James Naughty on Today at 8 AM: "......after 8, we'll be talking to Jeremy Cunt, the Hulture Secretary...(cough, cough, cough...corpses....snuffles hysterically)...
Is that really true? Damn, I bet it'll have disappeared by the time the programme comes up on iPlayer Listen Again.
I hope someone has recorded it to put on YouTube. I've been calling the odious, happy-slappable little shit the Minister for Rhyming Slang since I first caught sight of his sick-making, smarmy face.
Note to self: must find something to be upbeat about today. Turning into a right miserable git what with this, that and the other.
I am pretty convinced that the sell-off of social housing in the Thatcher era was a piece of intricate social engineering. Home ownership as a be all and end all means that people become more self-centred.
Yes, and owning two houses, one in the UK and one abroad (for one's simply divine and well-earned holidays) might only increase this selfishness. (Except if you're morally superior to the great unwashed, in which case you see no contradiction in preventing the working classes from buying one home to live in while simultaneously buying two or three for yourself.)
But wait, that's not 'social housing', is it? If the 'little' people are allowed to buy their run-down council flalts, then it will only turn their empty little heads. It's only the middle classes who should be allowed to be home-owners as their houses are much nicer and they never think twice about going on strike anyway - they just don't do that sort of thing.
Struggle is for the proles, cheered on from the sidelines by the bien-pensant chattering classes who like to show each other how much empathy they have for the downtrodden while doing fuck all concrete about it.
Who needs intricate social engineering? The UK class system hasn't changed in centuries.
...meaning - think that in commenting on it, andrew marr managed to do it again, cue the various academics in the studio (previously discussing freud and marx) all trying to pretend that didn't just happen...
amusingly, on the thread, people who have previously been moderated for saying exactly the same thing are wondering if they can now get away with it, as the G has put up an article and enabled comments.
Enjoyed that 'slip of the tongue' from James Naughtie.Has set me up for the day.
@The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has announced that 58% children living in poverty in this country-numbering around 2 million children- have at least one parent working.The Foundation didn't say what % of these children come from families with 3 or more children.
Morning all... going quietly fucking mad here. Got a phone call from the dim evangelical driver at 8.00 this morning.
She can drive for us tomorrow. Yippee. OK just make sure you take your MIDAS certificate in when you got to get the bus. Oh! MIDAS? I think it has run out. Do I need it?
Aaaaargh!
So now I am waiting for the Community Transport people to phone me back to see if she is still registred (faint, faint hope). Otherwise it is back to square one.
spence - reminds me of the time dad realised that having x points on his license meant he couldn't drive the church minibus to greenbelt with about two day's notice so had to go around bribing people to help out...
Luke - the selling off of the council housing benefitted one generation of working class, it is now causing serious problems for the following generations who not only cant afford to buy, but face waiting lists for social housing of 1-1.5million. The housing wasnt replaced. This was a one off gift that has had serious implications. If the housing stock had been replenished that would have been a different matter.
loved the james naughtie......particularily the little cough giggle bit.......there was a period here when all tv journalists kept saying kamicazzi rather than kamikaze....cazzi can be translated to fuck, dick or basically any expeletive you fancy......
Alright. Have to go away because I need to sign into my work Gmail to check the spreadsheet.
I have rung the places I am getting the other two buses and arranged to maximise the seating. I can do that because there is a shopmobility at Watford and I can get the wheelchairs that we need there, so put more seats in the buses. And someone just phoned to cancel, which helps.
So I am going to try and shoehorn everyone into two buses. I wanted to avoid this because it is Christmas shopping and people need space for the stuff they buy. But on the other hand we are bound to get a few last minute cancellations.
And it turns out that both places can give us a bigger minibus than expected.
Now I just have to deal with the evangelical driver who doesn't believe me that they won't let her have the bus... I knew it was a mistake to phone her.
Parking this here-- example of British media hypocrisy.
Browsing the papers online or in print today you will no doubt come across a story about a supposed Russian spy working to bring down HMG by being a glorified tea lady for a Lib Dem MP. While there may or may not be truth in these allegations, (that is not my point although all the information she could possibly gleam is in the public domain) the fact is that the media are selectively ignoring other, more sinisterly goings on.
Just a few days ago, we hear from the Wikileaks that the Tories promised, in true Latin American style 'to run a pro American regime'. Where is the wall to wall media coverage, (at least past the initial headlines) where are the in depth analyses and special investigations. The investigations into the links and influence of the Americans over our defence procurement and policy, as the Wikileaks info revealed? OR that we are considered a waste of space in Afghanistan but still we are sending our young men to die for their extremely corrupt government? Any investigations?
Ah yes of course, our democracy can only be subverted from the East.
An American being prosecuted for murder has had his swastika tatoos cosmetically hidden on the orders of the judge (after a request by the defendant's attorney), who agreed that they might be prejudicial.
According to the story in The NYT:
Mike Halkitis, the division director for the state attorney’s office in New Port Richey, where the trial will be held, said that he fought the “absurd” request for a cosmetic cover-up last year, and that taxpayers should not have to pay for it.
While a richer defendant could pay for cosmetics or even tattoo removal, “the indigent defendant isn’t entitled to the same defense an affluent defendant can get,” he said. “That’s case law.”
“the indigent defendant isn’t entitled to the same defense an affluent defendant can get,”...
So, it's official..."liberty and justice for all..." actually means "liberty and justice for those who can afford it." God bless America. (Full story HERE)
The position of the UK on this report coincides with its drop in the 2010 UN Human Development Index (by 5 places) which for the first time included an inequality measurement. The UK's position in this index is the lowest of all the western developed countries.
Charles 11.49--- my major objection to the European Constitution was the enshrining of 'free and fair competition',ie: screwing the workers and the pillaging of public assets; the second was antony charles lynton $$$$$'s success in inserting the primacy of NATO ...
I was just looking for some background on Clegg and tuition fees, and found this:
"It is simply wrong to penalise people who want to make the best of themselves by saddling them with enormous mortgage-style debts from the day they graduate, especially when we know the root of the current economic crisis was too much debt. And it's clear that people from disadvantaged backgrounds are far more likely to be put off going to university if it costs them tens of thousands of pounds".
Duke, you may also be interested to read the Scottish secondary school statistics, which is always a pretty good indicator of the wealth/poverty of different places. here
Glasgow gets the lowest results and two areas around it, East Dumbartonshire and East Renfrewshire have the highest educational scores in Scotland.
Very interesting results- I guess you would find similar statistics in many cities, educated proffesioanls live in the suburbs. As to Glasgow, the results are shocking- and this is a city that has been Labour for over 50 years.
The reason I brought this up is that there has been a debate going on about the schools back in the Western Isles debates about whetehr is it bad teaching or bad parenting that has caused grades to slip. There are certainly issue with the teaching quality, I can remember from my own schooldays.
Has anyone put up a suggestion for a discussion of the UNICEF report on waddya? Being bottom of the list for developed western countries is an absolute fucking disgrace - but an excellent example of exactly how much ordinary people matter in the eyes of our masters.
...referring to their influence in the education system Spencer? Certainly, they were a presence when I went, although not as bad as they could have been considering their power base, but there have been issues really with teaching staff in general.
No, no crampons - but you bloody well need them round here, or ice skates. The freeze, thaw, freeze we've had means we've got at least 3-4 inches of ice on the pavements and still on a lot of the roads.
I've just got up for the second time (I had to sort something out earlier then went back to bed), so I've made myself a cup of char and opened iPlayer. The Today programme is not available (ditto for Start the Week).
The BBC under Mark Thomson: spineless, cowardly wankers specialising in adding a padlock to the stable door as everyone watches the horse galloping over the horizon.
The irony is that the thousands of diplomatic communications released by WikiLeaks contain no earth-shaking disclosures that undermine the security of the American empire.
The bulk of them merely illustrate the well-known fact that in every capital city round the world there is a building known as the U.S. Embassy inhabited by people whose prime function is to vanquish informed assessment of local conditions with swaddling cloths of ignorance and prejudice instilled in them by what passes for higher education in the United States, whose governing elites are now more ignorant of what is really happening in the outside world that at any time in the nation’s history.
The reports in the official press invite us to be stunned at the news that the King of Saudi Arabia wishes Iran was wiped off the map, that the US uses diplomats as spies, that Afghanistan is corrupt, also that corruption is not unknown in Russia! These press reports foster the illusion that U.S. embassies are inhabited by intelligent observers zealously remitting useful information to their superiors in Washington DC .
To the contrary, diplomats – assuming they have the slightest capacity for intelligent observation and analysis -- soon learn to advance their careers by sending reports to Foggy Bottom carefully tuned to the prejudices of the top State Department and White House brass, powerful members of Congress and major players throughout the bureaucracies. Remember that as the Soviet Union slid towards extinction, the US Embassy in Moscow was doggedly supplying quavering reports of a puissant Empire of Evil still meditating whether to invade Western Europe!
This is not to downplay the great importance of this latest batch of WikiLeaks. Millions in America and around the world have been given a quick introductory course in international relations and the true arts of diplomacy – not least the third-rate, gossipy prose with which the diplomats rehearse the arch romans à clef they will write when they head into retirement.
Years ago Rebecca West wrote in her novel The Thinking Reed of a British diplomat who, "even when he was peering down a woman's dress at her breasts managed to look as though he was thinking about India."
In the updated version, given Hillary Clinton's orders to the State Department, the US envoy, pretending to admire the figure of the charming French cultural attaché, would actually be thinking how to steal her credit card information, obtain a retinal scan, her email passwords and frequent flier number. --Alexander Cockburn, counterpunch.org
I'm mightily pissed off Paul as I hate being incapacitated.
There is some good news though which is helping me not to feel too sorry for myself. My lovely bro's operation for colon cancer was very straightforward, seems to have been successful and there doesn't appear to be any signs of it having spread. So hooray for that and all hail the NHS!
Hi Sheff, good news about your bro. Sad about the knee I know all about dodgy knees. I have cupboard full of strapping tape and elasticated supports that seem to help from time to time.
They say that it will warm up at the end of the week, so look forward to that.
PS, I thought they were going to clamp down of injury lawyers? Just watching FreeView 82 as at home on flexi having done a focus group earlier (good (free) lunch as well!) and there they are again with well dressed models in smart suits telling us how to claim.
Sheff - sorry about the knee - this weather is a pain!Good news about your brother,and best wishes to him
As to the weather Even here in Cardiff there are patches of nearly invisible(ie invisible with my eyesight!) patches of ice making it nearly impossible to get around.
After that incident with the old bloke who nearly died of hypothermia because he fell and couldn't get up,I am so afraid of falling (difficult to get up again! arthritis in both knees!).
For goodness sake they could have at least phoned for an ambulance.
So I am staying in the warm and living on my store cupboard till I can get out.
The James Naughtie 'faux pas was hilarious, the fact that the C word is now littered (and allusions to other language that usually attracts the moderator's knife) all over Graun thread on it needs no comment.
The posts with the offending word in it are still up and the thread is still open for comment!
Am improvising with various bits of old bandage at the mo. I also find that a generous slug of Morgans spiced rum with hot water, cloves, lemon and honey has a cheering effect.
Glad you're keeping safe Anne. Its freezing hard here, has been all day out of the sun and I think it'll be a real chiller tonight. As I'm stuck indoors I might read those threads and count up the number of 'cunts' that haven't been moderated. I suppose they'll say it's all about context.
I am thoroughly fed up with the cold - I am losing weight already. Shivering seems to use a lot of energy.
