Nowadays everybody drinks wine – nothing better to make the world feel a better place. Mind you it should be in moderation, and if possible fine wine. Fortunately there is very little wine that cannot be drunk (sipped), but you need to be discriminate. I drink cheap wine! really? Well my pocket rules the day, and one thing I do know about wine, it is not always the price that makes it taste better. Living in Spain mostly I drink Spanish wine, and I choose wisely.
Now I used to drink the very best wine but times are changing, and corked wine is a thing of the past. Wine comes from all corners of the world and made under clinical conditions. The person who sends back a bottle of wine with an air of, ‘You see I know about wine and they shouldn’t serve this, it’s corked etc’ is normally out of line. Actually what they really mean is, ‘I don’t know a thing about wine, and foolishly I have chosen one I don’t like!’
In the 70’s I became a wine connoisseur, I kid you not. But it was a mistake, a really lovely mistake. Margaret and I decided to go to France in the autumn of 1977 and being methodical, and always happy to write; I sent a letter to the ‘Comite National des Vins de France.’ They are now on the internet and list everything you need to know. I explained that we would be visiting the Beaujolais region at the end of October, and could they recommend an itinerary. Now in those days the only people it seemed who wrote to the ‘Comite’ were the professional wine houses, and we had always called our home ‘Enterprise House’. The response was perfect, an invitation was extended by the Marie de Romaneche-Thorins; we were invited to be their guests at the Fete Raclet, (Very selective Beaujolais wine tasting event) on the 29th of October and to attend the ‘Banquet Officiel’. We had been directed there by the all powerful ‘Comite’ so we were invited to join their wine tasting. And we attended for several years; not now as it seems to have become very commercial and the days when we two were the only English people attending are long since gone.
From at the time I was in I was hooked, and studied all the wine books and drank the best wine. Now it wasn’t as expensive as you might think! You buy when the wine is young – direct from the Propriétaire-viticulteur or the Negociants de Vins and wait a few years. Or if you fancy going to Sotheby’s Wine Auctions then you can bid for wine with the professionals. After a while they would recognise us and give us a nod as we walked into the auction, wonderful for the ego. If you know what you’re doing it can be very worthwhile. I bought a bottle of La Tache in the late 70’s which I sold recently for £600-00, it was going to be used for our Golden Wedding but we decided to sell it in auction. Well we worked it out like this; we drink GOOD cheap wines now, and this sale resulted in exchanging one bottle for about three hundred. As I said drinking wine can be very reasonable three hundred bottles for our original £50.
The moral of the story is, drink modestly both in volume and quality, and it will do your heart good – so they say!
Keeping off politics for a while and will leave it to the others. And I shall tell another wine blog another day. - Regards to all Patrick
Wednesday 28 April 2010
Thursday 22 April 2010
IMF proposes Taxes and Controls on Banking!
The IMF has proposed taxing the bonuses paid by banks, and limiting the size of the banks. Sounds like a good idea but why do I think it’s a long way off!
In the U.K. we have an election going on, which party of any strength – ha-ha - will play hard ball with the banks, and thereby not exactly have their support once in power in Westminster. I nearly said back in power for a further five years. Still you never know, pigs do fly, even if it’s in planes, when they can fly (ASH). It’s a topsy turvy world to be sure.
But is it the banks that are the problem, of course these high bonuses are ridiculous, but the pay for their jobs should be open to close scrutiny, and if excessive, then adjustments should take place, and quickly. It always seems proposals are for the future not for now. Hit the miscreants now, check the figures now. So they have contracts. Well it’s quite simple change the tax thresholds so that the excessive payments and bonuses are hit. But that I think is what the IMF is proposing and a fat lot of good proposals are.
One thing doesn’t seem to occur to the leaders of the so-called developed countries; there is only so much available in the cake, you can bake a slightly bigger cake if you have the ingredients. That means produce more from the manufacturing section, (that’s what is meant by ingredients), but we seem to employ more and more people in the service industries and they just eat cake.
So we need to get to the heart of the problem, we need to produce, and that means hard work. Not something we are used to. We have had the underdeveloped countries to produce for us with cheap labour, but now the greedy so and so’s want some of the cake. Our cake! being eaten by the underdeveloped countries, just because they are doing the production work, blooming cheek. Think about it.
Sorry folks, if we are to survive we have to start working in manufacturing and selling our goods to the world. We have to stop kidding ourselves that the unemployed are working just because they are in higher education, in the over staffed civil service pushing pens, in the health service as highly paid managers. They are equally as big a drain on our countries as the unemployed, and I don’t mean those that are unfortunately out of work for a short period because the company they worked for is losing work. I mean families that haven’t worked for two or three generations.
I hope whoever gets in at the Elections about to take place in the U.K addresses the production of goods to be sold for cash – we need cash – it doesn’t grow on trees.
