The population of Hong Kong is 95% Chinese, with Britons a tiny percentage.
When did that ever stop us? India? I believe there's such a thing as natural proximity and islanders with some fairly unreconstructed views about their nearest neighbours wishing to live on a few rocks that are 'forever England' (+Wales and Scotland) in the South Atlantic does not seem the most sustainable proposition.
The sensible thing to do would be to open trade links with other south american countries and let history take its course, not live out a 1950s existence on a heavily subsidised and defended seabird nest. Now there are known to be mineral deposits it'll never happen of course, unless Argentina has some technical or strategic facility Britain can use.
'Soft ice cream' as it's called in the trade, is symptomatic of a lot of what's wrong with the world today. The mixture of ingredients which go into commercial ice cream is (or used to be) called 'custard' in the trade - basically an artificial milk concoction. The stuff Ice cream vendors used to dish out with a scoop is called 'hard ice cream' even when it's soft. The custard is frozen in something which is a cross between a concrete mixer and a freezer (the churning action prevents the formation of ice crystals.) A unit by weight of custard = a similar weight of ice cream and the only ways of increasing profit are by selling more or reducing the quality of the ingredients.
The soft ice cream process involves blowing the chilled custard through an aerating nozzle which also freezes it and a tiny amount of custard produces a huge volume of ice cream consisting mainly of fresh air. Even the stuff you buy in cartons for scooping is generally soft ice cream, which is why it is sold by volume rather than weight.
(I sold ice cream in my student days, mainly summer of 1966 during the World Cup - perhaps the best paid job I've ever had.)
If your wondering 'What's he on about?' I supose I was thinking that this should be in the Tea Shop...
Last edited by thirdcrank on 21 Jul 2009, 10:01am, edited 1 time in total.
johncharles wrote: Better than the comedians we have had for the last decade or so.
I disagree. I think she was a bloody disgrace, with her cosying up to Pinochet and Reagan, and her snatching our milk, and doing her best to destroy the public sector, and implementing the poll tax a year earlier in Scotland than the rest of the UK, and inventing Mr Whippy, and pontificating about pop music on Saturday Superstore, and her various dodgy practices during the miners' strike and just about everything else she ever did.
Thats your perfect right to disaree.
So the toadying up that Blair did to Bush is fine and the the joke of a Chancellor that Brown was and his sp called principles and not forgetting Mandelson. The Kinnocks on the Euro gravy train and I notice that these so called labour people who so detest the idea of the House of Lords (which I do think could do with some alteration) can't wait to don the ermine robes.
These are preferable to this lot who are so in love with themselves.
johncharles wrote:Thats your perfect right to disaree.
So the toadying up that Blair did to Bush is fine and the the joke of a Chancellor that Brown was and his sp called principles and not forgetting Mandelson. The Kinnocks on the Euro gravy train and I notice that these so called labour people who so detest the idea of the House of Lords (which I do think could do with some alteration) can't wait to don the ermine robes.
These are preferable to this lot who are so in love with themselves.
I've never understood why objecting to one political leader suggests a leaning the other way. At the time of Thatcher I was growing up in a true blue constituancy in Surrey and got the impression that she was wonderful. Now I've left home and seen more of the "real" world I'm not so sure. But this doesn't mean I've got any better impression of what came after, John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown etc. The "special relationship" with Bush was terrible IMHO as it was with Reagan in 80's. All politcal parties seem to do harm and good in at best equal measure and run out of steam if in office for too long.
When it comes to Thatcher's legacy she did some good in reducing the power of the unions but at the expense of our manufacturing sector; we don't really have one now do we? But the whole free-market liberalisation etc went way too far as has been proven in the latest banking crisis; now I know that there have been three leaders who could have put the brakes on to prevent the current catastrophy but really the main legacy of Thatcher has proved to be little more than a house of cards IMHO.
"Marriage is a wonderful invention; but then again so is the bicycle puncture repair kit." - Billy Connolly
I'm not sure that Blair being the way he is makes Thatcher any better.
OTOH I think somebody earlier on made a reference to swing politics - one lot coming in on the unpopularity of the others and hanging on until the process swings the other way. I've little time for the woman - although my own financial circumsyances improved immeasurably under her government (annual pay doubled within a short time of her election) - but it's my impression she was the last leader to be guided by their political beliefs. Major was just carried along by the tide, Blair and his cronies just wanted to retain power by any means available - all part of his personal ambition to have a place in history. He could have represented any party or view and might just as easily have been a Tory PM in different circumstances. I fear Cameron is on the same bandwagon - policies, or rather lack of them, governed less by conviction than opinion polls etc.
