Symptoms

Denzel - is this what you've been hiding from us?

The Board of UK Sport meet today to divi-up the funding for the various sports for 2012. All the usual suspects are likely to get whacking great shares of the dosh but other (deserving) groups will probably fare badly. Watch out for piles of dosh being heaped onto rowing, sailing, equestrian, fencing, etc. - mostly the stuff the born-rich or upper-middle class do. Elite athletics (read drug cheats) will be rewarded for their crap performance in China (4 medals only 1 gold) with loads of our money. The problem with raising the required dosh from sponsorship is that the firm (Fast Track) tasked with this can't allow those Companies who wish to donate permission to use the Olympic Rings logo. So what Company is going to give-up tons of dosh if it can't display the Rings and other Olympic logos. I don't think they can even use the word Olympic as it's copyright rests elsewhere.

I say John Barrowman can do no wrong! Unless that single complaining LISTENER has some sort of Xray eyes that can see along a radio wave how can they be offended by the ACT of him getting his todger out? And again those craven, weak-kneed, yellow-bellied Beeb bosses have caved-in and removed the broadcast from IPlayer.

"Iranian Embassey.........then...............er????" But wasn't that the Boys from Hereford? Hasn't it always been denied that Trevor Lock (for our younger viewers - the armed Bobby on the inside) shot one of the bad guys?

The first steps of the rehabilitation of Jonathan Ross happened this morning ... The Guardian gave away a sheet of Xmas wrapping paper designed by the great man himself. It's part of a series, designed by artists, actors, musicians, performers, etc., given out everyday. Excellent stuff!

That YouTube film is brilliant. I loved the line " ... scaldin' them sheeps' dottles" and was impressed at how fair-minded they were at admitting women into the Society. Discussed their membership at Committee then rejected it!

Please share it with us ...

London Underground has a similar platform-based system for predicting if people are about to jump in front of the trains to commit suicide.

Now it's been confirmed that there are no scanners to read the card data and it'll all be down to some some guy eyeballing the card when it's presented. There are no plans to issue scanners either! What a waste of dosh! From The Observer this morning: "Britain's first ID cards, issued last week with fingerprint and facial details, cannot be read by any official body because the government has not issued a single scanner. Ministers promised to roll out hundreds of electronic readers of biometric details. However, a spokesman for the Home Office admitted last week that no employers, police forces, hospitals or colleges have been given the machine - and there are as yet no plans to issue them. The disclosure means the ID cards issued last week to foreign students and the foreign spouses of British citizens can be used only in a similar way to a valid passport and visa. Instead, authorities will have to rely on visual checks on the card and calls to a UK Border Agency hotline if they fear the card is not genuine. The admission bolsters concerns the ID verification scheme is now just a 'flash and go' card similar to those used by many companies. Home Office documents revealed last month that the cards' biometric details will only be cross-referenced with the National Identity Register in a minority of cases."

HP wrote "You can kill one in about a second." Perhaps the fella in this story was following the theme when he topped Foggy the Bedlington Terrier: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10...ng-morning.html

She was a really, really attractive woman but heavily into radical feminist politics.

Both of my Granddads (and various Uncles) grew leeks to show at their local clubs. I remember them producing very large crops, then selecting the show specimens and the seed plants. They used to camp-out in their allotments to stand guard over the plants nearing show time 'cos of the risk of sabotage to the show specimens and theft of the seed heads. One of my Granddads used to empty the contents of his potty (they did have indoor plumbing but he wanted to save his waste ... yuk) into a 55gal oil drum, this mixed with other stuff (God only knows what) became his leek feed. My memory was that all the old timers throughout the North East were obsessed with growing leeks and showing them. Pigeon lofts also seemed to be everywhere when I was a lad ...

I knew a girl who used to go to Greenham Common to protest ... it's an industrial estate now, Yanks all gone. Mind, there could be underground bunkers there for holding the dissidents, camouflaged by an MFI store. Maybe that's why MFI's gone tits-up ... they never sold anything 'cos they were a Government ghost organisation.

I think they still have 'The Big Meeting' as they call their Durham version of the Picnic.

