They will taste delicious when I have cut them up and refrigerated them .
After my quick afternoon shop , on the way home I caught the afternoon story on Radio 4 featuring Glenda Jackson and a Jamaican , with a lovely voice ..
My goodness , it was a very different story of sex and seduction, I took a detour to lengthen my journey to listen to the story , and when I arrived home , Moh asked my why I was so pink cheeked ..
I have to say it was beautifully written and produced , brave and edgy .. If you girls can catch up with it , you may enjoy listening to it .. no idea how old the story is , but on a hot summers day , it was teasingly delicious !
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000nf37
I've just had to completely unplug our PC. Inside of 45 minutes attempting to use it, it had shut its self down 5 times. Rather than the preference I've had for some time to throw it out of the upstairs window. I've unplugged it completely. We will go to WGC John Lewis Saturday and buy a new one.
Think about getting a new cable with it, Eddy? (will probably come with one, throw old one away?) I had trouble with pins on mine, not matching up.
👍😉
It could be getting too hot. Try blowing through any vents or carefully hoovering inside if accessible. It is surprising how much dust and flux can build up and prevent the cooling fan from doing its job.
It's very old now around 15 years.
It drives me nuts when it keeps cutting out..
I’ve got a Dell laptop that is almost 20 years old and still works well, albeit a bit slowly. Depending on what you want to use a computer for, you might think about getting an iPad. I have an iMac (desktop) and a cheap Windows laptop but about 95% of my IT usage is with the iPad. Unless you are into serious photo or video editing, or gaming, there’s little that you can do on a computer and can’t do on an iPad.
By Simon Carr on Guido
Puffy-Eyed Powerlessness: Chancellor’s Crumbling Confidence Caught on Camera
It’s a brutal business, politics. When you’re down, your colleagues find ever-crueller ways of pushing you further down.
At PMQs just now, Old Weepy’s enemies moved in to get their knives wet.
They did it by patting her arm as if to say, “No, your eyes don’t look in the least puffy. It’s pure misogyny. Do you want to borrow my hanky? You’re the first female Chancellor, they can’t take that away from you. That and the first Chancellor to – you know. We’ll all look back and laugh!”
Her bond-market face really isn’t ready for public view. She still has the stress-related cottonmouth problem; her pain is most apparent when she smiles; she makes an effort to listen, to laugh, to look involved – she takes a deep breath and then something dies inside her, her face settles on the edge of the table in front of her and she is alone with her sorrow.
Alone but for the 1.5m watchers meming her grief.
It’s worth noting because the markets certainly are.
What she is giving us to realise – after their efforts to talk backbenchers round on Welfare – is that she and her sister are not just disliked in the party but entirely disrespected. That they are not a power couple but powerless. That her non-negotiable fiscal rules are chaff, a slogan, a bit of feminine fluff. That the economist thing she’s been doing is a cross-dresser’s fantasy. That she hasn’t understood incentives, or demand curves, or markets or even the politics of economics.
And that come the autumn, it’s all getting much, much worse. Her private face is the public image of a Chancellor who lied about her CV, inflated her knowledge and single-handedly crashed a nation’s economy.
She does regularly achieve one remarkable thing: she makes Keir Starmer look better.
Now, he – and bear with me on this – for all his many, many defects, he is underestimated by his opponents (his enemies know exactly what his merits are).
The Tories keep asking him questions that don’t deserve an answer. They set him up to make outrageous claims about soaring business confidence, record growth and how he’s crushing illegal migration. The conviction with which he says these things is remarkable. Insulated by office, his resilience is psychotic. In the Chamber, he is able to project himself as prime ministerial – and that’s where PMQs need not be the irrelevant mish-mash it is widely known to be.
Tories seem to think their accusations will play so well for them on social media that they can ignore the effect in the Chamber.
And so we get these Tell It To The Hand exchanges
“Will the prime minister agree he’s a total failure who gets everything wrong and breaks everything?”
The PM rises: “You get everything wrong and break everything. We are fixing everything you broke.”
The way to damage him – I speak as someone who knows more about this than a Christian would admit – is to make him lose his temper. And that is achieved by asking him proper questions that reveal his ignorance, his incapacity, his amateur status. By what date will wind subsidies be lifted? How many millionaires have left the country in the last six months? How much has the VAT increase on school fees cost the Exchequer? What is the fiscal impact assessment of a wealth tax? At what point does he expect Laffer effects to kick in?