Education is wonderful – benefits are often needed – tax breaks for the needy are fair – helping marriage is a good thing – better weapons for our armed forces – a replacement for Trident is a wonderful thing! well possibly. But can we afford them. Not one of those items produce hard cash for the kitty. Oh! but education is needed for the future, and more people are being educated – they even can get qualifications for knowing about the soaps on television, that should bring in the cash!
Oh well maybe I should be better employed working rather than writing, but in your seventies you tend to slow down. And I was in export selling chemicals all over the world for cash to come to the U.K.
In the U.K. we have an election going on, which party of any strength – ha-ha - will play hard ball with the banks, and thereby not exactly have their support once in power in Westminster. I nearly said back in power for a further five years. Still you never know, pigs do fly, even if it’s in planes, when they can fly (ASH). It’s a topsy turvy world to be sure.
But is it the banks that are the problem, of course these high bonuses are ridiculous, but the pay for their jobs should be open to close scrutiny, and if excessive, then adjustments should take place, and quickly. It always seems proposals are for the future not for now. Hit the miscreants now, check the figures now. So they have contracts. Well it’s quite simple change the tax thresholds so that the excessive payments and bonuses are hit. But that I think is what the IMF is proposing and a fat lot of good proposals are.
One thing doesn’t seem to occur to the leaders of the so-called developed countries; there is only so much available in the cake, you can bake a slightly bigger cake if you have the ingredients. That means produce more from the manufacturing section, (that’s what is meant by ingredients), but we seem to employ more and more people in the service industries and they just eat cake.
So we need to get to the heart of the problem, we need to produce, and that means hard work. Not something we are used to. We have had the underdeveloped countries to produce for us with cheap labour, but now the greedy so and so’s want some of the cake. Our cake! being eaten by the underdeveloped countries, just because they are doing the production work, blooming cheek. Think about it.
Sorry folks, if we are to survive we have to start working in manufacturing and selling our goods to the world. We have to stop kidding ourselves that the unemployed are working just because they are in higher education, in the over staffed civil service pushing pens, in the health service as highly paid managers. They are equally as big a drain on our countries as the unemployed, and I don’t mean those that are unfortunately out of work for a short period because the company they worked for is losing work. I mean families that haven’t worked for two or three generations.
I hope whoever gets in at the Elections about to take place in the U.K addresses the production of goods to be sold for cash – we need cash – it doesn’t grow on trees.
Education is wonderful – benefits are often needed – tax breaks for the needy are fair – helping marriage is a good thing – better weapons for our armed forces – a replacement for Trident is a wonderful thing! well possibly. But can we afford them. Not one of those items produce hard cash for the kitty. Oh! but education is needed for the future, and more people are being educated – they even can get qualifications for knowing about the soaps on television, that should bring in the cash!
Oh well maybe I should be better employed working rather than writing, but in your seventies you tend to slow down. And I was in export selling chemicals all over the world for cash to come to the U.K.
Wednesday 21 April 2010
Great Britain in the midst of Confusion
We have a Election in Great Britain to see who will ruin (whoops! Sorry run), the country for the next five years. Well we presume it will be for five years, but it could be less!
Total confusion exists, it seems whoever you vote for you are going to get some right Charlie’s in control. Now I always was a Conservative, Chairman of the Ward, Financial Area Committee, and Area Committee etc. Thought Maggie was the cat’s whiskers, I was a Conservative. But times have changed, NO I don’t favour Gordon Brown and his lot – they have spent 13 years flogging off our gold reserves very very cheap, ruined the private pension schemes, and as to the promises for the State Pension – well they certainly never happened. And just what are we doing in Afghanistan – we must be mad wasting good money there, and even more worrying wasting the lives of our armed forces (well sort of armed!). Get us out somebody. I could go on!
Clegg – sorry for me a waste of time, all his mob will do is guarantee that we will have NO CHANGE; we shall have eighteen years of Labour chaos not just thirteen.
So how about the Conservatives – sorry I can’t take to Cameron and Osborne, they come across as very weak individuals. I want a leader that speaks with conviction, who gives firm policies. We are in trouble, some of the world is in trouble – not all! We need to know how we get out of it. I have my opinion but it doesn’t always agree with others, and anyway I’m not in charge. So what does Diddly David intend to do?
Then comes the rest. BNP – Green Party – UKIP – you name them – we’ve got them. Actually I rather think that Nigel F whatever could be a good vote. But he’s got more sense and is an MEP where all the decisions are made.
Maybe we should not just get rid of the House of Lords (not my idea), but get rid of the whole lot. NO PARLIMENT what an idea, now that does sound a good idea. Can I have your expenses please I could do with being wealthy and on a good thing.
