Malcolm Robinson

This EU stuff has nowt to do with Bedlington................. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/9104728/Lloyds-considers-borrowing-money-from-ECBs-emergency-fund.html

Irish Math Test An Irishman wants a job, but the foreman won't hire him until he passes a little math test. Here is your first question, the foreman said. "Without using numbers, represent the number 9." "Without numbers?" The Irishman says? "Dat is easy." And proceeds to draw three trees. "What's this?" the boss asks. "Have you ain't got no brain? Tree and tree plus tree makes 9" says the Irishman. "Fair enough," says the boss. "Here's your second question. Use the same rules, but this time the number is 99." The Irishman stares into space for a while, then picks up the picture that he has just drawn and makes a smudge on each tree... "Ere you go." The boss scratches his head and says, "How on earth do you get that to represent 99?" "Each of da trees is dirty now. So, it's dirty tree, and dirty tree, plus dirty tree. Dat makes 99." The boss is getting worried that he's going to actually have to hire this Irishman, so he says, "All right, last question. Same rules again, but represent the number 100." The Irishman stares into space some more, then he picks up the picture again and makes a little mark at the base of each tree and says, "Ere you go. One hundred." The boss looks at the attempt. "You must be nuts if you think that represents a hundred!" The Irishman leans forward and points to the marks at the base of each tree and whispers, "A little dog come along and poop by each tree. So now you got dirty tree and a turd, dirty tree and a turd, and dirty tree and a turd, which makes ONE HUNDRED!" The Irishman is now head of Qantas.

Tribute to Frank Carson.............. - My wife said to me: "If you won the lottery, would you still love me?” I said: "Of course I would. I'd miss you, but I'd still love you.” - There's a professor who's crossed a chicken with a spider, he's now got chickens with 8 legs! I said, 'What does it taste like?” He said, 'I don't know, I haven't caught any yet.' - My father fought in World War I and single-handedly destroyed the Germans' lines of communication. He ate their pigeon. - I don't think my wife likes me very much. When I had a heart attack she wrote for an ambulance. - Englishman, Irishman and a Scotsman are at a Christmas party and each had to bring something to do with Christmas. Englishman brought a bag of tinsel, Scotsman brought a bag of holly and the Irishman brought a pair of knickers. I asked, 'What's that got to do with Christmas?' He said, 'They're Carol's.' - A fella walks into a pet shop and says: "Give me a wasp.” The shopkeeper replies: "We don't sell wasps.” He says: "There's one in the window.” - Paddy calls a wrong number at 3am. "Is that O'Malley's Bar?," he asks. "No it's not, this is a private residence." "Oh, I must have the wrong number. Sorry to have troubled you," says Paddy. "Ah it's no trouble," says the stranger. "I had to get up to answer the phone anyway." - A man goes into Boots and says: "Have you got Viagra?” "Do you have a prescription?,” asks the chemist. "No,” he replies, "But I've got a photograph of the wife...” - An Irishman's wife gave birth to twins. Her husband demanded to know who the other man was. - A fella walked into hospital and the doctor said: "You've got three minutes to live.” The man said: "Can you do something for me?” "Yes,” he said. "I'll boil you an egg.” - I rang British Telecom. I said, "I want to report a nuisance caller.” He said: "Not you again.” - A fella said to the doctor: "What's the good news?” "You've got 24 hours to live.” He says: "What's the bad news?” And the doc says: "We should have told you yesterday.”

Not a bad dividend payout for a wage.......87% of 11 Million! http://uk.news.yahoo.com/camerons-family-champion-quits-175056002.html

:rofl:

Was that our MP moonlighting when Marseilles played Inter Milan..............