We need a change of gvt. - we need our superiors to bring warmth, joy and prosperity into our lives. The lot we have in charge at the mo can't even keep the roads open.
I've not visited here in a while but it seems as good a place as any to say this. Newcastle have sacked Chris Hughton. I'm not a Geordie and couldn't give a toss about the barcodes. But that is a bloody disgrace.
Hello, don't think we've met. I used to comment a lot on CIF and found my way over here, though I've fallen off recently.
Something about the sacking of Chris Hughton (Yes he is a manager) just really riles me. Newcastle were going to hell in a handcart (and they can feel free to continue) when he took them over at their lowest ebb. He ignored innumerable slights and indignities, got them back into the Premiership at the first attempt, and has made a very good fist of the top flight, including beating Arsenal away just a few weeks ago.
Sacking a man like that just says to me - as if I didn't know already - that the game is a swamp of filth. I sincerely hope the bastards get relegated.
Hello Leni; I remember my Dad telling me about when he got the sack at Bramall lane after many year of loyal service. My older twin sisters were born the next day. Talk about timing!
"So once more monkeyfish you fail to come up with a single quote of mine that backs up your accusations, which really do sink to a low that I doubted even you could reach. And I'll save you the trouble looking as you won't find one."
Once more?..when was the last time..in fact don't bother answering that as you missed my point completely..the point is that given your tendency to interpret any given post in a manner which suits your 'agenda'...which generally involves a turn or two in the semantic mangle followed by some fuzzy logical non-sequiturs and a huge dash of disingenuous wishful-thinking...then applying similar standards of inference to your own 'work' could justifiably render you a nailed-on paedophile...I'll show you how...
Oldish guy (or so you say)...who has defended or at least called for leniency for adults who've had sexual relationships with minors...travels to the Far East a lot...QED...paedo
Now don't think for a moment that I'm calling you a paedophile...but..if you want to continue with your wilful misinterpretations and projections concerning others' posts then deal with the consequences
For the sake of fairness, I should point out that I've no reason to suppose you're not a paedophile either...see how easy it is?
"Ian Huntley?
Do you think he would have quoted this on his profile?"
No I imagine he'd post something which made him seem like a reasonable and regular person..just like...erm..you did.
Die?...what the fuck are you talking about...and what the fuck is this?
‘The pleasures of my life here are simple – simple, inexpensive and democratic. A warm hill of Marmande tomatoes on a roadside vendors stall. A cold beer on a pavement café of the Café de France – Marie Therese inside making me a sandwich au Camembert. Munching the knob off a fresh babuette as I wander back from Sainte-Sabine. The farinaceous smell of the white dust raised by a breeze from the driveway. A cuckoo sounding in the perfectly silent woods beyond the meadow. The huge grey, cerise, pink orange and washed out blue of a sunset seen from my rear terrace. The drilling of the cicadas at noon – the soft dialling tone of the crickets as dusk slowly gathers. A good book, a hammock and a cold, beaded bottle of blanc sec. A rough red wine and steak frites. The cool, dark, shuttered silence of my bedroom – and as I go to sleep, the prospect that all this will be available to me again, unchanged, tomorrow.’
If that passage contained some strange satanic incantation which kills unwary readers then tough shit...I read it with my fingers crossed and a clove of garlic up my nose.
"I really expected better from an intelligent man like you - and I assume you are a man - who seems more at home in a Murdoch rag like the Sun than a semi-quality blog like this."
Why's that BTH?...cos your a snob?
So to sum up...a fuckin weird post from you that made little sense but confirms my suspicions that you are a snobbish paedophile with a predilection for Satanic ritual..I've got you bang to rights bitey...give yourself up eh?
Now you might think the above is a little fanciful...but any person whose standards of proof were so negligent that they accepted your designation of Monatana as a drunken neglectful mother or BB as..well...just about anything and everything would have to accept it as 'case proven'...so I'd suggest you stop acting like such a dick or fuck off and find yourself some kiddie-fiddler sites.
Didn't mean to sound unsympathetic earlier, Sheff. Hope you feel better soon.
We had the wierdest weather here this morning. I thought it was a bit foggy, but then I noticed that the "fog" was falling downwards slowly, so I thought it must be drizzle.
In fact it was fine little needles of ice. It had stopped falling by the time I left home but it had settled on cars and things. It looked like frost and I would have assumed that it was if I had not seen it drifting down from the window.
staybryte Well, Hughton's failing was obvious to anyone.
He was not the messiah.
Newcastle don't do competent managers they have to have messiahs.
The question is, out of the holy trinity which will it be this time? Keegan, Shearer or will Robson rise again (admittedly that one is a bit of an outside chance).
And Shearer buggered it up too recently so it has to be Keegan again, doesn't it?
Yea but sometimes good things come out of misfortune.
Chekhov's famous professional footballer dad got to play alongside the great John Charles, the Welsh Gentle Giant, the very next season at Leeds United.
Chekhov's too modest to say that but, as a one time Leeds fan, I'm not!
Those ice needles have been here all day. I've honestly never seen anything like it. And the COLD! I grabs you by the guts and squeezes. It was reading -8 here about half an hour ago. Now I can remember colder weather but I can't remember feeling it like this before.
Hughton has been struck down by the curse of We're A Big Team Really. Anyone who doesn't get Newcastle to mix it up with Chelsea, Man U etc at the top of the table is deemed to have failed. Bear in mind, Hughton got them promotion scoring by the bucketload and they're currently mid-table.
He's done a good enough job to get another gig with a more sane club in the not-too-distant future. Newcastle will doubtless sign up another semi-retired dinosaur (Dalgleish are you listening?) at great cost. Also on the We're A Big Team Really hit list is Roy Keane at Ipswich. The Tractor Fuckers were big in the 80s and have never forgotten it, even if everyone else has.
Thanks, Leni. I just looked it up and according to Wikipedia it is usually found in the Arctic and Antarctic. Explains why I have not seen it before, I guess.
Where abouts are you, staybryte? My diamond dust was in North London.
A small worrying fly in the ointment - I had always kinda hoped that I had made my last move but one (from here the Crem) - worryingly the bastards are now doing deep geological soundings for oil in my field and the surrounding district.!!!
"Newcastle don't do competent managers they have to have messiahs."
This is much truer than you think...Geordies are masochists...they want a 'strong man' in charge who treats them like shit
T. Dan Smith, John Hall, Freddie Shepherd...all thieving piss-taking bastards who were either lauded or at least tolerated
Hughton was just too nice a guy...and too competent...he should have told the fans they were a bunch of ignorant morons and that Geordie women were a bunch of ugly slappers...then lost a few games by playing 6 strikers and two geriatric centre backs with dodgy knees and heart conditions...then he might have gone down with the "at least they played exciting football" tag like that fuckin idiot Keegan...or just lost every game through rank incompetence and remained a Geordie legend like Shearer
PS
before you say anything...I have made a similar case in Newcastle several times and also pointed out the same home truths to every Newcastle fan I meet the second he starts hinting at their mythical 'Golden Age' or their 'big club' trope.
Dogge loves the snow - snuffles his big nose through it and then dashes about like a mad thing. He loves the getting dried and warmed up again ritual too.
Oil in your field ? That sounds like a potential disaster for the whole area.
They have not stopped for the weather. All over the area they are drilling a series of small bore holes. Then , as I understand it, they set off a series of underground explosions and take the 'readings'.
My friendly farmer gets a small compensation for disruption but no mineral rights - all mineral rights now belong to Govt ( think the law was changed when coal was Nationalised.
Glad Dogge is enjoying it too - sounds just like Mungo at play
Deano; yeah well there were a few red faces at Bramall Lane over the club doctor's opinion that my Dad was crocked (knee injury) 'cos Raich Carter signed him up for £600 and he went on to win promotion to the top flight for Leeds United alongside John Charles whilst scoring thirty goals a season between them.
BTW: if you send me your e-mail address I'll post the verbatim account from the archive.
Leni:My Dad was living in a house owned by the club. He was effecetively rendered homeless after 111 goals and 289 appearances.
The mineral rights fr coal were granted underground - with farmers retaining land rights. This led to some confusion - and dirty dealing - when the mines closed.
the mines were left to flood - causing disruption above ground.
Stabilising coal tips was also cause of dispute. One here slipped so that foot was in river causing contamination - along with iron pollution.
We are just about cleaned up here now - have reed beds at top of valley to protect river.
The Environment agency finally did clean up and reclamation.
Spot on MF with that assessment of NUFC.The whole Toon Army schtick started only with the Halls and Shepherds (all crooks)and the side accrued a hell of a lot of johnny-come-lately 'fans', almost all delusional.Newcastle aren't really a big club, never been that successful save the 1950s, and supposedly have a huge following (big catchment area with no rival club in the city), but that following wasn't much in evidence in the 1980s...The maladministration of the club goes back forever mind (Fat Stan Seymour and the McKeags were rankly incompetent, but so were all of their predecessors. Just not as shifty as those who followed). They're definitely an entertaining club, but seldom for the 'right' reasons.
MON did a brilliant job at Villa - sixth place three years running with a bit of bad luck involved. But he did leave us up the creek by walking out like that. I fancy him to do a 44 dayer at Newcastle in the manner of his mentor.
There seems to be a bit of a competition at the moment between Private Fraser rolling his eyes and burbling, "We're all doomed!" and Private Jones ricocheting in clumsy, stumbling circles shouting, "Don't panic!"
The Telegraph has this about the fact that China may be in the process of falling over and dragging the rest of the world with it.
Experts argue heatedly over whether or not China has managed to outdo America’s subprime bubble, or even match the Tokyo frenzy of late 1980s. The IMF straddles the two.
It concluded in a report last week that there was no nationwide bubble but that home prices in Shenzen, Shanghai, Beijing, and Nanjing seem "increasingly disconnected from fundamentals".
Prices are 22 times disposable income in Beijing, and 18 times in Shenzen, compared to eight in Tokyo. The US bubble peaked at 6.4 and has since dropped 4.7. The price-to-rent ratio in China’s eastern cities has risen by over 200pc since 2004
The IMF said land sales make up 30pc of local government revenue in Beijing. This has echoes of Ireland where "fair weather" property taxes disguised the erosion of state finances.
Ms Choyleva said China drew a false conclusion from the global credit crisis that their top-down economy trumps the free market, failing to see that the events of 2008-2009 did equally great damage to them – though of a different kind. It closed the door on mercantilist export strategies that depend on cheap loans, a cheap currency, and the willingness of the West to tolerate predatory trade.
Not so much the Things Can Only Get Better big lie of New Labour as, er, the Fuck...Fuuuuck...FUUUUUUUCK...FUUUUUUUUCK I just made up.
Leni/Deano Many years ago I set off in the night with a mate to destroy drilling equipment on his dad's farm in Dorset. Didn't find it, we had gone to early so all we could do was pull up those pegs they put down for surveying.
His dad was a Soil Association guy organic farming when it was still a very rare thing.
Anyway, I went back to London but Pete had another go alongside some of his dad's workers. They tried putting sugar in the engine of the drilling rig but it didn't work so the next night they put bales of hay under it and set fire to it.
That did the trick.
A few months later I went back down to Somerset where Pete had a smallholding and one night a truck pulls up and there are these three massive guys, basically come to see if they could get some free blow. Pete's dad's cow man, shepherd and general labourer. Three great big Dorset farm hands they sat in a row like the three stooges, drinking home made cider, smoking dope and reminiscing.
