Does anyone agree that there is a need for forum space to mention all those things that are of interest in the short term but, would not necessarily sustain a half a dozen or a dozen comments.
For example: Yesterday was the last day of the Six Nations rugby competition. Only of interest perhaps, to few on these Forums. I’d like to have placed a reminder but couldn’t find the last Six Nations subject, so didn’t bother.
Another example: Lord Neuburger, President of the Supreme Court mentioned that it was desirable that people should not be prevented from venting their often frustrated opinions on contentious issues for fear of condemnation. He thought that commentators who were opposed, were inhibited by the prospect of disapproval, from discussing rascism, homosexuality, ordination of females etc.
My Six Nations snippet was that it was a generally good result. Ireland won (by points difference) the Six Nations title from England. England won the Triple Crown and France was beaten ! Result.
By: MrBlueSky - 28th April 2016 at 13:35
EU referendum: Britons abroad lose vote legal bid…
By: trekbuster - 7th April 2016 at 18:50
I thought you might take it the wrong way
:rolleyes:
I assumed you enjoyed the film then. Would have been interesting to see the young Farage in there as well
By: John Green - 7th April 2016 at 18:47
Trekkie
Thank you. I appreciate your support. There’s nothing like a sinner who repenteth.
By: trekbuster - 7th April 2016 at 17:15
I have seen the light-this PPB has made me realise that Voting Green is the way to go.
By: MrBlueSky - 25th March 2016 at 16:15
CNN interview with Donald Trump about the terrorist attacks in Brussels, interesting thought about how to curb radical Islam in the World, by following General “Black Jack” Pershing’s 1911 ‘Muslim extremists Solution ‘
By: John Green - 25th March 2016 at 09:17
We all want to be rid of ‘Tory Terror’
By: Meddle - 24th March 2016 at 21:03
Anyway they’d squander it on booze and fags.
Bankers? Surely cocaine and caviar is more their thing?
Today would be Scotland’s first day of independence had the population democratically voted in favour of separation. Thank **** that didn’t come to fruition. The growing stock of semi-mothballed platform support vessels in Leith harbour are a small testament to what has happened to the North Sea oil industry. As it stands this country is £15 billion in debt, with a government too cowardly to bump up taxes and too feart to slash public services. Still, a couple of bitter seppies I know are sobbing all over Facebook today about how we could have been rid of Tory Terror today… Uhhu.
By: John Green - 24th March 2016 at 16:53
Well, it has to come from somewhere. Anyway they’d squander it on booze and fags.
By: Beermat - 23rd March 2016 at 21:19
*Rhyming slang. The difference between me losing at bingo (I don’t really play, those old dears are too damn fast for me) and a real merchant banker is that when actual bankers f*ck up it magically transforms into everyone else’s debt.. to the banks! And no worries, the bankers old school chum the chancellor can pay it off, by taking it from independence funds for the disabled.
All in it together. Orwell would have been proud of that one.
By: Beermat - 22nd March 2016 at 20:16
Have you met any of the current crop of Eton’s finest? I have, I live and work in Cambridge. And they are ones clever enough to be passed off as undergraduates, God knows what the rest are like! Fortunately they won’t find themselves in charge of anything important in the forces any time soon. Unfortunately they may find themselves in charge of banks. Or national budgets.
I am not a class warrior.. if I was I’d be a mercenary as I belong to a class not generally at war with anyone. I’ve just been around a bit, in all kinds of circles. One can’t help making observations.
While your attack on the left seems to involve accusing all those who don’t want to take from the poor to give to the rich of wearing sandals, you accuse me of ‘archaic stereotyping’ when I point to a phenomenon we are watching before our very eyes as Gideon’s budget falls apart.
Bingo? Blew me Giro. Felt like a bit of a merchant banker*, to tell you the truth.
By: John Green - 22nd March 2016 at 19:35
Beermat,
You’re a class warrior, “superiority by virtue of birth” where did that come from ? Archaic stereotyping doesn’t quite do it justice ! Playing fields anywhere were thought excellent preparation for life in the military. I think that they are still. Except that we no longer have any playing fields.
How did you get on at Bingo ?
By: TonyT - 22nd March 2016 at 17:55
Or panic in the terrorists camp that now he has been captured he would spill the beans on targets, people, safe houses etc, so they have simply brought everything they had planned forward before they are uncovered.
The safest place is often directly under the noses of those looking for you.
