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.

she was talking about when interest rates might go up

From what she said, it is unlikely that interest rates will rise soon.

So what. They dont have a housing bubble crisis like us. I hear the Jap housing market is warming up though.

Three recent articles suggesting US housing bubble set to burst

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0424-pinto-housing-prices-bubble-20140424-9-story.html

http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_26195174/economist-who-predicted-busted-housing-bubble-says-another

http://www.housingwire.com/blogs/1-rewired/post/29669-heres-proof-the-housing-bubble-is-about-to-burst

8 January 14

Sun-seekers heading to Turkey this year could be caught out by a new visa system which requires holidaymakers to apply for a visa before travel.

The popular beach holiday destination has always issued Britons with a visa stamp in their passports on arrival for a £10 fee, but will change the process from April 10, so that visitors will have to apply online for an electronic visa before travel.

The e-visa will cost the same amount as before, £10, and will be emailed to travellers for them to print out at home after providing their name, date and place of birth, email address and passport details. They will then be required to present the document to immigration on arrival.

etc, etc.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-2535872/Turkey-visa-changes-Britons-warned-apply-visa-ahead-holiday.html#ixzz3B97QQWcH
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

If you think the UK housing market is still solid and want to take out a pretty big mortgage on the strength of it, Jamie Oliver is knocking out his pad.
(Includes some very nice pictures)

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/news/articles/celebrity-homes/jamie%E2%80%99s-former-pukka-pad-is-on-the-market

Hays I can post five times that many links here in the UK perhaphs more.

What your forgeting is the London weighting.

When London goes, it takes the rest of the economy down with it.

Are you denying that?, because if you are your a fool.

There is something I don't understand with Dover and Calais : Why are there are more checks and searches on the way out than on the return for anybody leaving the UK first ???.....(Calais is awash with illegals)...

The London bubble will not burst for quite a time if at all. The average price for London property is skewed by the central London prices. These are often sold to foreigneners or bought and sold for investment. If you strip out the investment and central London high priced property then the average comes down to a more sensible level. London prices have been held down artificially for several years and are now returning to the long term trend. The BoE rules are slowing the market. The prospect of interest rates rising next summer will also slow the market.

Dover/Calais and other ferry routes have special arrangements. People are not generally aware that the UK has bordet control staff based in Calais. They check passengers along with the French staff. While the ferry is travelling to UK they do checks on passenger via online systems. Suspect people are then picked up on landing.

How come after years and years of cover-ups : all these famous celebs are being arrested ...some charged ..others not....it just shows that for decades a stinking rotten system of ours was in place...probably dozens knew about Savile but possibly nobody said anything for fear of retribution...

Thanks for that Haystack...

Anybody tried the Who-Loo ?...wonderful by the look of it ....bravo....

MaxK - 21 Aug 2014 20:06 - 45160 of 45202

I quite believe you c, but that's not saying it's right and fair.


The rates they are paying couriers is a disgrace (£0.70 - £0.80 a drop) is absurd. Well stop just winging about it get together and take some action against their employers, that might be a start.. the lazy Barstewards!

are you REALLY so naive Stan?

firstly, these guys are obliged to be self-employed so de facto they do have employers and thus inter alia lack any of the inherent protection given to an employee

secondly, many if not most of these drivers would have a lot of difficulty getting better employment elsewhere, as for the most part, they are not well-educated enough

45200 - not entirely fair

1) it is only high profile suspects that make headline stories

2) paedophilia (and incest for that matter) is far more widespread than generally acknowledged

3) for all sorts of reasons, the victims may be unwilling to step forward (ditto in rape cases)

4) the likes of the kray twins were pretty good at instilling fear too!

Up the workers! The problem is easy to fix. It just needs the revenue to say that the relationship between the companies and the couriers is one of employment. This is easy to prove as the couriers work or a particular courier all the time. It is more difficult if couriers work for several companies at the same time. Then it is just market forces regarding the courier price. The same was done for other trades such as freelance IT workers who get trapped by IR35 and some temp workers who get tax deducted at source.

the courier companies would no doubt claim that they act "as agents only" or somesuch
as this "problem" seems common to all courier companies of all sizes, i'm quite sure they have their arses well covered

Now we begin to see the real consequences of Labour's/Blair & co's policy of enforced multiculturalism, and the invasion of Iraq and letting the US dictate the policy of disbanding the command struture of the countrys Army and Police.