Now, what data will that little card chip contain and be copied to the Government's databases? All the usual stuff like height, eye colour, Nationality, marks, on so on; stuff they already have from passport applications. The new stuff, like our dabs and other bio-metric measurements, will also be included. Next comes the spooky stuff culled from the NHS Spine, our blood group, DNA, diseases/illnesses suffered (including pox clinics visited), allergies, hereditary information, and so on. Next the financial stuff - the data from the credit reference agencies, Land Registry, The Revenue, our Banks and credit card transactions. What next? Oh, yes - they'll get the data about our subscriptions to magazines and membership of clubs and unions. Oh, and there's our travel habits picked-up via Automatic Number-plate Recognition (have you noticed how many of these fixed cameras have sprung-up in the last year). Blimey, I almost forgot about our ISP's having to keep all of our emails for years and log all our web browsing. All/much of this data is/may already kept by individual organisations but when (not if) it all gets sucked onto one database (and burned onto that card chip) it can be more easily interrogated by GCHQ. So what? The Government will sell this information onto insurance companies so they may well refuse cover for those whose Granddad died of cancer. A subscribing company won't hire you 'cos your cousin is a villain (criminality might run in the family). Union membership ... drag the trouble-maker off to the Jails (Camps). And a thousand other ways to restrict our freedom. If you don't hear from me again you'll know the Government's plans are further developed than I thought and I've been 'lifted' by the Boys in Black, injected, chucked into the back of a van, delivered to a deep underground installation on the Outer Hebrides and water-boarded for posting this. I'll leave you with something Pastor Martin Niemoller wrote years ago ... First they came for the Communists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Communist First they came for the Socialist And I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist First they came for the trade unionists And I did not speak out Because I was not a trade unionist First they came for the Jews And I did not speak out Because I was not a Jew Then they came for me And there was no one left To speak out for me

Amstrad maybe?

Until the Boys in Blue say "Your papers please" (in a mock Jerry accent); no papers and you get whipped off to the Nick, have your mouth swabbed and a rubber glove up your ar*e. Oh, and to help you along the way a good Tasering to soften you up.

Pete - "... it sounded like they flew from one side of the living room to the other, ...". Early surround sound I remember reading an article in Scientific America (don't mock ... I was a student in the late '60's) about wiring-up 4 speakers in a particular fashion to create a quadraphonic effect; this was at the time when proprietary quad hi-fi systems were just coming onto the market but with prices the likes of us could never afford. Anyway, I followed the instructions and was amazed by the effect.

"Did they sell powedered egg?". Yep, during the last big bun fight with Jerry Hun.

And do you know why it's going down the pan ... all they sell these days is cheap Chinese plakka tosh, sweeties and a few CDs. Back in the Day you could get just about anything there ... from shoe repair materials (I remember my old man buying leather soles & steel taps for home repairs on his last) through to furniture and everything in between. It was the poor man's John Lewis.

alan - I'm intrigued by the 'c' in alanc. Was your nickname 'Cowt' at school, did you have an older brother in the cops, did you know a lad whose nickname was 'Talc' (not me), are you about 56? If yes to these questions, say so and I'll send you a private message via the Forum. You could be an old pal of mine.

Wasn't there a Tuck Shop in the big building - I'm sure you could get tea and sweets but maybe that's my memory playing tricks. We also swam in the River, probably ¼ of a mile up-stream from the baths/steppy stones, at the dam - deep on one side, a slime slide on the other and a rope swing for Tarzan plops into the water.

And what about the so called 'Olympic Legacy'? The Olympic Stadium will be ripped apart to reduce its capacity for athletics & footy - but no footy club wants to have a running track around the pitch so none have signed-up. We've all seen how lifeless/dull/lacking in atmosphere those foreign grounds are (Champ League tv games) ... goodness, it might even become as empty as the Smoggies tip or as grim as that darkplace in mackemland. The donkey riding & jumping in Greenwich park will consist of temporary stands and other facilities, all to be ripped-out at the end, no doubt causing long-term damage to this beautiful park (& Heritage Site). The shooting, just along the road at Woolwich Barracks – new ranges constructed, new seating, and all the rest – this is all coming out when the curtain comes down. This is a particular waste of dosh as just down the road, near Dartford, there’s already a shooting complex where the money could have been better spent on an up-grade ... that would have left an Olympic Legacy. They reckon we’ll all be paying for this for decades to come through taxation. The poor saps in Greater London will have to pay even more via a Council Tax Surcharge, although some on the Forum may say that “it serves them right for being Cockneys”. As to the Dome (or the O² as we now have to call it) - a great building but what a missed opportunity. I visited the place shortly after it opened and thought the structure was brilliant but the contents was so naff I couldn't believe it. The Faith Zone (an empty white space), fast-food concessions everywhere, the biggest diamond in the World (actually, it was just a glass fake), the Body Zone (a giant plastic dolly which you walked through) ... Oh dear! the place looked cheap and nasty. I had better times at the Miners Picnic! They should have built the National Stadium (Wembley) there instead of Dome.

alan - if you use the Search function in the Menu Bar above, and type in Humford and/or Humford Baths you'll get previous postings about that much loved place. Ah, fond memories: peep holes in the wooden walls of the changing cubicles, frogs in the filter pool and being chucked in there by the 'big lads', the cold water ... something not really noticed/ignored because we pretended to be tough, happy days out with mates. I can't remember the entrance fee ... was it a tanner?

Denzel - join Mr Darn at the top of the class for your accurate assessment of the situation. Brief, punchy and well argued!