Vince Green

I used to sell a lot of stuff on ebay at one time but had a lot of silly problems towards the end with people saying things like it never arrived, doesnt work, broken, not as advertised etc. Ebay would never take your side which was annoying.

My late shooting friend was Greek (from the mainland not Cyprus). He said much the same about Greece, he said when they joined it was like money was falling from the sky. Despite that he was always opposed to the idea of the EU. His instinctive distrust of Germany never left him. He was a very clever man, a hospital consultant at a big London hospital, massively well read but his view of the EU never wavered. He just said it could never work, how could it? Sadly, he died before Brexit, he would have loved all this

There is an auction house that specialises in toys and the like. When my friend Colin died they took his extensive model railway collection and sold it for the family. I don't know who it was but it shouldn't be too hard to find them Actually, I have just search 'toy auctions' on Google and there are quite a few

That's why the Triathlon in the Paris Olympics was delayed for a day while they let the sewage in the Seine wash down stream enough to allow the competitors to swim in it ? If you read the labels on the supermarket food we buy you will find most of it still comes from countries in the EU. Tomatoes and cucumbers from Spain, mushrooms from Poland, onions from Holland. Nothing has changed in that respect since Brexit. The only difference now is that we buy them because we choose to, not because we are forced to.

My late mum's cleaner came from Hungary with her husband. They were both school teachers where they came from but over here she cleaned people's houses for £16 an hour. More than four times, nearly five times what she would earn as a teacher. He drove a truck over here for a Polish agency. That wasn't so good because he would be away from home, on the road, for weeks at a time . He soon got fed up with that. I believe they have gone back to Hungary now but have taken all the money they earned with them. I don't believe either of them ever paid a penny in UK tax during the whole time they were here .

At one time the young were radicalised towards left thinking politics. I remember being inundated at school with ban the bomb and it's later form CND At college it was Socialist Worker and the Workers Revolutionary Party. You couldn't sit down in the Refectory or the Bar without someone sidling up to you trying to start a conversation . Greenpeace was at it as well Two impressions now looking back. The first was it was organised and coordinated. Secondly, what they told us was utterly untrue. Now through the Internet, Russian and Chinese trolls are trying to stir up civil unrest on Patriot sites in America. Feeding people's grievances. I have no doubt the same cyber trolls are doing the same in Britain and Europe with the disaffected youth. It's a fertile audience.

She also got suspended for anti semitic tweets (plural) and then quietly it was forgotten about and she got reinstated . Corbyn era. Apparently comparing Israel to Nazi Germany didn't get you kicked out back then. It probably would now I hope.

I think you have the answer right there. Labour killed the Rwanda scheme "because they could" demonstrating mindless negativity over practical need. But let's not forget the part the Home Office and the Judicary also played in scuppering it at every stage One of the things we have got to do is stop bottomless legal aid because it is being misused to create delaying tactics for their own sake.

It may be semantics but I would not say the rise of the right. I think it is more correct to say the EMERGENCE of a protest movement. Otherwise you start linking them to the Neo Nazis who have never gone away in Germany but whose beliefs and aspirations are not the same as these protestors. It's very easy to brand people as right wing and dismiss them as fruitcakes without listening to what they have to say. A lot of these people's main grievance is believing that nobody is listening to them. As for Raynor, you can take the girl out of a Stockport Council Estate but it appears you can't take the Stockport Council Estate out of the girl. She so should have known better than to ever let those pictures end up in the papers.

The police can search me, my wife, my car and my house as often as they like. As long as they leave the car and the house tidy when they have finished. The reason I don't mind is because I don't have anything to hide and I know they have a job to do I'm sure they are not searching people for the fun of it. The benefit they get out it must be justified to want to put in the effort in the first place.

the question is, how often (if ever) do you clean the barrel of your air rifle.