While walking through Golden Gate Park in San Francisco , a man came upon another man hugging a tree with his ear firmly against the tree. Seeing this he inquired, "Just out of curiosity, what the heck are you doing?" "I'm listening to the music of the tree," the other man replied. "You've gotta be kiddin' me." "No, would you like to give it a try?" Understandably curious, the man says, "Well, OK..."So he wrapped his arms around the tree and pressed his ear up against it. With this, the other guy slapped a pair of handcuffs on him, took his wallet, jewellery, car keys, then stripped him naked and left. Two hours later another nature lover strolled by, saw this guy handcuffed to the tree stark naked, and asked, "What the heck happened to you?" He told the guy the whole terrible story about how he got there. When he finished telling his story, the other guy shook his head in sympathy, walked around behind him, kissed him gently behind the ear and said, "This just ain't gonna be your day, cupcake..."

The Jews Sank The Titanic The plane leaves Heathrow Airport under the control of a Jewish Captain. His co-pilot is Chinese. It's the first time they've flown together and an awkward silence between the two seems to indicate a mutual dislike. Once they reach cruising altitude, the Jewish captain activates the auto- pilot, leans back in his seat, and mutters, 'I don't like Chinese.. .' 'No rike Chinese?' asks the copilot, 'why not?'' ''You people bombed Pearl Harbor, that's why!' 'No, no', the co-pilot protests, 'Chinese not bomb Peahl Hahbah! That Japanese, not Chinese.' 'Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese....Doesn't matter, you're all alike!' There's a few minutes of silence...'I no rike Jews!' the copilot suddenly announces. 'Oh yeah, why not?' Asks the captain. 'Jews sink Titanic!' says the co-pilot. 'What? That's insane! Jews didn't sink the Titanic!' exclaims the captain, 'It was an iceberg!' 'Iceberg, Goldberg, Greenberg, Rosenberg, no mattah...all same!!'

''The ECB, on its own and without judicial or parliamentary review, has swapped their Greek debt for new Greek debt that is not subject to any "collective action clause.” They did this unilaterally and without the consent of any other sovereign debt bond owners of Greek debt.'' If you don't like the rules just change them, and make the change retrospective! The ECB.......making it up as it goes down the plug hole! The ECB must...must...be chok-a-block, absolutely stuffed full of toxic assets, which by way of their accounting methods are deemed to be realisable at full face value? Madness!

Until a child tells you what they are thinking, we can't even begin to imagine how their mind is working. Little Zachary was doing very badly in maths.His parents had tried everything... tutors, mentors, flash cards, special learning centers. In short, everything they could think of to help his maths. Finally, in a last ditch effort, they took Zachary down and enrolled him In the local Catholic school. After the first day, little Zachary came home with a very serious look on his face. He didn't even kiss his mother hello. Instead, he went straight to his room and started studying. Books and papers were spread out all over the room and little Zachary was hard at work. His mother was amazed. She called him down to dinner. To her shock, the minute he was done, he marched back to his room without a word, and in no time, he was back hitting the books as hard as before. This went on for some time, day after day, while the mother tried to understand what made all the difference. Finally, little Zachary brought home his report Card. He quietly laid it on the table, went up to his room and hit the books.With great trepidation, His Mom looked at it and to her great surprise, Little Zachary got an 'A' in maths. She could no longer hold her curiosity. She went to his room and said, 'Son, what was it?Was it the nuns?' Little Zachary looked at her and shook his head, no. 'Well, then,' she replied, Was it the books, the discipline, the structure, the uniforms? WHAT WAS IT?' Little Zachary looked at her and said,'Well, on the first day of school when I saw that guy nailed to the plus sign, I knew they weren't fooling around.

Just to underline the point.......... http://uk.news.yahoo.com/protest-plan-over-tesco-job-advert-082449134.html

I completely agree Brettly. This was first mentioned to me by one of our now regular contributors on these boards and I couldn't believe what was happening. Its one thing working a trail period with the possibility of a full time job at the end, quite another to be told on day one that there is absolutely no chance of a position being offered at the end of the workfare placement. If the whole point of workfare is to instil a working ethic then firstly there are many other areas where people can be 'placed' which would offer some real benefits not just to themselves by way of qualified training but even the community at large. Giving large national and multi-nationals what is effectively free labour would seem counter-productive and actually take jobs out of the economy? Once again another scheme dreamt up no doubt by people who have absolutely no real experiences of either their remit or the ramifications which occur.