From: https://www.facebook.com/conservatives/posts/10152499212254279

Please read and share this important article by Home Secretary Theresa May:

The cowardly murder this week of James Foley, a man who was working to highlight the suffering of the Syrian people to the world, has demonstrated once again the very deadly threat we face from terrorism at home and abroad.

The collapse of Syria, the emergence of Isil, and the territorial gains they have made in Iraq, present a significant danger not just in the Middle East but in Britain and across the West. They form part of a rapidly changing terrorist threat that includes al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, like-minded groups in Libya, al-Shabaab in East Africa, Boko Haram in Nigeria, terrorist networks in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and home-grown extremists from our own country.

Even if Isil had not already made clear its desire to attack British and Western targets, the threat to Britain would still be very serious: at least 500 British citizens have travelled to fight in Syria and Iraq and have joined a range of terrorist organisations. Many other foreign fighters have travelled to Syria from other countries in Europe and further afield.

We need to stop people travelling to fight in Syria and Iraq from here. I have toughened the rules regarding the use of the Royal Prerogative, which allows the Government to remove the passports of British citizens who want to travel abroad to engage in terrorism. So far, 23 people who were planning to travel to Syria have had their passports withdrawn in this way. We are working very closely with other European countries to disrupt and prevent travel to the region. We are also working with families and community groups up and down the country to remind people how they can best provide support to civilians who are suffering in Iraq and Syria. Fighting for terrorist groups is not the answer.

People who insist on travelling to fight in Syria and Iraq will be investigated by the police and security services. For those who have dual nationality, I have the power to strip them of their citizenship and exclude them from the country.

Following the recent Immigration Act, I can, in certain circumstances, remove citizenship from naturalised Britons who are fighting overseas and exclude them too. And while it is illegal for any country to make its citizens stateless, any British national who returns from Syria and Iraq faces prosecution here for participating in terrorist activities abroad. This year alone, 69 people have been arrested for offences relating to terrorism in Syria; so far, 12 have been charged and four have been successfully prosecuted. In the Serious Crime Bill we intend to strengthen the law further to make it a criminal offence to travel overseas to prepare and train for terrorism.

We are engaged in a wider range of activities to understand what makes British citizens, born, raised and educated in this country, want to participate in terrorist activities and to stop them doing so.

We must confront and defeat the extremist ideology that sanctions and encourages terrorist activity. Propagandists who encourage or approve terrorism are prosecuted. Terrorist groups, like Isil, are banned and support for them is a criminal offence. I have excluded more than 150 people from this country for unacceptable behaviour since 2010, including foreign hate preachers.

We must do all that we can to stop radicalisation. We have established a network of organisations that work with people who we know are drifting into extremism and violence. They work on the basis of information provided by the police, local authorities, schools, community groups and families. Hundreds of people have been offered support and many people have now passed through these programmes. It has made a very significant contribution to our national security.

We work closely with sectors and institutions where there is a significant risk of radicalisation, and an opportunity to deal with it effectively. We are toughening up the charity rules and the powers of the Charity Commission, working with Ofcom to prevent extremist broadcasts, improving the inspection regime for schools, working with the Ministry of Justice to tackle radicalisation in prisons, demanding more from universities to prevent radicalisation on campus, and improving our ability to take down material from the internet. Since the start of this year, for example, the police have secured the removal of more than 28,000 pieces of terrorist material.

We have made significant changes from the way this Prevent programme operated in the past. We have separated it from the Government’s integration and community-building work. We have put in place measures to ensure we do not fund and do not collaborate with organisations that do not share British values. We are very clearly addressing non-violent extremism as well as ideology that justifies terrorism.

Dealing with terrorism and extremism will require continued commitment and international collaboration. Since I was made Home Secretary, I have constantly made the case for legislation to ensure the police and security services have access to the communications data they need, for example. And when it comes to preventing radicalisation, I want us to build on the work of the Extremism Task Force, which was set up following the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby last year. The Government will therefore make Prevent a statutory duty for public bodies; I am looking again at the case for new banning orders for extremist groups that fall short of the legal threshold for terrorist proscription, as well as for new civil powers to target extremists who seek to radicalise others.

As the Prime Minister wrote recently in The Telegraph, we are in the middle of a generational struggle against a deadly extremist ideology. That ideology is based on a warped and nihilistic interpretation of Islam and it is far removed from the peaceful beliefs held by one billion Muslims worldwide. We will be engaged in this struggle for many years, probably decades. We must give ourselves all the legal powers we need to prevail.