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.

Alan,

There are so many corrupt practices in politics that if you want to vote for a democratic party, you have a problem. There isn't one!
There is corruption wherever you look.
Taking your views above seriously, re the Political Correct Brigade.(And yes I do believe it).
If you are thinking of standing as a future MP you will need a fund raiser.
If you wish you can retain my services.
If you are interested please contact me at Aluvinghoodydogoodingliberalite@hotmail.con or send an open cheque to
D P..........
Fantasy Cottage,
Head in Clouds Lane,
Land Of Nod,
East Yorks.
RU2B DIM

Trust me I used to be in finance, and insurance. I'm also a Fairly Straight Sort Of Guy.(apologies to Tony Blair re copyright).

Q What would you call your new party?

Alan,

Perhaps appropriate collective nouns could be harassing hoodies, harum-scarum hoodies, heinous hoodies or even helluva hoodie.

Greek, I'm in that business right now, so I'm at least as good at being honest and trustworthy, with the added advantage I can prove it to the FSA!!! (Honest)
I would love to see any MP with balls big enough to say it as it is. I am certain they would win a landslide, even with the hand wringers attacking them.
Phoney Tony got his biggest support when he stood and said, very often, "I would love to put money in to solve education / health / law & order, but I don't have enough to do it all at once".
It now needs someone to do the same with PC. Someone who can say "sod your idealism. We can never change people in a short space of time. This is the reality of it."
Look at the business successes we have all invested in. Can anyone, hand on heart, say they were not led by a strong individual who did not care who he upset, providing he made a success of it? UK PLC is the same.
As for a name, how about Fascists"r"us, since I would be labelled that by some arse of a sociology professor in Surrey.
I would love to hear suggestions for a manifesto. I would definitely make it a condition of any liberal studies degree that 1 year was spent as a copper in Tower Hamlets or Peckham or Handsworth.
Suggestions?

Bluelady,
On consideration, and being a traditionalist, I think I prefer the old collective noun of "Mindless Thugs", but that would have me arrested for some sort of incitement charge.

Alan

Actually Alan I was thinking of the combination of 'h' words for hoodies and the first one which popped into my mind was headless hoodies. So yours is by far the nicer one for these thugs.

Alan, Have you really seen Hells Angels wearing fur? Leather is a by-product of the meat industry, animals killed for fur are only used for fur. If protestors were to throw paint at leather wearers most would have to throw paint at there own shoes.

Alan,

I fully agree with your comment Tell things as they are.
I also firmly believe that if politicians were to hold their hands up when mistakes are made,"Sorry I got it wrong", they would gain respect and votes.
Can't remember what it was for but Arnie Schwarzenegger the Californian Governor admitted a mistake in policy, did a U turn and became even more popular. I fail to understand politicians who when in the face of overwhelming evidence fail to admit mistakes.

Yep. Very fashionable dangling from the helmet or as a trim collar on denim I believe.
Much other fur is a by product of the meat industry, including coney (rabbit - delicious). Animals slaughtered for fur alone then go on to provide ingrediants for pet food, farm feed, fertiliser and even sweets, as well as cosmetics and industrial use greases etc.
Anyway, what gives people a right to commit criminal acts, like dumping horse shit outside a restaurant or chucking paint around, just because they do not like anothers choice of clothing / diet?? I'd love to see the reaction if someone dangled a dead pig outside a muslim eating house.
And thats kind of the point. When those who do not like fur or eating meat are in the majority, the trade will stop due to losing money. Till then I will happily munch on a Koala Burger sprinkled with ground puffin and put my feet up on an alpaca rug. (I don't wear fur cos it is tragically ugly).
But in the meantime, will minorities please stop preaching to majorities and accept their views are marginal.
Alan

I didn't say anyone had a right to commit criminal acts, just pointing out leather is very different to the type of fur coats that a minority throw paint at.

Didn't think you did for a moment , Frampton.
You're right leather is very different to the fur coats, but I suggest that mink farms originally used mink for other purposes and the fur is actually the by product. Also Rabbit and other animals. I also agree that endangered species should be protected but the protesters have drawn an arbitory line and said all animals on this side are noble, or cute and cuddly and their meat / fur should not be used. We couldn't care less about those on the other side, such as sheep and pigs.
A dose of realism.
I once had a long chat with a committed vegetarian, who claimed their diet was due to vegetarian ideals. I pointed out they happily drink milk and wear leather shoes. They claimed this was not at the expense of an animals life and so it was fine. It must be pointed out that milk comes only from cows that have given birth in the last 12 months or so. What did they think happened to the cute little male calf? Shoes and burgers was the answer, as a by product of them getting a glass of milk and a cheese sandwich.
Anyway, I am a bit biased on this because I like my beer brown, my cigs high tar and my steak still mooing, but I don't visit my local vegetarian cafe and dump loads of cabbage stalks outside. ;-)
Alan

Hi Alan,
Well I have to admit I didn't know mink were farmed originally for other purposes - what are they?
How can your vegetarian friend claim leather shoes were not at the expense of the animal's life? Surely they didn't think the leather came from animals that had died naturally? I am a vegetarian who uses milk, and am very well aware that the milk industry is tied up with the beef industry, but I have to draw the line somewhere, and I also have to eat - going the fruitarian route doesn't seem like much of a life to me! I am against the way animals are farmed intensively rather than the use of animals so maybe I should get my own cow, and eat the calves, to get my milk, it has crossed my mind once in a while.
Frampton
ps. I haven't bought any leather for over a quarter of a century, but judging by the difficulty there is in obtaining high quality non-leather shoes, I realise most veggies don't bother going that route.

