The Locker Room

It is reported that Victoria Wood, aged 62 years has died of cancer. She was a very talented and funny lady. Fantastic writer and fantastic comedienne. RIP Victoria. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNU5KVa_Tu8 http://youtu.be/OcgVy3ZW1nU

I await the usual cries of the self haters that St George wasn't even English so there! This rarely seems to bother the followers of St Patrick, who wasn't Irish, or St. Andrew who wasn't Scottish. (OK, St David was Welsh) What these self haters fail to realise is that, by definition, England adopting a Roman Christian as a patron saint proves that the concept of 'Englishness' is one of ideals and principles rather than one of race. So... rubbish to the self haters. Wear your rose with pride on Saturday.

Obama is soon to visit the UK and it's thought that he may use the visit to promote the UK in staying in the EU. Why on earth doesn't he simply BUTT OUT of the situation. God knows, he thinks he can influence the running of many other nations of the world, just leave the UK alone and concentrate on your own issues in the USA. (i'm not sure if this should have been on the moans and gripes thread).

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3538813/New-foreign-aid-outrage-Britain-second-handouts-paying-1-7-given-rich-countries-year.html This is an interesting article, based on OECD figures; so likely to be very accurate. UK is second only to USA in providing foreign aid - over GBP12 billion; interestingly, we give more than twice the amount given by France - so it seems it is another example of the French not stepping up to the table with their EU "chum" In effect, of the 28 top donor countries, UK give 14% of the total aid - all at a time when services and benefits are being drastically reduced at home. As I have said before, UK aid should be restricted…

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-35918844 Now this is some interesting news. Good news for some, bad news for others. I know one thing. My name isn't in any of the 11 million pages. HMG takes all the money they can off me. I don't/can't hide the money that I get paid or given, and I don't get paid enough to afford to be able to employ somebody clever/devious to hide my money. Reports are that David Cameron's dad is named.

So I've been using this forum for around half a year now (as an observer and now more recently a user), and am curious as to how the forum has changed since its conception! Judging from the posts i've seen, this forum has been around for at least half of my lifetime! How has it changed over the years? Have many awesome/unsavoury people come and gone? Has it become more or less busy?

Apparently the Anglican church is considering moving Easter to a fixed date in the calender, however according to Justin Welby, they started to discuss the idea about 1000 years ago and thinks that it will take another 10 years to agree a plan. I've heard people take their time over decision making before and often criticise people for procrastination but I think taking 1000 years is taking things a little far. On the other hand the Chinese always take the long view which is why they were happy to wait until the lease of Hong Kong ran out before taking it back and view the return of Tibet to Chinese rule as the long term righting of a wrong. It also took the Irish the …

.......maybe I should have called this 'Rails' actually. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/03/firstgroup-great-western-railway-advertising-standards-poster I like David Mitchell. I think he's quite clever. And very funny. He's probably the finest reason to read The Guardian.......... The interesting piece of this article is that is appears that HMG aren't able to write a decent contract, and then they appear to be unable to 'negotiate' an actual proper deal to get private companies to actually pay 'us' for our services (the publicly owned railways)............with Great Western Railways, not having to pay over £800 million quid for using the…

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/feb/26/mps-pay-rise-breaking-government-public-sector-cap I have a lot of problems with this pay rise: -Osborne has made such a show of keeping public sector pay rises down to 1% and in addition wants to target that 1% so in future not all public sector workers will receive the same rise, yet all MPs will -IPSA has created a link to the average rise in public sector pay which means that MPs are benefiting from the slightly higher 1 +% rises given to the most low paid workers such as cleaners meaning that well paid MPs benefit from the pay rise of the most low paid in the UK -the rise is calculated based on bonus paym…

I went a walk through our Town Centre the other day and passed our Magistrate Court, and we have a Crown Court and County Court. Some Towns have a Justice Centre, what's the difference.

The most important meal of the day. What do you have for breakfast? Are you a porridge lover, or a cereal companion? What if you're on shift? Ever make use of that free hash brown from the golden arches?