GlennB

What are the odds you'll get on the bike in pounding rain, fog, black ice conditions etc etc? Add this into your calculations.

How about a medal count vs. number of school playing fields sold off to build yet another ticky-tacky housing estate. We'd be tops! (or is that bottom? you know what I mean )

OK, I'm a boring ol' fart so I'll risk a serious answer - 1. OUT to any event that involves judgement of quality rather than judgement of legality 2. OUT to any event where competitors gain from specialist equipment not available to all. That is, top class equipment must be available "off the shelf" 3. OUT to any event where the Olympics is just a sideshow compared with the athletes' real lifetime objectives. 1. Kicks out to all forms of gymnastics,diving, synchronised swimming, trampoline. And dressage, but that goes anyway 2. Eliminates equestrian events. If they really want to compete use a pool of horses drawn at random. The Modern Pentathlon folks manage. 3. We lose tennis and football. Maybe others. And good riddance. Much as love them the Olympics are just plain bloated.

Same story here in Greece. We have a TV schedule which is studiously ignored by the several Olympic channels! Thank heavens for the Eurosport channel.

Well, I suppose my folks also had the freedom of choice *not* to live on Brixton Hill throughout my childhood. Staying there caused me to inhale noxious car fumes pretty much 24 hrs per day from one of the busiest urban roads in Britain. Should parents opting *not* to leave polluted environments while raising their kids also face your wrath? Or the wrath of the law? Gah! They also smoked heavily !! I'm doomed. Personally I reckon that people entering food outlets should face a mandatory "body fat index" test. If they're found to be overweight, they should be denied the burgers and pork chops. "It's salad for you, fatso !! We might even sue your parents" (and one extra)

What do they pay the printers with?

Whoops yes - I had two of those, one I bought and one I found buried in the car (my late dad's car) Ended up using both of them when I tried to take a wickedly steep wet lane round our way and slid back into a stone wall, getting wedged How the neighbours laughed !!

I checked out the total legal requirements for France,Italy and Greece before I drove down here. They were: Hi-vis jacket for each passenger First aid kit Fire extinguisher Light bulb replacement kit Headlight correctors I think that was all

Holland have hammered both France and Italy. Romania have drawn with both those sides. Yet Romania are 11/10 to beat Holland (21/10 for the win) with WillHill. Eh?? Has to be worth a tenner, surely? Is this some kind of typo from WillHill ??? Oops - down to 19/10 as I speak, but my tenner was on

3-storey terrace, circa 1800. Massive stone walls throughout. 5/6 double bedrooms* 3/4 good recs * Big bathroom / cloakroom / WC 2 utils Integral drive-through garage/workshop Large kitchen/breakfast room. 180' south facing garden with fabulous views Newish roof and full wood treatment New replacement windows front and back All mains services. Structure rock-solid, but in need of modernisation/redecoration. Excellent scope for reversion to 2 dwellings, further extension, loft conversions. In the delightful and quiet Somerset village of Leigh-on-Mendip. 30 mins from mainline at Bath or Castle Cary Immune from flooding or subsidence. Can't shift the b#gger! wtf is up with the property market? This is getting ridiculous Offers in excess of a 6-pack of beer seriously considered. *(depending on how you view one of the rooms)

Ok - big eyes, a bit stripey, looks quite like a fly. Yep, we have those. Maybe the 200lbs of mixed animal manure I ordered for the garden wasn't such a bright idea. I read about these - they have a very crude way of penetrating the skin. A mosquito is a brain surgeon in comparison.

Any socio-economic system that is dependent on endless growth is doomed to failure, sooner or later. Just think of yeast growing in a vat of grape juice. It's that simple. Oil is being created much slower than it's being used, so it must run out one day at even a small fraction of current rates of use. That's a simple fact of arithmetic. Meanwhile new fields are increasingly hard to find and more expensive to operate. Whether the crisis point is next year or next century really doesn't matter unless you're the type that will cheerfully ignore the problem and leave it for a future generation to deal with. We will have to change our ways, whether we choose to or whether we wait for change to be forced upon us. The question is whether we (the human race) can avoid the crisis point or - at least minimise its effect - through intelligent cooperative action. I haven't seen one sign of this happening, I'm afraid. We just don't seem to be very good at that sort of thing. What everybody seems to be doing is desperately searching for ways to maintain the current system as best we can for as long as we can. The biofuel farce is just one example. [/end rant]

A fat eel wrapped round yer wrist!! Seriously though .. "prettiest"? ... maybe a nice gudgeon. They make me smile anyway. So cute.

I'm very disappointed, in fact shocked, to hear that a politician has lied. Perhaps he's the one bad apple? I'm sure he'll resign over this, it's the only honourable thing to do.

