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.

Perhaps it would help the NHS coffers a little if all the drunks who require treatment at A&E are made to pay for their treatment.

It would help a lot if pubs and clubs didn't serve people who are already drunk. Years ago, if a pub regularly served drunk people it would lose its licence. Pubs and clubs need to get threatened in that way again, especially in town centres where there are serious binge drinking problems. There are now a few places that breathalyse customers on the way in. There is already adequate legislation to stop the problem.

Also, years ago it used to be just blokes who got drunk, now the drinking culture seems to be equally bad with young women.

H/S and Alf, Sounds like they should have breathalysed you two tonight before letting you come on here.. clearly you have both been on the ribena -):

I remember when I was in my drinking prime - quite a few years ago - falling down two flights of stairs and not breaking anything. I can sympathise with Chris, playing golf in Scotland in the Winter months was not a lot of fun and the much needed hip flasks were a necessary addition to the contents of a golf bag before the drink driving laws were put in place!

An copy of Labour Today came through my letterbox today. I don't know what it said, but it was useful to line the cat's lit tray with.

haze,

Alcohol !
From, your previous postings it seems the kettle is calling the pot black!

=======
Labour today, I thought you would find it useful to mop up your own tory crap.

Aye your right db, the old hip flask consigned to history now if your driving home. Those were the days. Thing about playing Links golf in the winter especially in the North East of Scotland is the wind chill factor coming of the North Sea. Not tried this Armour clothing yet, reckon the Sutherland rain ware jacket and trousers still takes some beating up here.

armour stuff is very good indeed and not particularly expensive either..... in the good old days, i certainly remember wearing pyjamas under everything as an extra layer

Conservatives and Labour tied

Latest YouGov / Sunday Times results 5th December -

Con 32%, Lab 32%, LD 6%, UKIP 17%;

Times to come under tory misrule!

And that they are brass necked liars.

By Christopher Booker
10:00PM GMT 06 Dec 2014
It was on July 14 1998 that Gordon Brown announced that he planned to double public spending in 10 years, writes Christopher Booker.

Strangely missing from all of last week’s talk about the “government deficit” and Gordon Brown stepping down as an MP was any reference to the origins of what future generations will look back on as arguably the most catastrophic political blunder in our history.

The reason why Mr Brown for two years enjoyed a reputation as a “prudent” Chancellor was that he had been committed by his predecessor, Kenneth Clarke, to keep public spending under tight control under the “Maastricht criteria”. (It was not widely noted that Britain was bound by the Maastricht Treaty to comply with stages one and two of Economic and Monetary Union – it was only from stage three, the euro, that we had an opt-out.)

This had cut public spending to a mere 36 per cent of GDP, its lowest point for four decades. But on July 14 1998, carried away by the success of the economy he inherited from the Tories, Brown announced, with the aid of his economic adviser, Ed Balls, that he now planned to double public spending in 10 years. As the Economist memorably observed, he had “morphed from Scrooge into Father Christmas”.

The consequences of Brown’s hubris, as we now see, are that public spending has soared from £322 billion a year to £732 billion, still remorselessly rising every year. Despite the talk of “cuts” so beloved of the BBC, under this Government alone the national debt has more than doubled, having recently topped a mind-boggling £1.5 trillion.

George Osborne may talk airily of spending £2 billion on roads here, another £2 billion on flood defences there. But each of these sums represents only what he has this year had to borrow each week to plug the ever-widening hole in our finances. So dire is our plight that the £60 billion a year we now pay just in interest on our borrowings has risen to become the fifth-largest item in public spending, exceeded only by the ever-rising bills for welfare, education and the NHS.

Mr Osborne may now talk even more recklessly of how he hopes to cut the deficit to zero within five years. But so long as hundreds of council officials and NHS managers continue to pay themselves more than the £142,000 a year earned by the Prime Minister – let alone that £50 billion earmarked for HS2 – we know nothing is seriously being done to rein in a public-spending spree that continues to spray out our cash uncontrollably in all directions.

We can scarcely expect to be told about this by the BBC, when 91 of its executives have also arranged to pay themselves more than Mr Cameron every year. We live in a country where too many people in the public sector have totally lost contact with reality.

But the start of it was that day back in 1998 when Messrs Brown and Balls unleashed a monster that now threatens to swallow us all.

If Maggie hadn't squandered the profits from North Sea and selling the national silver and spent the proceeds on the infrastructure, NHS and Schools etc. there would have been no reasons for repairing the roofs and holes in the walls, by the labour governments. At least we had a decent improving health service etc. before the present incompetent corrupt party of Cons started to destroy it.

It's a sad day, lads...

Katie Price reduces breasts by FIVE cup sizes because she wants to be taken "more seriously".

:-(

total rubbish fred and you know it ..... as usual, you choose to bend the facts to suit your rather silly and obvious agenda

Manuel..

I suggest you change your specs.

Even Macmillan condemned the tories for what the were doing.

Go back and examine the period.

it's purely the way you choose to interpret to suit your very predictable agenda
you really are very dull at (most) times which is why you (and a few others) are rarely worth reading

Strange how some cannot face realities which are painful to them.

A of state denial!