Do you eat out a lot and want excellent service?

When you go to a new restaurant, take a very small notebook, and place it just on the right hand side of your plate, with a pen on top, and keep on making notes.

The waiter will notice it, and mention it to the manager.

If they ask you why you are making notes, say very distinctly, you are making notes for yourself, it is nothing to do with the newspaper. (make sure you say "the" newspaper and not "a" newspaper).

You should get excellent service and may even get a brandy afterwards, "on the house".

It works for me...

Hello Sailor, Has the EU influenced your working life? Of course it has!

The Royal Navy is proud of its new fleet of Type 45 destroyers. Having initially named the first two ships HMS Daring and HMS Dauntless, the Naming Committee has, after intensive pressure from Brussels , renamed them HMS Cautious and HMS Prudence. The next five ships are to be named HMS Empathy, HMS Circumspect, HMS Nervous, HMS Timorous and HMS Apologist.

Costing £850 million each, they meet the needs of the 21st century and comply with the very latest employment, equality, health & safety and human rights laws.

The new user-friendly crow's nest comes equipped with wheelchair access. Live ammunition has been replaced with paintballs to reduce the risk of anyone getting hurt and to cut down on the number of compensation claims. Stress counsellors and lawyers will be on duty 24hrs a day and each ship will have its on-board industrial tribunal.

Your next Ubuntu desktop could be a phone - things are moving in the smartphone arena

Why carry two devices, when you could carry only one? 

Your next high-end smartphone has far more horsepower than you’ll need on a phone, and more than enough for a laptop. So we’ve brought Android together with Ubuntu, the world’s favourite free operating system, to give you a full productivity desktop that fits in your pocket. Android for the phone experience, Ubuntu for the desktop, all on one device, running at the same time.

When Nigel met Angela - "... what do I want waiter? By God, I want some of what he had!"

Nigel Farage in fine form talking about his meeting with Amgela Merkel. A terrific hard hitting and humorous speech to a British audience.

Ampers

Osborne’s lucky escape on the deficit. Ed Balls, eat your heart out!

As much as I detest all three main parties, the following pleased me, if only to see Ed Balls reaction!

Citi AM Editors Letter by Allister Heath

FOR once, and I can barely believe that I’m writing this, George Osborne has reason to be happy. The budget deficit for this fiscal year to date (April 2011-January 2012) was a still horrendous, Greek-style £93.5bn, but this was down £15.6bn from a year earlier, a very non-Greek development. This is a much better performance than expected by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR): it was hoping for a decline of just £9bn for the whole year (from £135.8bn in 2010-11). Unless the situation worsens drastically over the next two months, it looks as if Osborne’s deficit reduction plans have moved slightly ahead of target. 

Ampers Humour: A very topical funny story, enjoy!

This has been published here some time ago, but it is even more topical now!

 
Hans, a middle-aged German tourist on his first visit to Orlando , Florida , finds the red light district and enters a large brothel. The madam asks him to be seated and sends over a young lady to entertain him.

They sit and talk, frolic a little, giggle a bit, drink a bit, and she sits on his lap. He whispers in her ear and she gasps and runs away! Seeing this, the madam sends over a more experienced lady to entertain the gentleman.

They sit and talk, frolic a little, giggle a bit, drink a bit, and she sits on his lap. He whispers in her ear, and she too screams, "No!" and walks quickly away.

Gerard Batten MEP gives £31,000 a year back to tax payers.

Gerard Batten is paid the same salary as a UK Westminster MP at £64,766 per annum. A compulsory contribution of 11% is taken for the UK Parliamentary Pension Scheme. As a re-elected MEP in June 2009 he had the option of taking the increased salary of €91,983.72 per annum (about £83,622) to stay on the old salary scale. The new salary was compulsory for new MEPs but optional for returning MEPs. The decision of returning MEPs to choose either option is irrevocable under the rules. Gerard Batten opted to remain on the old lower salary saying, “in a time of economic crisis when many of my constituents are in fear of losing their jobs, and when politicians’ reputations have never been lower, I did not feel it would be justified to take an increase in salary of almost £19,000 per annum."

