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I happened to see on TV an elderly, over-90 years, but very compos mentis, retired professor, talking to the TV chef Rick Stein about the decline in average IQ since 1950, as apparently noted in a study done by, or under the auspices of, Bradford University. The professor cited as a (or even the) causative reason the decline of consumption of fish and shellfish in the UK over the past 74 years.
That may be part of it. Certainly some types of fish popular with the mass market have become expensive; even standard British favourites such as cod and haddock. I bought some fish and chips recently: 1 large cod, 1 large haddock, 1 small bag of chips. £20.50.
Whether you think that £20.50 for a smallish bag of chips and 2 large pieces of fish is expensive or not will depend on your general financial level, but it is at least certainly more than most citizens will want to pay out on a daily basis.
Some fish in the UK is not, however, expensive, however poor you are. Mackerel, for one, which can be bought (uncooked) in a supermarket for as little as a pound or so for a good-size fillet.
I recall that, when I lived in Fethiye (Turkey) for a few months in 2001 (I drove there from the UK, a trip that was more difficult then than it now is), I went to the fish market in the town almost daily, about 4-5 times a week. The hierarchy of price descended from the most expensive, which were huge langoustines, or tuna steak and swordfish (cut from massive whole tuna and swordfish, some 5 or 6 feet or more long and 1-2 feet wide), through many other types of fish and shellfish and down to tiny fish, presumably by-catch, which cost only about 5% or even 2% of the most expensive. There is always a decision to be made by the individual on what is affordable or not.
IQ in a general population is obviously affected by diet, but is also a function of other factors. The UK’s average IQ level has been badly affected by, inter alia, the mass immigration that has been such a feature of the past 75 years.
Importation of non-European peoples into the UK has had many negative consequences. A lower average IQ is merely one.
One sees evidence of decline in IQ and/or educational levels everywhere. One example might be secondary school exam papers. When I was studying, belatedly, in my mid-twenties, for “A” Levels (and an “S” level) in 1983, studying alone and without tuition, I sent off for papers from a number of previous years, from the 1950s and 1960s right up to 1982. Even in 1983, one could see that the level of difficulty had steadily declined over the previous 30 years.
Since the 1980s, of course, there has been massive award inflation. Not only at secondary educational level but also at tertiary (university) level. Hardly anyone actually fails a university degree now, unless the student drops out. The kind of average degree, normal only 30 or more years ago, a 2:2 (as earned by Tony Blair, among others), is now not even considered a reasonably “good” degree. The real standard has not improved, but dropped, while presented as something wonderful.
Not that IQ (and knowledge) mean everything, anyway. “EQ” (“emotional intelligence”) is also important: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_intelligence.
As for myself, long ago, in the 1980s, my IQ was tested at 156 (UK average being 100, and university students typically testing at 125), certainly in the top 1% of the population, but that was in the mid-1980s, when I was about 30, and it may well be (I do not know) that I would test lower today. By way of compensation, though, I think that I can say that experience, and other infusions from the stream of Life, make up the difference, and perhaps more.
We often hear that “things do not work properly any more in our society”, and that may become a greater problem as average IQ drops ever lower.
Our society should be travelling, by design, in the other direction.
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At this point, anyone who submits to being injected with those “vaccines”, especially the “Covid” ones, is just an idiot or loonie.
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“Tel Aviv Keith” Starmer is a very nasty little man, a typical bureaucrat given power and unable to handle it.
Do not imagine that words alone will sort out this whole mess.
It is time to stop thinking of MPs, not all but many of them, as merely “mistaken” or “wrongheaded“, and to awaken to the fact that some, perhaps many of them, are —in a word, in lay meaning— “traitors” to the British people and their future. Not necessarily the above MP, though; I am talking generally.
Whatever one may think of “Tommy Robinson”, he has a point, nicht wahr?
