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.

i picked up on line on Yahoo News

Here is a link to the auction

Here is a link to the auction

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/jun/28/hyde-park-london-mansion-auction

Thanks Haystack and c.

I know the building, it's been rotting for years (on the outside)

Whoever buys it will need to spend lots...but I don't suppose anyone with that sort of wonga will be too worried.

it shouldn't be THAT bad, though it has been left unoccupied for 3 years

Obviously, this was merely an actual female hormonal problem....

Poor Fish Van driver gets it up the back end

That was fun!

the iran deal is a bad deal and will come to bite the yanks in the bum
a bum deal done by dumb bums

Obama is a barmy nutter a liar and a coward . the deal is terrible for the west .
the USA HAVE SOLD THEIR SOULS AND PISSED ON THE GRAVES OF SOLDIERS AND THE TWIN TOWERS .

TO THE SOLDIERS WHO HAVE DIED YOU HAVE BEEN BETRAYED YOU DIED FOR NOTHING

The deal hasn't just been done with the USA. There are five other Western players too.

From the Guardian

Greek debt crisis: IMF warns Greece needs deeper debt relief - live updates

Leaked report shows that the International Monetary Fund believes Europe hasn’t faced up to the true scale of Greece’s financing needs

IMF: Greece needs much deeper debt relief

Breaking away from Brussels.... a leaked International Monetary Fund report has shown that Greece needs massively more debt relief than the eurozone has admitted.

The IMF has updated its debt sustainability analysis to reflect the damage wrecked on the Greek economy since capital controls were imposed more than two weeks ago.

And it shows that even more Greek debt needs to be wiped away that Europe faced up to.

The IMF says:

“The dramatic deterioration in debt sustainability points to the need for debt relief on a scale that would need to go well beyond what has been under consideration to date - and what has been proposed by the ESM.”

Currently, eurozone countries have been talking about ‘reprofiling’ Greek debt, to push back repayment dates or cut the interest rate on loans.

But this IMF report states that Greece would need a 30-year grace period.

Alternatively, the eurozone could make explicit annual transfers of cash to Greece, or it could bite the bullet and take “deep upfront haircuts”.

Eurogroup officials are still looking at solutions to find bridge funding for Greece, says vice-president Dombrovskis.

Different options are being explored, including using the EFSM.

Dombrovskis confirms that:

“Concerns were raised by several non-euro states. We need to take that into account.”

(So George Osborne wasn’t alone in raising concerns, given there was an agreement not to use EFSM funds for euro bailout)

the story i heard was greece has already been granted something like a 45 year repayment period with almost notional interest attaching, but that of course the countries involved (germany!) do not want to own up to it as it would be politically damaging domestically

apparently its source was a very successful and greece-specialising american hedge fund manager talking on Radio4 or somesuch on saturday morning

Wednesday’s Strikes Show Greeks Refuse Change

by Philip Chrysopoulos - Jul 14, 2015

It is really sad to see the people of a country that was on the brink of bankruptcy three days ago to go on strike and take it to the streets to demonstrate against the deal that saved them from bankruptcy. It is as if this is a strike in favor of bankruptcy.

The new bailout agreement Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has managed to secure after 17 hours of hard negotiations that verged on humiliation is not a bed of roses for Greece. It’s more of a bed of nails. The proposed deal contains some harsh austerity measures and reforms that would make even diehard capitalists cringe. Yet, austerity reforms might be the shock therapy the Greek economy and Greek society need.

A society that has learned to survive on tax evasion, lawlessness and corrupt practices, from the Prime Minister to the last newspaper kiosk owner, and from the hospital manager to the small tavern owner. A society with 35-year-old pensioners, blind taxi drivers, paid sinecures in the public sector, people who receive pensions 10 years after they died, doctors who declare 10,000 euros yearly income and countless other categories of happy Greeks who live splendidly while destroying the economy.

