We once had some ‘friends’ who emigrated to Australia because they reckoned that the UK was being taken over by ‘Coloured People’ and didn’t like it.
On arrival they were surprised to find that the country wasn’t at all like the suburbs of Surrey as they expected it to be, and that there were objectionable natives wandering about. They had no idea about this apparantly and it upset them so much that they came back to the UK, unlikely to be Australias loss I reckon.
On our subsequent and final meeting, they reckoned that the Aborigines were so objectionable and stank so much, that they couldn’t be in the same shop or space as them and couldn’t understand what they were doing there, it was impossible to try and make these people understand that Aboriginese were there first and had every right to be there.
Nice one, how many people living out there have the same attitude as that, is it a prevalent attitude amongst white immigrants from the UK.

Sorry, I can hear the local council putting chainsaws through our lovely nature reserve over the fence, you may next find me communicating from jail after I’ve put the chainsaws through the local council office.

So bad, it should have been a Morecambe.

For those Americans on here, Morecambe is a sea-side town a few miles from Lancaster. Morecambe is now unfortunately a very run down and sad looking place. Various attempts at sprucing it up have failed. Mainly because it’s too cold there to be at the seaside, people go to that part of the UK to walk the Lake District.

Now, now, don’t be too hard on the place, I have relatives living there. Wait till the restoration of the Midland Hotel has been completed, then we’ll see, assuming they can find anyone wanting to stay there of course, which is unlikely, unless they are Art-Deco fanatics, but the views across the bay are nice though, despite all those groups of people with buckets and fishing nets.

Having raised the issue of Scouting, lets view the possibilities of this in the aspect of a ‘responsible’ goup.
I worked with the Scouts for many years, despite being a small village group, our leaders were incredible. We had experts on sailing, canoeing, mountaineering etc, my speciality was mountain knowledge, map reading, camping skills, generally living off the land.
Our kids were taught to pretty much be able to look after themselves, it was noticeable at Jamborees and such like, how much more independant our kids were compared to some of the others, to put it in to context, despite the fact that we were the smallest group at the International Jamboree in Walton in 91, and bearing in mind there were 5000 Scouts from all over the world present, we won the bronze award, third place, a bit of a triumph.
As time went on, it became more noticeable that the attitude of the kids coming through from Cubs was pretty pathetic, they were only interested in computer games and football. Now we are talking about middle class kids here from wealthy local farming families, rich kids who’s parents had moved from London, and kids from the families of MOD Police instructors at Wethersfield Base, ( they were the worse).
My own son was probably the last true Scout left, he had to pack it in anyway at 15, but was so fed up with the up and coming kids, that he wasn’t prepared to become a venture scout and have to deal with these nerds, that he went for the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme instead.
Leaving scouting aside for a while, he joined up, when the organisers saw his scouting CV, they thought he was Rambo, shudder, no this is what we do!!!!
Totally oblivious to the fact that his Chief Scout award meant he already qualified for the Bronze Award, he started off at the bottom.
Despite having apparently unlimited funds and equipment, he found the instructors so bad, that after personally rescuing them in the middle of Thetford Forest, he gave that one up as a bad job. He’s at University now, and a cool kid, probably the only scout ever in existance that is a real Masai warrior, but thats another story.
Back to Scouting, the kids that were coming through, despite their parentage, background etc, were just pathetic.
Our main scout leader resigned, he’d had enough of it. I soldiered on for a while with our new leader, a smashing bloke too, but what did it was a weekend narrow boat cruise.
Apart from my other attributes, I am an ECC narrow boat captain, but the behaviour and attitude of the kids on this trip was appalling. One of them nearly drowned and got crushed between two boats, the rest of the trip was mayhem. After that I didn’t want to know, the leader resigned as well and the great Finchingfield scout group ceased to exist, sad isn’t it, you spend all your time working with kids and it gets to the point where you can’t be bothered anymore, and wer’e not talking about inner city kids here, they probably would have made more of an effort.
So would you try and give these kids shooting lessons, I don’t think so, I’ve worked with them, no way would they understand the point of it all, it would be blam blam you’re dead, the situation with the shotguns at the Jamboree gave us cause for concern, we decided to give the area a wide berth afterwards.
Get back to your security cloaked mansion Mr Tebbitt and forget about real life, if happy go lucky, happy family, country village kids can’t be trusted with penknives, forget shooting practice, you’ll end up wiping out a generation, or is that a bad thing?

