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.

H&B were a really good company with 1st growth en primeur wines (Mouton R), the agency for Sandeman's ports (inc vintage of course) and really good sherry from Gonzalez Byas, and not just the standard garbage either + exotic madeira (i still have a bottle of 1864!) and all sorts of other serious goodies

in due course, H&B disappeared, as did a number of other very fine wine merchants, but fortunately i had already built up a good cellar by that time, and i still have some of it

H&B still exists as a company. Their shop is at 153 Regent street. There are cellars full of wine stretching almost to Baker Street. They have private dining rooms down there. Baron Rothschild used to come over a couple of times a year for dinners. They were sole agents for Mouton Cadet, Sandemans, Gancia, Chianti Ruffino, Remy Martin, Bacardi (bottled in east London) and plenty of other major brands. We kept a couple of million gallons of Bacardi in underground tanks at over proof. They used to sell a disgusting brand of sherry called Emva. It was from Cyprus. We kept it in huge tanks like gasometers and bottled it in Stratford. The bottling lines were all manned by Pakistanis as they could mostly be relied on not to drink the stock.

http://news.sky.com/story/1395057/research-ukip-surge-wont-deliver-many-seats

Research: UKIP Surge Won't Deliver Many Seats

UKIP will struggle to convert its recent surge in support into a sizeable number of MPs at the General Election, new research suggests.

The Plymouth University analysis also says the Liberal Democrats could confound plummeting poll ratings and avoid the Parliamentary catastrophe some are predicting.

The research found that while Nigel Farage's party is winning a lot more votes, Nick Clegg's is much more effective at converting them into seats.

UKIP will get more support on May 7 but will end up finishing second behind the main parties in a large number of constituencies, it concluded.

Researchers examined the votes cast by over one and a half million electors in more than 1,000 local council by-elections since the 2010 general election.

Since its impressive showing at the 2013 local elections, UKIP candidates have contested 346 council by-elections, winning just 21 and coming second 150 times.

By contrast, despite garnering far fewer votes than UKIP, the Lib Dems have won more than twice as many seats - 53 from 318 contests.

Latest polls put support for Mr Clegg's party in single figures and predict they could lose at least 34 of their 57 MPs.

However, the Plymouth University data shows the party's national vote share is estimated at 14%, about six points higher than the pollsters' average.

Professor Michael Thrasher, of Plymouth University, said: "Support for the Liberal Democrats is 10 points lower than its 2010 vote and indicates losses of 17 parliamentary seats.

"But that situation is a lot better than if the polls are right.

"The Liberal Democrats have proved more successful than a small party should be under Britain's first-past-the-post system precisely because its support is concentrated in some areas.

"Relatively speaking, UKIP's support is evenly spread.

"This evidence points to UKIP doing well enough to win at best a handful of seats in 2015, but at the same time garnering enough votes to finish as runner-up in scores of constituencies."

f** mouton cadet; that's only a couple of leagues up from hirondelle!

from Bambi - an interesting comment
Elsewhere in the Economist interview, he (Balir) remained defiant about the decision to go to war in Iraq, insisting he would not “until my dying day” concede it was wrong to remove Saddam Hussein.
He said: “What annoys people is my refusal to change my mind. I don’t shut up about it and I know that strikes some people as provocative.
“But it is much more progressive to get rid of Saddam than leave Bashar Assad to murder 200,000 of his own people in Syria.”


hmm ... make of that comment what you will

This will do nicely!

No one expects ukip to win much outright, but they will upset the applecart across the board. No one can accurately predict which way the voters will go in a lot of seats, never mind the marginals where anything can happen.


"This evidence points to UKIP doing well enough to win at best a handful of seats in 2015, but at the same time garnering enough votes to finish as runner-up in scores of constituencies."



Squeaky bum time for sitting/aspiring mp's in the less safe seats :-)

What do you expect to come out of the chaos which may arise.

The government reflects the populace and vice versa.

You can't even bothered to vote Fred, what does that say about the party you support?

cynic
Mouton Cadet was an excellent wine originally. Rothschilds had Mouton Rothschild, Mouton Baron Phillips and Mouton Cadet plus a few more obscure brands. Mouton Cadet went wrong about 1976. The
66 & 70 vintages were as good as many better wines.

UKIP may well upset traditional voting patterns but are unlikely to achieve what UKIPers want. Their votes are more likely to prevent a referendum. If they help get a Labour government then they will get lots things they don't want.

Did somebody say 'Fishfingers'?

When we are having fishfingers and chips, or scampi and chips or even egg and chips, a nice bottle of Aldi's 2013 'Gavi' goes down nicely.

It's an Italian wine made from cortese grapes and is from their 'Exquisite Collection'.

