And now the bloody SNP are cynically using the vote to demonstrate their new-found ‘muscle’

That referendum result was an unmitigated disaster for England.

Then your lot shouldn’t have done such a good job of convincing us to stay in the union. :stupid:

In fairness, the SNP must be enjoying their muscle down South, as they are doing a dismal job up here. Hospital waiting times have increased under their rule and school attainment levels have gone down. The new centralised police force up here carry out stop-and-searches four times more frequently than the UK average but fail to report to a serious car crash, allowing two people to die as a result. The SNP’s firebrand ‘cybernat’ trolls are slowly turning in on themselves as well. Despite all of this the SNP claim, somehow, that all of this would be solved if Scotland was granted FFA, despite the abhorrent maths that littered the white paper.

No wonder Nippy was stuffing her face with Strawberries at Wimbledon this week… anything that happens down south is a nice distraction from the bickering up here. Scoring a point against the pro-hunting crowd will no doubt further fuel the anti-English mob.

Roast rolled loin of Reynard – delicious !

You’re in good company!

http://www.express.co.uk/news/showbiz/438517/Phillip-Schofield-causes-a-stir-as-he-tucks-into-a-FOX-MEAT-lunch-on-This-Morning

I look at it two ways. Having spent some of my university careers around the ‘young fermers’, I understand that it is difficult for us townies to fully comprehend a lot of the culture and practices in the countryside. Their attitude towards animals is often less than exemplary, and it doesn’t start or end with foxes. One individual used vehicle fumes to gas a covered trailer-full of ‘left over’ turkeys following the Christmas season. Others took great delight in dispatching noisy crows and rooks from their bedroom window with an airgun if necessary. To underwrite all of this, and dismiss otherwise mentally sound individuals as having these feral killing urges is to simplify the issue immensely. After all as a society we are often told to be tolerant towards bizarre quirks in other cultures (Halal meat production springs to mind), so why should we write off our own traditions so readily? Hare coursing, badger baiting and fox hunting are traditional practices within a culture that the vast majority of us are not a part of, even if we live on the same land mass. If we cared so readily about animal rights then we would not support any aspect of the meat industry. Yet we convince ourselves that free-range hens are anything other than battery chickens with a view of the sky, or that veal calves have it better than their brothers who took a bolt to the brain on day one. Funny old world, given that the UK has the best and most comprehensive set animal rights and regulations within the EU. That a relatively small number Hooray Henrys have a distasteful method of vermin control seems like small beer really compared to industrial-scale meat production.

On the other hand, I remember personally having to kill diseased fish in an animal research lab and not finding it an easy task. A friend of mine used to work on a fish farm installed in a Loch in the North-West of Scotland and has similar tales. Whilst they had to appear to be doing everything by the book, Salmon sometimes got lost on the way to the bins and ended up in the freezer. By comparison, the lab I was working in had to be squeaky clean. One of the fish I had to dispatch had a genetic defect that meant it couldn’t spawn, and instead it accrued a backlog of eggs under its scales. This lead to a very lopsided fish that swam in circles and ultimately floated up to the surface. To verify, in accordance with UK legislation, that the fish was dead, one had to take a serrated knife and hack into the brain to a certain depth. The fish could already be long-dead, but the brain needed to be destroyed to meet government standards. This endless, and slightly farcical, red-tape seems at odds with the idea of a pack of dogs savaging a vixen in a field somewhere. I do feel that foxes should probably be ‘controlled’ is a slightly less barbaric manner, even if they are a massive nuisance to anybody trying to keep ducks or hens.

Edit to add: I find it disappointing that the Tories view this as a priority topic, as they are clearly trying to keep their back bench and home counties pals on side. It somewhat undermines any attempt, as half-arsed as it may be, of making them appear slightly more in tune with the majority of this country.

I thought this was about Jim’s fan club

‘Walking Dead’ could apply equally to half of ‘General Discussion’ no?:rolleyes:

Thanks David. The general message remains though; it isn’t just Americans that wreck Catalinas!

It might be harder/more expensive for TIGHAR to take action against Key if anything were to be posted here. If Keypublishing is UK registered and the servers don’t sit on US soil it might be ok. I’m basing this on my scant knowledge of Copyright/Trademark laws from times a US manufacturer has tried to wage war on overseas sales of ‘counterfeit’ goods. They have a lot of legal muscle within the US but have to resort to posturing and bluffing to get the same results elsewhere. Can TIGHAR afford the services of Carter-Ruck perhaps? Good to know those donations are going to a worthy cause. :applause:

As J Boyle’s post on the previous page summarises, there are a number of threads spun by TIGHAR that lead nowhere. I’m curious as to how they can get a new Amelia story in the Daily Mail every few months.

A toughie. Britain needs more housing and disused airfields offer up large areas of pre-levelled land. I don’t think it is worth preserving every remaining war time airfield if there is nothing more than a small memorial to notify the general public as to why these vast concreted areas are being conserved. Why is Manston worthy of saving over any other airfield? I’m genuinely ignorant here. I don’t think historic airfields should be forgotten, but you could incorporate remaining buildings into a development quite sensitively.

Having said all that, some flats were built on the site of the former Parsons transformer factory here in Edinburgh and their method of removing years of heavy metal deposits out of the soil seemed a bit shaky, so I’m not sure I would let my kids go digging in the garden! Surely any airfield redevelopment could be stalled if you claimed, say, that radioactive dials had been smashed up on site or that there was a lot of live ammunition in the top foot of soil? Asbestos contamination?

This thread had reached a bit of an impasse. To summarise then, if everybody watched airshows from the perimeter fence then there would be no money flowing into such events, and they would cease to exist. However not everybody freeloads now, or ever will, so this seems more like an issue of morality and ethics, rather than the imminent demise of all airshows in the UK. Some people cannot afford to stump up the exorbitant cost of airshows, especially if they have a lot of family in tow. However, a good number of airshow freeloaders can clearly afford high quality camera equipment, and seem emotionally invested enough in historic aviation that you would expect them to financially contribute to the events they photograph at length. Furthermore such freeloaders are not factored into the planning and safety precautions rolled out at airshows, and therefore put themselves in a position of slight risk as a result. There is always the chance, as well, that a casual observer may be drawn into a lifetime of paid-up airshow attendance, and therefore we should not frown on each and every freeloader with the same degree of furrowed brow.

I fully plan to attend both Scottish airshows this year, with my partner in tow. I’m taking four people along to East Fortune on the 25th. My Grandparents took me to East Fortune when I was a small boy, and it clearly left a lasting impression.