I have to say this, and it will make Mr Lawrence smile.
I used to be involved with the Scouts as a non uniformed leader, but we had a bit of a non-conformist group, we were always in trouble with the ‘Powers that Be’, as we didn’t exactly abide by their version of the modern Scouting code, ie, no knives, yes, how can you carry out Scoutcraft without a Swiss Army penknife, bloody ridiculous, can’t risk their lives with going out and making bivvies for the night, the list was endless, couldn’t do a bloody thing ended up with the eventual termination of myself and the Leaders involvement with Scouting, it got too ridiculous and a waste of time, apart from the threat of litigation, which did actually happen to us, it was an end to a part of my life caused by outside sources that were just pathetic.
What is amusing is that we went to a Jamboree at Walton on the Naze and as part of their tasks, they had to blast away at clays with a shotgun, this was probably 10 years ago, imagine that, youths given a shotgun at such an age with no previous experience, scouts were obviously considered beyond the pale at the time, but even then I thought it was a bit wierd.
Any Scouters on here, ever kipped on Scaffell Pike with a load of divvies.

Just as an aside,These Guys don’t need a local multiplex 😮 .Think I’ll start doing the lottery;) .

Did you see ‘The One Show’ on BBC1 19:00 the other night, don’t scoff, you can guarantee theres always something on there thats interesting and it goes out completely live as well.
Anyway, there was this bloke, and I don’t know where he lived, London? and he had fitted out his flat totally, from walking through the door onwards, into a replica of the Starship Enterprise, Jean Luc Picard version.
It was absolutely amazing, I’m sure he said it cost him 50K+ to do it up, but the attention to detail was out of this world, he even put on a Picard uniform when he got home from work.
Where he got the bits from was anyones guess, I think he should feature on ‘Grand Designs’.
Could anyone but a Trekkie live in such a place, I doubt it, it was too clinical, it would drive me round the bend. Imagine taking a girlfriend back home to that place, even Uhuru would freak out, especially if he tried to kiss her, if he wasn’t Kirk!!!
If you want to see it, it must be on that BBCi web site, I reckon it was on early last week.
I think it’s worth digging up if you have’nt seen it.

Incidentally, for you CSI freaks, ignore what it says in the Radio Times concerning Tuesdays episode, switch to 5 US afterwards and you can see the follow on episode straight after, Nil Pointes to the Radio Times.

I’ve just been up to the garage to buy some diesel and seen all the outraged newspaper headlines, quite amusing really, I don’t see what the problem is, let em get on with it.
Question is, which hasn’t been raised, if Sharia Law was introduced, how would this work in relation to ‘British’ Law.
If some poor woman was found guilty of being gang raped and sentenced to execution by AK-47 at Bradford football ground, would she not be able to appeal to ‘proper’ courts, then what would happen. Or similarly, some youth found guilty of dangerous driving and mowing down women and children in Keighly, whether he was a Muslim or not, but lives in the middle of their community, might he be able to appeal to a Sharia court and merely lose a little finger on his left hand.
What would happen if an Asian, but Christian woman living in what would be set up as a Moslem area accused a bunch of Muslims of raping her, what would be her legal rights and who would decide.
Under Sharia law, what hapens to the bodies, limbs etc of people mutilated, stoned, beheaded, blown apart with Kalashnikovs or explosives, will they be dumped outside of Bradford Woolworths for all to see as an ‘example’.
I just had to smile, it’s friday of course, I’ve just seen one of the rare local Muslims out for his early morning run, dressed of course in the full regalia, cap, white robes, the lot, you have to feel sorry for the poor bloke, that his indoctrination has streched so far.
I remember many years ago, a quote from I think a previous, but more sensible Archbishop, ‘Like the Christian religion a long time ago, the Muslim faith is still young and aggresive and we have to ride out the storm’.
Well put, but how long does this storm last.
Over to Mr Lawrence.

I thought that both programmes were pretty good.
The first, on BBC4 was mainly about Pathe News archives which were being shown to Bobby Charlton, including never seen before colour footage of the team in action the year before.
Of course there were the usual howlers, team board Viscount, then we see a Boeing 707 in flight then a view out the window of a Viscount again.
The later programme featuring Harry Gregg going back to the scene again was much more poignant. He did make the point that the other victims should be remembered and not just the famous players.
He described seeing the undercarriage being raised before the plane hit the fence, house and fuel dump, I was very surprised about that, it must have been incredibly low, and Bobby Charlton did make the point that sitting facing backwards saved his life, I think that applied to the other survivors to.