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 am cooking a chicken pie. Chicken, mushrooms, shallots, celery, stock, white wine, parsley, tarragon, red pepper, baby carrots, creme fraiche, a few other bits and bobs under puff pastry and veg.

Impressive Haystack, it sounds lovely. I always think shallots give casseroles or pies a better flavour than bog standard onions.

some magnificent turbot - supremely fresh, line caught and cut from a fish weighing about 2.25kg + sauce viege
a very nice bottle of 2009 corton charlemagne to accompany

yummy, yummy .... but nearly ready so must adjourn

I forgot. I also used Marsala wine. It goes very well with mushroom type sauces.

It is in the oven now.

I do like turbot.

Waiting for the potatoes to boil for the mash. I add lots of nutmeg and grated parmesan.

And a bottle of Gavi di Gavi.

I do the French beans the way I had them years ago in Mon Plaisir in Monmouth St. I can't eat French beans any other way now.

Boil the French beans in the normal way. Drain them. Crush some garlic. Put the garlic in the saucepan with the beans with a knob of butter. It is the only way to eat French beans.

I'm very envious, my cooking skills are basic. Food seems to take so long to shop for, spend time in the kitchen producing and fussing over!

Noo Labour have big problems....read the comments.

OOPS!

Another fine mess

The fashion retailer Whistles has launched an investigation after a report claimed T-shirts made for a pro-feminism campaign were manufactured in "sweatshop" conditions.

The Mail on Sunday reported the shirts - which carry the slogan "This is what a feminist looks like" - were made at a factory in Mauritius where machinists earn 62p per hour

http://news.sky.com/story/1365104/whistles-investigates-feminist-t-shirt-claims

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2817191/62p-HOUR-s-women-sleeping-16-room-paid-make-Ed-Harriet-s-45-Feminist-Looks-Like-T-shirts.html

62p AN HOUR: What women sleeping 16 to a room get paid to make Ed and Harriet's £45 'This Is What A Feminist Looks Like' T-shirts

Feminist T-shirts worn by politicians are made in 'sweatshop' conditions

Migrant women in Mauritius are making the £45 tops for 62p an hour

They say: 'We don't feel like feminists. We don't feel equal. We feel trapped'

Machinists sleep 16 to a room and earn less than average wage on island

T-shirt is sold in Whistles in aid of activism group The Fawcett Society

Deputy chief executive of the charity Dr Neitzert said they had originally been assured the garments would be produced ethically in the UK

When they received samples they noted they had been made in Mauritius

She added that if evidence emerges Whistles will have to withdraw range

Harriet Harman wore shirt on front bench of the Commons during PMQs



Workers earn just 6,000 rupees a month – equivalent to £120.

The figure is just a quarter of the country’s average monthly wage, and around half of what a waiter earns. Each ‘feminist’ T-shirt costs just £9 to make, but high street chain Whistles sells them for £45 each – a figure it would take the women a week and a half to earn.

£9 quid my ass, if it cost £2 it would be a lot, the other £7 is probably a bung.

Has, Haze has had his instruction from CHQ and the Mail or does is he journalist for the fish and chip paper.

Or is diverting attention from the Home Office and Cameron's failures over the inquiry..

Can't even get their own chairman.

Good one Fred...no sign of cleggy in that one...perhaps he has disappeared up his own

Notice he hasn't shown Lordy Ashcroft's pol results to-day

Survation poll in Rochester has UKIP lead growing to 15 points

The Kent Messenger are now reporting the voting intention figures from the Survation/Unite Rochester & Strood poll. Topline figures with changes from the previous Survation Rochester poll right after Mark Reckless’s defection are CON 33%(+2), LAB 16%(-9), LDEM 1%(-1), UKIP 48%(+8), GRN 2%.
As with the ComRes poll a week ago it shows UKIP with a solid lead. While there will always be some underlying churn, the obvious implication of the changes since the start of October is that the Labour vote has been significantly squeezed, and is breaking heavily in UKIP’s favour.