They said that the next day the local policeman, who of course they all knew really well, came over,and they along with some other farm workers who had been involved, all looked at the burnt out drilling rig solemnly and scratched their heads, wondering aloud who could have done such a terrible thing.
One of them said (and you have to imagine this in a slow, rural Dorset accent) that as the policeman went off
'Old Sam, he says, " You know, I always wanted to be a terrorist!" '
Thanks, Deano. I always imagine this guy saying that as they all stand, impassive as their cows, watching the policeman's back as he stumps off through the field.
Leni/Moonwave/REDMINER et al - did you know that they have now codified a code of practice for the Civil Service ??
pursuant to Section 5(5) of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010
My mate and I think it might be used to discomfort the spineless civil servants in the DWP who are passively accepting the Atos shit without question in IB/ESA claims.
Sheff I need you to tell me what knowledge you have of the Code and what training (if any) you have received about it???
Has you Union said anything about it??
The statutory basis for the management of the Civil Service is now set out in Part 1 of the above Act Key words in the code are INTEGRITY - HONESTY - OBJECTIVITY - IMPARTIALITY
BB it really is at long last a kinda legal codification of the notion of the "Wednesbury Rules"
I think it might be useful to anybody battling with the bastards my mate and I certainly intend to try to use it.
The Harrington report makes plain the DWP decision makers are not following the Code - the maths make that evident ( only 2% disagreement between DWP decision makers and Atos and circa 50% success at Tribunals on appeals...... impartial objective etc my arse)
Don't know much about the Code and certainly have had no training in it. Will find out more when I get back to work - hopefully tomorrow if my knee holds up.
Sorry if someone's already posted the updated WikiLeaks mirrors info - flying visit - back from work 6.45, due at theatre 7.15. Booted off stage crew due to burnt hand & torn shoulder muscle, relocated as lighting tech.
Deano and AB. New life much like the old, except with no spare/free time,little sleep,changed set of priorities with day-to-day stuff, alternating between bewilderment and being besotted.(so, not much like before,really: still to find my new rhythm as it were)
Leni I have more work/research to do on it - but if it has a statutory basis (which it seems to) I shall claim that actions and omissions can aways be made subject to Judicial review for starters... if in doubt invent it.....
Some of the best arguments may come from the duty to make objective informed decisions (and not to exclude relevant evidence) (which is exactly what many do not do/or ignore at the minute...)
Cooking calls
laters
When I've done more work on it I may have some questions for BB
ps Shaz - did you happen to see Munster v Cardiff on Saturday? An impenetrable fog came down in the second half; you couldn't see a thing; of course our lovely ROG kicked a penalty at the 78th minute. How he could see the posts (or if he could see the posts) I don't know. Amazing.
Leni Atos are not C Servants but the "legal fiction" is that at law the DWP decision maker acts on behalf of the Sec of State and decides the issue taking all evidence from all sources into account and reaching and independent impartial decision....
The Harrington statistics make plain that the theory and practice are a million miles apart. In my view Civil Servants are not following the code and are challengeable thereby.
Sheff Sorry I forgot you can be identified so don't even think of answering my questions above. Don't be drawn about training publicly it could be unwise - you can get my email from Montana with my consent if that helps
.." alternating between bewilderment and being besotted.."
The only answer to that my young friend is to have a second one - they are cheaper by the pair and they can amuse each the other as they grow up ........that gives you a bit a time to work it out.
40 years on I'm still both besotted and bewildered by my three kids - but then it gives me an excuse to take the odd jar or three....
Newcastle’s messiah complex stems from Keegan leaving Newcastle in a helicopter upon retiring as a player in 1984. Rising into the North East sky like Jesus on Ascension day, albeit a bubble permed, tight shorted, faux- Geordie Jesus, United fell into mediocrity and ultimately relegation in 1989.
Keegan’s return as manager in 1992 coincided with the beginning of Sky and the Premiership. And what better narrative than ‘football crazy, passionate, badge kissing , parochial locals’ with a big club mentality to be condescended. Now that fans were being photographed and filmed as much as the players, a few dimwit meatheads came to symbolize the clubs fan base, egged on by the club itself in search of more barcode sales.
Newcastle’s owners since the start of the Premiership believed Sky’s and their own hype and continue to do so, so it’s not surprising to see a competent, straightforward, level headed, quietly successful manager get the bullet in the delusional search for the next messiah to take them to the promised land.
deano, Been looking at your poppy pics, nice. Inspired, I thought to upload a couple of things on Ut photostream but can only get them onto the 'you' part. I asked Phillipa the other night but it appears that she was as pissed as I was and the exchange was unproductive. Cheers.
Hello Alisdair; I'm exiled in St Albans for the foreseeable future so natch, the sacking of Chris Hughton was a mere footnote on the six 'oclock news. However I can imagine the journos on Tyneside are wetting their knickers over this story.
Why don't they just get Shearer in and we can all watch the inevitable happen all over again. You couldn't make this shit up!
BTW; best wishes to the bairn, your other half and yourself, I trust you are enjoying being a Dad.
BTW: I'll play UC but I'm not posting my score if it's embarrassing!
When my daughter was a baby we found that blowing a raspberry on her tummy was often the quickest and easiest way to cheer her up and stop her crying.No guarantees but it may come in handy if your little one is having a bad night.And give you and your partner a bit more sleep.
Sheff
Glad to hear your brother's op was successful.And hope you're not in too much pain after your fall.
Leni/Deano
Sorry if i'm repeating what's already been said but one of the criticisms in the Harrington Report was that the DWP was simply rubber stamping the decisions made by ATOS.And that the DWP wasn't using it's powers to over-rule ATOS in favour of the claimant when it was clear the wrong decision had been made-ie the claimant hadn't 'scored' the minimum of 15 points needed to qualify for ESA.
Drop Montana an email and I'm sure that she'll send you the password etc.
It's an open facility for all UT's so there won't be a problem.
I've changed computers recently and I have new facility that scrambles all the passwords I use for the sites I need to log into.........with the result that I can't actually read the passwords any more - they just appear as encrypted dots which automatically fill in the required field.!
Look forward to seeing your latest work. I see that you have become a follower of several lady artists since we last spoke......
The good news about your brother must have been a load off your mind, Sheff...pity about your knee. If only you'd cultivated a large patch of Papaver somniferum and dried them, the remedy would be close to hand. Next time....
Spot on Paul the point can't be repeated too often.
What the Code demonstrates is that they ( The DWP decision maker) should treat Atos as only one source of advice/opinion and that they cant reasonably exclude other evidence simply because it is inconvenient.
The tendency at the minute is simply to say I prefer the evidence of Atos (even if from a Nurse) to a doctor (GP) or even sometimes a Consultant and that should be challenged because it is perverse. They plainly ignore more weighty evidence and thus the decision is not objective.
Luke - not that it's any of your fucking business, I bought my house when I was living in France in 1987 for £16,500 including legal fees and there is no point in selling it because nobody would be interested in it in the state it's in. Some people drive cars worth more than that. I drive a car I paid £1500 quid for. We all have our crosses to bear.
James Naughtie this morning - bloody classic. I was laughing my socks off in the car.
Betcheman was wrong. It should have been Dartford not Slough.
That is about all I can write right now. Going to have a nose round CiF.
"When my daughter was a baby we found that blowing a raspberry on her tummy was often the quickest and easiest way to cheer her up and stop her crying."
"...Buses and trains were buried in snowdrifts up to 30ft deep, ports were frozen solid and towns were cut off by snow. That was the brutal winter of 1947, far worse than anything we have had so far this year.
Blizzards cut all transport links between the North and South of Britain. As power stations ran out of coal supplies, there were power cuts of five hours each day, leaving the nation shivering in the dark. To conserve power the television service was closed down, radio output reduced, newspapers shrank in size and magazines such as The Economist and Spectator were ordered to stop publishing. Traffic lights were dimmed or went out, and gas pressure reduced so low that consumers were warned to watch out for weak flames that could blow out and cause gas poisoning or explosions. Food rationing grew worse than during the war; even potatoes were rationed for the first time in the nation’s history. Fishing fleets that could get to sea found their nets and catches frozen solid when they hauled them aboard.
The nation remained frozen for seven weeks. The huge damage to the economy led to savage cuts in public spending, and contributed to the devaluation of sterling the following year; thousands of people simply gave up and emigrated. Many historians believe the winter of 1947 was a milestone in the decline of Britain as a world superpower...."
me dear old mam was carrying me ..and never let me forget that winter..... even though I wasn't born till March 47
By the way, Spike, regarding your earlier starter for 10 - "Can anyone tell me which American politician(s) has/have put out a fatwa on Assange?" That would so far be Palin, Lieberman and Huckabee.
I remember that winter. Went walking about on Barking Park lake. The ice was so thick I remember wondering if it was going to freeze solid and kill all the fish.
I see that they have put a bunch of BFI archive films up. A couple of years ago I took the clients to the BFI and they showed us a bunch of old films of London, including this one which is the oldest extant one, I believe.
Frog2 I practice by rote everyday ..."Flamborough Head" ...."Flamborough Head".. (couldn't possibly jump off down on the South coast)
The theory is that if the dementia gets me I'll just keep on saying it daily until I get on the bastards nerves. Plan is, that in desperation they'll take me to Flamborough for a day out and either kindly take pity and push me off or I suddenly remember why I'm there.... and fulfil me ambition to fly....
That's me fall back - as a last resort if heart attack, liver failure, lung cancer etc don't take me....then a flight from old Flamborough Head will sort it.
When I take late night walks here I can see the Flamborough lighthouse light flashing, from two fields away, even though its many miles away. It's strangely comforting....
...just out of interest - you have to have a dish to get anything vaguely approaching kosher access, no?
i know we stayed in a gite that had UK TV without a dish, but they were running some sort of mirror thingy with a freeview box back in blighty, or something...basically large-scale streaming actually plugged into the TV.
Really disgusted with Ashley's firing of Chris Hughton. The man did his job efficiently and stayed above the petty stuff in the media. He showed his class and certainly holds the high ground in this shameful mess. But he's out of a job.
jack cade--Like the Mahavishnu Orchestra tune. Been a while since I heard that.
Shaz--Jeez, you too? Take care and the rest of you watch yourselves. Seems to be some sort of UT attack virus going on. Just the other morning my feet went out from under me on the ice. Bit of a bruised elbow as the dog looked on in bewilderment.
Hey talking about BFI.... this time last year somebody recommended a BFI DVD on "The Miners Campaign Tapes" which I duly bought .....but I never got round to watching
A 92 minute BFI DVD of the events of the 84 dispute/ strike. That's viewing to look forward to. I just found it on the shelf unopened, seems I paid £15.01 for it!
the radiator looks totally knacked - was thinking that vinegar could do something to the scale problems, but given the previous application of vegetable oil, would thne have to add moutarde de dijon and some seasoning and just call it salad dressing.
so have bought electric heater.
flatmate hasn't really been seen since thursday - although am sure he's been here when I'm out - so am a bit concerned that he's just decided to kip elsewhere. but am sure he's seen the heater, so...
Paul - it used to be up on the sidebar somewhere, which was helpful, but, as far as i can remember:
(a href=www.whateveryourlinkis.com)whateveryouwanttocallit(/a)
PhilB - I meant to add my two pennyworth by asking if the radiator had two valves like UK ones. One to let the hot water into radiator and one to let it out.
I once beat the shit out of a cold radiator valve only to find out later that it was in fact fully open - the problem was that the outlet valve was shut and thus the water couldn't circulate through the radiator and thus the it stayed cold.
