Friday 8 January 2010 - in more detail

Anything which damages to political credibility of the DUP has to be a good thing for the progress of peace in Northern Ireland. The DUP have always been the biggest obstacle to true devolution, but if it was up to me I would give Ulster back to where it really belongs with southern Ireland. Ulster is nothing but a drain on the UK economy and we can do without the bent deals their Westminster politicians enter into like voting for 42 days detention on the basis of a bribe for massive UK government / corporate investment. It was the same back in the 1990s with the Road Fuel Tax Escalator, tobacco factory shut in Oldham and relocated to Ulster despite the extra transport cost implications.

People used to say that visiting the North East of England was like taking a trip back to the fifties.

Not so with Northern Ireland, which is in more of a nineties timewarp - sixteen nineties, that is.

The Republic of Ireland doesn't want it, so the UK has to keep it. The DUP and indeed all other "unionist" parties there do not act like politicians in the accepted meaning of the word, rather as a ragtag of religious fundamentalists, charlatans and rabble rousers.

Our own, our very own Afghanistan?

In France, I believe, citizens have a legal duty to clear snow from the pavement and road in front of their property; once they have fulfilled this obligation, no-one can litigate for falling, sliding, tripping.Not clearing the path and road results in a fine.

Here we cry as with one voice, "More grit!"

Will we cope? Of course we will. Is that anywhere near good enough? Of course not.

Finally - the Hoon-Hewitt putsch was a Mandy engineered final call to "put up or shut up"; it worked, they will all shut up now, Diddy David looks increasingly like a bottler and Gordi is stronger for it, leading Labour to defeat in the Election.

No-one, but no-one with any hopes of a career in the Labour party will admit it wos Mandy wot dun it so Geoff and Pat play the patsies and will be rewarded with knights/dames/lords/ladies paraphernalia at the "appropriate" time.

You know it.

JOKING BY NUMBERS

Brown did a similar gag in similar circumstances, previously. He should get a dissimilar gag-writer.

WHY THE LONG FACE DAVE?

Is it me, or have they photoshopped Dave on the 'We can't go on like this ' poster? He DOES always look a bit juvenile and pudding-headed. Has someone fixed it? Time for some careful measuring methinks.

An interesting commonality of views in the programme that is mucho fasto becoming the contender for the “Number One ‘must see’ for ‘people that need to know’ Show” ....

In today’s Daily Politics Show the question was raised as to what was - in my words - the most avoided issue in contemporary politics?

It will surely come as no surprise that the mammoth in the mansion chosen to be best ignored is .....

Drum Roll ....

Number One for the nth year in succession is ......

Immigration!

The big question is .... Why?

It is not difficult to assume that the reason the BNP is doing a jig is that they are the only political party willing to voice opinion and the GBP desperately wants to talk about the issue without fear or repercussion.

Sadly, it is still pretty much ....

Elephant non grata!

Will we grow up before the elephant keels over and crushes us all?

Realistically .... It ‘aint not looking no good Guvna!


Incidentally ... I must insist on correcting the spelling mistake I made in my post last night as I, most seriously. would not want any misunderstanding to occur ...

It should read ....

Ms Her-own-man.



And ... Oh Yes! .... it has to be said .....

(Here’s to you) .... Mrs Robinson!

“Don’t do as I do .......” again!

#15 from previous page

jaunty, I didn't expect you had any kindness or human feelings in you. How kind of you to have been doing shopping for your elderly neighbours and worrying about their gas supply while there I was thinking this morning that all you were interested in was how to operate you tool

IF I WERE A MODERATE BRITISH MUSLIM (#5)

I would be appalled to the n-th degree at the cultural norms now pertaining across British (indigene) life. That being so (and me being me) not only would I be slow to condemn violent acts against Little Satan, but I would find it hard not to feel some satisfaction.

If we are going to talk glibly of 'evil in the world' (as Obama and fellow travellers) then we must surely admit that the scales tilt wildly in OUR direction. We really SHOULD be looking to the 'beam' in our own eye. Only then will some reduction in world-angst be possible.

#7

Barrie Singleton


Do I detect the beginng of the final self-realisation of yours and your nation's cruel prinitivity covered up by cowardly indifference to obvious cruelty?

Not that I would wish to condemn all the Englanders as many of you do not have the full picture avaiilable for their eyes to see and anyway things have been looking much more positive recently

L

l

#7 Yeah Barrie yeah, but how? We buy billions of oil barrels from them, they should all be rich and happy. Except the ones at the top (as here) only get the money.

I can never quite understand what a muslim wants, the moderates won't speak up. Although like most I don't think we should have gone anywhere near Iraq or Afganistan, why blair oh why were we sold that story.

And I do actually only see Islam as a political party, where's the religion in killing your own? Although I suppose we've managed it!

As Roger says there's only one earth, we all ought to be pulling together to survive a little better. Mass migration, (running away,) isn't helping anyone, where's the knowledge going of each individual country and what wonderful things are stored in each one.

#8
Apologies for the obvious mistakes as well as in the word 'knowledgeable' in one of the previous posts - partly because I was using my iphone in semi-darkness, etc

Plus:
Methinks the 'indifference' is something to do with a twisted attitude of the English/British towards sexuality, as patenly obvious by the prolifilation of sexually hyped up not only entertainment but also serious news programmes, parliamentary PMQ times, etc, etc., including the now departed Jonathan Ross' obsessive sexual enquiries on the BBC sofas. It's not that there is anything particularly wrong about projecting one's natural sexuality but primitive and purposeful titillation of the audiences seems out of balance to me and thus losing on quality.