Now all these people, and they are not just a few, see the new reforms as a danger to their well-being. They see the “greedy” Europeans as the ones who want to impose evil things such as tax audits, public employee evaluations, debt repayments and retirement after 60. In other words, they hate to see practices and rules that apply to normal countries apply to Greece because… “we are unique, special people.”

So on Wednesday, public sector employees, municipal workers, pharmacists and doctors will go on strike to protest against the harsh reforms the Greek government is about to bring in order for the country to stay afloat and (hopefully) get on the path of economic recovery.

It is natural, though. Public employees don’t want to be evaluated because many of them do very little actual work. The same applies to municipal employees. Pharmacists want to be the only ones selling vitamins and other parapharmaceuticals and the new bailout deal says that these products can be sold in super markets as well. Public doctors are a different story: They have every right to strike because their salaries have dwindled to humiliating levels. And there’s very few of them left in Greece. The strike is also for unionists and their friends who want to protect their sinecures.

So, in essence, it is special interest groups that don’t want the changes the required reforms will bring. And they go on strike. The right to strike is undeniably an essential right in a democracy. However, in Greece, it is so abused that not only it has lost its sheen, it has also lost its meaning. During the economic crisis there has been a major strike almost every two weeks. Going through the motions, people rally and shout slogans that have lost their meaning. Strikes and demonstrations have become part of the Greek lifestyle. This must be the only country that has a website that tells you what strikes are on each day.

And all strikes and demonstrations are essentially for the same demand: Don’t change anything, we are fine in our corrupt, clientelist, statist existence; we want to keep living on loans we refuse to pay back; we want all the privileges of a European Union membership and none of the obligations; the world owes us because we are the cradle of western civilization; we want free money because we voted so.

Wednesday’s strike, which is the same repeated strike that goes on for five years now, is supposedly against austerity. But if strikers are honest with themselves, they will admit it is a strike against change. Against the changes needed so that Greece will not have to rely on borrowed money and handouts forever.

hays - i'm afraid it is the average greek jannis who is being forced to bear the full brunt of the previous gov'ts profligacy and (very probable) corruption ....... imo, it's a pretty facile argument to state that it was jannis and his chums who did the voting and thus they reap the whirlwind, but of course, they never had any control over what the gov't actually did in their name

Presumably, Cyners, that would be the same greek jannis who still expect to watch free plasma screen entertainment while they travel cheaply on the air-conditioned Athens tube network to collect their pensions, having retired at 50 and not made any contributions to their pension pots?

Never mind yer big fat Greek weddings, this is the big fat Greek gravy train!

The left must put Britain's EU withdrawal on the agenda

Owen Jones

Wednesday 15 July 2015 08.04 BST



Progressives should be appalled by European Union’s ruination of Greece. It’s time to reclaim the Eurosceptic cause


David Cameron with Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel. ‘An anti-EU campaign could help the left reconnect with working-class communities it lost touch with long ago.’ Photograph: Yves Herman/Reuters



At first, only a few dipped their toes in the water; then others, hesitantly, followed their lead, all the time looking at each other for reassurance. As austerity-ravaged Greece was placed under what Yanis Varoufakis terms a “postmodern occupation”, its sovereignty overturned and compelled to implement more of the policies that have achieved nothing but economic ruin, Britain’s left is turning against the European Union, and fast.

“Everything good about the EU is in retreat; everything bad is on the rampage,” writes George Monbiot, explaining his about-turn. “All my life I’ve been pro-Europe,” says Caitlin Moran, “but seeing how Germany is treating Greece, I am finding it increasingly distasteful.” Nick Cohen believes the EU is being portrayed “with some truth, as a cruel, fanatical and stupid institution”. “How can the left support what is being done?” asks Suzanne Moore. “The European ‘Union’. Not in my name.” There are senior Labour figures in Westminster and Holyrood privately moving to an “out” position too.



More with links here:http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/14/left-reject-eu-greece-eurosceptic?CMP=share_btn_tw