F***ing pissed off

[HampshireSeagulls]

At least it hasn't degenerated into death threats yet...

Anyway, any rumours on ACDC playing at Slane Castle? Or are we stuck with the Stones being the only big act of the year?

 

[Cian]

Nothing I've heard - not my kind of music but Slane rumours usually get around as its so big.

Not sure they can get planning permission for two concerts a year after the Dylan fiasco...

 

[HampshireSeagulls]

Nothing I've heard - not my kind of music but Slane rumours usually get around as its so big.

Not sure they can get planning permission for two concerts a year after the Dylan fiasco...

Bugger. I have fcuked up royally on the concert front this year, and need something to look forward to. Festivals are fully booked/too expensive, and I can't co-ordinate the rest of the family into one concert we really like. Was hoping to do Slane and make it a 4-dayer over there.

 

[simonsimon]

Quoted by Hampshire Seagulls"Face facts - if you are failing to provide a service in a capitalist society, then you fail. These days we seem to look at the corruption, shrug our shoulders, and just accept that we are stuck with them. Why should we moan when a Japanese company can make their cars cheaper in Vietnam - why should we force them to operate at a deficit to keep our workforces running?"

Thatcher let the Japanese car Companies into Europe, via this country.

NOW all car manufacturers wish to relocate to eastern europe, wether they are Japanesse or not.

On reflection 25 years later was it worth it?

 

[HampshireSeagulls]

Yep - they were allowed in on massive subsidies with the intention of revitalising an ailing production force. Once they had realised that they could make cars cheaper (using essentially slave labour) elsewhere, they buggered off. Can we really blame them? If you were manufacturing an item and could get it done at 1/3rd the price abroad, would it not make good financial sense to do so?

If the government had to continue to subsidise these companies, where is the money going to come from?

I can look back to loads of places in history and ask "was it worth it?" Ultimately, it's easier to judge in hindsight, which is why I don't envy Blair justifying his lap-dog approach to Bush, or Brown justifying his systematic stealing of pension funds. Thatcher made mistakes, but I think that she was the right person at the time to pull us out of the hole we were heading for. Yes, she destroyed the unions, but ultimately the unions are regaining some of their power, just not under archaic union laws but modernised human rights laws. The four day week is historical these days, paralysis of an entire country by pocket-lining unions has been stopped. We just have different pocket-liners in power these days.

 

[Cian]

Bugger. I have fcuked up royally on the concert front this year, and need something to look forward to. Festivals are fully booked/too expensive, and I can't co-ordinate the rest of the family into one concert we really like. Was hoping to do Slane and make it a 4-dayer over there.

I'll keep you posted. My concert fuckup is two acts I want to see playing Dublin the same night next month - evil concert promoters

 

[simonsimon]

Quoted by Hampshire Seagulls"The four day week is historical these days, paralysis of an entire country by pocket-lining unions has been stopped. We just have different pocket-liners in power these days."

Actually it was worse, it was a three day week.

The major "pocket- liners" these days seem to be Lattchi Mittal, Phillip Green,and Roman Abbromovitch, all mates of T Bliar.

But i HAVE NEVER CLAIMED that Blair was ever a socialist,the nearest one in his family is his father-in-law.

 

[Southover Street Seagull]

Funnily enough I'm older than you but find myself quite indifferent on the subject of Thatcher although I did think she was a condescending witch. I can't see how she 'destroyed this country' anymore than the current administration. To be honest I was better off then but that's circumstantial.

I agree with MYOB about the Irish government though.

Just thinking about it, many of the Anti Thatcher brigade are the same people who have serious global warming Issues. Burning coal was and is a large factor in the destruction of the ozone layer folks .......

Are you sure burning coal destroys the ozone? I thought that was releasing CFC's into the atmosphere that did that?

 

[Southover Street Seagull]

Correct.

In your opinon!

 

[Southover Street Seagull]

I am not a Thatcher lover but you are wrong about the Falklands too.
My StepMum is from the Falklands and we had friends there. Jack worked with Sir Rex Hunt for the British Government.

I am for ever grateful that we got the Falklands back from an illegal invasion. Argentina have NEVER owned the Falklands and have no international claim on it whatsoever.

The Tories made massive defence cuts to the Navy before the Falklands War. There were plenty of warnings that an invasion was about to happen. We were lucly that we won with all the cuts to the Navy that had happened.

 

[Southover Street Seagull]

On reading that, who believes this was about a British island with a tiny population thousands of miles away being invaded that admittedly, most of the UK never heard of?

I think it may have partly been that, but I beleive the main reason is that the Argentines have beleived that the Falklands is theirs for hundreds of years. It's taught to kids in school over there that is theirs!
Galtieri used this to get out of a sticky situation in Argentina at the time.

