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.

Sky News


....Sky News has learned of further links between the Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson and arrested former News Of The World executive Neil Wallis.

It emerged earlier this week that Mr Wallis, who was quizzed by police investigating phone hacking allegations and later released on bail, had worked for the Met as a media consultant.

Sky News has now learnt that Sir Paul spent time at a health farm where Mr Wallis was working as a PR consultant.

Sir Paul had an operation on his leg before Christmas to remove a pre-cancerous tumour.

And he needed a second procedure just after Christmas to repair a fracture to a bone in that leg.

He then spent some time recuperating at a Champneys health resort.


The operation was funded by the Met's healthcare scheme but the accommodation was free as it was paid for by a friend of Sir Paul's, who was the managing director at the farm, Sky sources say.

And it is understood that Mr Wallis was working as a consultant for the resort.

Sky's Tom Parmenter said: "There is no suggestion at this stage that there is any overt wrongdoing between Sir Paul Stephenson staying at this health farm and their PR person being Neil Wallis.

"But nevertheless, it is about public perception and the questions that will inevitably follow."

A Met Police spokesman told Sky News that Sir Paul only learned of the connection between Mr Wallis and Champneys today.


A Met statement said: "Following his operations, the commissioner stayed with his wife, at Champneys Medical from Monday to Friday over a period of five weeks earlier this year where he underwent an extensive programme of hydro and physiotherapy.

"This enabled him to return to work six weeks earlier than anticipated. As with many officers, the Met paid the intensive physiotherapy costs.

"The accommodation and meals were arranged and provided by Stephen Purdew, MD of Champneys, a personal family friend who has no connection with or links to his professional life."

A spokesman said: "Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson is not considering his position. He declared it ingifts and hospitality for the sake of full transparency."

Phil Smith, Neil Wallis' solicitor, has told Sky News: "There is no connection whatsoever between any stay that Sir Paul Stephenson may have had at Champneys and Neil Wallis.

"Neither Neil Wallis nor anyone connected to him had any involvement whatsoever in any visit or stay by Sir Paul Stephenson at Champneys."


Meanwhile, police have told two senior Mail On Sunday journalists their phones may have been hacked by private investigator Glenn Mulcaire.

Their names have been found in notebooks belonging to Mulcaire, who was hired by the News Of The World (NOTW) and jailed in 2007 for phone hacking.

One of the journalists is former news editor Sebastian Hamilton while the other is ex-investigations editor Dennis Rice, the Mail On Sunday confirmed.

Four years ago, Mulcaire was sentenced to six months in prison for plotting to hack into the telephone messages of Royal aides.

Police have said around 4,000 people could have had their phones targeted as officers continue their investigation, named Operation Weeting, into the phone-hacking scandal.


Sky's Jeff Randall said: "Sebastian Hamilton is currently editor of the Mail On Sunday in Ireland.

"He told me that Scotland Yard assumes Mulcaire was going into his phone - one to see if it (he) could pinch any stories.

"And two for commercial advantage. Did he have any information about the purchase of serialisation rights, that sort of thing.

"In effect, what the News Of The World was up to was nothing sort of industrial espionage."

A spokesman for the Mail On Sunday said: "I can confirm that two senior journalists have been contacted by Operation Weeting officers and told that their phones may have been hacked by Glenn Mulcaire."

It has previously been reported that Mr Rice was launching legal action against the News Of The World over the alleged hacking.

..

Chris

So do i , but VGM lost me money and KYS as underperformed while waiting for funding from their Chinese partners, And they sold MML because of political risk and they shot up to 500p and also sold CEY to soon.

.......Newspapers face uncertain future
....Media groups vied Sunday to attract readers of the defunct News of the World tabloid, but analysts warned that a short-term sales surge could be followed by long-term collapse in the market.

The closure of the paper a week ago amid the phone hacking scandal could see many readers abandoning newspapers altogether, while the problems facing Rupert Murdoch, an avowed fan of newsprint, are bad for an already ailing industry.

In the past week, paper owners have hiked print runs, launched marketing campaigns and plans are reportedly afoot for at least one new Sunday title.

After years of falling circulations, rival publishers are desperate to woo the News of the World's estimated 7.5 million former readers.

Douglas McCabe, an analyst at London-based media watchers Enders Analysis, told AFP the next few weeks could see Sunday newspaper sales rocket.

"There is going to be an enormous amount of activity over the next few weeks," he said. "Every single title will massively increase their print runs."

He added: "Circulations might actually be quite robust. I think they might go up, really go up significantly."

It is unheard of for the most popular product in a market place to disappear almost overnight and rivals of News International, Murdoch's British newspaper wing, have piled in gleefully.

The most striking response has been from the Daily Mail which is reported to be planning a new mass-market Sunday tabloid.

