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 think this sums up some of the Brexiters.

Dumbo is in the left corner.

I see another how to eat healthy program last night , and would you believe the outcome was astonishingly that a good all round balanced diet was the most healthy option .

Is Cameron a closet Libdem?

'Tax freedom day' has fallen in June for the first time in 15 years, raising a "red flag" that the tax burden is moving in the wrong direction, according to a think tank.
The day marks the point when employees have theoretically earned enough income to pay their taxes for the year - and it is four days later than it was last year.
The Adam Smith Institute found that tax receipts are expected to be 42% of net national income this year and will take workers 154 days to cover.
The institute's director Eamonn Butler said: "The Treasury hates tax freedom day because they don't want us to know how much tax we really pay.
"They conceal the tax burden with stealth taxes that we don't even realise we're paying.
"But it's shocking that the Government takes over two-fifths of the country's earnings - and then borrows more.
"We work longer for the Government than mediaeval serfs had to work for their Lords.
"It is absurd that people on the minimum wage are liable for National Insurance Contributions, which raise their cost to employers and make it harder to move from benefits into work.
"The poor are also worst hit by regressive taxes like excise duties on what they buy."
The institute said that net national income has increased by £34.6bn from last year but the Government has taken up £35.4bn more in taxes.

last year I posted about all the immigrants in our prisons from the eu
well today it out 13000 in our prisons and the eu will not allow the uk to deport most of them Poland Bulgaria will not take back their murderers

the uk is used by the eu as a eu prison

they should just be put on a plane and drop them off we do not want their scum

Dave Swarbrick snuffs it, a fine fiddler and funny fella in live sets http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-36443117

A sad loss.

I lived next door to 'Fairport' in Muswell Hill. It is the house where Fairport Convention used to 'convene' and is the source of the name of the band. He later played with Martin Carthy. I have quite a few of the albums. I used to go to gigs in the 60s onwards where he was sometimes playing with John Renbourn and Bert Jansch.

A friend and I joined a fledgling folk club in Tottenham Court Road next to the Dominion Cinema in the back room of a pub called the Horseshoe. The club was called the New Contemporary Folk Club and initially there was about ten of us in the audience. After a few weeks of the new club they formed a group called Pentangle. Swarbrick came regularly as a member and then joined in. We also used to see same bunch of people at a club in Greek Street Soho called Les Cousins. Swarbrick was a brilliant fiddler and you could listen to him for hours. He was such a nice guy to talk to.

Swarbrick and Carthy - 'Sovay'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkpujKDSTTo

"Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee,"

You didn't necessarily have to like Boxing to love that guy!

Only boxer I got out of bed in the early hours to watch.

I think we all did GEORGE , there will never be anyone like him again .Ali ,what a great life .

Some Ali quotes -

On being fast

"I'm so fast that last night I turned off the light switch in my hotel room and was in bed before the room was dark."

On Retirement


People don't realise what they had until it's gone. Like President Kennedy, nobody like him.

"Like The Beatles, there will never be anything like them. Like my man, Elvis Presley. I was the Elvis of boxing."


On Joe Frazier

"Joe Frazier is so ugly that when he cries, the tears turn around and go down the back of his head,"

Top Gear reboot 'boosted by canned laughter' as viewers brand it the worst show on TV

The new series of Chris Evans’s new-look Top Gear has been caught up in more controversy amid claims “canned laughter” was inserted to cover up “awkward silences”.

Recordings of hysterical laughter are said to have been inserted into the first episode by producers when the audience failed to laugh at jokes by new presenters Chris Evans and Matt LeBlanc.

The first episode of the BBC’s motoring series was critically panned and drew in 4.4million viewers– the lowest figures for a series debut in more than a decade.

It's a sad thing that nowadays the actual build up to the bout lasts about ten times longer than the actual boxing match .

Chris Evans never ever got it with him i'm nonplussed , LeBlanc just has no presence or character .

Behind those allegations the Tories ‘bought the general election’


The Conservatives' 2015 Battle Bus is at the centre of allegations (Photo: Getty)
Nigel Morris 16:43; Friday June 3rd 2016

It started with a £14,000 hotel bill and has escalated into a nationwide police investigation that could theoretically result in several general election results being overturned.

Nigel Farage thought he had lost his best chance of becoming an MP when he failed to capture South Thanet for Ukip at last year’s general election.

But now he faces the possibility – and for now it is no more than that – of a court ordering a rerun of the contest in the Kent constituency where he lost to the Tories by 2,800 votes.

Moreover, other constituencies up and down the country could face the same issue with investigations already underway by 11 police forces.

