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.

There's a thought - candid honesty in Parliament!

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:-)

Excellent post skinny, although I must have been deprived as a kid because I never had an airgun or a catapult for my 10th birthday, I wonder if I have a case for the European Court of Human Rights.
2517

When I was about 10 years old, I very often used to get 'ambushed' by two farm manager's kids, who used to pop up from behind a wall at the top of the cul de sac where I lived, and then pelt cobbles at me. I guess it was a semi serious game of kids being 'enemies' with each other.

I decided what to do about this so as to boost my chances of winning this war game and so I cut my self a good strong 'Y' from a hazelnut tree, bought some catapult elastic from the market, took an old shoe's tongue and made myself a real belter of a catapult. Next I selected about a dozen appropriate sized roundish, symetrically shaped pebbles from the garden.

I stuck the catapult in my back pocket and the pebbles in my front pocket and, duly armed to protect myself, off I went up the road. I loaded up just before I reached the wall. They popped up and started pelting at me.

I duly returned fire, but this time with the catapult. An immediate hit! I hit the smallestof the two kids slap bang in the front teeth.

Oh my god! What had I done? I instantly realised how absolutely dangerous this had been. It could just as easily have been his eye!

That evening the farm manager visited our home. When my mum answered the door he asked for me and demanded I hand over my catapult. I went to fetch it and duly did so.

A couple of days later, I was standing at the corner of the crossroads in the village where we lived with some of my mates. It was where we hung out and right in the middle of the village - and this guy was coming along the path towards us. Oh dear! What would he do now? I just stepped towards the back of my friends a bit to distance myself from him a bit. I didn't run off but just moved out of his way somewhat so as not to be too conrontational.

As he got nearer he pushed his way through my mates and gave me a fist slap to the side of my head with his clenched fist. I must have gone down instantly I guess and came to a few minutes later. By now he had gone out of sight. My mates asked why the hell he'd done that and so I told them about the regular cobble throwing ambushes from his kids and what had happened.

Later, since he was also a schoolmate but in a higher class, I found out the guy's son had suffered a broken and split front 'second 'tooth from my catapult shot and was going to need a partial denture for the rest of his life. I also found out that his father had been a sergeant in the commandos in the war.

Anyway, that was the end of the matter. We just got on with the rest of our lives. No police. No assault charges. No probation. The ambushes? They stopped.

And the date? Circa 1953.

And in the late 50's to the 1960's we had some of best rock and pop music in history.

Mnamreh,

Fully agree there. If you are honest you can never be a politician.
It can be very dangerous to always tell the truth.
I remember a TV programme many years ago, where several people told the truth for 24 hours, it was chaos. Withing a few hours so many people had been insulted and upset, no one was speaking to each other.
Next time your wife asked, 'Do you like my new hairdo, or, 'Does this dress make my bum look big', try telling her the truth, and then duck.

Just think if the politicians tackled areas such as foreign policy or terrorism in the way it should be done and told the world, there would be wide spread condemnation, you only have to look at the resent events of Gaddafi's death to see how the world re-acts.
The public may demand the truth, but when they find out what that truth is, they don't like it, even when sometimes that truth on how things are dealt with are the only options that work.
Lying makes the world go round, what should not be excepted is when politicians lie for the sole reason of protecting themselves, not others or the world in general.

This is quite interesting - Ethics guide

There having another go for a referendum.

When the French, Dutch and Irish voted No to the EU constitutional and Lisbon Treaties, they were asked to vote again. We must force our MPs to do the same.

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/20911?utm_source=EVERYTHING&utm_campaign=07e246ef83-EU_PETITION11_1_2011&utm_medium=email

There are more Porsche Cayennes registered in Greece than taxpayers declaring an income of 50,000 euros (43,800) or more, according to research by Professor Herakles Polemarchakis, former head of the Greek prime ministers economic department.

More at http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ianmcowie/100012894/fast-cars-and-loose-fiscal-morals-there-are-more-porsches-in-greece-than-taxpayers-declaring-50000-euro-incomes/

Ain't it odd.

The little Inglanders in the Uk are crying out for the democracy of having a referendum and yet they are condemning the Greeks for having the same rights.

One rule for one lot and another for us.

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Marvellous financial brush work attempted by Ozzzie on lousy economic figures.

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Are you comparing the Uk's debt situation with Greece's ?

Colleges lose licences in immigration crackdown

More than 470 UK colleges have been barred in the last six months from accepting new foreign students from outside Europe, the Home Office says.

They either had licences revoked or did not sign up to a new inspection system - part of government efforts to curb abuse of the immigration system.

It estimates the colleges could have brought in 11,000 students.

The changes were designed to weed out those colleges that were in fact involved in systematic attempts to get workers into the UK by helping them pose as students.

I am an 'August' baby and don't remember it holding me back at the school for young offenders. :-)


School odds stacked against summer babies, says IFS

Children born in the summer in England are at an academic disadvantage throughout school, says a report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

The study says that among seven-year-olds, August-born children are more than three times as likely to be "below average" as September-born children.

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15550015

My first thought was what on Earth is the Archbishop of Canterbury getting involved for. But then I thought - he probably knows as much as the experts.

Maybe his just getting on the anti capitalist band wagon.

This brings new meaning to Estate Agent jargon "The property has a wonderful aspect".

Barry caravan park cliff landslip inquiry continues

Investigations will continue into how a landslip left 15 caravans teetering on the edge of a cliff in south Wales.