An exciting week
 

What momentous and exciting times here in Albion this week, I can hardly contain myself.

The chief exec, Lord Browne of British Petroleum and one of our top businessmen perjures himself in court; allegedly he met his male lover through an escort agency and not elsewhere as stated. Lord Browne said three times in court documents that he had met Canadian-born Mr Chevalier jogging in Battersea Park, south London. But in fact the court was given documentary evidence that he met him through an escort agency. Serious stuff for the perhaps aptly named lord, as it occurs to me.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.../nbrowne02.xml

Then we have the serious case of two teenage girls issued with £60 fixed penalty fines for drawing on the road with so-called pavement chalk,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_west/6605107.stm
doubtless some increased police awareness after a 5 year old was warned by the boys in blue for chalking a hopscotch square in his cul-de-sac:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/liv...n_page_id=1770

Of some importance is the Govt plan to fund parenting projects to the level of 30,000,000 UKP in order to teach young parents the art of singing their children to sleep at night; after the spate this week of teenagers shooting each other with handguns perhaps this may serve to correct the tendency in the future, however, since all handguns have been banned here for years I can only deduce the education system is working exceedingly well and the kids are knocking the things up in metalwork classes.

However, it all palls into insignificance compared to the actions of those official guardians of the consumer, known to us as Trading Standards. In a lightning swoop on a semi-local family bakery the owner was ordered to remove from sale and re-name the fancy mini cakes and baked slices.

Apparently "Paradise" slices are not made in paradise and thus are illegally named, worse, the fancy cakes decorated with either a robin or pig as a sweet confectionary decoration do not contain respectively any of the red-breasted bird or pork products and so have also fallen foul of the law.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/liv...n_page_id=1770
By the same token we can shortly therefore expect the demise of these English staples; Cottage Pie, Shepherd's Pie, Bath and Chelsea Buns, Toad in the Hole, Bangers and Mash, Angel Cakes, Butterfly Buns and many more that you can think of. Certainly that's the end of Spotted Dick and Swiss Rolls for ever.

Other important and more encouraging news this week concerns the sudden and copious loss of Veare's winter fur owing to the several recent weeks of very warm and summery weather necessitating a regular and robust brushing with the steel toothed comb, plus the most excellent performance of your author's self-invested pension obtained by the epitome of detailed, timely and accurate advice from a professional advisor which will see the pair of us, and cat, out of this inmate run asylum in 2.5 years time.

I can't wait.

R.

Good Grief!
 

What an exciting week indeed.

However we can do without that sort of political overcorrection I think.

If I lived there I'd be heading out to the nearest street with my coloured chalk to start drawing CMP pavement art. Or at least hop scotch for the youngsters. But even that will be in trouble because it doesn't contain any Scots.

And as for your Lord Browne, you can keep him and his dirty business too. I wonder whether Mr. Chevalier is a CMP enthusiast. I think maybe not.

Re: Good Grief!
 

Yes. . . . . . . . .
Quite so, but we are still waiting for the Govt promoted outbreak of common sense.
Neither Scots or Scotch I fear. Hopefully then Trading Standards will re-name this ancient and traditional game to something like "The draw numbered squares on the pavement if you can get away with it game."

This chap Julian Beever seems quite good at pavement art but has also fallen foul of the law here:
http://my.opera.com/gennafaith/albums/show.dml?id=27777
A tenuous connection with No.2 brown only perhaps.

You have to feel sorry for Lord Browne though, he's lost his 5m a year salary with 15m bonuses attached and his pension pot is only worth 22m.

Oh, the small m is millions as I can't be bothered to type the word or the noughts.

R.

Emigrate
 

Hi Richard
Its time for you to emigrate to Australia and get away from all that crap. Perhaps you could move in with Spinning-Ball who is also, in the near future, coming to live out here.
Bob

Re: Emigrate
 

It was on the short list Bob but eventually discounted for several reasons.

Certainly almost AUD2.5/1GBP is attractive but the distance and the transitional year or so with "home" seeming a huge distance away, as we do have a small, but not very close family, this is a potential settling-in failure. A 4 hr cheapish flight to our chosen destination is attractive and means we'll have a flow of visiting friends; 5% tax on pension income is handy too

There are very strong reasons to stay within the EU system too as it would now work for me as I cannot beat it! I can hold all my pension investments in Euros too when I want so there are no money changers chipping away at it. Even my pussy cat gets an EU pet passport and would fly out with us.

Strangely, the UK govt will not pay the state pension index linked in the Commonwealth except in Canada and the handy top-up of winter fuel allowance is witheld too.

The plan is in its initial activation, for you Hams out there, in a couple of years we'll exchange G3 for 5B; that's given the game away!

R.

Re: Re: Emigrate
 

Big island in the eastern end of the Med, then ;)

Re: Re: Re: Emigrate
 

That would be about right, and on the left of the officers cartographic efforts with green ink, however, I do know of 2 101's and a RL tipper that are awaiting attention and are currently just basking in the sun. . . .

There may be more. . . . . . . . .

