Any optimists who believed that leaving the EU would free money to be spent on the NHS may be facing disillusionment

The full details can be found here

@lisa   Oh, this is getting beyond ridiculous.  Professor Dougan is not an ‘EU lawyer’; he is an academic, Professor of European Law at Liverpool university, who happens to be one of the foremost authorities on EU law in the country.  And, in case you were unaware of this fact, the title Professor in the UK means that he is head of his Depar…[Read more]

@Whisht  @puroandson

I did it!  I walked into the city and back, a round trip of just over two miles, towing a laden wheeled shopping bag on the way back.  I tucked a folding walking stick into the bag in case of need, but it wasn’t required, My legs felt very slightly unsteady to begin with but  … freedom, and no pain 🙂

@lisa   I looked…[Read more]

Still on the subject of BREXIT but in a somewhat lighter vein and highly appropriate in relation to the main purpose of this Forum, people might like to check this out.

Much to consider in the posts since yesterday evening (UK time) and I will respond when I have time.  Meanwhile I need to replenish food stocks and the main question is, whether o…[Read more]

@puroandson

You mentioned subsidies to farmers. Among the EU monies available to farmers in the UK were grants for the preservation or restoration and management of ecological habitats and diversity – heathlands, wetlands, hedgerows and mixed woodland.  During and after the war, farmers were encouraged to bring marginal land into cultivation a…[Read more]

@Whisht

I’m responding here to your post on the Music forum, since this seems a more appropriate place

Johnson didn’t expect to win the Referendum.  For Johnson it would be an honourable loss, alignment to an influential bas of the party and then…power!

And his face the day following the Referendum spoke volumes – a man on whom had dawned the…[Read more]

Has anyone here in the UK been watching The Living and the Dead?  The first episode was broadcast last Tuesday on BBC 1, but all six are available as a box set on i player and  I watched them over the last couple of days as a welcome and absorbing alternative to contemplating the aftermath of the referendum.

It is a ghost story written by A…[Read more]

SPOILER, SPOILER, SPOILER...

@puroandson

I actually meant in the EU!

I suspected as much, which is why I added the bit about the EU.  The fact that your question specified England rather than Britain left it a bit ambiguous though.

When the EEC was established originally, in 1958, the UK government opted not to join France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and L…[Read more]

@puroandson

So how long has England been in the UK? Help?

Answer: 309 years, since the Act of Union of 1707 which united Scotland and England politically and economically.  The two countries had shared a monarch since 1603, when James VI of Scotland succeeded Elizabeth I as James I of England by virtue of being the great grandson of Henry VIII’s…[Read more]

@Arbutus  @blenkinsopthebrave  @StitchInTime  @puroandson  @Missy  Thank you all for those kind words; it’s good to be back and I hope to contribute more to the conversation in the next few days.  Re-watching Doomwatch and Edge of Darkness after such a long interval has been an interesting and rewarding experience which perhaps merits some comme…[Read more]

@StitchInTime  @Puroandson

There is another point to consider.  Apart from all the other pointers in the text, the possibility that River knew from the first that it was the Doctor, and was simply teasing by pretending not to recognise him, can be ruled out by the consideration that, if such had been the case, it would have removed all the impa…[Read more]

@Missy  It is an interesting theory, but I’m afraid @GrannyM  is right; the text doesn’t support it.  River is clever, but even the cleverest person may be blind sided by their assumptions and expectations.

River had contacted a surgeon specifically, and was puzzled and irritated that the person she assumed to be the surgeon in question had evi…[Read more]

It occurs to me that now that it is safe for me to sit on a sofa*, it is time that I checked in to say hello to all and a very belated but appreciative ‘thank you’ to @puroandson  @StitchInTime and @Missy, plus anyone else I may have overlooked, for their good wishes in the aftermath of my op.

I have now reached the stage of being able to…[Read more]

@TheDentistOfDavros   @Missy  @ichabod

Ah, the ghost stories of M R James – so deliciously, skin-crawlingly creepy!  I imagine that the original readings by candle light or firelight must have been the cause of many disturbed nights among the listeners.

I, too, have fond memories of the Christmas ghost stories on TV. The one I recall most viv…[Read more]

@ichabod    “Eye in the Sky”  is showing in the UK from this coming Friday (15th)  – I don’t know about the US.  From what I have gathered it is about a drone attack, examining the legal and moral issues from the viewpoint of the various people involved in authorising and orchestrating it – politicians, military officers and the drone pilot e…[Read more]

@StitchinTime   @janetteB     Many thanks to you both, also, for your good wishes.

There should be no lack for reading matter to occupy me.  There is a growing stack of recently purchased books – fiction and non-fiction – which I have been adding to against the day, and once I have finished these, my personal ‘library’ includes at least 1400…[Read more]

@winston    It might have been slightly more accurate to say ‘leaping about like a slightly geriatric mountain goat’ , but I am determined to return to a state where I can leap, in however creaky a fashion  🙂

@puroandson  What a lovely idea!  It would be delightful to be read to whilst I recovered.  The procedure itself and the immedia…[Read more]

@Whisht  @Arbutus  @Bluesqueakpip    Thanks!   Fingers crossed and touching wood, but if the op this time is as successful as when I had the other hip done ten years ago I should, by late summer, be leaping about like a mountain goat  🙂

@puroandson

Thank you! And warm Easter wishes to you both in return, though I suppose Easter day is almost over where you are.

There is, indeed, a large chocolate egg for me to nibble on, and a chicken in the fridge waiting to be roasted with tarragon, butter and garlic.  There are also some fairly urgent tasks to attend to in the garden, but sh…[Read more]