The Ukip leader told LBC News he hopes and prays “justice is done” and said the country had to “get to grips” with what he views as the major parties bending the spending rules during elections.

The growing focus on the Tories’ spending last year is down to the persistence of Channel 4’s dogged political correspondent, Michael Crick.

He uncovered a £14,000 bill run up by the Tories ahead of polling day at the Royal Harbour Hotel in Ramsgate in the marginal constituency, followed by a receipt for £4,240 from the Premier Inn in Margate.

Strict rules apply

Why the paperwork matters is because of the rules governing the declaration of spending during general election, with a demarcation between expenditure which is judged to be local and national.

Once a campaign is underway, strict limits apply to how much cash a party can throw at an individual contest in an attempt to “buy” victory.

Channel 4 suggested the bills run up in Ramsgate and Margate should have been included in the returns for Thanet South.

It went on to uncover receipts showing more than £38,000 was spent accommodating activists at hotels as they toured the UK in their BattleBus2015 campaign.

The spending was never declared to the Electoral Commission by the Tories, which the party blamed on an “administrative error”.

It played down the significance of the blunder, denying that the receipts would have counted towards local spending limits of around £15,000 per constituency.

Some of the alleged breaches took place in Nigel Farage’s constituency of Thanet South


Nigel Farage speaks to UKIP supporters encouraging them to vote to leave the EU

The BattleBus

Channel 4 claimed that the BattleBus visited 29 seats – and that legal limits would have been breached in 24 of them if the bills had been counted as constituency spending. Twenty-two of the seats on the bus’s itinerary were won by the Conservatives on 7 May.

The claims over South Thanet are now being investigated by Kent police and ten other forces have said they are also examining the party’s spending returns.

They are Cheshire, Gloucestershire, Greater Manchester police, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, West Mercia (on behalf of Devon and Cornwall), and West Yorkshire.

The Electoral Commission, which is investigating spending in several seats as well as three parliamentary by-elections in 2014, went to High Court to force the Tory party to release relevant documents.
Results could be declared void

This week the victorious Conservative candidate, Craig Mackinlay, mounted an unsuccessful legal attempt to prevent Kent Police having more time to examine his spending returns.

But Timothy Straker, representing the force, told the hearing: “It is exceptional – we have allegations of national funds being used, as it may be put by some, effectively to buy an election.”

District Judge Justin Barron turned down the application and gave detectives another 12 months to investigate.

He ruled that the claims surrounding the Tories’ expenses were on an “unprecedented scale” and could result in “election results being declared void”.

The Tory party, which still insists the spending being investigated amounted to national expenditure, faces a nervous few months.

The chance remains faint of any election results being nullified and by-elections called, but cannot be entirely ruled out until police are no longer pursuing their inquiries.

The constituencies in question

All nine seats visited by the Tory battlebus in the South-West of England were won by the Conservatives as they wiped out Liberal Democrats from their former strongholds in the region.

According to Channel 4 News, legal spending limits could have been breached in eight of them if costs linked to the battle bus had been declared locally. They are North Cornwall, Stroud, Cheltenham, Torbay, Yeovil, Wells, Thornbury and Yate and Camborne & Redruth.

In the Midlands, home to a string of marginal seats, the limit could have been exceeded in seven constituencies. They are Lincoln, Northampton North, Dudley South, Cannock Chase, Broxtowe, Amber Valley and Nuneaton.

Successful contests in nine Northern constituencies visited by the battlebus also potentially breached the spending limit, Channel 4 News reported. They are Rossendale and Darwen, Halifax, Morecambe and Lunesdale, Pudsey, City of Chester, Hazel Grove, Carlisle, Cheadle and Weaver Vale.

In addition, the Electoral Commission is investigating Conservative election spending in three by-elections in 2014 as the party tried to stem a flood of votes to Ukip. They are Clacton and Rochester and Strood – both won by Nigel Farage’s party – and Newark, which was retained by the Tories.

surprised MrT has laid into MA for being a pretty devout muslim

Post 71464.

If the Tory are found guilty of fiddling the elections in those constituencies describe, does that mean there have to be bye-elections in those areas and if so what happens to the tory party majority in the meanwhile and the validity of "bills" etc, passed during the last sessions?

Thanks, Dave.

I think this seeming skulduggery must have had the nod from the tory party Central Office and if so then a prison term for electoral abusers would be appropriate for some of them.

But corruption is the name of the game for the present tory party.

We are just waiting for the witness for the defence to give his summing up and tell us it was nothing really , enter stage left Hays .