It that what they now call "X"?
I have made a conscious decision to return, if that is the correct terminology, to a world where the most advanced piece of technology is the fountain pen.
Or to put it more succinctly, the "place" where old men go to grumble, before casting off their mortal coil.

TDH, good to hear from you. This little forum seems to have run out of steam; which is a shame as it allowed us to "vent one's spleen" in a lighthearted manner. None to sure where such discourse is now conducted, if at all, but like the poor Dodo, we must face the inevitable.

Hello, and merry xmas, to the "few". Shame this little forum ran out of steam, but "That's life", as they say. Ironically, as there is so much material to "rant" over today, the scope for such an outlet to "vent one's spleen" is sadly missed.
Anyway I hope to pull a "cracker" or two during the festive bash...and hope her husband doesn't find out.

President Boris? The clown ruined our country by being no more than the head of a "collective" government. Only the almighty would speculate on the mess we would have been in had he complete control.
No, let's put that part of our history to "bed" and concentrate on serious politics from now on.

With regards to comments in respect of media "saturation"; if it had been low key then the criticism would have flowed from the other camp.
Oh, and my radio has that modern function called "an off switch".

If I could add my two penneth to this non-debate. Firstly we have been at odds with our monarchs since Offa decided to label himself "king of the english" in the middle of the eighth century. Sometimes we changed them mid-term, (Ricky 2 to Henry 4), Sometimes we chopped their heads off; Charlie 1. Yet we have always returned to the basic principle that a constitutional monarch is preferable to the alternative; for reasons all to obvious.
The point is that if we dispense with them at this juncture in time, what's to say we won't regret it fifty years on? All these vacuous lefties that scream "remove the king, or replace him with a family member they personally approve of, aka a talent show for the top job where we end up with the limp lad from las angeles, should take a couple of hours of their otherwise shallow lives, to read up on our country's history and stop appearing as something with the mental capacity of an amoeba, as it does neither you or the rest of us any credit.
And finally the monarch has no power as such. Yes, we bow and scrape like a sycophantic grey seal, but it is out of respect for the office, not necessarily the person. The real power lies elsewhere.
Rant over and back to insulating the loft with all those old socks that have been accumulating in the drawer since 1963.

ps. Our tame watchdog thinks the shortening of Richard to its more common usage is somehow obscene.

Sorry censor doesn't like hot places either.

Received an email only today, from my electricity supplier, outlining that only customers with a "smart meter" would be eligible for power from renewable sources.
How the **** they can work that one out is beyond me, but sufficient to say I could not find a way to inform them that this countries "net zero" fiasco is a major contributor to our present woes, and if was the all the same to them I am quite happy to get it from a gas fired power station.
If the green loons wish to "save the planet," I suggest they could start by chucking themselves off Beachy Head.

Serious yes, being addressed? Hardly.

"The report adds not all of those living with depression will have sought help and have depression recorded on their records".

It is still an impossibility to see a GP, (can only speak for my practice), and now they are threatening industrial action because they claim to be overworked. Meanwhile the problem grows exponentially.
With nearly 50% of NHS employees being of non-clinical grade it is not difficult to identify the problem, yet they still keep pouring billions of our taxes into a system that does not operate anything like efficiently.
Fast forward ten years and see what it looks like then. We may being saying 2022 wasn't that bad after all.

I stand corrected. Apparently the Wuhan laboratory had been conducting trials on this particular virus prior to the Covid "escape". Paradoxically this little bunny has the potential to make that respiratory virus look like a runny nose.
Get your name down for the next furlough hand-out children.

Rubber dingy might work. If he sets out now he should make it by xmas.
Expect to see primates in captivity wearing the requisite face muzzle for the foreseeable. Those in the wild will just be shot if they come within 50 miles of a human.
Least we can't blame china for this one.....Shame.

Go on rub it in why don't you.
As a card carrying member of the "I'll stay in this country and grumble about the weather" brigade, I salute you.
Funnily enough I was only think two minutes ago that "covid" seems to have "disappeared". No mention from the powers that be for some time now, (no surprise there), and the only ones that say anything are those hard line loony left types that believe the chinese solution is the answer to a chinese virus.
Enjoy the holiday and don't concern yourself to much over your oh so obvious carbon footprint.

Yes and no. ALL politicians, since Robert Walpole, have operated on the premise that "they are in charge", and any objection to the status quo is viewed with suspicion. Now in the good old days it was just a matter of writing a letter to the editor of one's chosen daily, and if enough readers agreed with the content, then it would be adopted by one of the main parties. Now thanks to the digital age, every Tom, **** and Harry can enter into the debate from the relative comfort of their bedroom, irrespective of their understanding of the topic, which in essence means the great unwashed take their lead from this source. Now I have little time for the present political incumbents, or the media that acts as their mouthpiece, but I would rather take notice of them than "Tarquin" who has a diploma in media studies.
I think this has lead to a situation where, in order to keep the waters, shall we say "less murky". the powers that be think that it may be in our interests to somehow restrict this outlet. I'm all for debate, and this little forum used to have a healthy part in that field, but now it gets little or no patronage. So maybe it is debating that is being stifled as opposed to information?
Tears at bedtime children.

Ye gods and tiny swimming things, a DOCTOR??? Thought they were a profession we used to employ, but disappeared at the onset of SARS, and is now on the CITES list.
I agree it is an affront to our integrity that these people, who are in our employ, yes we really do pay their wages, can "demand" additional payment from us for, as to which you allude, to simply sign a pre-formed letter, but this is what you get when you elect a government that takes its eye off the ball.
The world, at least this corner of it, really has lost the plot.

