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 suggest we throw out all the Greeks.

I will feel much safer.

8-)

There's a very interesting article in today's Mail by Max Hastings:

Sorry, I was wrong!
In this extraordinary recantation, Max Hastings, pro-European all his adult life, admits the EU is now a disaster which is blighting every aspect of British life - and crippling our recovery
13 September

Put aside the crash this week in European shares over the nightmare that is the Greek economy, and the fact remains that the EU is in dire straits, unprecedented in its history.

All my adult life, I have called myself a pro-European. I deplored Brussels follies as much as anyone, but went on hoping for better things. I believed Europe was broadly a force for good.

However, today, I recant. After much agonising and hesitation, I adopt the conclusion that many of you probably reached years ago: that the EU in its present form has become a disaster, which threatens the future of its major members, unless its terms and powers are drastically recast.

The eurozone is merely the most conspicuous symptom of failure. It reflects a historic policy blunder by the rich, prudent nations that linked themselves in a suicidal currency pact with the non-serious countries of Europe, Greece and Ireland foremost among them.

Even the staunchly pro-European Economist magazine admitted last week that the debt crisis is exposing problems in the basic design of the European Union; that the eurozone faces a stark choice between break-up and fiscal integration, against the strong wishes of its solvent members voters.

Some of us used to argue that Europe has been an economic success story. Those who remembered the past poverty of Spain, for instance, rejoiced to see the country apparently booming, its prosperity exemplified by Madrids glittering new airport.

Much the same might be said about our western neighbour, the Celtic tiger.

But now we see that their supposed success not to mention that of Greece and Portugal was an illusion created by smoke, mirrors, prodigious subsidy and reckless borrowing. The EUs generosity enabled tinpot countries to create lavish welfare states unsustainable by their own real wealth.

The pain of restoring their solvency will persist for years: Italians last week staged a general strike to protest against austerity cuts. Southern Europe can regain stability and credibility only by making a rendezvous with reality involving a much reduced standard of living.

Beyond the euro, a thousand other, scarcely lesser Euro-nonsenses blight our lives and prosperity. Consider, for example, the impending EU directive affecting 1.3million temporary workers in Britain. From October 1, after 12 weeks service, they will be granted identical rights and privileges to those enjoyed by permanent staff.

This can have only one consequence: to deter employers from engaging temporary labour madness at a time when British unemployment stands at 7.9 per cent and one in five young people aged between 16 and 24 lack jobs.

Equally, a shop that wants to cut its workforce from six to five faces a statutory requirement to make all six reapply for their jobs.

Meanwhile, small businesses employing as few as two or three employees, lacking administrative staff and human resources departments, are drowning in a sea of paperwork.

The European Commission, supposedly a driver for commerce, has become a blight on it.

At a time when we face a historic challenge from Asia, the EU makes it almost impossible to adopt measures essential to strengthening its members competitiveness, above all the relaxation of employment law.This has become, for practical purposes, unemployment law.

But the Business Department run by Vince Cable, a Lib Dem Euro-enthusiast, declines to resist the new EU employment directive, though it would be legally possible for Britain to do so.

Another directive, a further example of Brussels suicidalism, is shortly to take effect in Britain: the so-called Resale Rights Directive, a levy that guarantees artists (and the heirs of those who have died in the past 70 years) a percentage of the profit every time their work is resold.

While this has obviously been welcomed by artists, London auction houses and dealers are wringing their hands.

Anyone planning to sell a work and who wants to avoid the tax will simply send it to be sold in New York or Geneva, where there is no such levy.

The big loser will be British trade: this country commands 50 per cent of the entire European art market.

Yet again, Brussels will have inflicted another savage wound on its own members interests.

Tony Blair fought off implementation of the Resale Rights Directive in Britain, but the Coalition has caved in to Brussels with contemptible feebleness.

Baroness Willcox, the minister responsible in the Business Department, is nominally a Tory. But her readiness to accept the new Euro art sales tax suggests that, in P. G. Wodehouses phrase, she is a spineless invertebrate.

Unless David Cameron intervenes personally at the 11th hour, this latest EU poison pill will take effect on January 1.

As for the disastrous European Convention On Human Rights, this was brought into effect in 1953 by the Council of Europe rather than by the EU, but it is deemed legally impossible for Britain to derogate from the convention while remaining an EU member.

I use the word disastrous because its interpretation by the judges of the European Court in Strasbourg has had a host of unwelcome consequences for Britain.

The Human Rights convention no longer serves as it was intended, as a barrier to injustice.

Instead, it has become a rockfall in the path of common-sense in almost every area of human affairs.

Gipsies, illegal immigrants, convicted terrorists and criminals have become its undeserving beneficiaries.

Fear of human rights law causes employers, judges, ministers and policemen to cower in slit trenches rather than risk litigation.

It is hard to identify the smallest advantage for law-abiding British citizens from our adherence to the convention, but there is no will in Europe to reform it.

