Thursday 5 March 2009

Thursday 05/03/09

Not much of a post today – didn’t get back home till late last night.

Good news – our planning application for the new site has sailed through. We can now start to build in the field and the whole purpose behind the Blog can be fulfilled.

UK Immigration Minister, Phil Woolas, has accused the Office for National Statistics of "playing politics" by releasing figures showing that one in nine British residents was born abroad.

Your Chairman was born abroad.

I guess if you went back to Roman Britain you’d find a significant proportion of the population was born abroad; ditto following the landing of Hengist and Horsa, the Danes in Yorkshire and the Normans at Pevensey. What’s so scandalous about the fact that one in nine was born abroad?

We were having a discussion during our management meeting at work yesterday about a product called Hengist. I was pole-axed by the fact that none of the other six people in the meeting had the faintest idea who Hengist was. I’m totally flabbergasted that I know more about British history than your average Brit.

Hay feels a letter to her MP coming on. She was in London yesterday and reported that First Great Western no longer do olives on the first class snack trolley. The party line is that they weren't popular, but that's simply not true. Hay is convinced that the true reason is they are expensive, so the mark up for the train company is minimal. We want to know the truth behind the FGW railways olive scandal.

2 comments:

Jinksy said...

You're lucky there is a train - never mind olives...

A Woman Of No Importance said...

Right, I've just had to reboot the whole shebang and lost my comments - Gah!

So, I am with Hay and her rail letter - They won't even do a slice of toast for you now, unless you buy the extortionate full breakfast - Where's the loss in toasting bread, when they are making it anyway?

Congrats on the planning consent - Wonderful news and can't wait to hear of all the excitement that will ensue with the house build.

As for history, I am not surprised at your experience, Bill, I find that our European cousins know far more about our history than your average Brit - and I blame the Victorians for the history that they 'managed' and erased!

As for our ethnicity - Apart from the very few Celts that remain, aren't we all mainly German and Dutch, French and Norse stock, given our history of invasions and inter-breeding?