Moral of tale is that both valves have to be open on UK radiators and likewise I imagine on French ones too.....
deano - there's an in and out pipe, but not an in and out valve - i.e. there's only one knob involved (steady...).
which puzzles me a bit because i had assumed that the valve was like a 'gate' to let the radiator onto the pipe system, which would make sense if there was only one pipe, but now i'm not so sure.
but the bit that turns it on is well-knacked, is the up-shot. am going to give it a tap with a hammer tomorrow morning, but think it may need to be written off.
fortunately won't need it past february, so...(dreams of sunnier weather)
god depressing.. watching a programme called "death at the hands of the state" jeeze i know it happens here all too often but a programe already more than 2 hours.......bloody soul destroying
...meant to say, that here and on waddya, was actually quite touched so many peeps were chipping in with advice!
(even, weirdly, after i referred to the moth situation on waddya as a similar example of people chipping in, and then one of hewhomustnotbenamedthesametwice's archival links that day turned out to be the very thread with the moths.)
Here you come draggin' in Three a.m. again Grinnin' that silly grin Smellin' just like sin Holdin' up that alibi that's tissue paper thin Diggin' down deeper and deeper In that hole you're already in
If you can't lie no better If you can't lie no better If you can't lie no better than that, You might as well tell the truth
I know you been foolin' around With some fool from way 'cross town You're tearin' our good thing down Makin' me out your clown Lookin' for excuses that you know can't be found The more your lips keep movin' The more you keep losin' ground
If you can't lie no better If you can't lie no better If you can't lie no better than that, You might as well tell the truth
dave - tcha, men, never contextualising enough (heheheheheh) - lever range of movement, i'd say, about 60 degrees, lever actual movement about, er, not very much at all. it's not quite on 'froid' but it ain't moving anywhere helpful. it's not quite warm, just not freezing to the touch (like the one in the kitchen, which i also turned off deliberately because there's no f-ing point.
as it was working earlier in the year, think it has scaled up, and that's clogging up the bits i can't see, in the gap between the nut and the base of the 'screw'.
so now my toolbox includes huile penetretante. which is nice. will put some more on tomorrow, see if that does any good...
have also nicked a kilo of masonry plaster from the workmen currently doing up the facade. have sculptural plans for that.
James Naughty on Today at 8 AM: "......after 8, we'll be talking to Jeremy Cunt, the Hulture Secretary...(cough, cough, cough...corpses....snuffles hysterically)...
ReplyDeleteThis one's for James Naughty...Graham Parker - You Hit The Spot
ReplyDeleteHeard that Jack - very funny. Poor bloke has just had to make a grovelling apology.
ReplyDeleteIs that really true? Damn, I bet it'll have disappeared by the time the programme comes up on iPlayer Listen Again.
ReplyDeleteI hope someone has recorded it to put on YouTube. I've been calling the odious, happy-slappable little shit the Minister for Rhyming Slang since I first caught sight of his sick-making, smarmy face.
Note to self: must find something to be upbeat about today. Turning into a right miserable git what with this, that and the other.
I am pretty convinced that the sell-off of social housing in the Thatcher era was a piece of intricate social engineering. Home ownership as a be all and end all means that people become more self-centred.
ReplyDeleteYes, and owning two houses, one in the UK and one abroad (for one's simply divine and well-earned holidays) might only increase this selfishness. (Except if you're morally superior to the great unwashed, in which case you see no contradiction in preventing the working classes from buying one home to live in while simultaneously buying two or three for yourself.)
But wait, that's not 'social housing', is it? If the 'little' people are allowed to buy their run-down council flalts, then it will only turn their empty little heads. It's only the middle classes who should be allowed to be home-owners as their houses are much nicer and they never think twice about going on strike anyway - they just don't do that sort of thing.
Struggle is for the proles, cheered on from the sidelines by the bien-pensant chattering classes who like to show each other how much empathy they have for the downtrodden while doing fuck all concrete about it.
Who needs intricate social engineering? The UK class system hasn't changed in centuries.
Oh, it's true, Spike. The Groan just caught up and you can hear it yourself.
ReplyDeleteHa ha ha, naughtie man. Reminds me of when Dickie Davies described Cup Soccer as cock sucker.
ReplyDelete...and start the week just repeated it...
ReplyDeletegave me quite a shock...
...meaning - think that in commenting on it, andrew marr managed to do it again, cue the various academics in the studio (previously discussing freud and marx) all trying to pretend that didn't just happen...
ReplyDeleteAnd it's on YouTube here, linked by Eva on Whaddya.
ReplyDeleteGood old Jim Naughtie!
amusingly, on the thread, people who have previously been moderated for saying exactly the same thing are wondering if they can now get away with it, as the G has put up an article and enabled comments.
ReplyDeletebecause that's not asking for trouble at all...
Oooh, I'll have a bit of that, Philibee.
ReplyDeletePhillipa
ReplyDeleteThe groan has jumped on the story with relish - ironic really. The thread should be fun
heyhabib - head over to the front page and join the party!
ReplyDeleteMorning all
ReplyDeleteEnjoyed that 'slip of the tongue' from James Naughtie.Has set me up for the day.
@The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has announced that 58% children living in poverty in this country-numbering around 2 million children- have at least one parent working.The Foundation didn't say what % of these children come from families with 3 or more children.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23904046-two-million-children-in-poverty-despite-parents-having-jobs.do
@Montana-could you put that URL thingy for links back up please.Us technophobes are totally screwed without it.Ta!
...and once you're done there, there's an open thread on CIF as well!
ReplyDeleteMorning all... going quietly fucking mad here. Got a phone call from the dim evangelical driver at 8.00 this morning.
ReplyDeleteShe can drive for us tomorrow. Yippee. OK just make sure you take your MIDAS certificate in when you got to get the bus. Oh! MIDAS? I think it has run out. Do I need it?
Aaaaargh!
So now I am waiting for the Community Transport people to phone me back to see if she is still registred (faint, faint hope). Otherwise it is back to square one.
Sorry, just needed a quick rant.
Austere times, Philibee - I'm trying to ration myself to making only one juvenile comment per day. (Yes, I know that's not going to work...)
ReplyDeleteheheheh habib.
ReplyDeletespence - reminds me of the time dad realised that having x points on his license meant he couldn't drive the church minibus to greenbelt with about two day's notice so had to go around bribing people to help out...
grrrrr have just spotten john bolton's piece.
ReplyDeletefine work btl - from those managing to walk the fine line between fair comment and moderability (in this case, there's a big f-ing overlap).
how that man ended up at the UN is beyond me. an utter shite.
Hold on.. hold on.. the glimmer of a potential solution is in front of me...
ReplyDeleteLuke - the selling off of the council housing benefitted one generation of working class, it is now causing serious problems for the following generations who not only cant afford to buy, but face waiting lists for social housing of 1-1.5million. The housing wasnt replaced. This was a one off gift that has had serious implications. If the housing stock had been replenished that would have been a different matter.
ReplyDeleteloved the james naughtie......particularily the little cough giggle bit.......there was a period here when all tv journalists kept saying kamicazzi rather than kamikaze....cazzi can be translated to fuck, dick or basically any expeletive you fancy......
ReplyDeletekeeping things crossed for you spence...
ReplyDeleteAlright. Have to go away because I need to sign into my work Gmail to check the spreadsheet.
ReplyDeleteI have rung the places I am getting the other two buses and arranged to maximise the seating. I can do that because there is a shopmobility at Watford and I can get the wheelchairs that we need there, so put more seats in the buses. And someone just phoned to cancel, which helps.
So I am going to try and shoehorn everyone into two buses. I wanted to avoid this because it is Christmas shopping and people need space for the stuff they buy. But on the other hand we are bound to get a few last minute cancellations.
And it turns out that both places can give us a bigger minibus than expected.
Now I just have to deal with the evangelical driver who doesn't believe me that they won't let her have the bus... I knew it was a mistake to phone her.
Later.
Parking this here-- example of British media hypocrisy.
ReplyDeleteBrowsing the papers online or in print today you will no doubt come across a story about a supposed Russian spy working to bring down HMG by being a glorified tea lady for a Lib Dem MP. While there may or may not be truth in these allegations, (that is not my point although all the information she could possibly gleam is in the public domain) the fact is that the media are selectively ignoring other, more sinisterly goings on.
Just a few days ago, we hear from the Wikileaks that the Tories promised, in true Latin American style 'to run a pro American regime'. Where is the wall to wall media coverage, (at least past the initial headlines) where are the in depth analyses and special investigations. The investigations into the links and influence of the Americans over our defence procurement and policy, as the Wikileaks info revealed? OR that we are considered a waste of space in Afghanistan but still we are sending our young men to die for their extremely corrupt government? Any investigations?
Ah yes of course, our democracy can only be subverted from the East.
In other news, a hell of a lot more snow.
ReplyDeleteAn American being prosecuted for murder has had his swastika tatoos cosmetically hidden on the orders of the judge (after a request by the defendant's attorney), who agreed that they might be prejudicial.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the story in The NYT:
Mike Halkitis, the division director for the state attorney’s office in New Port Richey, where the trial will be held, said that he fought the “absurd” request for a cosmetic cover-up last year, and that taxpayers should not have to pay for it.
While a richer defendant could pay for cosmetics or even tattoo removal, “the indigent defendant isn’t entitled to the same defense an affluent defendant can get,” he said. “That’s case law.”
“the indigent defendant isn’t entitled to the same defense an affluent defendant can get,”...
So, it's official..."liberty and justice for all..." actually means "liberty and justice for those who can afford it." God bless America. (Full story HERE)
If anyone's interested, here is the UNICEF report on Child inequality in OECD countries that I mentioned last week.
ReplyDeleteThe position of the UK on this report coincides with its drop in the 2010 UN Human Development Index (by 5 places) which for the first time included an inequality measurement. The UK's position in this index is the lowest of all the western developed countries.
Charles 11.49--- my major objection to the European Constitution was the enshrining of 'free and fair competition',ie: screwing the workers and the pillaging of public assets; the second was antony charles lynton $$$$$'s success in inserting the primacy of NATO ...
ReplyDeleteI was just looking for some background on Clegg and tuition fees, and found this:
ReplyDelete"It is simply wrong to penalise people who want to make the best of themselves by saddling them with enormous mortgage-style debts from the day they graduate, especially when we know the root of the current economic crisis was too much debt. And it's clear that people from disadvantaged backgrounds are far more likely to be put off going to university if it costs them tens of thousands of pounds".
That's Clegg, that is. In January.
Duke, you may also be interested to read the Scottish secondary school statistics, which is always a pretty good indicator of the wealth/poverty of different places.
ReplyDeletehere
Glasgow gets the lowest results and two areas around it, East Dumbartonshire and East Renfrewshire have the highest educational scores in Scotland.
Very interesting results- I guess you would find similar statistics in many cities, educated proffesioanls live in the suburbs. As to Glasgow, the results are shocking- and this is a city that has been Labour for over 50 years.
The reason I brought this up is that there has been a debate going on about the schools back in the Western Isles debates about whetehr is it bad teaching or bad parenting that has caused grades to slip. There are certainly issue with the teaching quality, I can remember from my own schooldays.
Ouch, Sheff, take care of that knee!
ReplyDeleteCharles - good questions. Have you made a suggestion on wtfyta?
Yr Grace/Thauma
ReplyDeleteHas anyone put up a suggestion for a discussion of the UNICEF report on waddya? Being bottom of the list for developed western countries is an absolute fucking disgrace - but an excellent example of exactly how much ordinary people matter in the eyes of our masters.
