Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

Silvio Berlusconi convicted over Italy wiretap

Italy's former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been convicted and sentenced to a year in jail over an illegal wiretap.

He was accused of arranging for a police wiretap concerning a political rival to be leaked and published in a newspaper run by his brother.

Mr Berlusconi is likely to appeal and will remain free in the meantime.

He is presently appealing against another conviction and faces two more verdicts in the coming weeks.

Strong character. he is paying millions of Euro to his former wife already to settle out of court.

city-wide manhunt is under way after a 16-year-old girl was stabbed to death on a rush-hour bus on one of Birmingham's busiest roads.

Police are looking for a black male in his late teens or early 20s in dark clothing after the "sporadic attack" on the Hagley Road at 07:40 GMT.

He was thought to be wearing a jacket with a tiger design or other logo on and carrying a white carrier bag.

children not safe to go to school the UK 2013 .

Two men have today been jailed for drugging and raping vulnerable underage girls they found walking the streets.

Shazad Rehman, 30, was jailed for 18-and-half years and his nephew Bilal Hussain, 23, was jailed for 17-and-a-half years at Bradford Crown Court.

Judge Jonathan Rose said the men 'engaged in a course of conduct which has become increasingly and depressingly familiar in this country'.

The pair denied abusing the girls, who were picked up as they cruised the streets of Keighley and Halifax, West Yorkshire.

Is the "success" of tory immigration policies down to the increased red tape and "security", or is it down to the UK economy being crap and nobody wants to come here?

as the uk wage and employment levels are significantly better than in spain, italy, latvia, serbia, croatia et al, your snipe is (as so often) mis-aimed

As far is banks loaning being difficult is concerned, it strikes me that a lot of businesses don't want to borrow, because they don't believe in tory policies.

If the government had put the money of QE into directly into the infrastructure "upgrading" directly on a National or Local bases then the general economy would have benefited. The cash would have trickle through to the general economy rather than into the pockets of the bankers and some "private companies" doing "public work".

(Suggested by many 18-24 months ago by Vince and many others.)

The coalition and Maggie's off-spring, are not split down the middle, but shattered into fragments and Cameron's rallying call is another of his sham.

Suggest Cruella May would be a good leader.

8-((000

Two men have today been jailed for drugging and raping vulnerable underage girls they found walking the streets.

Shazad Rehman, 30, was jailed for 18-and-half years and his nephew Bilal Hussain, 23, was jailed for 17-and-a-half years at Bradford Crown Court.

Judge Jonathan Rose said the men 'engaged in a course of conduct which has become increasingly and depressingly familiar in this country'.

The pair denied abusing the girls, who were picked up as they cruised the streets of Keighley and Halifax, West Yorkshire.

deja vu

Two Britons 'kidnapped' in Egypt

Gunmen in Egypt have kidnapped two British tourists on their way to a beach resort, according to local security and tribal sources.

They are thought to have been in a car travelling from Cairo to the Sharm El Sheikh tourist resort when they were seized in the Sinai Peninsula.

Security in the isolated desert region has deteriorated since the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak two years ago.

South Sinai's Red Sea coast is a major north African tourism hub.

They already have asked about Cable earlier and Cameron said he would carry with the same strategy. He said Cable was a much valued member of the government and later Cable was much more supportive of Cameron. It is about joint Cabinet responsibility and not talking out of turn. Looks like Cable was given a slap on the wrists and quite right as well.

Goldfinger,

If you are currently 39 (post 22,133), how old would you have been when you outed Robert Maxwell?



Just curious.

There's another unsolved mystery, Bob,Bob,Bob Maxwell - was he pushed overboard or did he jump?

I thought gf also discovered America, was the first to walk on the moon and could run faster than a speeding bullet.

Cos your guilty!

Vicky Pryce guilty over Chris Huhne speeding points

The former wife of ex-cabinet minister Chris Huhne has been found guilty of perverting the course of justice by taking speeding points on his behalf.

Vicky Pryce, 60, was convicted at Southwark Crown Court of committing the offence over a speeding incident on the M11 in Essex in 2003.

She had denied the charge, saying Huhne had forced her to take the points.

how could she NOT be guilty, any more than him? ..... what a pair of total muppets! .... if they'd fronted up and said "mea culpa, mea maxima culpa" they'ld probably have got little more than a fine and a severe warning

I have just been completing the final bits & pieces for the estate of a friend who's wife had died and left all of her belongings to the surviving spouse. The new rules concerning inheritance tax (2007) state that you can now carry forward the first spouse's tax allowance to the second person's allowance, thus doubling the second person's threshold (certain rules apply). I just wondered what's to stop you living as a single person all of your life and to get married to an 18 year old nymphette on your death bed, thus having no tax to pay on your death and, assuming the totty lives to a grand old age, very little tax to pay ever?

Serves her right for not keeping her mouth shut. It is quite common for a one of a couple to take the other's points. Her crime has been getting caught.

"get married to an 18 year old nymphette" - that bit might be a problem :-)

The bit about the 18 year old nymphette sounds fine, forget the tax.