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.

I remember Chuka Khan , good singer as well

Chuka Umunna's name is a massive problem for people, in that it is not at all easy to remember.

Cynic - I could not give a stuff how he dresses - maybe some politicians need to get real, instead of formulating policies to please the masses, and make themselves popular. Maybe if he wore jeans and a tea shirt, ( Steve Jobs - Apple, did ) he may start a fashion, but good sense is what we need, not clean shirts and matching ties.
What do you vote for, a politician that will benefit you, and look smart, or a politician that will do the best for every body ? Most people seem to vote on a selfish basis.

A neighbour has been chatting to wifey, telling her she is going up to Scotland to see her sister.

Here are some of the more salient points of the conversation:

The sister's husband has severe dementia. He used to work on the oil rigs and when they used to come home on leave it was the fashion or fad to go on benders with some of his mates. The guy was quite a clever guy by all accounts and they blame this very heavy drinking as being the cause of the dementia.

What does the guy get up to? Well.....

He will do a poo absolutely anywhere in the house.
Then he smears it all over the wall.
He does sleep in the daytime but then he wanders around at night.
He eats lots of apples and bananas and will stuff his mouth so full of them, that he has to be physically helped at a wash basin or kitchen sink to empty his mouth.
He lines all the window sills with very neat rows of apple cores and apple pips.

To look at him, the guy is a picture of health and can go on walks.

His wife takes him to Tesco, where he will steal chocolate. The staff know him and will now trust the wife to pay for the chocolate or anything else he has stolen later. "Mummy will pay for it," being the general idea.

The sister gets respite breaks by him being collected for short daily periods of care but he doesn't stay overnight.

He obviously needs putting into care permanently but this would destroy the couple's wealth.

Our dog likes the neighbour very much and makes a big fuss of her. The neighbour says it is so sad about her sister's situation and she also says, "If he were your dog you'd most probably have him put to sleep."

Hmmm?

How do you know the housing market is about to go tits up?




Neil Woodford bets £7m on unlisted estate agent

Neil Woodford, one of Britain’s best-known fund managers, has made a £7m investment in online estate agent Purplebricks.com



By Kyle Caldwell

5:00AM BST 18 Aug 2014



Prominent fund manager Neil Woodford is backing online estate agent Purplebricks.com to shake up the estate agent industry, pumping £7m into the unlisted firm via his new fund Woodford Equity Income.


Mr Woodford, who has a successful record of backing unlisted businesses, said Purplebricks.com posed a “highly disruptive” model which could steal custom from traditional estate agents.


The firm, which was set-up in April, allows customers to sell their homes for a fixed fee of £599. In doing so the firm undercuts other estate agents, who charge commission averaging 1.8pc. This means sellers typically pay over £5,000.


The company also targets landlords, offering a tenant-finding service for a one-off fee of £199.


“The business has the vision, the technology and an experienced management team," Mr Woodford said. "Now with the funding at its disposal, I see a significant opportunity for the business to lead the market in changing the way we buy and sell houses."


More: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/11037865/Neil-Woodford-bets-7m-on-unlisted-estate-agent.html


..........................................................................


Homeowners slash house prices in largest-ever summer sale

The UK shifts from a sellers' to a buyers' market as vendors lower expectations and greed takes a holiday




By Anna White, Property and enterprise correspondent

10:35PM BST 17 Aug 2014


Asking prices have fallen steeply this summer as sellers slash their expectations in the face of dampening demand for new homes.


The price tag on the average UK property coming to market dropped by 2.9pc in the first half of August, the biggest summer fall ever recorded by the UK's largest property website, Rightmove.





Vendors, who have been trying to cash in on record high values, are now discounting to attract buyers who have been deterred by talk of interest rate rises and the eradication of cheap mortgages.


A glut of sellers coming to the market - there has been an 8pc increase in the number of homes up for sale compared with August last year - and a drop in buyer demand has driven down asking prices and tipped the UK into a buyers' market.



More: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11040337/Homeowners-slash-house-prices-in-largest-ever-summer-sale.html

you may not like it that it is a prerequisite in today's political world that a leader needs to present well - some cohorts would do well to remember that too - but prerequisite it is
thus, Sir Alec Douglas-Home managed to get away with looking like a cadaver, but today he would have been totally unelectable, good statesman as i think he almost certainly was
conversely, Ronald Reagan was the supreme communicator, so though he may have been a few cents short of a dollar, he made an excellent job of being president, even if others put the words in his mouth

Just put in a re-order for 'Compatible Ink' to www.cartridgeink.co.uk for my HP printer.

Very pleased with it previously. But....