“This decision by the SRA about Lewis’ negligent advice is just awful. Mark Lewis told Pete Newbon that the defamatory publication did not identify me. It was startlingly incompetent advice because the publication contained a clear photo of me and Tolley v Fry (possibly the most famous defamation case) says a claimant can be identified by a photo or sketch. The SRA’s own Code of Conduct says solicitors must “ensure that the service you provide to clients is competent…” So contrary to what the SRA says, incompetent advice is a regulatory matter. And the SRA’s strategy for dealing with Lewis’ incompetent advice is for Newbon to bring a negligence claim or complain to the ombudsman. Obviously, Newbon will not do either of those things. It scares me that the SRA – faced with a solicitor who appears not to grasp the absolute basics of the area of law he works in – won’t take action to protect the public from incompetent advice. Surely it is the SRA’s job to identify and deal with solicitors who give incompetent advice?@sra_solicitors @lawsocgazette.“
[James Wilson, successful claimant in the legal case Wilson v. Mendelsohn, Cantor, and Newbon (deceased)]. ]
Mark Lewis, as previously noted, is a self-publicizing and —by the “occupied” UK msm— hugely overrated solicitor who should have been struck off (not merely reprimanded and fined, as he was) for some of his previous professional (meaning unprofessional) defaults. He is, and has been repeatedly proven to be, dishonest, untruthful, and professionally negligent.
Only a complete idiot would now instruct “Mark Lewis Lawyer”.
What is protecting Lewis, in my view, is the fact that the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority was screeched at in 2019 by the organized Jew-Zionist lobby, after the SRA fined and reprimanded Lewis, after which he performatively decamped to Israel (but then slunk back quite often to the UK to make money). The SRA may be running a little scared of “the screechers” (((them))).
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Ian Robert Millard 
“Meta’s independent content watchdog said Thursday there were “serious questions” about how the social media giant deals with anti-immigrant content, particularly in Europe”.
Who is Meta? Meta Platforms, Inc., doing business as Meta, and formerly named Facebook, Inc., and TheFacebook, Inc.,is an American multinational technology conglomerate based in Menlo Park, California. The company owns and operates Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp, among other products and services.
https://www.voanews.com/a/watchdog-serious-questions-over-meta-s-handling-of-anti-immigrant-posts/7825746.html
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We know who is the owner of META, don´t we? A POS called Mark Zuckerberg. He spread the lie he had sold Facebook because he was getting a lot of flak for the brand´s obnoxious policies regarding censorship and its political views.
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Hello Ian: Very interesting reflections. The price of the fish and chops shocked my wife 😵😵 (LOL) As I did not have the slightest idea about the size of the fish involved I asked her if that would feed two people and she said it would not be enough to satiate two adults. Therefore, I think is fairly expensive.
The terrible decline in education and IQ was devised by our evil masters and affects most of the Western world. Here is very much the same. A friend of mine told me that a neighbour who is a teacher said to him “We have orders to give the students good marks even if they are quite useless”.
Incidentally, I have noticed (and it irritates me very much) that most people refer to the hateful criminals who are running the Western world as “the elites”. Obviously these fools do not know the meaning of the word “elite” which originally described a chosen body of men of outstanding quality. In Napoleon´s army every infantry batallion or cavalry squadron had a “compagnie d´élite” composed by the best trained and/or bravest soldiers. This proves your point about the declining IQ and educational standards across the Western world.
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Claudius:
The fish and chips was definitely enough for me and my wife. Not something we have very often (high carbohydrate) but maybe one every 2-3 weeks.
As you say, btw, “elite” is much misused.
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I am glad to hear that the fish and chips were enough for both of you. If I remember correctly you the Brits tend to add vinegar to them, we add lemon juice. God! AQll this chat has made me very hungry! 😁😁 Time for a veal cutlet and some Russian salad! 😋😋
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Claudius:
De gustibus non est disputandum…
Yes, many in the UK like salt and vinegar with their fish and chips. I myself prefer just salt (something I rarely put on other foods), and my wife likes salt and fresh lemon with hers. Salt and vinegar on fish and chips is so commonly the choice here that the people working in fish and chip shops usually ask whether customers want salt/vinegar. I prefer to salt my own fish/chips at home, having usually bought them only a half-mile or so away and brought them back by car.