Of course, kindness is the real killer, as the Chancellor found, today. But that level of guile is beyond Kemi, an amateur in her own way. Maybe her strategy of waiting for Keir to come to grief will work in the end, she is certainly finding her voice. It would be nice to see the PM undergoing the same psychological collapse as his Chancellor.
It is the audacity of hope.
Nigel Farage got a question, as he seems to every month or so. The barracking was prodigious. Not just from Labour across the aisle but from Iqbal Mohamed behind him – his sledging was loud enough to intrude on the Reform leader’s microphone. It eventually exasperated Parliament’s most even-tempered MP.
The recording of the session went: “The country demands, that you say to the French President will you shut up? That you say to the French president …”
There was laughter.
They won’t all always be laughing. Keir’s one-in-one-out doesn’t sound like a solution the electorate will understand. Fifty thousand legal asylum seekers claiming sanctuary on the “chicken nugget” principle is probably worth 50 Labour seats to Reform.
July 9 2025 @ 15:50
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/PortalPictures/july-2025/431776374__.jpg
Louis XVI?
Isabel Oakeshott
Britain should have cancelled Macron’s state visit
We’ve stuffed his mouth with gold, he’s royally screwed us on small boats – the French president wasn’t worthy of the King’s red carpet
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2025/07/09/TELEMMGLPICT000431688775_17520642977150_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bq2VqpX5jZbdGr01P3EoAx3K2AwJyPkXX62shJP_5X7H8.jpeg?imwidth=1280 The French president was looking pretty pleased with himself toasting the Princess of Wales during the State Banquet on July 8 Credit: LUDOVIC MARIN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Roll up, roll up, for the best of British pomp and circumstance. Emmanuel Macron is here, and it’s a red carpet affair.
For the first State visit by a French President since 2008, the establishment has pulled out all the stops. From the moment his private jet touched down at RAF Northolt, where he was greeted by a beaming Prince and Princess of Wales, to his procession through Windsor in an open-top landau, our diminutive so-called ally got the full works.
Riding with the Queen in a second glittering carriage, his wife, Madame Macron, blew regal kisses to the crowd. Naturally nobody mentioned that slap she appeared to give her husband as they stepped off another plane, because this visit was all about fairytales and theatre – and our leaders went XXL on stardust.
What the blazes are we doing, sounding the trumpets and bringing out the cavalry, in this man’s honour? How dare he and his wife feast on tender summer vegetables from the gardens of Le Manoir (see how they did that?) at a star-studded banquet with the Royals, when they are so busy stitching us up?
For just as Emmanuel and Brigitte were tucking into Raymond Blanc’s finest supreme of Rhug Estate chicken with Norfolk asparagus and tarragon cream, followed by blackcurrant parfait on a “blackcurrant-soaked sponge”, more illegal migrants were gathering at Calais to board inflatable boats heading our way. What the King diplomatically called “irregular migration”, is in fact a mounting national security crisis, in large part thanks to the casual refusal of the French authorities to stop them coming. How can we simply ignore this?
Sitting pretty on three-quarters of a billion of British taxpayers’ cash, the French president puffed out his chest as he stood next to the King. He looked pretty pleased with himself, as well he might, because our idiot leaders continue to stuff his mouth with gold.
“Bof! Ce n’est pas ma probleme!” he just about said, when the awkward topic of Channel migrants came up. What he actually suggested is that the UK makes it far too easy for persons unknown from rogue states like Iran to build new lives here – and he is right.
The truth is that Sir Keir Starmer will never stop the boats until he removes what Macron called the “pull factor” – meaning all the many reasons why migrants from places like Somalia and Eritrea do not cross continents with a view to ending up in France. But that does not give the French a free pass to take the proverbial.
Under the circumstances, the King should never have been asked to shake hands with this man, because his loyal subjects are being royally screwed by the guest.
On arrival in this country, this unwelcome visitor should have been turned back at the border – showing the lazy French authorities how it’s done.
**********************
fred haise
2 hrs ago
So a few days before Macron came, the French Gendarmes use Stanley knives to sink a migrant boat leaving the shore of France, oh and conveniently the BBC were there to film it!
But apparently, afterwards, they said that they won't do it again…. WHY?
So at that point we should have cancelled the state visit and told the French: if you wont disable the boats on the beaches, in the shallows, WE WILL.
Les Hismore
2 hrs ago
Reply to fred haise
We all knew that the timing and the circumstances of the event on that beach were staged in anticipation of the State visit.
