Westward

Not sure that qualifies him as successful except in his own eyes of course. From the mid nineties the tories were sufficiently dysfunctional as to make them unelectable. Much like Labour for the last 12-13 years. Blair didn't "win" three elections, the tories "lost" them. The smartest thing Blair ever did was to pick precisely the right time to step down so that Golden Brown had to carry the blame for losing the next election. What I most dislike about Blair's tenure is that he - or more probably his puppet masters - realised that government can create statutory laws for more than just making the country safer and more secure. What they started and what is still happening is using the law-making process to control people's behaviour by progressively removing our long cherished freedoms and at the same time handing ever greater powers to Brussels. Never mind party politics, I so miss the personal freedoms that we used to have in this country and that I knew throughout my childhood and formative years. Blair & Co with their "New Labour" pretext weren't new at all, it was just window dressing. Behind the façade it was Old Labour with the all the traditional socialist's fear and dread of the people having too much freedom - so, with the willing help of the EU, they set about removing it.

The "S" stands for sovrapposta which is Italian for superposed which is the word Browning coined way back for over/under. IDK the exact number but there were various versions of the 686S including a multichoke sporter. Sometimes badged as S686 + a name like Special or as 686S the main action and barrels were much the same During the 1990s the 686S guns were rebadged as the 686 Silver pigeon which again came in various versions such as Silver Pigeon S or C or SC... I doubt if anyone has a conclusive guide to all the variations of the original 686 Silver Pigeon but about 10 years ago the Silver Pigeon 1 was released with modern barrels and in either game and sporter configuration. The action design has hardly changed since the 686 was born, but they moved from forged internal parts requiring some hand fitting to investment castings around the time the Silver Pigeon came along.

That's a queer mistake for 12g82 to make.

Couldn't agree more. The most devious, cheating, underhand, self serving and dishonourable PM we've had in my fairly long lifetime. Nothing to do with politics BTW, he's just utterly loathsome.

Back in the early 2000s I had a 29" barrel Rottweil Supersport for a couple of years. It was made by Sabatti and was mechanically identical to the Browning Medallist, just with better wood and decoration. Mine didn't break down at all but those 12g Sabattis were famous for breaking their ejectors and if that happened the repair bill would be more than the gun is worth and certainly more than £150. By comparison ATAs are a clone of the Beretta 686 and therefore pretty well bulletproof. Most of us know all about kids/mortgages/justifying our toys and so on but ultimately £150 isn't likely to be life changing. If it is then forget about shooting, at least for now.

Which is why I carefully used the word "indirectly". The following conditions anfd various others or the prescription drugs to treat them (or both) are almost always the result of poor lifestyle choices: Obesity, type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, high BP, most cases of heart disease and several types of cancer. In other words just about everything that contributes to early death or disability and without any help from Covid. You could also add in lack of exercise and lack of crucial vitamins but that's a much longer story. As to your other snotty remarks I stand by what I've always said: The scientists such as virologists & immunologists etc mostly agree on what Covid is because they are experts in their field. Where they disagree and contradict each other is when they pop up and opine on their theory on the logistical challenges, their attempts to analyse the statistics whilst lecturing all and sundry exactly what in their lofty opinion needs to be done and what doom laden scenario will occur if it isn't. In other words subjects which are absolutely not their areas of expertise. Chief of the junk theory peddlers is the buffoon Prof Ferguson now busily backtracking on 2 years of bonkers claims which have unfailingly proved to be not just inaccurate but wildly so. On the other topic, those experts around the world that I have read are broadly in agreement that Covid will behave like almost every other known viral outbreak and mutate to a less dangerous form. Viruses have been for a long longer than humans and we're still here and still multiplying. Perhaps a virus will pop up and eliminate the human race one day but Covid does not appear to be a candidate and even the scientists are beginning to start talking sense. p.s I would appreciate it if you'd stop stalking me. Happy New year.

It's relevant in the sense that other corona viruses like flu make some people very ill and, in case anyone's forgotten, many 1000s a year die from it, some people fall fairly ill and others are not very ill at all. The difference has be in the person's general level of health, not the virus. Just as with flu, Covid 19 is only a dangerous virus to the unhealthy with lowered immune systems, often due directly or indirectly to poor lifestyle choices. The reason for the all the hysteria over Covid is not it's nastiness as illness it's the way it spreads much more easily than flu - and that's especially true of Omicron.

Opinions are like a-holes, everyone's got one, and no 2 "Covid expert" ever seem to be able to agree on anything, but the majority of the virus experts who've commented seem to think it'll behave like almost every other virus and become progressively less of problem. And lets no forget that, vaccine or not, virtually everyone who became seriously ill or died from Covid was pretty unhealthy to start with. Good health is not a given it has to be maintained by our lifestyle choices and just because someone isn't clinically sick it doesn't mean they're healthy.