I was travelling on the tube the other day and a young man, possibly still a teenager, pulled out a water bottle, pointed it directly at me and squeezed the top with a squeak. The top was lilac in colour. /I think Gord was wearing a lilac tie that day./ I'm not sure how I was expected to react. By showing that I got turned on by the gest? Is it how one teaches young people to behave and feel? Was it supposed to be funny?

We are experiencing a repeat of the (ocean/atmosphere) conditions that produced the severe winters of 1963 and 1978.
The explanation is here:
https://sites.google.com/site/whythe2009winterissocold/

I switched to NN tonight very much in two minds, ready to zap it if the piece about Mrs Robinson (shades of The Graduate!) got too tiresome, but was pleasantly surprised that it turned into a more serious discussion of the N.Ireland situation - not world-shaking, of course, but a bit more than the veniality-bashing I'd feared.

I did, however, feel short-changed when the programme ended just after 11 p.m. If we don't get Newsnight Review these days, why can't we have a full-length programme of a Friday?

Ecolizzy

On this one Earth the politicians consider it is OK for different factions to make war and attack each other, as long as they buy the weapons to do it.

If the Earth was a cruise ship or aircraft carrier and the passengers or crew decided to get themselves weapons and start killing one another or destroying the vessel which their lives depended on. It would be considered the ultimate crime.

Why do be have different values for a ship with a couple of thousand than for a planet with billions?

PS Lizzy. You were right about the snow. As BYT will confirm we here have had heavy snow and minus 14 since 17th December. As you said as it never affected London it was never reported.

Now some snow as fallen on the south east it has made the news,

#13 Yes Roger it's me,me,me time again in the South east! I suppose it's because over a third of england live here.

Although shock, horror, I did see Scotland and the North east on the TV news!!!! How about that! My god you've got some snow. I remember my mother forcing me to walk to work in 1963, I'd only just started work. The snowdrifts were up to my ears, and that was in Kent!

afterthought......... whatever happened to snow fences, put up along the edges of fields to stop snow drifting on to roads? Didn't they work? Or was it a too simple idea?

'YEAH BARRIE YEAH, BUT HOW?' (#9)

Well, for a start - why not shame the Arch of Cant into being a Man For All Seasons, and DIRECTLY AND PUBLICLY challenging 'manseman' Brown, citing the Parable of Mote and Beam? We have apologised for slavery and a couple of other easy things; time to apologise for the degradation of TV, booze, fags, porn, gross consumption and AGRESSIVE WARFARE that are now Britain's pride. There is nothing fanciful about my perception of the mess we are in. We are declining in individual competence by any measure, and this must surely lead to collective disaster. This is a Church matter, and no mistake.

I have already made clear my proposed first step to cleansing Westminster governance (SPG). If we can persuade Whiskers Williams to behave like a Christian leader, we can get that iniquitous palace in a pincer movement.

IMPEACH CANTERBURY!

How am I doing Lizzy?

Sheff Tim

Have a quick proof read

"Why the 2019-2010 winter is unusually cold and snowy"

The rest I agree with having lived through 63 and 78. One as a toddler thge other as a biker.

At the distilled simplest the jetstream moved south. The reasons why you explain. The question is why the Met Office didn't revise their predictions for a mild winter when it was obvious from the beginning of the summer the jet stream was further south than expected.

The summer here was wet wet wet. If the conditions continued into winter it would be cold cold cold. Why didn't the Met Office revise their predictions on the basis of the actual observations they had.

Did they lock themselves into a prediction which subsequent observations indicated would be incorrect. That's another fine mess...

Lizzy

The snow here has been here since the 17th Dec. That is how cold it has been, no thaw. From our experience it doesn't matter if you grit if it is cold enough.

it is so cold here the snow is always frozen. So the roads though covered in snow and ice are rough. Ice is only slippy if it at a thaw temperature (with salt) it then gets smoothed out and becomes slippy.

Some roads here have not had grit salt on them since the 17th, but are perfectly drivable because the snow/ ice covering them is like a course gravel because it has never thawed. They are not smooth but perfectly driveable.

for BYT with a snowy reference:

It’s one in the morning on the 9th of January
London is snowy, I have had a snooze.
Though not feeling entirely merry I’m feeling quite happy
With the hours so far,
Having seen the monument of Physical Energy
Of which I took snaps with the sun shining through
The legs of the horse on which a rider
Is sitting quite firmly displaying a gesture
Of health and contentment. It was a great pleasure
Also to have been in touch with a few friends
By e-mail and live.

mim

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

A book by Peter York has been brought to my attention. Its title is: 'Dictators' Homes: Lifestyles of the World's Most Colourful Despots' in which he talks about the cruel nutters like Hitler, Stalin, Tito, Mobutu, Sadam Hussain, Franco, Milosevich and all kinds of bureaucrats and unknown peddlers of self-importance, etc. The book has had excellent reviews but a comment I like best is one by a Molly which reads as follows:

'This book is fun to check out from the library. It has the lifestyles and houses of famous dictators. None of them have any taste!'

mim

BNP Election Poster Unveiled

https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/8447023.stm

A little reported event happened here in Scotland it on 17th December it really snowed then temperatures all over Christmas and New Year were at the minus 14 ish.