Argentina are slowly laying claim to the biggest natural resource in the world, illegally.

 This is a most frightening article and, as I know the author, I believe every word he writes. I can't recommend enough that you read his full article.

Ampers

J P Floru: The Falklands are small fry compared to Antarctica

The Falklands are small fry compared to Antarctica. Antarctica hides vast mineral deposits under its icy carpet and its continental shelf. Emotional and human interest keeps the Falklands in the news, while far more important Antarctica is quietly forgotten in the UK. This is strange, as we have the oldest claim on its territory. At present, Antarctica belongs to nobody, even though seven countries claim parts of it. The claims of Britain, Chile and Argentina overlap and include the most hospitable part of it: the Antarctic Peninsula

Both Argentina and Chile have been increasing their military and civilian presence in the Antarctic Peninsula for many years; while Britain has been decreasing its presence and has been cutting back on the Royal Navy. And yet, militarising Antarctica is expressly forbidden by Article 1 of the Antarctic Treaty 1959, of which Argentina is a co-signatory. President Cristina de Kirchner, who is currently accusing the UK of militarising the Falklands, stated in July 2008 that she was keen on militarising Antarctica. Two months ago the Argentinian Air Force bought Russian helicopters for use in Antarctica.

A couple of sayings I have always remembered over my 72 years!

The first is anonymous but well worth acting by:


Excellence can be obtained if you:

• Care more than others think is wise
• Risk more than others think is safe
• Dream more than others think is practical
• Expect more than others think is possible

My second was by Calvin Coolidge 30th president of US (1872 - 1933)

Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence.

Talent will not;
nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.

Genius will not;
unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.

Education will not;
the world is full of educated derelicts.

Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.

Ampers

Poor Nigel is looking a little battered as he continues to hit his head against a brick wall...

... The EU brick wall.

I am conscious that I might be overdoing it with videos and politics. When I started this blog many years ago it was for all sorts of eclectic subjects, from humour, through strategies for success, to interesting snippets gleamed from here and there.

Now it is politics, but we are in troubled times, and it is so important for people to realise this fact.

The Royla Mint must know something that we are not aware of yet. They have released a £5 coin. The interesting fact here is they have an engraving of the Titanic on one side. Are they trying to warn us about something?

But to Nigel Farage's speech in the EU video...

Hannan in America, reminding Americans of their great traditions.

I have to admit, I always have my suspicions that every single British politician will always put their party before the good of their country when the chips are down. Hannan might well be the same when the time comes to make a stand against David Cameron.

However, this 27 minute video can be counted as one of the greatest speeches I have heard for many a year.

Asus Transformer Prime upgrade in Q2 - the TF700T

The following is an extract from PCMag in the US and confirms my previous note about an upgrade coming.

Ampers.

The Transformer Prime TF700T will bring a few key upgrades to Asus’s flagship line of tablets.

Ron Paul is playing the Republicans at their own game and is winning the race. Unbelievable.

Watch this twelve minute video and learn how he is doing this.

The Republicans have set up their rules so they can override the publics wishes if needs be, Ron Paul has discovered how it is being done, and is making full use of the loopholes in the system.

For example, in the recent Causus, or was it Primary, where Ron came second, thirteen delegates were on offer, and by using the method described in the Video, Ron Paul got all thirteen delegates backing his claim for the leadership.

Politics explained in one easy lesson

... or rather, this saying by John Cleese which I found on Twitter probably explains why (a) politicians are so useless, and (b) why they really think they are doing a great job.

Ampers.

"To know how good you are at something requires the same skills as it does to be good at that thing.

Which means if you're absolutely hopeless at something you lack exactly the skills you need to know you're absolutely hopeless at it.

And this is a profound discovery, that most people who have absolutely no idea what they're doing have absolutely no idea that they have absolutely no idea what they're doing."

A Brief Argument for English Independence

An interesting article by Doctor Sean Gabb of the Libertarian Alliance.m here is a link to it in case you want to see more of his articles, many well worthy of a read.

