I'm sure that if you write directly to Her Majesty, she'll provide. With an autograph.

I'm sure that if you write directly to Her Majesty, she'll provide. With an autograph.
https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/li ... s-19102845 for details.Pub rebrands as 'The Three B***ends' in dig at under fire Tory trio
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https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/indo ... 71925.htmlSex banned indoors for Tier 2 couples living apart, Number 10 confirms
Couples living apart in areas with Tier 2 restrictions are not allowed to have sleepovers unless they are in a “support bubble”, Downing Street confirmed today.
Boyfriends and girlfriends will be able to meet outdoors in Tier 2 but are expected to adhere to social distancing rules such as hands, face and space. They must also adhere to the rule of six.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman told a briefing of Westminster journalists: “The rules on household mixing in Tier 2 set out that you should mix with your own household only unless you’ve formed a support bubble and that obviously does apply to some couples.”
A support bubble is a network between a single-person home and one other household of any size , according to the government rules.
It comes as both London and Essex are set to be plunged into Tier 2 at midnight tonight.
Asked why there was no exemption for people in established relationships in Tier 2, he replied: “Because the purpose of the measures that were put in place is to break the chain in transmission between households and the scientific advice is there is greater transmission of the virus indoors.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ents-imageCabinet Office to hire photographer in effort to level up government’s image
Advert for £60,000-a-year job says role is to ‘promote the work of ministers and the wider government visually’
Downing Street’s critics might argue that making the government look good at present is a tough task as it faces a bruising time, lurching from one Covid-related crisis to another. But No 10 is seemingly attempting to remedy the situation – by hiring a £60,000-a-year photographer.
A job advert posted by the Cabinet Office, which supports the prime minister, states that the job of the photographer will be to “promote the work of ministers and the wider government visually”.
In what could be a nod to the chaotic goings-on in government, it adds: “No two days will ever be the same in this role. One day you may accompany a cabinet minister on an international visit, working closely [with] press officers across Whitehall to deliver a series of coordinated announcements, and the next you will be working in the Cabinet Office producing innovative visual content.”
A key feature of the Whitehall-based role, whose holder will be paid a salary of between £54,700 and £60,635, will apparently involve out-of-hours working, including travelling domestically and overseas with ministers.
The successful candidate will “require a high level of tenacity, confidence and determination combined with a good news sense, a high degree of political awareness and exceptional relationship management skills”. As well as being “highly motivated”, the post holder will need to be “comfortable working autonomously in a high-pressure environment”, the advert states.
The photographer, who will work across departments, will be employed in addition to Boris Johnson’s in-house one. Earlier this year it emerged that the prime minister had hired a personal photographer at taxpayers’ expense. Andrew Parsons, who had previously been employed by the then prime minister David Cameron and was taken off the public payroll in 2010 amid criticism of so-called “vanity staff”, was appointed as a media special adviser in January. Separately, Parson’s firm, Parsons Media, received four payments totalling £45,525.25 from the Conservatives for work during last year’s general election, electoral commission figures show.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/19/worl ... ardon.htmlMurderer Who Wielded Narwhal Tusk to Stop Terrorist Gets Royal Pardon
Queen Elizabeth II approved a rare form of clemency for an inmate who used a whale tusk to help end a deadly terrorist attack near London Bridge last year.
LONDON — Queen Elizabeth II has approved a rare royal pardon for an inmate convicted of murder who used a narwhal tusk to help stop a terrorist attack in which two people were killed before the assailant was killed by the police on London Bridge.
The decision to pardon the murderer, Steven Gallant, was in recognition of “his exceptionally brave actions,” which “helped save people’s lives despite the tremendous risk to his own,” a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Justice said in a statement on Monday. If a parole board approves, Mr. Gallant’s minimum 17-year sentence would be reduced by 10 months.
The attack in November 2019 began at a prisoner rehabilitation conference when a former inmate in attendance stabbed and killed two young rehabilitation advocates, Jack Merritt and Saskia Jones, and fled before eventually being subdued on London Bridge. Three others were also injured before the assailant, Usman Khan, 28, was fatally shot by police. Mr. Khan had served eight years for a terrorism-related offense but had been released in December 2018.
Mr. Gallant, who was imprisoned in 2005, was among a crowd of people who banded together to take the assailant down with an unconventional weapon: the narwhal tusk, which had been a wall decoration at Fishmongers’ Hall, the historic building that hosted the conference. He was in the hall for the day on a prison day-release program when he heard noises and saw injured people.
