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 travelled quite widely around India. One of the States I worked in was Rajasthan, which was a dry (no booze) State. To take liquor into there I had to have an alcoholics licence which, in my case, was issued at the consulate in London. I had to declare that I was an uncontrollable alcoholic but it allowed me to carry the alcohol or buy it at a bottle store in nearby Haryana. For medicinal purposes.
As part of the agreement I travelled first class on Air India between London and, usually, Delhi. I remember one return flight to London on the 747. I was sat in an aisle seat next to an elegant and demure Indian lady. In those days you could smoke on flights and after take-off the stewardess offered drinks and cigarettes which I accepted but the lady declined. After some time she shyly asked me what i was drinking. I cant remember what it was now, but when I offered to get her one, she accepted. From then on it was hours of drinking, smoking and laughing. Great character. Turned out she was the wife of the ambassador to the US and was travelling on to New York. When I got off at London, I told her just coffee for the next flight and plenty of water. And no more smoking. :)

As suggested:

http://news.sky.com/story/1641269/germanys-merkel-backs-camerons-eu-reforms

Angela Merkel has given her support to David Cameron's EU reforms, saying they will "benefit Europe as a whole".

In a speech attended by the Prime Minister in Hamburg, the German Chancellor gave her strongest endorsement yet to the UK government's proposals.

Mrs Merkel said: "These concerns that David Cameron has raised with the European Union are not only understandable - but we even support them."

She told dignitaries: "We are at one in saying that in the European Union much more needs to be done for competitiveness, more transparency and cutting red tape."

And in clear reference to the PM's demands to restrict benefits to EU migrants she said that "social systems ought to be protected against abuse".

Interesting scientific discovery but I think it needs confirming by Tim Peake(twin peaks)...if these nipples in space are for real : there will be a long queue ready for blast off that's for sure....

Of course Merkel will make the right noises. As I have said before, a Brexit is the last thing they want due to the likely domino effect. Cameron needs a strong out forecast now to get real concessions, but I doubt he has the intelligence to play his hand properly.
On the subject of intelligence, I can't but wonder looking at that labour front bench. Two obese self-satisfied women in the guise of Thornbury and Abbott and two scrawny assed males who must wonder if they are on pot or not. How did we get here?
Thornbury aka " I'm not posh, I failed the 11 plus". No dear, you're not posh, you are thick. Thick for failing the exam and thick for thinking intelligence and social standing are mutually inclusive. Maybe that's why she walks around with that silly superior look on her face. Pigs and lipstick don't come into it.

Look at the map of Syria on the BBC website : the political/military controlled areas : what a mess.....you have to feel terribly sorry for the civilians caught up in this....the quicker this war ends the better but in favour of who ?....either way it will be ungovernable for decades ....Europe cannot cope with the influx of migrants from that country so it it might seem ruthless to be hard on preventing this invasion of illegals...but immigration to our shores has to be curbed...

The enrichment of Calais..



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKAQX74yRyc&feature=youtu.be

Brown and Corbyn would just shrug their shoulders and call that woman a bigot.

Anybody read this

http://www.amazon.com/The-13th-Enumeration-Thirteenth-Series-ebook/dp/B008QMS9VG

Yes it must be very hard for residents living in Calais .

Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.
Douglas Casey, Classmate of Bill Clinton at Georgetown University

Just received a copy of a report in the Diario de Pernambuco. A newspaper in the NE Brazilian state of Pernambuco.
Most of the cases of microcephaly have occured in that state. It refers to a report just published by Argentinian researchers which considers the possible relationship of a larvicide called pyriproxyfen with the condition. The larvicide is recommended by the Brazilian Ministry of Health to combat the mosquito Aedes Aegypti, the carrier of the zika virus, and is said to be used in potable water tanks since 2014 in areas where sanitary conditions are very basic. It replaced a larvicide called Temephos, that proved ineffective.
The researchers point to the fact that microcephaly is only occuring in areas where pyriproxyfen is being used. It also highlights the fact that Columbia has the second highest rate of expectant mothers infected by zika, 3,000, but there has not been one case of microcephaly reported.

