Britain & the EU - What's Happening?

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally posted by DaveCox
then the people can go back to talking & boozing with each other - the best form of international friendship!

And what better than talk & booze over old army trucks - we should get a EU grant for encouraging that!

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally posted by Hanno Spoelstra
That's why polls show the Dutch are even less fond of the EU than our British friends(!)

Found the newspaper article of last weekend, titled "Gekke Henkie in Europa":
"One in 4 civilians says to feel "involved" with Europe, 39% says they don't feel involved. These are the results from a Netherlands Foreign office study this month into the attitude of Dutchmen towards Europe. And this is true for the whole of Europe. Only 48% of the Europeans supports the membership of the EU, as was found in the Eurobarometer published late 2003. During the early nineties 69% of the Europeans found the EU a good thing.

But there's more: according to the Eurobarometer the Dutch are the least attached to Europe of all Europeans. Merely 29% of the Dutch says to feel involved with the EU, 68% says they feel "not much" or "not at all" involved with Europe. The Dutch even think more negative about Europe than the British, where 51% feel "not much" or "not at all" involved with Europe.

Ask the Dutch about Europe and 8 out of 10 civilians say: gravy train."

Need I say more?

H.

[Tony Smith]

No, Gordon, I'm not talking about you.

In today's paper there was mention in the obituaries column of the passing in Vancouver of a Mr Vernon, who acheived a certain notoriety in 1950 by stealing (Sorry, recovering) the Stone of Scone from Westminster Abbey in a student prank, and returning it to Scotland. Having received many accolades ( ) from the scots and disapproval ( ) from the English establishment, he eventually found reason to emigrate to Canada.

Perhaps Gordon has comitted a similar such outrage on the sassenachs and needs to quit bonny Scotland quicksmart? Git oot now, man!

[gordon]

... they already gave us that lump of stone back, so I can't do that again.

Maybe if I towed the new Scottish Parliament buidling out into the North Sea and let it sink ?

Gordon

[dougiebarder]

Gordon-Take the stone back, and drop it on tony-I'm sure watching that on the tv would make a lot of people feel better.

"And what better than talk & booze over old army trucks - we should get a EU grant for encouraging that!"

Hanno-where can we vote for you (I presume we'll get subsidised booze)

Originally posted by DaveCox
[B]My ancestry is pure mongrel. Scots, Welsh and English, though not necessarily in that order...

Goodness knows where the line goes, the name is uncommon though and the first recorded mugging was a Lady Mabel deNotton back in 1100 and something.

FV623 - try talking to your MP, and suggesting that we scrap political correctness with a view to sentencing criminals instead of victims. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .MPs don't half vanish quickly when they find out that the public ( ie. their employers) have opinions that don't match their 'party line' !!!!

Oh yes! I'm gonna try that one, what a wizard and appropriate jape.

Chichester - the posh bit of Sussex a hotbed of crime.... you surprise me.

Well, depending on shifts girly-pig-daughter will be at Overlord, you can ask. Bloody surprised me too I can tell you. 'Parrently the up-market cities are the place for criminal middle and top management, they can afford it and blend in. I'm told behind the snooty veneer of such places as Chichester, Bath, Cheltenham etc. the goings-on are an eye-opener.

JD - quite correct - the 'monkey' was a tray with holes in that the sailors used to hold their 'ready use' ammo. In cold weather the tray contracted faster than the cast iron balls and caused them to roll around the deck. To coin a phrase - Ooooohhhhh Nasty! LOL

Yes, bloody well done JD 9/10.

In Nelson's day any handy thing, including the impressed sub 10yr olds fetching and carrying, were called monkeys. Cannon balls, not to be confused with Winnington-Balls, were racked on a brass triangle with very shallow location indents, then had a second and third layer and a single ball on top to make a small pyramid.

Care to take a stab at "got me over a barrel" and "The devil to pay" ?


R.

Originally posted by Hanno Spoelstra
[B]And I was, I admit it. Funny to see how a colonial can wind up his master.

Yes. . . . . Being the dim sh-one-t that I am, it has only just dawned on me that the colonial Ball-Spinnington has surreptitiously wound me up further than a Stalwart on tarmac with six grossly mismatched tyres.