George Davis
2 hrs ago
Reply to fred haise
We should be slashing them wherever we find them, whether that be near the shore or mid channel.
alistair munro
2 hrs ago
Macron led the charge to give the UK punishment beatings for daring to vote for Brexit. He hates ordinary people and he hates the UK.
But yet the British establishment roll out the red carpet. Sums up the British establishment – they hate their own people and their own country.
Kyliee Sharpe
2 hrs ago
Our Establishment is completely out of touch with the reality that’s perfectly clear to the population, simply rotten to the core and complacent. A major reset is long overdue.
Irregular immigration = an invasion.
Wordle No. 1,481 3/6
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Wordle 9 Jul 2025
A book for Birdie Three?
Well done, I had four of the letters (all bar the least common one) and for the life of me could not come up with a single word that might fit, so much so that when I finally did I just bunged it in without considering or looking for any alternatives – fortunately it was right! Just the par…..
Wordle 1,481 4/6
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Well done. Par for me.
Wordle 1,481 4/6
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Birdie here too.
Wordle 1,481 3/6
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Well done, cori!
Well done, cori!
Well done, par here.
Wordle 1,481 4/6
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Southport’s unspoken truth: ‘Our children had to save each other’
Girl, seven, stabbed 33 times during Axel Rudakubana’s rampage ‘fought like hell’ to escape
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/briefs/2025/07/09/TELEMMGLPICT000387732706_17520632710550_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqA7N2CxnJWnYI3tCbVBgu9f4Xpit_DMGvdp2n7FDd82k.jpeg?imwidth=1280
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/be26027211b58926
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2025/07/09/TELEMMGLPICT000409251039_17520699924750_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqKXo3B06VmvdvtgRxKaLBUSpP9_YCvdfBnT4-6ZwPcCU.jpeg?imwidth=680
409118+ up ticks,
Afternoon C1
Abused & raped kids as far back as the rotherham revealing should have heralded the downfall of the lab/lib/con mass uncontrolled / party controlled, paedophile umbrella coalition party ongoing, seemingly via the polling stations found to be NOT serious enough.
"She needs us to guarantee her safety in a world where we can't…"
"…[they] deserve truth and deserve accountability…"
"…our girls deserve an apology, backed up by the promise that changes will be made and this will not be allowed to happen again…"
It is not insenstive to ask how it cannot be allowed to happen again. It is not insensitive to say that we cannot smother life with security checks. There is a change in the law following the Manchester massacre that will simply bring airport-style security checks to more of our daily activities. Are we prepared to be searched at every pub, club, bar, cafe, restaurant, school, community hall, village hall? Are we to spend every day of our lives looking out for the psychopath in our midst?
Perhaps Rudakubana might have been picked up at some point and perhaps he might not. How many police do we need to monitor the population?
Stopping immigration, removing the Channel invaders and foreign criminals would be a start but it won't bring back those three girls nor rid the survivors of their terrors.
409118+ up ticks,
The Christmas divi being organised.
https://x.com/chatswithem/status/1942919392322302435
409118+ up ticks,
O2O,
It had been found by the TOOL and odious kit to be such a successful scam, and in his opinion would stand one more outing.
Welcome MUAC.
And what return will there be for that?
Best buy ammunition, and shoot the buggers.
Are you a friend of Thomas Mair?
Is there a money tree in the garden of 10 Downing Street?
And its roots reach the depths of your pockets
And its roots reach the depths of your pockers
The reason for Macron's visit. Starmer – anyone's. Bromance.
409118+ up ticks,
There ain't no unseeing what happened in
rotherham/rochdale etc.etc,etc ongoing and justice MUST be reinstated because the opposite is to evil to contemplate.
Heavy time has to be the order of the day in a Tommy Robinson mode court appearances, feet not touching ground.
https://x.com/PWestoff/status/1942650305721561124
Have to say, ogga…bit surprised this issue taken off the way it has. Anne Cryer (Labour MP Keighley) apparently first raised it with Starmer when he was DPP, reported he was defending several of the accused at the time. Must be getting on for a couple of decades ago, thanks be to Musk for giving it air time.
Her 2003 speech in Keighley where she first raised the subject brought her serious criticism from her own party and she was forced to shut up about the matter.
As indeed was Andrew Norfolk after reporting on that speech and his silence lasted for EIGHT BLOODY YEARS before he wrote his exposé, forced to break his silence because the BNP had taken up the cause of the raped and trafficked girls in Rotherham.
I remember, Bob…thanks 🙂 Starmer’s silence continues, and we know why. There are cases in Scotland, not sure about Wales but wouldn’t surprise me. Hopefully, more will speak out – it really is a national shame.
