Lionel

If Boris gets to slap his eco-taxes on meat then prices of all other food stuffs will rise as demand increases.Very soon we'll just be glad to have food, of any kind! Fads and fancies will be a thing of the past.

Posted on wrong thread. Apologies.

If Boris gets to slap his eco-taxes on meat then prices of all other food stuffs will rise as demand increases.Very soon we'll just be glad to have food, of any kind! Fads and fancies will be a thing of the past.

Yes I have. In one of my many trips to the Czech Republic I drove a Citroen BX. Normally a very reliable car, we had just crossed the border at Rozvadov and heading for Pilsen when the hydraulic suspension gave up the ghost. We just weren't going anywhere.The names I called that car are unprintable here but readily understood by those of a very different language. I must say Czech rescue services are very efficient. We were fixed and on our way inside two hours fetching up in Ostrava for a wonderful night's sleep.

I just don't like confined or enclosed spaces so the cinema isn't my favourite place. Been just three times since 1970!These days we buy the DVD of anything worthwhile watching and enjoy it at home but the DVD player won't wear out anytime soon ...

Exactly. So easy and so well put. Thank you!

No, I won't be buying plants, or anything else, from baybout fifteen years ago I sold some bits and pieces through them which were reported as undelivered despite being recorded. Ebay took the customers side and I lost out heavily.No more Ebay, thank you.

Nah! My Collies are mad enough as it is. If they has a tipple I'd need one to keep up with them.

No I wouldn't be more inclined to travel abroad. This Covid situation is far from resolved in Europe, or elsewhere for that matter.Better to do a little gardening at home and stay alive. After all we've made it this far, milk the pensions some more!

Surely we must factor in here that post war governments have, piece by piece, sundered the traditional family, thus making care homes necessary. During my Norfolk village upbringing the elderly and chronically infirm remained in their own home and family members either helped out or contributed something their welfare. Families were offered respite while the patient was cared for in the local cottage hospital. That just doesn't happen now.Instead we must still sell our homes to fund what was once unheard of! I've worked in private as well as NHS care homes and believe me, you would need a big grudge against someone to put them in there!Surely care homes are just social engineering to relieve us of our assets so they can be re-distributed to ... well, just who? Your guess is as good as mine!

I' probably going to buck the trend here. In principal, I'm in favour of a tax hike to fund care in our later years and improve the NHS.However, today's press is uncovering some typical Johnson exclusions and that mean in practice our homes are still very much a target for the government! For example, 'hotel' costs far outweigh personal care costs. They're not covered in Johnson's plans. Ford in care homes is not covered either! One estimate is that only one third of one's care costs is covered by this massive tax hike. The remainder is to be covered by one's home or other personal assets.Having worked in the care industry (business) for a few years I found it complied with the 21st century work ethic - do as little as possible for as much as possible. Any improvement on that is due to personal diligence or compassion on the part of care workers.

Well said! Because this epidemic has abated, not necessarily gone forever, doesn't mean we will straight away return to normal. NHS staff need to recover, rest from more than a year of unreasonable demands upon them.

Jeanmark, surely if the Practice Nurse can accurately observe symptoms and irregularities Isobel supplies the answers? Our doctors, when we could get a face to face with them always referred to Isobel.

Forgot to mention, Lionel is my real name. There's a tale attached to that but not for now.

Hello Andy, it's good to hear from you. I believe, in five and a half years on Surfers we are the only two self confessed pipe smokers. Some achievement eh?I have a Churchman and a Petersen; smoke mostly Bruno but, on my many trips over to Czech Republic I've found tobaccos more to my taste. Sadly they're locally blended so can only be enjoyed in CZ.Believe it or not it was a doctor who, in 1980, advised me to take up pipe smoking. Before that I'd been almost a non smoker. It was a matter of pains in the chest - at 30 years old? - caused by lifting hay bales over my head too often and not stress.Until about four years ago every evening was a pint of home brew and a pipe, or two of each.

Hello Pipeman, does your name mean you're a fellow pipe smoker?

Yep! Right on the nose. We showed the world what fun can be; thereafter they all copy us. Having said that, some things I read today's generation's idea of fun wouldn't have appealed to me.

I went to a night club just once, Steph. A long time ago now. Too many bodies pressed together - few were females - and as you say so well, too hot and too loud. I came out of that place almost as high as a kite and I have never taken anything. The smell of 'grass' was overwhelming.

Exactly John! Haven't we got too many restrictions on us all right now?

By the time I've written this short post the rules will have changed again!

Why further restrict our age group, especially if its ageing politicians whooping it up with teen aged girls in a night club.There can't be many people remaining who still believe there's an iota of wisdom and decorum among our political elite so let go the press dogs of war and make us all so ashamed of them there's no work for them after the next election.

Thank you so much.

From a photographer like you Kes that's an accolade in deed.But I say again, I didn't take it, just borrowed.

Well yes, isn't this a common courtesy? It was when I was young.That this matter needs to be a Speakers Corner subject on Surfers stands to illustrate to us all what selfish, ungrateful people many of our youngster have been encouraged to be by their families.I wonder how many Surfers could answer this question honestly and post it here ... Do you really like your children and grand children?

I didn't take it Sally, it's a cut and paste job from a local forum I belong to. Kings Lynn and Area Forum but thanks anyway, I'll pass it on.

