WHAT ATTRACTED YOUR ATTENTION TODAY?

[Stanley]

Tiz, re fracking. Dead right about tremors from mining and the oil industry has been fracturing strata with explosives since the beginning of the industry. Volcanoes do it by mixing water with lava. Even in UK the ground is constantly moving, we had a tremor in the 1950s that prompted many of the insurance companies to demand banding of many chimneys. It's a bit like wind farms, the ostriches bury their heads in the sand and keep the lights on. The opponents of fracking are still burning gas. There has been more disruption of people's lives building the tank installation to receive Qatar Gas and how about all the pipelines when they went in? Look back in history for the objectors to the railway lines, the same thing happened to every visible change that consumption demanded.
I decided to listen to some Baroque Organ music. I like it because if a steam engine had a voice, this is what it would sound like! I noted that one piece was played on the organ in the c athedral at Christchurch and realised that the instrument no longer exists after the earthquake. Did you see the report about the new cardboard cathedral they are considering building? (LINK)
I see that amongst the files released today are some on the original Chagos Islands evictions. I'll bet there is no mention of the NSA!

[Stanley]

The chairman of Citigroup Bank announced a cut back in dividends. The following day the shareholders vetoed bonus payments to senior staff. (LINK) What a sensible reaction! We need more of this.
Dairy Crest have lost the contract to supply Tesco and are closing two of their processing plants. Cause is blamed on pressure from Tesco to reduce the wholesale price of milk, part of a price war amongst the discounters.

[Tizer]

From the Financial Times:
Clive Black, analyst at Shore Capital, expected the announcement on factory closures to be followed by further moves at the dairies division, including a reduction in the price it pays farmers for their milk – sending the pain cascading further down the food chain. “To our minds [the lost Tesco business] underscores the sheer folly . . . of an industry that showed cataclysmic indiscipline over the past two years in a dash to gain and maintain share,” he wrote in a report to clients. “A dash that delivered a collapsed liquid milk margin for all concerned.”

Only 3% of Dairy Crest's liquid milk sales last year were to Tesco, so there must be much more wrong with the dairy company than just the Tesco business.

[Pluggy]

When my father was in the milk production business (he packed up in the late 70's), for many years the retail price of milk and petrol were very close to each other. Nowadays petrol is 3 times the price of milk.....

[PanBiker]

It's 26 years since I was in the delivery room for the last time for the birth of my youngest son. Happy Birthday Jack.

[Big Kev]

It's 26 years since I was in the delivery room for the last time for the birth of my youngest son. Happy Birthday Jack.

Nice to see something positive on this thread. Happy Birthday, Jack (although you'll have no idea who I am )

[Whyperion]

Sainsbury's selling 3off 4pt Milk at £3 which is 25p a pint ( I could not get thru that amount of milk , is it a loss leader or is there a liquid milk glut ? ).

Petrols around 140p / ltr , depending on where you shop milk is around 100p / ltr. I dont think there is a duty on milk levied by the government.

[Tizer]

When you have your image sculpted to last for eternity in a cathedral make sure you have it done in marble or something even harder. Otherwise, after several centuries of being visited by graffiti artists you'll end up like this bishop in Exeter cathedral who made the mistake of specifying alabaster (gypsum) which is very soft!

[Pluggy]

Sainsbury's selling 3off 4pt Milk at £3 which is 25p a pint ( I could not get thru that amount of milk , is it a loss leader or is there a liquid milk glut ? ).

Petrols around 140p / ltr , depending on where you shop milk is around 100p / ltr. I dont think there is a duty on milk levied by the government.

I'm curious as how you equate 25p a pint to 100p a litre given that an imperial pint is 0.568 litres. I make it about 44p. The milk we usually buy at the Co-op is £1 for 2 litres. The slightly posher stuff is £1.29 for 4 pints at normal price. Tesco's equivalent is £1.18 for 4 pints. Road fuel has always been heavily taxed in the UK.