 

[Southover Street Seagull]

Question why does England feel that they have to "own" every country in the world.

Las Malvinas (Falklands) are as close to Argentina as say the Isle of Wight is to England. Why on earth does England lay claim to it.

Because we bothered to colonise it. There wasn't anyone there when we colonised it in the 19th Century. So I believe.

 

[Yorkie]

Because we bothered to colonise it. There wasn't anyone there when we colonised it in the 19th Century. So I believe.

It was completely uninhabited. I also think that the geography quoted should be checked.

 

[Man of Harveys]

Really? And if they were ever found how much would it cost to ship it 8000 miles?

They ship oil a great deal further than that every day.

 

[Southover Street Seagull]

Yep - they were allowed in on massive subsidies with the intention of revitalising an ailing production force. Once they had realised that they could make cars cheaper (using essentially slave labour) elsewhere, they buggered off. Can we really blame them? If you were manufacturing an item and could get it done at 1/3rd the price abroad, would it not make good financial sense to do so?

If the government had to continue to subsidise these companies, where is the money going to come from?

I can look back to loads of places in history and ask "was it worth it?" Ultimately, it's easier to judge in hindsight, which is why I don't envy Blair justifying his lap-dog approach to Bush, or Brown justifying his systematic stealing of pension funds. Thatcher made mistakes, but I think that she was the right person at the time to pull us out of the hole we were heading for. Yes, she destroyed the unions, but ultimately the unions are regaining some of their power, just not under archaic union laws but modernised human rights laws. The four day week is historical these days, paralysis of an entire country by pocket-lining unions has been stopped. We just have different pocket-liners in power these days.

But where does the money come from when you stop subsidising these companies and coal mines and you have to pay peoples unemployment benefit when they get made redundant.
What some people fail to realise in my opinion is that when you close down pits and big manufacturing companies that empoly the entire town or villages workforce, you then gate massive social problems later on down the line. Social problems that the state has to pay for!
All Thatcher was intent on doing was destroying the unions. Union laws haven't changed much since she was in power, union are still much weaker than they were.

 

[Yorkie]

But where does the money come from when you stop subsidising these companies and coal mines and you have to pay peoples unemployment benefit when they get made redundant.
What some people fail to realise in my opinion is that when you close down pits and big manufacturing companies that empoly the entire town or villages workforce, you then gate massive social problems later on down the line. Social problems that the state has to pay for!
All Thatcher was intent on doing was destroying the unions. Union laws haven't changed much since she was in power, union are still much weaker than they were.

Both Hitony and I (who were living in South Wales and Yorkshire respectively) have spoken about the communities and how people got employment. It certainly wasn't whole towns or villages as your post says.

 

[hitony]

Both Hitony and I (who were living in South Wales and Yorkshire respectively) have spoken about the communities and how people got employment. It certainly wasn't whole towns or villages as your post says.

The regeneration of the Valley communities is excellant, since the mines have closed down they have had many differant industries move in, and the housing that is going on in those areas is incredible, whilst i would not expect some of the older welsh generation to agree with me, (specially as i am english !!) but i think the Valley towns are far better off now, and as i have said in another thread a few weeks ago, the roads linking the valley communities to the larger towns / citys is excellant.

I am not saying people didnt suffer hardship when it was all going on, of course they did, but the mining industry was always on a loser for many years, and i do think that number one "nob head" Arthur Scargil knew that.

If you could have only seen the way the striking miners reacted when he came on the TV, it nearly started riots in the pubs, they hated him as they knew he was causing the suffering and misery by making them strike.

I remember him visiting South Wales during the strike, he had protection like you have never seen.

The man was a number one

 

[Southover Street Seagull]

Both Hitony and I (who were living in South Wales and Yorkshire respectively) have spoken about the communities and how people got employment. It certainly wasn't whole towns or villages as your post says.

I should have the said the major employer in a town of village then.
How long did the regeneration take to start, was it instantaneous? My theory is that they should have continued to sunsidise the pits and gradually put in new industries so that when the pits were finally closed you wouldn't have had the social problems. Correct me if I am wrong but it didn't happen like this did it?

 

[Southover Street Seagull]

I saw in interesting progamme on CH4 a while back about global warming.One of the theories is that Maggie started all the global warming stuff up as she was having problems with the coal mines and wanted to move away from coal.

 

[Yorkie]

What social problems? There weren't any worse social problems in the coal field areas than any other part of Britain.
As I have said before, those that didn't transfer to the Pontefract coalfield (the most modern one) took thousands in redundancy money. My own next door neighbour got employement within a month as a trainee manager with Victoria wine company.
My father in law worked for British Steel and lost three jobs in two years but still retired working for British Steel (so there were still jobs available in that industry - it just became far more streamlined and productive) at Templeborough.