By: Meddle - 22nd March 2016 at 10:51
Explosions have ripped through Brussels airport and the metro system there. My gut feeling is that it reprisals for the capture of Salah Abdeslam. Even if not I probably won’t have to bust a gut guessing as to who is responsible.
I’m surprised that you can have terrorist cells operating in the city commonly regarded as the capital of the European Union. Perhaps I shouldn’t be too surprised. It does indicate, to me, a lack of consideration given to defence, which probably plays into the hands of the Brexit camp.
By: charliehunt - 21st March 2016 at 19:54
Trek – oh yes gently amusing no doubt but you are missing the point. Reams of editorial reflecting the magazine’s political affiliation versus one letter reflecting one correspondents personal experience. If the Telegraph is inclined to the Tories – which ones? Cameron and Osborne or IDS?
You can’t have it both ways…..;)
By: Beermat - 21st March 2016 at 19:53
This is a wind-up, right?
The ‘playing fields of Eton’ were, if anything, intended to produce senior officers. Not soldiers.
The world knows the results alright. I don’t disagree with you there. Some found the incompetence funny, most found it inexplicable. Fortunately the British armed forces developed into more of a meritocracy over time, and in time to fight a war that wasn’t about feuding knobs or shooting/bombing people who didn’t accept our natural superiority and right to their resources (they’d only waste it on um-bongo)
Man management – look it up.. http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/man-management
To spell it out – it’s what you have to do as an officer, or a leader of any kind. Results are usually disastrous in the long term if you think superiority by virtue of birth will get you through. Unfortunately, people who end up at Eton are apparently still vulnerable to this misunderstanding.
I’m off to play bingo. Or roulette. Or the stock market.
By: John Green - 21st March 2016 at 19:19
The playing fields of Eton ? Wrong, yet again Beermat. As an ‘ex military man,’ the games played on those fields were only ever intended to produce fine soldiers not, ‘man managers’ whatever they might be. And true to that purpose that is what they did – as the world knows.
It’s better that more money should go to ‘rich people’. They’ll invest it and create jobs for the poor. The poor and vulnerable will waste it playing Bingo !
By: Beermat - 21st March 2016 at 18:13
It’s a daydream, though, isn’t it? The real world is different. Enjoy your chips, and your little dreams.
Truth is to get where he got in a political party IDS needed a self-interest driven aptitude for low cunning. That is not the same as intelligence. Some politicians like to tell themselves its the same thing (“I’ll show them who’s Thickie Osborne..”). I believe it was Gideon who called him ‘not clever enough’ when, if you look at the context, he meant ‘not cunning enough’..
However, the budget the chancellor produced was so clearly an attempt to move money away from the poor and vulnerable and towards rich people like the Chancellor that IBS was handed a watertight pretext on a plate when he wanted to make his pro-Boris move. He was also annoyed at being treated in something of a high-handed way. Being an ex-military man yourself, John, you will know that the playing fields of Eton produce some of the worst man-managers in the world.
By: John Green - 21st March 2016 at 17:59
If it ain’t ‘right’; it’s ‘left !
…”in newspapers anymore…”
Mine always have an enhanced flavour when wrapped in the Guardian. From my favourite bench overlooking the Solent I daydream that I’m a scribe from that paper eating my words! Again.
By: trekbuster - 21st March 2016 at 17:42
:highly_amused: No, you quoted the whole letter. It was intended as a gentle leg pull, but if you can’t see how you fall into the same ‘trap’ that you said I do by using a letter that you agree with to reinforce your own position…..
Greenie, I think you may be a little skewed in your positioning of two of the papers you suggest are only fit for wrappers.
You suggest they should be closed…..and there was me thinking that you believed you championed freedom in the UK, surely that includes freedom to present alternative viewpoints. Suggesting anything else is a slippery slope
Oh, by the way you do know that you can’t wrap fish and chips in news papers anymore don’t you?
I can think of some other uses for certain rags, the DM being the most absorbent* 😀
*I mean wiping up spills on the floor of course…..what else?
By: charliehunt - 21st March 2016 at 17:17
I cannot see that quoting reams from an ardently right wing pro Tory publication achieves much other than to reinforce your own opinion.
It was in the Torygraph, ’nuff said.
sorry couldn’t resist
What? One sentence in a letter? I think you are stretching the link to the point of breaking, there!!:D Now if I had quoted reams of Tory opinion from the paper…..but I didn’t and wouldn’t!! :rolleyes:
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March 16, 2014 at 1:27 pm