bridge too far

One of my grandfathers served in the Merchant Fleet. I don't know about the other one and he's dead and so are my parents, so I doubt I'll ever know.

This is exactly what I was thinking yesterday / Thursday night when I heard about his 'takeover'. But I do wonder if there was a clause in the loan conditions when he bailed them out recently that said, if repayments were not made on time, he could take over the company. If such a clause existed when he lent the money, but before the WUP, what would take precedence?

I can't confirm that. However, Canterbury was bought out of administration by J D Sports and J D Sports does have a unit at the Basingstoke Shopping Centre.

I loved that first time around - which channel is showing it? In the same vein, Our Friends in the North was good too. More recently, The Street was a superb drama series, produced by the BBC (I think).

I feel VERY let down by MY MP :mad:

Sadly no - he was talking about the Terry business.

Well, let me add strength to your argument. The Tory who has been ACCUSED is a Member of the House of Lords and not one of the 193. So we could equally point out that 0% of the Labour members of the House of Lords are corrupt. Careful though - they've been accused, not found guilty. Given the (approximate) 3 to 1 ratio, could it be that the Met is doing test cases to reflect that ratio?

Thank you

I'm pressed to think of any Socialists in the current government.

But the LAW of averages will conclude that if you have 100 Labour MPs and 10 Tory MPs (for the sake of argument) and 10% of MPs are crooks, then 10 will, in all probability, will be Labour and only 1, in all probability, be Tory I'm talking about the number of MPs from each party as opposed to the average amount claimed by MPs from each party. But I'm not trying to justify any of them - as you well know xx Oh - an afterthought. The majority of Liberal and Labour MPs represent constituencies furthest removed from Westminster. The Tories tend to represent the more affluent southern areas. Not absolutely, I'll concede, but generally.

I'm not condoning any MP's behaviour but a mathematical point here: There are far more labour MPs than there are from any other party. Therefore, the law of averages dictates that more labour MPs will be held to account than MPs from any other party. Not an excuse - just a point of order Oh being a member of the Labour Party doesn't necessarily make one a Socialist.

I'm still confused about Storrie. I thought, a couple of months ago, he'd got a job with the Australian FA?

I've not got a real opinion on either Terry's behaviour or his sacking as captain. The latter is up to Fabio as far as I'm concerned and he's a better judge of the matter than I could ever be. I do, however, find the sheer hypocrisy of the media and the English public quite astounding. In any event, I would worry more about the effect of all this on the innocent parties i.e. Wayne Bridge and John Terry's wife and their respective children.

So this HK guy is the new owner for the moment - although this is being challenged by Al Mirage's lawyer. So, in order to be owner, does the HK guy have to pass the FAPPT first? How long will that take? If he fails, does that mean he can't be owner? If he can't be owner / if Al Mirage wins his case (and lord only knows how long THAT court case will take) how on earth can any prospective new owner be expected to do all the due diligence by next Wednesday? FFS

Why not try mainland Greece? Someone's already mentioned Parga which is great and there are lots of really interesting places in the Pelopponese (sp?). If you like seeing ancient monuments, that is - Corinth, Mycenae, Epidavros and of course Athens itself.

Oh I'm so very jealous! We've done loads of narrow boating - most of the canals in the UK and the Canal du Midi a couple of years ago too. Which canal(s) do you do? I think my favourite is the Llangollen canal but I have a very soft spot for the Oxford canal - the first one we ever did when the children were little.

Lawks 'a mercy - this discussion has gone round the block at least twice. The council (not me) has stated that all drivers have to pass a test that includes speaking and understanding English before they are granted a licence. The council is saying that the signs in cabs are not necessary. You win - I'm tired - I'm going to bed

They're not! I bet, with a very few exceptions, most customers take whatever cab is available without even thinking about whether or not they speak English. It's never crossed my mind here in Oxford and we have a large number of Asian and Polish taxi drivers. However, those drivers who put labels in the taxis are IMPLYING that some other drivers DON'T speak English. That's the point

I know - I said it was a feminine take on the situation See, we girlies IMAGINE all sorts of stuff even if it's not blindingly obvious!

Here's the female take on it. I assumed that her sister was at the funeral too, as it was her mother's funeral. Having got the hots for the guy, she then notes that her sister is making a play for him too. So she kills her sister.

Nothing questionable there. I would assume, if I hailed a taxi in Greece, that the driver spoke Greek. I would not, however, assume that he WAS Greek, given the number of immigrants to Greece that I referred to. Yeah?

Given the large number of Albanian immigrants and also EU immigrants to Greece, I would NOT assume that all taxi drivers in Greece were Greek TBF

And me

I don't think it's the same company. Grosvenor Estates is owned by the Duke of Westminster. However, this lot seem to be something different: http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/f51a98e50251d20021f9601d5ed7cddb/compdetails

We're rehearsing the same old argument then. The city council has stated categorically that cabbies don't get their licences unless they can speak (and understand) English. I can remember, at school, that one of my maths teachers was German. English wasn't her FIRST language but no-one criticised her for that. If, by default, you are supporting the idea that all cabbies must have English as their FIRST language then you are discriminating against ALL other nationalities who can speak English perfectly well. The cabbies with the signs are IMPLYING that anyone who is Polish, Asian etc. etc. can't speak English. That's the racist bit.