He found Mr. Khan holding two large knives and wearing a fake bomb around his waist. “He was a clear danger to all, so I didn’t hesitate,” Mr. Gallant said, in a statement in January.
He used a chair and the tusk, passed to him by a civil servant, to confront the attacker, chasing him onto London Bridge and helping restrain him before police arrived. Male narwhals, a species of whale, have a single straight tusk that can grow up to nine feet long; this one was about five feet.
Holding a chair seems more of a defend/subdue action rather than going "Mr Stabby" with the tusk.
Fugla næsseAbdul Alhazred wrote: ↑Thu Oct 22, 2020 3:07 pm Foulness Island UK.![]()
https://www.amusingplanet.com/2020/10/b ... -path.html
The grandfather of the current Lord Foulness went to school with King George VI.![]()
https://www.scottishlegal.com/article/u ... endition?=UK government refuses to assist Police Scotland investigation into US torture and rendition
The Foreign Secretary has refused to assist a Police Scotland investigation into the use of Scottish airports to facilitate rendition and torture.
Dominic Raab ruled out asking the US government to release evidence held in the unredacted version of a Senate investigation into the CIA’s torture and rendition programme, in response to requests from Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf.
Mr Raab, in July of this year, formally requested that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office make representations to the US government over the unredacted US Senate’s torture report.
Police Scotland have been investigating the use of Scottish airports to facilitate torture and rendition in 2013, and the Lord Advocate in 2014 ordered them to examine potentially vital evidence held in the US Senate report.
Mr Yousaf’s request to Westminster follows years of campaigning by MSPs over concern about the use of Scottish airports in CIA rendition flights, including calls in February of this year from a cross-party group of MSPs to make sure police get to the bottom of what happened.
In his letter, Mr Yousaf states: “We have, in the past, sought confirmation that UK airports were not used for extraordinary rendition flights, and that assurance was found to be inaccurate when the US government finally disclosed the use of Diego Garcia for one such flight. I am therefore inclined to seek the report itself, which should be a true and accurate picture, than to seek verbal assurances.”
https://en.mercopress.com/2020/10/24/fa ... -the-beachFalklands celebrates completion of demining with a symbolic “Reclaim the Beach”
On Saturday 14 November 2020, the Falkland Islands community will be taking part in celebrations to mark the completion of the Islands-wide demining program after 38 years since the end of the 1982 conflict. The Falklands' Government has announced that activities will begin with an event to officially reopen Gypsy Cove/Yorke Bay, the final area of the Falklands to officially be declared mine-free.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/p ... 60071.htmlFree school meals: Rashford praises local communities as petition for government support nears one million
England footballer Marcus Rashford has praised local communities for stepping in to provide free meals to children during the school holidays, as hundreds of thousands of people signed petitions in favour of government paying for meals and against using public money to subsidise MPs’ food and drink.
Councils, including Conservative-run bodies, announced half-term stop-gap measures, and at least 750 restaurants and other food businesses rallied to support the viral campaign against child hunger.
Among the local authorities pledging help was Conservative-controlled Hillingdon council, in Boris Johnson’s constituency of Uxbridge and South Ruislip.
A petition against using public money to support MPs’ food costs had received 740,000 signatures by Saturday night.
And Rashford’s government petition had received more than 750,000. Chef-turned-anti-waste campaigner Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall urged people to sign to get the number of names past a million.
Councils, tea rooms, churches, farms and takeaways all publicly offered to help provide children with food during half-term. Rashford, 22, said he was "truly overwhelmed" by the support his campaign has received.
MPs voted this week against extending the free school meals scheme over the Christmas holidays, prompting uproar among much of the public. Ministers say they have given councils £63m for families facing financial difficulties caused by pandemic restrictions.
The petition against public money for MPs' meals calls for “an end to the practice of paying expenses to MPs for food and drink”, and for parliamentary establishments to sell food and drink “at market rates”.
Under current rules, MPs can claim up for food and non-alcoholic drinks when staying outside of London and their constituency, with a limit of up to £25 per night.
Catering services across the House of Commons are not directly subsidised, but do operate at a loss in total, with figures showing they cost the Commons £2.6m in the 2018-2019 financial year.
