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.

Margaret Thatcher deserves every honour – apart from a state funeral

I would think a good place to bury the "lady" would be under a slag heap in Durham.

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Don't worry, Ed or Dave won't go too far to the left. Just a little financial regulation and tightening of the screws on oversea tax evasion should be enough.

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That is if Cameron and Porky haven't left behind a Banana republic.

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New Labour, was as corny as UKIP and I would like to see Blair in the Court of International Justice at Hague.

But, I believe there were many tory right wingers and UKIP supporters on this BB. who were whooping for joy at the beginning of Bush's and Blair's Iraqi adventure

Hello Profit Takers,

Also on holiday, but not in India thankfully -):

"There has been talk of a state funeral for Thatcher." Really?.. Didn't know it was dead.

Hey! Have a look at several pictures of these rare 'lenticular' clouds which were seen in the sky over Holmfirth, near Huddersfield, West Yorks.

Rubbish!

You can't kid me.

They are flying saucers.

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Elephant's sixth 'toe' discovered

A mysterious bony growth found in elephants' feet is actually a sixth "toe", scientists report.

I know its Christmas, but really..... Pink elephant is caught on camera

It is a mysterious ball that looks like a prop from a science fiction film - and nobody can explain where it came from.

Police have been left baffled after a strange metal sphere fell to the ground in a remote area of northern Namibia, Africa.

It weighs around 13lbs, has a diameter of 14 inches and its rough surface looks like ‘two halves welded together’, said police forensics director Paul Ludik.



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2077708/The-mystery-ball-space-Metal-sphere-fell-Earth-sparks-alien-speculation.html#ixzz1hLLFEfYZ

That's good way of keeping people busy. Certainly better than phone hacking, no matter if true, wrong or manipulation.

Do you rely on the newspapers anymore?

The Dutch finance ministry has given its support to Britain’s efforts to prevent a financial transactions tax being imposed across Europe.

A report commissioned by the Dutch treasury lashed out at the European Commission’s belief that such a levy – often called a Tobin tax – would discourage risk-taking.


Read more: http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2077742/City-backed-Dutch-Tobin-tax.html#ixzz1hLMaJiqm

Pinched from another site.

I would like to share an experience with you all, about drinking and driving.
As you well know, some of us have been known to have had brushes with the authorities on our way home from the odd social session over the years.
A couple of nights ago, I was out for a few drinks with some friends and had a few too many beers and some rather nice claret.
Knowing full well I may have been slightly over the limit, I did something I've never done before - I took a bus home.
I arrived home safely and without incident, which was a real surprise, as I have never driven a bus before and am not sure where I got it from?

Happy Christmas

Greek - copied and forwarded :-)

T. will see you on the 6th jan at wolverhampton

Does his wife know ?

UK economic growth revised up to 0.6%

French economic growth revised down

Marvellous,

It would be interesting to have a detailed breakdown of the UK GDP. especially export and "inventory".

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That's right Fred dispute the figure's because they are positive, strange how you accept them when they are negative, biased or what-----Happy Christmas.

Happy Christmas everyone and hopefully a healthy and prosperous New Year
2517

25.

No, just not gullible.

Happy Xmas to all.

Sudanese street gangs that began forming around 2003 are responsible for the most serious violence, according to Bruce Ferrell, a former gang unit detective with the Omaha Police Department.

"They've been involved in a murder attempt on a witness, drive-by shootings, robberies," said Ferrell, who now leads the Midwest Gang Investigators Association, a non-profit group that studies gang trends in the region. "We've had a number of kids getting locked up."

With no more than 350 members overall, most of them teenagers, the Sudanese gangs represent a small fraction of a massive nationwide gang problem, in which an estimated 1.4 million gang members commit nearly half of all violent crimes in most jurisdictions, according to law enforcement surveys. But their illegal acts earned them a brief mention for the first time in the FBI's latest national gang threat assessment, released this October.

The agency described African Pride, which began in Omaha but has spread to Lincoln and other Midwest cities with Sudanese refugee populations, as the "most aggressive and dangerous" of the gangs. Other gangs include the South Sudan Soldiers, TripSet and 402, who take their name from the Nebraska area code.

Sudanese community leaders in Nebraska do not deny the gangs' existence, but describe their members as misguided youths, not hardened criminals. With help from city and state agencies, Sudanese groups are working to identify at-risk young people and steer them away from crime.

"I will agree that there are Sudanese gangs in Omaha," said Malakal Goak, a Sudanese refugee and director of Caring People Sudan, an Omaha-based non-profit group that provides health and educational services to the refugee community. "But even though there are gangs, we still have a very strong culture that can redirect them to come back to a normal life of the community."

The emergence of the gangs follows a familiar pattern. Driven by poverty, social dislocation and other factors, street gangs have arisen from virtually every immigrant and refugee population to arrive in the U.S. for well over a century, according to Mike Carlie, a retired professor of criminology at the University of Southern Missouri and author of a book on street gangs.

"It's called the immigrant tradition," Carlie said. "It's something that communities should know about before they ever begin to take on a population like this."