On another front, it is a mockery to suggest the EU can forge a meaningful common foreign and security policy when most of its members, prominently including Germany, will fund only derisory defence spending.

Baroness Ashton, the nonentity nominated by Tony Blair to serve as the EUs first foreign affairs supremo, would be a comic figure, save that her office costs us millions.

As for the European Parliament, it has shown itself toothless as a scrutinising body for the Commissions deeds and misdeeds, and is chiefly notorious for the expenses frauds of its members, far outstripping those of the House of Commons.

In its early decades, the Common Market was a benign institution set up to liberalise European trade. It is no longer so.

At a time when our major new competitors such as India are hastening to shed regulation and bureaucracy, Europe is drowning us in them.

Eurosceptics who warned of the disastrous consequences of the drive towards integration symbolised by the 1991 Maastricht treaty have been shown to be right.
Even if the euro staggers on and Britain, too, will share the pain if it founders Europes economies are stagnating.

Indeed, a new poll by the European Commission shows the Continents economic confidence is almost unprecedentedly low.

A friend once compared the EU to the medieval Christian Church: an extortionate, self-indulgent, hugely expensive and non-productive deadweight that European societies narrowly afforded until the Reformation.

The cost of Brussels has become insupportable. If we continue to burden employers and wealth generators, large and small, with its Utopian vision, only relentless decline can lie ahead.

The truth is that European institutions with huge spending power lack effective supervision.

Resources shared between 27 EU nations are distributed with reckless irresponsibility by unelected officials. Those who obey the rules suffer by comparison with those who break them.

France to name but one observes only those Brussels edicts that suits it, while Romania, Greece and Italy remain chronically corrupt.

Meanwhile, Britain is constantly penalised for its rigid adherence to EU law, enforced by our judiciary and civil servants.

So what to do? The truth is that it seems politically implausible though no longer impossible to imagine Britains absolute withdrawal from Europe.

As a result, we are caught in a web of treaties, agreements, organisations and understandings so dense and interwoven it would be hard to escape from them.

I still reject the crude jingoism of the UK Independence Party, which ignores the practicalities of avoiding a breach with our vital trading partners.

And I realise that quitting Europe would engage us in a crisis that would sap the entire energy and attentions of any British government for years.

But it has become essential to repatriate powers from Brussels. This is not in furtherance of isolationism, but of the economic imperative to strengthen our competitive position in the world and repair our social fabric.

We must regain control of Britains borders, loss of which has inflicted wholly unwelcome social change. Almost incredibly, the latest net immigration figures are the highest ever.

If the EU maintains its present path, it is hard to see the structure surviving longer than another decade. Its failure will become ever more starkly obvious to the electorates of Northern Europe, who pay the bills for the chronic corruption and incompetence of the South.

Brussels cannot justly be blamed for many things that are wrong in Britain today, our educational system notable among them. Also, Germany and northern Italy demonstrate that, even within the EU, it is possible to have a strong manufacturing sector, as Britain does not.

But fundamental issues persist: the EU imposes on its members structural costs, social benefits, consumer protection, health and safety measures and environmental rules, which are unaffordable in our harsh new world.

I feel embarrassed to have to admit I have been wrong for so long about something so important. A eurosceptic friend said recently, with some bitterness: For years, everybody, and especially the BBC, has treated people like us as if we were lunatics. She is right.

I still reject the notion that Britain should embrace lonely isolation, enfolded in the flag. The closest possible trading relationship with Europes major economic powers is indispensable.

But membership of the EU in its present form has become a blight, imposing unacceptable social, cultural, commercial and industrial burdens and constraints.

Read more articles from Max Hastings from the links at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2036704/EU-disaster-blighting-lives.html#ixzz1Xpqd4F7c

Recantation - now there is a word I haven't heard for some years. Recantation of Galileo

I wonder how many present and past MP's both front and back benches think the same, but are too weak to say so.
The EU in its present form is about as good for the UK as wind farms.
Both look to many in power like the Emperors New Clothes.

Every organization that has tried to tie several countries together has failed, as far back as the Roman Empire to the break up of the Soviet Union and the recent Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
All have broken up for the same main reason, and that is 'different cultures'.

History should be our best teacher.
Sadly if no one listens to that teacher, they will never learn.

Hays,

If the tories are going to win the next election their "cabinet members" will first have to go to a cramming course on how to walk.

(Cameron and Georgie Boy look more and more like the hollow men of politics.
Sit in a pub and notice the faces of the punters there when either of them appear on the TV.)

I would like to congratulate the tory coalition government on the ongoing mismanagement of the economy.

( I thought the previous problems were nothing to do with external factors such as economic factors in other countries.)

Unemployment up, and the figures distorted by many of those who are now in part time employment rather than full time jobs.

The con-dem-nation coalition are in control.

I would suggest this cabinet of failures stand down.

------

Notice unemployment figures for 17-24 year old group.

If there is further down turn in the GDP, as can be expected, from the present failing government policies, then it may be a very turbulent Autumn and Spring.