Now I know why the colonial has to fill in all sorts of forms and answer many intrusive questions when he is entering the main island of the UK, while I as a EU resident can drive on waving my passport.

He'll have a few of them to do shortly.

And, you have reminded me, I have to renew my passport. No more impressive and large Royal blue, Her Britannic Majesty ones, nope, poxy fart-arse EU one that will call me an "EU Citizen". At least question 02 on the front page has enough boxes in the country of birth line for me to write
E N G L A N D.

And yes indeed, it applies to the land of cheese and clogs too. That's why polls show the Dutch are even less fond of the EU than our British friends(!) Could that be because we are already stuck deeper in it than the people who (still...) have their own currency?

What a concise and considered response; we know the Dutch are renowned for their careful and reserved attitude, Hanno makes excellent sense and in brilliant English too. How many of us could string Dutch together this well?

Collaboration is greatly facilitated by a common market and I feel that is where the EU goes wrong today: instead of solely facilitating the collaboration among Europeans by bringing down the barriers, the EU tends to strive for centralised control by proclaiming all sorts of directives - a consitution even!

The defunct USSR couldn't run it from the middle and apparently the nice Mr.Blair has got an ear pounding from the EU führers about the proposed referendum - they know what the result will be and don't like it.

You know what? I'd vote for a constitution which has "thy shall not steal" as the first rule. Now, wouldn't that annihilate a large portion of the royal EU household?

Ah, a refreshing outbreak of common sense. I'd go for this.


R.

[dougiebarder]

Not strictly relavent, but I just read this on another forum and thought it might amuse.

"An elderly Scottish gentleman arrived in Paris by plane.
At French customs he fumbled for his passport. "You have
been to France before, monsieur?" the customs officer asked
sarcastically. The old gent admitted that he had been to France
before. "Then, you should know enough to have your passport
ready for inspection," snapped the irate official.

The Scotsman said, "The last time I came to France I didn't
have to show my passport."

"Impossible, old man. You Scottish persons always have to show your
passports on arrival in France!"

The old Scotsman gave the Frenchman a long hard look. Then,
with the feel of acid on his words, calmly stated, "I assure you,
young man, that when I came ashore on that Beach in Normandy
on D-Day in 1944, there wasn't a Frenchman anywhere to be seen."

[JD Baillie]

B Z!


JD

[DaveCox]

Like that joke dougiebarder!

As JD didn't have a go at FV623s little quiz this time:

'over a barrel' I've heard several explanations for this one. When sailors were being tried for an offence, the Officer in charge would use a barrel for a desk. Therefore when you are said to be 'over a barrel' you are in a tight spot.
'the devil to pay'. Paying a seam is the action of filling the gap between deck planks with a mixture of oakum and tar; and the widest seam is the one where the deck joins the curved side of the ship. This was known as 'the devil'. The full expression is 'there'll be the devil to pay and no pitch hot', in otherwords ' up sh*t creek without a paddle'.

Originally posted by DaveCox
[B]Like that joke dougiebarder!

Me too.

This has appeared in many flying journals and is alleged to be true; set a few years ago now at Frankfurt airport I think, a place where the taxiways and gates are a complex nightmare they say and the controllers are noted for a curt, unhelpful and brusque attitude.

BA flight XYZ was being a bit tardy in sorting out the gates and correct taxiways after landing.

Tower: "BA XYZ, don't you know where you're going?"
BA XYZ: "We're just sorting it now."
Tower (sharply): "Haven't you EVER been to Frankfurt before."
BA XYZ: Oh yes; 1943. Didn't stop though."

As JD didn't have a go at FV623s little quiz this time:

'over a barrel' I've heard several explanations for this one. When sailors were being tried for an offence, the Officer in charge would use a barrel for a desk. Therefore when you are said to be 'over a barrel' you are in a tight spot.

Or, when half drowned you'd be pulled over one by the arms and legs to expel water.

Either way, not in a position to do anything.

'the devil to pay'. Paying a seam is the action of filling the gap between deck planks with a mixture of oakum and tar; and the widest seam is the one where the deck joins the curved side of the ship.

Faultless.
'Course Dave is far too close to Portsmuf here and has a head start on you all.

Awlright then, lets have; "square meal" and "two-six" the latter used commonly here as the order to several helpers to start pulling/pushing/lifting/straining as appropriate.