That's me for today. Cloudy now – looks like rain, though, of course, it won't rain – not for days and days.
Have a jolly evening.
A demain.
Put your loaf outside, rain guaranteed all night.
Well then, Bill, go outside into your garden with your sunglasses, some suntan lotion, and a long cool drink and enjoy the sunshine. If it rains, go indoors and read a book, do a jigsaw puzzle, listen to Angel Radio, Serenade Radio, or Radio Swiss Jazz/Classic/Pop.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/news/2025/07/09/TELEMMGLPICT000431788478_17520776616930_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqqVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwfSVWeZ_vEN7c6bHu2jJnT8.jpeg?imwidth=960&imdensity=2
Alex Phillips on one of her rants.
This time her target is the little fella from Pakistan.
It's gone viral around the world. (How do you define viral? I don't understand what you mean by The World).
.
https://youtu.be/kfwvrtLlU3I?t=118
It's one of those watershed moments me feel. Against The King.. The Met and The Pakis.
This is what happens when we let the enemies of the state into important jobs.
It's been the long march through the institutions since Blair.
The sheer contempt of Khan tells the public all it needs to know about him.
I laugh when the MSM claim he's from an ethnic minority in London.
I might be wrong, but I think I read around 20 years ago that in his previous position in law, he acted in defence of the 7/7 team.
I don't know, Eddy – but he was laying wreaths a couple of days ago.
That means nothing.
'Look good' (and lose), Conway. A piece of work.
possibly for the perps?
How can you tell with KS, could be. Think it, say it, most days – who the heck voted for him. Reeves fgs.
Pass.
One of the bombers was Mohammad Sidique Khan
BT might know.
He knows that Pakki Slammers are a Protected Species.
Surely Starmer on this pdq. If not, he should be.
He's had 6 months to deal with it.
Under the carpet, perhaps even under the floorboards.
The proof that benefits pay more than a full-time job
Unemployed people on sickness benefits are to receive thousands of pounds more per year than some workers
Deputy Political Editor
09 July 2025 5:02pm BST
Jobless people on sickness benefits will soon receive £2,500 more a year than a minimum wage worker, new figures have revealed.
The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), a think tank, found that a non-working Universal Credit (UC) claimant receiving the average housing benefit and personal independence payment for ill health would have an income of £25,000 in 2026-27.
This compares with a full-time worker paid the national living wage, who will earn about £22,500 after income tax and National Insurance.
The calculation shows how generous the welfare system will continue to be after Sir Keir Starmer failed to get planned £5 billion cuts past his rebellious backbenchers and was forced to water down his Welfare Bill earlier this month.
Last week, The Telegraph revealed that more than 1.4 million people receive Pip mental health benefits, with a record 531 claimants approved for the payments every day.
It means that Britain’s spending on health and disability benefits is now set to cost the equivalent of the income tax contributions of nine million workers by 2030.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/649a487630b7970abdfea42ffd33e3c67eae85dc288f17865a551c544e0be161.png
Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the former work and pensions secretary, and founder of the CSJ, said: “Before lockdown, we had the lowest numbers of workless households since records began.
“However, figures from the Centre for Social Justice show how damaging Covid was and that, since then, the scale of the disincentive to work has grown dramatically.
“That’s why the [Welfare] Bill’s failure to look at real reform of the system is more costly than just the billions lost to the Chancellor, the real loss is that of the wasted lives trapped in a system of dependence rather than one of independence and achievement.”
A Government spokesperson said: “We inherited a broken social security system that is failing people on all accounts.
“We are changing the system so it genuinely supports those who can work into employment and ensuring the safety net will always be there for the most vulnerable – and puts the spiralling welfare bill on a more sustainable footing.
“Through our £2.2 billion employment support funding over the next four years, we are also building on the success of programmes like Connect to Work, which help disabled people and those with health conditions into work.”
The CSJ also cited other examples of high welfare payments which it said put wages in the shade.
It found that a jobless single parent claiming for anxiety and for a child with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) would receive nearly £37,000 a year – £14,000 more than a worker on the national minimum wage.
By 2026, the Department for Work and Pensions expects sickness benefit claims to hit 3.4 million, while the reduction to the health element of UC is forecast to affect just 840,000 new claimants by 2029/30.
Britain’s spending on health and disability benefits is forecast to hit £100 billion by 2030. On Tuesday, the Office for Budget Responsibility warned the UK’s finances were in a “vulnerable position”.