I recall from the 3 years I spent in Australia (aged 10-13) that, if people bought one of the then-ubiquitous meat pies, they would be asked “with or without” (tomato ketchup). That was the only food offered at my first little school there (Middle Harbour School), sold at lunchtime out of a small building by the school (within the grounds), and given to the purchaser wrapped in a brown paper bag. I tried one, or part of one (“without”, probably), on the first day, after which I always brought my own food from home (usually peanut butter sandwiches, with lettuce, and a slice of orange rock melon).
I think that Australia’s food tastes today are a world away from what was standard back then.
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A little addendum, I made a spelling mistake and instead of “fish and chips” I wrote “fish and chops” According to my wife this is close to the way New Zealanders pronounce it (actually is “fesh and cheps” 😁😁)
Regarding the word “elite”, here is its origin:
https://www.etymonline.com/word/elite
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Claudius:
“Fesh an cheps” sounds more like Northern Irish.
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Unfortunately, I do not know how the Northern Irish accent sounds and I cannot explain how the “E” sounds in Spanish but I found a video where a Kiwi jokingly said that for a Brit it must sound as “fush and chups”, and my wife (who lived in NZ) confirmed that.
PS: I remember watching a British crime drama set in Belfast and I could not understand a word and I have to say that the NI accent sounded horrible to me.
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Claudius:
Hard to understand (for me)…
Was this the film you watched?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odd_Man_Out
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odd_Man_Out#Box_office
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Hello: No it was not “Odd Man Out” which I vaguely remember as an excellent film. What I watched was an episode of “Murphy´s Law” a series set in Northern Ireland´s criminal underworld. I must admit that the characters were uneducated low-lifes and therefore, their “English” was already bad, but their horrible, thick accents made it impossible for me to understand what they were talking about. Even my wife, who is from Kent, got annoyed and said “I cannot understand a word”.
Originally the series was set in England, it was good, entertaining and rather light-hearted with James Nesbitt playing a cheeky Northern Irishman cop who goes undercover. Unfortunately, the producers decided to change the style of the series and made it more serious, dark and brutal. The action was set in Northern Ireland and the whole thing became unbearable.
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Claudius:
I do not know that series.
I sometimes wonder how accurate the details of TV series involving the police (etc) are. For example, the ones set in courts in England are often ludicrously inaccurate in both large aspects and smaller matters (eg sometimes, just now and then, one sees gavels in use by the judges, which are in fact never used in English courts, though they are, or can be, in the USA).
I am sure that the police and others (eg SIS/MI6, or Security Service/MI5 employees) must grind their teeth at the inaccuracies contained in most films and TV series (such as the amusing but absurd “Spooks”).
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Very interesting. Thank you. The football pools started in Argentina in the early 1970s. They were known as PRODE (PROnósticos DEportivos = Sporting Forecasts) In the unlikely event that a person guessed all the 13 results he/she would get a huge sum. I am sure there must have been some fools who spent all their money on silly things and ended up in poverty.
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Claudius:
In the UK, the football pools started in the early 1920s. They were something of an anomaly, in an era which discouraged popular gambling (away from racecourses). There were a couple of halfhearted attempts to repress the football pools but, in the end, “the pools” were allowed to stay, maybe because it would have been politically unpopular by then to ban them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Moores_(British_businessman)
“Betting shops”, as known today, where bets are placed on horses, dogs, sport fixtures etc, were illegal, and were not legalized until the early 1960s, though a covert network existed prior to that, often masquerading as sweet shops etc, and with the connivance of local police.
Casinos likewise were not legalized until the 1960s.
As said, the National Lottery was only set up in 1994 (I was out by one year).
Of course, most people lose so that the few can win…
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Death of a rich loser: A British wealthy drug addict called Liam Payne, ex-member of a pop group called “One Direction”, died the day before yesterday in Buenos Aires. Everything indicates that the idiot committed suicide jumping from the third floor of the hotel where he was staying.
