The Coffee House Wall – 13th/19th October

Posted on October 13, 2014

This is the Coffee House Wall for this week. I won’t say that it is your chance to communicate with us, as we are all in this together. It is, nevertheless, the Conservative Blog post that has no particular theme, and where everything is on topic. Let’s just remember that we want to avoid ad hominem attacks on others. We don’t want to engage with trolls. We want to moderate our language ourselves as responsible and mature adults, choosing to use fruity language only where it is necessary. This is our opportunity to show what the Spectator Coffee House Wall could have been like.

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237 thoughts on “The Coffee House Wall – 13th/19th October”

  2. ‘Hear All Sides’

    Taking part in a well-balanced programme were Eric Lard, the avant garde playwright; Mrs Dutt-Pauker, the Hampstead progressive thinker; Sir Osric Fenton, the Left-wing actor manager; Dr Abdul Castrumba, the freelance revolutionary leader, and Mr J L Smith, an elderly retired newsagent from Stretchford.

    … There was general agreement when Mrs Dutt-Pauker said that as a typical English housewife she would welcome the Red Army to our shores after the liquidation of the reactionary forces.
    _____

    No need to tell you where this is from but you may be surprise d by the date, which is …..

    ……

    ……

    1961

  6. Radio4 was this afternoon asking whether there would be any televised debates between political leaders prior to next year’s general election.

    It appears that David Cameron would be willing to hold a debate or series of debates with Ed Miliband but not with Nick Clegg, Caroline Lucas was wheeled on (no I couldn’t think why either) demanding to be included, when the interviewer pointed out UKIP’s 25% support and also other fringe parties she played her usual trump card, that is to speak nonstop gibberish drowning out other voices.

    As she represents the Gay capital of England Brighton at Westminster I had always assumed that she too was gay, but it appears she is married and has a family, now there’s a chap, her husband, who deserves a medal.

  7. Sky News anchor, Jeremy Thompson, gets yet another paid holiday in Pretoria to ‘report’ the sentencing of Oscar Pistorius. Why? It should now be irrelevant to BSkyB viewers, given the ludicrous verdict by the SA ‘Court’, that appears to have deliberately strung the case out for the purposes of the Sky News Anchor and the scruffy Alex Crawford.

    Apparently the defence mitigation case is that Pistorius is suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome ( PTSS) . Or Piss-taking Sadistic Slaughterer, perhaps? Yet another adjournment!

    Get the next plane home Jeremy and stop wasting our Sky subscriptions; fund some decent programmes instead. Or cover some of the issues that affect us all. If it wasn’t for Sky Sports we would have cancelled our account and made do with Freeview months ago. The Sky News content is now leaning as far left as The Beeb. And the profligacy of its reporters is legion. As for stuffing the loop with the South African ‘Judicial’ (?) travesties – give it a rest FFS. WGAF?

  8. EC

    Maggie de Block? This has to be a spoof; please reassure me?
    If not, satire is now completely redundant. Let’s all unplug our keyboards and just read the ‘news’: the chronical of homo sapiens in the process of disintegration.

  9. John birch – 15:48 ‘They tell the truth’

    These lot can’t, for obvious reasons:

    ‘There are hundreds of bodies with their heads cut off… they put their heads on display to scare us’: Survivors of Kobane massacre reveal the brutality of ISIS rampage in Syrian border town

    * Fighting continues to rage between Islamic State militants and Kurdish forces in besieged Syrian city of Kobane
    * Kurdish troops continue to fight jihadists with support of U.S. airstrikes despite being massively outgunned
    * Headless and mutilated corpses of Kurdish fighters are said litter the streets of the besieged Syrian border town
    * Kurds who have escaped to a refugee camp in the nearby Turkish town of Suruc tell of witnessing appalling horrors
    * Photographs by the Daily Mail’s Jamie Wiseman show ongoing fighting between ISIS militants and Kurdish forces

    “Thirteen-year-old Dillyar cannot get the image of his cousin being beheaded out of his mind. The pair were fleeing Kobane and running down a street when Islamic State fighters blocked their exit.
    Dillyar managed to slip through their grasp but his cousin Mohammed, 20, was seized, and gave a blood-curdling scream as one of the black-clad maniacs drew out a knife.
    ‘They pushed him to the ground and sawed his head off, shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’,’ the schoolboy told me yesterday. ‘I see it in my dreams every night and every morning I wake up and remember everything.'”

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2790296/blood-curdling-screams-headless-bodies-siege-town-mail-man-sam-greenhill-reports-frontline-jihadi-squads-lie-wait-western-hostages.html

    Of course, these are completely different to those we have in Britain that have the same name, aren’t they?

    ‘Allahu Akbar’? That does ring a bell, somewhere … …

  10. Frank P, @16:41

    100% legit, I’m afraid. 😯

    The Belgians’, and to some extent the Dutch, national pastime is eating pomme frites.
    Perhaps the problem is genetic. However, if she’s a chip off the old Block then – to paraphrase a great man – “That’s some chip, some potato!”

  11. Andy Car Park, @10:53

    Funny, and also remarkably prescient.

    eg. in 1965

    “I have been worried for some time about the small number of public school men, and in particular peers of the realm, who are appointed as trade union officials. In fairness, the number of titled and land-owning trade union officials ought to be in proportion to those with a working-class background. The principle of equality, to which we are all committed, demands that there should be no damned merit about it. It is outrageous, for example, that the number of good-looking girls who work as models is far in excess of the number of plain girls; and that not one single illiterate, club-footed Scottish-born woman of eighty has ever been selected to play cricket for Yorkshire”.

    h/t Roger Helmer

  14. I feel bad about my lack of contribution
    How do I get cash to you
    Perhaps next time I am in the Admiral Gordon?

  15. It is noted that the BBC is having to puff Newsnight during its programme breaks. I assume the new anchor, the precious Evan Davis (he with eyes like piss holes in the snow) is not wowing the ratings. Perhaps this is the beginning of the end? ‘Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.

  16. Telemachus October 13th, 2014 – 21:40

    “I feel bad about my lack of contribution. How do I get cash to you”

    Top of page on the right hand side, click the donate button, all the usual cards can be used.

  17. Frank P October 13th, 2014 – 23:27

    “Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.”

    Please, let me second that.

  19. And Susan Rice has asserted that the Turkish Government agreed to allow their air bases to be used by the Allies. Only to immediately provoke a downright denial by the Turkish Prime Minister. Once again the lying cow is used as a purveyor of bullshit. You couldn’t make it up. They might as well mount an effigy of a giant-sized middle finger on the front lawn of the White House. Un-fuckin’-believable!

  22. Frank P, October 13th, 2014 – 23:27

    “It is noted that the BBC is having to puff Newsnight during its programme breaks. I assume the new anchor, the precious Evan Davis (he with eyes like piss holes in the snow) is not wowing the ratings. Perhaps this is the beginning of the end? ‘Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.”

    I gave up watching BBC NewsNight many many years ago after Paxo lost the plot. The only effective, seemingly independent minded , professional journalist/presenter that the BBC have got left is Andrew “Brillo” Neil. He’s the only one I can bear to watch anyway. However, he is, I suspect, just one more equivocal comment about wind farms and/or the 18 year global warming “pause” from being shown the door – like David Bellamy.

    BBC News and Current Affairs is a glaring tribute to the “equality and diversity” of cultural marxism – as is evidenced by the almost total absence of any heterosexual white males who aren’t “screaming lefties” [Marr], and/or global warm-mongers, and/or cultural cringers. Not forgetting, of course, the anti-semite and the anti American(*) factions. [*The BBC will resume its anti American propaganda once the incumbent pyjama boy and golfing enthusiast is hopefully impeached or leaves office – UNLESS, of course, the Clintons get back in ! ]

    Ch4 ditto.

  23. Frank P 13th, – 23:27

    It is noted that the BBC is having to puff Newsnight during its programme breaks.

    Wasn’t appointing Evan Davis enough of a puffing? ;-P

  24. EC 14th, – 08:47

    The only effective, seemingly independent minded , professional journalist/presenter that the BBC have got left is Andrew “Brillo” Neil.

    Vous avez raison! 🙂

  26. Ostrich (occasionally) @09:26

    I imagine that for many, and for a considerable number of years now, the rigorous BBC staff selection and appointment process has proved to be quite an uphill struggle 😯

  28. The common cold in adults – UpToDate
    http://www.uptodate.com/…/the-common-cold-in-adults-beyond-the...

    In addition, tissues should be used to cover the mouth when sneezing or coughing. These used tissues should be disposed of promptly. Sneezing/coughing into the sleeve of one’s clothing (at the inner elbow) is another means of containing sprays of saliva and secretions and does not contaminate the hands.

    With advice like this, what hope for preventing the spread of Ebola here? Fah!

  29. EC – 10:07 ‘Boris’

    At least Nigel had the sense to do a day’s work in the morning before starting his networking activities.

  30. The common cold in adults – UpToDate
    http://www.uptodate.com/…/the-common-cold-in-adults-beyond-the...

    In addition, tissues should be used to cover the mouth when sneezing or coughing. These used tissues should be disposed of promptly. Sneezing/coughing into the sleeve of one’s clothing (at the inner elbow) is another means of containing sprays of saliva and secretions and does not contaminate the hands.

    With advice like this, what hope for preventing the spread of Ebola here? Fah!

  34. stephen maybery @ 18:53

    Very kind of you to make an offer of a copy, stephen, and apologies for the late reply. The barbarian has spent time in a hospital, got back only yesterday, is still in recovery. How about a meeting in London when he’s able to move more freely, next week perhaps, or whenever suits you after?

  36. Sorry about the repeat. Baron clicked on the ‘Submit’ button, the screen flicked, the posting appeared twice.

  38. Baron,
    Our lives do seem to be moving in tandem, I am roughly in the same boat. Name the time and the place and I will be there. I will probably have somebody with me, one of a small group of friends who accompany me to the bus stop and catch me when I go arse over tea kettle. Ain’t life grand. Bye the way Nov. 22 is out, Moorfields again.

  40. stephen maybery @ 16:16

    Give the barbarian a couple more days to assess his recovery progress, stephen, then he’ll name the date (and it wouldn’t be the Nov 22nd), and you have as many friends with you as you want.

    They say general anaestethic effects one’s memory, down to everyday words that get hard to recall. Add to it old age, and the combination’s lethal. Baron’s current state of memory is a perfect example of it, but he’ll consult the notes, will tell you about the wild East when we meet.