Ooops, I'd better get back to the EU rant before we get a hard smack from the esteemed and revered Oberforumführer Ballington-Winn gerät.


R.

Originally posted by Hanno Spoelstra
And what better than talk & booze over old army trucks - we should get a EU grant for encouraging that!

Some of us may need a too, he said, making another from some of the Dutch Mr.Dowe and Egbert's finest smoking material; and I still think "halfzware shag" suggests a bonk with your socks on, no matter what you say McSpool.

I don't think the EU would grant you anything for what you suggest, commendable it might be, in fact I have serious doubts if you'd even get the steam off their piss for free.

You might be better served with our National Lottery, a device where 20 million of the poorest people sponsor 250 of the richest to attent the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden. The latter organisation already funded to 90 million pa by the arts council from my taxes, further millions on demand from govt direct and another multi-million wedge from the lottery.

Reading the list of lottery payouts is interesting, the RBL have been refused many times along with many other sane and worthy causes.

However, a group publishing guidance books for the correct use of PC language when dealing with homosexual and lesbian groups got a goodly wedge along with an organisation helping Chilean farmers to improve the production of guinea pigs for human consumption. This is but a crumb of the whole bizarre scenario.

Obscene waste I call it, but then everyone else thinks I'm a cantankerous and awkward arse-hole.

Admittedly they did put 250K of loose change into Bovvy's Tiger 1 but have driven the programme to the detriment of three exploded Maybach V12s.

They wouldn't give Mrs Notton 4K towards the 80K rebuild of the Shirrell Heath scout hut, razed to the ground by a known teenage, female arsonist who got piqued by being picked up for questioning.

I think I'm recognising the onset of FV623 transmission problems in a parallel personal way now. Best bugger off for a T and before I loose it completely.

R.

[DaveCox]

Originally posted by FV623
"Mr.Dowe and Egbert's finest smoking material; and I still think "halfzware shag" suggests a bonk with your socks on, no matter what you say McSpool."

FV - I think we not only think alike, we even smoke the same stuff - always makes me chuckle even more than the health warning on the pack.


"You might be better served with our National Lottery, a device where 20 million of the poorest people sponsor 250 of the richest to attent the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden. "
They're giving money to everyone EXCEPT those that need it ( ie ME)

"Obscene waste I call it, but then everyone else thinks I'm a cantankerous and awkward arse-hole."
And I'm often told that my politics are 'slightly to the right of Attilla the Hun.'


A square meal refers to the 'hard-tack' or ships biscuit. Cooked twice so that it didn't decay, only the weevils gave it any noticeable flavour. Best reduced to a powder and mixed with hot water to make porridge. Something similar was still part of army rations into the 1930s at least _ the origin of 'iron rations' and most useful for firing at the enemy, any recipient not wearing a tin hat was in hospital with concussion.
2-6 - can't remember that one.

It's not that I live close to Pompey, but spent 4 years as a Petty Officer Instructor with the Sea Cadet Corps.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally posted by FV623
Some of us may need a too, he said, making another from some of the Dutch Mr.Dowe and Egbert's finest smoking material; and I still think "halfzware shag" suggests a bonk with your socks on, no matter what you say McSpool.

Well, my dictionary says it's "medium strong (rolling) tobacco", but you also only could translate the first word into "halfhearted" which indeed would leave you standing by the bedside with your socks on - ah, isn't a dirty mind a joy forever

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally posted by FV623
Ooops, I'd better get back to the EU rant before we get a hard smack from the esteemed and revered Oberforumführer Ballington-Winn gerät.

Well yes, how about this:

"The European Union has decided to free up a quarter of a billion Euro's in aid to the Turkish part of Cyprus as a reward for the support of Turksish-Cypriots for the UN-plan to reunite the divided island. To irritation of the EU the Greek-Cypriots voted against the plan last Saturday. The EU had reserved 259 million Euro to help with the reunification in case both communities had voted for the UN-plan. According to the Ministers for Foreign Affairs of the EU-countries that money must now but put into projects to advance the integration between the two parts of the island, in spite of lacking a political regulation."

Originally posted by DaveCox
[B]FV - I think we not only think alike, we even smoke the same stuff - always makes me chuckle even more than the health warning on the pack.

