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.

Bounds makes me think of bondage. Ok won't go there.

How does that tie up with this silly law, greek??

What galls me about all this is that if I were to set up a pressure group to press for these kinds of laws and rules allowing muslim men to follow their religious traditions in this country and offer legal advice and help on getting 4 wives here, flying first class HMRC, I would be awash with grants. The National Lottery, The Home Office, the foreign office, the ministry for racial affairs, all the bloody lot would fall over themselves to support me and give me money.
If however, Trevor and I, and a few of the likeminded who speak out on this august platform, set up a group to push for all citizens to obey the law, and for laws to be kept for the majority, for our moral values to be of higher importance than foreign religions and for the requirements of the indigenous population to be ranked higher than the desires of recent imigrants, what would happen then?
I would be denounced as a white supremecist, intolerant, charged with inciting racial hatred and derided as a nazi in the press.
I struggle to spot the difference. A few overly zealous Muslims are islamic supremecist, intolerant of their hosts views and morals, certainly incite racial hatred among non muslims towards muslims and are as far right as Hermann Goering. Yet they benefit from all kinds of legal protection.
As a kid we all thought George Orwells 1984 was a taste of the future. We were wrong. It was Lewis Carrolls Alice in Wonderland that was closer to the truth.

why on earth would anyone want more than one wife ? the amount of nagging one woman can do is truly incredible so why quadruple it ?

and worse still 4 wives ... 4 mother-in laws!!!

The thing is how does Abdul go about claiming?
Is he even going to tell the truth?
I mean - he goes down the dole and says do you need to meet the wife before I can cop for the dosh and they say yes, so he says, well the thing is they don't get on that well so I'll have to bring 'em in one at a time, OK with you?
And the dole says fine so he goes and gets number one, who's wearing a beige burka and signs, then he buggers off and gets number two who's wearing a blue burka and she signs ... is the dole going to ask to clock the boat just to check it's a different wife?
Or even if it's actually a woman?

I was thinking of buying my wife 4 burkas and starting a new business 'Rent a wife' to save the Muslim guys the hassle of getting a wife of their own, and claiming benefits the way you suggest Chocolat. Trouble is, you may now have alerted the authorities to a possible scam: mind you, by the time it's been passed around the various departments to decide who should deal with it, I should have a good 12 months head start. (Burkad head start at that)

Are there any MPs using this scam yet? Or their wives and families, either? Or ancient mothers? Or family trusts? Hmmm? Probably not family trusts but female elderly mothers could have sex change operations paid for by the state under certain circumstances, eg, after the Christmas cards have been done. Hmmm? Probably not Christmas cards but let's say Ramedan cards instead. Or maybe even birthday cards.

Execline,

That's why I mentioned Derek Conway in my post....."I suppose we can at least be grateful that Derek Conway is not a Muslim".
And you could also say that it puts (Derek Conway) child benefit in a new light.

A Little Humour.

Two southerners - both businessmen in London - were sitting down for a break in their new soon-to-be-opened store.

But as yet, the store wasn't ready, having only a few empty shelves set up.

One said to the other, "I bet any minute now some thick tourist is going to walk by, put his face to the window and ask what we're selling."

No sooner were the words out of his mouth when, sure enough, a curious Yorkshireman walked to the window, had a peek, and in a broad Yorkshire accent asked "What's tha sellin' ere then?"

One of the men replied sarcastically, "We're selling arse-holes."

Without skipping a beat, the Yorkshireman said, "Tha's doing well then...Only two left!"

This is going back to a former topic (Mr Wetherspoon and badly behaved kids) but has/would anyone tried/try what David Cameron is advocating today?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/education/article3308629.ece

I'm all in favour Oblo; trouble is, if I intervene I am quite likely to be tempted to beat the crap out of one of the little sh*ts if they try to intimidate me - then who would be in trouble?

What about this Ripon thing then, cancelling the pancake race because someone may fall over? Bunch of tossers!

Any politician who talks about involvement with other peoples kids is talking crap.
A politician has not been this wrong since one stood on an aeroplane steps and waved a bit of paper around.
Fact. Once they are able to talk, the kids from the type of families that cause these problems would tell you to F*** off.
Fact. Children are taught from an early age in school that if people say or do things they don't like, they must ring Childline.
Fact. Government after government has laid down more and more draconian child protection laws to the point where approaching within 10 feet of any child is tantamount to criminality. Even my beloved cricket team has had to abandon its youth policy because we cannot afford seperate changing facilities for mixed age teams.
Fact. The kids know all this. At my eldest daughters school, when a mobile goes off in class, or something goes missing, standard policy was to do a "bag/locker search". This is being rethought after a 12 year old challanged it as an invasion of privacy and against there human rights.
If a politicain really wants to improve things, start punishing the little darlings with the full force and majesty of the law.
Rant over.

Amongst all this political stuff and putting of the world to rights, don't let's forget it's Pancake Day today and also Valentine's Day quite soon.

PS. There are some who say pancakes are bad for you.

Pancakes bad for you? Only in Ripon ExecLine, and only if you fall over!

Pancake Day Race cancelled in Ripon due to Health and Safety regulations.

The UK has surely finally gone mad. What Health and Safety poppycock!

I'm sure I said it before, but it bears repeating.
Anthropologists have found the fossil of the worlds first health and safety officer.
He belonged to a tribe who used to follow animals around waiting for them to die rather than hunting, becuase they were not allowed sharp spears, and then eat them raw as they were not allowed close enough to fire to cook them.

i know one of these guys , he earns a fortune going around counting cracks in pavements!

My confidence is now fully restored.

The Speaker of the house has chosen three MPs to investigate the allegations of MP's expenses. The three include David Maclean, the Conservative MP who tried to stop the Freedom of Information Act applying to questions about MPs expenses and who got the taxpayer to pay for his quad bike, and Sir Stuart Bell, a Labour MP who hired his son Malcolm as a researcher. While working in Parliament, Bell junior broke into George Galloway's (Saddam Hussein is my hero) office, stole his chequebook and made off with 2,000 from Galloway's bank account. Bell Senior is obviously just the man to decide whether MPs hiring members of their family can lead to dishonesty.

Talk about self interest. I would put unbelievable, but these days anything is.

And further to that..........
Yesterday David Cameron announced that all front bench Tory MPs must disclose everything about their expenses, who they employ, what for and where the rest of the money goes.
This was hot news on the radio, all day, and all day we were treated to a succession of Tory spokesmen pointing out that it was all in the interests of honesty, openess and transparancy. It was hilarious to then listen to them refuse to answer the questions of "will it apply to non front benchers" and "if not, why not". In a spirit of honesty and transparancy, they wriggled like hell and wouldn't give an answer, just trotting out the line of "why can't you be pleased we are doing something".
One interviewer of Ruth Kelly, illicited from her that while every man woman and child in the UK who wishes to claim expenses or tax reliefs must, by law, provide receipts, this doesn't apply to politicians, though her front bench would now have to. The back benchers apparantly, can still have the country take their word for it!!!

My problem is I desperately want this thieving Labour government out, but what's the alternative. Whoever wins the next election it will be a case of, it's now our turn to move from the opposition trough (not quite as lucrative) to the more lucrative we are now in power trough (which is probably a bit deeper).
I will probably end up voting for a fringe party. Not because I feel they would be any whiter, or better for the country, it would be purely as a protest vote.
I sincerely hope that with all the forthcoming financial problems, IE increases in prices for food, power, fuel community charge and so on people will say enough is enough and become far more militant.
The stone is being bled dry.