We just got on with it quietly. Then some snow fell in England, didn't that make the news.

Our snow had stayed with little scatterings just to top it up. Until last night. It really snowed again. So got up and made sure the birds had something to eat. They were all waiting in the garden, the snow having covered up all the food.

Having fed them. It is now snowing again, heavier than before. With the best part of a month of snow and ice out council must have really run down it's salt stocks. Now it looks like we start all over again.

How is it for you BYT?

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

when irish eyes are smiling

no fool like an old fool?

Not worth the salt?

have the govt been so hypnotised with climate change they believed their own propaganda?

the energy companies will be rubbing their hands. don't forget the carbon tax [giving money to china and crooks] bumping these bills up.

#23
Morning Roger


Pretty similar here EXCEPT no further snow yesterday and only a sprinkling late Thursday afternoon. Our temp range went from -8 at 6:30 am yesterday to a balmy +1.5 at 6:00 pm. Quite warm and clear this am, but a light snow shower just started.

SOME drifting occuring on exposed local roads curtailed a planned trip to the City last night.

However out North/West of the city where my husband works, the park and lake in their grounds is under about 3ft of virgin snow and they have had heavy falls every day since 17/12.

Northumberland has it bad I think and south of Edinburgh - where I safely delivered youngest sprog on Thursday.

#26 Addendum

Spoke a tad too soon.

Bucketloads dropping from the firmament and Finella hill has disappeared, along with my car.

Well barely a week into the new decade and the first new phrase of the twenty tens has emerged. The noughties gave us blogger and credit crunch. In just under 10 years time the list show of new phrases will remind all of:

GRIT RATIONING

How many saw that one coming a month ago?



BYT thanks thought it was a bit strange we were getting it here and you on 'tuther side of t' hills' were missing out.

jaunty

once a fool always a fool

if things don't get sorted out this week, I'm leaving this barmy country

too many fools, I'm afraid

i won't leave straight away as I have a few interesting things to look forward to first

#27 BYT

https://www.laurencekirk.info/images/finella%20snow.jpg

Can't find your car though

#30 Mim

what and make a mod redundant

ON FURTHER CONSIDERATION (further to my #16)

WILDERNESS

Desperate
I went to the Archbishop's website.
"All messages will be read" it said
"But we cannot promise a reply."
Verily - he is a man of God.

Desperate
I sent a 'Read Only' communication
Saying: "Britain's 'Son of Manse'
Has lost contact with Son of God.
Please use your Good Office."

Desperate
But unwitting - Britain turns to nihilism
Captained from Westminster
Steering to a broken Moral Compass;
With Canterbury's Pilot fogbound.


Desperate.

jaunty

If a man relies on extra equipment to attract a woman, is he a man or is he not with it?

#22 BNP Election Poster Unveiled

And here's another Roger!

https://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/article-1241768/An-open-door-migrants-work-Olympics-200-000-British-builders-laid-off.html

#35

do you have to conquer them all, jaunty? is it it? why do you think you have the right to 'absolute' control? if only i'd realised it earlier, after leaving the University for good and never to return, things may have been different by now

is it clear? capice?

#33

Roger

Something like that. I've already stopped reading his other 'messages' but he doesn't seem to be able to believe that it is all over

In the deleted ditty all I said was that as a child I never drank water, and i promise you this is an absolute truth. Lemonade, milk, occasional chocolate and coffee have always formed the supplements to my staple diet. I think it's something to do with my tastebuds.

mim

#37 continuation

I promise you, jaunty, I've gone off you forever and I am not playing some Shakesperean game only pretending like Julia in 'The Two Gentemen of Verona'. All this effort you've made has been for nothing. If you realise eventually how wrong you have been and become humble, or whatever, somebody out there may be willing to help you. Maybe a priest or a psychotherapist?

I swear, this is the truth and nothing but the truth!

However understanding I may be, even love, be it platonic or all comprising, cannot make me abandon some of the principles I have been brought up with and still hold.

It can be a very fine line as one changes and develops but it is there. A false move and one falls down the precipice never to be able to walk it again. For me it is to do with my conscience.

Some sort of survival is a possibility, obviously, but once fine lines have been shattered or one does fall down into the precipice, all one can do is to be licking one's own wounds till the end of one's days.

you're totally debauched, jaunty, and you will pay a very high price for it!

Ecolizzy

having been a General Foreman once on Europe's largest civil engineering project, there are things I know about the construction industry which I couldn't even put here without being immediately moderated.

This is a true story though. Originally I was a metallurgist in the truck industry. Got my qualifications day release while working, degree level equivalents. Not just the highest marks in my year the highest marks ever awarded in the subject.

Not only did I work on quality control, and on MoD projects doing R&D, I did laboratory work, all sorts of testing. Gamma ray, ultra sonic, eddy current, dye penetrants, tensile, hardness etc etc everything. having done a full engineering apprenticeship I could also make everything I tested having done machining, foundry, welding, fabrication etc.

A few years ago I saw an advert for a quality inspector at a car manufacturer in Crewe. So phoned up. The agency told me I would have a full weeks training! They asked me if I had any experience in similar, I said I had 'a bit'. The agency told me to come in for an interview and bring some ID. No mention of a birth certificate.