Sheff,
ReplyDeleteit's the HDI that the UK scores the lowest of all the Western countries. On the UNICEF report, it is 4th bottom. Still appalling.
I did ask Jessica about an article on the UNICEF report as it was just published last week but no response.
Charlie,
the link between poverty and educational attainment is well documented with tons of research published on it.
As you say I daresay the Glasgow and suburbs comparison would be the same as any UK city and its suburbs.
hate to be cynical folks but wadyya is more interested in suggestions for xmas panels than poverty.......hey ho.....
ReplyDeleteCharles. In the Western Isles it is the Wee bloody Frees, surely?
ReplyDeleteSheff, wot, no crampons?
ReplyDelete...referring to their influence in the education system Spencer? Certainly, they were a presence when I went, although not as bad as they could have been considering their power base, but there have been issues really with teaching staff in general.
ReplyDeletespencer
ReplyDeleteNo, no crampons - but you bloody well need them round here, or ice skates. The freeze, thaw, freeze we've had means we've got at least 3-4 inches of ice on the pavements and still on a lot of the roads.
Great!
ReplyDeleteI've just got up for the second time (I had to sort something out earlier then went back to bed), so I've made myself a cup of char and opened iPlayer. The Today programme is not available (ditto for Start the Week).
The BBC under Mark Thomson: spineless, cowardly wankers specialising in adding a padlock to the stable door as everyone watches the horse galloping over the horizon.
The irony is that the thousands of diplomatic communications released by WikiLeaks contain no earth-shaking disclosures that undermine the security of the American empire.
ReplyDeleteThe bulk of them merely illustrate the well-known fact that in every capital city round the world there is a building known as the U.S. Embassy inhabited by people whose prime function is to vanquish informed assessment of local conditions with swaddling cloths of ignorance and prejudice instilled in them by what passes for higher education in the United States, whose governing elites are now more ignorant of what is really happening in the outside world that at any time in the nation’s history.
The reports in the official press invite us to be stunned at the news that the King of Saudi Arabia wishes Iran was wiped off the map, that the US uses diplomats as spies, that Afghanistan is corrupt, also that corruption is not unknown in Russia! These press reports foster the illusion that U.S. embassies are inhabited by intelligent observers zealously remitting useful information to their superiors in Washington DC .
To the contrary, diplomats – assuming they have the slightest capacity for intelligent observation and analysis -- soon learn to advance their careers by sending reports to Foggy Bottom carefully tuned to the prejudices of the top State Department and White House brass, powerful members of Congress and major players throughout the bureaucracies. Remember that as the Soviet Union slid towards extinction, the US Embassy in Moscow was doggedly supplying quavering reports of a puissant Empire of Evil still meditating whether to invade Western Europe!
This is not to downplay the great importance of this latest batch of WikiLeaks. Millions in America and around the world have been given a quick introductory course in international relations and the true arts of diplomacy – not least the third-rate, gossipy prose with which the diplomats rehearse the arch romans à clef they will write when they head into retirement.
Years ago Rebecca West wrote in her novel The Thinking Reed of a British diplomat who, "even when he was peering down a woman's dress at her breasts managed to look as though he was thinking about India."
In the updated version, given Hillary Clinton's orders to the State Department, the US envoy, pretending to admire the figure of the charming French cultural attaché, would actually be thinking how to steal her credit card information, obtain a retinal scan, her email passwords and frequent flier number. --Alexander Cockburn, counterpunch.org
Hi Sheff
ReplyDeleteOuch! That's sounds painful.I bet you're gonna be glad to see the back of this year with one thing and another.Take care!
I'm mightily pissed off Paul as I hate being incapacitated.
ReplyDeleteThere is some good news though which is helping me not to feel too sorry for myself. My lovely bro's operation for colon cancer was very straightforward, seems to have been successful and there doesn't appear to be any signs of it having spread. So hooray for that and all hail the NHS!
That's great news about your brother, Sheff. I'm really happy for him, you and all the family.
ReplyDelete@Sheff
ReplyDeleteGood for your brother. Good one!
Best keep the weight off your knee.
Scooting out with no time to properly catch up here but sorry about your fall, Sheff and brilliant news about your brother.
ReplyDeletePut your feet up and have a drink!
Seems the Yanks are really trying to clamp down on people accessing the wikileaks material.
ReplyDeleteStudents told job prospects will be harmed if they access cables
So much for land of the free, home of the brave etc....
Thanks for the good wishes guys, it is a big relief. He's in the Weston General in Edinburgh and can't speak highly enough of the staff there.
ReplyDeleteGood news about yr bro Sheff !
ReplyDeleteGreat news about your brother Sheff - happy for him and your family.
ReplyDeleteNurse the knee - spoil yourself x
Sheff - brilliant news about your bro. xx
ReplyDeleteHi Sheff, good news about your bro. Sad about the knee I know all about dodgy knees. I have cupboard full of strapping tape and elasticated supports that seem to help from time to time.
ReplyDeleteThey say that it will warm up at the end of the week, so look forward to that.
PS, I thought they were going to clamp down of injury lawyers? Just watching FreeView 82 as at home on flexi having done a focus group earlier (good (free) lunch as well!) and there they are again with well dressed models in smart suits telling us how to claim.
ReplyDeleteSheff,
ReplyDeletepassing on my best wishes to your brother, it must be an enormous relief.
Sheff - sorry about the knee - this weather is a pain!Good news about your brother,and best wishes to him
ReplyDeleteAs to the weather Even here in Cardiff there are patches of nearly invisible(ie invisible with my eyesight!) patches of ice making it nearly impossible to get around.
After that incident with the old bloke who nearly died of hypothermia because he fell and couldn't get up,I am so afraid of falling (difficult to get up again! arthritis in both knees!).
For goodness sake they could have at least phoned for an ambulance.
So I am staying in the warm and living on my store cupboard till I can get out.
So you do the same and enjoy it!
The James Naughtie 'faux pas was hilarious, the fact that the C word is now littered (and allusions to other language that usually attracts the moderator's knife) all over Graun thread on it needs no comment.
ReplyDeleteThe posts with the offending word in it are still up and the thread is still open for comment!
Comment, it would appear, is hypocritical!
Ian
ReplyDeleteAm improvising with various bits of old bandage at the mo. I also find that a generous slug of Morgans spiced rum with hot water, cloves, lemon and honey has a cheering effect.
Glad you're keeping safe Anne. Its freezing hard here, has been all day out of the sun and I think it'll be a real chiller tonight. As I'm stuck indoors I might read those threads and count up the number of 'cunts' that haven't been moderated. I suppose they'll say it's all about context.
ReplyDeleteSheff - Good to hear about your bro.
ReplyDeleteIf you are using Chrome - it's so easy. Ctrl F, then type 'cunt' in the box, and there you have it, an instant word count !!
Can you take any Ibropufen for the swelling - if knee decides to expand ?
I am thoroughly fed up with the cold - I am losing weight already. Shivering seems to use a lot of energy.
ReplyDeleteWe need a change of gvt. - we need our superiors to bring warmth, joy and prosperity into our lives. The lot we have in charge at the mo can't even keep the roads open.
Ally has just posted this on waddya
ReplyDeleteA fine example of Oz's understated sense of humour
Hi All--Cold here too. Minus 3, but sunny so good for walking the hound.
ReplyDeleteSheff--Good news that, must be a relief. Hopefully clear sailing now.
Did you try rubbing that rum on your knee?
I've not visited here in a while but it seems as good a place as any to say this. Newcastle have sacked Chris Hughton. I'm not a Geordie and couldn't give a toss about the barcodes. But that is a bloody disgrace.
ReplyDeletestaybryte
ReplyDeleteI nothing of football really but cannot understand why managers are sacked when it is players who lose matches.
Is Chris H a manager ?
Chris Hughton's got the union jack! What the fuck is all that about?
ReplyDeleteHello chekhov
ReplyDeletehaven't seen you around lately.
Just wanted to say Amelie's letter was lovely. The joys of childhood can seldom be recaptured.
Leni,
ReplyDeleteHello, don't think we've met. I used to comment a lot on CIF and found my way over here, though I've fallen off recently.
Something about the sacking of Chris Hughton (Yes he is a manager) just really riles me. Newcastle were going to hell in a handcart (and they can feel free to continue) when he took them over at their lowest ebb. He ignored innumerable slights and indignities, got them back into the Premiership at the first attempt, and has made a very good fist of the top flight, including beating Arsenal away just a few weeks ago.
Sacking a man like that just says to me - as if I didn't know already - that the game is a swamp of filth. I sincerely hope the bastards get relegated.
staybryte
ReplyDeleteFootball is a very odd world - lots of money - and debt - and very little honour or honesty it seems.
It is important to so many people yet the idea of a 'club' with voting members has long been consigned to the trash heap.
Here in Wales the cost of attending top flight games debarrs many fans from attending - true of the rugby too.
Too much about business, costs and prestige and control for the few; not enough about fans .
Hello Leni; I remember my Dad telling me about when he got the sack at Bramall lane after many year of loyal service. My older twin sisters were born the next day. Talk about timing!
ReplyDeleteBiteTheHand
ReplyDelete"So once more monkeyfish you fail to come up with a single quote of mine that backs up your accusations, which really do sink to a low that I doubted even you could reach. And I'll save you the trouble looking as you won't find one."
Once more?..when was the last time..in fact don't bother answering that as you missed my point completely..the point is that given your tendency to interpret any given post in a manner which suits your 'agenda'...which generally involves a turn or two in the semantic mangle followed by some fuzzy logical non-sequiturs and a huge dash of disingenuous wishful-thinking...then applying similar standards of inference to your own 'work' could justifiably render you a nailed-on paedophile...I'll show you how...
Oldish guy (or so you say)...who has defended or at least called for leniency for adults who've had sexual relationships with minors...travels to the Far East a lot...QED...paedo
Now don't think for a moment that I'm calling you a paedophile...but..if you want to continue with your wilful misinterpretations and projections concerning others' posts then deal with the consequences
For the sake of fairness, I should point out that I've no reason to suppose you're not a paedophile either...see how easy it is?
"Ian Huntley?
Do you think he would have quoted this on his profile?"
No I imagine he'd post something which made him seem like a reasonable and regular person..just like...erm..you did.
ctd
ReplyDelete"Or read this and die:"
Die?...what the fuck are you talking about...and what the fuck is this?
‘The pleasures of my life here are simple – simple, inexpensive and democratic. A warm hill of Marmande tomatoes on a roadside vendors stall. A cold beer on a pavement café of the Café de France – Marie Therese inside making me a sandwich au Camembert. Munching the knob off a fresh babuette as I wander back from Sainte-Sabine. The farinaceous smell of the white dust raised by a breeze from the driveway. A cuckoo sounding in the perfectly silent woods beyond the meadow. The huge grey, cerise, pink orange and washed out blue of a sunset seen from my rear terrace. The drilling of the cicadas at noon – the soft dialling tone of the crickets as dusk slowly gathers. A good book, a hammock and a cold, beaded bottle of blanc sec. A rough red wine and steak frites. The cool, dark, shuttered silence of my bedroom – and as I go to sleep, the prospect that all this will be available to me again, unchanged, tomorrow.’
If that passage contained some strange satanic incantation which kills unwary readers then tough shit...I read it with my fingers crossed and a clove of garlic up my nose.
