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@jen_jen wrote:
I hereby name this hedgehog Spike :lol:
Sorry but “Spike” is utterly inappropriate for a BALD hedgehog !!! It would be emotionally scarred for life, being constantly reminded that it had no spikes at all every time somebody called it “Spike”.
You’ll have to try harder.
As for the Mrs Tiggywinkle Centre for Distressed Hedgehogs (to give it its proper name) colluding in calling this poor creature “Spud” ….. words fail me.
You’ll have to try harder too.
@Fi-Fi- wrote:
@forumhostpb wrote:
You can’t call a (bald) hedgehog “Spud” for heaven’s sake!!! Dear oh dear, what kind of name is that for a hedgehog???
ooiii! pb you are there again with your twopeneth :x
Spuds his name :) xNo it jolly well isn’t!!! “Spud” is a ludicrous name for a hedgehog. You can’t go round naming hedgehogs “Spud” ffs !!!
I propose that Forum 3 users offer up some choices for the name for this poor bald hedgehog.
You can’t call a (bald) hedgehog “Spud” for heaven’s sake!!! Dear oh dear, what kind of name is that for a hedgehog???
This is utter nonsense!!!
They should be encouraged to eat even more food – nice fatty stuff as well. Why stop at bacon butties for lunch? What’s wrong with rich tasty beef dripping liberally smeared on thick slices of bread smothered in butter…. oh and chuck on a couple of fried eggs as well for good measure.
Meat pies & mash for supper??? Yummy – loads of ’em – but have bubble & squeak fried in lots of lovely dripping instead of boring plain mash.
Cereals for brekkie??? Rubbish – what’s wrong with a good ‘greasy spoon’ fry up with loads of bread fried in dripping, eggs, beans, black pudding, etc etc. THAT’S a proper British breakfast – not this girly cereal stuff.
With a bit more effort and if they concentrated on eating the above, they could push their daily calorie intake up from a measly 3,000 to at least 4,500 each. it wouldn’t take too long for them all to have massive coronaries and snuff it. Think of the money the taxpayer would save !!!
Have you tried warming it up??? A microvave oven is particularly good for this.
Actually Woo Hoo, it wasn’t the Lake district … she went for a drive on her local Motorway (the M25) …. but nobody told her that it just went round and round in a big 225 mile circle.
It was only after her fifth meal break at the Clackett’s Lane service station that she began to get that deja vu feeling.
Eventually even the Volvo got bored with going round and round in circles and gave in. She was rescued when her local meals on wheels service took pity on her and reported her absence from home – but only after they’d delivered three days worth of lunches and collected them uneaten.
@pete wrote:
Violence caused by who, in very few cases was it the miners despite claims by the government backed by the media. Had the miners won ? We’d have better employment and less imports of coal, or are you saying all miners were militant and simply sheep who would have followed Scargill’s every word.
Two things:
Firstly, I think that the mining industry (as it was then) was gradually and inexorably declining as coke / coal was being used less and less for domestic purposes and at the same time was being steadily replaced as a fuel source for industrial use (power generation etc etc). The gradual decline in consumption coupled with the increased costs of production could only lead one way…… as history has now proved.
Clearly imported coal played its part in this. I remember commentators pointing out that coal could be mined in Poland and shipped all the way here, even with all the shipping and handling costs it STILL cost substantially less than locally mined coal. Hardly surprising really, when British industry was in the constant grip of ‘go slows’; ‘work to rule actions’;and exhorbitant wage demands, backed by instant strikes, all pushing up the cost of labour (in a labour intensive industry).
Secondly, I’m not suggesting that ALL miners were “sheep” etc – clearly a number of them were able to think for themselves and make their own minds up – which is probably why the Nottinghamshire miners (amongst many others) didn’t join in with the strike.
However, I AM suggesting that there was a small, vociferous and violent minority (an inner circle if you like) who were unswervingly loyal to comrade Scargill and who not only willingly assisted him in fomenting this strike for covertly political purposes, but also who orchestrated, led and directed its enforcement against those who wanted to work and take no part in it.
This was probably the last great ‘political’ strike of the century and whilst feelings still run deep, the fact is that comrade Scargill and his cronies didn’t really care about the miners themselves (although they professed to do so); they didn’t really care about their union, the NUM, as following the collapse of the strike the union was ‘broken’; what they did really care about was getting rid of the democratically elected Government.
Remember the chants of “Maggie Maggie Maggie – Out Out Out”???
Fortunately, comrade Scargill failed ….. and the rest is history.
I guess that IF ‘comrade’ Scargill had sought a proper ballot and had involved the ‘other unions’ the striking miners would have had full and total trade union support.
As it was, he steadfastly refused to do this and instead insisted on calling what was to all intents and purposes an ‘unofficial’ strike complete with his infamous ‘flying pickets’, street battles, civil disorder, violence and so on.
I think that the general mood at the time was that nobody wanted to go back to the ‘three day week’ and power cuts etc etc – not to mention the collateral damage that other industries would have had happen to them.
So although comrade Scargill was supported (for a while) by his fellow travelling trade unionists, none of them were really prepared to get involved and openly assist him on his aims.
As for the purported confrontation between “Maggie” and “Arthur” well in a way I guess it was – looking back on it. You had a communist inspired trade union leader wanting a political confrontation with an elected Government – a sort of ‘worker’s revolution’ if you wish.
On the other hand you had a strongly led Government that wasn’t about to let itself get forced out of office and so bring the country to a state of virtual anarchy.
Painful though it certainly was, particularly for close knit mining communities, thank goodness the Government side ‘won’ as if they had lost and been forced out of office who knows what the consequences might have been?
I’ve often wondered over the years what would have happened to the mining industry had Arthur Scargill and his mates not forced a strike on us all…. and brought it all crashing down around their ears.
I think that many of the ‘pits’ were, at the time, uneconomic to operate – i.e. the cost of extracting the coal was getting to the point where it could only be sold at an actual loss. However, there were a number of pits that were in fact economic – i.e. profitable to operate.
My guess is that, over time, and with the ever increasing costs of manual labour, progressively more pits would have had to close. I think that some of the more ‘modern’ pits would have fully embraced mechanical extraction – but this would have resulted in a gradual diminishment of jobs and so the end result would have been more or less the same.
Looking back over it, I suspect that the strike simply accelerated the inevitable.
@rubyred wrote:
and god bless the CP !!!
Along with Marxism and Stalininsm etc etc – the Communist Party is a spent force now eh? Just a few old armchair radicals daydreaming of the power they might have had if the ‘people’s revolution’ had ever happened…….
…. but the only thing that was revolting was the Communist Party eh?
