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.

booms follow bust just as surely as night follows day.
it dont matter whos governing when it happens.
they get the blame.
blame everyone and anyone but not ourselves.
' if you want to know the future
study the past'
Winstone Churchill
regards
dkj

A sure sign the government has run out of ideas.
In an attempt to stem the tide of knife crime, the home office has turned to Valerie Singleton and her experience of the Blue Peter years.
They have considered various ways to get knives off the street and eschewed ideas such as punishing people who carry them as old fashioned and not forward thinking.
Instead they have come up with an idea to reduce stabbings by saving youths the trouble of doing it themselves. If you are caught with a knife, the copper will now take you to the local hospital and show you a stab victim, so you don't have to bother creating one for yourself.
"Here's one we made earlier"...........................................

On the subject of crime and punishment, I once saw an old interview with one of the hangman Albert Pierreponts assistants that went something like;

"Do you think hanging prevents crime?"
"Difficult to say, generally, on account of it being hard to find evidence of crimes not committed, but specifically, yes".
"What do you mean, specifically yes?"
"Well I never hung anyone as a re-offender".

cheered me up when i saw this so i thought i would share it. this was once the best footballer in the world. 6 years ago he was lifting the world cup, now he just lifts a few pies :)

Interesting Property web site to have a play with:

http://www.zoopla.co.uk/

Check out your own and your neighbours' homes and sales up and down your street and, if you've moved during the last few years, have a look at where you used to live previously and what's happened to prices and values. Price details and forecasts. You can also 'Claim your own home' and edit up the details. Excellent 'Bird's Eye Views' and 'rotations'.... and more.

I don't know where they get their information feeds from, but this is certainly one very serious web site.

tried posting a picture, but it didnt work,

Looks a great site, although they do have my house round the corner from it's exact location.

A word of warning (although I am probably being paranoid, but since the alien abduction I can't help it) be careful if you update your house details, re extensions etc. It was rumored a few months ago that our beloved government was linking into sites such as these in order to re-calculate community charges.
As to that paranoia, as I keep telling my psychiatrist, I'm really normal, but he doesn't believe me. He has people following, and watching me all the time.
Of course, you lot won't believe me, no one does, everyones against me. It's not fair.

Greek

Yes. Thanks for that. My psychiatrist has people following me too, by the way. He knows I am paranoid. He hasn't told me yet but I know that he knows.

We have chucked a lot of soil onto the house and conservatory roof and sewn grass seeds. For stage 1 the general idea is to get a result something like the following and then our house will be invisible to the authorities:



I do not want to disclose the objectives for stages 2 - 716 yet as we are so far from the sea.

ive lost my glases again :(

Fair, open and above board. You wish.

The Daily Telegraph reported today that the LSE has come under fire for refusing to name 4 AIM companies that it has fined a total of 170,000.
These breaches varied from
1 Misleading and unrealistically optimistic statements.
2 delaying the publication of price sensitive information by up to two months.
3 Omitting material facts.
All I feel are serious enough offenses for these companies to be named. As it stands I/You may have shares in these companies, and have been mislead.
Several months ago I made an official complaint against a company, backed up by evidence of shareholders being mislead. The FSA informed me that if my complaint against this company resulted in a penalty that was not deemed a Public Censure then I would receive No update. So to date I have no idea if any action (penalty)resulted.
It looks as if the LSE are as open as the FSA are. Decisions such as these make companies less likely to be open with their shareholders.
I'm sure the 'treat shareholders like mushrooms' is relevant to the main markets and AIM equally.

