Jaeda
Hallmark has a card for *everything* Well...almost everything...
"Hip hip hurrah!
Hip hip hurray!
Tralee, tralaa!
Whoopee, whay-hey!
Gosh golly, wow!
Yahoo and how!
Hip hip hurrah!
Hip hip hurray!
And that's how you fake an orgasm."

Commiserations on being Jeffrey Archer (bit of a limited market, to say the least):
"It's not your fault, Jeff, you do your best,
You just get crosser and crosser.
Coz no matter how you try to please,
We still think you're..."
Actually, this isn't really one of their more charitable cards, is it.

I've yet to see a "congratulations on your sperm donor selection" card but there's always hope....
"So you've taken your lead
And chosen your seed
It's a good job you weren't vague
Or you'd have picked Slappy Hague."

(In the interests of balance, readers are invited to make up their own jokes at the expense of major party leaders.)

Neeyowm! The last vestiges of the cold drop away, and I'm doing more than is sustainable. Perhaps more than is good for me. Sorting out Excel problems, shifting monitors, configuring PCs. There's a trip planned to Nottingham for next Tuesday, like it or not.

Kinda calmer at home A bit of shopping, get some bread and find a checkout line that is actually acceptable, for once. And plan a bit more about my trip to Dallas. Thanks to the cold and work, it's kinda crept up on me, but barely 12 days till flyout.

Though still a bit shattered Thank goodness the election is almost over, and the campaign diary can stop tomorrow. That, and all the game show stuff on at the moment means I don't really have enough hours in the day.

Sara Lou :)
To be honest though, I don't really know that much about Blair. I know that people always cut him down, but most people do that with all politicans - so can you tell me what is so bad about him? thanks!! Not because I don't believe you or anything (hell, hes a politician..what does that say right there??) but because I really don't know. cheers!!
I'll give myself five minutes and no more to respond.
- promised a lot;
- taxed the f'k out of everyone (including the poor) to fund it;
- spent less on the Health Service in the first 3 yrs of office then the Blues, then claimed to have spent more in the 4th (it was actually 0.2% more).
- delivered *very* little;
- turned foot & mouth into a disaster;
- added *more* tax to petrol;
- cocked up the trains;
- suggested we become part of the European state;
- lied incessantly;
- supported the unworkable missile shoot-down proposals eminating from Washington think-tanks;
- introduced IR35, double taxation on Contractors (with a capital C);
- been inconsistent on punishing sleaze;
- got the smarmiest, sleaziest, most-spun image of any politician;
- never stopped fancying himself;
- sunk as low as imitating his own caricature by a famous comedian;
- proven by the above that he has no more charisma than any other politician, and a far inferior sense of humour.

[Time!]

Yes, what a completely obtuse campaign it's been. All the parties thrashing about in a really small puddle, and pretending it's a swimming pool of Olympic proportions. Whatever happened to discussion of globalisation? What happened to discussion of the abysmal state of British agriculture? Indeed, why did *none* of the leading parties mention transport *once*?

If you're entitled, go out and vote tomorrow.

If you've got the option, vote away from LabCon.

Sara Lou :)
(yes, I am reading December mail...
What? There's *another* election on? Give me strength. Give me hope. Give me gin and tonic. Give Gyles Brandreth a new wig.

as am I. I always think of my country as great, and I suppose (although I shoudln't) as 'superior' to most other countries.
For the record, could you clarify which country you are referring to here. Ta.

when the presidency was announce, and everyone was making jokes about our country, for once I couldn't defend it. I just hung my head in shame. I still do, especially inregards to Bush. what a horrible president!
Er, I know you're dredging up old messages, but things have moved on since this was originally posted. Bush lost to Clinton four years later, and the Democrats have won every presidential election since.

Though I'm somewhat surprised to find this list was running in 1988, six years before MSCL premiered.

Getting silly (2) A Dimver judge rules that Timothy McVeigh should be murdered by the remnants of the US government, even though due process has not been seen to be completed. This is, of course, strictly not on. Due process must be seen to be done, no matter how bad it makes the powers-that-think-they-are seem.

