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.

Or more apt!

Hear there might be a U-turn on Pensions!

"Angry relatives of passengers on board the missing Malaysia Airlines plane have clashed with police outside Malaysia's embassy in the Chinese capital, Beijing."

Although some of the reactions of the families are due to true grief, loss and group hysteria, I wonder whether some of the reactions are orchestrated and based on hope or expectancy of future compensation.

Although, unless a definite cause of the plane's demise is known, there maybe legal difficulties in pursuing for possible settlements.

bloody hell! .... and i thought i was the cynical one around here

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/03/25/jeremy-clarkson-twitter-malaysia-airlines_n_5025734.html?ncid=webmail2

His excuse that he was on a plane at the time, and didn't know that all on the plane had died, dosen't make any diffence , it was still a missing plane with 227 people on board. What if it was your family Jeremy ?

No subject should be taboo for humour.

Saying that, I haven't seen any Malaysia plane jokes yet. There were plenty of Princess Diana and 911 jokes around and lots were very funny.

house prices
this bit was interesting ...... Excluding London and the south east of England, house prices were up 3.8% in the year to the end of January

i really can't bothered with the sort of silly political comments that fossy and sticky will no doubt attach, but i think the ebbsfleet development is quite exciting ..... that said it will be almost certainly too expensive for legit first-time buyers, unless some sort of artificial ceiling or similar is put on a good number of those houses

it would certainly be good to see a significant proportion built at ~£100k or even a bit less in a mixed development, as there's more of a chance that those could be afforded by the prudent ..... unfortunately, far too many are brought up with champagne tastes and beer incomes - i.e. they want 3 bedroom houses with gardens from day 1

UKIP have taken more votes from the Lib Dems than most think


Clegg's party has lost more than 500,000 voters to Farage since 2010.


by George Eaton Published 25 March, 2014 - 15:04



A Liberal Democrat poster promoting the debate.



Ahead of the first debate between Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage tomorrow, many have predicted that both men will win. This is because, as the Telegraph's Benedict Brogan writes in his column today, "the two parties are not competing for voters – they draw support from different ends of the spectrum." In the case of tomorrow's head-to-head over EU membership, this is undoubtedly true; Clegg is bidding for the "inners" (a group larger than the Lib Dems' current base), with Farage bidding for the "outers".




More: http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/03/ukip-have-taken-more-votes-lib-dems-most-think

Manuel,

And many of the London elite want low wage community to sustain their own bloated standard of living.

But eventually that may lead to suffocating themselves and distribution of the problem to other places in the country.

I understand the reasons for London "weighting ratings" etc. but even back in the 50s and 60s thought the policy would eventually cause problems.

I think what both Clegg and Nigel (not the tory bad boy, but the crazy one) want, is that the party debates, before the next election, will incorporate both of them and force Cameron to debate with them in front of the media, rather than hiding behind his press office and prearranged questions.

Unless of course, Wavey Dave ducks Fauxpage as is expected. That should go down well with the right wing up and at 'em of the tories.

Could be fun to watch.

That orange object in the Indian Ocean wasnt a Orange Life Raft(hays report yesterday).......it appears the chap scanning the sea had is magnification set up all wrong.

It turned out to be a packet of Kraft Cream Crakers.

And you manuel stop complaining about this thread.

You the individual sets the agenda and debate at any one time. If you dont like a subject tip toe around it.

Some people on here like politics including your bum chum Hays. And I also note your 78 political posts in the last 14 days. So to say your fed up of politics beggars belief, perhaphs its just when the politics doesnt suit your ideals that is the problem.

WARNING SIGNALS..........

The ONS also said house prices in the U.K. surged 6.8 percent in the year to January 2014, up from 5.5 percent in December last year. In London, where the property prices continually hit record highs, the cost of housing soared by 13.2 percent year-on-year.

More warning signals....




Colchester's 'tiniest' house is put up for sale

25 March 2014 Last updated at 10:14

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-26729119




The cottage is so small that the dimensions of the landing are given by the sellers, who say it could be used as a 'study area'

A two-storey house with just three rooms and no indoor bathroom has been put up for sale.

The cottage in Colchester has just one bedroom, a landing area, a living room and a small kitchenette. The WC sits in the small outside garden.



Agents Fenn Wright, who have put a £77,000 price-tag terraced house, say it is "quite possibly the smallest house" in the town.

the cottage The one-bedroom house is currently used by a business as a storage area
Currently used by a business, the house does not yet have a council tax band.

Owner Malcolm Cross said he had been using the Harwich Road house for the last 30 years as a store for an electrical company he ran before retiring.

"Unfortunately we haven't got bathroom facilities here," he said.

"We've only got cold water and there's a WC outside.

"I bought it from an elderly lady who lived here with her son.

"It has been perfect for what I've used it for."

He said prospective buyers might want to keep using it as he has done.

"I love it to this day," said Mr Cross. "It would be a nice little cottage for somebody if they were willing to do some work on it."

Yep and Cynics in denial even with all the warning signs flashing.

We need to sort out a new way of measuring inflation. The government hood wink us with CPI rather than using RPI.

The following items are not included in the CPI: Council tax, mortgage interest payments, house depreciation, buildings insurance, ground rent.

Today we recieved this news..........

UK consumer and retail inflation slow in Feb - data

25 March 2014 | 09:53am
StockMarketWire.com - UK consumer price inflation (CPI) for February slowed to its lowest level since October 2009, Office of National Statistics (ONS) data showed today.

ONS said CPI rose by a seasonally adjusted 1.7% in February, in keeping with market expectations and down from 1.9% in January.

Core CPI -- excluding food, energy, alcohol, and tobacco costs -- gained by a seasonally adjusted 1.7%in February, from January's 1.6% and slightly ahead of expectations for a rise of 1.6%.