I have to be careful with these smileys, the Obergruppenforumführer Binnington-Wall tells me I have a ration of 7 per posting.

McSpool tells me it means half-heavy and a medium cut, this doesn't help at all really. I now see it as the gentleman taking the weight on his elbows, as thoughtful people should, and has just returned from the pub.

I don't expect McSpool has time to comment though as he is very busy now with the two little McBobbins.

"You might be better served with our National Lottery, a device where 20 million of the poorest people sponsor 250 of the richest to attend the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden. "
They're giving money to everyone EXCEPT those that need it ( ie ME)

Yes, so we will both be hanging about until the ice-age descends on Hell with a return to good judgement and common sense.

"Obscene waste I call it, but then everyone else thinks I'm a cantankerous and awkward arse-hole."
And I'm often told that my politics are 'slightly to the right of Attilla the Hun.'

Just maybe we need more of that.

A square meal refers to the 'hard-tack' or ships biscuit. Cooked twice so that it didn't decay, only the weevils gave it any noticeable flavour.

Hmmmmm, well, I'd cite the square plates that were used to get the whole gun crew around the tiny table; also these had a pronounced raised edge known as a fiddle; taking excess rations and so filling your plate excessively to this level would then be. . . . .

On the fiddle.

2-6 - can't remember that one.

Ah, the ships gun crew are numbered, Nos. 2 and 6 are the ones that pull the ropes to run the cannon back out of the port to the firing position after a reload.

It's not that I live close to Pompey, but spent 4 years as a Petty Officer Instructor with the Sea Cadet Corps.

Aha, all hands to dance and skylark then.

Mr Ball-Spinning, I do hope you appreciate all this detailed and free culture we are magnanimously supplying you with from this green and pleasant isle.


R.

Originally posted by Hanno Spoelstra
Well, my dictionary says it's "medium strong (rolling) tobacco", but you also only could translate the first word into "halfhearted" which indeed would leave you standing by the bedside with your socks on - ah, isn't a dirty mind a joy forever

Oh McSpool!!



All the little McBobbins gone off to bed and you have time on your hands?

I don't care what your dictionary says, me and the English Dave C have our own views.

Anyway, no forlorn standing by the bedside now with the widespread availability of the little blue American pill, or so I'm reliably informed, he said hastily; extreme care is advised though because you'd not want to trip on the carpet and pole vault out of the window.

Apparently if you can't afford those, then a pipe cleaner as an internal splint might do. . . . . . . . . . .

And this just in, Mr. Winn-Ballington:

"See you at the show and always welcome to our campsite, to explore some of the finest Belgian beers."

You'll be awlright with us and the evening entertainment of that comedy duo Panton & Tooes.



R.
D&E Half-dressed bonk.

Originally posted by Hanno Spoelstra
Well yes, how about this:

"The European Union has decided to free up a quarter of a billion Euro's in aid to the Turkish part of Cyprus as a reward . . . . . .
The EU had reserved 259 million Euro to help with the reunification . . . . . . . . . .that money must now but put into projects to advance the integration between the two parts of the island, in spite of lacking a political regulation."

Oh dear; oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

You see the whole sorry mess is devoid of the slightest trace of CDF and is a heap of ordure that people are crapping on as they pass.

Have any of you read Neville Shute (Norway), he founded Airspeed Aviation and did the stress calcs for the R100 which was highly successful, as opposed to the short flight of the Govt R101, which he said was doomed owing to the addition of another bay, and indeed only got to Beauvais before crashing. Try "In The Wet" for a prophesy.

R. ²

[DaveCox]

If them little blue pills will help me pole vault, then maybe I'll start taking them.
Just imagine the press interview after the Athens Olympics
" Never any good at field and track 'till I discovered Viagra"

LOL

Originally posted by DaveCox
If them little blue pills will help me pole vault, then maybe I'll start taking them.
Just imagine the press interview after the Athens Olympics
" Never any good at field and track 'till I discovered Viagra"

LOL

Ooooo, how I larfed. Larfed and larfed I did.

Anyroadup; chemical substances and the Olympics? Surely some mistake?

The beginning and the end of the Olympics is a good spectacackle, the bit in between I find rather soporific.