Does anyone know anyone any better? Where do you get your online compatible printer ink supplies from?

If Gillian Duffy from Rochdale (a lifelong Labour supporter) had to think long and hard about supporting Labour at the 2010 general election, because of Gordon Clown's failure to tackle immigration, I'm sure she's gonna be well chuffed to have Chuka Umunna heading up her fave party.

:o)

Cue Tanker...

Hilary......good win for England in the Test Match. Now the one dayers.

Not sure Cooke should be captain though I still have big doubts, Id just leave him alone to get on with his batting and knock up the big scores again.

Here are some interesting statistics.

In the US:

The non-white population is currently 37%. Approximately 50% of the under-5 age group is non-white, and the non-white population is expected to exceed the white population by 2043.

Barack Obama is the first non-white president and is currently in his second term of office.

In the UK:

The non-white population is nearly 1 in 6. The non-white population is expected to reach 30% by 2050.

The UK has never had a non-white prime minister.

I know there's a first for everything, but I can't see the great British public being quite ready for Mr Umunna for another decade or two yet.

Indeed, Fishfinger. What a turnaround from Lords, huh?

I do kind of agree about Cook, but I don't think there's really anybody else who's up for the job, and there are no tests now till next April, so I'm sure that he'll lead England into the next Ashes.

ExecLine - try searching online with Google - best price printer ink cartridges.

hilary - they said similar about MT and being a woman or even BO being president

I know what they said, and correct me if I'm wrong, Cyners, but I'm pretty sure that approximately 50% of the UK population were female when Maggie became PM.

Exec....I get mine here..........http://www.eezytrade.co.uk/?gclid=CO3H8drWzq8CFawMtAod_zx-EA

Oh dear! Just in:

Microsoft pulls its August Windows update after users report crashes

Here are some notes and instructions on what to do:

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/windows/3536718/how-uninstall-latest-windows-update-why-you-should/?cmpid=HTML-DN180814&olo=daily%20news

It would be a good idea to print these off before attempting to do anything to your machine.

UK’s top bosses paid 143 times more than staff
Arjun Kharpal | @ArjunKharpal
6 Hours Ago
CNBC.com

Britain's top bosses are earning 143 times their average employee's wage, a report has revealed, amid growing anger over inequality and CEO pay.

The figure marks a rise from 1998, when the average CEO was paid 47 times as much as his or her workers, according to the High Pay Centre, a U.K. think tank.

Mining firm Randgold Resources was shown to have the widest pay gap, with CEO Mark Bristow earning £4.4 million ($7.36 million), or 1,498 the salary of the average worker at the company.

Read MoreBarclays bosses confident of shareholder support

This was followed by Martin Sorrell's WPP who is paid a staggering £29.8 million, or 780 times his average employee.

British American Tobacco, SAB Miller and Unilever are among the top 10 FTSE 100 companies with the largest pay gaps.

"While Government figures confirm that wages for ordinary workers keep falling, it's clear that not everyone is feeling the pain," High Pay Centre Director Deborah Hargreaves, said in a press release.

"When bosses make hundreds of times as much money as the rest of the workforce, it creates a deep sense of unfairness."

Read MoreUK to hit bad bankers with bonus clawbacks

The report comes amid a fierce debate over inequality and CEO pay. The U.K government has brought in measures in an attempt to curb executive pay such as forcing companies to report a single figure on how much the CEO earns in an attempt to be transparent. Shareholders have also been given a binding vote on directors' remuneration packages.

The High Pay Centre found the CEO pay figures from the companies' financial reports, while average worker earnings at the FTSE 100 firms were provided by Pensions and Investment Research Consultants (PIRC).

The pay gap ratios are calculated by taking account of the salary of CEOs and employees at FTSE 100 companies only. If the chief executives' pay packet was compared with the whole of the country it would be 174 times the average U.K. worker.

Read MoreBet on women with Barclays' new index

"Britain's executives haven't got so much better over the past two decades. The only reason why their pay has increased so rapidly compared to their employees is that they are able to get away with it," Hargreaves added.

- By CNBC's Arjun Kharpal

hilary - there may well have been but that doesn't de facto mean that they wanted a woman pm, otherwise there would have been one much sooner or even subsequently

Sure, there are other per-requisites (such as wanting to stand as party leader in the first place), but do you think that, if less than 1 in 6 of the UK population had been female in the late 70's, Cyners, it would have helped or encumbered Maggie's chances of becoming PM?

Exec
I use http://www.7dayshop.com/

and for electronics etc. They have fantastically cheap USB sticks, batteries, chargers and all sorts. They are in Guernsey and have low tax and often free postage.