Perhaps she belonged to the African tribe where anthropologists discovered the worlds first health & safety officer.
They followed herds around waiting for them to die naturally because the officer wouldn't allow them to use sharp objects for safety reasons and ate them raw due to a lack of fire safety training.
You wouldn't believe it from some of the crap I post on here, but I am a real live and let live type. I really don't care what people eat, drink or do in their spare time, as long as they don't try to make me feel bad about what I do in mine.
I also get a little angry at dual standards and badly thought out arguments.
For example. Last week I was outside a supermarket having a quiet ciggy, under the shelter by the door when a woman with kids berated me liberally about my smoking and the damage it was doing to her and her infernal kids. Indoors i could have meekly accepted this but this was in Gods own fresh air. She then proceeded to jump in her large diesel engined car and turned the key. Half of Leeds was engulfed in a plume of carcinogenic fumes that made Hiroshima look like a sparkler. Hmmmm. Your pollution is fine then, madam???
Enough of the soapbox. Just let me be an old fashioned bloke, cos with my lifestyle I wont be alive long enough to bother you much longer.
Alan

LOL at the health and safety officer story!

Two items of news this morning that have caught my eye.
Firstly the OED has been lambasted for the inclusion of a new word to describe a menial and lowpaid job, with no prospects, usually within the service sector. The thought police are outraged and worried over the offence it may cause to use the word "McJob".
Personally, I find it hilarious and accurate, though perhaps a better description of those following a worthless and offensive career would be "MP" or "Thought Police Inspector". I feel though, that it will be a short lived problem. McDonalds will be forced to close, soon enough. Following the anti-smoking policy success, similar battle lines are being drawn up on the war against obesity, the UK's No 1 health issue. Councils will use the same policy they are using on smokers to install bouncers outside fast food joints, armed with tape measures and scales, to say things like, "You can't come in here you fat salad dodger, until you lose 6 stone and stop being a burden on the NHS".

Secondly, this wonderful idea to increase fly tipping by the simple expedient of charging householders for the rubbish they throw away. This will mean industrial estates and country lanes everywhere will, at 3am, resemble the M25 in rush hour, as people disgorge bin liners full of crap from their cars.
Alternatively, the microchips will be smashed every single week by people saying, "Not me Guv. You really should do something about the vandalism around here." Or, "Not our rubbish, Guv. Some other pratt is filling our bin to keep their costs down".
apparantly, none of this has occured to our six figure salary MP's, which gives weight to the idea they should all be sacked and given McJobs, which we could alter the description of to "Essential service operatives of reduced ability and imagination". Actually we could probably use that description for their current work.
Alan

itsd great getting pissed

Here's a little pick-me-up for you, bos.

Talk about the PC brigade.

The new addition of a RSPB book has **** Robin, in place of Cock Robin.
The same book still mentions by name Tits, boobies and Shags. I wonder how long it will be before these words are substituted by asterisk.
A landlord of a pub wrote to the Daily Telegraph wondering what he should do about the pubs name in case it offended the PC Police, (It's called The Cock Inn).
When the RSPB was approached they said that the change was in case the word Cock upset little children.

You couldn't make it up, if you tried.

In the USA, the famous magazine, "Titbits" was renamed to "Tidbits" in case it made any poor Yanks come over all unneccessary.

Sorry Alan, I will have to report you to the PC Police; you used the words Yanks...........now how do you think a child/teenager would interpret that?

Late on Friday, in Delft, I picked up a Dutch parking ticket.
I was on my way to the ferry so I had no chance to do anything about it.
Question is whether any of you know if they will chase me back to the UK for it?
Any ideas, anyone?
Alan

Alan, I have experience. In my first few months in Germany (so we're talking summer 2001), I was still driving my British registered car (my faithful and much-missed Peugeot 405 diesel estate).

Parked it the wrong side of some white line or other, but in what appeared to be a perfectly non-obstructive location, and came back to find I'd got a ticket. Which made me realise I was actually pretty lucky not to have had the car towed away and impounded, as the nearby signs implied could happen to parking offenders.

Anyway, I didn't pay the fine and never heard anything from the authorities. The view I took was that the parking warden had had his fun by issuing me with a rightly deserved ticket, and I'd had mine by being a foreigner and knowing I wouldn't get chased up for it (I mean, think of the admin involved!).

I salved my guilty conscience by telling myself I would never park illegally in Frankfurt again, ever, and that I had in any case not been fully cognisant of the parking regs at the time the offence was committed (which is no excuse in law, but made me feel better!).

Today I'm not so rebellious and probably would have paid, but at the time was feeling naughty and also had an American colleague who boasted that when he worked at the CBoT, he used to park illegally right outside and get a parking ticket every day, none of which he paid for, so clearly I wasn't going to be outdone.

In a nutshell, if you're feeling like an honest and worthy European citizen, pay up, but if you don't I'd be surprised if you heard anything more, and in any case the first message directed at you would surely be a reminder.