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.

both spain and greece are arguably fortunate that they weren't thrown out a couple of years back whether they wanted it or not!

but yes, unemployment in spain, especially among the young is terrifying - around 55% if i recollect .... in greece i know not, but then they never paid their taxes there anyway

cynic happy new year .

spain is very bad for the young a lot have come to the uk well over 20 000
they are very close families do not like their sons and daughters having to move

Cyners....."certainly christmas retail figures were much more perky than one might have expected, and i doubt the hangover will be any worse than usual"....ends

ARE YOU SURE..........

Look at John Lewis..... store sales were FLAT.

Normaly these boys set the tone for the high street.

It appears as I suspected we had an early xmas adopting the Yanks black Friday or whatever its called.

Shopping could have just been brought forward.

Lewis reported xmas week rather quiet.!!!!!!!!!!

We shall see over the coming 2 weeks.

you're wrong .... JL figures were actually very good .... though their store/store figures were flat, their on-line biz boomed reflecting the changing ways of modern shopping

Another reason we need to leave the EU:

Homeless EU beggars in London costing £0.5m per year

Where are you and your family moving to then E/L?

Stan

Can you lend me £50 until I bake?

:-)

Thats what I meant to say Cyners, not all the retailers have Lewis online expertise.

The store figures were FLAT like I said. I said the tone FOR THE HIGH STREET.

Sorry E/L can't afford it, but assuredly Alf will... won't you -):

that actually wasn't what you wrote at all, but never mind

certainly the character of high streets continues to change - i don't suppose ours is very much different from others - with many more coffee and sandwich shops and similar, and fewer "normal" retailers whether indy or chain

however, indy shops that sell the right quality and variety for their area do fine, though landlords need to be a lot less greedy if they want to avoid high vacancy, and local authorities also need to get their brains working (should they have any) to encourage footfall - eg cheap or fee parking, pedestrianised zones, cafes encouraged to use their outdoor space (RBK&C is a disgrace in that respect), and arguably biz rates slanted to help indies

Never mind all that Alf, E/Line's still waiting.

'Baking Day' was usually the same day of the week as 'Pay Day' and so one housewife would ask for a short term loan from one of her housewife neighbours until baking day came. The inference was given, that this was obviously the same day as pay day but the inference was given without embarassingly having to refer to 'pay day' as such. (You know what women are like, I'm sure?).

The loan would be without any monetary interest but appreciation for it would be given, perhaps with the gift of, say a pie, tart, small cake, loaf of bread or similar as a token of thanks.

Hence, "Can you lend me 'half a crown' until I bake?"

Of course, with inflation, 'half a crown' these days is now roughly the same as £50.

I will bake you a pie for £50.

Interesting.

What area is the practice from?

hourly baking rates were obviously high in those days too :-)

Hey Cynic bugalugs........... "The Guardian reports that John Lewis' boss Andy Street has warned other retailers that Black Friday promotions must be kept under control in 2015, as strong demand over the promotional weekend hit Christmas profitability.

thruppppppppppppp

I now have these on the mind.... They do a sausage cheese and bean slice which I like..

Fred

You miss the point. Are you fick or wot?

Way back then loans were for 'half a crown'. I guess the reason for this was that we are talking weekly wages back then of, say perhaps £3 - £7 or so. And so a short term loan of 'half a crown' for a couple of days wouldn't be too much to take on for either party.

Hence, (£20 to) £50 or so would be a comparable amount these days, dontchafink?

And the area? Well, this was a 'working class ' practice. So let's suppose, somewhere 'up North' (of Watford?).

i did better than read the guardian ... i listened to the guy on the box this morning :-) ..... i recollect that store/store was flat or perhaps marginally down, but on-line was +19% and overall, a more than satisfactory result

NXT has performed similarly well

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

indeed, when i reflect, i bought nearly all my pressies on line, though i checked out quite a lot in the stores first ..... saved lugging stuff around, and/or was then ble to find the colour or size or whatever on line, where the store may not have had it in stock

Ed Miliband launched Labour's election campaign with a call to arms - which is to say, an invitation to class war. This was going to be an election about "who we are as a country" , and NOT about the economy or his party's historical embarrassment in the running of same. The speech was surprisingly (to me) short on policy and very long on ideology of the most frankly sentimental kind. There was scarcely any attempt to answer the charge that Labour's spending plans were utterly unrealistic - except for a flat, unsuppported denial that any of their pledges required additional borrowing.


Labour would be "fighting to be the kind of country we know we can be - more just, more equal and more prosperous." And this fight would be a "house to house" campaign, which made it sound like a bloodcurdling last-ditch battleground of the ugliest sort of street war. Except that this battle would consist entirely of "conversations" - four million of them to be precise - to be held on the nations' doorsteps. The enemy - demonically evil as it was - would be talked to death. Mr Miliband gave little indication of how the other side of this conversation might have its questions answered. For example, if greater spending is the answer to the problems of the NHS, why didn't the doubling of health spending under the last Labour government improve healthcare beyond recognition?


Neatly slipping in a change of direction, Mr Miliband made an emotional commitment to the value of immigration which has "helped to build this country" but then added that in the interests of fairness, people should have to contribute before they could receive benefits. This was a gesture to his white working class core vote but also a warning to his party that any change in policy on immigrant benefits must be carefully framed so as not to appear xenophobic or racist.


There was a clear message for his activists on how to fight this War of the Doorstep: don't get bogged down in detail about deficits and borrowing and economic logic. If Labour is to have a hope in hell of being credible, we must make this election about ideology - or what ordinarily people might call moral values. It is about "justice", "equality" and bashing the rich: food banks vs bankers' bonuses, the "scandal of zero hours contracts". Above all it must be about "putting working people first" - by which he appeared to mean the kind of working people Labour approves of, not the striving young professionals who suddenly finding themselves paying higher rate tax when they manage to acheive any degree of financial well-being.


This was a speech which brazenly put vacuous moral blackmail before economic or social reality. It ought to provide the Conservatives with an open goal.

The Telegraph

Onlines OK for non clothing gifts but clothing and tech surely you want to feel the quality never mind the width.!!!!!!!!!!!!!