Will I vote, I suppose so. No apathy in my blood. One year I went to voting booth, took the form and put a cross on the complete paper. Well I did rouse myself and go to the voting booth.
AND THATS WHAT YOU SHOULD DO, GO AND VOTE.THEN WE SHALL GET WHAT WE ALL WANT? COMPLETE CHAOS AS USUAL
Total confusion exists, it seems whoever you vote for you are going to get some right Charlie’s in control. Now I always was a Conservative, Chairman of the Ward, Financial Area Committee, and Area Committee etc. Thought Maggie was the cat’s whiskers, I was a Conservative. But times have changed, NO I don’t favour Gordon Brown and his lot – they have spent 13 years flogging off our gold reserves very very cheap, ruined the private pension schemes, and as to the promises for the State Pension – well they certainly never happened. And just what are we doing in Afghanistan – we must be mad wasting good money there, and even more worrying wasting the lives of our armed forces (well sort of armed!). Get us out somebody. I could go on!
Clegg – sorry for me a waste of time, all his mob will do is guarantee that we will have NO CHANGE; we shall have eighteen years of Labour chaos not just thirteen.
So how about the Conservatives – sorry I can’t take to Cameron and Osborne, they come across as very weak individuals. I want a leader that speaks with conviction, who gives firm policies. We are in trouble, some of the world is in trouble – not all! We need to know how we get out of it. I have my opinion but it doesn’t always agree with others, and anyway I’m not in charge. So what does Diddly David intend to do?
Then comes the rest. BNP – Green Party – UKIP – you name them – we’ve got them. Actually I rather think that Nigel F whatever could be a good vote. But he’s got more sense and is an MEP where all the decisions are made.
Maybe we should not just get rid of the House of Lords (not my idea), but get rid of the whole lot. NO PARLIMENT what an idea, now that does sound a good idea. Can I have your expenses please I could do with being wealthy and on a good thing.
Will I vote, I suppose so. No apathy in my blood. One year I went to voting booth, took the form and put a cross on the complete paper. Well I did rouse myself and go to the voting booth.
AND THATS WHAT YOU SHOULD DO, GO AND VOTE.THEN WE SHALL GET WHAT WE ALL WANT? COMPLETE CHAOS AS USUAL
Monday 19 April 2010
Iceland made a mistake, they sent Ash not Cash
It seems Margaret and I got back to England just in time as all flights in and out are now a subject of when!
The main reason for coming back to the U.K was to possibly sell our house. We have talked about it for the last couple of years as it was far to big for just two people to rattle about in, and the garden needed a lot of work every-time we came back.
We arrived at Luton airport in the early hours of Tuesday the 30th March to be met by our daughter. Arrived at our house on the Wednesday afternoon and the following day we decided on a estate agent and went to their office, agreed a price to sell at. The next day was Good Friday, by the following Friday we had agreed a price/offer and went to my daughters on the Sunday for a couple of days – just to see if we fancied anything near her that was much smaller to our current house.
Now we are back at our house, and assuming the paperwork all goes according to plan we are moving fairly out soon. Now packing and organizing everything takes precedence over all else. But Blog I will and I have now got Talk Talk (Broadband) so there is no excuse. But I am fairly busy, still I can’t leave the country now as the ASH is spreading far and wide. Hope everyone enjoyed their Easter and had plenty of Hot Cross Buns and Chocolate Eggs. Regards to all Patrick
The main reason for coming back to the U.K was to possibly sell our house. We have talked about it for the last couple of years as it was far to big for just two people to rattle about in, and the garden needed a lot of work every-time we came back.
We arrived at Luton airport in the early hours of Tuesday the 30th March to be met by our daughter. Arrived at our house on the Wednesday afternoon and the following day we decided on a estate agent and went to their office, agreed a price to sell at. The next day was Good Friday, by the following Friday we had agreed a price/offer and went to my daughters on the Sunday for a couple of days – just to see if we fancied anything near her that was much smaller to our current house.
Now we are back at our house, and assuming the paperwork all goes according to plan we are moving fairly out soon. Now packing and organizing everything takes precedence over all else. But Blog I will and I have now got Talk Talk (Broadband) so there is no excuse. But I am fairly busy, still I can’t leave the country now as the ASH is spreading far and wide. Hope everyone enjoyed their Easter and had plenty of Hot Cross Buns and Chocolate Eggs. Regards to all Patrick
Thursday 15 April 2010
Absent due to work load
Should be back blogging next week – early. Have been busy in the U.K. over the last two weeks. Changed my car, thanks to my daughter giving me one that is very nice. Had an offer on my house and accepted it. So it’s up to the paperwork going through O.K. And I shall have installed ADSL tomorrow so I shall be sorting things out this weekend. Not bad for two weeks! Look forward to blogging - Patrick
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