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/whats-on/ ... d-19148223Halloween drive-in cinema event in chaos as screen is in England but toilets are locked-down over the border in Wales
Chester arts centre, The Storyhouse, is desperately trying to find a new venue for the Halloween movie night
The Storyhouse's Moonlight Drive-In is planning to show Halloween films like Hocus Pocus, Halloween and Beetlejuice, but it turns out that the Welsh border runs right through the middle of the stadium car park.
While both the screen and loos were intended to be on the Welsh side, after the fire-break lockdown was announced for Wales - from Friday, October 23 to Monday, November 9 - organisers decided to move the cinema screen to the English half of the car park.
However, this still leaves the toilet facilities on the locked down Welsh side of the site - and organisers now fear they may have to cancel the event.
But if it does go ahead, police will be in attendance to ensure film-goers don't stray over the border.
The old joke “ Heaven Is Where The Police Are British, The Cooks Are French, The Mechanics German, The Lovers Italian And It's All Organised By The Swiss ” is definitely kaput (at least as far as the British police)Witness wrote: ↑Tue Oct 27, 2020 2:12 amhttps://www.walesonline.co.uk/whats-on/ ... d-19148223Halloween drive-in cinema event in chaos as screen is in England but toilets are locked-down over the border in Wales
Chester arts centre, The Storyhouse, is desperately trying to find a new venue for the Halloween movie night
The Storyhouse's Moonlight Drive-In is planning to show Halloween films like Hocus Pocus, Halloween and Beetlejuice, but it turns out that the Welsh border runs right through the middle of the stadium car park.
While both the screen and loos were intended to be on the Welsh side, after the fire-break lockdown was announced for Wales - from Friday, October 23 to Monday, November 9 - organisers decided to move the cinema screen to the English half of the car park.
However, this still leaves the toilet facilities on the locked down Welsh side of the site - and organisers now fear they may have to cancel the event.
But if it does go ahead, police will be in attendance to ensure film-goers don't stray over the border.
There's a similar joke about Alsatians (who were alternatively under French or German rule):
I believe Wales and the north were mentioned. Explains everything.
When did Dogs learn how to speak.Witness wrote: ↑Wed Oct 28, 2020 12:21 amThere's a similar joke about Alsatians (who were alternatively under French or German rule):
An Alsatian dies and is sent to hell. The demon at the front desk asks:
– German hell or French hell?
– What's the difference?
– German hell, you get pierced with pikes, dragged over burning coals and then boiled in tar.
– Gasp! And the French one?
– Same, pikes, coals, tar.
– So what should I choose?
– Between you and me, take the French.
– Why's that?
– Well, one day they will have misplaced the pikes, another forgot to light the coals, or the tar demons will be on strike for better working conditions.
Abdul Alhazred wrote: ↑Wed Oct 28, 2020 9:28 pm I didn't google anything, and I'm not sure what pop culture reference you mean (other that Star Trek).
Merely that it reflects my own impression of British "humour".
So very very different from humor.
Or did you mean the "whistle while you work" thing? That's 100% American and I heard it as a kid.![]()
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hate ... -6bcthrjdcHate crime bill: Hate talk in homes ‘must be prosecuted’
Conversations over the dinner table that incite hatred must be prosecuted under Scotland’s hate crime law, the justice secretary has said.
Journalists and theatre directors should also face the courts if their work is deemed to deliberately stoke up prejudice, Humza Yousaf said.
The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill has been condemned by critics including the Scottish Catholic Church, police representatives, academics and artists. It will introduce an offence of stirring-up of hatred against people with protected characteristics, including disability, sexual orientation and age.
Just the words "Danny Dyer" is enough.
What about religious institutions then, Hummer?Witness wrote: ↑Wed Oct 28, 2020 11:25 pmhttps://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hate ... -6bcthrjdcHate crime bill: Hate talk in homes ‘must be prosecuted’
Conversations over the dinner table that incite hatred must be prosecuted under Scotland’s hate crime law, the justice secretary has said.
Journalists and theatre directors should also face the courts if their work is deemed to deliberately stoke up prejudice, Humza Yousaf said.
The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill has been condemned by critics including the Scottish Catholic Church, police representatives, academics and artists. It will introduce an offence of stirring-up of hatred against people with protected characteristics, including disability, sexual orientation and age.
Always set up a platter for the Political Commissar, he could show up…