Malcolm Robinson

Title says it all really but here is the web site: http://www.fairfueluk.com/index.html

It shows the interconnectivity of it all Brett. Its like politics, not many people want to discuss it but it does have a direct bearing on everyday life. I would be much happier if the Uk Government were applying themselves to our economy, and I don't mean austerity cuts, rather than getting exposure trying to interfere in the Eurozone crisis. We should be trying to insulate ourselves from what is coming not getting involved more. Looks like we will either see Germany leading a Northern Euro section with the southern sovereigns amalgamated into a club which more closely suits them or if the Eurocrats and the Yanks push for carpet bombing everywhere with printed money Germany will probably have to leave the Euro anyway. Whatever way it goes there are huge repercussions for the UK.

EUROPEAN ECONOMICS in a Nut Shell. Some years ago a small rural town in Spain twinned with a similar town in Greece. The Mayor of the Greek town visited the Spanish town. When he saw the palatial mansion belonging to the Spanish mayor he wondered how he could afford such a house. The Spaniard said; "You see that bridge over there? Well the EU gave us a ten-million Euro grant to build a four-lane bridge, but we cheated and built a two lane bridge leaving more than enough over to fund this mansion." A couple of years later the Spanish Mayor visited the Greek town. He was simply amazed at the Greek Mayor's Mansion, gold taps, marble floors, it was worth at least ten-million Euros. When the Spanish Mayor asked how this could be afforded the Greek Mayor said; "You see that bridge over there?" The Spaniard replied; . . . . . . . . . . "No?"......

Just been informed we made it into the last 30 but not the last 12! Not too disappointed, the others in the competition are delivering really good work.

A Lesson in Economics: Understanding 'Derivatives.' Heidi is the proprietor of a bar in Detroit . She realises that virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronise her bar. To solve this problem, she comes up with a new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now, but pay later. Heidi keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers loans). Word gets around about Heidi's "Drink now, pay later" marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into Heidi's bar. Soon she has the largest sales volume for any bar in Detroit . By providing her customers freedom from immediate payment demands, Heidi gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer, the most consumed beverages. Consequently, Heidi's gross sales volume increases massively. A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognises that these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases Heidi's borrowing limit. He sees no reason for any undue concern because he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral! At the bank's corporate headquarters, expert traders figure a way to make huge commissions, and transform these customer loans into DRINKBONDS. These "Securities" then are bundled and traded on international securities markets. Naive investors don't really understand that the securities being sold to them as "AAA Secured Bonds" really are debts of unemployed alcoholics. Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb - and the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation's leading brokerage houses. One day, even though the bond prices still are climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Heidi's bar. He so informs Heidi. Heidi then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons. But, being unemployed alcoholics -- they cannot pay back their drinking debts. Since Heidi cannot fulfil her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy. The bar closes and Heidi's 11 employees lose their jobs. Overnight, DRINKBOND prices drop by 90%. The collapsed bond asset value destroys the bank's liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community. The suppliers of Heidi's bar had granted her generous payment extensions and had invested their firms' pension funds in the BOND securities. They find they are now faced with having to write off her bad debt and with losing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds. Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations, her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers. Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multibillion dollar no-strings attached cash infusion from the government. The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, non-drinkers who have never been in Heidi's bar.

A fifty-ish woman was at home happily jumping on her bed and squealing with delight. Her husband watches her for a while and asks, "Do you have any idea how ridiculous you look?, What's the matter with you?" The woman continues to bounce on the bed and says, "I don't care, I just came from having a mammogram and the doctor says I have the breasts of an 18 year-old". The husband said, "What did he say about your 56 year old ass?" "Your name never came up," she replied. (Men . . . They just never know when to shut up, do they?)

Nice one Brett. All together now...........AHHHHHHHHHHhhhhh.

Welcome Adam.

Little Johnny... A teacher goes around her class asking each of the kids what do they need at home. 1st kid says, "A computer". Teacher replies, "That'd be very useful." 2nd kid says, "a new lawn mower," and gets a similar response. Little Johnny pops up and says, "At my house we don't need nothin." The teacher asks him to think again carefully as everybody needs something. Little Johnny replies, "No I'm sure.........." "When my sister started going out with a Muslim, I remember my dad saying, "Well, that's the last !*!@# thing we need."