[Stanley]

I note that ion the reports on the files opened yesterday the reason for the Chagos eviction was 'leasing the island of Diego Garcia to the US for an airfield'. They never said that the reason for the airfield was to service a large NSA intelligence gathering station (according to Body of Secrets).
Plenty of families get through 6 pints of milk a day. At Hey Farm four of us used 8 pints a day. A 6 pint bottle lasts me five days. Screwing down production and distribution costs below economic cost to keep supermarket prices down and preserve profits has got to be bad business in the long run.
Kev, Private Eye landed on the doormat, The cover always gives me a chuckle! This week's is headed 'Comic Tax Relief. Doing crazy things for charity. Cameron is on there and the speech bubble reads "I made George Osborne chancellor!"

[Moh]

What caught my attention yesterday whilst watching the football was the diving Didier Drogba did every few minutes, they should automatically get a red card for diving then maybe these prima donnas would think twice.

[Whyperion]

Depends where you buy the milk , some independent shops are getting 1/2ltr bottles , and selling at 49/50p per bottle , which is £1/ ltr.

Sometimes a necessity to pay this if you run out , a 4pt bottle wont fit in my fridge unless I put it sideways ( and promptly forget to fully secure the cap ).

[Stanley]

Lovely Moh! Funny thing is that my mental image of you never included you sitting with a can of lager watching the footy!
I see that the Bahrain Grand Prix this weekend is causing problems (LINK) Classic case of big money sport versus ethics. If the race happens I will watch it but I wish they weren't there. Ironic that Sky is one of the news organisations being barred by the Bahrain government when they are indirectly one of the biggest sponsors.

[Stanley]

I've been listening to the story of the couple wrongly accused of murdering their baby when in fact it had rickets. (LINK) I can't imagine what they went through, apart from losing their child the father spent two weeks in Gaol under suspicion of murder. Only now can the case be reported as they have been cleared of all suspicion and evidently the problem was mis-diagnosis by the 'experts'. I wish them well in their efforts to get an inquiry into how this could happen.

[Moh]

Glass of wine Stanley!! I get quite frustrated watching it and shout at the screen, I used to go on the Turf with my dad and always got told off for shouting abuse!! No one will take me now!!

One thing caught my attention noticing we had not seen Belle for a while - has anyone else noticed we seem to have lost quite a few of our lady members who used to be regulars ?

[Belle]

Moh, Sue has lured me back with an enticing email. So worry not.

[Tripps]

Welcome back . I was beginning to get a bit worried about the future of the site due to the retirement of many of the regulars. Rapidly becoming a refuge for grumpy old men - and that would never do.

[Stanley]

SPEAK FOR YOURSELF, REFUGE FOR GRUMPY HISTORIANS AS WELL. (Bugger caps lock!)
Apologies to all for the flood of research entries I'm putting up. They'll soon retreat down the list and this is the only way I can get them posted. In case you haven't noticed I'm posting a lot of research that was lost when the old site went down. Some of it will be accessible through the archive eventually but we decided there was no harm getting a lot back on to this platform.

[Belle]

That would never do! moh.

[PanBiker]

Blimey Stanley, with all the information you are posting into the new thread you might have enough for the odd book or two, when you have time of course
All good stuff, read two already

[hr]

Just had a quick look at the site stats and you are fast approaching the level of the NewsHound in some areas. Main difference of course is that your stuff is good. It's certainly one thing to do while it's chucking it down.

[Stanley]

I had a word with Doc and he's all in favour of the reposts. Good job I was so compulsive about saving stuff in case anything went wrong. I have bumped a lot of the 'normal' topics up but if I've missed any go to the last page of the active topics and look back from there, they're all in there somewhere!
(Only another eight years to go......)
A day of honest endeavour, I even forgot to eat! I think I deserve a meat pie and a bit of telly.

[Tizer]

Belle, it's great to see you back...and Moh, thanks for enticing her!

[Stanley]

The complete disconnect between the money machine of Formula 1 and the political situation in Bahrain. I picked up a figure this morning, there are one million inhabitants and 20,000 police. Mull that one over.....
07:00 and according to the news the F1 race at Bahrain is still in doubt with armoured cars deployed in the vicinity of the track. They're leaving it a bit late and I suspect that the political prize of running the race will trump the unrest. I wonder what the sponsors reaction will be. Is the sort of publicity surrounding this controversy good for the brand? Probably the most significant source of funding.

[Moh]

It was Sue! I was lost when I could not find the regular topics but I think I have sussed it now.

[Tardis]

Has Stanley got a new dodgem car?

All these bumps