Wanted 2:1
Finally! The last one I get to see.
Nick and Caroline are in a shopping centre in south Manchester. They've been pottering about with potters, and evading John McMahon's clutches. £4000 they're playing for. Ray challenges them to take the camera out of the box and show them a sign. Two excruciating minutes later, it's a car park. That dooms them.
June and Clarice are on an industrial estate in SE London, and have been playing croquet. Sarah Odell has been hot on their trail all week, and kept them to £4000.
Barry and Graham are at Roundhay Park in Leeds, chased by Andy Stewart. Helping a park keeper is their task during an early summer, so £6000 is their claim. Popularity in the studio is no substitute for picking a good phone box.
The look will change hugely over the coming weeks: the contestants are still colour-coded, we don't meet the last trackers until there's barely 15 minutes to play. Captions are yellow-on-black, but the trails of the maps during the week show the squares as they're ticked off.

South of the border... Ireland rejects the Nice Treaty, throwing the EU's expansion plans into disarray.

At work Building a lot of computers for a display in a week and a bit. And the big boss gets to see the chaos outside our store room, where there just isn't enough space.

Allan:
Its a really stupid election. I filled in my form and turned up to vote to be told that I wasn't on the list.
Right, first thing Monday get down your council office and demand to see the returning officer. Don't take no for an answer. Take this right the way to the highest court in the land.

Well, Transport. basically build more roads and stop persecuting the poor motorist!
How about stop strangling the ecosystem with the over-stoked demands of a hyper-mobile minority? Building fewer roads will discourage car use, which just might stop people having to rush about like so many headless chickens.

The roads around here were inadequate when they were built in the 1920's
This is a local issue. National government has no place meddling in local affairs. Push your MP for proper subsidiarity.

if the government were to nationalise the railways
It doesn't necessarily need nationalisation, it just needs passenger-focussed management. This has been absent since the Beeching report closed most of Britain's railways in the early 60s.

also straddling the work hours so there isn't one big "Rush Hour."
This is a decision for individual companies, and will be influenced by their own market. Those who trade with Europe will work early; those who work a lot with the US will start later. Those who do business in the UK will split the difference.

I notice none of the parties were prepared to look into alternative fuels.
Read the Green party manifesto?

(You never specified *major* parties :)

thousands of fallow fields that cost the EEC a fortune in subsidies.
Don't bank on those being around forever; there's a Green at the German agriculture ministry who has made it her crusade to reduce the CAP to a bare minimum. This is not going to meet with huge opposition from the other major contributors, though now that Nice has fallen. I said yesterday that Ireland's referendum was far more important than the UK election ever will be.

commuter price to London is £30 per person
Investigate season tickets.

and the car will cost about £10 to £15 for up to five people.
The *fuel* will cost that much. You then have wear-and-tear on the car, on the roads, and the externalities of your journey (pollution, congestion, economic cost of not taking the train, cost of the time taken.) Which is cheaper weighing in all those factors?

Schools are still a big problem, the disastrous "Inclusion Policy" making the classroom a danger zone with emotionally disturbed children forced to join in mainstream classes.
This is not the big problem. The real problem is that schools don't work. Kids are coming out at 16 unable to read and write. Depressingly few state-educated pupils can correctly use something as simple as a comma. Far too many cannot make change, or perform simple arithmetic.

State education isn't working.

Basically we have two choices! Vote Lib - Dem or vote Tory.
For those outside the UK, the *traditional* shape of politics has been:
Communist parties | Labour | Liberal | Conservative | Fascist parties
X|LabLabLabLabLabLabLab|LL|ConConConConConConConCon|F

The central point generally swayed one side or other of the small Liberal party; often the Conservatives got in, less often Labour was returned.

Margaret Thatcher moved the centre ground somewhat further to the right; now Tony Blair has steered his party somewhat to the right of the Liberals. The new array is something like:
Socialist | Green | LibDem | Labour | Cons | Anti-Europe | Racists

Labour holds the middle ground, and a huge swathe to the left, and will probably be able to retain power after the next election.

Unless of course Arthur Scargill happens to come knocking on your door!
Well-known Socialist, for those who are not British. But what of Tony Balir?

This is the man whose government promised to end fox hunting
Not in the 97 manifesto, not in the 01 manifesto. Can a government be held responsible for the failure of one back-bench measure, and a contentious free vote measure?

