50 yrs of paying taxes into the system and doing National Service for 24 shillings a week (£1-20p) means that I'm entitled to a full State pension without feeling guilty about it.
Royal Mail announce that second class post will not be delivered on Saturdays and only every other weekday. I would estimate that 90% of our mail is second class post.....locally neighbours agree that everyday delivery is not been happening regularly for awhile....although Royal Mail don't admit that is happening.
Starmer and Macron have agreed a "one in one out policy"....a boat person will be return to France in exchange for a person with genuine links to the UK. Starmer is claiming it as a big success....but it is limited to 50 either way per week......but in the meanwhile today alone another 200 cross the channel. My maths might be pretty basic.....over 20,000 have arrived this year.....and we plan to send back 50 of them per week......that will not lower the figure.
I have no problem with people working for what they have and wanting to keep it. I want to pass something on to my kids just like any other normal person. But bleating that they are constantly being seen off is just greed and a self self self attitude. I did a lifetime of paying tax as well and did 14 years of Service starting at £5 per fortnight in 1965 so you weren't the only one paid poorly. I too have earned a full pension but I'm not bleating on about being robbed because they are looking at how my pay rises are considered.
Liberian President Joseph Boaklai was praised by Donald Trump for speaking "good english".....and was asked where he went to school. Liberia has English as its national language and has had ties to the USA for years....and many Liberians speak with an American accent. Maybe Trump's idea of good english is it being spoken with an American accent ?
Whew......94F in the greenhouse this morning at 9am.....and all the windows opened overnight Front door facing the morning sun....and becomes a little difficult to open as it expands in the direct heat of the sun.
I think this Starmer- Macron love-in at the moment will not last long. Starmer gets excited over any little crumb thrown to him................Macron isn't really giving him anything that will be a lasting success. BUT.....Macron has told Starmer a few home truths why the UK is such a soft touch for migrants to come and be given hand-outs and work on the black market as well. Maybe ID cards will stop illegal working and show us who shouldn't still be here.
As usual Plym you are listening to the wrong people on this. Firstly, it's a pilot scheme and if it succeeds, could be expanded. Secondly, those so removed, having come in illegally, will lose all and any future rights to enter. Thirdly, the mere fact of expulsions will undermine the people smugglers' business model: who's going to pay them big money to cross the Channel if you're just sent back where you came from? I haven't voted Labour since my 20's (if you aren't a Socialist when you're 20, you have no heart, but if you aren't a Conservative by the time you're 30, you have no brain) but this seems to have more potential than any other scheme as it actually comes from getting the French to agree to something useful. What you should listen to is what President Macron said: Macron said the scheme would have a "deterrent effect" beyond the numbers returned. He added that Brexit had made it harder for the UK to tackle illegal migration, arguing that the British people were "sold a lie... which is that the problem was Europe". Clearly this bears weight as the numbers coming in increased post Brexit but under the leadership of the Great Clown, Boris Johnson and his Conservative successors. I believe he also pointed that Britain's slack employment laws, which make illegal working very easy are a significant "pull factor". Britain is one of a very few countries in Europe that doesn't have an identity card system, which exacerbates the problem. Ironically, many on the Right who get very worked up about immigration are also against the identity cards that might help stop it.
N Korea welcomes its first group of Russian tourists to the Wonsan Kalma resort......it was opened in a grand ceremony last month by North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un......who hailed it as a "world-class tourist and cultural destination".
It may be the raw emotion that Donald Trump experienced when he personally won the World Club Cup trophy for Chelsea but he gets weirder and weirder. “I don't want to call him (Putin) an assassin but he's a tough guy. It's been proven over the years, he fooled a lot of people – Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden," he added. "He didn't fool me. At a certain point talk doesn't talk, it's got to be action." What’s that? Firstly, Putin was a lieutenant colonel in the KGB, so pretty much by definition, he’s been involved in assassinations, just as, let’s be honest, his equivalents in the CIA have. There is also a distinct suspicion that the number of his political rivals who conveniently fall out of windows or poison themselves accidentally or die in prison on trumped up (HA HA) charges is too high to be coincidental. Also there is the issue of him deploying a deadly biological weapon in a NATO country (Britain) to try to kill a defector, and in doing so kill an innocent civilian. Previous presidents may have made mistakes in handling Putin but they didn’t make fools of themselves by trying to strike up a bromance with him while simultaneously undermining NATO did they? The plan now is apparently to levy third-party tariffs on countries which buy Russian products, particularly oil and gas. This will include India - a growing democratic super-power in the making, India should be an important ally, positioned as it is between radical Islamist areas on one side and China on the other. Instead, Trump is pushing it further towards BRICS The more obvious weapon wound be to increase sanctions on Russia itself. Including perhaps using already sanctioned Russian money held in Western financial markets to fund Ukraine. Too simple for Trump and doesn’t include the word “tariff”, so not for him obviously. He’s certainly a one-trick pony when it comes to those.