  41. Anne Wotana Kaye 1October 14th, 2014 – 16:10A haunting bug has infiltrated the site, Anne, someone should let Peter know before the site, and the whole world with it, crashed down.Baron’s typing it on a grey screen with  some previously unseeen icons at the top. Why are they there?

  42. Peter,Have you just updated your WordPress software?I’ve tried experimenting with this new toolbox. The insert image and insert hyperlink buttons appear to work OK until the Submit button is pressed. Once Submit pressed the image and its url disappears along with the formatting, but at least the hyperlink remains. 🙂

  44. Frank P/David Ossitt”Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished..” Which is exactly what may occur if Evan Davis is flung out of the BBC onto the streets of London at 11 o’clock at night 😉 

  45. Baron’s posting has ‘have’ left out, in part because part of what he had typed vanished again and again when he reached the end of the line, Peter. Also, it’s impossible to paste, then remove the middle part of the pasting, unless there’s a trick how to do it. 

  46.  

    Telemachus October 14th, 2014 – 03:20

    “David I can only deal in cash Can you help?”

    In these days when almost everyone pays for most things by
    debit or credit card, standing order or variable direct debit, when most of us
    limit our use of cash to the odd purchase, newspaper, street vender, or a gift
    to a beggar, ‘Big Issue’ seller etcetera, we have the site troll claiming he
    can only deal in cash.

    Telemachus you are a fibber, I do not believe you.

  48. I’m using Firefox and just added the text in the previous comment and then an image URL. Then I clicked submit and waited and it appeared. What happens with other folk when they try the same thing? There is one button for images and another for creating a link to a page.

    I have to keep the site updated with the latest versions of everything to prevent our Muslim hacker friends coming back!

  49. Michael Roberts – 15:14This is the video of one of the attacks on Lars Vilks. It happened four years ago, the police then demanded he pays a part of the protection cost.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbpyk1uHNWYThe Swedes are strange people, Michael, and not so much because the streets could be full of drunks even though alcohol is prohibitively expensive, its sale restricted. When the Red Menace was in charge in Eastern Europe, Baron once accompanied, as an interpreter, a group of tourists to Stockholm. The purpose of the visit was some get-together of the young to ensure world peace, the timing of it early winter. Some of the participants from the East had not enough warm clothing, also lacked the cash to purchase much. One of the Swedish organisers suggested those who needed a sweater, a hat, a coat or whatever should go with him to a departmental store, help themselves, leave the store without paying. Many did. Nobody called the police, the staff, totally bewildered, impotent to stop the pilfering, were just observing the thieving youngsters. Baron persuaded two of the thieves to return the stuff (later he learnt they only gave up a part of the haul), also contacted the police, who said no theft was reported.This happened in the depth of the last century, things may have changed, most likely have, but it tells you something about what happens when two disparate cultures clash, the code of behaviour of one is invaded by the alien code of the other. 

  50. “telemachus”(Oct 13//21:40) is apparently offering to meet “Peter from Maidstone” at a local `local`. (See `CAMERA` site below.)To make a donation with-out an account;find a third party who has an account and a computer.There are money transfer shops all around the working class immigrant districts.www.whatpub.com/pubs/MAI/119/admiral-gordon-maidstone

  55. Hi Peter,Same result with Safari as when I used Google Chome – see @17:55Results of that test are at end of last week’s wall.I am hearing that Firefox browser is the best of the bunch at moment, so I’ll download that tomorrow.EC

  57. Ostrich (occasionally)October 14th, 2014 – 23:26 —– If only, Ostrich, it’s just the barbarian fails to check what his ageing fingers type (or his Alz doped brain instructs). Also, he still cannot master the new arrangement, the font’s too small. How can one enlarge it? 

  62. John birch @ October 14th, 2014 – 11:42I read this depressing article, together with all the comments. The opposition or indifference to English Defence League on the Wall in face of this unfolding disaster is incomprehensible to me.Perhaps if some nice middle class people in respectable political parties and with or without bald heads were discussing the problem, I would be less concerned.In the meantime, there seems only my proposal for nationwide demigration subsidised by the National Lottery to be introduced concurrently with an effective limit on further immigration by adherents to the religion of peace to, say, two per cent of the population.This does not yet seem to be on the menu at  http://www.englishdefenceleague.org/media-release-from-the-chairman-of-the-english-defence-league/which still seems to be acting as a muffled alarm lock rather than a platform for policy.

  64. David Ossitt
    1924
    There is a question of anonymity and security
    How does one use the button and not expose one’s true name etc?

  65. Baron:click on `TT`to change size of font and………click H1 before starting a new paragraph.Be bold :click on all the icons and see what happens.I don’t know will happen to this.ed

  69. ComradeApplause! Bundles of cash denote the true Soviet citizen. I’m sure the taxman appreciates that you confine your transactions to roubles. Send a sackful they’ll burn well on winter nights.

  72. Alas, no formatting and no grapic displayed from Steynonline site.  URL works though :-)Also this new version of Firefox browser is blisteringly fast ! I shal be using it from now on.

  74. I suggest folk just use the comment box as before and I’ll try to determine why formatting may not be working. It may be that elsewhere in the site settings I have enabled some other protective function that is conflicting with the functions in the editor.

  78. This new posting format seems simply change for changes sake.  It has given me a headache.

  80. I’ve turned the editor function off since there seem to be issues with it. I don’t think there is such desire for what it offers to offset the learning curve and configuration. But shout if you all disagree.

  81. Baron, love the ‘box of thicks’ haven’t stopped laughing, best Freudian ever!
    (sounds like liblabcon)

  82. EC
    October 15th, 2014 – 08:32
    Will Damien Hirst’s bronze statue Verity regenerate Ilfracombe?
    All I know is that the vile Hirst is taking Verity’s name in vain. How I miss her, and pray she is well and safe.

  83. Peter from Maidstone
    October 15th, 2014 – 09:25
    I may be an old codger, and found the system complicated. A million thanks, Peter. for restoring the old way,

  84. Peter from Maidstone

    “we all need more coffee.”

    But as Tom Waits said back in 1977 “I’d rather have a bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy”.

  86. Malfleur October 15th, 2014 – 13:59

    “I’d rather have a bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy”

    I have been misquoting this for years, I thought it was, I’d rather have a full bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy

  87. It’s interesting to see that the National Union of Students have rejected a motion condemning ISIS because it is Islamophobic. Perhaps the leadership of the NUS would like to take a gap year in the Caliphate?

  88. Peter from Maidstone @ 09:25

    A sensible move, Peter, thanks. One is always wise to heed Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland, who said in 1642: “If it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change. (Didn’t work for him though, he lost his life preventing change, but an interesting chap all the same).

  89. Hello Peter,

    Re: New toolbox. I’d quite like embedding photo and url features, and would use them if they could be made to work.
    Thanks
    EC

  90. Andy Car Park @ 15:36

    Baron couldn’t have warmed up to Ted even if cremated together, but surely it cannot be true, Andy. Not then, very likely not even now.

  91. David, Malfleur:

    So which is it then? Baron’s feeble brain cannot figure it.

    Also, what’s this thing abbout coffee, more of it, drinking it in Italy and all that? Baron is beginning to think he’s really lost it, blames general anaesthetic (spelling may be wrong here, the word’s underlined in red), you have to stop talking in a cryptic, Delphian language, you’re losing the poorly educated Slav .

  92. SheilaT @ 09:27

    Glad you can laugh at the barbarian genuine mistakes, Sheila. How could it have happened, the letters aren’t even neighbours on the keyboard? A case of wandering serendipity landing in a vacuum, perhaps?

  93. stephen, you around? How about next Tuesday, 21st October, 14.00 hours, the 4th (fourth) floor restaurant where thye serve Indian, Chinese, other foods. It’s next door to a department that sells glasses, contact lenses.

    The Store is on the Central Line as you know, the timing is to avoid the office lunch hours, give Baron sufficient time to get there from the wilderness of Suffolk via Liverpool Street.

    You can change everything, but please remember it takes the barbarian over three hours to get to Central London, sorry.

    Absolutely no problem if you cannot make it, it’s that the boss has informed Baron just now (women, ha), she goes out with a friend to see some exhibition that day, hence the hours of freedom for the serf. He must grab every opportunity whilst he can, but there will be other openings.

    And lastly, it’s all subject to Baron’s confirmation Monday evening. He has a medical procedure scheduled for Monday, the day before. If it goes badly he won’t make it. Truly sorry about it, but that’s life, or rather whatever remains of it.

  94. And lastly this, and Baron shuts up.

    We have been through Aid to Africa before, this piece, however, longish, but worth reading, sums up what all of us thought rather well. Notice the new angle of the young boy who cannot be educated carrying AK-47s, raping, and the gift of Africa to the outside world (he didn’t mention Ebola, it surfaced later).

    Amazing the piece can appear. But then, Ireland has always been somewhat an odd man of Europe.

    An Irish perspective on Africa

    

This report by K. Myers appeared in The Irish Independent:



    Somalia is not a humanitarian disaster; it is an evolutionary disaster.

 The current drought is not the worst in 50 years, as the BBC, and all the aid organizations claim. It is nothing compared to the droughts in 1960/61 or 73/74. There are continuing droughts every 5 years or so. It’s just that there are now four times the population; having been kept alive by famine relief, supplied by aid organizations, over the past 50 years. So, of course, the effects of any drought now, is a famine. They cannot even feed themselves in a normal rainfall year.



    Worst yet, the effects of these droughts, and poor nutrition in the first 3 years of a child’s life, have a lasting effect on the development of the infant’s brain, so that if they survive, they will never achieve a normal IQ. Consequently, they are selectively breeding a population who cannot be educated, let alone one that is not being educated: a recipe for disaster. 

We are seeing this impact now, and it can only exacerbate, to the detriment of their neighbors, and their environment as well. This scenario can end only in an even worse disaster, with even worse suffering, for those benighted people and their descendants.

 Eventually, some mechanism will intervene, be it war, disease or starvation. So what do we do? Let them starve?

    What a dilemma for our Judeo/Christian/Islamic Ethos, as well as Hindu/Buddhist morality. 

This is beginning to happen in Kenya, Ethiopia, and other countries in Asia, like Pakistan. Is this the beginning of the end of civilization? 

