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If you’re a lurker, it’ll be a Tragedy if you don’t delurk, I’m sure your contributions won’t be Better Best Forgotten, I hope at least 5,6,7,8 lurkers delurk.
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F1: Rosberg has questioned the safety car's timing (namely it emerged after he and about three other cars had passed the pits, disadvantaging the leading cars):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/28545304
Got to say I think that's legitimate. He pitted at the first opportunity, had a clean stop, and a 9s lead from 1st became 4th place.
In unhappy news, the ex-Caterham staff suing the team are now being counter-sued for allegedly misrepresenting the truth:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/28546567
On the new thread:
Delighted with link 20. I just re-read the chapter entitled The Bulgar Slayer in John Julius Norwich's fantastic history of Byzantium last night. Basil II was a fantastic emperor in every regard save one, but it was a critical area. He utterly neglected his heir (didn't even adopt one) which spelled the end of the rather successful Macedonian dynasty and may have led to the decline and fall of Byzantium itself.
If you are a banker - lets call him "Ted the Shed" and you took lots of risks, and they came off you could give yourself a £100 million bonus, a yacht and a dozen young ladies in the Bahamas.
And if you took big risks, they didn't come off and you bust the bank then you should end up destitute and penniless. And if you've taken cash from people who believe it is basically safe with yourselves and gamble it all away then add 20 years inside as well.
Big risks, big rewards.
It was a weird period for Byzantium. The throne kept on being stolen by men who killed their predecessor, but all of them were incredibly competent and didn't actually kill the proper imperial family.
Anyway, it's the first time for a little while (I think) I've been on at this time. Been doing a little work offline lately.
Historical fiction's not my thing, but if I ever get around to it, choice periods of Byzantium might be what I'd go for. Maurice, Heraclius and Chosroes could be good, likewise Justinian and Belisarius, and the whole Macedonian dynasty.
First, this one from Mr Llama:
"The latest scandal, the one at Lloyds Bank, nobody has been convicted which is fair enough because nobody has been charged. Fine and dandy. That a criminal investigation has not yet taken place is an outrage! The SFO say they are thinking about starting one. What! Really after all this time and all the stories and figures that have been flying around it takes the Governor of the Bank of England to say that the Lloyds Bank's employees behaved unlawfully before the SFO declares that it is thinking about starting an investigation. Gimmie a break. "
I quite agree. I could say more about some of the other failures by the SFO and indeed the FSA in relation to, for instance, RBS but I cannot. The SFO, in particular, has been an appallingly mismanaged organisation for years, lacking credibility and interfered with politically. The ethical behaviour and incompetence of some of its staff has been shocking; see, for instance, its behaviour over the Tchenguiz brothers, for which is had to pay compensation.
Ask yourself why it was when the UK's biggest fraud was prosecuted in 2011-2012 (K Adoboli) the SFO was nowhere to be seen. If a $2.3 billion fraud is not serious, what on earth is?
"Up to a point. I once joined a company whose pension advisers were selling guaranteed income if a staff member fell ill. The adviser sent me a strongly-worded standard letter saying that I'd surely want to take this superb offer.
I quite like reading small print, because I'm allergic to being had, and discovered a clause which completely ruled me out from benefiting, for a reason that the adviser will have been aware of. I frostily pointed it out, and got an abject apology. Then, a year later, I discovered that the company pension fund was predicting double the benefit that it was really offering (they were double-counting contributions). Feeling a bit of a troublemaker, I pointed this out too, and got another apology and corrected statements for everyone in the company.
I'm prepared to believe that both were accidental errors, and I took no further action. But out of idle curiosity, could/should I have done anything, given that I'm not aware of anyone who lost by it?"
Nick: I think that you probably did the right thing, especially getting corrected statements for everyone in the company so kudos to you.
If the firm had been regulated in some way maybe notifying the relevant authorities might have been an option or the legal/compliance departments. What I would be concerned about in such a situation is what other errors are happening and why, whether there is a systemic issue and making sure that those problems are being properly identified and corrected in advance and not just when someone points them out.
Two errors suggests to me some sort of problem: sloppiness possibly rather than deliberate fraud but in a way that's irrelevant because the effects on the employee or consumer are the same.
One issue is this: you say that you felt a "bit of a troublemaker". You should never feel like this. You were doing the right thing by pointing the issue out and we should salute and thank such people. It's precisely because people feel like this that they keep quiet and wrongdoing and incompetence go undetected and unpunished.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-28548297
Idiotic comments below, though. Whilst corruption exists everywhere, the idea the UK is more corrupt than China is farcical.