So I took my picture driving licence and a CIS card. This is issued by the tax office for construction workers. It is a hologram card, with my photo, signature, NI number and a code. (These all sealed in the hologram by the Inland Revenue. To get this card I have to take my birth certificate, 2 other forms of ID, passport photographs signed by doctor etc. When I turn up on a construction site I give this in and from the code when checked my NI and 18% tax is automatically deducted. It was brought in to stop the lump and cash payments without tax, when you might only work for days or weeks so PAYE system is ineffective.

Now this card is very difficult to get due to all the checks and ID etc to combat fraud. So I took this card to the agency who would know what it was.

When I turned up for my interview they asked for my ID. I gave driving licence, utility bills, bank cards and my CIS card which the tax people have to see my birth certificate to get.

The agency asked my for my birth certificate. I said I hadn't brought it as I was never asked to bring it and pointed out the tax office have to see it with other forms of ID to get the CIS card.

The agency said without a birth certificate there could be no interview. No other time could be rearranged for me to go home and get it as I would miss my appointment.

The door to reception opened and about 15 eastern Europeans came in with the gang master who was the only one who could speak English. I was dismissed as they ushered the gang into the reception room and made them all a cup of coffee. I had only lived in the town for 40 years.

PS now freezing fog has now rolled in and the other side of the road is disappearing.

#42 I find that utterly incredible Roger! But they do say that the entire Olympic area is being built by foreign labour. Apparently the government stated you had to live in the area to qualify for work there, and then rather convienently the immigrants moved in for a week and then started work!!!

Did you read about the rioting in Italy? To start it was the pesky italians firing airguns at african workers, and then it all kicked off. It's carried on for a few days now, no reporting of it by the BBC though, the same as there isn't about the racial rioting in Malmo or France come to that.

Where are governments going to get their tax from if the british population is unemployed! And the money earnt by immigrants, often on the black, goes overseas! I find it truely amazing.

Elf 'n' Safety Rebellion

This is one of the biggest stories this week in Scotland. The build up began a few weeks ago.

https://news.scotsman.com/news/Rebel-curlers-threaten-ice-invasion.5968791.jp

#32
Nice picture Roger

I love those ripples in the hillside, in green or in white and they are breathtaking on that point in the road between Laurencekirk and me here in the 'blae when the late sun is glinting off them to the west (left) of that picture.

We have just had a fierce hail storm followed by more snow.

Lizzy. The BBC actually has a policy of avoiding stories such as the riots in Italy, and if they have to report any ethnic tensions that may arise, they always spin it with words such as "a small minority" ect. The folks at the BBC are headed and manned by the worst kind of well meaning but foolish airheads. You will not believe the kind of people that roam the corridors of the BBC, its another world most are not privy to. Its like a collage campus of 35yr olds who's' mental development stopped around the age of 17. A good example of how they spin stories or "accentuate the positive" was illustrated with that 3 parter shown this week on BBC2 about the noughties - Re the last decade. When it came to that touchy subject, the tube bombing of July 05, it did not mention anything about Islam/Muslims but instead shown footage of Ken Livingston extolling the virtues of multi ethnic London. The programme on the round was a quality and very original programme, well edited, good comments from talking heads ect, but as i said, the BBC policy of avoiding certain issues was very apparent when in it had to get through that touchy subject of Islamic terrorism in London.

Nos 46

https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8450083.stm

47

they were the last to report it.

Have you seen it reported on national news? I got wind of this first from a US news agency. Stories like this are not reported from the BEEB on a regular basis, even race riots that have happened in the UK get noticebly ignored. And if you think this is an independent BBC report (your link) thin again, its a cut and paste job, with a BBC tidy-up.

46

i remember an exec coming out a while a go saying on many social issues the bbc is not neutral but promotes an agenda. ie they are openly and unrepentantly propagandist.

most recently on climate change. which is why there was nothing on the maurice strong agenda/carbon trading scams.

i see energy bills will go up to pay for gordons stupid offshore windmills.

the proven example of europe where factory roof space and local industrial estates are used is too cheap and effective for labour?

WHILE WE ARE TILTING (#49)

If we are going 'on station' with ships and clever gear to erect wind turbines, AND we are cabling the area to bring back the electricity, it must SURELY be smart to (a) extract some tidal and or wave energy from the same area (tidal is no danger to ships) or (b) to compromise on optimum wind, and put the turbines where the tidal/wave return is also worthwhile.

Any hint of such pragmatism - at all?

Lizzy

How can I put this? Think when you hear about some infra structure project, it is referred to not as we need this because, but as to how many jobs it will create in the construction.

So the contractor has an incentive to create 'as many jobs' as possible as part of the 'arrangements' for the bid contract etc.

So who are they most likely to employ. Skilled experienced construction workers all with various sorts of qualifications, knowledge who can read drawings, problem solve. And do the job once and get it right first time.

Or inexperienced labour who don't really know or understand, and as one construction worker said to me. "get paid to lean on a shovel for 10 hours a day to 'make up the numbers'".

Remember the contractor and agencies by employing more people for longer get paid more 'for creating jobs'. Skilled experienced men who out of a matter of professional pride do the job quicker and more accurately become a spanner in the works. They are self motivated and start getting uppity and bolshie when they have to 'deskill' themselves to fit in with the 'philosophy' they have to work within.