A Brief Argument for English Independence
by Sean Gabb

The normal English response to Scottish nationalism is to ignore it, or to see it as an irritation, or to try shouting it down with reminders of all that shared history, or to point out the value of English subsidies and to wait for common sense to win the argument. None of these, I suggest, is an appropriate response. None takes into account that England and Scotland are different nations, and that the loudest and most energetic part of the Scottish nation has decided that the current union of the nations is not in Scottish interests. This does not make it inevitable that the union will be dissolved. It does, however, make this desirable. Scotland may or may not have suffered from the union. But the union has done much to bring England to the point of collapse, and it strikes me as reasonable to say that England can never be safe while there are Scottish members in the Westminster Parliament.

Why Ampers was put off Fox Hunting - not what you might expect!

Please don't misunderstand me, I am not for or against the sport, but when I heard Sonny Terry play his "Fox Chase" it did turn me from being very pro fox hunting to totally indifferent.

The screaming rabble of the left chasing member of the hunt didn't do it. The politicians and the newspapers railing against it didn't do it. Here is what did it for me.

A tribute

"One Moment in Time" is an Emmy Award winning song written by Albert Hammond and John Bettis, and recorded by Whitney Houston for the 1988 Summer Olympics and the 1988 Summer Paralympics held in Seoul, South Korea.

Anthony Robbins, the self-performance coach introduced this song to us when I attended  an "Awaken the Giant Within" long weekend (Friday to Monday) at the Alexander Palace, in North London, over twenty years ago.

Although her "The bodyguard" has inspired others, this will always be the song of hers I love. So sad she died in the early hours of this morning. My eyes are watering, the keyboard is blurred, I hope there are no errors in this post.

Ampers.

Nigel Farage on Cameron's duplicity

If a picture is worth a thousand words, this video is worth a million words, or more!

In the early days - or how the Internet was born!

In ancient Israel , it came to pass that a trader by the name of Abraham Com did take unto himself a young wife by the name of Dot. And Dot Com was a comely woman, broad of shoulder and long of leg. Indeed, she was often called Amazon Dot Com. And she said unto Abraham, her husband, "Why dost thou travel so far from town to town with thy goods when thou canst trade without ever leaving thy tent?" And Abraham did look at her as though she were several saddle bags short of a camel load, but simply said, "How, dear?"

And Dot replied, "I will place drums in all the towns and drums in between to send messages saying what you have for sale, and they will reply telling you who hath the best price. And the sale can be made on the drums and delivery made by Uriah's Pony Stable (UPS)."

Testing the official Blogger app on my Transformer Prime

I have had a lot of problems using some of the other blogging apps on Android 4 Ice Cream Sandwich, Blogaway being terrible, kpt on crashing whenever I tried to load a photo or video.

So, first of all, lets take a photograph.

Well, I took the photograph, and can see it on the bar, but when I touch it, the only option I have is to delete it :-(

Now to try to load it from the SDCard.

It looks like I am going to have to spend some time on google here, the photograph I clicked on doesn't even appear on the bar below!

So let's try the link button: Here is a link to Amazon - no it's not, or at least it doesn't show in draft mode. I will publish it as we'll see.

This poor woman, her children, and her parents are being cast aside by the miserable coalition. She needs our help.

Watch and listen for yourself. Labour would help her if they were back in power.

Ampers.

Ampers' Humour: Colonoscopy Journal - keep your coffee away from the keyboard!

I called my friend Andy Sable, a gastroenterologist, to make an appointment for a colonoscopy.
      
A few days later, in his office, Andy showed me a color diagram of the colon, a lengthy organ that appears to go all over the place, at one point passing briefly through Minneapolis.

Then Andy explained the colonoscopy procedure to me in a thorough, reassuring and patient manner.
  
I nodded thoughtfully, but I didn't really hear anything he said, because my brain was shrieking, 'He's going to stick a tube 17,000 feet up your behind!'