Around two in three people claiming the health element of UC also receive Pip, and roughly the same proportion are in receipt of housing support in UC. While it is possible to claim Pip while in work, fewer than one in six claimants are employed.
Pip was designed to help those with long-term conditions and disabled people with daily living and mobility costs. Since the pandemic, the number of monthly Pip awards has more than doubled, from 13,000 to 34,000 – with roughly 1,000 people now signing on every day.
The rise has largely been driven by a sharp increase in claimants citing anxiety and depression as their main condition, up more than threefold since 2019.
Similarly, seven in ten of assessments awarding the health element of UC involve mental health and behavioural conditions.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/briefs/2025/07/09/TELEMMGLPICT000430693250_17520718229290_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqpVlberWd9EgFPZtcLiMQf0Rf_Wk3V23H2268P_XkPxc.jpeg?imwidth=680
Government attempts to reform the benefits system have been met with strong opposition in recent months Credit: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing via Getty Images
The number of children in receipt of disability living allowance has doubled over the last decade, with the growing caseload driven by awards for behavioural disorders, learning difficulties or ADHD.
The CSJ called on the Government to redirect funding from long-term cash payments for less severe mental health conditions towards in-kind support.
It said Pip and UC health should be withdrawn from those with milder anxiety, depression or ADHD.
It said £1 billion of the savings of £7.4 billion annually by 2029/30 should be redirected towards reinvestment in frontline mental health services including NHS talking therapies, local support groups, work coaches and community interventions.
Narrowing eligibility for Pip and UC health to the most severe cases of anxiety, depression or ADHD would save approximately £9 billion, it is estimated.
*************************************
Morton Todewell
1 hr ago
So someone earning less than the average welfare recipient has to contribute their basic rate tax to support people who are better off! What on earth is going on?
R Barclay
1 hr ago
No wonder the illegals call us Treasure Island.
Do we actually need those bloaters to survive?
Not too keen on these either
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8b6b2f52f9289ee688e6cfbbba6fc12c5e41f40a1a1ef746fd79d1b012766810.png
If our total income is divided by two, individually we are way, way below that.
BUT, we don't have a mortgage.
If the National Living Wage is (insert figure ) how come pensioners are expected to live on less ?
Just imagine.
For one year:
No benefits for anyone other than a state pension for those who have earned it.
Then review the situation.
I wonder how many people would leave the UK.
You surely mean "No state pension, unless it has been earned". A state pension is not a benefit.
I’m afraid that it has become one.
The whole thing is an almighty Ponzi scheme paid for by the current taxpayers in the way you paid for “your” pensioners.
There is no huge pool of savings to cover the pensions being paid.
Looking at the colourful chart in this post we can see 7 different colours at the top – 4 on the left and 3 on the right – with two vertical dotted lines through the orange and green/grey horizontal lines. Are we meant to understand what the heck this means?!?!?
The Return Of The Hired Gun!
Maybe, but he's awesome when he's on song – unfortunately there's no way he'll last the pace…..
Doesn't look a bit like Jeffrey Archer to me. In any case, I thought Jeffrey was a novelist! Lol.
William Tell?
Robbin' da 'hood
Not sayin'.
https://i8.cmail19.com/ei/j/E4/BCF/B55/csimport/Screenshot2025-07-09at17.07.15.170725.png I know all children follow social media influencers, but Robert Jenrick?’
Well done the Lionesses.
Early today the sport experts didn't really give them a chance.
Arrggh…missed it. Thanks Eddy, good result.
4-0 I didn’t want to spoil it for anyone who might have recorded it.
Thanks again, Eddy. Way too hot here today, even hotter forecast tmrw…argh…
Speccie
Blood scandal victims ‘harmed further’ by delays
Victims of the infected blood scandal have been ignored, inquiry chair Sir Brian Langstaff told survivors and their families at Westminster Chapel this afternoon. A new 200-page report has delivered a damning verdict on the rollout of the compensation scheme announced last year. Langstaff lamented that delays to payouts have resulted in victims infected with contaminated blood products between the 1970s and the 1990s with HIV and hepatitis C being ‘harmed further’.
The main failings include ministers not listening to victims, leading to ‘obvious injustices’ that could have been avoided, and delays to compensation meaning more people will die without justice. ‘Many of you were worried that the fight for justice might not have ended with the publication of the [infected blood scandal] inquiry reported over a year ago,’ Langstaff remarked this afternoon. ‘Yes, the government announced a compensation scheme and, yes, it is properly funded. But just as you feared, this is not the whole story.’
