ecuk268

Exactly. Fruit and veg have one of the highest markups in supermarkets. There's a guy who's had a stall in Shirley for years (in front of the old Crown pub) and he's so much cheaper than Sainsburys.

You’re too young to remember the early 80’s and the drastic cuts about to be implemented by Margaret Thatcher and her Defence Minister John Nott. Under pressure from Thatcher’s desire to slash spending, Nott had implemented a Defence Review and his solution was to concentrate almost solely on Britain’s role in NATO. The purchase of Trident was confirmed. The British Army of the Rhine was to be limited to 55,000 men. The Royal Navy was to lose one fifth of its 60 Destroyers and Frigates. Aircraft Carriers were to be phased out, with the sale of HMS Hermes and the newly-built HMS Invincible. Amphibious ships were to be scrapped too, meaning the end of HMS Intrepid and HMS Fearless. Essentially, the Navy was to become an anti-submarine force to operate in the North Sea, North Atlantic and the Greenland-Iceland-UK Gap. The ability to act independently out of the NATO area was effectively being given up. Amongst other things, the Royal Navy Dockyards were to be drastically wound down and privatised, meaning thousands of redundancies. One of the lesser-known items in the review was the withdrawal of the Antarctic patrol ship, HMS Endurance. I was working for a company that did R&D work for the MoD and we had a visit from Keith Speed, the Navy minister. He totally opposed the cuts and was later ordered to resign by Thatcher. He refused and was sacked. He gave us a passionate speech about why the cuts were wrong, which I thought at the time was a brave thing for a serving Minister to do, expressing views directly opposing his superior and the Prime Minister. Then the Falklands came along. Nott’s career was finished and Keith Speed was vindicated. So, if it hadn’t been for the Falklands, the Navy would probably be even smaller than it is now.

I see that next year's "Grande Depart" is in Yorkshire.

You only have to look at Pirate Bay to see how difficult this can be. My ISP (Virgin) has blocked the original site but there are numerous overseas-hosted duplicates available. As soon as one is blocked, another one appears.

Does he really or is he looking for a large amount of cash to retain the bases? The MOD has said that the costs of relocation are "prohibitive". I think that Salmond is preparing the ground for a lucrative rental agreement.

Died age 51. Olympic silver medalist and team mate of Roger Black and Kris Akabusi. Used to see them training at the Sports Centre under the watchful eye of Mike Smith.

The reason that there's no pension deficit is that the £38bn has been transferred to the taxpayer because no investor in his right mind would invest in a company with those sort of liabilites. It was announced in the the Budget in March 2012 that the liabilities of the scheme, which were around £37.5 billion, would be transferred to a newly established unfunded public pension scheme.

At least you'll be able to buy shares in something that you already own.

Boy: Trevor Girl: Kylie Dog: Rover or Fido

You obviously know more than the Office of National Statistics whose figure for 2010 was 7 per 1000. I make that 0.7%. It's been steadily falling since 1998. I don't think that a stroll around a city centre is a statistically valid method of measuring immigration numbers.

Thirded. Very helpful and you won't be sold a load of stuff that you don't need.

Has Barry Venison tried it?

Form orderly queues

Someone lent my son the full set of DVDs and we watched all 86 episodes over about 6 months. Terrific actor who did a fine job of portraying the somewhat complex character of Tony Soprano.

Had 2 MGBs in my younger days. First a ragtop and later a GT. Paintwork was always a problem. Rust would spread underneath the paint and, when you went to repair what looked like a small blemish, it turned out to be a much bigger area. Even in their day they weren't the quickest of cars but great fun and the old 1800cc motor would pull a house down and was pretty reliable. The MG Owners Club was a great source of parts. They manufacture body panels and virtually everything else.

Snip from the Grauniad about Joe Kinnear's appointment at Newcastle. I wonder who the other manager they're alluding to??? "Of course if Joe thought much of what was written about him five years ago was very disappointing, he'd be well advised to avoid the papers in the coming week, when a number of press-box elders who see nothing wrong with constantly brown-nosing one faintly preposterous cockney football dinosaur with a penchant for getting teams relegated sharpen their quills in order to ridicule Newcastle's appointment of another."

Southampton lass who won a bronze at the 1980 Olympics and later got an OBE. One of Mike Smith's team along with Roger Black, Kris Akabusi etc.

Just been watching "A Time Travellers Guide to Elizabethan England". The French Ambassador at the time commented on Elizabeth's very revealing dress which left no doubt that she was a woman.

Heavy rain and thunderstorms this morning. Seems to be brightening up now.

Is it possible to have a low enough opinion of Daily Mail readers? It could be worse, they could be Express readers.

He did indeed run The Sun in Romsey. My dad worked for Strongs Brewery at the time and Dennis told him how Terry Paine was Ted Bate's blue-eyed boy. When they arrived for training John would get a curt "Morning, Hollowbread" from Ted whereas with Paine it would be "Good morning, Terry how are you today, son?" Apparently he could do no wrong in Ted's eyes.

Mrs ecuk268 has a Fire HD. She's not particularly tech savvy so finds it good for e-mails, web browsing, books and BBC iPlayer. You can borrow e-books from our library and fairly easily convert them for the Kindle. There's also loads of free e-books on the web, some legal and others not so legal.

Terrific player who benefited greatly from two excellent wingers (Paine and Sydenham) who supplied him with crosses.

Our best midfielder and a worthy replacement for Steve Williams. Branfoots biggest mistake in letting him go.

Courtesy of NewsThump: The future of the Mail Online has been thrown into doubt following calls to ban websites that promote hate and intolerance. The online version of the Daily Mail could be closed down following an incident in the Cotswolds in which a Guardian reader of ‘questionable gender’ was snared in a beartrap. Although no one group has admitted responsibility for the attack, anti-happiness organisation Christians Against Moral-Free Godless Sodomites have called for people to ‘take to the streets’ in the fight against things that don’t really affect them. Speaking of areas with a high density of Guardian readers, anti-hate campaign spokesperson Nigel Wells warned that the streets could soon be running with hummus and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar unless something is done. “There is a war coming,” he insisted. “This war won’t be fought in some far-flung country thousands of miles away. It will be fought on the streets of Britain. “On one side you’ll have people who are adamant that the cause of the current economic crisis is the fault of Thatcher and Reagan, Page 3 models, processed food and people with a slap-dash attitude to recycling. “On the other you’ll have people who insist that it’s down to immigration, homosexuals, homosexual immigrants, women in trousers, aggressive homosexuals, aggressive homosexual immigrants and aggressive transgender immigrants in EU trousers.” “Why can’t people just hate each other in peace?” I think, therefore I am (not a Daily Mail reader)