"I really expected better from an intelligent man like you - and I assume you are a man - who seems more at home in a Murdoch rag like the Sun than a semi-quality blog like this."
Why's that BTH?...cos your a snob?
So to sum up...a fuckin weird post from you that made little sense but confirms my suspicions that you are a snobbish paedophile with a predilection for Satanic ritual..I've got you bang to rights bitey...give yourself up eh?
Now you might think the above is a little fanciful...but any person whose standards of proof were so negligent that they accepted your designation of Monatana as a drunken neglectful mother or BB as..well...just about anything and everything would have to accept it as 'case proven'...so I'd suggest you stop acting like such a dick or fuck off and find yourself some kiddie-fiddler sites.
chekhov
ReplyDeletei have often seen - on news - when football staff get the sack they are paid huge sums as per contract.
I don't suppose it was the same in your dad's day. To lose a job 40 years ago was a financial disaster for families.
Didn't mean to sound unsympathetic earlier, Sheff. Hope you feel better soon.
ReplyDeleteWe had the wierdest weather here this morning. I thought it was a bit foggy, but then I noticed that the "fog" was falling downwards slowly, so I thought it must be drizzle.
In fact it was fine little needles of ice. It had stopped falling by the time I left home but it had settled on cars and things. It looked like frost and I would have assumed that it was if I had not seen it drifting down from the window.
Very strange.
staybryte Well, Hughton's failing was obvious to anyone.
ReplyDeleteHe was not the messiah.
Newcastle don't do competent managers they have to have messiahs.
The question is, out of the holy trinity which will it be this time? Keegan, Shearer or will Robson rise again (admittedly that one is a bit of an outside chance).
And Shearer buggered it up too recently so it has to be Keegan again, doesn't it?
Ant or Dec. Or maybe Cheryl?
ReplyDeleteYea but sometimes good things come out of misfortune.
ReplyDeleteChekhov's famous professional footballer dad got to play alongside the great John Charles, the Welsh Gentle Giant, the very next season at Leeds United.
Chekhov's too modest to say that but, as a one time Leeds fan, I'm not!
Slow connection today - my 17.43 was in responsde to Chek's 17.27
ReplyDeleteSpencer
ReplyDeletei have heard ice needles called 'diamond dust' i think they are rather rare - a form of hail perhaps ?
Hi Deano
ReplyDeletehow is your field? Are you keeping warm ?
My dear young miss Chin - in reply to your kind enquiry on Saturday......Thank you our lass.
ReplyDeleteI am well, I am warm and I am well fed.
I hope you and yours are the same.
I have been playing at Dr Zhivago......
Spencer
ReplyDeleteThose ice needles have been here all day. I've honestly never seen anything like it. And the COLD! I grabs you by the guts and squeezes. It was reading -8 here about half an hour ago. Now I can remember colder weather but I can't remember feeling it like this before.
Turm
ReplyDeletehope you drop in later - you were starting new job today I think ? Hope it went well and transport panned out ok for you.
Hughton has been struck down by the curse of We're A Big Team Really. Anyone who doesn't get Newcastle to mix it up with Chelsea, Man U etc at the top of the table is deemed to have failed. Bear in mind, Hughton got them promotion scoring by the bucketload and they're currently mid-table.
ReplyDeleteHe's done a good enough job to get another gig with a more sane club in the not-too-distant future. Newcastle will doubtless sign up another semi-retired dinosaur (Dalgleish are you listening?) at great cost. Also on the We're A Big Team Really hit list is Roy Keane at Ipswich. The Tractor Fuckers were big in the 80s and have never forgotten it, even if everyone else has.
Thanks, Leni. I just looked it up and according to Wikipedia it is usually found in the Arctic and Antarctic. Explains why I have not seen it before, I guess.
ReplyDeleteWhere abouts are you, staybryte? My diamond dust was in North London.
I am fine dear young miss Leni
ReplyDeleteMungo is heaven with it.
A small worrying fly in the ointment - I had always kinda hoped that I had made my last move but one (from here the Crem) - worryingly the bastards are now doing deep geological soundings for oil in my field and the surrounding district.!!!
Persih the thought that they find it.....
"Newcastle don't do competent managers they have to have messiahs."
ReplyDeleteThis is much truer than you think...Geordies are masochists...they want a 'strong man' in charge who treats them like shit
T. Dan Smith, John Hall, Freddie Shepherd...all thieving piss-taking bastards who were either lauded or at least tolerated
Hughton was just too nice a guy...and too competent...he should have told the fans they were a bunch of ignorant morons and that Geordie women were a bunch of ugly slappers...then lost a few games by playing 6 strikers and two geriatric centre backs with dodgy knees and heart conditions...then he might have gone down with the "at least they played exciting football" tag like that fuckin idiot Keegan...or just lost every game through rank incompetence and remained a Geordie legend like Shearer
PS
before you say anything...I have made a similar case in Newcastle several times and also pointed out the same home truths to every Newcastle fan I meet the second he starts hinting at their mythical 'Golden Age' or their 'big club' trope.
Cold?- In the full sun today my breath was still instantly freezing in my beard.
ReplyDeleteWelcome back Stoaty & Staybryte
Deano
ReplyDeleteDogge loves the snow - snuffles his big nose through it and then dashes about like a mad thing. He loves the getting dried and warmed up again ritual too.
Oil in your field ? That sounds like a potential disaster for the whole area.
Diamond dust, settled on a hedge.
ReplyDeletehttp://picasaweb.google.com/spencer.woodcock/DiamondDust#5547631163538169474
I should have run out with a camera while it was still falling.
Leni - amazed me too.
ReplyDeleteThey have not stopped for the weather. All over the area they are drilling a series of small bore holes. Then , as I understand it, they set off a series of underground explosions and take the 'readings'.
My friendly farmer gets a small compensation for disruption but no mineral rights - all mineral rights now belong to Govt ( think the law was changed when coal was Nationalised.
Glad Dogge is enjoying it too - sounds just like Mungo at play
First rumour out of Geordie BatShitCrazy Central - Newcastle to approach Martin O'Neill to guide them up and down mid-table.
ReplyDeleteThat could work. Newcastle like to sack managers every 6 months, O'Neill likes to walk out of a job every 6 months.
Deano; yeah well there were a few red faces at Bramall Lane over the club doctor's opinion that my Dad was crocked (knee injury) 'cos Raich Carter signed him up for £600 and he went on to win promotion to the top flight for Leeds United alongside John Charles whilst scoring thirty goals a season between them.
ReplyDeleteBTW: if you send me your e-mail address I'll post the verbatim account from the archive.
Leni:My Dad was living in a house owned by the club.
He was effecetively rendered homeless after 111 goals and 289 appearances.
Beat arch-rivals 5-1, beat Arsenal away, get the sack a month later. Ashley really is a low life.
ReplyDeleteEven if we get beaten by Villa tonight, I hope Liverpool show a bit more faith in Hodgson.
Deano
ReplyDeleteThe mineral rights fr coal were granted underground - with farmers retaining land rights. This led to some confusion - and dirty dealing - when the mines closed.
the mines were left to flood - causing disruption above ground.
Stabilising coal tips was also cause of dispute. One here slipped so that foot was in river causing contamination - along with iron pollution.
We are just about cleaned up here now - have reed beds at top of valley to protect river.
The Environment agency finally did clean up and reclamation.
Re the Newcastle manager's job, the bloke who did the voiceovers on Big Brother's free, isn't he?
ReplyDeleteIf not, Harry Redknapp should be about due to leave another team in the lurch mid-season.
Spot on MF with that assessment of NUFC.The whole Toon Army schtick started only with the Halls and Shepherds (all crooks)and the side accrued a hell of a lot of johnny-come-lately 'fans', almost all delusional.Newcastle aren't really a big club, never been that successful save the 1950s, and supposedly have a huge following (big catchment area with no rival club in the city), but that following wasn't much in evidence in the 1980s...The maladministration of the club goes back forever mind (Fat Stan Seymour and the McKeags were rankly incompetent, but so were all of their predecessors. Just not as shifty as those who followed).
ReplyDeleteThey're definitely an entertaining club, but seldom for the 'right' reasons.
Spencer
ReplyDeleteI'm in the West Midlands
Deano
Thank you for the kind word
RapidEddie
MON did a brilliant job at Villa - sixth place three years running with a bit of bad luck involved. But he did leave us up the creek by walking out like that. I fancy him to do a 44 dayer at Newcastle in the manner of his mentor.
There seems to be a bit of a competition at the moment between Private Fraser rolling his eyes and burbling, "We're all doomed!" and Private Jones ricocheting in clumsy, stumbling circles shouting, "Don't panic!"
ReplyDeleteThe Telegraph has this about the fact that China may be in the process of falling over and dragging the rest of the world with it.
Experts argue heatedly over whether or not China has managed to outdo America’s subprime bubble, or even match the Tokyo frenzy of late 1980s. The IMF straddles the two.
It concluded in a report last week that there was no nationwide bubble but that home prices in Shenzen, Shanghai, Beijing, and Nanjing seem "increasingly disconnected from fundamentals".
Prices are 22 times disposable income in Beijing, and 18 times in Shenzen, compared to eight in Tokyo. The US bubble peaked at 6.4 and has since dropped 4.7. The price-to-rent ratio in China’s eastern cities has risen by over 200pc since 2004
The IMF said land sales make up 30pc of local government revenue in Beijing. This has echoes of Ireland where "fair weather" property taxes disguised the erosion of state finances.
Ms Choyleva said China drew a false conclusion from the global credit crisis that their top-down economy trumps the free market, failing to see that the events of 2008-2009 did equally great damage to them – though of a different kind. It closed the door on mercantilist export strategies that depend on cheap loans, a cheap currency, and the willingness of the West to tolerate predatory trade.
Not so much the Things Can Only Get Better big lie of New Labour as, er, the Fuck...Fuuuuck...FUUUUUUUCK...FUUUUUUUUCK I just made up.
Leni/Deano Many years ago I set off in the night with a mate to destroy drilling equipment on his dad's farm in Dorset. Didn't find it, we had gone to early so all we could do was pull up those pegs they put down for surveying.
ReplyDeleteHis dad was a Soil Association guy organic farming when it was still a very rare thing.
Anyway, I went back to London but Pete had another go alongside some of his dad's workers. They tried putting sugar in the engine of the drilling rig but it didn't work so the next night they put bales of hay under it and set fire to it.
That did the trick.
A few months later I went back down to Somerset where Pete had a smallholding and one night a truck pulls up and there are these three massive guys, basically come to see if they could get some free blow. Pete's dad's cow man, shepherd and general labourer. Three great big Dorset farm hands they sat in a row like the three stooges, drinking home made cider, smoking dope and reminiscing.
They said that the next day the local policeman, who of course they all knew really well, came over,and they along with some other farm workers who had been involved, all looked at the burnt out drilling rig solemnly and scratched their heads, wondering aloud who could have done such a terrible thing.
One of them said (and you have to imagine this in a slow, rural Dorset accent) that as the policeman went off
'Old Sam, he says, " You know, I always wanted to be a terrorist!" '
Montana - what's this new UT total pageviews gizmo??
ReplyDeleteIt's reading 258,279 as I write (that's more than our tota;l visitors to date) - when did the counting start??
Enjoyed that Spencer!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Deano. I always imagine this guy saying that as they all stand, impassive as their cows, watching the policeman's back as he stumps off through the field.
ReplyDeleteAlisdair
ReplyDeleteHow are you finding your new life?
So what happens if China goes down, seeing as it holds a good proportion of the West's debt?