I left Andy's office with some written instructions, and a prescription for a product called 'MoviPrep,' which comes in a box large enough to hold a microwave oven...  I will discuss MoviPrep in detail later; for now suffice it to say that we must never allow it to fall into the hands of  America 's enemies.

Solid proof on why Socialism is doomed to fail, although it won't convinced those a sandwich short of a picnic!

An economics teacher at a local school made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that, if socialism was fully adopted, no one would be poor and no one would be rich, and all would be equal.

The teacher then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class". All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A.

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.

The second test average was a D! No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

To their great surprise, all failed and the teacher told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, and gives to those who do nothing, no-one will try or want to succeed. 


It could not be any simpler than that. 


Remember, there will be a test in the future - The next general election.

Ampers

The Black economy, and how we can circumvent this in one fell swoop.

A new idea for taxation in Britain.

My aim here is to create a system where we bring all the full time and part time fiddlers of taxation (as a Libertarian, I don't really agree with taxation) into the tax system, in a way which will make it impossible to avoid.

We need to shift the emphasis from taxing income to taxing expenditure.

Apart from my aim of bringing the crooks into the taxation system, this may also encourage people to save more; as the more money saved would equate to more money being available for industry and business to expand.

Mirna van Wyk talks about turning a negative into a positive.

Mirna van Wyk

Mirna is an educational psychologist from Stellenbosch. She taught at several schools, amongst others Stellenbosch High School, Bloemhof Girls’ High and Jan Kriel School for learners with barriers to learning. She is a mother, loves art, the ocean and children.

Negative to Positive

Some evenings when I take our dog for a walk I take a R10 along for the paper or an ice-cream. Last week, when it was exceptionally hot I arrived at the little café and took out the R10 note. Whoops. No R10 note.

I start searching diligently—another pocket, the cuff of my jeans, etc. I am castigating myself for being so careless. I could have bought the paper and an ice-cream!

Then I thought, “Mirna, this is a waste of good time and energy. No use wasting energy on a situation you have no control over, so make this an enjoyable, entertaining walk. Rather concentrate on making this a memorable moment instead.”

Cathy Buckle's newsletter from Zimbabwe

Cathy Buckle is writing again from Zimbabwe, her letter is below.It seems that it isn't just the Government giving trouble to the people of Zimbabwe, but natural incidents as well. This newsletter covers one of each. I include these each month because of the high readership figures for these pages as they show a lot of interest.

Ampers

Shaka Zulu, South African restaurant review (Camden Town)

Last year we had an opportunity to buy two vouchers entitling us to a free lunch until February. On the voucher ticket the date said until end December 2011, on the email containing the voucher the date was February 2012. This was, I thought a bad omen so I phoned up the restaurant to establish which was correct. February they said, so I booked for Sunday 23rd January.

The restaurant is in the middle of Camden Market and is just a door in the wall. Oh dear, I thought, what had we let ourselves in for. Anyway, we went in and there was an escalator which whisked us down into the murky depths.

The receptionist took our vouchers and queried the date. This was beginning to annoy me and I wished I had never booked the damn meal. I told the receptionist we were going to the bar and she was to come over to me when she had sorted it all out.

After waiting for nearly ten minutes for the barman to appear, Pam and I ordered a Klippie 'n' coke (an Afrikaans drink of a cheap brandy called Klipdrift and coca cola). This, actually, is a very "more-ish" drink and eventually the receptionist came over and said it was all in order.

I should hope so, but the Klippie had put me in a better mood and we were led to our table.

You pay peanuts, you get monkeys. Virgin must pay peanuts!

My phone is with Virgin Mobile.

Three months ago the phone would take a call, ring once, and send it direct to voicemail.

I complained about a dozen times, and received a dozen different excuses. One of the more recent ones was "It is because you live near a railway line" Bollocks I said, what about other people who travel on trains and receive calls on their mobiles? They are sitting on the bleddy rails.

I might have toned down my language a little but not that much!

Anyway I shot each excuse down in flames. All these young kids trying to blind me with false logic. They forget - and I have told them in the past - that I have been an IT Journalist for over thirty years and have more than a basic knowledge about cellphones and how they work.