I wouldn't like to be on the front line.

I expect unemployment to increase as policies take effect. It is interesting to see that the figures show falls in public sector jobs and rises in private sector. That is the shift that needs to take place. The process will be slow though.

The private sector were supposed by the "elite" to replace the jobs lost in the public sector. Is it doing so?

Interesting that QE is out, No plan B, but Clegg is going to spend money.


Bullocks comes into my mind.

Why aren't Cameron and Georgie Boy leading the argument. Or have thy both gone on holidays again?

Increasing jobs in the private sector is always going to be a lagging indicator for the economy. It takes time for job losses in the public sector to be taken up by new jobs in the private sector. A gap of around a year is probably about right. The present government are using 'supply side' policies to rearrange the economy.

Magaret Thatcher used supply side policies to grow the economy and very successful it was. Ronald Regan used the same process and his version of it became known as Reganomics.

.

I wish it was today!

.

"
Magaret Thatcher used supply side policies to grow the economy and very successful it was. Ronald Regan used the same process and his version of it became known as Reganomics.


I remember that period of Mad Cow disease and " Reganmania".

Both parties deluded and as indirectly responsible, as Blair and Bush are, for the current state of International Politics and subsequent economic problems.

Also, lead to many of the social problems which subsequent governments have do deal with now.

No foresight and short term planning only.

Forgot they had "strong government".

----------------

Hays,

Which sector of society is the Con/dems going to bail out with their proposed financial bribes?

Anno Domini!

Whats a Pizza company got to do with anything.

.

10' finger nails - are you sure! New world record-breakers debut in Guinness book 2012

Coalition just months left before break up, who first them or Eurozone?.

"More than half of those accused over the riots were aged 20 or under."

Which party was in government while these young people were growing up; The Labour Party

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14926322

One in four riot suspects had 10 previous offences

One in four people charged over the riots in English cities last month had committed more than 10 previous offences, figures show.

Three-quarters had a previous caution or conviction, Ministry of Justice (MoJ) figures show, and those with a criminal record averaged 15 offences.

More than half of those accused over the riots were aged 20 or under.

Whaaaaaahay!!! Whaaaaaahoooo!!!

From: http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/....

Study shows chocolate may be as good for you as a session in the gym

Sep 15 2011 Mike Swain

DARK chocolate could potentially be as good for your health as exercise, scientists have revealed.

They have found it contains an ingredient which boosts muscles in a similar way to using a running machine in the gym.

Researchers studied the effects of the compound epicatechin on mice in the lab and found that it appeared to boost energy in muscles, allowing them to exercise for longer periods.

The effect is similar to training in the gym.

Mice given doses of epicatechin were able to exercise just as well as those put on a treadmill every day - and now scientists want to see if it works in people.

The improvements in muscle performance were linked with increases in mitochondria - the 'powerhouses' of cells, research published in The Journal of Physiology found.

Dr Moh Malek, of Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, who led the study, said: "Mitochondria produce energy, which is used by the cells in the body.

"More mitochondria means more energy is produced and more work can be performed.

"Aerobic exercise, such as running or cycling, is known to up the number of mitochondria in muscle cells.

"Our study has found that epicatechin seems to bring about the same response - particularly in the heart and skeletal muscles."

For the experiment specific form of epicatechin, which is found in cocoa, was given to the mice twice a day for 15 days.

At the same time, the mice underwent 30 minutes of treadmill training each day.

The researchers found that the group of mice fed only epicatechin had the same performance as those on the treadmill.

In addition to gaining a better understanding of how epicatechin improves muscle performance, the team hope that their findings could eventually help counteract age-related muscle wasting.

Dr Malek added: "Mitochondria decreases in skeletal muscle as we age and this affects us physically in terms of muscle energy production and endurance.

"Applying what we now know about epicatechin's ability to boost mitochondria numbers may provide an approach to reduce the effects of muscle ageing."

Researchers used 12-month-old mice - the equivalent of middleaged humans - giving one group epicatechin and one epicatechin and treadmill training, while the other group ran on the treadmill.

Dr Malek added: "Again, we found that the group receiving the epicatechin only, had significantly better muscle performance and took longer to tire than the group that only exercised.

"The group that was given epicatechin and also exercised showed an even greater improvement - so it appears epicatechin treatment combined with exercise could be a viable means to offset muscle ageing."

Unfortunately it is too early to say whether humans could get the same benefits as the mice.

Dr Malek said: "It is fascinating to identify how natural products can mimic and enhance the effects of exercise.

"At the moment it would be a leap of faith to say the same effects would be seen in humans."
...........................

So there we are then. I suspected this was true all along and now it has technically been proved to be correct.

The one I am currently eating is 'Choceur's Dark Chocolate With Whole Hazelnuts' from Aldi at 99p per bar. I think it is fantastic and have great trouble limiting myself to just about 1/4 of a bar per day:

For 'Strictly' fans:

First rehearsals