AFRICA is giving nothing to anyone outside Africa, apart from AIDS and new diseases.

 Even as we see African states refusing to take action to restore something resembling civilization in Zimbabwe, the Begging Bowl for Ethiopia is being passed around to us outside of Africa, yet again.

 It is nearly 25 years since the famous Feed The World campaign began in Ethiopia, and in that time Ethiopia’s population has grown from 33.5 million to 78+ million today. 

So, why on earth should I do anything to encourage further catastrophic demographic growth in that country? Where is the logic? There is none.

    

To be sure, there are two things saying that logic doesn’t count.

 One is my conscience, and the other is the picture, yet again, of another wide-eyed child, yet again, gazing, yet again, at the camera, which, yet again, captures the tragedy of children starving. 

Sorry. My conscience has toured this territory on foot and financially. Unlike most of you, I have been to Ethiopia; like most of you, I have stumped up the loot to charities to stop starvation there. The wide-eyed boy-child we saved, 20 years or so ago, is now a low IQ, AK 47-bearing moron, siring children whenever the whim takes him, and blaming the world because he is uneducated, poor and left behind.

    There is no doubt a good argument why we should prolong this predatory and dysfunctional economic, social and sexual system, but I do not know what it is. There is, on the other hand, every reason not to write a column like this.

 It will win no friends, and will provoke the self-righteous wrath of, well, the self-righteous, hand wringing, letter writing wrathful individuals, a species which never fails to contaminate almost every debate in Irish life with its sneers and its moral superiority.

    It will also probably enrage some of the finest men in Irish life, like John O’Shea, of Goal; and the Finucane brothers, men whom I admire enormously. So be it.

 But, please, please, you self-righteously wrathful, spare me mention of our own Irish Famine, with this or that lazy analogy. There is no comparison. Within 20 years of the Famine, the Irish population was down by 30%. Over the equivalent period, thanks to western food, the Mercedes 10-wheel truck and the Lockheed Hercules planes, Ethiopia’s population has more than doubled.



    Alas, that wretched country is not alone in its madness. Somewhere, over the rainbow, lies Somalia, another fine land of violent, AK 47-toting, khat-chewing, girl-circumcising, permanently tumescent layabouts, housing pirates of the ocean.

 Indeed, we now have almost an entire continent of sexually hyperactive, illiterate indigents, with tens of millions of people who only survive because of help from the outside world or allowances by the semi communist Governments they voted for, money supplied by borrowing it from the World Bank!!

This dependency has not stimulated political prudence or common sense.


    Indeed, voodoo idiocy seems to be in the ascendant, with the president of South Africa being a firm believer in the efficacy of a little tap water on the post-coital penis as a sure preventative against AIDS infection. 

Needless to say, poverty, hunger and societal meltdown have not prevented idiotic wars involving Tigre, Uganda, Congo, Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea etc, etc. 

Broad brush-strokes, to be sure, but broad brush-strokes are often the way that history paints its gaudier, if more decisive, chapters. Japan, China, Russia, Korea, Poland, Germany, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in the 20th century have endured worse broad brush-strokes than almost any part of Africa.

They are now, one way or another, virtually all giving aid to or investing in Africa, whereas Africa, with its vast savannahs and its lush pastures, is giving almost nothing to anyone, apart from AIDS.



    Meanwhile, Africa’s peoples are outstripping their resources, and causing catastrophic ecological degradation. By 2050, the population of Ethiopia will be 177 million, the equivalent of France, Germany and Benelux today, but located on the parched and increasingly Protein-free wastelands of the Great Rift Valley.

 So, how much sense does it make for us actively to increase the adult population of what is already a vastly over-populated, environmentally devastated and economically dependent country? 

How much morality is there in saving an Ethiopian child from starvation today, for it to survive to a life of brutal circumcision, poverty, hunger, violence and sexual abuse, resulting in another half-dozen such wide-eyed children, with comparably jolly little lives ahead of them?



    Of course, it might make you feel better, which is a prime reason for so much charity, but that is not good enough.

 Self-serving generosity has been one of the curses of Africa. It has sustained political systems which would otherwise have collapsed. It prolonged the Eritrean-Ethiopian war by nearly a decade.

It is inspiring Bill Gates’ program to rid the continent of malaria, when, in the almost complete absence of personal self-discipline, that disease is one of the most efficacious forms of population-control now operating.

 If his program is successful, tens of millions of children who would otherwise have died in infancy will survive to adulthood, he boasts.

 Oh good!!

    Then what? 

I know, let them all come here (to Ireland) or America or where-ever.

    

Yes, that’s an idea….

  95. Peter from Maidstone October 15th, 2014 – 17:12

    “It’s interesting to see that the National Union of Students have rejected a motion condemning ISIS because it is Islamophobic.”

    The sooner we in the west recognised that Islam in all of its forms and Muslims in general will not and cannot live in peace in Christian countries the better.

    Our natural good manners and live and let live attitude encourages them to see the west as a soft target, that ‘IS’ can attract young men and women from all of the western countries to commit atrocities all in ‘Gods’ name is but a small indication of what they wish to do in their adopted country, if they had the chance.

    With but a few exceptions our politicians want to white-wash over the cracks and all of them fool themselves by saying that the be-headers are not really true Muslims , that the majority are peace loving, this is Quisling talk send them all back whence they came.

  96. Baron October 15th, 2014 – 19:03

    Permanently stop all aid to these underdeveloped African countries, let nature take its course.

  97. Baron
    October 15th, 2014 – 18:14
    Andy Car Park @ 15:36
    Baron couldn’t have warmed up to Ted even if cremated together, but surely it cannot be true, Andy. Not then, very likely not even now.
    My dear late Mother, may she rest in peace, was a far kinder person than I could ever be. She loathed Heath for his political stance, but refused to believe the stories which circulated about his private life. She believed he was neither a normal hetrosexual being, nor a homosexual male. She simply stated that he was asexual.

  98. Baron 19.03
    Christ baron, that’s a searingly honest take on the situation.
    What can you say other than agree with the author.
    I would never have expected to read this in a newspaper any where.
    Amazing.

  99. Baron,
    Just logged on and read your message, date and time OK. I do hope you can make it, but if not, don’t worry, there will be other times, only not 24th, flu jab.

  100. Great post Baron, it is well worth the repeat. It also highlights one point re religions – “What a dilemma for our Judeo/Christian/Islamic Ethos, as well as Hindu/Buddhist morality”

    When morality and actions are based upon faith (stories) without evidence, then it can come as no surprise that we end up with the situation of jew-hatred, the problems of Islam and the impossibility of Africa.

    Geldof, Bono and all the other bleeding heart liberals should read this and hang their heads in shame. Large swathes of humanity twitter on about global warming but Africa and its problems will destroy us all far sooner (if the combined goodness of religion doesn’t beat them to it)

  101. In September the NUS voted against condemning the self-called ISIS;this at the instigation of the `Black Students Officer`,Malia Bouattia`,an Arab who complained opposition to ISIS was an excuse for emperialism and islamophobia.She claimed she would put forward another `Black Students`motion.This does not seem to have appeared.

    The NUS also voted to oppose UKIP and send an email to every student on polling day to that effect.So they voted to condemn UKIP but `ISIS`.

    The question arises:just what is the NUS;what does it do;how are it’s Officers elected;what powers accrue to it;how is it financed;does it get tax payers money?Is it more like the RSPCA or the communist Trades Unions legislated against by Mrs. Thatcher?I think we need to know.

    An article and comments are at

    http://www.tab.co.uk/2014/10/14/nus-refuses-to-condemn-terrorists-because-its-islamophobic

  103. For years, it has really been a non-crime:

    Rotherham child sexual abuse scandal is tip of iceberg, says police chief

    Child exploitation is a hidden crime, and offences at home are the biggest concern, says Norfolk chief constable Simon Bailey

    “There will be more Rotherham-style child sexual exploitation scandals unearthed in the coming months as the “stone is lifted” on the scale of abuse perpetuated on the young, one of Britain’s top police officers has warned.
    …
    He also sparked a clash with fellow professionals by calling on teachers and doctors to take on more responsibility over detecting signs of abuse.

    Bailey warned that the scale of the problem was far larger than previously thought, with the latest research estimating that the number of children suffering sexual abuse at some point in their childhood could be as high as 600,000. “We don’t know for sure. But I think it’s tens of thousands of victims [a year] of an appalling crime.””

    http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/oct/15/rotherham-child-sexual-abuse-scandal-tip-iceberg-police-chief

    And we have been paying for it! All those diversity officers ensuring that we are being culturally enriched, while they are being financially enriched!

    Surely there needs to be some terminations of employment, if only to save some money.

  104. stephen maybery
    October 15th, 2014 – 21:50

    Interested to hear you are getting a flu jab. I have been pretty much persuaded to abandon them after many years (including a pneumonia jab in Xi’An in 2010…).

    Is there still a case for?

  106. Malfleur,
    I get the flu jab automatically, I was also given the pneumonia jab, this one is for life. Are they effective? well, I will not take any chances, but I will say this, I have not had a dose of flu since they started giving it to me, and I am a person who used to suffer dreadfully in the winter months. So on balance I go along with the treatment, as a diabetic with a damaged immune system I can not take chances.

  107. Peter,

    I note that your MP, the deeply unimpressive Helen Grant, is again attempting to meddle in matters which really shouldn’t and need not concern her.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/29629460

    Surely the price of tickets/season tickets etc is self-limiting?
    She’d be better off speaking out against corruption within sport, the IOC and FIFA etc. but I fear she is, like so many other politicians, an invertebrate.

  108. stephen maybery, October 16th, 2014 – 05:34

    Hello Stephen,
    The only flu jab that I ever had was in 1970 when “they” were experimenting on students. 🙂 Within 36 hours I was dreadfully ill for about a week. Since that time no more flu jabs, and I’ve only had one winter malady that could be properly described as flu. Either the 1970 flu jab was damned effective or I’ve been lucky. Either way I’ll take my chances.
    Good health, and good luck this winter
    EC

  109. Andrew Neil made a very good point earlier this morning:

    Andrew Neil ‏@afneil 1 hour ago

    “West Texas crude struggles to stay above $80. Brent is below $84. Down $30 in six months. Ms Sturgeon will need to re-do Mr Salmond’s sums”

  110. EC.,
    Thanks for your kind wishes. You are right, I understand that the flu jab can be a bit of a curate’s egg. In my case it seems to be working, or maybe I am just lucky. Still, as the great WSC so memorably said, I shall keep buggering on.