ReplyDeletethauma
ReplyDeleteI was about to ask that - I guess they pull the rest of us down with them...
Thauma
ReplyDeleteSo what happens if China goes down, seeing as it holds a good proportion of the West's debt?
See "Doomed" reference above.
Great story Spencer.
ReplyDeleteI remember, years ago, great clumping machines in Dorset which thumped the ground as they moved along.
Probably more technical than thumping I suppose - geophysing for oil I was told.
Leni/Moonwave/REDMINER et al - did you know that they have now codified a code of practice for the Civil Service ??
ReplyDeletepursuant to Section 5(5) of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010
My mate and I think it might be used to discomfort the spineless civil servants in the DWP who are passively accepting the Atos shit without question in IB/ESA claims.
Sheff I need you to tell me what knowledge you have of the Code and what training (if any) you have received about it???
Has you Union said anything about it??
The statutory basis for the management of the Civil Service is now set out in Part 1 of the above Act Key words in the code are INTEGRITY - HONESTY - OBJECTIVITY - IMPARTIALITY
BB it really is at long last a kinda legal codification of the notion of the "Wednesbury Rules"
I think it might be useful to anybody battling with the bastards my mate and I certainly intend to try to use it.
The Harrington report makes plain the DWP decision makers are not following the Code - the maths make that evident ( only 2% disagreement between DWP decision makers and Atos and circa 50% success at Tribunals on appeals...... impartial objective etc my arse)
Great to see you back (if only briefly) Alisdair
ReplyDeleteDeano
ReplyDeletethat is interesting.
Impartial objectives are not quite the same as targetted outcomes are they ?
Leni, maybe the same time? This must have been early 1980s.
ReplyDeleteSadly both Pete and his dad are no longer with us (or else I would have changed his name).
Leni/Sheff et al - get a copy of the Code it's 20 paragraphs long and is dated November 2010.
ReplyDeleteIt's out there somewhere google for it I got a copy but was so fascinated by it that I forgot to reference my source.
I'll go looking after I've cooked dinner if you can't find it....
Leni I'm sure that you will find it helpful as an activist (a something similar Code exists for Welsh Civ Servants)
deano
ReplyDeleteWe need to know if code of conduct is reommended practice only or legally binding.
Will google
Civil Service Code
ReplyDeleteSilly me it's obtainable from above - you can download and then print it......
Deano
ReplyDeleteDon't know much about the Code and certainly have had no training in it. Will find out more when I get back to work - hopefully tomorrow if my knee holds up.
deano
ReplyDeleteATOS employees are not civil servants are they - the DWP acts upon their recs - some area of confusion here perhaps ? Room for evasion.
deano
ReplyDeletethink this is it
civil service code
Fuckinell, the US govt has now got Swiss banks closing down WikiLeaks.
ReplyDeleteSorry if someone's already posted the updated WikiLeaks mirrors info - flying visit - back from work 6.45, due at theatre 7.15. Booted off stage crew due to burnt hand & torn shoulder muscle, relocated as lighting tech.
ReplyDeletethauma
ReplyDeleteThe network of control is being revealed.
Deano and AB. New life much like the old, except with no spare/free time,little sleep,changed set of priorities with day-to-day stuff, alternating between bewilderment and being besotted.(so, not much like before,really: still to find my new rhythm as it were)
ReplyDeleteLeni I have more work/research to do on it - but if it has a statutory basis (which it seems to) I shall claim that actions and omissions can aways be made subject to Judicial review for starters... if in doubt invent it.....
ReplyDeleteSome of the best arguments may come from the duty to make objective informed decisions (and not to exclude relevant evidence) (which is exactly what many do not do/or ignore at the minute...)
Cooking calls
laters
When I've done more work on it I may have some questions for BB
On the number of "cunts" on threads today, the results are quite weird.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/06/james-naughtie-jeremy-hunt-today?showallcomments=true#end-of-comments
= 2
but on
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/06/james-naughtie-today-jeremy-hunt?showallcomments=true#end-of-comments
= 51
So presumably you can say "cunt" on direct Guardian threads, but not on Comment is Free.
Blimey Sheff and Shaz, you really have been in the wars. I hope a bit of positive vibe helps you both, you have all of mine.
ReplyDeleteBitterweed - you've got mail!
ReplyDeleteShaz
Booted off stage crew due to burnt hand & torn shoulder muscle, relocated as lighting tech.
Bloody hell - are you OK?
Leni
The network of control is being revealed.
Indeed it is. Makes you think Giyus isn't as crazy as he sounds.
Alisdair - nice to see you!
Bloody hell, Shaz, how did you manage that?
ReplyDeleteWho's for UC tonight?
ReplyDeleteps Shaz - did you happen to see Munster v Cardiff on Saturday? An impenetrable fog came down in the second half; you couldn't see a thing; of course our lovely ROG kicked a penalty at the 78th minute. How he could see the posts (or if he could see the posts) I don't know. Amazing.
ReplyDeleteI'll play for last place, Charles.
ReplyDelete@Charles
ReplyDeleteI'm keeping my mouth shut after last week.
Leni Atos are not C Servants but the "legal fiction" is that at law the DWP decision maker acts on behalf of the Sec of State and decides the issue taking all evidence from all sources into account and reaching and independent impartial decision....
ReplyDeleteThe Harrington statistics make plain that the theory and practice are a million miles apart. In my view Civil Servants are not following the code and are challengeable thereby.
Sheff Sorry I forgot you can be identified so don't even think of answering my questions above. Don't be drawn about training publicly it could be unwise - you can get my email from Montana with my consent if that helps
.." alternating between bewilderment and being besotted.."
ReplyDeleteThe only answer to that my young friend is to have a second one - they are cheaper by the pair and they can amuse each the other as they grow up ........that gives you a bit a time to work it out.
40 years on I'm still both besotted and bewildered by my three kids - but then it gives me an excuse to take the odd jar or three....
Newcastle’s messiah complex stems from Keegan leaving Newcastle in a helicopter upon retiring as a player in 1984. Rising into the North East sky like Jesus on Ascension day, albeit a bubble permed, tight shorted, faux- Geordie Jesus, United fell into mediocrity and ultimately relegation in 1989.
ReplyDeleteKeegan’s return as manager in 1992 coincided with the beginning of Sky and the Premiership. And what better narrative than ‘football crazy, passionate, badge kissing , parochial locals’ with a big club mentality to be condescended. Now that fans were being photographed and filmed as much as the players, a few dimwit meatheads came to symbolize the clubs fan base, egged on by the club itself in search of more barcode sales.
Newcastle’s owners since the start of the Premiership believed Sky’s and their own hype and continue to do so, so it’s not surprising to see a competent, straightforward, level headed, quietly successful manager get the bullet in the delusional search for the next messiah to take them to the promised land.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete"alternating between bewilderment and being besotted."
ReplyDeleteNice one Alisdair. Reminds me of being so inclined.
deano,
ReplyDeleteBeen looking at your poppy pics, nice.
Inspired, I thought to upload a couple of things on Ut photostream but can only get them onto the 'you' part.
I asked Phillipa the other night but it appears that she was as pissed as I was and the exchange was unproductive.
Cheers.
Spike - have rescued your post. The ways of the spambot are mysterious.
ReplyDeleteAlso a post by Jack at around 2.30 and one of Atomboy's at around 6.30.
@Thaum
ReplyDeleteCheers!
Can anyone tell me which American politician(s) has/have put out a fatwa on Assange?
Hello Alisdair; I'm exiled in St Albans for the foreseeable future so natch, the sacking of Chris Hughton was a mere footnote on the six 'oclock news. However I can imagine the journos on Tyneside are wetting their knickers over this story.
ReplyDeleteWhy don't they just get Shearer in and we can all watch the inevitable happen all over again.
You couldn't make this shit up!
BTW; best wishes to the bairn, your other half and yourself, I trust you are enjoying being a Dad.
BTW: I'll play UC but I'm not posting my score if it's embarrassing!
Alisdair
ReplyDeleteWhen my daughter was a baby we found that blowing a raspberry on her tummy was often the quickest and easiest way to cheer her up and stop her crying.No guarantees but it may come in handy if your little one is having a bad night.And give you and your partner a bit more sleep.
Sheff
Glad to hear your brother's op was successful.And hope you're not in too much pain after your fall.
Leni/Deano
Sorry if i'm repeating what's already been said but one of the criticisms in the Harrington Report was that the DWP was simply rubber stamping the decisions made by ATOS.And that the DWP wasn't using it's powers to over-rule ATOS in favour of the claimant when it was clear the wrong decision had been made-ie the claimant hadn't 'scored' the minimum of 15 points needed to qualify for ESA.
Stoaty - good to see you again friend.
ReplyDeleteDrop Montana an email and I'm sure that she'll send you the password etc.
It's an open facility for all UT's so there won't be a problem.
I've changed computers recently and I have new facility that scrambles all the passwords I use for the sites I need to log into.........with the result that I can't actually read the passwords any more - they just appear as encrypted dots which automatically fill in the required field.!
Look forward to seeing your latest work. I see that you have become a follower of several lady artists since we last spoke......
The good news about your brother must have been a load off your mind, Sheff...pity about your knee. If only you'd cultivated a large patch of Papaver somniferum and dried them, the remedy would be close to hand. Next time....
ReplyDeleteWinter scene with upbeat music Alison Krauss & Union Station - Union Branch.
With the current weather, here is a fantastic short British Rail documentary from 1963- Snow.
ReplyDeleteOscar nominated and with novel camerawork and use of soundtrack, it shows how Britain's trains used to deal with the snow.
It makes you nostalgic for the steam age. And I don't even remember steam trains.
Jack ... oh god ... not Alison Fucking Krauss. The woman who has ruined my enjoyment of Robert Plant.
ReplyDeleteReached the middle pages of the Guardian over dinner just now. A couple of interesting pieces.
Tories allow their mates in property development to do whatever the fuck they like; bribery encouraged
and
British workers possibly not the slackers they're made to be.
Spot on Paul the point can't be repeated too often.
ReplyDeleteWhat the Code demonstrates is that they ( The DWP decision maker) should treat Atos as only one source of advice/opinion and that they cant reasonably exclude other evidence simply because it is inconvenient.
The tendency at the minute is simply to say I prefer the evidence of Atos (even if from a Nurse) to a doctor (GP) or even sometimes a Consultant and that should be challenged because it is perverse. They plainly ignore more weighty evidence and thus the decision is not objective.
thaum, it's a brilliant instrumental. No whiny vocals. Check it out. Real virtuosity from Union Station.
ReplyDeleteGood to hear the news about your brother Sheff
ReplyDeletethauma, perhaps this will perk you up, then..Anvil doing a sort of Götterdämmerung version of The Who's 'Slip Kid'. I love it.
ReplyDeleteEvening all
ReplyDeleteBrain mash potato
Luke - not that it's any of your fucking business, I bought my house when I was living in France in 1987 for £16,500 including legal fees and there is no point in selling it because nobody would be interested in it in the state it's in. Some people drive cars worth more than that. I drive a car I paid £1500 quid for. We all have our crosses to bear.
James Naughtie this morning - bloody classic. I was laughing my socks off in the car.
Betcheman was wrong. It should have been Dartford not Slough.
That is about all I can write right now. Going to have a nose round CiF.
Sheff - sorry about your knee and very very glad about your brother.
ReplyDeleteShaz - ditto re shoulder
I think I need a beer...
UC - 16.
ReplyDelete17 habib !