I do know that democracy involves offering policies which have public support, but the idea of political parties is to convince doubters by the strength of your argument, not deceiving them and hoping they will not notice until you have had a chance to fill your boots.
thirdcrank wrote: I've little time for the woman - although my own financial circumsyances improved immeasurably under her government (annual pay doubled within a short time of her election) - but it's my impression she was the last leader to be guided by their political beliefs. Major was just carried along by the tide, Blair and his cronies just wanted to retain power by any means available - all part of his personal ambition to have a place in history. He could have represented any party or view and might just as easily have been a Tory PM in different circumstances. I fear Cameron is on the same bandwagon - policies, or rather lack of them, governed less by conviction than opinion polls etc.
I agree completely!
"Marriage is a wonderful invention; but then again so is the bicycle puncture repair kit." - Billy Connolly
During the years of the Thatcher regime, I worked among colleagues who had the normal wide divergence of political opinion and, and range of party political allegences.
There was a concensus that there were things that needed sorting out, and there was support for Neil Kinnock's endeavours to rid the Labour Party of the 'loony left', who were most deffinitely launching a concerted attack to take it over.
So many of the things that Thatcher did were so disadvantageous to the ordinary working people that even those who supported her party were unsure about.
But one thing that nearly all of us agreed about was that we weren't absolutely sure that she was completely sane.
johncharles wrote:Thats your perfect right to disaree.
So the toadying up that Blair did to Bush is fine and the the joke of a Chancellor that Brown was and his sp called principles and not forgetting Mandelson. The Kinnocks on the Euro gravy train and I notice that these so called labour people who so detest the idea of the House of Lords (which I do think could do with some alteration) can't wait to don the ermine robes.
These are preferable to this lot who are so in love with themselves.
I've never understood why objecting to one political leader suggests a leaning the other way. At the time of Thatcher I was growing up in a true blue constituancy in Surrey and got the impression that she was wonderful. Now I've left home and seen more of the "real" world I'm not so sure. But this doesn't mean I've got any better impression of what came after, John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown etc. The "special relationship" with Bush was terrible IMHO as it was with Reagan in 80's. All politcal parties seem to do harm and good in at best equal measure and run out of steam if in office for too long.
When it comes to Thatcher's legacy she did some good in reducing the power of the unions but at the expense of our manufacturing sector; we don't really have one now do we? But the whole free-market liberalisation etc went way too far as has been proven in the latest banking crisis; now I know that there have been three leaders who could have put the brakes on to prevent the current catastrophy but really the main legacy of Thatcher has proved to be little more than a house of cards IMHO.
But all your points were anti Margaret Thatcher and nothing to say that you thought the same or similar about those who have been since.
I come from a mining town in Nottinghamshire and I have no time at all for labour and especially Labour MP of the area now. (Hoon by the way) even though I don't live there any more.
johncharles wrote:But all your points were anti Margaret Thatcher and nothing to say that you thought the same or similar about those who have been since.
Firstly this was my first post here, and yes my post was mainly anti Margaret Thatcher but since that was who we were talking about and the title of the thread I thought that to be reasonable.
"Marriage is a wonderful invention; but then again so is the bicycle puncture repair kit." - Billy Connolly
JohnW wrote:I'm going to throw another one in ... nearly all of us agreed about was that we weren't absolutely sure that she was completely sane.
That's an interesting comment. Maniacal (or nutters, driven, flipping in and out of madness to achieve something). Living at the extremes isn't quite sane, in politics or anything else, but you manage to hold on - just.
So the toadying up that Blair did to Bush is fine and the the joke of a Chancellor that Brown was and his sp called principles and not forgetting Mandelson. The Kinnocks on the Euro gravy train and I notice that these so called labour people who so detest the idea of the House of Lords (which I do think could do with some alteration) can't wait to don the ermine robes.
No, they're not fine either, but they're not who the thread is about. Expressing a dislike of Thatcher isn't an expression of liking for anyone else.
I can handle bars and cycle paths but I can't handle cars and psychopaths
There is some truth that unions became too militant in a few industries. In others like textiles they weren't at all boshie and whole swathes of maufacturing and construction was hardly unionised. The fact remains British industry was a byword for incompetence, managers pretended to manage, workers pretending to produce, town hall mandarins filled their pockets.
Then came the tory revival with Shirley Porter, the Hamiltons, Aitken, Archer. Out of the frying pan...