  112. EC, Helen Grant really is a waste of an MP. I do think that ticket prices are too high and the football economy is on shaky ground, but the answer is always for football supporters to say they have had enough and support their local team. Maidstone United have been recently reborn and have a small stadium in the town and you get to watch some good football for a £10. If more people did that then it would be a better response than the state sticking its nose in. But then, Helen Grant has to fill her time. She closed her constituency office and doesn’t live anywhere near Maidstone and is clearly preferring to be a minister of little ability and no responsibility.

  113. PfM 16th, – 08:41

    “Helen Grant really is a waste of an MP.”

    Indeed she is. I saw part of her TV appearance last night, before ‘er indoors changed channels in disgust. She seems to be an escapee from the left of the Labour party.

    Closed her constituency office has she? Now, if there were a law in place to allow it I think that would be good enough reason for a recall. 🙂 After all, she must, by inference, be neglecting her constituency duties.

  114. stephen maybery @ 21:50

    A deal, stephen, next Tuesday, 2PM, 4th floor Selfridges at the entrance to the eatery.

    But, please check the site Monday evening latest. If there’s no confirmation from Baron, it’s off. He got kept in the hospital after the last procedure, this time the barbarian has taken measures that should prevent it from happening (his body temperature sank to 34,4C i.e. into a hypothermic zone, but with no obvious symptoms of it like shaking, feeling cold, manuel dexterity down and stuff. It was only detected by a nurse tying a cuff around Baron’s arm to measure blood pressure. The doctors panicked, would not let the barbarian go home, heated him up in a plastic oven instead.

    No reason we shouldn’t recognize each other. You see a bald old man with a look in his eyes of someone who cannot believe he’s still breathing when he opens his eyes in the morning? That’s Baron.

  115. Anne Wotana Kaye 1 @ 19:37

    Your mother, Anne, may have been right, asexuals are around, but in our oversexed world there’s little space for them, what we feed on is sex perversions as full blast as it gets without the bits falling off. Baron’s not much into either modern popular music or asexuality, but didn’t Morrissey once once say (or more than once) he wa s asexual?

  116. Radford NG @ 23:29

    One shouldn’t read too much into it, Radford, (hopefully nobody does), they are students. Baron would be more shocked if they backed Ukkip, condemned IS.

  117. RobertC @ 00:15

    Good point of yours, Robert, that there ought to be some punishment meted out, few culprits pension off, but how likely is it?

    The local papers here are full of the story (it’s an East Anglian cop who tells it), but Baron’s sort of sceptical, he cannot believe that it could have been that big for that long, it still smells as yet another bid to dilute the big stuff, sir Jimmy, and the top of the political pyramid. One mustn’t forget either the interest or rather self-interest of the charities that address these problems, Where were they then when it was all going on?.

  118. Baron
    October 16th, 2014 – 10:50

    I suspect that in this case AWK1’s mother was on the money. Whatever his felonies, which were manifold, Heath passed top into the Civil Service, had a good war record and was respected by his men, who would surely have rumbled an hysterical queen as soon as they saw one.

    Thanks for the article from the unflinching Kevin Myers, which appears to date from about 2009. If you ever find his piece from the Sunday Telegraph on the leftist postures of the acting profession, let us know, eh? cos I’m buggered if I can. One of the best psychological dissections of do-themselves-gooders I’ve ever come across.

  121. Andy Car Park @ 11:11

    You are quite right, Andy, about dating the piece. By today, Ethiopia’s population has topped 90mn.

    By it would be harsh to blame the Africans for breeding. The kids are their pension.

    The second biggest crime against Africa (the first being the form and shape of the West’s current aid programmes) was the colonisers fleeing the continent before Africa was ready to look after itself, before there was a sufficiently numerous middle class, or a class of people who had a stake in whatever society, country they lived in.

    Africa has the most fertile land amongst all the world continents, yet it’s the one that cannot feed its own people. Sickening.

  122. Peter from Maidstone October 16th, 2014 – 08:41

    “Maidstone United have been recently reborn and have a small stadium in the town and you get to watch some good football for a £10”

    I well remember when Leeds United but up prices to pay for the cost of buying back John Charles from Juventus.

    My old dad stopped supporting Leeds United and transferred his affections to The Ashley Road Methodists football club.

  123. Baron,
    Will do, I’ll check on Monday evening, but what happens if they put you back in a plastic oven? will you make it home or end up as a piece of Kentucky fried?

  124. Last posting to bother you with, and it is cheerful.

    The pictures are those of the Imperial Russia, the land of unimaginable opulence, but also of an unimaginable poverty, taken before the WW1 (or around). Compare, in your mind, with pictures of the Olympics in Sochi, in today’s Russia. All that transformation in just 100 years, a time span of which most of it got erased by the dark years of the Bolsheviks monstrosity.

    And the music? Unusual, it a waltz of the White Russians, the enemies of the Reds, also called Junkers (from the German der Junker, a young nobleman, Malfeur should know).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR1lt5vowtY&feature=related

  126. Baron 16th, – 10:50

    “didn’t Morrissey once once say (or more than once) he wa s asexual?”

    O-oh, the troubles one can get into with pronunciation of English. 🙂 Perhaps there was enough of a pause for his listeners to assume he said, “ass sexual”? The ass bit is certainly correct. 😉

  127. 1700 cases of FGM reported in 6 months in England. Why are there not hundreds and thousands of arrests? Imagine if a white male had done this to just one girl. But those who did this are protected!

  128. Peter from Maidstone @ 15:37

    Fascinating picture album, Peter, thanks. The man, Baron has never heard of him, seems to have focused mostly on imposing buildings, picturesque places, bucolic views. No much of the ordinary life, you know, the muzhiks, 80 out a hundred were peasants those day, labouring, drinking, fighting.

  129. Ostrich (occasionally) @ 15:52

    Clever of you, Ostrich, and who knows, he may have been fond of the ass (is it the right spelling), virtually everyone of this phylum is.

  130. Contrary to nasty rumours from within ” the dark, bilious and resentful world down there”, Matthew Parris obviously doesn’t like it up him. Even though he asserts that he ‘can take it as well as give it’, following the response to his last outburst against Ukip. But perhaps that’s mixing unfortunate metaphors just a tad.

    Any road up ( double entendre intended) nip over to trolltopia and catch his latest cri de coeur. Having taken us back to the pre WWII Nazi Germany and the susceptibility of the German people to the message of hatred against homosexuals, Jews, etc. and etcetera, he assures us that he doesn’t really put Ukippers in that category … well, he does, but he’d rather we inferred it from his plaintive whinge, rather than having the balls to express it honestly.

    The inflated arrogance of privileged political hacks who controlled public opinion for yonks before the unwashed fight-back of the internet emerged, when pricked like a flaccid balloon, gives off a similar flatulent bleat – and an emetic odour of a mixture of KY jelly mixed with vegetanarian faeces.

  131. Baron – Oct 15th, 19:03 ‘Africa’

    For one moment, I wondered whether Bob Geldorf was agreeing with us, but then realised it was just the opposite, but we can live in hope:

    Bob Geldof: ‘We’re destroying any possibility of life for the future’
    “Live Aid founder and activist Sir Bob Geldof has joined former Irish premier Mary Robinson in calling on today’s young entrepreneurs and leaders to solve the climate change problem to create a “sustainable” future for all.”
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/11166219/Bob-Geldof-Were-destroying-any-possibility-of-life-for-the-future.html

    If only we could lead the sustainable lives that he does!

  132. David Ossitt – 11:38 ‘Ashley Road Methodists football club’

    Did they have the collection plate out on leaving the ground? 🙂

  133. RobertC October 16th, 2014 – 18:45

    David Ossitt – 11:38 ‘Ashley Road Methodists football club’

    Did they have the collection plate out on leaving the ground? 🙂

    Sadly no, the football club and the Methodist Chapel no longer exist.

  134. Frank P, October 16th, 2014 – 18:18

    Yes, that Matthew Parris blog was truly pathetic, as were several other smears the media/blogosphere today. The Climate Changers have been out in force too, trying to rubbish and smear Owen Paterson. The more these people feel challenged the more hysterical they get.

    You quite rightly detect the hum of fibrillating sphincters emanating from within No.10. They still haven’t learned the lesson that the UK electorate doesn’t like negative politics. It doesn’t work. In smearing UKIP, they are not only smearing the millions of people who vote for them but they are alienating even more the electorate from Lib/Lab/Con.

    I suspect that some of the malicious anti UKIP propaganda is also an attempt to intimidate any backbenchers thinking of jumping ship. There are a number of Tory backbenchers who really dislike the Cameroons, but how many of them are sufficiently motivated or have got a backbone to jump ship?

    Nigel, bring on the next defector. Bring on five or ten and CMD will be finished!

  135. RobertC, October 16th, 2014 – 18:38

    “If only we could lead the sustainable lives that he does!”
    🙂

    The same goes for that narcissistic poseur Bono! What made the arrogant twat think he had the right to stuff his crappy new U2 album in the whole world’s iTunes library – including mine. Grrr!

  136. Frank P @ 18:18

    Pity you didn’t take part, Frank.

    Some of the commentary under the Parris’s Spectator bleat, in which he compares Ukip to the Nazis, goes beyond the superb. A chap who calls himself Diggery Whiggery tops the chart. Here’s a bit of one his posting. In it, he says that the descendants of Muslims who arrived decades ago find it impossible to adjust to an increasingly debauched society that we’ve become. He may have as well added that most of the indigenous Brits who still remember what Britain was before the progressive clique took over find it even harder, hence the challenge to the ruling class as a whole:

    “Matthew sees himself as a moderate, yet that is a relative term. To a moderate muslim his politics of social liberalism enforced by the state are extreme. The West makes the adoption of this kind of politics a condition of being part of the ‘global community’ and so we force it on other countries, cultures and religions, whether they like it or not.

    In the case of the UK, many first generation muslim migrants made their way to a conservative and traditional Britain that while Christian in nature afforded them the possibility of finding their place in society without having to completely change their beliefs.

    Today, their descendents find it much harder to reconcile their faith or culture with the Britain around them and it’s aggressive, ever expanding atheist secularism, casual promiscuity, binge drinking, drug taking, and easily accessible porn. We have a society of freedom without responsibility and as a parent today, muslim or otherwise, bringing your children up in our society can be a nightmare and yet our missing moral compass doesn’t seem to concern the great and the good.