A circus owner runs an ad for a lion tamer, and two people show up. One is a retired avid golfer in his early sixties (Joe), and the other is a gorgeous blonde in her mid-twenties. The circus owner tells them, "I'm not going to sugar-coat it. This is one ferocious lion. He ate my last tamer, so you two had better be good, or you're history. Here's your equipment - a chair, a whip and a gun. Who wants to try out first?" The girl says, "I'll go first." She walks past the chair, the whip and the gun and steps right into the lion's cage. The lion starts to snarl and pant and begins to charge her. About halfway there, she throws open her coat revealing her beautiful naked body. The lion stops dead in his tracks, sheepishly crawls up to her and starts licking her feet and ankles. He continues to lick and kiss her entire body for several minutes and then rests his head at her feet. The circus owner's jaw is on the floor. He says, "I've never seen a display like that in my life." He then turns to the retired golfer and asks, "Can you top that?" The old golfer replies, "No problem; just get that lion out of there. A blonde was playing Trivial Pursuit one night. She rolled the dice and she landed on Science & Nature. Her question was, "If you are in a vacuum and someone calls your name, can you hear it?" She thought for a time and then asked, "Is it on or off?" A Scotsman goes into a brothel in Amsterdam one night and finds himself a nice-looking prostitute. He asks her, 'How much dae ye charrrge forrrr an hourrr?' '£100,' she replies. So he asks, 'Okay, dae yee dae it Scottish style?' She says 'No!' He then asks her, 'I'll gie you £200 to dae it Scottish style - please?' She then says, 'No', not even knowing what 'Scottish style' was! So he then offers her £300. Again she declines his offer. So, finally he says, 'I'll gie ye £500 to gaun Scottish style WI me!' Finally she agrees, thinking, 'Well, I've been in the game for over 10 years Now. I've been there and done that, had every kind of request from weirdos From every corner of the world. How bad could Scottish style be?' So she goes ahead and has sex with him, doing it in every kind of way and in Every possible position. Finally, after several intense hours they finish. Exhausted, the hooker turns to him and says, 'That was really fantastic. I've never enjoyed it so much. But I was expecting something perverted and Disgusting. Where does the 'Scottish style' come in?' The Scotsman replies, 'I'll pay ye next week...

Here is the first picture group.

Vic, Evan Martin was a well-known and respected local historian. I believe he was a teacher in his working life, with a side line in antiques. He had many books published chronicling our locality in terms of social and economic history. Sadly he died earlier this year and his wife gave Barry Mead, another well know local history buff, his pictorial archives which contain many hundreds of unidentified local photographs. Barry wants to identify as many as possible and has them on tables down at St Cuthbert's today for as many people as possible to sort through and help with the identifications. There was a very good turn out when I was there this morning and let's hope a good load of the pictures were catalogued. I will ask Barry if he has any which might be posted up on this site and let anyone interested have a go at the identification. There were working pictures, sporting pictures, landscapes, school pictures and family pictures and by the way there were probably thousands of them!

Barry Mead has all of Evan Martin's old pictures on display at St Cuthberts today, Sat 12th Nov. He is asking for anyone who might be able to identify them to go along and help catalogue them.

Just a quick update........... This has been entered into a national competition and not only passed initial inspection it has been short-listed for an award!

Wonder how much they would take to rename it Roker Park! http://uk.news.yahoo.com/anger-over-newcastle-stadium-name-change-162634067.html

Two Ladies Talking in Heaven: 1st woman: Hi! Wanda. 2nd woman: Hi! Sylvia. How'd you die? 1st woman: I froze to death. 2nd woman: How horrible! 1st woman: It wasn't so bad.... After I quit shaking from the cold, I began to get warm & sleepy, and finally died a peaceful death. What about you? 2nd woman: I died of a massive heart attack. I suspected that my husband was cheating, so I came home early to catch him in the act. But instead, I found him all by himself in the den watching TV. 1st woman: So, what happened? 2nd woman: I was so sure there was another woman there somewhere that I started running all over the house looking. I ran up into the attic and searched, and down into the basement. Then I went through every closet and checked under all the beds. I kept this up until I had looked everywhere, and finally I became so exhausted that I just keeled over with a heart attack and died. 1st woman: Too bad you didn't look in the freezer---we'd both still be alive.

Italian bond yields now 7%+, stock markets drop about 2%. The whole point of ECB intervention in bonds was to protect low interest charges going forwards. The ECB MUST have huge losses on its purchases and by any measure would be bankrupt! Of course the way they report their books they assume payments in full at redemption. BoA and Barcap have huge liabilities here as does other UK banks! Looks like the talking is about over!

If I didn't know any better........ BTW, did Gordo pre-empt Christine with her lost decade comment?