Hi Huge. Yep the blazing sun is loverly right now, but until September it's not going to get any cooler. But we knew the risks I too have thought long and hard about what you said. Though Chief (the Husky) is a poppet with people and I have no fear of him, I will admit his reputation had me fearing mightily for Sam when we took them to meet. So perhaps he picked up on that and took it for me feeling threatened by Chief? Is this what you mean? It probably didn't help that a friend had warned me in very graphic terms about Chief .. "Sam had just better roll over and give in straight away or ..." kind of stuff. Anyway, I suspect we'll just have to keep them apart. p.s. my favourite treat is pickled herrings or maybe some jellied eels. But my wife already knows this. When she comes home with pickled herrings in the shopping bag it usually means it's time to get out the concrete mixer and build an extension (or something)

Hiya! Yes, Greece is great but we're gearing up already for the summer heat. On the plus side we have loads of veggies already coming in. On the minus side I'll be "man with garden shading and a hosepipe" come mid-June, at this rate. The muzzle business would, I suppose, only make sense if both dogs were muzzled. Even then I reckon they'd go potty. Chief is a poppet with people, mind. Maybe Sam sees it as a do-or-die situation? Like, just submitting won't be good enough and he knows it? Damn funny animals, dogs. Not like people I'll post about the "goat attack" quite soon.

This is becoming a bit of an issue ... We have a Black Lab, Sam. Sam loves everybody and is basically a very submissive dog. I've seen him (down at the beach and to much laughter from onlookers) happily being 'mounted' by a small terrier. Sam doesn't seem to care much about the doggie dominance thing. But .. we have friends who have a Husky (wolf?) called "Chief". Chief has a long history of fighting other dogs and even snapping up chickens etc. These friends came to stay. We were prepared to chain Chief in the garden, but introduced the dogs on neutral ground, up in the village square, to see if they might get on. Both dogs were on hefty leads and both stiffened. Hackles raised. Chief tried a dominance move (I believe) of putting one paw on Sam's shoulder. Sam went totally ballistic and all hell broke loose. I have never seen him like this and never thought I would. All the way home I might just as well have carried him because he was trying to drag me back to where Chief was coming along, way behind, itching for a scrap. How does a submissive dog like this go so bonkers out of the blue and with no history of this kind of behaviour? Is there anything that can be done? We would like to have these folks to stay on a regular basis. My strong feeling is that any confrontation between the two would end in serious injury, but any advice welcomed.

While we're being a bit rude: Orange - pronounced or'inj Minge - pronounced minj Both in my dictionary

Mind you, come August when it's 40° in the shade out here and the veg are crying "help me .. help me .." the shoe will be on the other foot. Greek Lidl's always sell plant shading net in early summer I hear, so i'll have to get me some of that. Our neighbours were a bit surprised that I planted out green veg like cabbages at this time of year (to tell the truth, I think they went in and had a right old cackle about it... "did you see what that crazy Englishman has planted??? The fool ! hahahahahahaha" ). Wonder if they know something I don't ?

Hope the peas are coming along Phil, but planting them in pots sounds like a lot of work. One method I tried saved on effort ... get some old plastic guttering and seal up the ends (duck tape will do), slap in compost and sow the peas in it. When they're ready just scrape a shallow trench in the ground, whack in some compost, take off whatever you sealed the ends with and slide the whole (by now) mat of peas into it. Water well and you're away. Deep seed trays would work just as well, or old bits of wood nailed together to make a reasonably deep tray. I'm mostly of the opinion, though, that crops planted straight in the ground at the right time catch up pretty quickly anyway when the weather perks up. Or polythene tunnels can be improvised easily enough. <smug> Over here, I'm just about to plant out my aubergines, and the tomatoes are starting to flower </smug>

Mine says "It's where it's usually kept" To get back on thread ... Mine says "We urgently need to...." (meaning : you urgently need to ...) and "Are you planning to ..." (meaning ; I want you to ...")

Personally I find the effort of reeling in, recasting and resetting the rod every time a canal boat passes a total pain in the #rse. Lures for me every time. Plus you can move around a lot more. And I reckon Mr+Mrs Pike are perfectly capable of organising dinner when the water is coloured.

Dunno about that. They would only avoid tax by not being registered for PAYE. Minimum wage for a full year gets you well into taxation. Maybe I misunderstand what you mean? When we moved out of Blighty the gaffer of the removals team was an English bloke, with two strapping Polish lads as assistants. They were both regular employees of the removals company. The gaffer couldn't speak highly enough of his Poles. They would work late in the evening to secure a quick getaway in the morning, whereas his Brit assistants would insist on knocking-off at the stroke of 5, even if it meant plenty of work loading and then a rush-hour drive next day. He also described the Poles as "work-hungry". For some reason I liked that description. And it was the gaffer who slept in the cab of the truck to pocket his overnight accommodation allowance. The Polish boys paid for a b+b. Just an anecdote, I know, but a lot of immigrants work friggin' hard.

I bet you're getting some strange looks, drumming in the office Take care not to leave it in a hot dry place (by a radiator, in the back of a car, on a window ledge etc) as the skin will shrink and quite possibly the drum will explode. Seen it happen (well, more like heard it happen). If it sounds tight and tinny then a wipe on the inside of the skin with a damp cloth will make the skin relax and sound better. If people tell you to wipe Guinness on it, just ignore them. It'll go mouldy Happy drumming!

Mine too.