UK General election

[Ernest]

Originally Posted by Oliver

We need farming. It is stupid that the EC (and Mr. Blair) have priced farmers out of existence. We need the food.
I like lamb. Why the hell should we build houses on farm land, and we need to grow a very great deal cereal crops etc

Oliver have you not heard of the grain mountain, the wine lakes, mollasis pored over apples to make them not edible.

So you will have to eat French lamb Oliver,and pine for the days when you had English and New Zealand lamb to choose, well people voted to go into the Common Market, then it gradually changed intitials to the now EU.
Field crops I am afraid have gone forever, farmers were paid to leave their land fallow, now most have sold, and in place of corn, houses are now grown.

Not finished yet Oliver, when full intigration comes, you lamb will be pre cooked in France no doubt, our beer over the years has been replaced with European Lager, suger cane is a thing of the past, we have European sugar beet.

You could become a vegitarian like me Oliver, but would you like to eat Euro Burgers, with Italian Tomatoes and chips fried in Italian olive Oil, washed down with Dutch Lager, or French/Spanish/Italian wine.

BTY you could not drink British wine, because under EU regulations unless they have changed, English Wine can't be called wine.

Never mind, we can still eat English grown Brussel Sprouts.

[Occasional Fan]

Ah-ha! Sadly no cricket. But if you want to listen to today's sitting of the Montserrat Legislative Council live from the Viewpoint Hotel, that's the link you need!

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Beny

Anti-semitism goes back a long time in Europe, especialy Eastern Europe. Why do you think none of the Jew's were too keen to flee to Russia?

Originally Posted by Ernest

it's not just Europe though is it? The whole middle east would rather Israel not be there, comes from biblical times...

Two and a half thousand years ago, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylonia (c.605-562 BC) lost in battle to the Pharaoh Necho of Eqypt (601 BC). The kings defeat may have encouraged the Judaean revolt under Jehoiakim who died in the battle to be succeeded by his son. Nebuchadnezzar crushed that revolt around 597 BC, and placed the puppet king Zedekiah on the Judaean throne. Ten years later it all blew up again and this time Nebuchadnezzar utterly destroyed Jerusalem after a year long siege. And Babylon with it's fabulous hanging gardens became the greatest city of the Ancient world.

I don't know who particularly had it in for the Jews before that, but as a vassal state of other empires they would have been seen as second class citizens.

The thing about nobody in the Middle East wanting Israel there is of course that Abraham came from between the Tigris and the Euphrates before he came down into Canaanite and wiped out the indigenous inhabitants.

And Abraham spoke unto God who suggested that this rather nice place by the sea in a not intemperate climate would be a jolly good place for him and all his descendants to live into eternity. I say, what luck. Good old God.

Well the city of Ur, between the Tigris and the Euphrates, is in Iraq. One wonders why the powers that were, back then (1948?) when the new Israel was created, didn't put Israel in Iraq?

Something to do with not letting them have the oil? Or perhaps the Persians/Iraqis would have been pretty upset too.

Another British triumph!

[Occasional Fan]

All the lamb I buy here in Prague, EU, comes from New Zealand. No reason why you can't buy it in the UK as well, Ern! It's expensive though, by comparison with more locally sourced stuff (not so good as British lamb either, IMO, but I can't get that here as hardly anyone other than me eats it: for some reason the Czechs as a nation really do not like lamb at all).

On the wine front, there is a difference between English wine and British wine. English is made from grapes grown in England. There's no problem calling it wine - at least not legally - and some of it is quite drinkable. British wine is something else: it's wine made in the UK but from grape juice which is extracted from grapes grown outside the UK. It was the English wine industry which lobbied for the terms English wine and British wine to be separated in this way. Not a bad idea: British wine is universally awful, IMO. Both terms, of course, act as a warning to would-be buyers in France, none of whom would touch either of them. But they're both called wine, and the EU has not had a thing to say about the use of that word for alcoholic grape juice. They may have had some thoughts on traditional home recipes like elderflower and peapod wine, such as my mother used to make! Heck, finding a name other than wine for that would be doing us all a favour!

