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.

Hi bos ,no i wasn't a mail order groom ,however if Jennifer Lopez is reading this i may just succumb to her constant harrasment and meet her for a date ,i'm trying to put some weight on to look good in that shirt and shorts ,you need to be at least 300lbs for those.

sounds like a good idea!

VIENNA (AFP) - Women in Salzburg will this year again be able to pursue their shopping with abandon over the Christmas period, free from sourpuss boyfriends and husbands.

For the second year in a row, a 'creche' will be set up in the town centre where women can leave their partners for a few hours so that they can hunt down all those last-minute presents, without a bored and whingeing spouse.

In a large white tent set up on Salzburg's central Herbert-von-Karajan square, the men will be able to play computer games, leaf through newspapers or magazines such as Playboy, or simply have a drink at the bar with co-suffering "shopping widowers".

Between December 13-23, women can "surrender" their partners at the tent's entrance free of charge between 4:00 pm-10:00 pm.

They are given a numbered ticket which they then have to present on their return to collect their spouse.

Alan,

You mention the Yorkshire Dales at the start of your list then go on to say, "But heres the point. Every time I come back, another one has disappeared".
Bl**dy H**l and I was going there tomorrow, for the weekend. What have they done with it? They haven't given that away to the EU like everything else have they.
Ah yes the old days in a Yorkshire pub, pickled egg and a black (sorry coloured) pudding sandwich with pork scratchings on the side. Still in some pubs (that have Jamie Oliver on the barred list) still serve those items. Although as I understand it they have added some Omega 3 oils.
As to the Humber Snipe, what a great car. 14 mpg when petrol was about 4 shillings and sixpence a gallon.

Jimmy B,

The sooner you go the better. Just look what you started. Been told there is already a que forming at the Humber Bridge. Nostalgia can be a terrible affliction.

Re the crhe idea for women to leave their partners whilst they go shopping. If my wife had to produce a ticket to retrieve me, she would probably loose it very quickly.

Greek.

Jimmy B: Naples, eh? You're certainly heading to the upmarket part of Florida (I have a friend whose mother-in-law has a house there)! best of luck with the move, etc.

ST

blimey !! hello soul. long time , no see. how are you?

Blimey, jimmy - you letting out rooms with a pool view?

Reckon soul will have to move back to Germany - he'll have more time to post then.

I\'ve been thinking again.....................
This time about something I keep seeing in the news called the environment.
I don\'t understand it fully, but I think I have enough of a grasp to form an opinion.
Apparantly, round our planet is something called an enzyme layer with a big hole in it. Or something.
Anyway, we\'ve all got to worry about this boyzone lair, cos if we don\'t we\'ve all got to live in greenhouses. I started applying a bit of logic and it looks like I have big feet made out of carbon or something, and they need to be smaller, so my first though was to stop walking round so much and start using the jag a bit more.
Pleased with my first attempt to save the planet, I did a bit of research, and I read that the government want us all to have hips to help!! I don\'t know about you lot but I was born with some, so they must mean those plastic ones my Nan had fitted at hospital. Then they say plastic takes too long to rot away. My Nan says this is a good thing, but when I said we better bury her now, cos it\'ll take too long to break down after shes dead, she hit me round the ear with the walking stick she doesn\'t need anymore.
Anyway, I looked again at the size of my carbon feet, and told the wife we better get more efficient stuff round the house. We started with getting rid of all the garden hand tools and bought a load of old petrol ones, cos that was much quicker. Then the neighbours started calling me an mental environment and vandal or something cos the missus next door said the knickers on her washing line smelled of old motorbikes. I told her straight to go back to using her old bleach based washing powder and a higher temperature. She said she couldn\'t cos of this cortizone layer. I said if it was a medical problem she should see Dr Muffin, the pox doctor. Her husband came round and hit me.
Anyway the garden tool problem was easily solved by cutting the trees and plants down, digging up the lawn and tarmacing it over. It solved another problem as well cos now I don\'t throw anything away. I can burn it all behind the house!!
Now I was getting so successful protecting the OJ layer, I turned my attention to the kitchen. I drink loads of tea and I had read that boiling a kettle from cold means loads of Polar bears drown when the ice melts, so I went straight out and bought a kettle that just keeps boiling all the time. I must have put loads of endzone back by now!!
Then it struck me. My bills have gone up, my garden is knackered and no-one will talk to me all because I tried to mend the hole in the frozen layer. My kids will have to do all this AND live in a greenhouse if we carry on!! So I decided, there and then, that if I go back to my old ways pronto, we won\'t have a bonzo layer to worry about and the kids can do whatever they want.
Its so simple, why hasn\'t anyone else thought of it?
I am now available for high ranking positions in the ministry of the environment, having solved mankinds biggest problem ever.
Alan

Hi Alan,

There are a few flaws in your thinking, but can't quite put my finger on anything specific. Obviously we both got a d- in science, or lower.
My only contribution to the global warming debate, is if we shut this government up, ban politice and think tanks we should with all the hot air saved, reduce the carbon footprint overnight.
By the way, iv'e greatly reduced my own personel carbon footprint as I no longer walk anywhere, I either drive, fly or go by train.

