Salt n Vinegar

Wonder if she'll do a Trump (matron!) and bring out her own version of the Bible? She could go a bit further than him... Obviously she'd add the lyrics for "Jerusalem" and possibly the Coronation Oath too and maybe include some colouring in pages for Boris and Jonathan Gullis. In an effort to modernise the text, she could change references to the "poor" to "the scroungers".

Except for the (probably few) republicans in our midst!

Just been to B&Q too. As I sat in the huge queue trying to get out of the car park I thought " why does every cnut go to B&Q on a holiday".. then I thought "oh , no, wait a minute..."

Need to be a bit careful here lads. A workmate of mine was with me at a "customer service" type training course, and as usual with these sorts of things, we were asked about strengths and weaknesses. My pal caused a bit of outrage when he announced to the startled group that he had "an unreasonable but firm indifference to the Welsh" and said that he regarded it as both a strength and a weakness. I understand that the course leader "had a word" with him at lunch. Racial stereotyping is a bit off, but I confess that I find myself somewhat lacking in support for the other "home nations.". I suppose its probably because we share a "national" broadcaster, so if the others do well, we are forced fed it in "our" news.

George being George - "Newly-elected MP George Galloway has accused the UK of being involved in last week’s Moscow terror attack in comments seized upon by a Kremlin-linked newspaper". From https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/george-galloway-uk-moscow-attack-isis-obama-russia-b2519381.html

Pineapple on a pizza? To make up for that, congratulations for marrying a nymphomaniac whose father owns a distillery and/or a brewery!

"Spiritual exhaustion". Must be knackering, flogging an invisible product.

Maybe the Scottish Parliament needs to borrow an idea from Bill Maher's "Real Time" programme. He occasionally has a segment called "Explaining Jokes to Idiots". It would probably have to be re-titles to something like "Explaining Everyday Expressions to Tories", but you get the idea.

Surely Poland will do the decent thing and put Wales out.

Awful. Gibraltar must be licking their lips.

Christ. That aged well.

That. Is. A. Disgrace.

Starting to get a bad feeling about this. Would 0-0 be acceptable?

Surely "the sachet my father wore"! (I've never worn one and to the best of my knowledge, neither did my father!"

I have a feeling that another cancer charity is incoming. While any research is obviously welcome (my sister died of it 2 years ago and one sister in law has it) I'd much prefer it that rather than more donations being swallowed up in buildings, admin, websites etc, for a new charity, the effort was instead put into the extra cash going to existing ones. We don't need more chief executives, finance directors etc. I'll probably be accused of being a grumpy old git (form an orderly queue) but duplicated admin takes cash out of the research and treatment. It's probably true that some folk will give just because of the "status" of the individual involved, reminding us all that we live in a highly class-ridden and unequal society. It seems that Kate matters, so of course she "deserves" fast treatment in the finest of facilities... our relatives can take their chances with an under-resourced NHS. Well, that's a cheerful start to the day.

Wow. That's a hell of an advert for the Greenock tourist board. "All human life is here, and some we're not sure about."

That's true, but it will be for this government (or the next one if the GE is soon enough) to decide on an apology and on whether or not compensation is payable and how much. I can't really find any sympathy for the Tories, but let's just say that facing this issue in an election year and looking at a possible bill of £36 billion will be causing a few panic discussions.

Still, not to worry. Any compensation (unlikely though that might be) would be a lump sum of taxable income. For many with other pensions, 20% will go straight back to HMG in income tax, and some might even pay 40% or 45%.

Further to the post above, I'm not sure which is less likely... Tories apologising for anything, or them agreeing to pay compensation. "We'd love to pay up but taxpayers can't afford it..."

Prosecco frenzy incoming... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-68624420 "A new report recommends the government should apologise and pay compensation to women affected by the increase in the state pension age" Time to get the chequebook out.

A quick Google tells me that the weight difference between charged and not charged is negligible. I've not got stats, but my skim reading would suggest that the difference between a full and empty petrol/diesel tank is much greater than between a charged and uncharged battery. More potholes ahead.

When I was a student I did a couple of shifts a week in an off-licence. We had one till, so we had to add up the cost of orders on paper as we couldn't have one member of staff hogging it processing a single customer's order. The queue would have been out the door more often than it was. Our speed adding was amazing. Any order over £20 had to be checked by another member of staff.

Has Greggs been hit by a cyber attack? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68614636 That's about as close as a declaration of war as we've had for ages!

As the road through the Cameron Toll area is knackered*, a wee head's up for anyone thinking of taking Old Church Lane road through Duddingston Village - watch out for some pretty brutal potholes. As an aside, won't the road maintenance problems get worse as more electric cars are bought, replacing petrol/diesel ones? As I understand it, electric cars are heavier due to the size of the battery. Happy days. (*Technical term.)

There's a percentage of the population who think the royals are lizards... let's not bring crustaceans into it!