Gives a bit of reassurance that t'internet is still a vehicle for free expression! Don't mention the ECB! Notice how 'quite' that institution has been recently? It has been the 'buyer of last resort' for peripheral Euro countries for quite a while now and has to be insolvent, by any proper measure of asset backed performance! Having to buy what are in fact toxic assets to allow countries to pay day to day running costs is clearly not a practice which either should be allowed or can happen indefinitely. They are putting burdens on the prudent countries to save the profligate ones, bit like the UK where borrowers are being cossetted from their own hubris at the expense of savers. The ECB is being forced into actions which are way out of its mandate. Any talk of Greece now looks to be a case of vultures picking over carrion and looking at my favourite likely defaulter Italy there have been recent moves which ratchet up that possibility. I keep saying the story is seen in bond yields and 5% was always the figure which triggers sweaty brows. Well Italy's benchmark yields are now shooting up toward 7% and with Berlusconi's detachment from the real world, looks to be having a serious impact. Even GGG's favourite fiscal pin up Christine has been forced into a speech where she seemed to say the IMF has been called in to 'help' Italy reorganise. IMF help always comes at a cost of austerity measures which might be Berlusconi's way of transferring blame? The problem Italy has is its economic performance which has been lack lustre for the last couple of decades! That hasn't stopped her ramping up borrowing in an all too familiar scenario for weak Euro members. So high borrowing with increasing costs and low economic performance coupled with not being able to alter exchange rates would seem to give some credence to my claim that Italy will be the one to burst out of the Euro if not bust the Euro. There is a proviso to that, looking at German reaction to what is going on I cannot believe the German printing presses are not being oiled up in readiness for printing new Deutschmarks or possibly a different version of the Euro for northern Euro countries. They might have been able to swallow East Germany in reunification without a great cost but taking over the PIIGS in any fiscal understanding these days of a global economy couldn't be countenanced by the international markets. At the end of the day the west, primarily Europe and America, have maintained increasing living standards by borrowing while the East has worked solidly and clawed its way up the wealth and living standard tables. Not hard to see which is earned and sustainable and which will become the poor relation quite soon.

A Primary Teacher explains to her class that she is a Liverpool fan. She asks her students to raise their hands if they too are Liverpool fans. Everyone in the class raises their hand except one little girl. The teacher looks at the girl with surprise and says, 'Mary, why didn't you raise your hand?' 'Because I'm not a Liverpool fan,' she replied. The teacher, still shocked, asked, 'Well, if you are not a Liverpool fan, then who are you a fan of?' 'I am a Man United fan, and proud of it,' Mary replied. The teacher could not believe her ears. 'Mary, why, pray tell, why are you a Man United fan?' 'Because my mum is a Man United fan, and my dad is a Man United fan, so I'm a Man United fan too!' 'Well,' said the teacher in an obviously annoyed tone, 'that is no reason for you to be a Man United fan. You don't have to be just like your parents all of the time... What if your mum was a prostitute and your dad was a drug addict, what would you be then?' 'Then,' Mary smiled, 'I'd be a Liverpool fan. An Australian, an Irishman and a Scouser are in a bar. They're staring at another man sitting on his own at a table in the corner. He's so familiar, and not recognising him is driving them mad. They stare and stare, until suddenly the Irishman twigs: 'My God, it's Jesus!' Sure enough, it is Jesus, nursing a pint. Thrilled, they send him over a pint of Guinness, a pint of Fosters and a pint of bitter. Jesus accepts the drinks, smiles over at the three men, and drinks the pints slowly, one after another. After he's finished the drinks, Jesus approaches the trio. He reaches for the hand of the Irishman and shakes it, thanking him for the Guinness. When he lets go, the Irishman gives a cry of amazement: 'My God! The arthritis I've had for 30 years is gone. It's a miracle!' Jesus then shakes the Aussie's hand, thanking him for the lager. As he lets go, the man's eyes widen in shock. 'Strewth mate, the bad back I've had all my life is completely gone! It's A Miracle.' Jesus then approaches the Scouser who says, 'Back off, mate, I'm on disability benefit. A scouser walked into the local job centre, marched straight up to the Counter and said 'Hi, I'm looking for a job'. The man behind the counter replied 'Your timing is amazing. We've just got one in from a very wealthy man who wants a chauffeur/bodyguard for his nymphomaniac twin daughters. You'll have to drive around in a big black Mercedes and wear the uniform provided. The hours are a bit long but the meals are provided. You also have to escort the young ladies on their Overseas holidays. TheSalary package is £200,000 a year'. The Scouser said 'You're bullsh*tting me!' The man behind the counter said 'Well you started it!' Police cordoned off Liverpool City Centre this morning when a suspicious object was discovered in a car. It later turned out to be a Tax Disc.

Nice one Merc, very droll!