Vaughan

Oh yes! Must be a different edition- I didn't recognise it. The owner of Editions du Breil (the village near Castelnaudary where he lives) is John Riddel, who was the managing director and one of the founders of Blue Line. My old boss and a very good friend. He is also still known in local folklore, as the man who saved the Canal du Midi from closure.

Excuse us for the thread drift but I feel very lucky, looking at that map. In my job, I think I have cruised around two thirds of the rivers and canals shown, as well as in Belgium and Holland. I assume the map comes from the Guides Vagnon?

I have several friends who have done that and always wanted to myself. It takes a minimum two weeks to get to Calais or preferably, Ostend. If you have a serious sea boat you can also get out on the Somme, via Amiens. Would that count as isolation, I wonder?

Not in the least! It sounds more to me, if you want an analogy, that you have all your ducks in a row!

At the moment that would be our only option but I rather doubt we would get away with it! Especially as the Portsmouth ferries are only carrying freight.

No, the rest of them were crowded on the beach.

I normally avoid these nightly TV briefings but I have just sat through tonight's, for what it was worth. I think the obvious answer is that I should contact the Broads Authority and re-register my motor cruiser as a "support bubble".

Absolutely gorgeous!

Bring it back! That's what I call a pub lunch!

Actually I am qualified to comment on this one. I spent several years in and out of Belfast as a soldier in the early 70s, at the height of the recent "troubles". All I remember from those times of civil war, is hatred. But it was blind hatred, as at least the last 3 generations of the local people had totally forgotten why they hated each other : all they knew was that they hated. If you asked them to explain it, they would just fall back on William of Orange or failing that, Oliver Cromwell. Hence the "marching season" and the Orange Order which in today's society are just meaningless provocation. My point is that if we are ever going to have peace with each other in our inner cities then me must learn to live together now, in the present day and not blindly blame it all on the past. Pulling down statues simply ignores that nowadays, we should be intelligent enough to know better. What worries me, from that experience, is that I can see all the symptoms here, for the "troubles" to break out in our mainland cities. If we want to see troops on our streets, then I don't think we will have very long to wait.

Have I argued with any of that? In any case, historic slavery is not the point. The mindless rioting and blind hatred which is now out of control on our streets, is the point. The reason for it, is what people like me are objective enough to try and discover.

Not in the least! I am simply trying to analyse where it all comes from. In particular because this has now been turned by rent-a-mob into a historical anti slavery rally. What about all the other racism against other ethnic minorities such as the Chinese, the Pakistanis or the Muslims? Did they come here as slaves?

You beat me to it! I read somewhere that they reckon there are now more people of Irish descent in America than there are in Ireland. But their forefathers were not transported there as slaves : they "crossed the Pond" looking for a better life in hard times of famine and blight. So what would have happened if the native black Africans had not been sold as slaves and had remained living in Africa? Would they, by now, have also crossed the seas looking for a better life and would they not, by now, be forming the same large proportion of "western" society? In which case, who would we be blaming now, for the same level of present day racism?

Try Peachments in Brundall.

The genuine protesters had no right to be there either, in breach of the virus legislation. So the whole thing was a mass breakdown of law and order on the streets of our cities. I find that far more serious than protestors' bigoted attitudes.

Well, it is good, of course, that consumers should have their rights. Just as long as it doesn't force holiday companies into administration, because then, they won't get anything.

I have just remembered! The key will have a round black backing plate, which says "off run heat start" and this has a keyway, to stop it turning on the base of the key. So all you have to do is screw the plate onto the dash with two small screws and hey presto! If this plate is missing I imagine you can easily order it as a spare part.

Which doesn't explain to me why rent - a - mob also defaced the statue of Abraham Lincoln.

Hence all the fuss about the name of Guy Gibson's dog. Did that mean he was a racist?

Sounds to me as though you are complicating matters for no extra advantage. You can easily stop the ignition switch from turning by making up a bracket under the dash. Something similar to the bracket on the gauge in the bottom right of your photo, screwed into the dashboard. Just make sure it is insulated from the terminals! The starter solenoid on a BMC is also a relay, so you don't need much current to feed it from the key. The glow plugs will take about 25amps total, so a relay near the engine will avoid volt drop in the circuit. You will probably find that the key is fed from the terminal, battery side, of the starter solenoid. I assume the other large brown wire in your photo goes to a fuse box for other appliances.

I assume we have heard of the phrase "all shipshape and Bristol fashion"? It comes from the slave trade, funnily enough. I haven't read this but I hear that another Guardian journalist, one Afua Hirsh, has also been giving her opinion. She it was, who suggested a while ago that the statue of Nelson should be torn down from his column as it "glorifies a white supremacist". Rather significant that this rabble in London at the weekend also defaced the statues of Abraham Lincoln and Churchill, during their violent protest about racism. Churchill, who led the country through six years of world war to defeat what is arguably the worst regime of racial genocide in world history. A funny thing to do to his statue on the anniversary of D Day, of all days. This is what I meant earlier by blind, irrational and innate hatred.

The subject is Coronavirus and, as I see it, the effect that it is having on the underlying social unrest which is constantly with us in todays "civilised" society.

I hope you can read this as I am trying to take a photo of a document framed under glass. The Queen's signature, by hand in royal purple ink, is in the top left hand corner but it has faded over the years. I don't see anything here that mentions "government".

For the sake of semantics, the police remain the "instrument" of the civil power. The Army serve the Queen, as keepers of the Queen's Peace. A traditional principle which is always worth remembering, in our democracy. This is why we are not a banana republic.