I'm not a supporter of the death penalty. Usually. In this case, I'm wondering if hanging, drawing and quartering could be brought back temporarily. Couple guilty of murdering two-year-old grandson https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c7vr9z4ejego
I see one of our favourite footballers/managers....Joey Barton has lost a High Court libel battle. Joey Barton must pay more than £200,000 of Jeremy Vine's legal costs after their High Court legal battle...a court has heard. It came after BBC Radio 2 host Vine, 60 sued the ex-footballer and manager 42...for libel and harassment over online posts. The pair settled last year after Barton posted two apologies and paid a total of £110,000 in damages to Vine....plus his legal costs. Yesterday a specialist costs court in London was told Barton had agreed to pay £160,000 of Vine's costs from the main legal action. Costs judge Colum Leonard also ordered Barton...who played for teams including Man City, Newcastle and French side Marseille...to pay a further £43,172.30 arising from negotiation of the £160,000 figure.....meaning he will pay a total of £203,172.30 of Vines costs. Daily Express...Wednesday...16/07/2025. PS.....He just can't keep his big gob shut...can he......
Many moons ago, I was persuaded to reduce the cost of a couple of successive house purchased by taking endowment rather than repayment mortgages. Those involved paying interest in the normal way but putting monthly instalments into investment funds rather than making capital repayments. The idea was that you could pay less and let the return on the investments make up the deficit. Pretty soon they were consistently forecasting shortfalls due to economic conditions. As it turned out, I didn’t get burnt but only because property prices went up so much that the shortfall dwindled in its significance. Having apparently rowed back on penalising holders of Cash ISA’s directly, Rachel Reeves is still banging on about the need for ordinary citizens to invest in shares rather than squirrelling money away in Cash ISA’s. Financial institutions are rightly reluctant to push this too hard because of the risks. Stop being negative about savers buying shares, Reeves says https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn4ld9v73dzo She’s also nagging the pension funds to take more risk and appears to be intending to order public sector pensions to do it. Anyone who advises you to plough your whole savings into shares, especially if you’re older with fewer years to recover any losses, is giving bad advice. I mean you Rachel, and as Chancellor, you should know better. Of course, by the time it all comes home to roost, she won’t be Chancellor and most people will have forgotten what to them is a fairly arcane argument that really doesn’t involve them. Well it will, just like that first tax raid on pension funds by Gordon Brown when Chancellor.
Following his appearance for Argyle in that weird American tournament, there's an how long interview with Graham Carey on the Argyle website. I don't think I've ever head him speak so much. What a nice guy he seems to be with a lot to say. But this came up. Watch it and weep.
It’s a very interesting interview. He says he didn’t want to leave Argyle but age 30, the chance to play in Europe was his last. He says he wouldn’t have gone to another English team as he couldn’t have borne coming to play against Argyle. Sounds like bullshit when I type it but utterly convincing when he says it.
Fauja Singh the worlds oldest marathon runner.....was killed by a hit and run driver.....he was 114 yrs old.....(he was just out walking).
It’s the referendum for or against the introduction of a directly elected major for Plymouth today (Thursday). Half way through the “campaign”, the Government ruled that there wouldn’t be one whatever the result because they allow such a structure only in unitary authorities. With the existing Plymouth, Devon and Torbay councils al having different ideas and Cornwall willing to join with an English authority when Hell freezes over and not before, it’s all a bit academic. Despite my usually pretty clear political ideas, I can’t determine whether I’m interested in this at all, never mind whether I’m in favour or not. On the one hand, I see Andy Burnham pontificating on international affairs and other issues well beyond his remit from his gilded castle in Manchester and lobbying for more and more expenditure to be shifted to the North. I recoil. Just do your job Burnham and get the bins emptied. I also look back at all the back-stabbing and treachery that’s gone on in PCC since I’ve lived here and think perhaps a executive mayor who’s not simply a party appointee might be a good idea. How much of the avalanche of money raining down on the North is because of the mayors or even more sordidly because of all those politically volatile Red Wall constituencies up there? All in all, I don’t think I can be bothered. We aren’t going to get one anyway so it’s just another waste of taxpayers’ money. Who would we elect anyway? Since I started writing this, the image of Pilgrim Pete as mayor has got stuck in my brain. Wouldn’t necessarily be worse would it?