The fact that it is going to attract few uptakers, says it all. If your house is being bombed what one needs is a place of immediate safety, not a house in a "foreign" land with satellite tv and fast food outlet round the corner.
Of course then we have the "thorny" question as to what we, (the UK), consider to be refugees? One HM's imbeciles have yet to clarify, or even consider.
Question: What's the difference between an Afghan and a Ukrainian?
Answer: If you have to ask then you are in the wrong job.

Seriously though, it took 50 years for the economic disaster of the old soviet union to eventually force political change, and god only knows how many suffered within the "iron curtain" before the obvious became apparent, meanwhile the west grew unfettered. The only way putin will be stopped is by a piece of lead inserted between the ears, and although I certainly would not advocate such a response, I'm afraid it may be forced upon us, (the west).
But of course johnson and his inept lackies are more interested in their public image, than doing something positive.
What, I do not know as it is beyond my pay grade, but sanctioning some london football club is laughable.

As they say "Truth is the first casualty of war". We, as mere observers, quite simply do not see the complete picture. But we do see images of children being blown to bits, huge convoys of civilians heading for the polish border, and the leader of the "free world" speaking in gobbledygook. So we make an objective appraisal based on subjective information.
Perhaps it is time for the main stream media to adopt the role of reporting, by actually sending a bloke with a portable typewriter to the battlefield, and not relying on being spoon fed information from the global propaganda machine.

And we still believe that they are a bunch of lettuce chewing lefties who are harmless.
More ways of fighting a war than with weapons.

Time and time again the "nuclear deterrent" has once again proven to be anything but. Putin knows that the "west" will not confront him directly as one SS20, (are they still around?), dropped on Paris or London and we would run around like headless clucks. So he will either secure the area east of the dnieper river and turn north to the Baltic, or, and who knows what is going through his head, carry on to the Polish/Slovakia border, and if we don't stand up to him then you can say goodbye to your freedoms for ever because he will continue to the Atlantic.
On a positive, it is a nice day to think about getting the garden sorted.

To those of you old enough, do you remember that classic Spitting Image clip which lampooned Reagan saying "Now what did you say the red button was for Casper (Weinberger)?"
Meanwhile "sleepy joe" and his best buddy "blow", are going to pray to the sky fairy for help.
Ye gods and tiny swimming things.

Obviously "German efficiency" is a myth then? The perversion of all these "loonie left" ideas, is that when they are eventually debunked, the voice of those who propagated them initially, is shatteringly silent.
To give you an example of where Newbury is, the other day, one of the lycra lunatics was doing his eddy merckx impression in the middle of the A4 parallel to the (empy), purpose built cycle track in front of a heavy goods vehicle.
So that delivery is not only delayed, thus adding to the retail cost, but the pollution caused by a crawling lorry needs no clarification.
Try justifying that WBC.

Good luck with that philosophy when the tanks are on the lawn. I am guessing the Putin regime, (consisting of one Vladimir Putin), has seen how "vulnerable" the west has become through adopting this namby pamby approach to any serious matters that confront us, and now sees it an ideal time to give nato a poke in the eye. Apparently his chief communications bod, a fellow called Maksut Shadaev, is pretty adept at manipulating the propaganda game to their advantage. With germany dependant on russian gas, our own prime minister concerning himself over a few fairy cakes while the chap in charge of the US of A, is still asleep, it could well be tears at bedtime children.
Meanwhile in real news, some pop singer who I have never heard of, cancels a concert because some of her entourage has the snuffles.

Hello one and all.
As a change I thought I would leave brexit and that wretched virus that I can't remember the name of, and look at a much more worrying situation in eastern Europe.
It seems strange that no one, to my knowledge, has pointed to the similarities to the Sudetenland situation in '38. And we know how that ended don't we children, to the one now facing us. One look at the map will tell you the real reason why he wants to annex the Ukraine, but we seem more interested in the "proper" use of pronouns than standing up to a bully who could well send the world back to the stone-age quicker than the most ardent of green activists could ever wish for. Hitler, after drafting the Munich agreement despite the Brits and Frogs believing it was a Czech agreed one, then used it as an excuse to unleash one of the worst disasters to hit this planet since the Chicxulub meteorite.
Considering that most of the European politicians are of a similar mindset to our own feckless individuals, I would image that comrade Putin is quite buoyant of success, before the West takes any action.
History does repeat itself, and usually when we don't learn from it.

Avoiding all those members of the great unwashed that previously I did not have a justifiable excuse to do so.

Anyway festive greetings to everyone who happens to be reading this, and my sympathies to those who have been affected in any shape or form by this virus.
It has been unprecedented in,not only its effect on the world population, but their collective response to combating it. I must add that I find it ironic that we are still importing everything we use, from an air freshener to a zip fastener, from the country that started all this, as if they are in someway "innocent" of any blame.

Bad enough worrying about the plank we have, let alone concerning who may replace him.
Any volunteers?

Remember the time when a "twitter" stood alongside a hedgerow with a pair of Dollond & Aitchison hanging around their neck in the vain hope that a corn bunting would flutter by.
We are in the middle of a pandemic, the country brought to its knees by an ineffective government, and we worry over offending someone who puts his wife's clothes on at the weekend?
But we live in a democracy, and if that's what the majority want, who am I to argue.