Have just tried to listen to Nolan on R5 and got a ‘we can’t let you listen to this because of rights restrictions re the golf’

WTF is the point of that? I have no interest in listening to Fighting Talk again.

I’ve never had this before.

200. On the brightside it’s also rumoured that it won’t go until 2014 (when the BBC cuts have to be in iirc) so it could rest on the BBC for a couple more years.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13824173?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Another u-turn coming up ?

Morris Dancer @200

Morris, my thoughts exactly.

204, Mr. Corporeal, that’s something, but it’s still not great.

Oh well. There’ll still be radio coverage.

Before I retire, a point on retirement.

It’s just occurred to me that the Romans reserved a few favoured spots in their Empire as places of retirement – these were the dulcet destinations, the exquisite corners of the Empire, where they sent their grand ex generals and worthy old soldiers to live out their years.

Where were they?

Dalmatia in Croatia, the coast around Naples, southern Extramadura in Spain, and here in Provence.

In other words, the places we’d all like to retire to, today.

We think everything has changed, yet, in a way, nothing has changed.

And now I must retire. Bon nuit.

150.

“Tomorrow’s Sunday Telegraph front page – “Cameron: Absent dads as bad as drink drivers””

I thought it lovely how the Hellobore sub-editors laid this article out next to the photoitem on the third marriage of serial ‘love-em-and-leave-em’ dad Mr Spencer, brother-in-law to our future king, who, I think, has six known sprogs to whom he can hardly give too much attention while he’s galavanting round the world searching for fresh nookie.

What with the toe-sucking recipient on the other ‘down-line’, our Royals post-Liz begin to make premiership footballers seem upright.

211, Mr. Slackbladder, if that’s true then I want to [MODERATED] the [CENSORED]ing [MODERATED]ers. What an absolutely [SUPER-INJUNCTED] disgrace!

Plato @194

Apparently STimes Cameron story is launch of Big Society Bill next week according to Sky

IainM @213:

I am going back to my MacAllan!

An excellent choice, but could I also recommend Caol Isla.  

Sean T, that’s Ed Balls’ problem. Even if he can persuade people that our economic problems have nothing to do with the last government, and that our economy will grow more quickly if we borrow more, he’ll struggle to get over the feeling that we blew it, and now we’re going to have to pay for it – as we do when we suffer a hangover, the morning after the night before.

As someone who backed against McIlroy on the the final day of the Masters because I felt he would blow it, I think its going to be a huge task this time for him to mess it up.

Should skate home.

224: Okay..thanks…now you’ve jinxed him no doubt..

227. You make that sound like thats a bad thing.

The Conservatives want a majority in 2015 – Shocker!

227 tim – UNITE have 1,000,000 NHS spongers all employed by labour!!!!!

Lets sack them all and think of the tax cuts we can have!!!!!!

NHS = cheerio!!!

Higher rate/additional rate/PA restriction abolished!!!!

The point made by the Seans about austerity and suffering is correct.

Suffering can be good for the soul and while the VAT rise costs me more on petrol and alcohol personally my heart soars everytime I drive past a grotty takeaway and see fat/lazy chavs paying extra VAT because they can’t be bothered to cook for themselves.

We need to psycologically purge the excessive greed and consumption mentality from ourselves. I’ve said before but there are links here for Cameron’s big society and interests in the environment and development. What I fear though is that to Cameron a return to ‘normal’ economically is merely a return to the summer of 2007 ie immediately before Northern Rock.

Also, tim’s point about allotments is a good one. I wonder how much it would cost to but up a few greenbelt fields around towns.

232. Perhaps we should offer a cow with the three acres as well?

fitalass

I opened the MacAllan as I just bought the latest series of NCIS on DVD! Having a family night in splurging on NCIS and whatever the women are cooking up tonight!

The Doc in NCIS is naturally a MacAllan fan!

231 rory will probably get a 10 there!

But westwood will lose too!

232 i love vat and think it should be extended to everything and 25% so the feckless poor pay their way!!!!!!!

And lets reduce income tax especially higher rate!!!!!!

“Perhaps we should offer a cow with the three acres as well?”

I think the benefits from wider avaiability of allotments would be more psycholgical than material.

Food is still historically very cheap. How much would you save if you had an allotment? £100? £200? But the psychological and social and health benefits could be much more.

Rory starting to hit left off the tee, just like Sunday in Augusta.

Control lad!!!!!

239 ok lets scrap the other 1m in the public sector too!!!!

No income tax!!!!!

242 rory all over now! All about trying to keep the personal allowance by keeping income below £100,000pa!!!!!

will rory finish 65-66-80-103?!

240 – Allotments

Cheaper than a gym
Allow children in.
Saves £200 a year alone in herbs (and I’m in my forties so I’m talking culinary,sadly)
Initiatate tadpole/ frog conversation naturally with eager learning kids.
Mix ages, something that our non mixed housing society doesn’t do like it did in the good old days.
Touches that seasonal thing that we’ve lost since the BBC I Player.

There is no downside, Dave gets crap advice on his Big Society wankathon, Mike, pass on my number

I quite want McIlroy to win as he seems a nice lad and is a talented player.

But I sort of want him to lose to maintain the tradition of British losers.

And why are 3 of golf’s majors in the USA.

The US Open I understand
The US Masters I understand

But why isnt there a British Masters (to be played every year at St Andrews) to go along with the British Open?

After all why sould anyone care about the USPGA after all nobody cares about the British/European PGA tournament do they?

248 – The gap in the Market is Asia, and the Ryder cup being a three way tournament with a rest of the world team.

249 – Lots of unused land in cities, apparently Grant Shapps just discovered a lot

252: Oh right, so it’s to be used for allotments and houses at the same time..

thats a clever trick, would it be like a multi-storey carpark?

