Canny lass

Free movement, now there’s a thing to strive for – or so my physiotherapist tells me – especially when it comes to knees. Free movement in the knees is invaluable in achieving all manner of things that elbows can’t do by themselves. Therefore we should all look after our knees. I’ve looked after mine but not as much as I should have done. I’ve neglected them a bit. OK, they get a bit of a going over with all this running but perhaps I could have gone the extra mile and invested in better running shoes just to show them I cared – but I have to think about my economy. And maybe I should have listened to them when they started complaining about all the tap-dancing – at my age. However, even though they haven’t got my whole-hearted support, and at times they’ve been treated very badly, they continue to give me some sort of strength and, dare I say it, stability. They make me ‘whole’ so to speak. And even if I can read research reports in the Daily Rant and the Weekly Moan telling me that the remainder of me can manage just fine without my knees AND that having them removed would only improve my life because the knees, having neither brains nor feeling, would continue to do their work anyway – with the added bonus that I no longer have responsibility for them - I am cautious. Even my physio, who’s all for movement, would have me believe that they’d still be there for me and that I’d never again have to think about going up the stairs “the knees will be there for you, CL”, ”your will will be their command, CL”, “there’s no pain without gain, CL” (did he really say that?)! He carefully ignores all my questions about ‘knee-length’ shorts and dismisses all my fears of how silly I’d look without knees as ‘just scaremongering’. How, without knees, I would be able to kneel down to comfort a crying child, resuscitate a dying human or even scrub the floor of the toilet, he does not know but he advises me against turning to any expert, these being under the control of the brain. All my ‘bad hair’ days, varicose veins and failing eyesight will disappear, he adds, and shows me a newspaper report which proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that my knees are to blame for these problems as well. His firm belief is that I “will once again get control” but he cannot really tell me how to acheive that if I don’t have knees.

And my argument is that he is no more influenced than any other British research university who get, on average, 11% of their funding (not most of their funding, as you claim) from EU. Point after point I am offering support for this argument.. You, on the other hand make no attempt to support your theory that the Russell Group has £3.5 billions of EU money at its disposal, preferring instead to throw your toys out of the pram and refuse to 'play' any more. I do not have a great deal of time either but I am never the less sufficiently interested in what you say to take the time to research your theories and provide you with the arguments which you requested. Does this latest response now mean that you've picked up your toys, got over your tantrum and want to play again - or are you still wishing I would go away? I think you'll find that Dougan's wage comes directly from the university.

That's a very good question!

A new amendment law applies from the day it is validated. With any following the amendment would apply. Hope that clears things up.

As yet, I have not taken up the syntactic arguments, but there are many, I am presenting the arguments which you requested. Not having time for them suggests to me that you are looking for an excuse to avoid defending your own 'arguments' against mine.

I haven't fineshed yet.

Something odd has happened to the numbers. All appear as £16 million. Here is the above text with the correct figures: Where did I leave off ? Ah yes, statement 3 Statement 4: You say: “you need to dig a little bit deeper to find out where Liverpool Law School gets much of it’s funding.” “If you don’t boldly present a project as EU funded (even though they only stump up 50% most of the time)” You also say: “There’s an interesting document titled “Russell Group universities and the European Union” which boasts about £3.5 billions of EU money it is responsible for disbursing” UK universities receive 16% of the total EU funding for research. In the last academic year, the UK’s universities received £836 million in research grants from the EU, an increase of £149 million since 2014. Of these £836 million, the Russell Group (Britains 24 elite, research universities) receive £384 million a year in research funds. This constitutes 11% of their research income. (http://www.conferenceboard.ca/topics/education/commentaries/16-06-21/brexit_what_it_means_for _uk_highereducation) Liverpool University is one of those 24 elite universities in the UK and can receive, on average, £16 million. Within Liverpool University there are 8 departments, one of which is the Law School. It can receive on average, £2 million. This is does not support your statement that Liverpool Law School gets “much” of its funding from EU and therefore I must, again, say that your statements are fallacious. (As a matter of interest, apart from its EU funding, the Russell Group, received almost 66% of the total university research grant in the UK, so clearly the UK thinks they are worth investing in). You also say that there is a document titled “Russell Group universities and the European Union” which “boasts about the £3.5 billions of EU money it is responsible for disbursing”. Perhaps it was a slip of the finger? Did you mean to write millions? (Giving you a get out there).That would be nearer the mark. However, I have searched the Internet and I find no trace of this document. Please supply name of author and publication date so that I can read it for myself. Until I have seen this I have no choice but to regard even this statement as fallacious.