R.

What Ho Old Chap
 

How the devil are you R

In jolly good form I see

quite agree about this week in jolly old England........... madness one and all. Still like you I have a plan for escape that is within a month of coming to realisation. For me it's not going to be sun and sand but the mists of a Welsh hillside with a 3/4 mile track with 5 gates, a railway crossing, two cattle grids and a plank bridge between me and the rest of the madness.

Barns for the toys a 250 year old house and six acres of grass and broad leaf the vendors recon they were a 100% self sufficient except for heating oil and I think a chap in my line of work could manage that as well. I like to think of it as defence in depth.

It seems a sad reflection that anyone around our age seems to want to either get out of the country altogether or dig a hole and sit in it......................... Git Orf Moi Laand

Pip Pip

Pete
:sheep:

5B land
 

5B would be Cyprus . An ex work colleague of mine was a Captain in the British army , he spent time stationed on Cyprus in the 1950's . He told me of a sad accident , losing one of his men when a Daimler Dingo steering tie rod end failed , the vehicle steered itself over a steep edge and tumbled down an embankment , killing the driver .

The Western half is under Greek jurisdiction ? Is that correct .

Mike

My, My....
 

Methinks this thread could get VERY interesting in time, on a number of fronts.... :D

Re: An exciting week
 

Richard, it's amazing if you aren't bald as the goings on in your part of the world would cause much hair pulling! Why do common sense and government have to have an inverse relationship?

A few comments on your post:

I now know why the BP refinery in Texas City, Tx. has killed more workers and exploded more often than any other. The executives are too busy "taking it in the brown(e)"!

The Yorkshire Rose restaurant in Abbotsford, B.C. serves a delicious "Faggots and peas" and will (I hope) continue to do so, unlike Ol' Blighty.

An uncommon bit of common sense from a politician. Texas Governor Rick Perry, in light of the slaughter of the unarmed students of the "Gun free" Virginia Tech campus has proposed legislation removing all exclusions to concealed carry in Texas. Currently, concealed carry is prohibited in schools, churches, courts, bars etc. This prohibition has not stopped any criminal from carrying out murder and mayhem, in fact it has only made it easier as they know where they will be the only armed person present. Soon, they won't know how many armed people they will be facing when they go berserk and how soon they will be "Swiss Cheese" when they start shooting. God bless Texas!!

Re: What Ho Old Chap
 

Pete, old chap; how splendid to hear from you, cracking stuff what?
I think a number of things conspired to hit the exposed nerve with a force of several Newton-metres, that and the square miles of oil seed rape which covers Hampshire with a yellow blanket owing to the EU two cherry bites where farmers get a set aside allowance plus the crop value. I drive through it daily and has set the jolly old hooter and eyes off with old-age hay fever.
Excellent stuff, I had not put you down as a pensioner just yet though. Need to remember I missed D-Day by only a year and 364 days.

I see, what a wizard wheeze; truck tinkering and no neighbour problems, a little engineering therefore and you have your own drawbridge; enough space to hack around in a carrier or Comet even.

No sand for us as this gets loaded with British booze filled grockles, but the sun and winters in the teens C will do nicely together with the cuisine, locals, housing, minimal taxes and petrol at £2 a gallon. The effectively zero crime rate out of the tourist traps is attractive too.
That does rankle and just fuels the rapid loss of national identity; an identity that is being denied to us anyway and is only officially supported and recognised in Scotland and Wales it seems. As you well know, it is generally accepted that 1,000 WASP Britons are leaving per day and being replaced by 1,500 immigrants of various persuasions and origins.

Mrs. Notton and I reckon its about time we withdrew from expending effort and money on others and start thinking about ourselves for once; I shall resign as Chairman this Oct and 2008 will be the last Overlord Show I organise ready for a move in 09 or early 10; it leaves a decent scarf joint to feed someone else into the jobs.

Of course when the Welsh mists become a bit overbearing, we are only 4 hrs away by judicious use of the twin supercharged blowlamp powered aluminium alloy cylinder.

GB airways is inexpensive and overseen by BA in their own badged flying machines, however, they have a propensity for blonde girly drivers and co-drivers as I can personally attest. . . . . . . . . One hopes they don't hang their handbags on the throttle levers and the lippy on the overhead engine start switches. Obtaining terra firma at Gatportairwick in a February hoolie at 01:50 was a trifle exciting and possibly had an engineer take a beak at the port side oleo leg and have a new 9:00 x 16 fitted, just in case. . . . . . .

Aha, sun's well up, a couple of more mails and I have to do some more ray training, as you do.

Cheerio old chap

R.

:cool: :smoker:

Re: 5B land
 

It would indeed; I didn't think for one moment that a prefix would fool any of you for long!
It is like that off the (over-developed and often touristy) coastal plain; inland the roads are good but twisty with substantial ravines as you gain altitude into the Troodos mountains, but some excellent spots for my TH6DXX Mike. . . . . .