'Course we don't see the shooting stuff, especially hand guns as they're banned and dreadfully un-PC. If we're forced to host this event a special law has to be passed so the competitors don't get the statutory 5 yrs inside for a Sect.1 firearms offence.

Good for the travel industry though as they have to keep the weapons in Switzerland and oscillate to and fro for practice beforehand.

How sensible don't you think.

R.

[dougiebarder]

By the sound's of it, it'll be the building site olympics this time. So we might come away with a few medals- Wolf whistling, tea drinking, male clevage and nipping down the builders yard for a few bit's, are in the bag.

[Pete Ashby]

Now Order Gentlemen Please,

A pause in this hectic cut and thrust debate with nautical conundrums thrown in for good measure from Mr two T's Notton.
(Doubly palindromic indeed, most unusual)

If I may summarise our collective position...........

It's put up or shut up with Tony and Euro chums

OR

Off to Alberta where it snows for six months of the year and huge bears regard on you as a bipedal McDonalds for the other six months.... some choice.

I hope you are suitably abashed Mr Winnington-Ball at the maelstrom you have raised.

Come over here Sir and face the music if you dare !!

P J Ashby

English Man and Part time Gentleman

Originally posted by Pete Ashby
Now Order Gentlemen Please,

You're quite right.

I hope you are suitably abashed Mr Winnington-Ball at the maelstrom you have raised.

I did tell him, I did. Not too happy about "abashed" and "Mr Winnington-Ball" in the same sentence, surely mutually exclusive terms aren't they? :

Come over here Sir and face the music if you dare !!

He is!!

Arrival on 21 May 2004, 0955 at Gatport Airwick.
Should we get the boys along and pounce on the bugger?

P J Ashby

English Man and Part time Gentleman

Indubitably.

R.

[Mike K]

We are currently having the BBC series on Lawrence who among other things was noted for writing ' THE SEVEN PILLOCKS OF WISDOM '.

The doco goes into how the arabs were totally shafted by the brits and french . The deal was promised thus , autonomy / independance for the arabs in exchange for chucking the turks out of the Middle East .

What happened ? A secret deal was done by the Brits and French who, after the battles had been fought and won , litterally carved up the ME between themselves . The French jumped up and down and wanted a bit of the pie , they were allowed to have Syria , the Brits got Mesopitamea ( now IRAQ ) and Palestine .

Somebody had spotted the fact that black gooey stuff abounds in Mesopitamea .

Wonder why the arab world has a deep distrust of the west .

Mike

[DaveCox]

Heard this morning on a radio 'phone in -

" joining the EU is a lot like going to a brothel - you pay a lot of money and all you get is screwed!"

very appropriate in my view.

Originally posted by DaveCox
Heard this morning on a radio 'phone in -

" joining the EU is a lot like going to a brothel - you pay a lot of money and all you get is screwed!"

very appropriate in my view.

Absolutely so; you have to laugh as the alternative is crying.

Is it just me and a suspicious mind, or a quirk of fate?

A huge number of the deeper thinkers and historically aware people will be out of the country typically from around June 2 to around June 14, because we're all off to Normandy, which you all knew of course.

Funny how the Euro elections are on June 10 isn't it.

I've downloaded the postal ballot form. . . . . . . . . . . . .


R.

[Geoff Winnington-Ball (RIP)]

I thought I'd reprint this from today's nation Post... not sure how long it will be available online as a link.

Comments, please.

A bigger, scarier EU


National Post


May 1, 2004
With the addition of 10 new members, the European Union will today expand to 25 members. It is a historic day. From the tribal squabbles of the Bronze age to the industrial butchery of Nazi Germany, Europe has been wracked by war for millennia. As recently as the 1980s, thousands of tanks and missiles were arrayed on either side of the Iron Curtain in anticipation of yet another apocalyptic conflict. The idea that these nations might be joined in common purpose would have then seemed a fantasy. But today, it is a political reality.

And yet, it is not a reality most on this side of the Atlantic would embrace. Here in North America, the brief media reports about EU enlargement typically focus on its symbolic and historical ramifications. Less discussed is the intrusive manner by which the EU will impose its writ on the economic, cultural and social life of member states. The EU being an essentially utopian enterprise, its architects are disproportionately drawn from the continent's left-leaning bureaucratic and intellectual classes. As a result, the Union has developed an ambitious set of dirigiste human-rights norms and labour standards. It has also created a new level of government without removing existing layers, thereby expanding the cost of governance for the people of Europe.