Omicron is different. It's the beginning of the virus mutating towards becoming relatively harmless. The South Africans have been saying for weeks that it's no worse than a bad cold, but our arrogant experts at SAGE and that scaremongering bunch of random talking heads the news media love won't to wheel out accept that at face value. Therefore they're bullying the governments, especially in Wales and Scotland into virtual panic mode until they've confirmed what the South African already know. Meanwhile we've got to put up with the same old nonsense thanks in no small measure the pillocks who refuse vaccination. My wife was unwell a couple of weeks ago so she took a flow test which proved negative. I asked her if she'd report the result if it' been positive (as you're "ordered" to) and she said "No bloody way". Let's be honest here, my wife isn't alone and I'd bet my socks the 122,000 new cases reported daily are nowhere near the real number, then add in that thousands of so called covid deaths that have died of other things the whole thing is a hopeless shambles of blundering around in the dark.

Wylye know his stuff and he's dead right. There are at least 4 different formats of Beretta choke and they're not interchangeable between different model Berettas never mind Brownings which also have several different choke fittings.

The constant emphasis on the numbers who've owned up to being infected is the main plank of Project Fear. Powerfully supported by the BBC and Ch 4, these are the figures used by hysterics like Ferguson to make idiotic claims for future deaths. Meanwhile the government claims to be trying to prevent a crisis in the NHS and also avoid another lockdown because they know most people won't adhere to it. It's now known that Omicron does not typically invade the lungs to the extent the other variants do so it really is no worse than Flu and probably less so which means the hospitals can think about releasing some of the ICU beds currently unused and held in reserve for the Covid tidal wave which looks increasingly unlikely to happen. The back story behind Project Fear is that the government and their advisers don't want the public to know how many are dying from Flu, a stat which is no longer being made public but which is very likely to be more than from Covid. Sooner or later they'll have to stop kicking the can down road and restore normal life. Just like Flu, Covid isn't going away and they can't keep trying to hide from it forever. Interestingly the anagram for Omicron is Moronic...

Amazing, there must be 2 Laura Kuenssbergs... 🤣

Laura Kuenssberg is to step down from her post as BBC Political editor. But the bad news is she's staying in post till Easter...

What about the arrogance of people like Prof Neil Ferguson and his latest claim that there'll be 10,000 Omicron deaths a day? Every one of his wild predictions going back right to the beginning has been proved wrong, yet he seems incapable of stopping and realising that everyone's sick of people like him with their bonkers predictions and the rest of the "Project Fear" brigade. The scientists may have brains the size of Mars and be world experts on virology or immunology yad yada yada, but that doesn't qualify them to continually lecture us about or behaviour or to bully the government on the planning and deciding what steps (if any) to take.

The idea of covid passes is to reduce hospitalisations not infections. It's only ever been a numbers game, maximise the number vaccinated and thereby minimise the number requiring medical intervention. The 5 million or so refuseniks are the real problem and hopefully covid passes will help to stuff them too.

Lots of Bosch kit, including washing machines, is made in China and despite their TV ad campaign the Bosch brand is no longer a guarantee of quality. My old Bosch mower is still going strong at 20 years but it's much more robust than than the equivalent new ones. As for the repeated burn outs of the Russell Hobbs irons the chances are they're made in China too, like almost every other household appliance. We have a Morphy Richards iron which is well past it's warranty period and still going, but the thing about the Chinese kit is it's basically a lottery. Some stuff like laptops, TVs and phones are generally top quality, but household and garden products not so much.

COP26 was failed vanity project for Boris since China, Russia, Australia, Germany, America and now Japan have all thumbed their noses at the functionally impossible Nett Zero wheeze.

I fully realise all of that but just how many people do you think have an NHS style fit test?

I fully realise that but it does make a big difference to the number of people dying and/or bed blocking.

So I go to the supermarket and put on my triple layer, carefully shaped and formed cloth face covering. Obviously much more effective than the stupid paper things most people wear. Once inside I go over to the booze section to buy some wine and put on my reading glasses. Within seconds I can't see anything because most of my breath goes straight out the top and steams up my glasses. Whatever type of mask I try it always happens. It really doesn't matter how good the material is at trapping virus particles since hardly any breath actually passes through, most of it goes out the top or sides. My point since day one is that obsessing over the number of people infected is wasted energy; what matters is how many are hospitalized and right now that's a relatively small number of which at least 4 out of 5 are vax refuseniks. The trick is not compulsory masks or passports or "working" from home, it's really very simple, get the last 5 million vaxed so the other 55 million of us can all get back to normality.

If you have a Prime app then it sounds like you already have a smart TV, in which case you don't need to cast from a computer as long as the TV is set up on the router wifi. Just enter your username and password into the Prime app and off you go.

Hopefully she'll take the shrieking little tory hater Kuenssberg with her.

The 725 is often seen as Browning's attempt to build a gun with an Italian gun feel and in my hands they managed it. There have been some issues with the 725 triggers which were changed from the previous design to simulate mechanical triggers. My experiences with Berettas and GMK has been pretty dismal, but I hear the 694 is somewhat more worthy of the name. Whatever others say I don't think these 2 are as different as chalk and cheese. In other words if you can shoot one you can shoot the other, so therefore I'd say choose the one that appeals more to your senses and your wallet.

Yes indeed. Plus which we get quite enough anti Tory & anti Brexit talking heads on the BBC news and, despite the claims of impartiality from DG & chairman, the head of BBC news has a history of posting hate on line against the Tories and Brexit.

Not all TVs have poor sound. We've just bought an LG Nanocell TV, mostly because the sound quality is way better than Samsung etc. Hardly use the soundbar now.