chrisp65

Tony, I can see why little countries bordering Russia would want to have american troops stationed there. Absolutely. I bet Ukraine wishes they'd been a bit quicker off the mark. Georgia too. By that same measure, I can see why Russia decided it would grab Crimea before the americans did. Again, absolutely not right. Absolutely corrupt. Putin is a psycho, and I think I mean that literally. But you have a country there that has a victim mentality as part of its national psyche.

I'm just hoping that one win will be like some hollywood film revelation and our team of plucky disabled kids will blossom in confidence and throw off their calipers and compete with the others. But for the very first time ever, I think this really is it. I actually looked at the Championship table on the weekend to see what ground were near me for some trips out.

Without going all lefty on this, it is possible to see how Russia can feel like a victim of NATO here. We are constantly told NATO is a defence. Would it look like that if you were the other side of, da'fence? NATO members include: Albania Bulgaria Croatia Czech Rep Estonia Hungary Latvia Lithuania Poland Romania Slovakia Slovenia Turkey here's a picture of some american troops: But yes, it's Russia that's always 'flexing its muscles'. I'm not saying anyone here is innocent. But given a few hundred years of Russian history. I can see how they might have a different view of the world.

I tried that one MJ but he's not having it. Something to do with WW1 starting in the summer of 1918 and being over in a couple of months. Don't know what he's on about.

If you can get yourself to a point where you have two real written job offers you can be quite straight with both companies. Tell the lower offer company that you'd love to take the job but someone else has offered more, and you unfortunately can't turn down more money. Very often, for the sake of a slight uplift, they'd rather pay you more than go through the grief of looking for someone else again.

this is exactly my policy! look at all these different ones.... (there'll be a couple more next week to add to my collection of Lee Perry dub remixes re released in basically black n white sleeve designs) this was just an excuse to post a picture I already had

My nipper has started her first part time job - first paypacket and £1.35 was auto deducted and put into a pension - only another 53 years to go to see how that investment turns out. For my part, various policies mean I'm worth considerably more dead than alive. Financially, the ideal scenario for my family is that I die in a plane crash on my way to a meeting at some point in the next 6 months. Be like a lottery win for 'em.

Whereas the reasoning behind this war is logical and justified? Take out 'royal families' and substitute with 'royal families. dictatorships and superpowers' and I'm struggling to see the difference. Years and years of ignorance and petty squabbling with everyone in treaties against everyone else and no two neighbours liking each other with no care for the consequences for 'the people'. Our relationship now with Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the EU, NATO, Crimea, Ukraine.....I'd say that was complicated enough. Russia needs a harbour on the coast of Syria, but also needs sanctions lifted because of Crimea. The Saudi's and Qatari's appear to be funding a death cult. We tried to impose democracy on Egypt but didn't like who they voted for. USA claim not to like what Israel is doing but invest billions in their military. We piled in to Iraq as liberators then left, then went back in, then left. Libya was just bizarre. Germany gave an open invite to refugees from another continent having told their partners Greece there wasn't money to help them. So Greece has adopted an open border policy - that's gone well. I'd say there are parallels in the ridiculously poor strategies vs disastrous egos game.

potato potatoe

The worry for the light blue Labour brigade is de-selection. As a really crude estimate, there are usually around 400 Labour Party members in each and every constituency. Of those, typically, less than 50 will be active. The Corbyn election period saw about 20% added to Labour's membership. Or to put it another way, about 60 to 80 new members per constituency. Sixty new members helping decide who will be the MP at the next election, when you usually deal with the same dozen students and group of pensioners is a concern for some of these MP's. All those figures are my rough n ready estimates from total membership stats etc., It's also what I hear locally, the candidate in waiting here as openly moaned and groaned about Corbyn. He's lost the last two elections in a very uninspiring manner. There has been a spike in membership locally. Best of luck!

My distant memory of history lessons suggests World War 1 was quite complicated?

Well no, not if they've lost all their limbs.

Just to defend the police for a minute here and bring some common sense into this. I've looked at pictures of this kid and he's clearly a bit brown. I can't work out why they didn't just shoot him and push the gun into his cold dead hand, after being taped giving him a good kicking.