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Occasional Fan

They may have had some thoughts on traditional home recipes like elderflower and peapod wine, such as my mother used to make! Heck, finding a name other than wine for that would be doing us all a favour!

I believe that is called Gut Rot OF. Ever come across that name? A proud vintage... usually about a week old, and definitely completely undrinkable within two, as it's usually gone to meet it's maker by then.

Eugh! Disgusting stuff. Though that said, a colleague of mine's wife, used to make gallons of the stuff. She liked it very sweet and VERY strong. One day she offered me a glass of a pea-pod and lettuce or something, with dinner. She said she didn't like it, but she thought I might. Can't imagine what she meant by that.

It was definitely the nicest home brew wine I have ever tasted. A perfect light crisp dry white... ummm... Gut Rot for a summer's evening.

I told her so. She told me that if I'd asked her for it a couple of days before I could've had the whole batch... but she'd poured all the rest down the sink.

I shook my head.

[Richie Benauds Love Child]

You learn an awful lot on these boards. Oliver, why arent you a history teacher ? You'd be great. We've got a shortage of those as well......

[Oliver]

Originally Posted by Richie Benauds Love Child

You learn an awful lot on these boards. Oliver, why arent you a history teacher ? You'd be great. We've got a shortage of those as well......

I'd love to do that Richie. Sad to say, I don't think they teach the stuff I know in schools nowadays. And it would only be GCSE standard. Certainly not up to GCE. You need politics and economics for that. I can only really do little bits of social history... and racial migration.

[Ernest]

Originally Posted by Oliver

One wonders why the powers that were, back then (1948?) when the new Israel was created, didn't put Israel in Iraq?
Something to do with not letting them have the oil? Or perhaps the Persians/Iraqis would have been pretty upset too.
Another British triumph!

Hmm yes, I wonder who had the mandate from the UN, Oh yes it was the partition specialists, who had already partitioned the blessed Irish, and after this great triumph of giving the peoples of Iareal a few square miles to go forth and multiply in, decended on Cypres to keep the Turk from the Greek apart.
Oliver you don't know so much about biblical history because of a link in your family,is there.
http://www.antelope-ebooks.com/RELIG...S/moses05.html

Originally Posted by Occasional Fan 44448

All the lamb I buy here in Prague, EU, comes from New Zealand. No reason why you can't buy it in the UK as well, Ern! It's expensive though, by comparison with more locally sourced stuff (not so good as British lamb either.

If you remember back when we entered the then Common Market under Ted Heath, at the insistance of the French, we had to give up the pound being a reserve currency, but also trade agreements made it that we had to cut hard into lamb exports from New Zealand, and Australia, and also a lot of fruit from Australia, we also had to give up buying sugar cane from the West indies,(I have no sypathy there, there was a suger shortage and they sold their sugar to the highest bidder, the USA.
We could by New Zealand lamb in the UK OF, but we would be restricted, because Europe breads a lot of lamb, that is why it is so expensive.

Originally Posted by Occasional Fan

On the wine front, there is a difference between English wine and British wine. English is made from grapes grown in England. There's no problem calling it wine - at least not legally - and some of it is quite drinkable. British wine is something else: it's wine made in the UK but from grape juice which is extracted from grapes grown outside the UK.

I agree here OF, British wine is nothing but home brew on a large scale, but I though english wine for some reason could not be called wine, I stand corrected.
Drinkable, now that's another matter, English wine uses that German grape the only variety that will grow here proper, I can't even try to spell it, but to me like German wine it tastes of Peaches, very acid and gives me heartburn, I am patriotic, but not to the point of drinking English wine.

[cantplaycantalk]

Some of the better British wines have won awards the world over, one of them was entered "blind" into the champagne competition one year and walked it. "The most complete wine we have ever tasted" then they found out it was British and promptly kicked it out of the competition. Nyetimber look it up.

[cantplaycantalk]

The "powers that be" didn't so much decide where to put Isreal as the Jews en-mass emmigrated themselves into Palestine as it was at the time. They wouldn't have gone to Iraq because Jerusalem isn't in Iraq