While the latest figures from the Infected Blood Compensation Authority show that more than 2,000 people have been asked to begin their claims, only 460 have been compensated in full and ‘many, many more’ are still waiting. More than 3,000 people of the 30,000 given contaminated blood products have already passed away. Starmer’s government has set aside £11.8 billion for compensation and says it is slashing red tape in attempts to speed up payments, but Langstaff insists that mistakes are still being made. One patient told the report: ‘It feels as if we are waiting to die, in limbo.’
There have been plenty of recommendations put forward by the inquiry: from giving priority to those who are seriously ill to allowing victims to apply for compensation themselves to making the system more transparent. It isn’t the only inquiry report to be published this week either, coming in the same week as the first report from the Post Office scandal – which suggests that more than 13 people may have been driven to suicide in one of the UK’s worst miscarriages of justice. The level of public anger at these devastating sagas is hard to overstate, and many parliamentarians across the house have constituents with first-hand experiences of these scandals. It is in the government’s interests that the road to compensation is a short one – and this is not yet another case of dither and delay.
The government is waiting for the victims to die.
Any that inconveniently hang in there and take the money will have their estates cleared out via death duties on their eventual demise.
Anne-Elisabeth Moutet
Jonathan Miller truly understood France
9 July 2025, 11:51am
https://www.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-09-at-11.42.36.jpg?resize=1536,965
Jonathan Miller (Spectator TV)
The last time I talked with The Spectator columnist Jonathan Miller was perhaps ten days ago, just before his unexpected death this week.
He had a pre-digital habit, very 1980s, of ringing you up to chat, moan, laugh, explain, badmouth and joke for over an hour at a time. When he rang it always took me a couple of minutes to get reaccustomed to the colder waters of analogue conversation; but then we would have these long rambling discussions that don’t much happen anymore. He’d sent me successive manuscripts of his book, Shock of the News: Confessions of Troublemaker, which he polished and repolished into the version coming out in three weeks’ time .
We’d unknowingly worked for the same Murdoch outfits over the years, coming from radically different places, he from Saskatchewan by way of Bedales, Cincinnati, Detroit and Washington; myself having escaped the obsequious, stultifying Parisian press to grab at the lowest rung at the newly Andrew Neil-edited Sunday Times. Down the line, Jonathan always sounded like the surdoué child of Damon Runyon and David English.
Some two decades ago, he’d settled with his wife Terry in a beautiful small Languedoc village between Montpellier and Béziers, the Roman university city and the rugby-mad Cathar fortress. It may not have been the reason why he chose the place, but it was inspired: you understand a lot more about France west of Marseille than in the Parisian-colonised Luberon or Var. As a European national, he became a conseiller municipal (alderman) until Brexit ended his tangle with French village administration.
His Spectator pieces annoyed many Parisian readers, because French political journalism doesn’t prize either humour or forthrightness. You have to be convoluted to impress your Sciences-Po classmates who made it into politics or the upper reaches of the civil service. Jonathan neither cared nor feared shocking the citoyens respectables – in Paris or even in his own village. One of his amusing pieces for the French conservative magazine Causeur accused some of his all-too-recognisable neighbours of doing DIY restoration in the village. The article included pictures of cinder block walls and vinyl double-glazed verandas taken metres from his home. He enjoyed the subsequent brouhaha immensely.
We met on what was then known as Twitter, around 2017 or 2018, and then progressed through private messages, emails and WhatsApps, which I have been trawling through today. Eventually we met in person at my Paris New Year party. The Millers then invited me down south last May Day bank holiday, so that Jonathan and I could attend Marine Le Pen’s first rally, a week after she was handed down a sentence which barred her from standing as president.
We arrived three hours early to bag good seats in the public bleachers, not the press division, where all we could hope to get would be French colleagues rehashing the French bubble’s accepted views of Le Pen (bad), her voters (Neanderthals) and the fate of French democracy (dire). ‘Je suis Anglais’, Jonathan would say to people at the rally: to shoe shop assistants; National Rally security guards; twentysomething waitresses coming to get a selfie with Jordan Bardella, Le Pen’s deputy; pensioners moved to tears by the presence of a friendly television presenter from CNEWS, the French answer to GB News. That put him both outside people’s everyday experience-based prejudices and made his genuine interest acceptable enough to get them talking. It was beautiful to watch. I bet that’s the effect he had on cops in Minnesota and congressional aides in Washington DC, when he was reporting there years ago. I will miss him horribly.