    Social liberalism has gone from meaning that the state keeps its nose out of what you do in your own home and personal life, to imposing a set of views and correct thinking on everyone. Under those circumstances people who disagree either have to submit, or find ways of fighting it.

    If we only give the muslim world a choice between our secular liberalism that they see as a barbarism alien to their culture, or a barbarism that comes from their own culture, they will unfortunately choose the latter more often than the former.

    Unless we’re planning on deporting millions of people, which would be absurd, we have to understand that from other people’s point of view, we’re not as moderate as we think we are”.

    The thread is worth reading, and it isn’t firewalled.

  137. EC @ 20:32

    The potential defectors are probably waiting for the next month by-election result, EC. If it sends the same signal as the two we’ve just had, those in constituencies that may be threatened may well jump, particularly if they are well liked by their constituents. It would be great news indeed, and you’re right, if a good number switched, the boy would be buried.

  139. EBOLA and VACCINES – Another View
    The following arrived in my email this morning. Given the naughty world we live in, it is perhaps worth consideration. What do you think?:

    “From Ghana: Ebola is not real and the only people who have gotten sick are those who got shots from the red cross

    BY THE EVENT CHRONICLE ON OCTOBER 13, 2014 ·EBOLA

    (Jim Stone) Other than the original facebook post, this web site is the first one to carry this and it needs to be spread, the future may be riding on this one, ARCHIVE, POST POST AND RE-POST!

    Nana Kwame wrote:

    People in the Western World need to know what’s happening here in West Africa. THEY ARE LYING!!! “Ebola” as a virus does NOT Exist and is NOT “Spread”. The Red Cross has brought a disease to 4 specific countries for 4 specific reasons and it is only contracted by those who receive treatments and injections from the Red Cross. That is why Liberians and Nigerians have begun kicking the Red Cross out of their countries and reporting in the news the truth. Now bear with me:

    REASONS:

    Most people jump to “depopulation” which is no doubt always on the mind of the West when it comes to Africa. But I assure you Africa can NEVER be depopulated by killing 160 people a day when thousands are born per day. So the real reasons are much more tangible.

    Reason 1: This vaccine implemented sickness being “called” Ebola was introduced into West Africa for the end goal of getting troops on the ground in Nigeria, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. If you remember America was just trying to get into Nigeria for “Boko Haram” #BULLSHIT but that fell apart when Nigerians started telling the truth. There ARE NO GIRLS MISSING. Global support fell through the floor, and a new reason was needed to get troops into Nigeria and steal the new oil reserves they have discovered

    Reason 2: Sierra Leone is the World’s Largest Supplier of Diamonds. For the past 4 months they have been on strike, refusing to provide diamonds due to horrible working conditions and slave pay. The West will not pay a fair wage for the resources because the idea is to keep these people surviving on rice bags and foreign aid so that they remain a source of cheap slave labor forever. A reason was also needed to get troops on the ground in Sierra Leone to force an end to the diamond miners strikes This is not the first time this has been done. When miners refuse to work troops are sent in and even if they have to kill and replace them all, the only desire is to get diamonds back flowing out of the country. Of course to launch multiple campaigns to invade these countries separately would be way too fishy. But something like “Ebola” allows access to an entire area simultaneously…

    Reason 3: In addition to stealing Nigerian oil, and forcing Sierra Leone back to mining, troops have also been sent in to FORCE vaccinations (Deadly “Ebola” Poison) onto those Africans who are not foolish enough to take them willingly.

    3000 troops are being sent in to make sure that this “poison” continues to spread, because again it is only spread through vaccination. As more and more news articles are released as they have been in Liberia, informing the populous of the US lies and manipulation, more and more Africans are refusing to visit the Red Cross. Troops will force these vaccinations upon the people to ensure the visible appearance of an Ebola pandemic. In addition to this they will protect the Red Cross from the Liberians and Nigerians who have been rightfully ejecting them from their countries.

    Reason 4: Last but not least, the APPEARANCE of this Ebola “pandemic” (should Americans not catch on) will be used to scare the countless millions into taking an “Ebola vaccine” which in reality is the pandemic. Already they have started with stories of how it has been brought to the U.S. and has appeared in Dallas, how white doctors were cured but black infected are not being allowed to be treated, etc.

    ALL that will do is make blacks STRIVE to get the vaccine, because it appears that the “cure” is being held back from blacks. They will run out in droves to get it and then there will be serious problems. With all we have seen revealed about vaccines this year you would think we learned our lesson. All I can do is hope so, Because they rely on our ignorance to complete their agendas.

    Ask yourself: If Ebola really was spread from person to person, instead of controlled spread through vaccination – then WHY would the CDC and the US Government continue to allow flights in and out of these countries with absolutely no regulation, Or At All? We have got to start thinking and sharing information globally because they do not give the true perspective of the people who live here in West Africa. They are lying for their own benefit and there aren’t enough voices out there with a platform to help share our reality. Hundreds of thousands have been killed, paralyzed and disabled by these and other “new” vaccines all over the world and we are finally becoming aware of it. Now what will we do with all this information?

    Source: Jim Stone Freelance”

  140. Malfleur @ 16 Oct 23:32 –

    I think that Jim Stone Freelance finds it very profitable to publish unfounded but sensational and scaremongering material, and that Nana Kwame has an over-active and paranoid imagination – which has just supplied more grist for Jim Stone Freelance’s mill.

    You’re right that we live in a naughty world. And it seems to be not just naughty but increasingly bizarre too.

    Now for a bit from my own paranoid and over-active imagination. Is Nana Kwame in fact Telemachus?

  141. Herbert Thornton

    No, he is not telemachus. That article as sent to me by someone in the USA unconnected with this network.

    Personally, I wish the Jim Stone piece were true because of the options on offer the most likelier alternative is more sinister and I may have to travel to Obolaland shortly.

  143. Herbert Thornton

    telemachus is wounded by the latest example of telemachnophobia

    He is talking to Carter Ruck this morning

  145. Anger management? The best telly This Week – with Andrew Neil interviewing John Lydon (Johnny Rotten)

    Portaloo grins like a Cheshire cat but just the look of frozen fear on FatBots coupon.
    Priceless! 🙂

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p028trqf

    [BTW, as an aside – does anybody know why Cheshire cats grin? ]

  146. though, which is that Carroll was not the originator of the phrase ‘to grin like a Cheshire cat’. The first mention is in Peter Pindar’s Pair of Lyric Epistles published in 1795, which contain the line:
    ‘Lo, like a Cheshire cat our court will grin.’

    Peter Pindar was a pseudonym of John Wolcot, or Wolcott, who died in 1819. Apparently the term ‘grins like a Cheshire cat’ also has a mention in Goss’s Slang Dictionary of 1811

  147. Just look what happens when BBC QT researchers are unable to source an audience comprised of 95% lefties. This was, imo, the best episode in living memory. The audience was by far the best panellist.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04lx1nr/question-time-16102014

    Great to see Angel Eagle’s and Ming the Mirthless’ hypocrisy called out. An unusually good performance from Jeremy Hunt.

    Normal service will undoubtedly be resumed next week when QT comes from Liverpool.

  149. Just a thought, but how hard would it be to introduce a turnover tax? Perhaps applying to all Companies with more than 50 employees, taking a few % of their total sterling turnover so it doesn’t matter where they’re based. No allowances or offsets, they would apply later to the profit line. Gross revenue before inter-company and inter-nation transfers. Can’t be that hard. Seems to be virtually un-evadable. Amazon turned over 4.3b sterling, but only paid 10m tax. Halve Corporation tax and introduce a 5% turnover tax. That’ll f**k ’em.

    Guess that’s why it’ll never happen.

  151. A turnover tax is surely unfair and unjust. If a company is expanding and spending much of its income on investment and employment and training how could it be hit with an unsustainable tax on turnover. If my job was to receive large sums of money and pass them on to someone else then I might have a very high turnover but make little profit. How would it be reasonable to be taxed on the turnover?

  152. Clear Memories October 17th, 2014 – 13:54

    “Just a thought, but how hard would it be to introduce a turnover tax?”

    Not a very good idea, as Peter writes it would be unjust, tax profit where ever it is declared.

  153. EC October 17th, 2014 – 10:18

    “Great to see Angel Eagle’s and Ming the Mirthless’ hypocrisy called out. An unusually good performance from Jeremy Hunt.”

    I agree but David Dimbleby is getting worse, he kept on supporting his head on his hand, as if he were modelling for a new sculpture of “The Thinker” time he was put out to grass.

  156. Some common sex, sorry, common sense, comments from Alex Boot over on his blog, concerning the Welsh footballer who was recently released from stir, after a particularly vicious sentence for ‘rape’.

    Perhaps the Judge felt that the defendant should have followed the ovine proclivities of many of his compatriots when juiced up, rather than indulging in a little friendly lamb roasting of a different phylum (as Baron would perhaps express it), then perhaps the resultant bleating, by both the co-copulant and subsequent furore from the feminist chatterati, would have been somewhat less strident.

    Whatever … the cry of “Twos up, boyo!” emitting from a ground floor cut price Premier Inn en suite arena will probably be less likely henceforth. One wonders how anybody could manage such impromptu ardour with a picture of the grinning Lennie Henry gazing from the promo bumf propped up on the dressing table beside the King Size Tempura mattress. Even at the reasonable price of : ” from £29 …”.

  159. “WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Thursday authorized the Pentagon to call up reserve and National Guard troops if they are needed to assist in the U.S. response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.”

    We should urge our American friends to call for the president to spend Christmas Day in West Africa among his troops.

  160. Malfleur 18th, – 01:17

    “We should urge our American friends to call for the president to spend Christmas Day in West Africa among his troops.”

    No point, unless he is properly visible to them…so no ‘Noddy Suit’ for him!

  162. …The Rotherham Girl Pipers? Helen Grant? Joyce Thacker? Matthew Parris? Lord Patel, Antony Blair, Jack Straw, Chris Jones? Douglas Carswell?

  163. Noa @ 10:28 & 10.31

    If you expand the list of pests any further, I suggest adding the (very minor) one that calls itself Telemachus.

  164. Ostrich

    Yes, I thought lots of pressing of the flesh would be in order.

