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.

Dreamcatcher, thank goodness I never drink Aussie wines! Rocket fuel!

Dennis Skinner (aka The Beast of Bolsover) is always good entertainment. It would be a shame if he wasn't around, no matter how barmy he is.

lol. doodlebug4.

the problem with this one imo, is that the NuLab toffs stood by and let it happen/covered up when in power...so it's a bit rich to be pointing the bone at this stage.

What a pathetic excuse for a no show.

http://news.sky.com/story/1387592/farage-blames-immigration-for-ukip-event-no-show

Nigel Farage has blamed immigration for failing to turn up at a UKIP event in Wales at which 100 people had paid £25 each to meet him.

The UKIP leader said that population growth had resulted in a snarled-up M4 motorway that made the journey take far longer than expected.

He has been accused of a lack of professionalism after failing to attend the "Meet Nigel Farage" evening in Port Talbot.

"It took me six hours and 15 minutes to get here – it should have taken three-and-a-half to four," he told BBC's Sunday Politics Wales.

"That has nothing to do with professionalism, what it does have to do with is a country in which the population is going through the roof chiefly because of open-door immigration and the fact that the M4 is not as navigable as it used to be."

You bin on the M25 lately Haystack?

Come on Carl.

Foggy for me to win it, too. :-)

They are all bloody Welsh in Port Talbot. Damn the b, foreigners.

When the knew Farage was coming somebody must have change the road signs around.

MAX,

Under which administration were the records lost?

He was talking about the M4. And I have been on both the M25 and M4 recently. It has nothing to do with immigration. The roads have become congested at a far higher rate than immigration. It. Is always the same. When you build new roads, the capacity gets used up and traffic patterns change.

I'd like Fogarty to win, but I suspect that the other guy will win. Is his name Jake or something?

No, it's not Luke, so it definitely must be Something.

:-)

Well done to Carl. One of the best series, no the best. Great team.

Point taken Fred.


They're all in toghether.

Could be haze and Manuel.

Tom Kerridge
i see there's a stack of his yuletide recipes in today's guardian
i confess that none of them appealed much

meanwhile, his new so-called tapas bar/pub has just opened in marlow - it seats just 45
it looks very nice, but i suspect that your bill there will come as a bit of a shock .... nevertheless, i'll give it a whirl early in the new year (prob not before) as it is within walking distance

glad to see that TK has also lost about 5 stone in recent months - good job as he was assuredly "morbidly obese"!

Watch out, Westminster - Alex Salmond wants back in
The former Scottish first minster is up to his old tricks again



By Alan Cochrane6:15AM GMT 08 Dec 2014
"Commons will be hung by Scottish rope, says Salmond.” That’s the headline from a framed front page of this newspaper’s Scottish edition that hangs in my Edinburgh office.
As an election that seemed unlikely to produce a clear winner hove into view, Mr Salmond predicted that the Scottish National Party would have a crucial role in any hung parliament. “Common sense would tell you… it is a good time to maximise Scotland’s influence,” he pronounced. He had set his party the target of 20 seats, he announced – although the opinion polls suggested he might win 25.
It was stirring stuff. Especially since this wasn’t a prediction for the general election of May 2015, but a forecast of a huge SNP triumph in May 2010. The headline and quotation are taken from an interview with Mr Salmond in October 2009 by me and my colleague Simon Johnson.
Today, with the political world all a-tremble at the news that Mr Salmond is seeking to return to the Commons as MP for the Gordon constituency, it is worth recalling how accurate his words – and his bravado – proved to be five years ago.
In 2010, the SNP did not win 25 seats. It did not win 20 seats. In fact, it went down from seven to six MPs – although it did increase its share of the vote by a less-than-whopping 2.3 per cent.



It must be said that circumstances now are very much different. In spite of losing the referendum campaign by a significant margin, the Yes voters refused to take No for an answer. The SNP has seen a huge surge in membership, to the extent that it now stands at about 100,000 – four times what it was at the time of the independence vote in September. And the opinion polls are equally promising for Mr Salmond. The latest surveys, says Prof John Curtice, Britain’s leading psephologist, suggest that Labour could be reduced to five Scottish MPs, instead of the 41 it had in 2010 – an epic hammering.



It is findings of this nature that have prompted Mr Salmond to try for the Gordon seat, in the wake of his resignation as SNP leader and First Minister. He talked yesterday of it being a “gamble”. But for an ace tipster like him – he often wins money for his staff with his racecourse predictions – tackling this particular constituency is nothing remotely resembling a long shot.
The seat has a Liberal Democrat majority of almost 7,000, but the sitting MP, Sir Malcolm Bruce, is standing down to be replaced by Christine Jardine, a former journalist and ministerial special adviser, who is regarded as a pushover by the Nats’ hierarchy. The Westminster constituency of Gordon overlaps with Mr Salmond’s East Aberdeenshire seat in the Scottish Parliament – and the very fact that he is standing will make this contest the focus of massive media attention, which is again something that should benefit the vastly more experienced SNP man.
It will be no great wrench for Mr Salmond to return to the Commons, where he served from 1987 to 2010. Privately, he has always preferred its green leather benches to the stripped pine desks at Holyrood. The adversarial nature of Westminster suits his style, too – although as a novice MP, he did make a fool of himself when he got thrown out of the Chamber for interrupting the 1988 Budget speech.
Mr Salmond says he is standing for Gordon because he wants to continue serving the people of North East Scotland. But most of his opponents, and even a few of his colleagues, reckon his decision is more to do with serving his ego. He also claims that he wants to wring more powers for Holyrood out of Westminster. But he has still not fully accounted for the fact that it was he, almost alone, who lost the referendum thanks to his nonsensical economic policy.
He was up to his old tricks yesterday, claiming that the devolution commission set up by David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband had failed to deliver “devo max” – in other words, handing Holyrood power over everything other than defence and foreign affairs. Actually, such a vast transfer had never, ever been promised.
He is also glossing over the fact that, although North East Scotland is seen as an SNP fastness, much of it voted No in the referendum. Nor is an SNP landslide guaranteed. If it elects Jim Murphy as its leader next week, Labour can’t help but do better across Scotland than it does in the current polls. The Tories’ Ruth Davidson is also hopeful of improving her party’s performance, on the back of a good referendum showing. And even if the wily Sir Malcolm is standing down, he will still be there to lead the “stop Salmond” effort.
Could Labour and Tory supporters join in that fight by voting tactically for the Lib Dems and against Mr Salmond? The demands of partisan politics would normally suggest otherwise. But it’s a thought – especially as it might be one way of ending the perpetual “we wuz robbed” whine from the Nats.
And what about Mr Salmond’s own side? Will Nicola Sturgeon, who has escaped from Wee Eck’s shadow to become SNP leader and Scotland’s new First Minister, view with equanimity the prospect of him getting all the headlines at Westminster? Somehow, I doubt it.
Alan Cochrane, Scottish Editor of The Telegraph, can be found on Twitter

for sure AS will be elected