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.

As a sports 'personality' Hamilton pips my hooter (and I drive a fast Merc, too) so I actually did him a few votes with the 'repeat dial' on my phone.

And he has enough personality to pull and hold someone like Nicole Sherzinger as his girlfriend too.

'Sportsmen?' some of you say? F1 drivers are actually some of the fittest men on the planet!

eg. Jenson Button who is a regular Ironman competitor and did a 42 km run, 3.86 km swim and a, 180km cycle ride in the Philippines earlier this year and came 11th in his age group.

It's not the drivers, they are all good.

It's the tech...which has got out of all proportion...the costs are unreal.


And since Bernie and his mates at CVC got their mits on it, it has gone downhill quite badly. The foreign races are to mostly half empty tracks..it's all for tv and advertising.

Repeat dial on your phone Exec, that's cheating!! :-)

Regarding Mr Twain, I didn't say that I was bad at golf. It was just that I didn't like it that much to play it.

Oil price and Rouble. It shows how raising interest rates has failed to stop the fall of the Rouble.

Ten year oil futures price. It is approaching the 2008/9 recession price. The current future price is $55.20.

http://www.nasdaq.com/markets/crude-oil.aspx?timeframe=10y

The problem with golf is that it is becoming boring to watch on television as the players take far too long to play their shots.The PGA, European Tour and the R&A need to impose stiffer penalties for slow play.

Falling crude prices are hardly doing anyone favours.

The punters don't see it at the pumps.

The treasury wont see it in taxes.


Zero hour contracts are doing a great job for blighty.

And the tories are controlling immigration?

What are you sniffing?

Max,

The price of fuel doesn't particularly affect the treasury. Fuel tax is charged at a flat rate (it's about 58p a litre), regardless of the price paid for petrol or diesel at the pump. In addition, there's VAT, which is also charged on top of the fuel duty. So, the treasury get a minimum of around 70p a litre, regardless of the price paid at the pump.

If the price charged at the pump fluctuates, treasury income fluctuates only by the VAT charged on the element between their guaranteed 70p and the sales price.

In addition, oil is traded universally in USD. When the price of oil falls, cable also tends to fall, and the sterling equivalent price of crude tends to stay the same. That, coupled with the high fixed taxation element, means that prices at the pump fluctuate disproportionately to the price of crude.

But that also works in your favour. When China were blowing massive smoke plumes over Beijing during the 2008 Olympics, and crude was sitting around the $150/barrel level, whilst the price of fuel at the pump went up, it didn't go up by a proportionate amount because cable being at 2 bucks kept the sterling price down.

The next leader of the looney right.

While Cameron remains in charge.

Haze,

Don't panic, Don't panic!

Your dear leader is in charge!

.

high street rejuvenation
i see mary portas is ranting on about how the gov't should do more and more, but she misses an essential element ......

if high street shops do not offer the goods and services that the locals want, and in turn, if the locals do not support those enterprises, then of course they collapse and die

we have seen this in our lovely town where there is no longer a book shop, a butcher or fishmonger (he has now relocated about a mile out of town), greengrocer, delicatessen or hardware shop (he's now moved to a tertiary site on the perimeter)

in all cases, the locals wrung their hands when these shops disappeared, but frankly, they did not support them when they were there, even though, by and large, the products and service were good, though of course a little more expensive (but better quality) than the supermarket

Anyway, our one poll so far this Monday is Populus’s, with topline figures of CON 34%, LAB 36%, LDEM 10%, UKIP 12%, GRN 5%. Tabs are here.
UPDATE: The daily YouGov/Sun poll today has toplines of CON 32%, LAB 34%, LDEM 6%, UKIP 14%, GRN 8%. YouGov have had the Greens sneaking ahead of the Lib Dems quite a few times lately, but until today it’s only been by a single point.
Meanwhile the monthly ComRes/Indy telephone poll has topline figures of CON 29%(+1), LAB 32%(+1), LDEM 12%(+3), UKIP 16%(-2), GRN 5%(-2).

Local shops are always better quality. And fresher.

Mind you cant find a traditional British shop in most Northern towns as the Asians have taken over the High Street with take aways.

I prefer my beef stale for about 3-4 weeks,

And I like old dates.

My wife doesn't!

8~)

6:25AM GMT 16 Dec 2014
Ed Miliband cannot be trusted either on the economy or on immigration

Hot on the heels of Ed Miliband’s speech on the deficit last week comes another exercise in self-delusion and wilful obfuscation. Just as the Labour leader wants the country to trust his party with the economy once again, so he now invites voters to believe he intends to get to grips with immigration. Mr Miliband said there can be “no doubting” how seriously Labour is taking immigration as an issue. Actually, there is no doubting that the Opposition leader is taking the nation for fools.

Only hours earlier, this newspaper had disclosed the contents of a confidential dossier issued to Labour candidates in which they were advised to “move the conversation” away from immigration if it came up on the doorstep. Is that taking the matter seriously or running away from a subject on which the party is especially vulnerable to Ukip?

The reason why immigration is so high up the list of voter concerns is because the Labour government made such a hash of controlling the borders and was responsible for a number of decisions that helped trigger the biggest inflow of migrants in the nation’s history. Some Labour insiders have said this was done deliberately in order to make Britain a “more diverse place”. Others say it was part of a plan to fuel the economic boom when Gordon Brown was Chancellor. As Peter Mandelson once put it: “We were sending out search parties for people.” Mr Miliband would now have us believe that it was all a dreadful mistake and Labour has learned the requisite lessons. In other words, asked to choose between being a fool or a knave, he has opted for the fool.


So let us look at Labour’s latest ideas. Mr Miliband promised that he would not make easy promises or offer false solutions and then proceeded to do precisely that by proposing to make it a crime to employ cheap foreign workers rather than British staff. How would that be policed? If the workers were self-employed contractors from the EU, they could not be stopped unless Labour is also proposing to leave the European Union. Also, what would constitute undercutting British workers? A gang of builders from Poland, living together in rented accommodation with few overheads, are always going to charge less than their British counterparts. Will that be unlawful?

Just as on the economy, Labour has absolutely no credibility where immigration is concerned. Yet another speech, far too late in the day, claiming that the penny has finally dropped, is not going to restore the confidence of voters – not least among those who traditionally supported Mr Miliband’s party. It is they who have been hit hardest by the impact of mass immigration.

Telegraph