Where did I leave off ? Ah yes, statement 3 Statement 4: You say: “you need to dig a little bit deeper to find out where Liverpool Law School gets much of it’s funding.” “If you don’t boldly present a project as EU funded (even though they only stump up 50% most of the time)” You also say: “There’s an interesting document titled “Russell Group universities and the European Union” which boasts about £3.5 billions of EU money it is responsible for disbursing” UK universities receive 16% of the total EU funding for research. In the last academic year, the UK’s universities received £836 million in research grants from the EU, an increase of £149 million since 2014. Of these £836 million, the Russell Group (Britains 24 elite, research universities) receive £16 million a year in research funds. This constitutes 11% of their research income. (http://www.conferenceboard.ca/topics/education/commentaries/16-06-21/brexit_what_it_means_for _uk_highereducation) Liverpool University is one of those 24 elite universities in the UK and can receive, on average, £16 million. Within Liverpool University there are 8 departments, one of which is the Law School. It can receive on average, £16 million. This is does not support your statement that Liverpool Law School gets “much” of its funding from EU and therefore I must, again, say that your statements are fallacious. (As a matter of interest, apart from its EU funding, the Russell Group, received almost 66% of the total university research grant in the UK, so clearly the UK thinks they are worth investing in). You also say that there is a document titled “Russell Group universities and the European Union” which “boasts about the £3.5 billions of EU money it is responsible for disbursing”. Perhaps it was a slip of the finger? Did you mean to write millions? (Giving you a get out there).That would be nearer the mark. However, I have searched the Internet and I find no trace of this document. Please supply name of author and publication date so that I can read it for myself. Until I have seen this I have no choice but to regard even this statement as fallacious.

... and that made my evening!

Put your claws away. I am not afraid of them and neither am I impressed by them. Tony made a simple statement in perfect Swedish. You said the translation was wrong. I disagreed with you and pointed out that your translation was incorrect. You go off the rails and rabble on about some Tony (?Tony p, ?Tony Blair) and his friends, which I don't understand. Would you care to explain the quoted sentence? Which first and last words have I reversed? And where is there a 't'? I really do not know what you are talking about.

I don't even know who Tony's Hate-no-Hope friends are. I've never heard the expression before so I don't know if I've met up with them or not. Why do you read something non-existent into everything that's said? I made a simple statement that the translation was correct. Unlike yours which used the English word clique. The Swedish word is klick, same pronunciation - different spelling. Never mind, at least you Google translate got the genus right!

That's probably one of the funniest things I've seen the past few weeks - and heaven knows there have been some corkers floating about in the press! You made my day, Malcolm, and taken all the pain of shoe shopping away! thank you!

No error, I assure you. Perfect translation.

Sounds a bit like here, Vic!

It can be amended, Moe, and it then gets a new name f.ex, The Bedlington Clothes Prop Length Regulation Act (1921) may become The Bedlington Clothes Prop Length Regulation Amendment Act (1999). It becomes a new law. If this didn't happen we would still be living in the middle-ages. Look again at the download. It does not say that UK gov site is down. It says that the petition site is down: petition.parliament .uk The Telegraph appear to make the same mistake as yourself. The headline stating that a new referendum is being demanded. Given that they've got that wrong, I can make an educated guess that they've got the "1.5 million signatures in 24 hours" bit wrong as well. The download can't be wrong. You get exactly what's on the screen at the time of downloading. I don't know just when it was downloaded, but it can't have been later than 18 June - one week ago today..

When in Rome ..., as the saying goes. There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing. Like the residents of my host country I am prepared for all eventualities. The weather can throw at me what it likes. It's so predictable I'm very rarely caught out anyway. Three degrees is a mere nothing! As for the maypole, the men sometimes have difficulties getting it up.

Could this threaten my Christmas dinner?

Haha. I'm all for people having power.

I'm dreading the first Midsummer Eve celebration without EU! With 30 people to feed I hire in a couple of Polish people to dig up new potatoes, pick strawberries, and cut chives. You can't get your hands on a single Swede that day. They are all out celebrating. Maybe this fine Scandinavian tradition will have to come to an end?

It must depend on what sort of stuff you buy. The sort of stuff I buy from Lidl's comes from Germany and France.