ASUS Transformer Prime and Android 4, good news and bad news.

Before you look at the ASUS Transformer Prime, you may want to look at Google's own write-up on their new Ice cream Sandwich (Android 4 operating system for both Pads and Smartphones.  Android seems to have come of age at last.

Now to look at the new ASUS Transformer Prime, the specification below was taken from the ASUS special website on the new Transformer Prime. At present it is over priced in the UK. It comes with 32GB or 64GB hard storage and a microSD slot for further storage.

Amazon UK are selling this complete with Keyboard for £1,057.97 but beware, Amazon USA are selling it for $858 (UK £555.60 complete) so wait awhile before getting it.

As from today, new Transformer Primes will be fitted with Android 4 and will be a slightly revised hardware edition so, if it isn't Android 4, don't buy it as it may be the original hardware edition.

ASUS Transformer Prime specifications:

Password encryption between Windows, Linux, Mac computers and smartphones.

We use an OpenSource program called Keepass for our encrypted passwords.

There are better programs around but they aren't free. And, the benefit of OpenSource means that the program code is available for the more paranoid amongst us, to pour over to ensure there are no hidden gotchas in the code.

At home, my computer is Linux, as are both my Notebook and my Netbook computer. My wife has a Windows computer and we both have Android smartmobiles. In addition, later this month I shall be buying the ASUS Transformer Prime pad so will install it all on there as well.

Between all our computers, we have one data file where all our passwords are kept. (My wife and I have no secrets from each other, we share everything including bank accounts.)

A special message to bloggers from the Rt Hon David Cameron MP and Prime Minister

10 Downing Street

London  SW1 

Dear people of the United Kingdom

Due to the current financial situation caused by the slowdown of the economy, your Government has decided to implement a scheme to put workers 50 years of age and older on early retirement. 

This scheme will be known as RAPE (Retire Aged People Early).

Persons selected to be RAPED can apply to the government to be eligible for the SHAFT scheme
(Special Help After Forced Termination).   
 
Persons who have been RAPED and SHAFTED will be reviewed under the SCREW program
(Scheme Covering Retired Early Workers).

A person may be RAPED once, SHAFTED twice and SCREWED as many times
as the government deems appropriate.

Only persons who have been RAPED can get AIDS (Additional Income for Dependants & Spouse) or HERPES (Half Earnings for Retired Personnel Early Severance).

Obviously, persons who have AIDS or HERPES will not be SHAFTED or SCREWED 
any further by the government.

Persons who are not RAPED and are staying on, will receive as much SHIT
(Special High Intensity Training) as possible.

The government has always prided itself in the amount of SHIT it gives out.
 

Should you feel that you do not receive enough SHIT,
please bring this to the attention of your local MP.
They have been trained to give you all the SHIT you can handle.

Sincerely, DAVID CAMERON

What would happen if China based their troops in Texas? This awesome video explains all.

This is absolutely awesome and watching it, you will see why only one of the candidates for the Republicans is worth being President of the United States of America.

Do you know how many American forces bases there are around the world? Not even the American Government is sure of the number. This is from The Occasional Planet's website:

Wow, everything about the Kindle or owners and would-be owners, and millions of free books.

I have found an excellent website full of information for the Kindle Owner, or would-be Kindle owner.

British Politics succinctly summed up in 42 words!

I saw this, with the link to the original website, on Guido Fawkes blog and doesn't it sum up Brtist politics perfectly?

Marina Hyde succinctly sums up contemporary British politics…

“…the overriding impression is that Ed Miliband’s Labour don’t know what they’re doing. And while the other lot don’t know what they’re doing, and in a far more worrying way, they manage to go about not knowing it with considerably more finesse.”

Lady Margaret Thatcher - one can identify her with Marmite - you either love her or hate her

Margaret Thatcher’s legacy is that no-one tries to scrap what the Iron Lady achieved.

Jan Boucek of the Adam Smith Institute writing for City AM. I have deleted some of the paragraphs but you can read the full article on the CityAM website. The emboldened emphasis is mine.