They have a strange system, perhaps to discourage drink drivers or perhaps they haven't found out how to bend Armco. The roads are well protected until you arrive at a sharp corner where the outside Armco is tapered to ground and a two car slot is left at the apex for you to go off into oblivion, some have, as I observed.

I have some interesting pictures of all this and the 6ft of snow at the top of Troodos, however, these are in the memory card of my cheapo digital camera. . . . . . . . . .which rolled under the seat of the rental car and is still out there, somewhere. :o

It is self-governing Greek and EU also. The systems are in effect British and legal documents in both languages, the population is 99.99% English speaking too, which is a major attraction.

The buffer zone is now de-mined and crossing is an everyday occurrence although the "illegal" north side is years behind, it has a few pitfalls and best avoided for property, albeit very cheap, as the world regards it as stolen. Definitely a bit second world there.

Our very own McSpool is a bit of a Cyprus expert I understand, maybe one day he'll tell all. ;) ;)

R.

Re: My, My....
 

I don't know about that Winnington Geoff-Ball, you'll have to tell me to bugger off when you're all bored with the droning on.

R.

Re: Re: An exciting week
 

Probably because it too short to get a grip of Derek.

I think we all despair of Govt and common sense ever starting to limit the divergence nowadays, the UK seems to be epitome of Govt crass stupidity, every so often, as you may notice, it lights me up.
It is stupid to lie in court as he has found and the whole scenario was an aside to the case in point too. I have to stand corrected though, Lord Brown made some subtle but significant changes to BP, its not British Petroleum any more but "Beyond Petroleum", however, they keep the BP so you know who it is but the logo has changed into that friendly flower thing.

Oh yes, I am well aware of the consternation caused in the USA by the innocent but ill advised use of our term "faggot" by unwary Brits.

I am aware of the policy of Seriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona too!

I don't want to set a hare off and I'm not really qualified to judge but there seems to be a horses for courses argument. The figures show that per capita the US has 40 times the gun deaths of the UK, but it does ignore the established very commonplace ownership in the US whereas, even when it was allowed with difficulty, it was very, very rare here.

Totally different scenario I think.

R.

DX
 

" but some excellent spots for my TH6DXX Mike. . . . . . "

OK Richard , point it at VK and blow the dust off your morse key .

I used to QSO many Europeans back in the 80's , mostly on 20 metres CW . And all I had was a puny 10 watts . Back then the CW section of 20 was crammed with Russians , they would always be using home brew sets . I could barely manage 10 wpm on a hand key but those Russians used to doddle along at 20 wpm , without any effort . I only ever got one G station , he lived at Dartmoor . The D, F and I prefix was far easier to QSO for some reason .

mike

Re: DX
 

Morse key? You'll be lucky, Scientific Suck Back or bust for me! I'll give it a bit of the "Broadsword calling Danny-Boy."

R.

Re: Re: DX
 

I wonder how many here can ID that original quote.... :)

BTW, R, it'll be a cold day in hell when I have to tell you to STFU. I think you bloody well know that.

My best to M & V (bit of irony in those initials when presented together, wot?) :p

Quite a few I expect.
 

It's rather well known and tends to get (over?) used by one of those Radio DJ chappies on the national network.

Never having been there, I can't really imagine an FV621 haring up to a mountain bend, easing off, and firing sparks and flame out those exhausts to set fire to the undergrowth.....

gordon

Re: Re: Re: An exciting week
 

Even I, an avowed gun owner's rights advocate and devout supporter of the 2nd Amendment wouldn't argue the co-relation between availability and usage of firearms in crimes. The statistics speak for themselves. Yet many such as I, despite the most dire provocation seem able to restrain ourselves from grabbing the closest firearm and promptly doing away with our antagonist. So many others however, seem incapable of the slightest restraint. There is an element, a class, so-to-speak of people in American society who's music, dress, and deportment glorify the taking of, rather than the earning of, a better lifestyle. These people make up a disproportionate percentage of felons and murderers in our society and I think if their crime numbers were removed from the statistics, you'd see a much safer America. In the interim, I hope to continue to be able to enjoy the right to self defence when Alex and his Droogs show up, rather than sending out a CQD to summon and wait on the police to ID my body.

Re: Re: Re: DX
 

Second rate punk, ha?
Maybe, maybe; bear in mind I'm rapidly becoming a crusty old curmudgeon.
Indeed so, I had never considered that conjunction. To the latest, scaled tables, V is 60 equivalent years, surprising she stays at 16lb, either eating or asleep, as they do.

Time of next broadcast uncertain, will you stand by?

Over to you Father Macree

R.

Re: Re: Re: Re: DX
 

All I could think of from the spur of moment.

Since when have you NOT been?

As you well know, I have a combined 29 [human] years and 25 lbs of walking furballs here too, don't know what the hell I'm going to do when they're done.

Colonel Turner and I will remain at headquarters till operation completed. Good luck.

Re: Re: Re: DX
 

Wo Adler trauen, Kamerad!

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: DX
 

Thanks, that makes it even worse.
About 1996.
I've been there a few times, no fun at all.
It looks as if you're right sir.

R.