Symptoms

How do we know that Tony?  They chucked plenty of folks, opponents of the Junta, out of helicopters into the South Atlantic, raped men and women, snatched kiddies off their parents and gave them away to supporters, tortured 1000s.  Maybe they did do more extreme stuff but they couldn't broadcast it live back then.

All humans are capable of some astonishingly cruel and barbaric behaviour.

GGG - we share the view that Westminster is stuffed full of shysters.  None of them, even the ones wishing to join them at the slop-trough, will deliver anything of benefit.  Their only ambition is to gorge themselves at Joe Public's expense, so they'll lie about what they'll do once they get there.

Vaux Gold Tankard at the Station.  First pint ever and bought whilst seriously underage.  Filthy mackem brew!

Of course, as far public perceptions are concerned there appears to be no clear water between the Tories and New Labour on many policy matters.  Even Milllliiiiibbbbeee's dropping of the 'new' bit hasn't fooled anybody.  What's needed are clear policy differences so Joe Public has a real choice at the GE.  Maybe that's why Ukip are doing so well ... they're offering something that's different.  IMO Labour needs to 'move' left more.

With any negotiation the only imperative is that BOTH sides are open to compromise.  Clearly, IS doesn't want to do this as their objective is the creation of a caliphate AT ANY COST.  So what are we left with?  War, that's what.

Eggs ... I still think you need to CONFIRM that your resources aren't being hijacked by some spotty youth living next door.  Ensure that your Hub is SECURE (see above).  Once you are sure of this then you can have some confidence that the results of your investigations paint a true picture of your useage.  Remember, that spotty youth could be spending all night on the filthy 'throb net' and the first you'll know about it is when the Peelers bash your front door in, and we'll see telly footage of you being carted off followed by a large plakka bag containing your PC.

What BT package do you have?  Ordinary broadband or a flavour of Infinity?

Oh, perhaps as part of your investigations you could try you Sky box via an Ethernet cable (not via Wi-fi) and see what happens?

That ukip document looks familiar ...

Yep, the same folks.  Oh, and public sector workers also pay their taxes and NI contributions (deductions at source).  Many of the low paid in the private sector claim some benefits just to make ends meet ... I wonder why?  Perhaps the bosses who trouser obscene amounts of loot and whose companies stiff the taxman out of billions might like to consider the modest living wage proposals.  Bets are they won't as they don't give a stuff. 

At the moment there's only one power in the region that can halt/roll back those 7th Century madmen and that Turkey.  They've a huge well equipped, well trained army, many units of which are sitting along the entire Syrian border facing IS.  What's stopping them from engaging the IS barbarians?  Local politics, that's what!  They want IS to exterminate the Kurds - remember the Turks have been warring with the Kurds for decades;  IS can save them a job then the Turks will move in and engage IS.  The Turks are capable of defeating IS, unlike the regions answer to the pre-WW1 & WW2 Frogs (Iraq). 

... and the 'maddest' of the lot?  Some might suggest it's the Yankees and their GOP*.  I wrote here a while ago that once the Yankees get all their energy ducks in a row and after a few more members of their armed forces suffer, one of their options will be to nuke the whole of the Middle East and be done with it

*note to the watching NSA & GCHQ ... this is meant as satire and should not trigger my abduction at 4am for an extended holiday in your Cuban resort.

Blimey!!!!  Just think about all those brown envelopes and crates of scotch being slipped to those that matter (I've often posted here about how corrupt ALL politicians are). 

Perhaps, a Judicial Review and/or FOI request to question these decisions might shed some light on corrupt practices (allegedly).

Hetherington ... I went to school with a couple of Hetheringtons, John and Peter and they lived in Windsor Gardens.  I'm sure their Dad was pit manager in the mid- Sixties.  John would be 63 now and Peter 61/62.  I think Peter might be a journalist.

Eggs ... you don't have to bar Mrseggy, just give her the security keycode (unless she's the one hoovering everything up).  I was referring above to switching the BT Hub  to TOTALLY secure and allowing access only to those with the keycode.  As I understand it part of BT smoke & mirror trick is to leave just a bit of every installed hub 'open' to gain maximum 'free' Wi-Fi coverage for Joe Public ... perhaps others here may be able to confirm this. 

