Alan Stubbs

Have you tried the 'Romney marsh Cave and MountainRescue team - or their sister group in holland?

Well said that man. Leon deserves it for all he does for fishing.

Love the pic. What camera do you bolt to your scope. My better half did a degree in astrophysics and she is fascinated by astronomy. She saw this and asked me to find out.

She who must be obeyed said 'Hhhooowww dddoooo yyyoouuu tttuuurrnn ittt offff?' Still you can always blame the vibrating duck when hiding bouts of flatulence!

But that's the point I was making - albeit from the other side of the same argument.... Weak management enabled the unions to wreak havoc. Look how their luddite tendencies prevented Fleet Street modernising, look at how the dock industry died on it's feet..... Anybody remember the fact that The Times was off the street for over a year - which led to it's being taken over by Murdoch and it's decline as a readable newspaper. As I said earlier, the litho print industry is dying on it's feet - the strongest performers are those small / medium size businesses usually without union presence. The majority of the volume work - which begats the profitable short-run print jobs that support a publication (fliers, leaflets, etc) have gone to E. Europe and the Far East - taking the smaller volume supporting work with it. I carry a union card - so I can do my job, but that is exactly where the benefit of membership ends. One poster on here has a sig. 'never give a sucker an even break' - that's exactly the scenario between the unions and weak, incompetent managers and poor negotiators.

The team are there to play cricket, not to be apologists for the ECB. Forget the social niceties. The players have been very poorly advised both by the ECB and the Foreign Office. It's bad enough that our Foreign Secretary shook hands with mugabe earlier this year - and then blamed bad light for his error of judgment. It is naive of the BBC to expect to have a presence there - they are a proscribed organisation in Zimbabwe.Or maybe it was mischief - Mugabe threw them out about 4 years ago. [ 25. November 2004, 02:25 PM: Message edited by: Alan Stubbs ]

I read this post with gratitude... I'd always taken the attitude that clutches on modern reels are pretty solid affairs and backwinding makes - redundant a really useful feature. Reading your post in full makes me realise that it just isn't so. and I'm pleased to stand corrected.

All of which, with a bit of lateral thinking come under the terms of paying ourselves too much and bad management... Shareholder returns - wanting more for their money than the business can stand in the long term. I.E paying themselves too much. Pay-off's for fat-cats = bad management - the supervisory board allow the situation. Demotivation - a management issue. Lack of R & D - a management strategy. Do I detect a common theme here?

Anyone hear Prescott on the radio this morning? 'Hunting to hounds? it's not important, it's a very small minority of toffs - all the noise comes from pressure groups with a vested interest' - Well, I think that's what he was trying to say. That man abuses the English language like Hitler abused gas.

The coach driver's plea in mitigation is so hollow it may have seemd to be bordering on perjury. I think we should contact the Spanish FA and Lord Archer for professional opinion. My own is that 'the law is a ass' and it's a sad comment on the judiciary and those that set tarriffs for punishment.

When the fish farts, the light goes out, perhaps?

I've never seen it, and from what other people say at work (invariably the fully qualified air-head brigade), the fact that they watch it is a damned good reason not to bother. It's like 'rolling news' stations - It's fine for 15 minutes, but it's an endless loop of repetition. Sky News's Iraq War coverage was a brilliant example of 'Oh, Sh*t, what are we gonna say now?, How can we fill in 'til the next advert break' Mind you, considering it's provenance, Sky news should be ashamed of itself on a daily basis - it's even dumber than ITN nowadays.

This government is like Eros in motion - All style and no purpose. Specious was a word invented waiting for them to happen.... It looks great on the surface, but look underneath and you've got a pile of cr8p.

The obvious conclusion to be drawn from this is we pay ourselves too much in relation to our productivity. Who's fault is that? You've only got to look at the way the print industry has been ripped apart over the last 5 years to see the effect of relative labour and transport costs - and, frankly, mismanagement has had on an industry which is a weathervane for the economy.

McDon**ds - the only place where you can simultaneously die of malnutrition and food poisoning.

In Liverpool you're lucky to see a cyclist with lights on the bike. As for the whistle - it is a legal requirement to have an audible warning, I'd have thought a whistle is a good idea - and at least it's unlikely to disappear in the cause of 'paying 'Scouse tax', whereas you are likely to have the bike stolen because someone fancied the bell on it!. The chief constable of Merseyside police produced statistics showing that his patch is one of the lowest crime areas in the country, comparing more than favourably with the likes of London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and Newcastle. From personal experience trying to get the police to register a crime is a real struggle - it took a formal complaint from 3 people to get a mugging reported - even though there was theft and injury involved. I know - it was me that was mugged, and I had a bike stolen in the process.

I wish you all the best. As one who has had more than his money's worth from the NHS over the last 4 years, I have total faith in them.

The trouble with that is the hunts use the dead stuff to feed the hounds. but, there is a limited opportunity for those with a strong stomach!

I disagree totally. What would be unprofessional and possibly in contravention of employment law would be to make announcements before Mrs James is fit enough to return to work and the results of the findings put to them, and any subsequent business arising from that meeting resolved. Hurrying an investigation through sacrificing thoroughness for members' convenience would be both worrying and unprofessional - of course time is an issue, but accuracy more so.

Interestingly, one of the services hunt groups provide farmers is the disposal (for hunting rights) of fallen stock - i.e. animals which have died. I heard 3 interested parties on the radio this morning. With, in some instances, only 1 other fallen stock removal company in any postal area, prices for removing fallen stock - farmers aren't allowed to bury them on their own land anymore, prices will go up - purely due to lack of competition. Another increased cost to people already under the cosh due to the predominantly urban majority in parliament.

It's a little less draconian than Michael howard, who banned handguns outright. He legislated against the legally pistol owning majority who only shot at paper targets. because of 2 headcases that used .22 rifles and shotguns, not .38 pistols. Funnily enough he didn't ban .22 rifles or shotguns, but that would not have had popular appeal and would require a little less subtlty. I assume he was cynical enough to grab a headline rather than react to th actuality. Typical politician. Nevertheless, you can't help but feel that there's more support for fur and feather than for the human race, can you?

Earlier in this thread, it says that Mrs james is signed off due to ill-health. The ACA as her employer would be savaged by any tribunal for dragging her back into work when her doctor has said she is unfit to work. Furthermore, just how appropriate is it that members and non-members alike should be privy to a matter between employee / employer? As a members' organisation, woud the membership not be best served by the management of the ACA to be made aware of the outcome at an appropriate time (e.g when the investigations are concluded)? OK, I understand the public taste for the salacious, but if the members and inevitably non-members are made aware of something that is effectively sub-judice it compromises the position of both parties to the detriment of the membership. No doubt Mr and Mrs James and their employers would have made the issue more public had it been in their respective interests to do so.

Our current political predicament is summed up by a favourite expression of mine: we have a choice between the evil of two lessers -and seeing Mr howard's demeanour, it seems rather appropriate. demon demon demon

A little patience helps. I am answering this whilst I work. Not all of our posters have that luxury. The site gets busier outside normal working hours... or is that a little too subtle to understand?

I used to brew my own at college and then for a good few years after. My place was like a dypso's paradise for a long time. Beer was OK, but wine took up too much space and was nothing like as enjoyable as a decent bottle of claret.