Probably terribly bad for me.
Cashew nuts grilled with a coating of parmesan cheese are absolutely delicious!
Something daft from yesteryear.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/264b895e491ff93856326da2505769b8079c656f3b6cdc4e4644bfdfb903d945.jpg
Beautiful evening – just enough silver cloud in the sky to give contrast.
But I'm buggered, so off to bed for me.
Bis später, Kameraten!
Does your wife know that you enjoy suchPhizzeecal entertainment?
Ears.
Get in the way?
As the French are going to loan us The Bayeux Tapestry to display in the UK, should we not reciprocate by loaning them a scale model of HMS Victory in a bottle and a pair of Wellington Boots?
And this video (my favourite bit of Laurence Olivier 1944) with the arrows
https://youtu.be/u0PSkfYl39E
Not sure if this has been mentioned before, but no comments allowed.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/2079730/village-bonfire-effigy-migrants-small-boat
Moh and I have just eaten supper , king prawn cocktail salad , and a baked potato. fresh cucumber and chopped carrots and tomatoes , crispy salad leaves .. yum followed by a little pot of creme caramel.
Nice supper for a warm evening .
Give them a million gimmegrants.
Excellent! ! And a two-fingered salute from the Archers at Agincourt!……
UKWorldPoliticsRoyalUSWeatherScienceHistoryWeirdNatureInYourArea
HomeNewsUK
Fury over 'sickening and racist' village bonfire with effigy of migrants on small boat
The Moygashel tower is one of an estimated 300 bonfires that will be lit in loyalist areas across Northern Ireland on the nights of July 10 and 11.
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By Rebecca Robinson
17:40, Wed, Jul 9, 2025 Updated: 17:44, Wed, Jul 9, 2025
Migrant effigy
A village in Northern Ireland has sparked outrage with its "sickening racist" bonfire display featuring an effigy of migrants on a boat. Over a dozen life-sized mannequins mannequins wearing life jackets sit on top of the bonfire in Moygashel, on the outskirts of Dungannon in County Tyrone. There are also several signs below the boat, one stating "stop the boats" and another sying "veterans before refugees".
Constructed by loyalists, the "absolutely disgusting" display faces calls to be dismantled and removed before it is lit. Colm Gildernew, Sinn Fein Assembly member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone, called it "vile" and "deplorable". He said: "This is an absolutely disgusting act, fuelled by sickening racist and far-right attitudes. This is a clear incitement to hatred and must be removed immediately. Those who come to our island to make it their home are not the enemy.
Me commenting , so damned what .. What an idiotic thing to say..Those who come to our island to make it their home are not the enemy.
All I can say is, well done the people of Moygashel. Enough is enough. It isn't vile, it definitely isn't sickening (except to the left and those who hate the indigenous culture) and it is anything but deplorable to a large number of people who think a line should be drawn. We have veterans living rough on the streets and invaders living in 5* hotels. Priorities have become disgustingly skewed.
I would liken the fire in Moygashel to the burning of effigies of Guy Fawkes on Bonfire Night.
Some home when your first act is to break the law on entering.
And you hate the people who live there who are supposed to welcome you.
For the record:
In the UK GE, Sinn Fein polled 26.9% of a 57.1% turnout.
At the 2024 Irish GE, had 19% of the vote, a 59.7% t/o.
So when a burglar breaks in to your home he should be welcomed because he only wants what’s yours to make himself comfortable.
Does the Sinn Fein Assembly member not realise the irony of his saying "Those who come to our island to make it their home are not the enemy." Isn't that exactly what the Plantation of Ulster involved – the settlement of English and Scottish migrants on Irish land?
Oooooh, arrrgh, will there be fireworks to accompany the bonfire? The Irish are usually good at that. Looking forward to the lighting of it, baked potatoes will surely be le plat du jour!
Back again now, pills collected, deliveries delivered, new furniture installed and integrated, hammock hung and tried out (I did think I might be there all night with no one to give me a helping hand to get out, but I managed it in the end).
Comment of the Week..
I am about to publish a memoir about my life affirming walk to Aldi last Wednesday. It is called "The Shite Path". When I got home I never had cancer.
Apparently zero migrants have crossed the channel while Macron has been on his state visit.
I suggest we keep him here in Windsor Castle for a couple of years
Tower of London?
Tower of London would be more appropriate
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/107b280ad6224ffd17d8c0380e079fc0c812a47334b253e9741a07f0bd660c78.png
Outside, and on permanent view to visitors.