There was a bit on the news today about concerns over the carbon footprint of food on our shelves: I think the answer is easy - stop importing food. It makes complete sense and will be a big boost for the tourist industry of third world countries where a lot of the food comes from. We can all fly out there on 'food holidays' to taste the delicacies when they are fresh and the food won't have damaged the ozone layer by travelling over here.

Makes me laugh ,AL GORE.... I read in last weeks Sunday Times ,when he ran for president his estimated wealth was about one million ,however since becoming an eco warrior and jetting round the world saving the planet ,writing books and speaking on global warming he's now worth 50 million .Don't tell me it's not a big industry!!

Its a huge industry.
My mate Trevor, down the pub, (I told you about Trevor didn't I? He's got really hairy ears, but he wears sandals and a beard and once met Alan Titchmarsh, so he knows everything about the environment) reckons that scientists have discovered a butterfly in the Amazon that makes it rain. i didn't believe it at first cos when I checked the Amazon website it was just flogging books and stuff.
Anyway, he says they've called it the quantum butterfly or something and when it flaps its wings it pi55es it down in Rotherham. He reckons that Woolworths have started a secret breeding program and are going to release more of them so they can sell more umbrellas in Yorkshire and make a big fat profit.
Then he told me the plan was flawed because of El Nino. I didn't know he played for Rotherham, but Trevor told me I was being stupid. he plays for Newcastle, but it's not that El Nino. It's a really bad wind the Mexicans have that causes high seas in the Atlantic and dusty bowels in Texas. It sounds to me like too many jalapenos but Trevor said it was normal.
Anyway, he said that even if Woolworths can cure the Mexicans having bad wind, it doesn't matter, cos Nostradamus said the world will end next year, and hes happy cos he owes Mad Bill a fiver, and Mad Bill won't get out of prison till 2009 for GBH.
So he lifted his glass and said lets all drink to Nostradamus, but this bloke with a hump back at the next table though he said Notre Dame and grabbed the RNLI charity collection box off the bar and hit Trevor with it.
When I got home and told the wife that Trevor had been hit in the face with a lifeboat by a hunchback, she said it was a sign from God that he was talking rubbish and I can kind of see her point, but I'm buying a few Woolies shares just in case they know something we don't and Nostradamus was wrong.
I'll make a mint.

Al you'v got to stop dropping those acid tabs at the weekend !!!!

Kim,

Catching a jumbo to buy a bag of sugar quite appeals. A weekly shop in the Grenadines - why not? Inflation might rise a bit, though, with the cost of the weekly shop rising aound 2000%.

If it saves the planet, though, bugger the cost I say. Lets go for it!

Who needs a Green Party etc? between us we can save the planet, no problem!

does it need saving? i went on holiday a few times this year and i have to say , it looked pretty good from up in the sky. ;) also, at this cold time of year , i always think that those trails of smoke the planes leave behind look very nice.

Hi all and bos.

Polar Bears

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDIP71Lviys

6240 and 6244 - so true and hilarious at the same time. I can't see what the problem is now. Off out to get some smaller shoes and a bigger car.

They're vapour trails , Bos, not smoke. If it were smoke there would be far more plane crashes than we're led to believe there are. Or is this yet another government plot to keep down unemployment figures?

Interestingly, water vapour is by far the biggest greenhouse gas - it accounts for something over 90% of the greenhouse effect on the planet. Even more interestingly, something like 99% of it is caused naturally - not by man.

For some reason the media never mention that.

I'm going to ask Trevor about that, Oblo.
It might be a government plot, and Trev would know, cos he told me that the film "Men in Black" started as a training documentary for the government, but the script was nicked and they had to hush it up.
He gets all the secrets on account of him once working for the council.
Let you know after I've got him a pint or two, down at the pub.
Alan

It surprises me that it was nicked from the government, Alan.

I'd have thought their security was far too good to allow any
important info to be nicked or lost. It would never happen.