The days of Telford and Brunel. Engineers/project managers who did the best job, the quickest and hence the cheapest for the highest quality are gone. The Telfords and Brunels were there to build canals, roads, bridges, railways. Not to create jobs.

Once you get into large scale infra structure construction it becomes political economics. Engineering and project management take a back seat.

Jaunty #50

It looks like Gordon Browns foolish 100bn offshore windmill investment scam has pushed mining shares even higher. It would appear that pension funds etc have been selling gilts and buying equities ( probably mining shares ) on the back of quantitive easing. When the stock market probably goes tits up later in the year pension funds are going to be decimated. The whole scam is based on lunacy, heavy copper cables from as far offshore as Dogger Bank must make offshore wind totally uneconomic unless we are all forced to pay a hefty Private Tax on energy in general. The trouble is that it doesn't look like we will get a vote on it at the next election, Tories not presenting any real opposition to green lunacy. Like you say the money would be far better spent on solar panels for factory roof's, or any other roof for that matter. At least solar energy will be reliably available during the working day when demand is highest.

Oh well. I think we realised over the last few days our council must be running out of gritsalt. They have kept the roads and pavements usable since 17th December.

We didn't bother clearing our pavements as it has been so cold the snow ice and grit formed a course textured powder, ideal for walking on in all weathers.

Today people realised there probably would be no more grit so we have spent the afternoon clearing all the footpaths.

It is now snowing heavily.

51

i see in the iraq inquiry [jan 7th evidence] the guys from the FO castle have been giving a backslapping air about how 'they' turned Basra into an economic powerhouse full of intangible benefits [ie they have no evidence]. If that success is true why is the Govt unable to do the same in the uk?

i also notice they are now all using the word model. something that was absent in the previous sessions.

in the same way Labour went [blindly] 'nation building' in iraq they are building windmills in the North Sea?

there is no such thing as nation building science and our democracy institutionalises incompetence.

Iraq Inquiry [7th jan]

the difference in quality between the evidence of the military and the FO are stark. One is helpful, open and expansive the other closed, suspicious and constricted economical with the truth?

53

its because they do not wish to free the people from slavery to the grid monopoly run by foreign multinationals [and the tax it delivers]

what a weird NN, it must be the weather or no NN review. I cannot wait for things to get back to 'normal'

This has nothing to do with the current weather conditions but...

The BBC will soon be reporting that man made global warming is a fraud.
Though it wont be reported in that fashion. Little exclusive for you. Key words to look out for: 'May just be' and 'thrown some doubt'. It will be a drip drip and semi buried.

I could scream, and scream and scream, where are the human rights in this https://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6981134.ece

No wonder there is no social cohesion in this country anymore, can you imagine if a white indigenous person did this, they would be up in court for peadophilia, cruelty, abuse of the childs human rights. Why, oh why, have we got such a mad state of affairs?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

#16 time to apologise for the degradation of TV, booze, fags, porn, gross consumption and AGRESSIVE WARFARE that are now Britain's pride. There is nothing fanciful about my perception of the mess we are in. We are declining in individual competence by any measure, and this must surely lead to collective disaster. This is a Church matter, and no mistake.

Oh yes Barrie you are right there! When you get the Arch of Cant esposing another religion and how good it is, and we should allow their law, then you really are in trouble.

I couldn't agree more with your view on us as a race, 10 million drinking too much apparently, just why, well read any blog or comments in newspapers. Not one of them ever agrees with the current stupid government we have, nor the next by the looks of things. So people either leave the country, that's the clever ones, and the others left are drinking themselves into oblivion.

Even under Thatcher, who I loathed, have I ever seen such a degraded and depressed country. Whatever we say doesn't matter, most of us didn't want war, most of us don't believe in carbon trading, but we are treated like children and told what to do.

Wouldn't it be good if the next party was made up of independents?!!!!

Some hope!

Perhaps the latest government sponsored legal scam ?

Just the other day some corporate woman cold called me on the land line ( despite being on the telephone preference scheme ). She attempted to portray that I was suffering from significant hearing loss and could claim damages on some alleged government scheme. I instantly told her the my hearing was perfect considering my age but she would persist that I needed to take a hearing test ( suspect this is the government NHS funded component ). Eventually I got rid of her, but if the NHS is wasting money on scheme to generate business for the legal profession it stinks. Both Labour and the Tories claim NHS spending is sacred, but if its funding projects like the above it needs clamping down on ASAP.

#52 Yes Roger we are rubbish these days aren't we, is it because we have been so diluted, the british races no longer exist, does it all prove JJs theories right. The more I see the more I agree with him!

Another thought, you'll know, after all this snow and ice, I suppose the next thing will be severe flooding? And of course no one will know it's going to happen until some poor sod's house or business is in feets of water.

#60 ecolizzy

Just being a pedant BUT ...... IF they are independents, they won't be a PARTY, will they?????????

#47 Thanks for the link SPBMK2, I read about this on Thursday and finally the Beeb catch up.

Something that bothered me was the appalling filthy conditions these africans lived in. Then they go out to the fields and pick fruit and veg. why isn't there a good old bureaucrat from european union there. Surely this is a health and safety issue, filthy men, (not their fault) picking food for us europeans. Isn't there a health risk here? Hey that doesn't matter it was picked cheap and someone made a huge profit out of it.

ecolizzy #60

Why don't we have a 50% tax on all party political donations to create a fund whereby Independent's or candidates from " smaller parties " can claim back at least a proportion of their local election expenses. Then at least most constituencies would have the chance of voting for a candidate opposed to policies based on the climate change scam. ( do you do facebook, check out the New Commonwealth Party )

#63 Oooops, (blush) yes BYT I meant to say government!