    I see that by “executive order” El Presidente is now going to send National Guard, in addition to the 3,000-4,000 regular troops, who, as seems to be the case if Ferguson is a guide, are green yoof wet behind the ears.

    Alex Jones in his Friday show, where he combines J’ACCUSE with Swift;s svage indignation, says there is a new “meme” beginning to circulate” arrest Obama (and the head of CDC). I think I called for Obola’s arrest two or three months ago. Let’s hope it is really catching on in the USA.

    The problem is what to do with the globalists as a class as they are disparate and in full camouflage. My idea is that we should identify them as and when we can and then have a popular movement to QUARANTINE them economically and politically.

  165. If you’re anxious about the future of this little island, but have few minutes to spare, you may like to read this intellectually brilliant, deeply insightful, and unbelievably well articulated piece by the new multitalented Nietzsche of contemporary Britain:

    http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/279-82/26425-what-monkeys-and-the-queen-taught-me-about-inequality

    And this cannot fail to make you sleep safely tonight:

    http://english.alarabiya.net/en/webtv/reports/2014/10/18/David-Beckham-rallies-support-for-the-fight-against-Ebola.html

  166. Noa @ 10:28

    Call Baron what you will, Noa, but his gut feeling tells him the campaign may not last long.

  167. Malfleur @ 01:17

    Why amongst the troops, Malfleur, amongst the locals would be more appropriate, preaching to them, telling them to follow him into the future of ‘hope and change’ as they seek protection from the virus. Who knows, it may work, weirder things have happened.

  168. Herbert Thornton @ 18:31

    Baron is rather ignorant of things technical beyond pushing the keys on his portable, Herbert, has sent the piece to a geeky friend who says: rubbish.

  169. So how DO we reduce the muslim population of Britain, given that we have agreed, have we not, that it is a pernicious, alien and destructive ideology?

    It is no good rabbiting on about how awful it is.

    What is to be done?

    Anna Wotana Kaye 1 has proposed throwing them off a cliff. This approach is, I would suggest, a little robust for our island people. Similar methods are just not our style.

    I am not sure that anyone on the Wall has come up with a workable policy, and indeed the English Defence League, only seeks to raise awareness and has no answers other than limiting immigration. Limiting immigration does not however reduce the muslim population.

    Does anyone have a proposal other than that of subisdised demigration?

    If we can’t find an acceptable way out for islamic ideology and Judaeo-Christian-Graeco-Roman civilisation how is it going to end?

  170. The prescience of the google search engine is at times unnerving.
    I just typed “when do the …” – and before I could finish my question, the search box was completed for me by an unseen hand: “When do the clocks go back?” Which was exactly what was in my mind.

    Uncanny.

    How long will it be, I wonder, before that moment arrives when, if Malfleur poses the question, “So how DO we reduce the Muslim population of Great Britain?” … a fiigure looms over his shoulder, feels his collar and whisks him off to a retraining center. Or even more likely, a masked figure looms over his shoulder wielding a knife and beheads him while an accompanying TV crew records it ‘pour encourager les autres’.

    BTW, for those of you who were, like me, wondering when we revert to GMT (or as we old sparkers would say, ” Z “) the answer was, 28th October. Winter draws on!

  171. Alexsandr – Oct 17th, 19:01 ‘isnt that what VAT is supposed to do?’

    British companies pay VAT, AND then they pay taxes on corporate profits.

    The problem is that a foreign owned company, residing in Britain, can buy its goods from another subsidiary of the same parent company at a rate high enough not to make a profit. The profits will be taxed in the country where the subsidiary resides which, surprise, surprise, will have a lower rate of tax.

    It will therefore pay no corporate taxes in Britain, which is the problem.

    I think that it is partly due to the EU !!! I think that if the subsidiary is outside the EU, the situation can be resolved and Britain could receive some tax, but if it is the EU, then nothing can be done. 🙂

  172. I wander in here for a curious dekko as a result of some malicious tripe posted by telemachus at that other place and find, to my great surprise, that he is permitted to post his mischief here.

    There is respect for freedom of expression and then there is shooting oneself in the foot. There is chivalry in war and then there is aiding and abetting the enemy and facilitating his propaganda.

    It’s almost as if there is an unwillingness to understand just how communists operate and have always operated. If he and they engaged in reasoned debate there might be a justification for it but he views his presence here as a means of patrolling and controlling dissidents. Years ago he agitated, fumed and wrung his hands at being unable to intervene here. The frustration and angst were delightful to observe. Here at last was somewhere the fifth column could not disrupt, the Long Marchers could not f u, the agitprop could not drip its poison.

    So what happened?

  173. “British Companies pay VAT …”

    Not really Robert. They collect VAT from their customers on behalf of the HMRC then pass it on to the blood suckers after deducting their own exes.
    Companies are not paid for this service – it is one of the many manifestations of state slavery. Moreover HMRC imposes heavy fines if you don’t promptly jump on the shovel when they shout, “Shit!” 🙂

  174. Baron – 13:36 ‘sleep safely tonight’

    I have retired, a little early due to being given an offer couldn’t refuse 🙂 , so I can, in quiet moments in my busy timetable 🙂 🙂 , reflect on my working life and my achievements, in addition to paying the mortgage. None, to my knowledge, has hit the headlines, being mostly working, with others in Scientific and Engineering fields, to develop products that have been wanted and purchased by others in a relatively free market, but I have, I think, in a small way, added to ‘civilisation’.

    DB has sold products that have been wanted and purchased by others in a relatively free market, like football match tickets or football shirts, but maybe it being based on kicking a football around means there is an elusive something that is missing.

  175. Baron – 13:36 ‘anxious about the future’

    You should have warned me who the author was!

    “‘my friend’ Matt Stoller … I first met Matt in Zuccotti Park, Manhattan, in the middle of the Occupy Wall Street protest in 2011 … Matt understands power”

    Was Matt working for a (very) large bank, or was he ‘occupying’ Wall Street?

    “Edward Slingerland, a professor of ancient Chinese philosophy at Stanford University … explained … “Capitalist, consumer culture inures us to unfairness,”

    So what does Socialist consumer culture look like? Long queues.

    If you don’t like consumer culture, don’t buy into it, most don’t. It isn’t compulsory.

  177. Frank P October 18th, 2014 – 15:34

    “British Companies pay VAT …”

    “Not really Robert. They collect VAT from their customers on behalf of the HMRC then pass it on to the blood suckers after deducting their own exes.
    Companies are not paid for this service – it is one of the many manifestations of state slavery. Moreover HMRC imposes heavy fines if you don’t promptly jump on the shovel when they shout, “Shit!” :-)”

    Correct in every detail, I do not think that I could have made the point so succinctly.

  178. I am ashamed of the amount of hatred shown to the footballer recently released from prison.

    The sisterhood do not want this young man’s sentence to end having served his two and a half years (five years with the now normal 50% off for good behaviour) they, the sisterhood want him to suffer for ever.

    And why not some might think, making no allowance for all of the facts (for some visit the Boot blog) for more try the Mail on line.

    His team should stop listening to the wailing of the PC brigade and get him back into training immediately.

  179. Frank P @ 14:56

    Both options are quite feasible today, Frank, except not immediately Malfleur puts the question. Baron’s certain those whose job it is t perfect the response time are hard at it.

    For some time, Baron himself has been resigned to the knock on the door one day by a pleasant young man, a fully loaded Gluck 17 in the pocket of his black leather coat gripped by his right hand, safety catch off, his left hand flashing a Security Services ID at the barbarian, saying: ‘Now, sir, would you mind very much accompanying me ..

    Did you know from this week, the police will be able to check on those who possess shotgun or firearm licenses without telling them they are coming?

  180. Colonel Mustard. There are two views here, and I am in the middle of them and cannot easily satisfy both. Some say that allowing him to post provides some grist to the mill, others that he should not be able to post under any circumstances. If I do one thing or the other I upset someone. But at the moment he posts with a tight leash and I am very happy to delete his posts. He is the only one who is under such a regime.

  181. Frank P @ 15:34

    Baron keeps telling, Frank, you fail to listen: a response like this would earn you a massive accolade on the Spectator’s blog, and couldn’t fail to cheer up thousands.

    How do you manufacture this stuff, ha?

  182. RobertC @ 15:35:

    Let Baron guess, Robert. You probably lack the boyish looks of the boy, your wife may not be as void of talents, but aggressively ambitious as his, and above all you must have priorities in life other than to seek fame.

  183. Malfleur @ 14:02

    Here’s Baron’s three stage solution to the M problem, which requires some changes to the law.

    We stop further immigration from the ROP countries at a stroke, we deport those who do or threaten to do us harm, we work at absorbing the rest of the crowd.

    Relatively painless, not too costly, and fully in the tradition of Britain of old.

    Are you a taker?

  186. Peter from Maidstone @ 16:53

    And the problem with the Colonel is what exactly, Peter?

    Look, we’re all here individuals with strong convictions, sometimes disagree with each other, but what keeps us together is the common denominator of a rational dislike of what the progressives keep feeding us. Take the example of Baron’s take on the M problem @ 17.06. It’s more than certain many on the blog disagree with the barbarian’s slicing of the boil, some will say so, some will put forward a different argument, rationalise it, build a powerful case, and who know, Baron, and/or others who may share his view, may get persuaded.

    Baron’s with the great Mark Steyn here. One is in favour of free expression only if one lets those who differ to have a go.

  187. Peter from Maidstone @ 17:14

    Agreed, Peter. It’s just a broad framework. One may also insist that everyone has to speak a passable English, have a job even if it’s a part time work, avoids proselytising.

  189. Amal Alamuddin, the slimishly tall, glamorous, but also clever, intelligent and socially aware (what with her legal work as a uman rites lawyer), who’s recently married the equally bla bla Clooney has given an interview to the DT magazine.

    In it, the journalist cannot stop admiring the young woman (quite rightly, too, she’s bloody lucky, good looks, perfect figure, an in-vogue job, a desirable husband) and says at one point ‘Amal points out, more, she insists it becomes public knowledge that the 7 carat diamond in her engagement ring was ethically mined.

    If you excuse Baron, he has to go puke.

  190. Baron, I do draw a distinction between objective discourse and disruption. Freedom of expression is seldom extended to disruptive hecklers and I put telemachus very firmly in that category.