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Labour majortity 12 seats at G/E


In spite of Party CHQ dirty squad's smearing!

NHS spending on agency nurses soars past £5.5bn

Government accused of ‘truly incompetent planning’ after years of training cuts push cost of temporary staff way over budget



There are now 7,000 fewer qualified nurses working in the NHS, according to the Royal College of Nursing. Photograph: David Sillitoe for the Guardian


Daniel Boffey, policy editor


The Observer, Saturday 1 November 2014 22.43 GMT



NHS spending on agency nurses and staff has spiralled to more than £5.5bn over the past four years and is continuing to rise amid a debilitating recruitment crisis in the health service. Budgets for temporary staff this financial year have already been blown apart, it can be revealed, with spending in some parts of the NHS running at twice the planned figure.

Reliance on agencies – at a cost of up to £1,800 per day per nurse – comes as the number of nurse training places in England has been cut. In the last year of the Labour government, 20,829 nurse training positions were filled in England. That fell to 17,741 in 2011-12 and to 17,219 in 2012-13, rising to 18,009 in 2013-14.

According to the latest figures, there were 7,000 fewer qualified nurses in August 2013 compared with May 2010, excluding health visitors, school nurses and midwives. Ministers were accused on Saturday of “truly incompetent planning” by the Royal College of Nurses.




More: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/nov/01/nhs-spending-agency-nurses-cuts

Max

Agency nursing, Doctors, and other agency staff starting well back in the early 90s and I think from memory early 70s in one form or another.

(Expanding in forms and rates since early 60s, at their most rapid in 80s and 90s onward.)

If you look back I posted the effects of such on "moral" of non-agency staff and in many cases the lowering of NHS standards due to lack of ongoing "responsibilities." (Here to-day somewhere else to-morrow.)


But if you look at the so called rise in Nursing staff and Doctors employed in the NHS to-day compared with 10days ago, you will find that there is a distortion due to part timers,.

Medics able to earn £70000 year part time, again although the majority act responsibly again there is lack of attachment and goal in their practice.

Andrew Lansley and the Tory party have wasted over a billion pounds with ideological attempts at change.

They should be investigated and held responsible for negligence and lack of due diligence.

fred - i think the strood by-election is important ..... it is and always been inconceivable that reckless would lose, but the great unknown is what effect this will ultimately have on voter sentiment and result in the general election .... now add in labour's very real problems in scotland and where that will end up

all in all, a very messy time indeed is likely come mid 2015

============

medics earn £70,000 a year

bet my d-in-law doesn't earn anything like that amount (in yorkshire) .... indeed, i'ld be quite surprised if it was much in excess of £40,000

Not good for the stock market cynic!

dd4 - not strictly true if you're a clever chap like shortie and skinny and can spend the time dipping in and out of the indices .... for them, volatility is exactly what they want

Manuel.

Dig in your pocket and give her a bob or two. ( I think you figures are previous to the NEW Contract of Labour. Even the doctors thought it was a stupid contract in their favour.)

=====

Scotland voting at next election puzzles me.

The NO vote had 55% of the voters of over 90% of those who voted.

I know Scotland has been "cleared" of Cons.

I know that one of the major ideology difference between SNP and Scottish independence was/is independence for Scotland.

I understand both SNP and Scot/lab are social democratic at core, with more left winged focus in many ways within those of the grass roots of the Labour party.

I understand the majority of both these parties rightly distrust the Con party and wish to have little to do with them and now consider SNP will "stick up for them".

The difficulty I have in understanding is why there is such a "said swing" form Lab to SNP. out of the 55% NO voters.

Unless it is the more vociferous SNP who have the distrust of London based Tory government and MPs in general have no spread that distrust rightly or wrongly onto Labour.

Such flimsy support may wobble in the wind in the lead up to the G.E.

Interesting! (For me.)