I hope they'll consider doing handcrafted artisan wholemeal brown bread sandwiches, complete with a pumpkin seed topping and smoked salmon filling just for willy j.

willy wrote: "... old guy who had his own boat and went out fishing, he must have noticed that I always had the same thing for my bait." and "he must have felt sorry for me, so he insisted I try one of his fresh salmon sandwiches."  I usually used lugworms.   

I can remember fish paste of various sorts although I never ate the stuff ... didn't it come in tiny glass jars?

The boys back East know how to do it ...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-29476740

Willy ... didn't you ever consider handcrafted artisan wholemeal brown bread, complete with a pumpkin seed topping and smoked salmon filling, for you bait sandwiches?  These wouldn't have shown the black finger prints as clearly as the Wonderloaf.

Egg's reference to "cow platts" reminds me of blasting the stuff over 1st years at school.  In the month or so before bonfire night bangers and other cheapo fireworks were bought at Adamson's shop.  At lunchtime us big lads would march large numbers of 1st years over to the field (Meadowdale Farm ... but I can't at the moment remember the farmer's name) opposite Westridge's main gate.  We would select half a dozen victims from our captives and make them stand in a circle around a freshly laid platt,  one of us big lads would rush in with a lit banger and stuff it into the centre of the platt then make a quick exit.  The boom was followed by exploding dollops of sticky brown shit flying out to cover the 1st years ... they didn't half honk.  Then the next half dozen victims were selected.  What fun.

I'm not sure that egg production has changed much since Egg's shit-shovelling days.

Doesn't the BT Hub BY DEFAULT allow all the neighbours (within range) and those walking past in the street to piggyback onto it, thus hoovering-up your resources.  Perhaps you might want to consider being anti-social and disable this 'open' option.

When trimming Elderberry bushes in my various gardens over the years - ALWAYs evokes childhood memories of treehouses we built in a large Elderberry tree which grew in 'The Cut' between the allotments at the back of our house in East Riggs.  Elderberry, for those who don't know, has quite a pungent honk when the stems are cut/snapped.

GCHQ and the NSA will be interested, perhaps even NCC so they can send traffic wardens bearing tickets.

Anyway, I think it's great and look forward to many more installations.  All we exiles have had up to now was (out of date) Google mapping stuff.

Just seen (7.54pm) a couple pushing a pram ... and the bloke's got a mask on and he's looking at the camera.

Some here have suggested I live in cloud cuckoo land.

I could be argued that 'our Nigel' is part of the ruling elite.  He did attend Dulwich College, that rather fine public school in South London and then into the City as a commodities trader.  I wonder how he got that gig?  Oh, wasn't his dad a City stockbroker called Guy Oscar Justus Farage?

Yep, Nigel's definitely a man of the people unlike all those listed above.

Maggs wrote: 'We were poor but we were happy'         

That was true - spending money was really tight for us kids back then!  I wrote earlier about squirrelling the 'lunch' tanners to fund my Moscadini(s) exploits but this funding was supplemented by adding the daily school bus fare to the pot.  When I joined the 6th Form the normal way to get to the Grammar School was to board a Raisbeck's bus (known as 'chariots' 'cos they appeared to be so old) at the 'Top End' (Red Lion) and pay the thrupence (thrupenny bit or 3d or 3 old pence for our younger viewers) to get down to the Station;  no bus meant running from the Top End all the way to school.  I always got the bus back.  Out of this extra 9d daily funding we had to budget for our snouts as well.

Maggs ... local or regional or central won't really make much difference;  they're all as bent as a nine bob note.  I'm old enough to remember the scrag end of local council 'corporations' with their Clerk of Works - these were the guys wholly responsible for awarding council building and road contracts.  The bosses of building firms and road repair firms always 'dropped in' to the Clerks office at Xmas with a crate of Scotch or a 'brown envelope' hoping it would influence who was awarded the various contracts.  What we have now is a scaled up version of what happened in the Clerks office.