He starts off writing about the new film of Thatchers's life and of Streep’s portrayal of Thatcher. This posed a real problem for her self-professed loathers granted that sneak preview of the film. They reluctantly conceded Thatcher’s struggle as a middle class female against an entrenched establishment of privileged old men, but quickly dismissed her accomplishments in office and reiterated their rejection of everything she stood for.

Everything? This is where the Thatcher-as-Satan camp is vulnerable. If it was all so bad why haven’t four succeeding prime ministers even begun to reverse her legacy? Let’s take a look at some of her accomplishments.

Poor Ampers, he has been diagnosed with A.A.A.D.D. and it is serious.

A.A.A.D.D. – Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder.

This is how is manifests itself:

I decide to wash my car.  As I start toward to the garage, I notice that there is mail on the hall table.  I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car.

I lay my car keys down on the table, put the junk mail in the rubbish bin under the table, and notice that the bin  is full.

So, I decide to put the invoices back on the table and take out the rubbish first, but then I think that since I’m going to be near the postbox when I take out the rubbish anyway, I may as well pay the bills first.

I take my chequebook off the table and see that there is only one cheque left. My extra cheques are in my desk in the study, so I go to my desk where I find  the can of Coke that I had been drinking. I’m going to look for my cheques, but first I need to push the Coke aside so that I don’t accidentally knock it over.

A beautiful aerial view of the Houses of Parliament - absolutely fantastic!

Thanks for this, Max! If you visit Max's site, be prepared for some shocking comments.

Ampers

"Ons vir jou Suid Afrika - Great video by Manuel Escorcio, rather an unusual Boer name!

But first, a little story about an Englishman who had a great respect for the Boers and was a doctor in a British Army hospital in the Great Boer War. From the information from the wounded, he pieced together the only war story I have ever really enjoyed. And, it has the ring of complete authenticity about it. This doctor eventually became famous with a long series of books of a fictional detective called Sherlock Holmes. Yes, I am referring to Sir Athur Conan Doyle!

Here is what he had to say about the Boers on the very first paragraph of the first page of Chapter One of "The Great Boer War" which is available for download, free, on the Gutenberg Project. I have made it into three chapters for easy reading

British u-turns on the EU - written by an English MP

Here are five of the points which Douglas Carswell makes in his blog which I hope you will enjoy. For the whole picture, visit his website.

    1.  The people on electoral reform: When the AV referendum campaign started, it looked as if there was a majority in favour. As the public got closer to the day of the poll, they reached for the brakes and pulled a u-turn, rejecting AV overwhelmingly.

    2.  Danny Finkelstein on Europe: Having spent the first few years of David Cameron’s leadership of the Conservative party telling the rest of us not to bang on about Europe, Danny began to bang on about Europe.  

    Shortly after 81 Conservative MPs voted in favour of an EU referendum, Danny – who just a few days before the Commons vote was fiercely critical of it – started to write brilliantly telling us all about the dangers of the EU. 

    Actually, you might say that it was the commentariat that pulled a u-turn on Europe in 2011 .....  others who also saw the light include Max Hastings, who renounced years of faith in federalism with this superb column.  So, too, did Matthew Parris – one of the country’s greatest writers – who it seems is now an advocate of a referendum on our membership.

Men! How to guarantee you will be divorced within three years.

This is going to be a very short blog as the way anyone can guarantee they will be getting a divorce is so elementary and simple.

When you meet a girl, and suss her up, and decide she is looking for a certain type of man, become that type, rather than the person you are. Then after you get married and start reverting back to the person you really are, your divorce will arrive faster than you may think.

This equally true for women.

Men! How to be successful with the opposite sex.

I am not sure whether this is good advice for the women, but I know, from experience that it works for men.

When I was thirteen, I used to saddle up in South Africa and ride out into the bush after school on a Friday for the whole weekend. I would shoot or fish for my supper, skin or descale my meal and cook it over a camp fire. (no - I used matches, couldn't be arsed to rub two sticks together).