The retail price index (RPI) lifted 2.7% in February, from 2.8% in January. The hike was ahead of an anticipated 2.6%.

ONS data also revealed that the house prices index (HPI) surged 6.8% in January, above an anticipated rise of 5.7% and from a 5.5% gain in December.

SO IN CONCLUSION CPI does not take into effect the following...... Council tax, mortgage interest payments, house depreciation, buildings insurance, ground rent, food, energy, alcohol, and tobacco costs.

Now call me cynical but surely we are all being conned and not by just this government but also the past one aswel.

Surely the items above should BE INCLUDED in a monthly inflation figure. ????????

Thoughts please.



Story provided by StockMarketWire.com
- See more at: http://www.stockmarketwire.com/article/4778693/UK-consumer-and-retail-inflation-slow-in-Feb-data.html#sthash.8ldwI6Pf.dpuf

They're all at it gf, you cant believe daylight out of any of them.

Yep surely mortgage interest payments, food and energy should be at the core of any inflation figure. Instead we arent getting this and to me its downright lieing to the British public. Were being conned. Lets face it the core of most peoples salary/wage go on these 3 items but they arent included in CPI.

So just what is the real rate of inflation!!!!!! and when that comparison is done with salary/wage increases lets have the proper comparable figure. Not a fix, and this is not a political point scoring exercise I belive labour used exactly the same measures.

PATHETIC.

Fancy a taste of the good life? Essex countryside spot revealed as the most desirable rural place to live
Uttlesford district is home to Saffron Walden and Stansted Airport
Highly ranked for transport and easy reach of London and Cambridge
Weather, crime rates, health and earnings used to rank places to live
North East and North West fail to make top 50

By Adam Uren

PUBLISHED: 07:08, 24 March 2014 | UPDATED: 10:15, 24 March 2014


Close links with London and Cambridge and being home to one of the country's best preserved medieval towns has seen the district of Uttlesford crowned the most desirable rural area to live in the UK.

The Essex district has pushed last year's winner Waverley, in Surrey, into third place, with South Northamptonshire ranked second in Halifax's rural quality of life survey.

Home to the medieval market town of Saffron Walden, Uttlesford was formed in 1974 from the merging of several boroughs and was ranked highly for its transport connections, given it is within easy reach of the capital, and also has Stansted Airport within its boundaries


Desirable: The district of Uttlesford is considered to have the best quality of life in the UK according to Halifax.




The survey brings together a wide range of statistics to come up with the rankings including weather, crime rates, health and earnings, with the £819-a-week average pay of Uttlesford residents well above the £608 national average, as is its employment rate of 84 per cent.




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Almost 97 per cent of residents report good general health, though the one downside of the district is finding somewhere affordable to live, with the average property valued at seven times local earnings.

The South of England and the London commuter belt figured prominently towards the top of the rankings, with local authority districts of East Hertfordshire, South Cambridgeshire and Chiltern also in the top ten.

The highest Welsh district meanwhile was down at number 70, with Monmouthshire claiming the spot, while the Orkney Islands and the Shetlands were the only Scottish areas in the top 50, at 24 and 43 respectively.





No areas in the North East or the North West figured in the top 50.





Orkney


Shetland



Top rated: The Orkney (left) and Shetland (right) islands were the top rated rural areas in Scotland.




Craig McKinlay, of Halifax, said: 'Uttlesford has consistently reported positive scores across a wide range of indicators for a number of years.

'And taking a wide range of economic and social factors into account residents here can now lay claim to having the highest standard of living in rural Britain.


TOP TEN RURAL AREAS IN THE UK



1. Uttlesford, East of England.

2. South Northamptonshire, East Midlands.

3. Waverly, South East.

4. East Hertfordshire, East of England.

5. Rushcliffe, East Midlands.

6. South Cambridgeshire, East of England.

7. Vale of White Horse, South East.

8. Chiltern, South East.

9. Mid Sussex, South East.

10. South Kesteven, East Midlands.
.
'In terms of personal well being and general good health, Uttlesford residents score among the highest in Great Britain.'

Southern rural areas generally scored higher in terms of employment, health in weather, while Northern parts have more affordable housing and better exam results.

Despite not featuring in the top 50, the North West did figure strongly in terms of housing affordability, with average prices in Copeland just 3.3 times the local average earnings.

The countryside district with the best broadband was named as Chiltern in the South East, where 92 per cent of households have a minimum download speed of 2Mbps (megabits per second).


The Orkney Islands have the lowest burglary rates, at one per 10,000 households. The Western Isles have the lowest population density, at just nine people per square kilometre.

The sunniest place in Britain is the Isle of Wight, where residents enjoy an average of 37.4 hours of sunshine a week, while the people living in East Dorset can expect to live the longest, to 82.9 years old typically.

Meanwhile, primary school class sizes are smallest in the Western Isles, which has an average of just 16 pupils per class, according to the findings.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/mortgageshome/article-2587321/Area-Essex-revealed-desirable-place-live-rural-UK.html#ixzz2x0HoJ9j1
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

stick-bean (aka sticky old bean), lest you missed it, i'll re-post one i did earlier

house prices
this bit was interesting ...... Excluding London and the south east of England, house prices were up 3.8% in the year to the end of January

i think the ebbsfleet development is quite exciting ..... that said it will be almost certainly too expensive for legit first-time buyers, unless some sort of artificial ceiling or similar is put on a good number of those houses

it would certainly be good to see a significant proportion built at ~£100k or even a bit less in a mixed development, as there's more of a chance that those could be afforded by the prudent ..... unfortunately, far too many are brought up with champagne tastes and beer incomes - i.e. they want 3 bedroom houses with gardens from day 1