As Theodore Dalrymple argued on these pages last Tuesday, the new EU Constitution would grant yet more powers to Brussels. If accepted by members, it would create what is essentially a federated superstate, complete with a common foreign policy that members would be required to follow "actively and unreservedly in a spirit of loyalty and mutual solidarity." And since the new members are relatively poor, the union will also become a tool of redistributionist economics, with billions flowing East from Paris and London to Warsaw and Riga. This is a generous gesture on the part of Western Europe. But we doubt it is how most rank-and-file European citizens want their tax money being spent.

Indeed, there is something fundamentally undemocratic about the European Union project. While the EU legislature is elected, the body's activities are so obscure that few Europeans bother voting, or even understand its functions. Moreover, in many cases, the most intrusive decisions -- regarding everything from trade to culture -- are made by politically unaccountable judges and functionaries. In Canada, such unaccountability often leaves individual citizens powerless. But in Europe, that impotence now plagues whole states.

It is not for us to lecture the Europeans about how to organize their continent. But we are gratified that, here in North America, we have far less expansive ambitions for our own supranational bodies. Co-ordinating trade under NAFTA, or defense under NORAD, is well and good. But would anyone have any use for, say, a "North American Court of Human Rights," in which judges from Montreal and Mexico City would lecture Alabama companies about the way they treat gay employees? The scenario seems absurd. Yet this is the model the European Union is embracing. And one need not be European to find it frightening.

PS: Mr. Ashby, do your worst, sir! Ply me with alcohol, give me the .. *gasp * COMFY CHAIR!

I WILL NEVAH SURRENDER!

Originally posted by Geoff Winnington-Ball
The scenario seems absurd. Yet this is the model the European Union is embracing. And one need not be European to find it frightening.

Quite. . . . . . . . .and you wonder why some of us are so fired-up?

PS: Mr. Ashby, do your worst, sir! Ply me with alcohol, give me the .. *gasp * COMFY CHAIR!

I'd suggest just the alcohol will do.

I WILL NEVAH SURRENDER!

I will defend our island from the EU, whatever the cost may be, I shall fight on the beaches, I shall fight on the landing grounds, I shall fight in the fields and in the streets, I shall fight in the hills. . . . .

R.

[DaveCox]

Originally posted by FV623
Quite. . . . . . . . .and you wonder why some of us are so fired-up?
I will defend our island from the EU, whatever the cost may be, I shall fight on the beaches, I shall fight on the landing grounds, I shall fight in the fields and in the streets, I shall fight in the hills. . . . .

R.

Gimme a good supply of tea, baccie & rizlas, a No4 or Bren (better by far than the plastic crap they give our troops nowadays) and I'll be there alongside you .........


PS.. anybody got 4 spare Canadian passports with names & 'photos blank, just in case Teflon Tony tries to stab us from behind (the only way he'd DARE to try)
Dave
Patriotic mongrel & committed Blair-basher

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally posted by FV623
This has appeared in many flying journals and is alleged to be true; set a few years ago now at Frankfurt airport I think, a place where the taxiways and gates are a complex nightmare they say and the controllers are noted for a curt, unhelpful and brusque attitude.

Here's the full story

Unexpected Reply
The German controllers at Frankfurt Airport were a short-tempered lot. They not only expected you to know your parking location, but how to get there without any assistance from them. So it was with some amusement that we (PanAm 747) listened to the following exchange between Frankfurt ground and a British Airways 747 (radio call Speedbird 206) after landing.

Speedbird 206: "Good morning Frankfurt, Speedbird 206 clear of the active."
Ground: "Guten morgan, taxi to your gate."

The British Airways 747 pulls onto the main taxiway and stops.

Ground: "Speedbird, do you not know where you are going?"
Speedbird 206: "Stand by, ground, I'm looking up the gate location now."
Ground (with typical German impatience): "Speedbird 206, have you never flown to Frankfurt before?"
Speedbird 206 (coolly): "Yes, in 1944. But I didn't stop."