  191. Colonel Mustard @ 17:55

    Good point, Colonel, except that heckling, the rough equivalent of trolling on the blogs, was as much a part of a discourse as was a serious counterpoint in the past. The former was probably as important in honing one’s debating skills as the latter. Many of today’s po liticians, comedians, other public performers are so sub-standard because they have it too easy.

    And this:

    Most sincere apologies for the numerous errors, Baron will not attempt to list them all, they stare at hin only after he’s posted. Shame on him.

  192. Frank P – 15:34 ‘British Companies pay VAT …’

    They might do as you describe, but they do pay, hand over, the VAT on the value they they have added to the product.

    The problem is that if the supplier charges enough, the value added is zero, so the VAT, the Value Added Tax, is zero.

  194. Baron

    I thought you were aware that the blogmeister of the Speccy goes to considerable lengths to keep me out of the comments boxes. Despite the fact that I must now be one of their longest-serving readers and a long standing subscriber (no more). I take it as a compliment, the barbs must have struck home!

    The magazine has been usurped by a generation that has been thoroughly sinistrally brainwashed, that never had to suffer the rigours of Grubb Street, where the revered Speccy writers of yesteryear all did their apprenticeships after a grounding as local hacks in the provinces. The effete pricks who now populate Old Queens Street couldn’t hold a candle to their loquatios and witty predecessors of Doughty Street, who are still available within the pages of my accrued back copies, when I feel like enjoying a little dip into some pungent purple prose.

    Btw Baron I feel honored to be in the company of other rejects, such as Austin Barry, who is a better writer than any of the current paid Speccy scribblers; other Wallsters have the badge of honour of Nelson’s blackballing, I understand, including our host hereupon.

    And thank you for your kind (and undeserved) remarks. Your own company here is much appreciated; a kindred spirit indeed. Keep buggering on!

  197. Malfleur
    October 18th, 2014 – 14:02

    How can it be done depends entirely on how far we are willing to modify our current standards of ethics and morality.

    In other countries, governments have simply used various varieties of extermination to rid their countries of whose whom they considered to be undesirable. Pol Pot for example slaughtered millions of his own countrymen. Stalin deliberately ensured that millions of richer peasants starved to death. Hitler used concentration camps and gas chambers to exterminate Jews and Gypsies.

    I doubt very much that indigenous British people would produce a government that was willing to to that far. (It is though, ironic, that a substantial proportion of Muslims support employing methods of that sort to kill anyone in Britain who is a Jew or who renounces Islam. There are even Muslims who believe it desirable to kill not just all infidels but even people who, in their opinion are the wrong kind of Muslim.) Straightforward extermination of Britain’s Muslims is, I have to believe, something virtually all of us will always be unwilling to stomach. I certainly wouldn’t.

    So how do we reduce and eventually control, or perhaps better, get rid of, Islam in Britain?

    So far as population reduction is concerned, China has set the world an example by applying its One Child policy which can include the sterilisation of every woman who already has one child. To apply that policy to Muslims in Britain would be both difficult and require that we change our current standards of ethics & morality. I incline too to think that it would merely be a band-aid – it would treat the symptoms but not effect a cure – and even if it led to the reduction of the Islamic population to a very small number, even that would take several generations – a whole century or more.

    Another possibility to be considered goes further. It would be the sterilisation of the entire Muslim population with exceptions only for those who choose to leave Britain permanently. That would involve an even greater change to the components of ethics and morality that come under the headings of things like Human Rights. But imagine the outrage and violence of the opposition to it.

    Yet another approach would be to follow the example of Japan, where, I understand, Islam is virtually completely outlawed, Mosques are prohibited, and anyone detected to be a follower of Islam is deported. This works fine in Japan, but it affects very few people. In Britain, on the other hand, Muslims number in the millions. Britain would have to face the likelihood that many Muslims would go through the motions of renouncing Islam in order to avoid deportation. That would pose the problem that their renunciation of was in all likelihood not sincere – so the the problem would remain, hidden and waiting to re-emerge whenever opportunity presented itself.

    The more liberal ones among us may think that the best way to tackle the problem is through persuasion and education – ensure that all schools and universities instill into the rising generation the concept that Islam is so undesirable that it should not be followed. Well, since we’re looking at all possibilities I concede we should be open-minded about it, but my own assessment of that idea is – fat chance.

    Then of course there is the ancient route of paying Danegeld – i.e. pay Muslims to leave Britain and never come back. Maybe it would work, if we don’t mind forking out enough money, but I suggest we should recall what Kipling said about it – that once you have paid him the Danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane.

    A good start (to my mind) would be to follow the example of Kemal Attaturk and amend the constitution by declaring Britain to be a secular state and giving the Armed Forces both the power and the permanent duty to preserve Britain as a secular state. I call it only a “good start” because of the risk that – as has happened in Turkey – Islamists would never give up their opposition to it and might eventually prevail.

    Looking at all the foregoing ideas, it seems to me that nothing will completely work that does not include the use of force, because substantial numbers among the Muslim population would certainly use violence to oppose what was being done – imagine for example the reaction to one mosque being demolished. Violent resistance would have to be speedily and adequately suppressed.

    So, the conclusion emerges that to really solve the problem then as well as changing our current standards of ethics and morality we would have to be very resolute and determined and, whenever absolutely necessary, ruthless.

    It rather reminds me of Henry VIII. Somebody suggested to him that some action or other that he planned would be absolutely appalling. He agreed, but said it was necessary for a King to have Royal Stomach.

    You ask – “If we can’t find an acceptable way out for Islamic ideology and Judaeo-Christian-Graeco-Roman civilisation how is it going to end?” I find it impossible to give a Dr. Pangloss kind of answer to that. It think Frank P’s answer (October 18th, 2014 – 14:56) is more realistic. What Frank hints at will very likely follow, but that will only be an early stage of the possible horrors. It may end in civil war with many cities in Britain being destroyed by nuclear weapons – though whether they will be detonated by Muslims or by people opposed to them or by both, and whether Britain will end up as a Muslim hell-hole or a country with no Muslims but much reduced non-Muslim population I can’t speculate.

  198. Peter,

    I long ago came to the conclusion that the Comrade gave the Colonel and others who wanted to, the opportunity to rehearse their skills and arguments. Indeed I sincerely regret that he and other trolls have never had the intellectual capacity or breadth of education to actually sustain a counter argument or debate and so eventually simply leave the field, silent and defeated.

  199. Herbert, I don’t think the reference to Japan is correct. There are at least 120,000 Muslims in Japan. There are also 30-40 mosques and 100+ private apartments set aside for prayer in the absence of mosque buildings.

  200. Herbert Thornton 20.17

    An interesting and thoughtful post.

    It’s easy to take a UK centric position on how to address the problem of Islam, forgetting that on a Europe and indeed world wide basis the challenges it presents are being addressed in a variety of ways, from warfare to cultural challenge.
    It is notable that it is generally violence to which its adherents respond.
    Muslim immigrants expect to take over the UK without having to resort to undue violence in creating a caliphate. I believe the better view is that events will overtake their campaign of quiet conquest through the fast breeding demographics of islamic birthrates, using the jizyya of social security to fund their war.
    In the UK a collapse in welfare benefits and services, due to national bankruptcy and competition for such resources as there are will result in widespread anarchy, disorder and vigilantism. Urban areas will seek, violently, to align themselves on racial and ethic lines and we will see the breakdown of the rule of law and the growing trend of balkanisation rapidly accelerated.
    The model is probably Lebanon, weak and divided armed forces unable to seize control. However Europe will also be in turmoil and I suspect we are likely to see the wholesale expulsion of all muslims from Europe, perhaps by 2050.
    .

  201. Peter from Maidstone
    October 18th, 2014 – 20:35 –

    I found the statements about Japan and Islam that I posted either somewhere on the internet or somebody emailed them to me, but Internet sites are not always truthful.

    You, I believe, are a rather more reliable source than many, so for the time being at least I stand corrected.

  203. Noa (October 18th, 2014 – 20:57)

    I entirely agree with you – up to a point. That point is the eventual expulsion of all Muslims from Europe. I hope you are right that it will happen, but I fear it is already too late to be sure about it. In any event, Enoch Powell’s rivers of blood are going to become a terrible reality.

    The really sad thing is that Britain’s own Establishment have brainwashed so many of their own countrymen into accepting such foolishly extreme enthusiasm for tolerance, Human Rights and Political Correctness in general. This has resulted in the huge tide of Islam – including criminals who subscribe to and preach the theology of murder to too many willing listeners – being not merely allowed to flow in, but actively encouraged, welcomed, protected and subsidised.

  204. I sent an old American friend this;

    http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_direct_link.cfm/blog_id/56896/Dylan-Thomas-reads-Poem-In-October-and-In-My-Craft-or-Sullen-Art

    and received back this;

    ‘What a pleasure to hear that beautiful voice from what seems a century ago. En route to Harvard in the summer of 1959, I sat in the White Horse Tavern in Greenwich Village where the voice still echoed and the ghost grown fat and dissipated seemed to hover. I was with a rich girl who drove me up to Cambridge. I got the ride and one kiss out of her. The 20th and 21st century poets are all so rational. To Dylan Thomas one reacts as the London editor did when someone brought wild young Allen Ginsberg into his office and Ginsberg went into a rant. The editor sat back and said, “Now THAT’s a poet!” ‘

  205. Perhaps, rather than trying to rid the UK of Muslims, an oblique attack would work far better?

    The first thing to do is to enact a law declaring Islam a cult and not a religion and requiring all muslims and their offsprings to register. (starting to sound familiar?) The same law must declare the Koran hate speech and ban it’s publication and possession.

    Forbid halal slaughter and make the advertising of halal products unlawful. Remove any and all tax concessions from Islamic churches, properties and ‘charities’. Cease all social and welfare payments to Muslims. Introduce a tax payable by Muslims to cover the cost of Policing their dangerous and anti-social practices.

    Forbid all Muslims from working in the public sector, the Police, the Armed Forces and any other area that requires any form of oath of allegiance.

    Close down Madrasas and ensure Islam is not taught or shown in any beneficial way in schools and educational establishments. Ban face coverings in all public places. Require the medical examination of registered Muslim girls annually. The teaching of the more extreme aspects of Islam to be considered child abuse and, if detected by teachers and other youth workers, those children be taken into State care – their lives couldn’t be made any worse.

    Of course, none of it will happen. Islam will continue it’s onward march until it is stopped by violence, as history has taught us time and time again.