Interesting on the last thread you should be worried about being given misinformation by your Pension Co. but Politicians of all sides were mismanaging pension schemes legislation resulting in many schemes going bust resulting in a substitutiion of a compensation scheme that doesn't meet the needs of those who are about to retire
Were you shouting on behalf of these those poor unfortunates before the schemes went bust..., millions of them who have and will suffer in retirement?
Meanwhile you and your ilk have a lovely gilt edged index linked pensions that you can retire with in comfort. Those schemes aren't going bust anytime soon are they..
If we're talking membership and money one person paying £1,000 per year is the same financially as 100 people paying £10 a year so we can't really equate the one with the othetr either. A lot of it is about "virility" but in essence what you say has an element of truth - none of the three main parties are mass membership movements (neither is UKIP) but if a small number of people are paying a large amount of money per head it's enough to keep the show on the road.
'BAE' documents lost by SFO found at cannabis farm
Documents identifying prosecution witnesses in a case against defence contractor BAE Systems turned up at a cannabis farm in east London after being lost by the Serious Fraud Office, it has emerged.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financial-crime/10307238/BAE-documents-lost-by-SFO-found-at-cannabis-farm.html
And a lot of laziness instead of thinking. The UK's got some problems but it's pretty fantastic to live here compared to the vast majority of places.
Another excellent set of books I remember from those days that also did not get the recognition it deserved was the Dando series about the life of an English private soldier in the mid-nineteenth century. I can't remember the author but they were, as I recall, in order, "Dando on Delhi Ridge" (the Indian Mutiny), Dando and the Summer Palace" (the Peking Campaign) and Dando and the Mad Emperor" (Napier's Expedition into Ethiopia, which is also covered brilliantly in Fraser's, "Flashman on the March).
They are leaving it too late and the reality is that City firms do not fear the SFO; they have seen FSA/FCA enforcement in action (and it took a while for that to develop), they worry when the French start enforcement proceedings but they really wake up in a cold sweat when they think of the US authorities.
I shall have to take a look at this Dando series if I can find them.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Iron-King-Accursed-Kings-Book/dp/0007491263/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406666669&sr=8-1&keywords=accursed+kings
Hide criminal evidence in a place where criminal activity occurs so if the owners discover it they won't be able to tell the police.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1486530/No-regrets-The-juror-accused-of-precipitating-the-collapse-of-the-60m-Jubilee-Line-fraud-trial-by-going-on-strike.html
'Asked whether Mr Miliband puts them off voting for Labour at the general election, 54 per cent of the public agreed and 41 per cent disagreed. A third of Labour supporters (36 per cent) said the party leader put them off, as did 75 per cent of Tory supporters. But Liberal Democrat supporters were more divided, with 54 per cent saying that Mr Miliband put them off and 41 per cent that he did not.'
One in five (20 per cent) people said they would be more likely to vote Labour if Tony Blair were party leader, including one in eight Tory supporters (12 per cent) and one in 10 Ukip supporters (10 per cent). Three in 10 Labour supporters said that they would be more likely to vote for the party next May if Mr Blair were leader, but 69 per cent would not be. The former Prime Minister has a following among younger voters: 30 per cent of 18-24 year-olds and 23 per cent of 25-34 year-olds would be more likely to vote Labour if he were leader, compared to just 13 per cent of over 65s.'
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/poll-labour-set-to-win-the-election--but-people-still-dont-like-ed-miliband-9634140.html
Sun Politics @Sun_Politics · 25s
YouGov/Sun poll tonight - Labour lead drops to just one point: CON 34%, LAB 35%, LD 8%, UKIP 12%
Ed is crap is PM
All those excited lefties yesterday as well.... only on pb. Well not only but ...
Just saying....
Liverpool have just bid £25 million for Gary Ballance given his recent performance in Southampton.
The true lead is between 3.5% and 4%. We get the occasional tie or 1% and the occasional 6% or 7%.
Rob D's excellent graph (link below) averaging every poll actually shows the lead having widened a tiny bit in his latest 15 day period and now standing at 4.1%. I guess when tonight's poll is loaded in that may shade down to 4.0%.
In contrast the YouGov Lab lead last week fell to 3% from 4.4% in both the previous two weeks. The week before that it had fallen to 2.4% - but that was after 5 weeks in a row between 4% and 5%. But even the YouGov weekly average of 5 polls will have some random movement in it.