Todays News. Crime Figures Greatly Reduced.
So the crime figures have gone down dramatically, so it therefor follows that crimes occurring have gone down by the same figure. DON'T YOU BELIEVE IT.
I was a Police Officer (that's lost me a few more friends) until retiring in 2003.
During my service the Home Office often sent out directives that instructed us to record crime in certain ways to reduce figures. Sometimes crimes were recorded in such a way that they did not show up on the crime figures at all. Presumably this distortion of figures is still going on.
Over the last few weeks I have contacted certain media stating that I am willing to give details re this which can easily be proven. They don't appear interested.
The official figures are about as accurate as an MP's expense account, (that's when they bother to submit any).

do you ever notice strange websites

http://seward.newsvine.com/_news/2008/07/09/1650905-the-unelected-president-of-englandland-satire

this dow is most difficult index ive tried to master, always get it wrong,
short term trades that is.
so why try? walk away.
hmmm yep but its fun pitting witts etc. for very small amounts.
try this, wait until im absolutely convinced its going up and then sell it, and vice versa.
what?
and lose money?....
regards ( to myself)
jkd

A couple of years ago my car doorlock
was broken and the tax disc stolen.
Police took all details and issued me
a piece of paper (cime number)
Looked at it when I got home.
It said "Lost in street",

Hi Tyketto,

Yes that's one example, (there are many more). After all could you prove it was stolen and not lost in the street, prior to the break in. Perhaps the break in was just so he/she could look round your car. Yer right.
They would probably record your crime as minor damage, which several years ago if the value/damage was less than (if my memory serves me right) 200 was recorded differently and did not count on the figures for damage. The amount was classed as insignificant, although to me and most ordinary normal thinking people damage is damage.
Just another quick example.
A person enters a sports changing room and breaks open all the lockers.
Several years ago the number of lockers entered (items stolen from each) would result in number of crimes, IE 10 lockers= 10 crimes, which made sense. Not any more. This would be recorded as 1 crime with a main crime number, but each victim would be given a separate individual crime number.
Yes it sound a pathetic way of looking at things but if they can find any way not to record a crime, or reclassify to a minor level they will.

Results....John Lewis sales ahead.

The John Lewis Partnership has halted a run of recent poor trading at its 26 department stores.

The CEO stated that trading had improved due to all the tax payers money that our MP's are spending.
According to a friend in the Press Association, Gordon Brown is considering a press release stating this as a reason why the JL list should be retained, and that their allowances re this list should increase. He wants to convince us that if more of our money is spent there the more profit for JL, resulting in higher Corporation Tax, therefor the country benefits.
After all it's worth a try, he does seem to believe the general public is stupid enough to believe anything.

Amazing Stuff:

Very interesting and extremely clever.

Pinched from another site, as a link so no prob re-posting.
It's said to be a sort of Tongue in Cheek to Shorting, although most will recognize many used traits.


http://boards.fool.co.uk/Message.asp?mid=11147432

2 very interesting articles on skynews.com this morning.

First one is a survey of those in the property game (estate agents etc.). They are reporting that they still have many potential buyers who are simply waiting. When asked why, they say because the media tells them prices are falling and they should wait. The prophecy is therefore self fulfilling. There is also a comparison with the 90's crash, when media was not available 24/7 and the internet was not widely used which seems to point to the problems being worsened by the media, though obviously not caused by them.

Second one is a regional "ad lib" survey of CBI members and the like. The responses of local CBI and CoC secretarys is that most of their members are predicting a slowdown in the economy and a reduction in trade and saying they think that due to what they are reading in the press. When asked about their own business, many are bullish and even predicting growth and hiring more staff.

One is left to wonder whether this slump would be more of a blip if not reported as sensationally and whether we are seeing a lie become the truth because people believe it.

I think that appears to be the modern trend, with a sort of loop of bad news, and once in that loop it's hard to reverse direction, gloom follows gloom talk follows more gloom and so on. As to many being bullish re their own businesses, I'm sure many posters follow the director buys/sells etc, and noticed that those buying far out weight those selling, meaning that there is a huge percentage of business leaders/owners out there who strongly believe that their companies shares at the current levels are a bargain. The percentage of buys over sells are far higher than the average. OK I appreciate those in the know don't always make the right decisions, but it does show as already said in the previous post, confidence in these companies, if not in the financial markets as a whole.

As to reporting things in a sensational manner, hoping that the more often you report something the more likely it is believed, now that's a well used Government ploy, unless of course it's a message that they don't want us to take note of (the burying bad news type).