It is fresh and crisp and absolutely beautiful. So is the tall slim blue topped bottle and the label isn't bad to look at either. Price is a ridiculous £5.49 per bottle.

Full range of Aldi wines.

https://www.aldi.co.uk/en/product-range/drinks/wine-cellar/

Gavi can be a very nice wine. It is somewhat variable with very poor versions around. The best quality is called Gavi di Gavi.

RE: #53510


"The government reflects the populace and vice versa."



Well it should Fred, but it doesent.

The two major parties routinely ignore their own supporters, indeed even work against them.


Conservative Party: Losing supporters (in droves)

Labour Party: Losing supporters (to a lesser extent)

Liberal party: student vote gone

UKIP Party : Making huge gains across the board

Greens : Making respectable gains @ Liberal expense



Reasons:

Conservative party is no longer conservative

Labour party is no longer labour

Liberal party is no longer liberal



Outcome: Chaos

Parties losing supporters is the norm. Across the whole of Europe all mainstream parties have been losing supporters. Many minority and special interest parties have been gaining support. The trend seems to be a reaction to difficult economic times. The temptation is to blame the main parties and clung to the hope that some extreme party has the answer.

An interesting piece of information is that Germany makes far more use of food banks than we do despite their benefit system being more generous than our own.

The current situation regarding UKIP is nothing new. The SDP, which is now a component of the Liberal Democrats, came from nowhere and were predicted to get more than 50% of the votes at one point and were tipped to be in government. They collapsed in the election and were absorbed by the Liberals. This type of situation is usually a reaction to a temporary feeling in the population. It soon goes away. The solution to disenchantment with political parties is economic success.

Not strictly accurate Hays........."An interesting piece of information is that Germany makes far more use of food banks than we do despite their benefit system being more generous than our own.

The biggest growth in food banks in Europe occurred in 2005, when Gerhard Schroeder introduced a series of SAVAGE cuts to the German welfare system.

The two are connected and cannot be disconnected like you would have people believe Hays.

Less welfare here and in Germany as led to the rise in food banks. No ifs and buts.

Germany's welfare system still remains more generous than ours.

Vox Political Puts IDS Right about the Growth of Food Banks in Germany

Mike has another piece over at Vox Political, correcting IDS’ comments about the rise of food banks. Returned To Unit, or the officer formerly known to his men as ‘T*sser’, does not believe that people use them because they are starving. He, like other members of his wretched party such as Edwina Currie, believe people use them because they are there. On the Sunday Politics this weekend he tried to justify his view that poverty and food banks are not connected by citing Germany’s example. Germany, said RTU, also had food banks, but its benefits system was more generous than ours.

Yes, it does. But a report by the LSE showed that the biggest growth in food banks on that side of the North Sea occurred in 2005, when Gerhard Schroeder introduced a series of cuts to their welfare system. This explains why the editor of the German equivalent of Private Eye, when he appeared as a guest on a chat show a few years ago, made it very clear that he had no respect for Schroeder. I think he called him a ‘Kn*b’, or something similar. Schroeder was the leader of the SDP, the German Socialist party, and has been hailed as ‘the German Tony Blair’. This shows the pernicious and detrimental effect Neo-liberalism has had on countries all over Europe and the wider world, and on the left-wing parties that have adopted it in the wake of Thatcher and Reagan.

And even with the Germany’s comparatively generous welfare system, it can still be extremely difficult making ends meet if you’re poor and unemployed. One of the papers over a decade ago carried a report on poverty in Germany, describing an official meeting of the unemployed and their families. Not surprisingly, they had the same kind of problems the poor and jobless face over here, such as purchasing food and clothes, especially good shoes for their children.

So IDS is categorically wrong about the use of food banks here in the UK and in Germany not being linked to poverty. Mike takes the view that IDS’ view is due to his own stupidity. That’s possible. One columnist in the I newspaper described him as the ‘thickest ex-guardsman I have ever met, and that’s saying something’. I think it’s something far more malicious. Smith is stupid, but even he recognises that people are using food banks from poverty. Hence his department’s extreme reluctance to publish any details regarding the deaths of the 70 people, who died after being declared fit for work, or who in despair took their own lives. He is, however, hoping that the majority of the British public will be too stupid, or stupefied from the constant right-wing propaganda from the press, not to believe him. You can hear the right-wing chorus now: ‘But IDS said that the Germans have food banks too, and their benefits system is much better! It must be true. And the people using them aren’t poor, they’re just scroungers.’

It’s a lie, and the people repeating it – IDS, Currie, and their friends in Sun, Mail, Express, Times, know that. Don’t believe them.

I can't believe that you are that gullible enough to take any notice of the guy that writes that blog.