ReplyDeleteNow watching Panorama on beeb1, about video game addiction. A very interesting topic.
"When my daughter was a baby we found that blowing a raspberry on her tummy was often the quickest and easiest way to cheer her up and stop her crying."
ReplyDeleteLovely, just lovely, Paul.
UC 24 My only excuse is that it is so fucking cold in the living room that I think my brain froze.
ReplyDeleteI even forgot to say "The Wasteland" on all the T.S.Eliot questions as it was bound to be right on one of them as they didn't involve cats.
Doh!
You just have to go one better, don't you, Charles??? :) Nice one, our kid!
ReplyDeleteNice pne Duke but the winter of 1947....
ReplyDelete"...Buses and trains were buried in snowdrifts up to 30ft deep, ports were frozen solid and towns were cut off by snow. That was the brutal winter of 1947, far worse than anything we have had so far this year.
Blizzards cut all transport links between the North and South of Britain. As power stations ran out of coal supplies, there were power cuts of five hours each day, leaving the nation shivering in the dark. To conserve power the television service was closed down, radio output reduced, newspapers shrank in size and magazines such as The Economist and Spectator were ordered to stop publishing. Traffic lights were dimmed or went out, and gas pressure reduced so low that consumers were warned to watch out for weak flames that could blow out and cause gas poisoning or explosions. Food rationing grew worse than during the war; even potatoes were rationed for the first time in the nation’s history. Fishing fleets that could get to sea found their nets and catches frozen solid when they hauled them aboard.
The nation remained frozen for seven weeks. The huge damage to the economy led to savage cuts in public spending, and contributed to the devaluation of sterling the following year; thousands of people simply gave up and emigrated. Many historians believe the winter of 1947 was a milestone in the decline of Britain as a world superpower...."
me dear old mam was carrying me ..and never let me forget that winter..... even though I wasn't born till March 47
Oh, all right then.
ReplyDeleteUC = 22
Not my subjects this week.
Jack - I was afraid to click on the Krauss link because I assume it would be *gags* country.
ReplyDeleteCertainly cannot make that accusation against the Slip Kids choon.
Am feeling more like something mellow ... ooh, perhaps this. (I know, I'm a dinosaur.)
By the way, Spike, regarding your earlier starter for 10 - "Can anyone tell me which American politician(s) has/have put out a fatwa on Assange?" That would so far be Palin, Lieberman and Huckabee.
ReplyDeleteClass, Thauma!
ReplyDeleteLiked the snow film, Duke.
ReplyDeleteI remember that winter. Went walking about on Barking Park lake. The ice was so thick I remember wondering if it was going to freeze solid and kill all the fish.
Deano 17.55 --I had always kinda hoped that I had made my last move but one (from here the Crem)
ReplyDeleteYou forgot the Beachy Head 'move', old mate !
I see that they have put a bunch of BFI archive films up. A couple of years ago I took the clients to the BFI and they showed us a bunch of old films of London, including this one which is the oldest extant one, I believe.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fABILtla_lE&feature=related
Now, this is mellow...and quite lovely Mahavishnu Orchestra - Lila's Dance Spectacular guitar work from John McLaughlin.
ReplyDeleteAhh, now you're talkin', Jack ... love John McL ... listening now.
ReplyDeletesheff
ReplyDeleteplease be bloody careful will ya! really pleased for your brother.....
shaz
bloody hell...hope it's not as bad as it sounds urgh......
evening all-
Cheers, habib, noted!
ReplyDeleteevening all - best wishes to sheff re: knee and 'ray re brother! have a sigh of relief and a glass of something...
ReplyDeleteam a bit sulky about not being able to play UC. spike - presume you're using p----ydave or something but you have to watch live?
Jack - bit of Renbourn (and Jansch?) in gratitude.
ReplyDelete@Phil
ReplyDeleteI have Freesat (digibox and dish), so I either have to watch live or record on the DVD recorder. I don't have proxy to watch iPlayer.
Song for (most) of youse on here.
ReplyDeleteSome people are very kind.
Frog2 I practice by rote everyday ..."Flamborough Head" ...."Flamborough Head".. (couldn't possibly jump off down on the South coast)
ReplyDeleteThe theory is that if the dementia gets me I'll just keep on saying it daily until I get on the bastards nerves. Plan is, that in desperation they'll take me to Flamborough for a day out and either kindly take pity and push me off or I suddenly remember why I'm there.... and fulfil me ambition to fly....
That's me fall back - as a last resort if heart attack, liver failure, lung cancer etc don't take me....then a flight from old Flamborough Head will sort it.
When I take late night walks here I can see the Flamborough lighthouse light flashing, from two fields away, even though its many miles away. It's strangely comforting....
spike - ah, understand. tried dave-ing the iplayer link but it doesn't seem to do replays...
ReplyDelete...just out of interest - you have to have a dish to get anything vaguely approaching kosher access, no?
ReplyDeletei know we stayed in a gite that had UK TV without a dish, but they were running some sort of mirror thingy with a freeview box back in blighty, or something...basically large-scale streaming actually plugged into the TV.
Philippa---- How's the radiateur ? If not hot, consult WOBBLER for on-line bleeding tutorials :)
ReplyDeleteCould one of you lovely people please remind me what the format was for doing links.Cheers!
ReplyDeleteHi All
ReplyDeleteReally disgusted with Ashley's firing of Chris Hughton. The man did his job efficiently and stayed above the petty stuff in the media. He showed his class and certainly holds the high ground in this shameful mess. But he's out of a job.
jack cade--Like the Mahavishnu Orchestra tune. Been a while since I heard that.
Shaz--Jeez, you too? Take care and the rest of you watch yourselves. Seems to be some sort of UT attack virus going on. Just the other morning my feet went out from under me on the ice. Bit of a bruised elbow as the dog looked on in bewilderment.
Hey talking about BFI.... this time last year somebody recommended a BFI DVD on "The Miners Campaign Tapes" which I duly bought .....but I never got round to watching
ReplyDeleteA 92 minute BFI DVD of the events of the 84 dispute/ strike. That's viewing to look forward to. I just found it on the shelf unopened, seems I paid £15.01 for it!
I'll keep an eye out for you Sheff!
the radiator looks totally knacked - was thinking that vinegar could do something to the scale problems, but given the previous application of vegetable oil, would thne have to add moutarde de dijon and some seasoning and just call it salad dressing.
ReplyDeleteso have bought electric heater.
flatmate hasn't really been seen since thursday - although am sure he's been here when I'm out - so am a bit concerned that he's just decided to kip elsewhere. but am sure he's seen the heater, so...
Paul - it used to be up on the sidebar somewhere, which was helpful, but, as far as i can remember:
(a href=www.whateveryourlinkis.com)whateveryouwanttocallit(/a)
replacing the ( and ) with < and >
Thanks, thauma...if you like Pentangle, then I suspect you'll like this as well.
ReplyDeleteRichard Thompson - When The Spell Is Broken
Thauma "Song for (most) of youse on here."
ReplyDeleteWas perfect.
I could hear "you can't always get what you want", though. My fault.
just checking
ReplyDeleteaye, think that works.
ReplyDeleteJesus, we won a game!
ReplyDeletePhilB - I meant to add my two pennyworth by asking if the radiator had two valves like UK ones. One to let the hot water into radiator and one to let it out.
ReplyDeleteI once beat the shit out of a cold radiator valve only to find out later that it was in fact fully open - the problem was that the outlet valve was shut and thus the water couldn't circulate through the radiator and thus the it stayed cold.
Moral of tale is that both valves have to be open on UK radiators and likewise I imagine on French ones too.....
What Phillippa said:
ReplyDelete"evening all - best wishes to sheff re: knee and 'ray re brother! have a sigh of relief and a glass of something..."
Re music, I like covers, this is one of my favourites
Links:
{a href="URL"}text{/a}
But replace { with "<" and } with ">" without the ""
paul the linknfo is at the top of the page on the right
ReplyDeletedeano...hello! i love flamborough head beautiful rugged place good choice..hoping obviously that you won't need to choose.....if you know what i mean
spike
what do you mean by proxy? here i can only get the beeb through murdoch and i'm buggered if i'm doing that.......
deano - there's an in and out pipe, but not an in and out valve - i.e. there's only one knob involved (steady...).
ReplyDeletewhich puzzles me a bit because i had assumed that the valve was like a 'gate' to let the radiator onto the pipe system, which would make sense if there was only one pipe, but now i'm not so sure.
but the bit that turns it on is well-knacked, is the up-shot. am going to give it a tap with a hammer tomorrow morning, but think it may need to be written off.
fortunately won't need it past february, so...(dreams of sunnier weather)
god depressing.. watching a programme called "death at the hands of the state" jeeze i know it happens here all too often but a programe already more than 2 hours.......bloody soul destroying
ReplyDelete...meant to say, that here and on waddya, was actually quite touched so many peeps were chipping in with advice!
ReplyDelete(even, weirdly, after i referred to the moth situation on waddya as a similar example of people chipping in, and then one of hewhomustnotbenamedthesametwice's archival links that day turned out to be the very thread with the moths.)
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ReplyDeleteJack - When the spell... is my favourite RT song - was going to post it instead of the FC but thought I might have bored everyone with it by now!
ReplyDeleteOff to bed - lullaby for everyone.
Cheers people
ReplyDeleteI shall make a note of it for posterity!
{a href="URL"}text{/a}
change {} to <>
What's needed is a bit more Love and Affection
ReplyDelete(Hoping the bloody link works)
Advice for Nick Clegg and the LibDims from the great Delbert McClinton Delbert McClinton - Lie No Better
ReplyDeleteHere you come draggin' in
Three a.m. again
Grinnin' that silly grin
Smellin' just like sin
Holdin' up that alibi that's tissue paper thin
Diggin' down deeper and deeper
In that hole you're already in
If you can't lie no better
If you can't lie no better
If you can't lie no better than that,
You might as well tell the truth
I know you been foolin' around
With some fool from way 'cross town
You're tearin' our good thing down
Makin' me out your clown
Lookin' for excuses that you know can't be found
The more your lips keep movin'
The more you keep losin' ground
If you can't lie no better
If you can't lie no better
If you can't lie no better than that,
You might as well tell the truth
Nice links, Mr Cade, am going to have a rummage around on your other youtube tunes.
ReplyDeletePhilippa-- Come on, give us a SitRep !
ReplyDelete(Bloody Hell, Wimmin .... :) hehe )
You told us it was 'warming' , but apparently not much.
Und Zo - HOW much in degrees does that tap turn compared to the others ? If gate-valves about 90°...
If it's the same angle,and not warm, either a bum installation OR needs bleeding .
Paul I FORGOT html and had to learn all over again too. < a href = *****>blabla< /a>( not accurate, added spaces )
ReplyDeletePretty simple even for the alzheimered...
dave - tcha, men, never contextualising enough (heheheheheh) - lever range of movement, i'd say, about 60 degrees, lever actual movement about, er, not very much at all. it's not quite on 'froid' but it ain't moving anywhere helpful. it's not quite warm, just not freezing to the touch (like the one in the kitchen, which i also turned off deliberately because there's no f-ing point.
ReplyDeleteas it was working earlier in the year, think it has scaled up, and that's clogging up the bits i can't see, in the gap between the nut and the base of the 'screw'.
so now my toolbox includes huile penetretante. which is nice. will put some more on tomorrow, see if that does any good...
have also nicked a kilo of masonry plaster from the workmen currently doing up the facade. have sculptural plans for that.