I've never understood the popularity of the 'R-word'. There are plenty of perfectly good 'I-words' in the English language.

Look again Moe. The demand is not for another referendum. The demand is for a rule that, in certain circumstances, there should be a second referendum. Also, the mass influx of signatures must have come BEFORE the referendum. Firstly, its clearly stated that the petition has a "Deadline 25 November 2016" and that "All petitions run for 6 months" (written directly under the deadline). That means the petition was started 24-25 May, not in June. Secondly, looking at the download from the petition site we can clearly read that the site has been "Down for: more than one week". The referendum was only two days ago. Therefore, there can't have been any signatures added to the petition since the referendum. I don't know what all the fuss is about. We live in a democracy. The referendum produced a democratic vote. A slight majority is still a majority and should be accepted. Both the UK and the EU have a tough time ahead of them but there are worse things in life. I, for example, had to go shopping for new shoes this morning. On a Saturday!

Be thankful for that, Eggy! They may come in useful. Sweden is now seriously worried about where it is going to export all its wood and paper, the UK being its fourth largest export market.

Statement 3: You say: “Our government will resume the right to deport miscreants on its own terms”. “The future though is that either the RoI will at some point leave the EU as it economically disintegrates” We cannot see into the future. We do not know what “will” happen. With any eventual Brexit we must wait to see what is negotiated. Maybe, just maybe, it might be a condition of Brexit that we cannot deport anyone. We do not know what will be resumed of the old system or the old rights? We can only ‘speculate’ on what ‘may’ happen. Therefore your statement is totally fallacious. As Previously said, what will happen in the “future” is not known to anyone. We can only speculate on what might happen in the future. A statement such as the above, beginning “The future though is” has no credibility as opposed to a more accurate ‘The future though may be’. We cannot with certainty know what will happen in the future, therefore your statement is totally fallacious. The same argument is valid for economic disintegration of the EU. It hasn’t occurred yet and may never occur. We do not know. To be continued after the Midsummer holiday. Till then may I wish you all EN RIKTIGT TREVLIG MIDSOMMARAFTON! May all your EU dreams come true.

Statement 2: In relation to the figure of 2 million UK citizens in the EU you say: “his figure on the latter is in fact a whopping 700,000 too high” “The chief lie here is that UK citizens in the EU work there; the vast majority are retired and do no such thing” Also of interest is your statement: “I prefer to believe the properly audited UN figure rather than the UK government one” First, let’s look at the question of the figures related to UK citizens in the EU. According to the UN Population Division (I believe the same source used by yourself) there are indeed 1.2 million British people living in the EU and they do say that this figure contrasts with the government’s preference for using the larger figure of two million, the figure used by Dougan. They also say that the discrepancy “may result from different approaches being used to count those who spend only part of their time in the EU”. This you forgot to mention. What about the worker/pensioner ratio? According to the same source, data on the total number of British working in EU countries is unavailable since many countries do not collect this. However, using DWP pensions as a measuring stick, and knowing that “there are around 400,000 pensioners in receipt of DWP pension living in Ireland, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Cyprus, the Netherlands and Germany”, the UN has, by deducting those 400,000 pensioners from the said 1.2 million been able to calculate that around 800,000 are workers and their dependents. http://www.migrationwatchuk.org/briefing-paper/354). So much for the figures. Are we comparing the same two groups of people here? The UN is counting workers and pensioners. What is Dougan counting? Let’s have a look at what he says: “What do we do with the 2 million or so UK nationals currently living, working, studying in the rest of the EU?” Professor Dougan, unlike the UN, includes students in his group. So, effectively we are comparing two different groups. Of course, even I do not believe there are 800,000 students from Britain studying in the EU but never the less given that the number and compositions of the groups differ, I must ask why they are being compared at all. And then there is the question of the “lie”. Do UK citizens work in the EU? Has Dougan said that the majority work? Is it correct that “the vast majority are retired? The answers are simple. Yes, UK citizens work in the EU. Both UN and Dougan have said so. The UN has even given a “properly audited” figure of 800,000 workers and their dependents, so clearly it must be true. Is it correct as you claim, that the “vast majority are retired”? Not according to the “properly audited” figures released by the UN and cited above.. Therefore, your statement that “his figure on the latter is in fact a whopping 700,000 too high” is totally fallacious. Even the UN do not agree with you. Equally, your statement “The chief lie here is that UK citizens in the EU work there; the vast majority are retired and do no such thing”is also totally fallacious.