    And on another subject, I see the money re VAT is starting to drop. The whole point is that, make allowances within the tax system and Companies will expoit them. Company Directors are required by law to act in the interests of the share holders. Not using the tax system to their advantage could result in Directors being sued. As some have noted, VAT is not a turnover tax. There are many loopholes/allowances. The EU and Brown in particular have created a system so complex it encourages fraud and so draconian those exploiting it feel little or no guilt.

    In introducing one tax, it follows you either remove or reduce others. Savings would also ensue from simplification.

  207. Herbert Thornton

    Well, in view of the options and with the character of the residual English population in mind, I still think the only solution is subsidised demigration using funds specifically generated by the National Lottery coupled with a lid on further muslim immigration to hold the total islamic population at around 2% of the whole.

    The Danegeld argument is not I think in point. The “Danes” would be out and by then we would use law backed by force, not payment, to ensure that they did not come back – provided of course that government had not stripped away the last means to resist outside attack unapproved by the European Union. Those here now did not arrive by means of coastal raids, but rather by the stupidity or worse of our political class. By rights, that same class should pay the subsidy, but I think the English way would be what would in effect be a referendum through the National Lottery. What amount per capita might activate their voluntarism?

    One thing we should watch out for though is what will happen if the pound sterling collapses and the take of the National Lottery would not purchase a box of matches. But by then we would have other matters to worry about.

    By the way, when Frank P at October 18th, 2014 – 14:56 anticipates the time when for “Malfleur …a fiigure looms over his shoulder, feels his collar and whisks him off to a retraining center”, I already get that premonitory frisson when I am typing a post that Frank P might not fully agree with.

  210. Frank P, October 18th, 2014 – 14:56

    “BTW, for those of you who were, like me, wondering when we revert to GMT (or as we old sparkers would say, ” Z “) the answer was, 28th October. Winter draws on!”

    As we about hurtle into the gloom of another winter, I can report that “up Noa-rrf” the dark evenings have already arrived. No need for winter drawers though as a “North of Noa” as it was 18C in Carlisle yesterday.

  212. EC 19th, – 08:36

    “BTW, for those of you who were, like me, wondering when we revert to GMT (or as we old sparkers would say, ” Z “) the answer was, 28th October.”

    Well, EC, you do it on the 28th if you want to…us old Second Mates’ll do it on the 26th!

  214. “North of Noa”, EC?

    As I was wondering through the streets of Clitheroe yesterday it was a Majorca equalising 21C.

    The sweat on my hands almost caused me to loose the whippets’ lead and drop my Cissy Green’s meat pie.

  216. The Elgin marbles should be returned to their rightful home in the Acropolis forthwith, with the grateful thanks of the British nation for their forced ‘loan’ from the thieving and barbaric Ottoman empire. I am sure most Britons would rather see them in their proper setting than under grey London skies.
    In returning them Britain would show itself to be both correct and generous in its behaviour. We would make good our longstanding and genuine friendship with Greece, remind Turkey of its own poor behaviour and deprive the already insufferable and self satisfied Mrs Clooney of an as yet unearned and certainly an unjustified fee.

  217. To be honest, I’d rather see them in the British Museum where they are properly looked after. Had they remained in Athens they would no longer exist, and if they are returned they will be sold to the Chinese.

  218. Noa October 19th, 2014 – 13:10

    “I am sure most Britons would rather see them in their proper setting than under grey London skies.”

    I very much doubt that, it is pure conjecture to claim that most Britons would agree to let them go.

  219. At about 9.30am today, turning on the telly in the kitchen while breakfasting, and expecting to be apprised by Sky News of the latest developments concerning the various dire crises around the globe, e.g.: rampant ISIS, rampant ebola, rampant Caribbean Hurricanes, and rampant Welsh footballers rampaging around the Premier Inns of this this benighted nation roasting drunken female football fans; we were confronted instead by a campaign calendar depicting a bevy of bollock nekkid oarsmen from an apparently well-known boating club, half of them astride the necks of the other half of the crew. It was enough to put us off our Eggs Royale and Mattessons Frankfurters

    Four of the rowers (fully clothed by now, thank goodness) were being interviewed by the Sky anchor Steve Dixon about their campaign to combat ‘homophobia’ in sport. All four claimed to be straight and judging by their six-packs would no doubt also cough to being somewhat macho, to boot.

    Dixon pointed out that they had enlisted the aid of ‘top people’ like Kylie Minogue to help their worthy cause, but the young blades insisted that they really wanted to “catch people’s interest in an ORGAN-IC way, attacking the problem from the BOTTOM up.”

    As I often repeat, ad nauseum some might point out, satire has been killed stone dead by reality.

    He continued, somewhat tautologically, “We want to take action from the BOTTOM up, by visiting schools, where there is a real problem with homophobia.”

    Yerrss. Hardly surprising, one would have thought, if while changing to take part in an eights event, one half of the starkers team-mates jump on to the shoulders of the other half and nestle their pulsating plonkers and sweaty nuts against the napes of the necks of the mounted. Would it be unfair to posit that perhaps Section 28 of the Local Government 1988 should never have been repealed?

    And if the athletes in question are, as they insist, all straight, then why are they sticking their oars into the murky waters of predatory pouffery, given the widespread scandals arising from such depravity within the prevailing zeitgeist of our ‘enlightened culture?

    The laddy doth protest too much, methinks?

  220. Noa 19th, – 13:01
    Ostrich

    “on the 26th!” Oh er!”

    Should I announce a venue and start selling tickets? 🙂

  221. Noa 19th, – 13:10

    “I am sure most Britons would rather see them in their proper setting than under grey London skies.”

    If they’d been under ‘grey London skies” this past sesquicentury they’d have been corroded beyond recognition, as have the pieces Elgin left behind.

  222. CMD still doesn’t get it! 🙂 🙂 🙂

    David Cameron’s plans to limit immigration through quotas for EU workers is illegal, European President says

    Jose Manuel Barroso says freedom of movement is an essential principle, and suggests plans to limit national insurance numbers for migrants would be illegal under EU law

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/11172379/David-Camerons-plans-to-limit-immigration-through-quotas-for-EU-workers-is-illegal-European-President-says.html

    Is Barroso UKIP’s secret operative?

  224. “…it is pure conjecture to claim that most Britons would agree to let them go.”

    Of course it is. I am making an assumption that most Britons would veer towards honesty and happily support the return of another country’s property and heritage. To assume otherwise is to accept that the obligations of a cultural trustee which we assumed empower us at some time to turn that trust into seizure and theft.
    But of course we won’t be asked on the matter.
    And do we really think that Greece would not now properly maintain the Marbles, or have we lost our own?

  225. If Greece should get the Marbles back then should every Museum and Palace in the world be emptied? And what sort of timescale should we look at? It doesn’t make sense to me. The Marbles are well looked after and easily accessible to all. Greece is on the edge of revolution and is busy selling all its assets to stay afloat. On what basis is it reasonable to conclude they have the resources and funding to manage and maintain the Marbles? I don’t think they have.

    Will every Egyptian artefact be returned? And will we return anything that has an Austro-Hungarian or French or Russian origin? Should various African collections at the Horniman’s Museum be handed over to Boko Haram?

    I don’t see that there is a useful principle here. The fact that the Marbles are here and well looked after in London is because they are also part of “our” heritage.

  226. “…if while changing to take part in an eights event, one half of the starkers team-mates jump on to the shoulders of the other half and nestle their pulsating plonkers and sweaty nuts against the napes of the necks of the mounted…”

    Choke? I nearly gagged on my cafetiere. The form yelpings have moved seamlessly from dormitory to boathouse, with skullduggery rampant. And was there no cox involved?. Unfortunately they seem to have bypassed the child rapes of Rotherham and fifty other owns and cities. The horsemen of Pakistan, obviously, are not a worthy enough cause, compared to buggery, when viewed by the oarsmen of England.

  227. Peter.

    If your house has been burgled and your property stolen do you expect the thief to have the right to demand a risk assessment from you before he consents to give you back your belongings?

  228. “…The horsemen of Pakistan…” blooming spell checker again. It should have been “whoresmen of Pakistan”, completely ruined an admittedly poor) pun.

  229. I don’t that the movement of antiquities over millenia is the same as the burglary of a house. And I do think there is a statute of limitation on such things. And I do think that the exhibition of such antiquities makes them available to all. Who does Alsace-Lorraine belong to? Why are we not demanding Normandy back? At some point history is what it is. And if the Marbles go back then everything goes back, and everything everywhere else must go back. I see no reason for this at all.

  230. “Madam we know what you are. All we are debating is the price.”
    So said George Bernard Shaw to a lady of affronted morality.

    I cannot see why the mere passage of time should extinguish any crime, including theft, though it’s an excuse often used by thieves, and nations, to excuse their crimes. Perhaps we implicitly recognised that we stole Normandy in the first place. And the ‘theft’ and recovery of Alsace Lorraine caused two wars.
    And is their public display an excuse? To the robbed it is just an affront.

  231. Noa.
    The Elgin marbles were bought and paid for, £75k to be exact. Purchase from the legal owner of an artefact is not theft. As for Normandy, the Normans stole England from the English, around about 1066 if my memory serves me right

  232. “Perhaps we implicitly recognised that we stole Normandy in the first place.”

    Did we? I rather thought Normandy had stolen us.

  233. Stephen, Colonel.

    Lord Elgin bought from the Turkish conquerer of an occupied country, should that give good title?
    And if England was stolen by Normandy, or anyone else, when we did we, or given current incursions, when do we lose the right to claim it back?

  235. Noa – Oct 19th, 22:58 ‘occupied country’

    Many Russians and Germans still, in the hearts, think parts of Poland are part of their ’empire’, with the current Poland being occupied by ‘foreigners’, who just happen to be Polish!

    If the current Polish government sell us some historic property and then Poland is overrun by one of their neighbours, will the new occupiers ask for ‘their’ property back, or even demand it?

    And should we return it? Should there be any exchange of money, even though the implication is that someone, alone the line, stole it?

  236. RobertC
    I don’t think the analogy is apt. The marbles were taken from Greece and permitted to be shipped to Britain. (Wrongly, in my view.) So they came, eventually, to be under the control of the British Museum.
    But if we (as individuals or a nation), acquired land in Poland, how would we be able to protect it? Surely we would rely, like other people there, on government protection.
    If we were to guarantee its security, (as we did in 1939) how would we enforce it?

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