I know of someone, a workmate of my stepdaughter, who bought a new build house in Cornwall with a heat pump for the heating. It would appear that the pump isn't beefy enough for the job it is required to do. In the winter months it is running flat out all the time to just keep the house warm. They are (along with the other house owners) in dispute with the builders so it will be interesting to see the outcome. I haven't heard of anyone who has a heat pump that thinks they are great

There was a good article in the Guardian about three months ago saying that new housing developments are on hold because they are waiting for grid enhancements that are not happening. I was surprised by the impact of AI but apparently the applications use a lot of power. I don't know a lot more than that because I can't visualise what the applications may be Fossil fuels are a bit political because we get too much of them from Russia. That's the real reason why they are so keen to move to other sources ie electricity, nothing to do with the environment.

The National Grid estimate that in the next ten years the demand for electricity could increase six fold. What is more worrying is that they haven't got a clue how they are going to meet it The reasons include Electric vehicles. Not just cars but buses and goods vehicles Converting away from gas to electric home heating and cooking New homes AI and electronic technology proliferation. This is actually a big one. We are not alone, America and Europe are in the same situation and its a really serious problem potentially. Not wishing to be over dramatic but the implications are life changing. Without electricity we cannot function

Oh it's getting a lot of publicity in the press. If you search London moving families up to 200 miles away you will find a lot about it. They are mostly talking about the homeless because they are able to tell stories about kids being uprooted and people having to lose their jobs because it's too far away to commute. Homeless doesn't mean unemployed people in London. You can have a good job but still not be able to find anywhere affordable to rent. But they have been putting people into care homes miles away from London for a very long time. When my ex wife's step mother got dementia she was put in a nursing home in Leicestershire. That's about 150 miles away. It's not just the councils either, families are having to do the same because of the cost.

Not in the London area. The councils are sending people to care homes miles away. Places like Lincolnshire purely on the basis that the prices are much cheaper out in the sticks They are doing the same with homeless people being put in temporary accommodation

What they do round where I come from is to sell the house and put the money in a bank in either Cyprus , Israel, India or Ireland according to your background. Then you rent a retirement flat If you transfer the property to your children's names that OK as long as they don't die, get divorced or go bankrupt before you die. If they do it can get mighty complicated. Apart from that you really don't want to end up in the sort of care home that the council will put you in if they end up having to pay foryour care.

He has cancelled the contract. Not quite the same thing as saying he won't be using planes and helicopters on an as and when basis. The reality is he will have to if he is going to get around. He is just grandstanding for the benefit of a story to make the six o'clock news.

I was watching them water skiing on Loch Lomond this time last week.

Yes not many (any?) other prime ministers that would have had the backbone to do that

This^^ When I lived for a while in South Wales I got fed up hearing that there were no jobs because Maggie closed all the mines. But most of the mines had already closed before her days in power. The real reason for the mines closing was because British Rail had switched from steam to diesel. As had most of the ships. Welsh coal was used primarily for steam engines. It's sad how demonised her memory has become when in truth she should be honoured

Over 30% of Thames Water is owned by a Canadian Pension fund. 8.7% is owned by the Chinese Govt through a shell company The Abu Dhabi Royal family own a small slice too This is not unusual but it points very clearly to where the problem lies with many of our traditional institutions, not just Thames Water

Apparently, the stairs and landings of 10 Downing Street are hung with the portraits of all the Prime Ministers who have lived there since 1735 A report this morning in the Guardian (usually pretty reliable) says that Keir Starmer has ordered Margart Thatcher's portrait be taken down and put in a cupboard. Very small minded thing to do, it speaks volumes about the sort of man we are dealing with

When we arrived at Palma Majorca in June to join a cruise we just walked straight through. A man stamped our passports but didn't hold us up at all

And the interpreters for the NHS and even the local councils and the police have to employ interpreters. My stepdaughter is a housing officer for a London council and they have to use interpreters all the time. No other way to communicate with people. All these hidden costs have to be paid for but nobody is adding them all up together . They are spread out across different budgets