I have started this way to give you an inkling that I have always been self-sufficient.

In the sixties, after leaving the army in 1963 at aged 23, I wasn't really interested in girls and moved to Earls Court in London where the swinging sixties started. I was a member of the OVC (Overseas Visitors Club) where they had a passenger liner booked every two weeks from Australia, once a month and South Africa, also  once a month. Each time around 500 girls descended on Earls Court to the OVC from the colonies!

I had hundreds of girl friends over two years, literally! I guess my success was because I was never really that interested. I used to drink, and play 3-card brag with my mates and we would always have a great laugh together. Women were never important to me in my life at that time.

Rupert Murdoch is still making billions whilst the Guardian loses £1M a week.

The following blog is from Guido Fawkes' Order-Order.com. I left out some telling information as it is only fair not to reproduce someone else's blog in full without opening up a path back to the creator. There, you will find information on his other assets including top films from his studios!

Media Analysis You Won’t Read in the Guardian

Today is the last trading day of the year on the New York Stock Exchange, barring any dramatic surprises shares in Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation will end the day near the year’s highs. If you are lucky enough to own News Corp shares you will have benefited from a rise in value of nearly 10% this year, well outperforming a stockmarket that has flatlined.

Not that you would realise it if you only listened to the BBC or read the New York Times and The Guardian. The latter in particular always slants financial stories about News Corp as if there was widespread shareholder unrest with the Murdochs. Story after story on the media and finance pages of The Guardian quotes shareholders and financial advisers with doom laden sentiments about the Murdochs. Most of those quoted turn out to be activists with political rather than financial priorities…

Sara Tavares - I know where she comes from, but I wish she would come over here - what a voice!

Wikipedia states that Sara Tavares showed great musical promise from a young age, a potential that was cultivated and bore fruit while Tavares was still in her teens.

Winning the Endemol song contest Chuva de Estrelas, followed by a victory at the Portuguese Television Song Contest in 1994, earned Tavares a slot in the Eurovision Song Contest, all at the age of 16. Her song, "Chamar a Musica," was featured on her debut single release,

Personally, having just listened to it on YouTube, it is no wonder she won it. If they held a contest of just the winning songs played in the history of the Song Contest, this number would shine amongst the dross!

Happy new year and a very short video of surfing a 90 foot wave

Ampers wishes all his readers a happy new year and a EU free Christmas next year. And now for the video:

It seems that Garrett McNamara just broke the world record for largest wave surfed by successfully navigating this 90-foot wall of watery death in Nazaré, Portugal. The previous record—77 feet—was set by Mike Parsons in 2008.

The Song is Ricochet by David Michael & Lee Pomeroy.

Ampers.

The Australian navy has moved me up the intelligence scale in Britain

From today's Electronic Telegraph

Australian Navy eyes British sailors facing axe in defence cuts 

-
By Jonathan Pearlman and John Bingham
7:52PM GMT 27 Dec 2011

The Australian navy plans to recruit up to 1,000 Royal Navy sailors facing redundancy under the Government’s defence cuts.

The Royal Australian Navy has sent a delegation to Britain to investigate the plan, which would look to recruit some of the 5,000 Royal Navy personnel due to lose their jobs over the next four years.

Critics of the defence cuts, including prominent retired officers, said that the Australian desire to take on British sailors exposed how “foolish” the cuts are.

It follows warnings that Britain might now be unable to fend off a new invasion of the Falkland Islands, which have recently come under renewed pressure from Argentina, or mount an force to retake them without an aircraft carrier.

The more brighter people leaving the UK means that my IQ (142 on the Mensa scale) is probably increasing as less intelligent people replace our brightest!

Dan Hannan explains, at length, the real problem with keeping the Euro.

I think Hannan and Farage would make a great team, they both have impeccable logic. Whilst Hannan is non-confrontational, Farage is a Firebrand and would be an excellent Prime Minister, it would be a joy seeing him up against Ed Milliband in Parliament!

Hannan, with his clear thinking would make an ideal Chancellor.