Looks like Fred and Stan have taken over the old Labour party...




Revealed: The radical hard-Left Momentum activists mounting a ruthless purge of Labour

The identities and backgrounds of those controlling Momentum can be revealed for the first time



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/12156177/momentum-activists-jeremy-corbyn-labour-purge.html

P 67771

Perhaps, that would be better than a con party taken over by hedge fund managers, Russian oligarchs, overseas donators and little Englanders.

talking to a couple of consultants today, and between us, none can understand what on earth the gov't is actually trying to achieve, though we all agreed that the NHS in its present format is totally unsustainable and will get progressively less able to cope

of course, one answer might be to raise NIC by say £1 a week for most wage earners, always presupposing that would actually go towards funding more doctors etc, but for any party, that would be almost political suicide - the public will always want something for nothing

None of NIC goes toward the NHS. All taxes just go into the pot.

The BMA is a trade union like any other. Their leaders are quite political and several board members are strong Cornyn supporters. Like all unions, they dislike change.The walls of the BMA headquarters are covered in political posters at the moment.

Jeremy Corbyn will quit as Labour leader by 2020, warns GMB leader
Sir Paul Kenny has said Mr Corbyn had never "wanted to win" the leadership contest and would not want to "go into 2020"


By Laura Hughes, Political Correspondent9:52AM GMT 14 Feb 2016
Jeremy Corbyn will have quit as Labour leader by the 2020 general election as he is failing to provide a "credible alternative" to the Conservatives, the general secretary of the GMB union has warned.
Sir Paul Kenny, who is standing down from his post in coming weeks, has said Mr Corbyn had never "wanted to win" the leadership contest and would not want to "go into 2020."
The union leader criticised Mr Corbyn's senior team for having demonstrated "naiveness" and warned they needed to stop treating the job like a "wine bar discussion".

Sir Paul has called on those surrounding the Labour leader to let him focus on "bread and butter" issues.


But he added: "It is refreshing that he does not actually have any dreams of personal glory. He isn't bothered about which bedroom he uses in No 10."
Sir Paul, who had led the third biggest union since 2006, was awarded a kinighthood by Ed Miliband when he was Labour leader.


When Mr Miliband was Labour leader the GMB donated more than £7million.
He told The Sunday Times: "The object of the exercise here is to emerge with a credible alternative to the Tories for power and at the moment we are not doing that.
"There is a naiveness in some people that ‘these are the things where we have gone along to rallies and meetings and people have cheered us for saying them, so this must be what the rest of the country thinks'.
"So all I can say is get out more. It is not what the rest of the country thinks."


The GMB leader has previously warned the union would not go "quietly into the night" if the Labour leader tried to change the party's policy on Trident.
He has warned that that Mr Corbyn's commitment to unilateral nuclear disarmament threatened to make the party unelectable and has said there were tens of thousands of jobs at around 50 sites in the UK that depended on defence contracts.


“I am not at all convinced that the British public are unilateralists. I think the nature of a Brit . . . is if you hit me, I’m going to hit you back,” he said.
“You have got to have power to put a policy into operation and if the people will not give you that power then that policy is self-indulgent hot air.”


Tom Watson, deputy leader: “I think the deterrent has kept the peace in the world for half a century and I hope we can have that debate in the party”
Andy Burnham, shadow home secretary: "I would vote for the renewal of Trident. We always knew this was going to be a difficult decision for the party. There are two positions here that are difficult to reconcile, perhaps impossible to reconcile."
Hilary Benn, shadow foreign secretary: "I think a British prime minister has to have that option”
Maria Eagle, shadow culture secretary: “I don't think that a potential prime minister answering a question like that, in the way in which he did, is helpful”
John McDonnell, shadow chancellor: "It’s ultimately a matter of principle about the morality of using nuclear weapons, which would cause such loss of life and destruction the planet" (March 2015)


Perfect harmony in the Labour Party Fred LOL!!!!