There has been 45 different tax increases since 1997 despite promises that this was not the party of huge taxes.
Labour may have kept its promise not to raise income taxes, but the implication is that taxes as a whole won't rise. But how do you expect extra funding for state-provided services if you won't pay for them?

If you own a car you are treated like a criminal,
And your evidence is..?

tax on petrol is perhaps the highest in the EEC.
It is.

We pay for a litre nearly what they pay for a gallon in the US
Nope, we (only!) pay about 2.5 times the United Stations. Remember that a US gallon is 20% smaller than a UK gallon.

and for all this tax the roads are like something out of a third world country.
Albeit one with a large highway network, almost all very well maintained. It's the local roads that are the problem, and that is a *local* problem. Please stop blaming national government for local problems.

Staffing levels in hospitals, schools & Police are low as is morale.
Again, the failures of state provision become clear. Private hospitals, schools, security forces are empirically more efficient at their jobs than the state sector. Not least because they can afford to pay a decent rate for the best talent. These are people issues at the end of the day.

Diesel prices nearly doubling in the last 4 years has nearly killed off the British Haulage industry, despite the fact that diesel is a more efficient fuel than petrol.
That's like saying that carpet-bombing your lawn is a more efficient way of removing molehills than covering it with cement. It may be true, but it misses the whole point: why are the moles there? Why does there need to be a haulage industry in the first place? Why should we cry for its loss?

Millions of pounds has been wasted on the abortive millennium dome, which would have paid for new schools and hospitals.
No it wouldn't. Every last penny of funding for the millooneyum doom came from lottery receipts. If you're foolish enough to play that tax on innumeracy, you deserve to be taken for a ride. Lottery money is additional to, not a substitute for, general taxation.

Blair promised us the earth and left us with cynicism.
This will turn out to be his - and Labour's - Achilles' heel. The sense that his party has failed to live up to its promises.

A decently lazy day I think I deserve one after the past few weeks. Nothing more taxing than popping to the shops, then relaxing with the election results. So few places beat Chateau Grand Frere's 70% turnout. Also a bit of cleaning, and making some prezzies for next week.

The perpetual final Jennifer Capriate goes halfway towards the Grand Slam, by winning an elongated French Open final. She beats Kim Cljisters of Belgium 1-6, 6-4, 12-10 in over two hours. It's the longest, tensest big tennis match I can remember.

Housework calls Swing the cleaning cloth round the bathroom and kitchen, and the lawnmower round the garden, and the vacuum round the house. Little jobs, but they all take a little time, and that time adds up.

Sport A gripping first set at the French Open final, swinging one way, then another, before finally Alex Corretja wins 7-6. It's one way traffic after that, though, as Gregor Kuertan whisks through three more sets, 6-4, 6-3, 6-0 to win the title.
And it's another victory for Schumacher - Ralf this time, his pit stop strategy sees off the challenge of Michael.

Chart news

#1 (#1) SHAGGY FEATURING RAYVON - Angel [wk 14, #1]

#2 (#5) DJ PIED PIPER - Do You Really Like It [wk 3, #2]

#3 (#7) S CLUB 7 - Don't Stop Movin [wk 7, #1]

#4 (#2) DIDO - Thank You [wk 14, #2]

#5 (12) BLUE - All Rise [wk 3, #5]

#6 (13) TRAVIS - Sing [wk 2, #6]

#8 *NEW FAITHLESS - We Come 1 [wk 1, #8]

12 *NEW STEPS - Here And Now / You'll Be Sorry [wk 1, #12]

13 *NEW BRANDY FEAT RAY J - Another Day In Paradise [wk 1, #13]

14 *NEW BASEMENT JAXX - Romeo [wk 1, #14]

21 *NEW MARTI PELLOW - Close To You [wk 1, #21]

30 *NEW BORIS DULUGOSCH / ROISIN MURPHY - Never Enough [wk 1, #30]

31 *NEW MELANIE B - Lullabye [wk 1, #31]

32 *NEW MUSE - Newborn [wk 1, #32]

34 *NEW MANIC STREET PREACHERS - Ocean Spray [wk 1, #34]

47 (50) BRAN VAN 3000 / CURTIS MAYFIELD - Astounded [wk 3, #41]