And heresthe real judgement on Lansleys madness and Daves playing to the gallery on his “bare knuckle fight” to save your local hospital.

“Twenty hospitals must shut if the NHS is to improve its levels of care, according to leading health experts and government advisers.

Fears are growing that the row over health secretary Andrew Lansley’s reforms has proved a distraction from the need to act quickly amid a financial crisis within the health service.
”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jun/18/twenty-hospitals-shut-nhs-crisis?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Try these schemes:

http://www.landshare.net/

Yellow Sub there is a stand-in house elf on duty. Even Timmey Elf has to have some time off to play that farming game he thought was real, or so he told us.

“There is no downside, Dave gets crap advice on his Big Society wankathon, Mike, pass on my number”

I must say that I’ve always suspected that Cameron’s view of the Big Society to be rather top down.

Cameron really believes he can make the world a better place. Which is good but I would much rather that it entailed allowing people to chose for themselves how and giving them the means to do it rather than having Cameron strutting self-righteously spending money.

has rory lost yet?!

GN all

248 – historically there are only 4 majors.

When Bob Jones did the Grand Slam it was the British Amateur and Open, and the US Amateur and Open.

The PGA is trying to get the Players Championship viewed as a 5th major, without success.

Over time British golf became less and less competitive, so it became the Masters, PGA, and the two Opens.

You will not find a second major tournament in the UK for one simple reason – weather.

One of the more depressing aspects of the British Open recently is that more and more young US players think it isn’t worth all the hassle to go to Europe for 1 event.

If you think nobody respects the European Tour, have you checked the World Golf Rankings recently?

“you mean like euro sceptic Tories used to think about the European Ryder Cup team?”

As someone who would fall under that designation I have to say I’ve had no problem supporting Europe. If it had been an EU team that might have been different.

I did sort of want the US to win a couple of times – 1991 and 2008 – but only because Europe had been so dominant that I felt sorry for the USA.

But if instead of it being a European team – with whom I could feel a connection with – it had instead being a ROW team, I would have felt no connection and any support with have been strictly of the unpleasant anti variety.

264 – Rory is doing well. My guess was he would shoot 68-70 today. It looks like that is about right.

If anyone is wondering why Heidi, the prognosticating canine, has not opined about the US Open, it’s because 75lbs of beautiful German Shepherd has transmogrified into 75lbs of wobbly blancmange, as we are experiencing 60mph winds and warnings of supercell thunderstorms, according to the local TV weather, which keeps obscuring the bottom 1/3 of the screen to impart this, and she wishes to remain asphixiatingly close to me and demanding continuing fuss and attention..

tim @263
There is such a thing as cooking sherry, it’s just not the same as the state.

272 – good line. That would explain the Cameron-Antoinettes need for two kitchens.

263. You should check out the dionysus character in the Percy Jackson books. I’m in the land supermarkets forgot so had to make do with half a bottle of ghastly Aussie shiraz. I’m having to burn a mixture of frankinsense and myrhh as solace.

Sergio Garcia – the ultimate example of potential unfulfilled.

Such a shame.

On the other hand, looking forward to seeing many of these players at the PGA Championship in August – I’m a marshal on #5

275: you are right, hot food is VATed, cold is not. So a sandwich is untaxed unless toasted on the premises. Funny old rules really.

corporeal @279

Great series though.

“You will not find a second major tournament in the UK for one simple reason – weather.”

In much the same way that tennis doesn’t have two of its big tournaments in north-western Europe in early summer.

Except it does,

And of course golf can be played in bad weather and is often made more interesting with it.

Golf should just get rid of the USPGA. Its crap and nobody remembers who wins it 5 minutes later.

284 And of course golf can be played in bad weather and is often made more interesting with it.

- not for your average TV viewer. Sun ALWAYS beats rain.

Golf should just get rid of the USPGA. Its crap and nobody remembers who wins it 5 minutes later.

If you ask any pro golfer – and I have – the PGA is the tournament everyone wants to win apart from a major. It has some cachet as the best ‘non-major’.

“True, although I’ll watch more or less any historical drama.”

The Indian episodes of Sharpe were good becuase they could do them on the big scale.

On the other hand their attempt to do Waterloo with only 40 extras.

Its a pity they stopped the Hornblower series half way through.

I think that a drama that really covers and does Waterloo justice is well overdue. Over to the Beeb or ITV to try an do it. There is definitely a niche for this, and maybe a remake of others like the Battle of Rorke’s Drift?
I well remember my Dad dragging me to see Zulu when I was kid at the cinema, although my Mum wasn’t sure that it would be quite my scene.

286. The US PGA supposedly is one of the 4 ‘Majors’ so calling it the best ‘non-major’ is quite damning about its true rank.

291. I assumed they meant the Players

291 Probably in golf, certainly at the Masters in Augusta, but not in motor racing.

a glorious non sequitur. Yes in F1 rain does indeed make life interesting.

And the USPGA is a major so I don’t know which pro golfers you’ve been speaking to.

You got me – I was concentrating so hard on watching the golf I wasn’t watching what I was typing. I meant the Players.

As to which golfers I’ve been talking to. I was on the scoring committee at the Masters for 4 years. I currently work the Tour Championship, the PGA, and the McGladrey Classic. If you name one I’ve probably talked to him.

296. John Daly?

296 – oddly enough Yes, but not about the Players.

When I lived in Augusta, I lived in the same street as the secretary of the Augusta National. Every year he would hold a party for the officials, TV people, and assorted Masters characters on the Tuesday before the par 3. John Daly parked in my driveway one year (he asked first), and we sat on the grass in my front yard and shared a couple of beers.

Rory has just gotten 199, the lowest 54 hole total ever in the US Open.