It's all that snow blindness getting to me, snowed nearly all day in Kent. It's strange it's so quiet, no cars, no people, everyone staying indoors! I don't think us soft southeners would survive up north.

59

if we are not all equal under the same law then it sounds like we have defacto apartheid in the uk?

#65 That's a good idea brossen, but I can't see the main parties agreeing to that, a tax, only us proles pay that!

No daren't join Facebook, I'd be on there all day, this sites bad enough! I'll get my daughter to show me.

I like all your info about your work etc. made me much better informed.

#67 Couldn't agree more jauntycyclist, we are becoming a completely divided nation, it would never be called apartheid, but that's the road we're going. How can you have 85 Sharia courts, not too mention thousands of mosques, all preaching another law to the british one. Even if the sharia ones are only for civil law, it's madness, why,why,why. Although I understand the Jewish people have had their own system for years, which I didn't realise. But they are such a small proportion of our country, it is almost trivial, not several million as muslims are now. Did you read London now has more mosques than any other city in the world, apart from Istanbul, that is staggering. No wonder I'm surrounded by eastenders! ; )

#36-42 BBC turns the Blind Eye

Although BBC did report 'the riots' item (edited to neutrality)items offered for 'Have Your Say' demonstrates BBC's non-controversy policy.
Public comments currently invited on: The African Cup; alcohol pricing; and US intelligence policy. The last item prompted the following top voted responses (abbreviated):-
"Until we deal with the elephant in the room then nothing will work. And that elephant is what? Simply profile using stark comon sense. The argument that not ALL terrorists fit a certain profile is NOT an argument for NOT profiling the majority who do. And we ALL know what that profile is. Edinburgh"

"Perhaps the best way to avoid terrorist attacks would be to stop invading other peoples countries, on the flimsiest of excuses, simply to allow US companies to suck oil out of the ground."

"Continued focus on terrorism fails to recognise that US foreign policy (e.g support of Israel against the original inhabitants of that land; Israel with illegal nukes "allowed": favoured/paid dictatorships in the Middle East and elsewhere) only creates more resentment around the world"

"The US putting pressure on countries which do little or nothing to prevent the spreading of radical Islam and provide safe harbour for Muslim terrorists, such a Brown's Britain, would help."

But don't expect BBC to acknowledge these 'most recommended' public opinion views by quoting them: 'randomly' selected e-mails and texts will continue to be read out by BBC News Team (Mote & Beam?).

THE PARADOX THAT DOESN'T KNOW IT'S NAME (#69)

I think the truth is, Lizzy, a nation can function sustainably under any degree of unfairness, be it Thatcher or Sadam as, Nature herself, is unfair.

But the moment 'fairness' became the mantra (a juvenile concept you will notice) and the damnable party-spinners started to 'out-fair' one another, we were doomed to an ever-tightening spiral of impossible provision for all (comers). Incapability Brown, in his Jekyll and Hyde madness, used all his dark arts to conjure money from nowhere and sprayed it, in the name of fairness, at NHS and Africa, alike. And now, though he has only 'five loves and two fishes' of gas supply, the 60 million WILL BE WARMED. He WILL be like Saint Tony - if it kills us.

#62 Ecolizzy

Flooding

Yes this is a problem. If you visit my sight you will see from last December pictures of the river freezing over. I have put posts here about the icing over and the ice cracking as the water level drops due to the liquid water being held in a solid form as ice and snow.

The danger scenario is if we as a country get a sudden that. Warm south westerly winds carrying large amounts of moisture. If these cause the thaw all the solid water will be released, plus the rain the winds are carrying.

This could literally happen overnight. We could be facing a catastrophe. In 1963 the land use was very different. Less built up areas, more countryside and woodland etc.

We need a slow thaw increasing temperatures etc over a few days. If it brought about by sudden water carrying south westerlies, we have a potential disaster.

Think of Scotland as an example for a month now all precipitation has fallen as snow and at present is frozen as snow and ice. Get a sudden thaw with heavy rain. ???

This applies to the whole of the UK. If you look at my site or my posts here over the last week I am trying to float this as a potential scenario. There is a potential of catastrophic flooding if the thaw is sudden and is brought about by a sudden shift to rain bearing warm south westerly winds.

Thaw management should now be the UK Government's priority not grit rationing.

#72 Yes Roger I did see your frozen river photo. And the one of the snow today. Perhaps you have sown the seed in my mind of flooding, I think what you say is correct. We tend to get rapid thaws around here, even tonight it's not freezing 1.5 degree in fact. But we keep being told it's going to be heavy snow tonight and tomorrow.

I find it rather worrying about the gas situation, the third review now!
But Barrie tells us Gordo is going to keep us warm! ; )

#63

Precisely, Brightyangthing, a very good question.
Or, are they all, each one independently, going to be out/in there for themselves, figthing every corner and for scraps left by others?

mim

#71

Thank you for reminding us with more precision that Gordon's guardian angel, i.e. Dr Jekyll and Hyde, was born on 5th February.