The big picture is we have seen nothing to suggest the true lead isn't effectively static at between 3.5% and 4%.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1v1-aXNoGwZSLOIWziLoqq9rbN3MHg6qezWKbjsAkunw/edit?pli=1#gid=1268197642
P.S. If you get any twinges in your back, perhaps a loss of movement in the lower limbs, it will be nothing to worry about, just Herself sticking pins into a wax model labelled "kle4".
P.P.S. Can't help you any more with the Dando series. I read them in the early to mid seventies can't for the life of me recall the author's name. I think he was one of the prolific authors who write under various names depending on which which period he is writing about.
I know it's only the commonwealth games but after a very poor London Olympics,I've seen great improvement and future stars.
I take that, along with the need to prepare for an early start, as my cue to say good night all.
On which note I think it worth pointing out that Farage is no Bulgar Slayer. He is more useless than a Hannibal born in Scotland.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/listen-tory-oliver-letwin-letting-3933116#ixzz38tZGuvu8
Follow us: @DailyMirror on Twitter | DailyMirror on Facebook
Vanessa Coleman, who is organising the opening of a new party headquarters in Bournemouth next month, was known as “Madam Vanessa”.
The 68-year-old was jailed for eight months in 2006 after being found guilty of running venues for prostitution and possessing counterfeit goods.
Since her release she has become involved with the Eurosceptic party, donating to the cause and hosting fundraising events,
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/politics/article4161473.ece
Andy Burnham is certainly positioning himself well. This combines well with his demand that NHS privatisation is frozen until after the election. I think that if EdM bails out AB will win.
Without that, I don't care whatever else he did: he was a failure
http://the-tap.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/north-shropshire-anti-fracking-campers.html
In her self-published memoir, An Accidental Madam . . . a true story, Ms Coleman describes how she entered the sex industry when her male partner was advertising a legitimate massage service and she answered the phone to a “posh male voice” who asked her if she would spank him.
She started doing “dominatrix work” and ended up running two brothels in Bournemouth under the name Annabelle’s Escorts, employing as many as eight maids and 30 working girls.
We are deprived and neglected here on PB!
* Admittedly a phrase coined by a notable Marxist, but you can't have everything...
Let's see: a 10% social care tax, 40% IHT and rolled up mansion tax. Pretty much all your estate gone after all that.
It's not your estate - it's Labours to spend on reintroducing the spare room subsidy.
I think that you are not far off. But the people who elect the next Labour leader will like the proposal.
I have a few quid on Andy Burnham as next leader.
What he hasn't said, what the wisdom index was saying in say July 2009.
Until we know that, I'm not even giving the Wisdom Index any standard, gold, platinum or bog.
It is filed under interesting in my book, but I'm not betting on it.
These are not the plantagenats we are looking for.
when my then-fiancee was moving fom London to Manchester in the mid 70s after I was transferred there, her employer lent her a company car to help move her stuff up there.
She parked in my parents' driveway and shut the door, which promptly locked with the keys still in the ignition. Mostly in frustration I tried to unlock the door with my car keys (my beloved coke bottle shape racing green metallic Cortina GXL). It worked.
I had to return the car to London. Square steering wheel and all it was absolutely the worst car I have ever driven, and considering the sheer awfulness of the British Leyland range at the time, that's saying something.
Making the lower trunnions out of stale cheese was probably not optimal from an engineering standpoint either.
Sometimes it does cross my mind that some voters like winding canvassers up...
Didn't you forget reducing the IHT free allowance and introducing a series of higher rate bands for estates over £1m, ie for family homes in SE England?
Unless of course *cough* one is smart enough *cough* to implement tax-saving arrangements on one's late father's residence.
The only way may well be UKIP...
Unless of course *cough* one is smart enough *cough* to implement tax-saving arrangements on one's late father's residence.
Guidos tape has Burnham wanting 15% : 55% total.
Boris has said it will only be applied to older diesels (coming into force circa2020), and is specifically designed to keep the plebs out of the city.
Particulates are good for you anyway, research for BP etc, has found.
They used the old tobacco companies model as a guide.....allegedly.
The proposal is not new - it was first mooted back in the spring if not before. At the time the FT pointed out
''Their chances of defeating the latest proposal appear good because it would require unanimous support from the EU’s 27 member states.
Germany, home to the EU’s biggest car manufacturers, has already expressed reservations, as has the UK. Luxembourg, whose low diesel prices have made it a magnet for long-haul truckers, could also object. ''
Of course in the UK we already tax diesel more than petrol we have a price differential the exact opposite of most if not all other countries.