A dummy edition will be circulated internally in the company this weekend and it could launch as soon as the following week, the Guardian reported.

The Mail on Sunday, which normally sells just under two million copies, is printing more than three million this weekend, while the Daily Star on Sunday is more than tripling its print run to 2.2 million, reports said.

The Sunday Express, the People and the Sunday Mirror are all said to be increasing their print runs.

But rival media companies may have only a narrow window to benefit from the disappearance of the 168-year-old News of the World.

News International is rumoured to be laying the ground to launch a Sunday version of the Sun, which sells 2.8 million copies a day.

This may not happen for several months, however, as News International waits for public outrage over the hacking scandal to subside.

Allegations the paper hacked into the phone of a murdered teenager were the first of many hacking claims to emerge in the past fortnight, which have heaped pressure on Murdoch's News Corp., the parent company of News International.

Most analysts said the effect of the most popular Sunday title disappearing could only be negative in the long run.

"I think the Sunday market will shrink because when any newspaper closes some of its readers are lost," said Ivor Gaber, a professor of political journalism at London's City Journalism.

And despite his optimism about the short term, McCabe at Enders Analysis saw a bleak future, predicting up to half of the News of the World's readers would desert newspapers for ever.

"To take a longer and broader-term view... up to half of News of the World's sales could effectively vanish," he said.

Murdoch, 80, has a sentimental attachment to his papers, despite the fact many of them do not turn a profit, and most analysts play down the likelihood of him selling off News International.

But with Labour leader Ed Miliband calling Sunday for Murdoch's British empire, which also includes pay-TV giant BSkyB, to be broken up, commentators believe anything could happen.

While the left in would celebrate the fall of the once-mighty media mogul, some raise fears about who would fill the void.

They point to the acquisition of the Independent newspapers by Russian billionaire and former KGB agent Alexander Lebedev last year, and the ownership of Express newspapers by Richard Desmond, who made much of his fortune from the pornography industry.

"A media baron who is a devotee of newspapers, a breed that is rapidly becoming extinct, (Murdoch) has patiently pumped money into 'quality titles' such as The Times of London and America's Wall Street Journal," noted the Economist magazine in an editorial this week.

"If he sold his British papers to, say, a Russian oligarch or Richard Desmond, the cost-cutting mogul behind the Express and the Red Hot TV porn channel, how many journalists would cheer?"
...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8638644/Return-of-the-Gold-Standard-as-world-order-unravels.html

All these people winning loads of money on the lottery.....

Hmmm?

Makes you want to think about buying an 'exclusive home'.

Maybe something in Beverley Hills?

eg, For something 'affordable' and cheap to run (ie. at $1357 HOA plus Taxes) check out the '211 Spalding' townhouse/condo'

(Do check out the 'exclusive car' link, which appears at the end of the movie on the first link)

ExecLine,
The old boy who won the was it 169 M stated his old cars were running fine. Talking about not changing them and staying put. I don't think his Mrs has the same ideas. Not being rude they did not look like they have missed many meals. lol

In view of the continuing "press exposures" has hit the barriers. I think the brilliant government policy of having locally elected "Heads of Police", which would be in effect be based on political allegiances,

(Another brilliant policy which won't come into fruition.8~))

But, I question what is happening and with the "Select Committee'" enquiry, especially with regards to "police actions" relating to the present corruption, and suspect it to be an attempt by the political "elite" to divert public attention from their own "corrupt actions".

26 meetings in 14months, to discuss the weather. Come off it.

.

.

DC

Yes, agreed. Couldn't have gone to a more deserving couple (NOT!)

Better then that Michael carrol character from Norfok (sure that was his name)
Back as a dustman now and skint. I got the first 5 of six numbers seven years ago.
1800 never been near since. Hope they give a lot to family, as I get the feeling he will not spend much. Where do you put 169 M, In 169 different banks. lol

Try 169 countries, or the Cayman Isles.

Could invest in owning his own political party or newspaper!

(They both seem to come quite cheaply.)

Fred you have missed the big one - He could donate to the conservative party?
Why invest in his own party, when there is a great one already. Lol

I don't know about you , but did the couple who won that money look like brother and sister ?

Dreamcatcher

Post a picture of them , i can't be bothered to. lol

In answer to the question - "who ate all the pies....?"

Scottish couple scoop record 162m lottery win

Invest in a stomache band or health farm springs to mind!!!!!

DC,

Perhaps, nobody will want to be associated with the current tory party leadership at the end of the numerous enquiries.

I have to check if I am a long lost cousin of the winner.

Too many fried mars bars from the chipper me thinks. Change of diet to fried turkish delight perhaps?

you suggested that aldwickk. The picture skinny has given us, no they do not look like brother and sister, not much lol. He sounds to tight to spend out on a stomache band 3 monkies. They would have to sew 3 together.

Lets me say why are the winners always second rate.