Nobby

So wheres the best ? what is the yardstick in your opinion ?

Probably not, I was merely pointing out that an "establishment" IMHO will exist in whatever societal structure a country has in place. In an ideal world life would treat all fairly. It never has and never will again IMHO. Nothing wrong with trying to change it either but personally i believe human nature will out !!

It has its faults granted but in general there are a lot of shittier places to live. Where is the nirvana that you think we should be aspiring to ?

Do you think there isnt an "Establishment" in any country/society ? I would argue from communist to facist and everywhere in between there is always an "establishment" If Noam Chomsky was put in charge of the world there would be an "establishment" the real challenge is to realise this and challenge what they are up to at any given time. I dont think the Uk does too bad currently last time i looked no one form thae tamb had been rounded up and taken to a re-education camp ;-)

Fair enough although I believe the allies wanted "unconditional surrender" anything else was just an opening gambit ! Drink some Gin for your man flu !!!

The papers reported it, it must be true then, bit different from the usual TAMB view of the media ;-) The circumstances in my mind are fairly straightforward, there may well have been talk of surrender but at the point the bombs were dropped the Japanese armed forces were fully engaged in open warfare as a consequnce of them declaring war on USA. They were losing and probably the more sensible heads in their govt realised this and wanted to jack it in but nothing really happened. Instead of committing thousands of troops to fight an extremely costly land battle (a bit like the one you mentioned when the allies fought across europe) the yanks took the decision to drop the bomb. Not a very nice decision, but one that had to be taken to protect the lives of their troops. Actions have consequences and as previous picking on the biggest kid on the block probably wasnt the smartest move the japanese ever made.

Presumably the Japanese govt could at any point over those months told their troops to lay down their weapons and surrender or were they looking for "can we call it a draw and keep some of our weapons ?" probably wasnt the smartest move by picking on the biggest kid on the block !

I dont disagree that the women, children and old folk suffered horrendously. Unfortunately for them the job of the allied commanders was to protect the loss of life on their side and as previous an invasion of japan wouldve cost a huge toll on both sides, probalby IMHO more than the bombs took.

They didnt surrender after the first one so a good soaking was hardly likely to get them running up the white flag !

This fairly certain if i was sitting on a troop ship en-route to japan and they said "lads weve got two options 1. invade and lots of you die or 2. drop a big bomb and loads of them die . i know which i would have opted for !!!

Sorry to hear that, thoughts are with you and your mum May the force be with you

I can only assume you are taking the proverbial ? The only great rapport he had was with Gary Mabbut's cheekbone. Poor excuse for a human being

Hes going out of his way to make political points when playing football, hes a numpty because the points he is trying to make, whilst far from resolved have moved on from what he is protesting about. I dont doubt the British Army and the provisionals both got up to some unsavoury stuff . Thankfully it appears to have moved on a bit . All he is doing is drawing attention to himself and making himself look a prize prat. but its a relatively free country so crack on, he just has to take the flak that comes with it.

Would he have been there if not for that win ? I believe the quote from that tournament was "the tournament got the champion it deserved" because it was considered somewhat of a lottery. Average is perhaps a bit harsh but certainly hes not up there in the pantheons so to speak !! Reminds me a bit of when Jonny Herbert won the british grand prix his victory speech shoud've started with "Could I just thank everyone else for Breaking down or crashing"

To be fair I think youve hit on a solution !! Instead of foxes they should hunt estate agents particularly the foxtons variety !!! who'd complain about that ?

For Fox sake ! theres always a critic !!

True but it is widley acknowledged that those foreign foxes we have brought in have made it the best and most exciting fox hunting in the world ;-) and we have a young English fox that runs with the Bournmouth hunt that will win the fox league title next season !!

So any bequest will go to charity ?

On past experience you'd be inviting English foxes with Scottish grannies up over the border like theres no tomorrow !!

HMRC i believe collects the revenues due to the State. I believe you'll find yourself in a small minority if you believe inheritance tax should be 100% after provision has been made for funeral and a provision for surviving partner !!!! As previous (currently) anything that belongs to me when i depart this world, I would like to leave to my children and I would like them to receive everything !! now I can see the argument for extreme wealth to be taxed but a family home should be able to be passed on to children free of the taxman getting a cut IMHO. Will you turn down a bequest from your parents ?

The evil git just gave them an 11% pay rise next year (alright the minimum wage is 6.50 but i cant be arsed to work it out !!)

Very altrusitic Lamia, you are of course free to leave your entire estate to the taxman, personally id rather leave it to my kids with the taxman getting as little as possible. i've worked for my money and id like to leave anything left to whoever I want to get it. Ive also paid tax on my earnings and mortgage intererest so any raise in asset value is mine just like if the value fell the loss would be mine. We're all different ;-)

Oh the debt was paid in full but I would agree that they were undercharged for their insurance policy... edit apologies I just saw you response to biffer !

Apart from the capital injected the big bucks were paid back. They pledged assets held on their balance sheet and borrowed short term when the inter bank market froze.