Initially I though it was an accident and felt sorry for the fellow but then I found he jumped, most probably drunk or under the influence of drugs. The staff of the hotel said that he had thrashed his room. I also found out that he was a supporter of BLM (what can you expect from a brainless “celebrity”?). The annoying this is that this waste of space was worth 47 million pounds. A perfect example of this rotten system who creates “idols” like this moron, people without values or education. I say GOOD RIDDANCE!
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Claudius:
I have to admit that I agree, though I usually try to follow the maxim de mortuis nihil nisi bonum, in the case of the *recently* deceased at least.
I had in this case never heard of the individual, though I had heard of One Direction, mainly via TV quiz shows (popular culture is my weakest area). I believe that young girls were their biggest fans in their heyday about (?) 13 years ago, and David Cameron-Levita made a video with them (I think) at Downing Street.
The unnatural death in Buenos Aires was big news here a couple of days ago, but I only know the outline facts, because it is not the type of story that would much interest me.
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Hello: As I said, I felt sorry for the fellow thinking it was an accident but then I found out about his behaviour and lifestyle and was quite angry. Can you imagine what people like us could/would do with a tiny fraction of his fortune? We would employ that to help others (particularly animals) and improve our lives. Money/wealth should be used to benefit the community in which we live and not in selfish and frivolous pursuits. People without decent values and a generous, public-spirited nature are materialistic, shallow creatures who are never happy; no wonder they end up killing themselves.
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Claudius:
I agree again.
It (the multimillionare pop/rock singer) is rather like many people who strike lucky on the Euromillions lottery. Unsurprisingly, because a random winner is simply quite likely to reflect the average Brit (or whatever). Not terribly educated or cultured, in other words. Many, pathetically, try to start businesses, which is so pointless when you have just won as much as £150M. Most of course have no experience of business ownership anyway. Most also have no idea on what to spend their winnings, beyond the banalities of the new car, new house (usually an ordinary detached place rather than a country estate), and the inevitable luxury holiday.
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If he had strange and stupid political opinons like most pop stars do then that is one thing but I have read that he was a decent young man in some respects. Apparently, he donated large sums of money to charities such as the Trussel Trust which runs food banks and he was doing this in Argentina even a few days before he died. That makes him a better person than evil waste of space scumbags like Iain Dumbo-Smith whose policies have driven many poor Brits to commit suicide and who was sadly re-elected by the moron element in his constituency in July.
It seems as if Liam Payne died from a ghastly accident caused by drinking alcohol and consuming drugs. That illustrates why drug abuse is a big problem in too many countries around the world which means these countries have too many deaths from drug abuse and a higher crime rate than they would have otherwise.
Now, people should know why countries such as Singapore take drug abuse and drug trafficking so seriously:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caning_in_Singapore
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Singapore
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_imprisionment_in_Singapore
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/courts-crime
https://www.cnb.gov.sg
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Thank you very much for this extra information. Yes, he was not as bad as those who are consciously evil. I do agree with you; drug dealers should be executed.
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To the rock stars we could/should add footballers, boxers and film stars. I remember reading a small book titled “The Wealthiest Losers”which, as you may have guessed it was about wealthy people who, out of sheer stupidity, lost huge fortunes. One of the cases was a couple from the North of England who won the Lottery in the late 1960s. The two numbskulls managed to spend the equivalent of 20 million pounds in a few years and ended up working for pennies. How stupid can you be? HAHAHAHAHA
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Claudius:
Not the Lottery (that was only brought in in England in, or about, 1995). The football pools, no doubt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_pools
Another such case (or quite likely the same one):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viv_Nicholson
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Yes! Viv Nicholson was the woman mentioned in the book! I remember her stupid words: SPEND-SPEND-SPEND. I did not remember how much money she won but it was a lot. I double check the amount quoted by Wikipedia (4.300.000 pounds in 2023) and it is correct. Now that I know her story I cannot but feel sorry for her. She had a horrible childhood a ni moral compass or education. She did not stand a chance. Her husband was very much like her: 0+0=0
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