White Album

.....followed by 75,000,000 Turks walking to Greece.....

Washington Post To be fair, if he asked me to take that clock on holiday to Egypt with me, I'd be reticent. I have no idea if $15 million dollars is close to the going rate in USA legal terms. Don't people sue for billions because someone's dog looked at them funny, or the coffee was hot or their lard burger had fat in it? That's my mental picture of america.

There has been a recent incident with a russian submarine in UK waters too. We asked the French and the Canadians to help us look for that one - as somehow we don't currently have any maritime patrol aircraft of our own due to them being cut up and sold for scrap. In other totally unrelated news, the office of Prime Minister is to have it's own jet. It will be a RAF A330, refitted at a cost of £10 Million.

Reference the debate on male mental illness and suicide. Might be a subject where research could help as much as anecdote and opinion. There are some very good documents easily available via google from both the Office of National Statistics and the Samaritans. ONS Samaritans Mental Health Org MHO free booklet download

I wanted to post something similar but I was worried about my lack of references and sources. To set the scene, John McDonnell had been on the radio earlier saying he was in favour of a free vote on Syria, as although they were the 'labour party' he believed you represented your constituents first and that parliament was more important than party politics. So his over riding idea was, join the labour party or grouping, but think for yourself and represent your people. Radical nutjob. They then went to a female Labour MP as part of a general discussion with a couple of other MP's on how the vote should pan out. The tory was happy to accept whatever Cameron and Osbourne told him to do, i.e., he didn't know what the plan was, he didn't know what the strategy might be, but he was voting for bombing. Now that to me, is either insane or criminal. The Labour MP, having been offered the chance of a free vote didn't want one. She wanted to vote for bombing, but wanted it to be as a party block under instruction 'to show leadership, to show strength'. What a pile of crap. She wants to be told to vote for bombing so the leader looks strong. It made me both angry and sad. There might well be a really good case for bombing, but let's hear it. Let's find out what the whole plan is - I'd really like to think it's a bit more thought through than just 'we need to join in because the others are all doing it'. To think that after all these years of bombing all these countries with all the mess we've contributed to, some of those £65k a year MP's would be beginning to do their job and actually question this shit. I'm not saying surrender or retreat or go all hippy. I'm just asking our politicians to explain what the plan is, beyond a little bit more bombing and then seeing what happens. Hundreds of MP's in parliament employed by us are failing us in a truly criminal way.

Turkey shoots down 'war plane' could turn into an interesting day...

for those of you easily pleased or simply looking for a distraction already, go along to google and type in: a long time ago in a galaxy far far away you're welcome.

yeah, conclusive proof I'm one of the good guys I was doing it to save the planet and feed the world. The land and water and drugs we waste growing feed for animals to then eat the animals is ridiculous. We have bacteria in China and Malaysia that are now both fully resistant to the anti biotics of last resort and capable of jumping species or carriers with ease. This is at least in part because we routinely, worldwide, pump our animals full of drugs we can't afford to give to the poor. It's truly obscene. Forget ISIS, we put the pieces in place years ago to make sure future generations have a thoroughly horrible time of it. Don't get a cut or a break on the football field in 2025, there will be a good chance it kills you. We're burning down the rainforest so teenagers can get fat on burgers. For some bizarre reason, we've persuaded the Chinese to drink more milk. A lot more milk. So that's more cattle, needing more land for cattle feed. But yeah, you know, no point in getting precious or preachy. People like some sausage.

I was a vegetarian for about 15 years. Christmas party I used to just have the same as everyone else but donate my slice of turkey to whoever was willing to swap me a roastie. It's Christmas, don't get hung up on what fat the roasties were sat in. Similarly, don't query if there is real suet in the christmas pudding. It's industrial catering, endured once a year as a pre cursor to a big drinking session. Join in or **** off.

Yep, invite her to the party, but advise her to bring her own bacon and cheese sandwiches as the menu only caters for normal people. Alternative spin - ask her where she can eat that would cater for 40+ people. Explaining that for 39 of the 40 people, they need to have some meat that wasn't killed with a knife, some dairy and some cake.