Versed musings on Lisa Jardine's article entitled 'Page Turners' as per the BBC News Front Page:

Another article by Lisa Jardine’s love of her books
Can be found today on the BBC Front Page
Where she describes how much she gets hooked
On what she reads and how she handles her books.

The way she places them in special sequences
On her desk as well as on elaborate typefaces,
Historically typical of first printed books
And finishing on how the new book will look.

When it is launched by Apple
On iSlate or iTablet
Not expecting, however, to lose touch with the physical book
With which she has a bond and on which she is hooked.

Should the reader wish to read the whole article here’s the link.
It does make a difference from all political stink,
Immigration discussions and self-appointed and self-loving despots
I have recently changed my favourite plants’ pots

To give them more space to continue to flourish
Enjoying the light and the endless sunshine
Beaming through the windows in the ceiling here
Surrounded by books and images dear.

https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8447996.stm

A bit of a tricky question but one that has been on my mind for a long time now:

Which of the British Secret Services has more moral fibre in terms of human rights, etc, the MI5 or the MI6, and which one of them will I be able to count amongst my heroes?

I do understand that they are partly controlled by the current government who, as is widely known, I have no time for, even if they think they have total control (mechanical) over my life but then we do have the Royalty as well and I should imagine their devotion to The Queen comes first and foremost. Governments do tend to fall and their leaders with them. Don't most political careers end up in tears?

mim

Ecolizzy

The one of the snow yesterday was from a website near where BYT lives, it is far more snowy than that picture.

Think they are beginning to realise the flood risk. A thaw on it's own should not be too much of a problem it is if it is accompanied by rain.

Mods

I wonder whether you'd allow me to put on record a statement each time I get a severe attack of pain around my bowels? They do seem to come on when I write something unpleasant about a despot or two, or three, or however many of them there are.

I am being treated for my symptoms but the actual cause has not yet been found, alas.

I do also get most peculiar noises coming out of my bowels which I am going to start recording as from tomorrow. A bout of those, for instance, intensified when I came across Prof Richard Dawkins' website about half an hour ago. Now, apparently he is very keen on carrying on with some experiment which may have absolutely nothing to do with me, of course, but then it may indeed.

Does he try to partake as well?

Monika

P.S. Please may I refer you to Jaded_Jean's posts regarding rape and me having to comply or else which he indulged in around the 19th of August 2009?

#79

Thank you so much, Mods, for your approval! You're real sports!

Monika

FAT-FACE DAVE HAS AN OBAMA-MOMENT WITH MARR

Cameron told Marr this morning that he has got the Tory debt down by a whole bunch of millions. Somewhat less the billion-odd that bought Obama the presidency. Dave seemed to think it showed how he will handle the nation's deficit - I think it shows how many quid-pro-quo-favours, repayment of which, he has 'locked in' to his policy-making, going forward.!

The remake of his features, on that poster, was touched on as 'airbrushing' - it's always the 'oft-repeated lie' isn't it! Long Face Dave on the posters, is a travesty. Dave chuckles that his wife said to get his money back. No Mrs Dave, it is WE WHO ARE BEING ROBBED.

"NOW YOU HAVE SHOWN YOU WANT ME TO GO - I AM MORE DETERMINED TO STAY!"

It's unpacking time again Pack-pickers!

Would you say that is the phrasing of an adult, expressing an inspiring approach to governance? Or is it 'The Tantrum Monster' on a mild day?

Poor wee Jimmie G Brown. It was the same when Tony had the job - Brown WANTED IT, AND HE WAS GOING TO SCREAM AND SCREAM UNTIL HE WAS SICK to get it. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

What a perfect indication that we have the wrong type of personality in a position of extreme power; AND HE CAN'T BE GOT RID OF! That is Westminster party politics. That is why I want to see the whole ethos, DISRUPTED, DISMANTLED AND DEFEATED. (Thanks Barack buddy.)

SPOIL PARTY GAMES

FREUDIAN UTTERANCE?

In recent times, politicians have taken to referring to 'Our Country' rather than 'Britain' or, simply, 'the country'.
I find this implied possession, brings a wry smile, as our culture is steadily eroded internally; we have flogged everything but the monarch, off to Johnnie Foreigner; and we have handed over the lion's share of governance to the EU. (Oh - and we are in vertiginous debt to someone-or-other.)

But we still have the Union Jack - although that is 'flagging' badly.

#82
As Mr Loaf would say.....

"YOU TOOK THE WORDS RIGHT OUT OF MY MOUTH"

Even Violet Elizabeth would be justifiably 'thick' at the antics of baby Brown and his kindergarten chums.


We're DOOMED!

#85

not with me around BYT

mim

DOOM AND THE DOMESDAY BOOK (#84)

Cooking with gas there BYT. Time for a 'domesday sweep' of the country IF THE EU ALLOWS. A physical line of bodies passing down the country recording every nook and cranny with its associated trogs and denizens. THEN we might get to know how many illegals, how much black economy and how many total! Probably find all sorts of nasty goings on in sheds and shanties. What a database that would be! Mammon would be falling over himself to pay barmy sums to government for access - deficit solved!

Censorship by Google

https://www.foxsmallbusinesscenter.com/scitech/2010/01/08/google-censoring-islam/

If you type in "X (faith) is" into the Google searchbox, you'll get a stack of suggestions (helpful/offensive), however, if you type the words " Islam is" then suggestions are censored.

https://www.derbysulzers.com/200179.html

Would be good to find out if Government policy on preparation for extreme cold weather especially gas and salt was based on IPCC climate warming models and Met forecasts. Anyone care to inform us ?