Looks as if Greece, Portugal and Ireland could well be dropped as worthy of support in favour of the bigger players (Spain, Italy and France) in the Euro debt fiasco. Watch out for a bit of trickery pokery from the Fed to keep the CDS this side of the water and listen for March 23rd as a probable Greek default date!

Adam, You seem to be holding up nationalisation as some sort of panacea, as GGG says history has shown its not! Best people to run a business are the ones with a direct stake in it; nothing focuses the mind like having everything you have tied up in the success or failure of a business venture! It gives urgency and professionalism if nothing else. In state controlled business, and it can clearly be seen in the likes of the civil service, the staff are more concerned with their own contracts rather than providing the service their customer wants. Even just being able to pass the buck is something you cannot do as a sole trader. We have to consider the other side of the coin of course and ask did privatisation work? I don't think it did but I do have a question. How come the same people, by and large, headed up these newly privatised companies and almost immediately started showing huge profits? Not hard when you run monopolies of course! Why couldn't they have done that when in charge of nationalised companies with these huge profits coming back into the exchequer? Maybe the answer to that needs a bit more careful examination. I do have one point to make about Thatcher and that is she was a destructive force. Now some of that may well have been needed but if she had put half the effort into rationalisation and reorganisation of the sate controlled businesses she inherited instead of just crossing them out of the national balance sheet I might have thought differently. Merc's point about direct overheads is really quite a complex one and the reason I doubt these Portas Pilots will ultimately work, there are just too many vested interests and loose ends to tie up. At least we have one owner willing to play the long game and take a refreshingly innovative approach to get there, pity the rest weren't as insightful.

Harley-Davidson A mechanic was removing a cylinder head from the engine of a Harley Davidson motorcycle when he spotted a well-known heart surgeon in his shop.. The mechanic shouted across the garage, "Hey, Doc, can I ask you a question?" The surgeon a bit surprised, walked over to the mechanic working on the motorcycle. The mechanic straightened up, wiped his hands on a rag and asked, "So Doc, look at this engine. I open its heart, take the valves out, fix 'em, put 'em back in, and when I finish, it works just like new. So how come I get such a small salary and you get the really big bucks, when you and I are doing basically the same work?" The surgeon paused, smiled and leaned over, and whispered to the mechanic... "Try doing it with the engine running."

Looks like our AAA is coming under pressure now............

Hitachi........?

Fact: Governments do not create jobs, and can not run enterprises. This has been proven time and time again in every part of the world - capitalist, communist, and every system in between. Governments can only create the conditions in which enterprise can thrive, or be stifled. And, creating the conditions is a s-l-o-w, and at times uncertain, process. True, in just the same way you cannot blame the likes of a council for not opening shops on the high street. They can however be blamed for not having a commercially friendly infrastructure in place to attract new business start ups and/or retain the businesses they have……. Also the politicos do have the power to give direction and I think that is what is lacking at present. I would take issue with the bit… Margaret Thatcher closed nothing, ordered nothing closed; long building economic pressures forced those more gradual closures! It would seem she USED those economic pressures to justify closing great swathes of what were nationalised industries, as well as others, for principally ideological reasons. I am not claiming they were efficient or profitable as stand-alone units but she effectively decimated the manufacturing base of this country to produce one built on the service sector and one imbalance doesn't rectify another.

Bet it was a 7/16'' John!

Well that couldn't be you skivving in the underpass Adam!

That's the one foxy........ classic example of of bunker architecture!

Never heard of that bediesathome......... accumulater battery......was that an early leisure battery?

I mean the one which stood where Carlton House is now and exploded due to a gas leak. What a place Bedlington is for gas leaks................