As one who has lived with, worked and trained Collies for over fifty years I'd say best advice is not to buy online. Instead, contact your local city or County Council, ask for their list of registered dog breeders and contact each one in turn.You might still get a puppy with fleas, a stomach upset and one or two other complaints, but at least you won't be scammed out of your cash.If you wanted a Collie I've got to disappoint. I don't breed them any more. Too old!

But it isn't just this government over reacting to simple social issues that don't require state wide legislation. Blair put more pieces of law on the statute books than anyone before him. I no longer know what is legal and what isn't!In the hamlet we live in such laws are largely irrelevant since we all know each other and take care of differences of opinion in a civilised fashion. It's been that way most of my life. There's little wisdom in resorting to litigation; there's seldom an outright winner and the back flavour of expensive court action is even more rancour, a breeding ground for further troubles.Maybe I'm a little too simple here but it seems to me there's a long term plan to destabilise the entire population. We would all be so much easier to control under martial law.

Am I the last man standing on Surfers?

Not another piece of law. We're drowning in it as it is!

I believe we must now accept foreign travel is being heavily restricted but permanently.In the last eighteen months many cruise liners have been de-commissioned, fleets of long haul jets scrapped, and even the production of the massive Airbus A380 (?) has been shut down. Long haul for the masses is all but finished. But for politicians, show biz and others of dubious value to society will be permitted to slip in and out of the country at will.Why? I don't know for certain but we've all been familiarised with the term, the Great Re-set and the slogan Building Back Better. I wonder for whom it will be so much better? Not ordinary folks like us!

Jeanmark, if the new distance requirement is two meters, roughly six foot six, what is expected to occur on single track roads which are barely seven feet, when potholes are filled in?

Governments are canny. They seldom make sweeping changes in any legislation but rather just legitimise what already takes place in the real world.Think drugs ... over the years their sale and use has been legislated for and the latest example of Whitehall short-sightedness is changes to the Highway Code.Rather than take positive steps to put order and discipline into road use they roll over and just say, 'what the hell. just enshrine it in law. That's so much easier.'Now such ill-disciplined road use is legal just wait for RTSs to increase, road deaths soar and insurance claims to rocket.Thanks Whitehall, we love you too!

Jeanmark, I would not argue with your status as a lady. That is so clear from your measured posts.But whereas you would protest about such behaviour I would [rtests the freedom, not the right, to whistle or not.Howmany more freedoms must we lose before anyone realises we're in a police state?

Rooftop, it is indeed good to hear from you. I trust you are well and contented.Whilst you make some sound points I must, as usual, question your reliance on statistics. This summer I re-read, for the umpteenth time, Orwell's 1984. It's such a pity the State assumes this is a road map to their Utopia rather than a warning to the population of the State's capacity to side step wisdom in favour of a manufactured state. The manipulation of figures and facts, as in Orwell's noble work, is with us every day; If I wanted a work of fiction I'd buy it. But it would be a classical work.Reading through these many posts again this evening and thinking about the EU I'm struck by the similarities to seeking a Uptopia. But Uptopia is a figment of man's imagination, a Humanistic concept that can never be achieved. Thomas More (1470 - 1535) wrote a classic work, Utopia. I've read it in the English translation. What stands out so clearly in More's work, and so many subsequent attempts at a people's paradise, Utopia, is how futile these humanistic efforts really are.Nothing fundamental in man's nature, his soul, may be altered by legislation, precedent or the will of men. The very heart, the soul of man must first be changed and that is something we simply cannot do of ourselves. That is a work of the Creator God.The Godless Soviets in Russia tried to change the heart of man and failed, as did Mao Tse Tung in China. The French people wanted fundamental change in their own people before their bloody revolution of 1789. Within a decade little had changed. Dictatorships the world over are failing to change man. It cannot be done.Man doesn't change of his own will. We are basically the same today as we were as post ice age cave dwellers. Our inner self hasn't changed; but we have shaken off some of the religious bigotry which has plagued this land for more than a thousand years.Perhaps this is a little too philosophical or maybe religious. Let's bring it up to date. This Tory Prime Minster is hardly a shining example of this required restraint in man's natural behaviour. The Whitehall paedophile scandal - investigation closed of course - was never fully resolved. How about bent clergy, supposedly the epitome of morality, messing up choir boys? Andrew and Epstein? I could go on.You and I might like to see fundamental changes in people's behaviour but it won't happen. It can't happen. We cannot do it of ourselves.

A consumate actor and surely the definitive Point.

Thank you. Clearly you're more of a lady than those who protest against a wolf whistle.

Ann you're a star. I'd better wake the vicar again. (See my comment to Khatti above)

Please do consider it done.From the confines of my so small home office I've let forth an appreciative whistle that will wake this tiny hamlet. My Collie-dog is going wild looking for sheep and she will have woken the local vicar. He'll think this old boy has got his second wind!He'd be wrong, I've always appreciated the ladies. And that from a very contentedly married man.Thanks for the fun, Khatti, I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have. I do look forward to you posting on Surfers again.

Exactly! You're so right.

Quite right! If we go around looking for offence its there by the bucket load. Keep an open mind and enjoy someone's appreciation.I'm a 70 year old married male and I need to be so careful what I say to anyone. Only in our own home may I ever be myself.