Considering last Sunday's total ridicule of Gordon Brown on the Andrew Marr show how can he have David Cameron on this morning and despite an alleged full review of the Sunday papers totally fail to even mention the following scoop.

https://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6982403.ece

Does this represent significant pro Tory bias on Andrew Marr's part ?

Gordon Brown joked yesterday "I didn't expect to be here today". He quickly clarified he was talking about the snow,

Which makes it better how?

In any case, as I review the reviews, a weekend is a long time in politics and, in certain non-inconvenient coverage of same.

'Nokia... incoming!'

#71
(Playing catch up)

ALL'S FAIR IN FAIRY (LA LA) LAND

Or as Bill Gates once said "Life's NOT fair, get used to it."

Isn't this desire, need, expectation of fairness, total equality (one side of the equation only of course) and ALL having it ALL a huge part of modern miserable Britains problem?

Is it SO HARD to understand, that the harder one tries to be fair to all, the further one is removed from being 'fair' or decent to any.

This of course much to the fore the larger an organisation becomes, be that government, education departments or your local golf/tennis club.

All around me I hear 'eceonomies of scale' are the way to go, but I only see false economy as a result. One size does NOT fit all - and the momre you try to force individuality into 'Little Boxes' you get horrible bulges in strange places, deep cracks, unsound structures and NOTHING actually fitting anything/anyone/anywhere.

89. At 1:22pm on 10 Jan 2010, SPBMK2 wrote:
Would be good to find out if Government policy on preparation for extreme cold weather especially gas and salt was based on IPCC climate warming models and Met forecasts. Anyone care to inform us ?

I think the money being demanded is for green jobs ticking boxes/meeting targets and/or a lot of folk flying about saying how bad things are and will be - not actually generating income or DOING much useful.

Or for actual planning or contingencies for when things do get bad, er, now.

But according to the public service gov/quango/media triumverate, actually all this was within the prediction, if at the same time being unprecedented, or something.

If in this brave new age my wife works and the kids' schoolmates are being shipped in from a broader catchment, then it's fair to say '10 and '63 are not strictly comparable at least.

At least, in terms of what 'we' were/are expected to deliver then vs. now, 'traveling unless necessary'-wise.

I am sure Susan Watts will be on hand to spin a good yarn soon about the 'wrong kind of snow to fit the right kind of model'.

#92

BYT

re: satisfying 'them' all

I find examples usually work well to illustrate one's point

So, let's imagine a woman who would be expected to satisfy every man on this planet according to the despotic requirements of a pimp? He'd probably expect her to be boxed in day and night, with no food and no right to do anything else but satisfy all the willing. Not only that. At the end of the experiment he would expect to win the Science Nobel Prize.

Just a touch over the top or what?

mim

#94

Mods

Just as I finished writing this I got a sudden attack on the right hand side of my bowels

Monika

Mods

Since you have not dismissed me talking about some of the symptoms that I experience, I might as well mention that, and apart from sharp pin type sensations which can happen just anywhere on my body which sometimes result with my legs or arms jumping, I also get quite severe pressure on the left hand side of my body, especially in the frontal parietal lobe of my head and around my left eye with the area going almost into a spasm. This is particularly severe when I'm at home.

If these symptoms are part of the experiment whereby I'm supposed to be forced to accept the left side as being better than the right, I'm not sure but it looks like this may be the case.

So, am I supposed to be not only a sex robot but also gordon's, mandy's and their cronies' robot?

I realise that all this sounds terribly far fetched and sometimes even I find it difficult to believe the reasons for my symptoms but they are there as clear as the Sun on a cloudless day.

Monika

P.S. I have read articles about people having had all kinds of electronic devices made of fibreoptic material or whatever placed in their bodies in order to make them obey commands or, as illustrated by the BBC 'Spooks', to be continuously visible and audible, etc.

#96

As expected, I'm having another attack of both pain in the bowels and pressure on the going down from the top left side of my head, with additional heart palpitations

Monika

LEAN AND HUNGRY WISDOM (#92)

Peter (Cassius) Tatchel was on The Big Questions (that's a big question in itself) and he seemed to be of the view we should take everyone's money, put it in a notional pot, and divide it by the NUMBER OF BRITISH CITIZENS (oops) giving each an equal share. He clearly has the FAIRNESS VIRUS.

I think it would be better to try to WISE UP THE YOUNG, so that they can be competent, productive and content, neither knowing nor caring what the rich man has in his castle.

Incidentally, there was the usual impasse over homosexuality on the BQs. And amid all the shouting, STILL no one asked why God - when creating homosexual man - didn't make the obvious modification. It could have taken the heat out of the whole debate - local and Biblical.

Mods and the BBC when people on here are clearly having problems don't you think they should be protected, if you don't why don't you ?

Monika I hope your social worker is helping you. And that you can be engaged in a meaningful way to your health and not just assessment of your situation. I also hope your staying warm.

Oh this is something:

https://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/01/09/petraeus.iran/index.html

"Well, they certainly can be bombed," he said. "The level of effect would vary with who it is that carries it out, what ordnance they have, and what capability they can bring to bear."

Be interesting to know thoughts on this bringing the Iran together or further dividing it. ?