From gallows on the site of Tyburn ( Marble Arch will do).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vseM6MMk9qo
Worth a listen, especially the rousing 'war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength..' element. Eva points out the specific actions of the EU that epitomse those very behaviours and show just how undemocratic and appalling the hated EU is.
"We believe tariffs are bad for business"" at the end,
"
"African countries can only export the raw bean 'tariff free' & would be penalised by tariffs if they processed & exported the final product themselves, helping their economy. Instead peanuts are paid for the exported beans & all the 'added value' processing & profit is pocketed by ze Germans…"
Just one example from Disqus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05G-CAbHx7Y
Anther one (sorry folks). Here's a Q every time the hard Left set about hiking taxes. What do they do when the money isn't there next year but the debt has risen yet again?
Print, baby, print!
"Brits could be forced to sell their homes"
Or could be forced to rise up against this current and recent governments' treachery.
And I'm off to bed.
Goodnight all.
‘Night BoB! Sleep well!
Goodnight, Bob.
I'm Following suit and popping orff now,
Good night all Nottlers sleep well its a bit warmer than last night . 😴
https://x.com/wattsupwiththat/status/1942992336348139866
Sun over yard arm. Time for a glass.
Sun's been over the yard arm a while, here. I tossed up whether to take more strong painkillers or to have a drink. The drink won. After attempting the physio doled out to me and the poking and prodding yesterday I am having difficulty doing anything for the pain. "Do not attempt these exercises if the pain is more than 4 out of 10" it said. Well, that's a non-starter, then, because normally, not doing anything, it's at least 5 out of 10!
Sorry to hear this, Conners.
That's life. I wouldn't mind, but I told the woman who insisted on my seeing the physio that I'd been there, done that and it only made it worse. Unfortunately, I knew that if I refused to jump through their hoop after she persisted, they'd just wipe me off the list and not do anything constructive, so that would be the end of that. As it is, I have to do another e-consult to get a blood test to check my kidney function (I have CKD) and iron levels (I've been anaemic in the past) to eliminate those as possibilities for the pins and needles I'm now getting in my leg. Envy of the world? I don't think so.
Where is you pain, Conway?
I have severe degeneration in my sacroiliac joint and some of my lower vertebrae. Normally I just cope with it, but, as I expected, having been poked and prodded by the physio and made at least a token attempt to do the exercises (so I can say I've had a go), it's now a lot worse.
I think Physio doe more damage than good .. I have similar, and after a physio session , I feel ruined , so no more !
I have heard others say the same. It certainly seems the case to me.
Ah, just realised how far west you are, cheers.
Bedtime here!
‡ Just for the record: France's landmass is more than twice that of the UK and more than four times that of England.
‡ Just for the record: France's landmass is more than twice that of the UK and more than four times that of England.
Exactly – France has more room to put the extra houses. What's the population per square mile comparison?
England – 1,100
France – 320
https://x.com/GLizzy36446/status/1942911726174826595
Just saw a bit of the full moon, creeping along the southern horizon. Don't remember it being so low before.
It was also very low last month.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FS_aB9u1jVk
As I remarked to True Belle: "The music is sublime; the intrusive ads are far from it".
“No free man shall be seized, imprisoned, dispossessed, outlawed, exiled or ruined in any way, nor in any way proceeded against, except by the lawful judgement of his peers and the law of the land.
“To no one will we sell, to no one will we deny or delay right or justice.”
The most important clause of Magna Carta.
I forgot to add, Magna Carta is now consigned to the dustbin of history.
This is what they want;
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2m808kml0o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2KXHAo0464&list=RDE2KXHAo0464&start_radio=1
The music is sublime; the intrusive ads are far from it.
It's now my bedtime. So I wish everyone on here a "Good Night". Sleep well, and I hope to see you here once more early tomorrow.
Good Night all 😴
https://x.com/GoldingBF/status/1942924411197096397
Christians get fined for praying in the street here. In their own country.
I remember being at Whipsnade zoo and a group of them were having a picnic near the car park. And about six of them turned and started that nonsense.
Goodnight, all.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/946c11fcfa63789bb07786bdfdb3a2d845615b4b28f89461c9f5b6d6469e750b.png
We get them anyway, unwanted.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/acb003ec31a46a8664d9acb948cb7186630a2ebffd6702e2c13b60e9d06edfa8.png
What rubbish!
Why are our political idiots so thick and so effing stupid ?
Good morning, all – Thursday’s new page is here .
Thank you Geoff.
Thanks Geoff.