I'm not convinced I understand why.

Oh well.

I think helping people is a valuable end in and of itself, regardless of the motive that accompanies it.

Joans, have you been in Darlaston lately?

If anyone needs me I'll be off embezzling loads of cash for my own ends. I'll be giving 10% of it to charity though, which they otherwise wouldn't get, and so my actions are entirely justifiable.

If someone needs help then they should purchase them a "Get well soon" card, as some idiot typed a barcode into the forecasting field.

I've got a really itchy arsehole.

Lets say people doing hard stuff earns charities £X a year.
Lets say people doing fun stuff earns charities £Y a year, but costs them £Z a year in flights, etc


As not very many people like doing hard stuff, you'll get more people doing the fun stuff than the hard stuff, so as long as Y-Z > X its all good and people get to have fun too!

(Basically I agree with craster)

Malc

Yeees. That's not really the same thing, is it?

Just pointing out that Craster's comment is stupid.

It was not stupid.. as Malc pointed out.

I'll give 50p to a Badger Sanctuary if you scratch my arse, Craster.

I'll be walking around a lake though.

Oh, I love this. The Met loaned Rebekah Brooks a horse for a year in 2008

It's all marketing, this charity fundraising lark.

Proof that horses are evil. Caligula, Genghis Khan, Adolf Hitler and now, worst of all, Rebekah Brooks: all like horses.

The reaction to that is rather infuriating. The Met operate a re-housing scheme for their retired horses. Brooks simply acted as a foster home for a horse, as do many others with land/time/money to do so. I see no problem with that.

Better than giving it to PETA, who would just have killed it.

I support an alternative 'retirement' scheme for The Equine Menace. It's pretty popular. 8 out of 10 cats prefer it.

There's not enough Sarah Jessica Parker to feed that many cats.

UHU! *waves*

Duh, 'the Equine Menace' refers to horses and ponies in general, 'Horse-faced Coathanger Monster' refers to that particularly evil member of their species.

Any time someone mentions cunthorses I always remember these. Actually bothered to look for them this time though

The Met gave a horse to the editor of an influential newspaper. A newspaper who made regular payments to the police in return for information and is now part of a criminal investigation into illegal and corrupt practices. I'm quite surprised you find the wholly justified reaction into what is apparently Met/Sun backscratching and indicative of quite a cosy relationship which should not have existed 'infuriating'.

If the Met would normally give retired horses to those with the facilities to care for them and not require payment, and she got no preferential treatment, then Dimrill is entirely correct.

Which is exactly what happened.

Driving past the youngest boys school with him on the way home, I notice quite a few cars and ask him what's going on at his school tonight, he says: Oh, erm, parents evening, I forgot. Sorry, I love you.

Little fucker.

In fact, let's examine this. She fostered an elderly retired horse. That is, housed, cared for and fed for two years a horse that possibly would've been killed otherwise. This isn't some sort of luxury item that she can use. She didn't ride it around central London as transport instead of using a car. She didn't heat her home by using the horse's bodyheat. She got no financial or other gain from fostering the horse other than helping and caring for an animal before a suitable permanent home was found. Backscratching? My arse.

My tenants in the house oop t'north have given 4 weeks notice.

Boooo! They were great tenants who were no bother and so much better than the last lot.
Yay! I can try and sell the house for the next month and see if I can get rid of it.
Boooo! No chance anyone will want to buy it at the price I need to sell it at.
Yay! I can raise the rent by about 20%, as I hadn't raised the rent on the current lot for a couple of years, as I didn't want to lose them.

All in all, a resounding score draw on life today.

Fuck them on the deposit. Extra time winner.

I've just phoned the child protection services to see if I can borrow a child. I once entered a box junction without checking that the exit was clear, though.

Even with the rent rise, the rental income is still significantly less than the mortgage. Last second equaliser, lose on penalties.

How did you manage that, with interests rates through the floor?

Because I bought the house just before the crash, and it is now worth pretty much what I have left on the mortgage, if not a few thousand less.
Getting a 100% mortgage at a good rate for a rented property is a tad tricky at the moment

Interest rates are only through the floor if you're bank aren't cunts.

I'm still on 4.99% all because alliance and leicester had the best deal 5 years ago.

*strokes 0.9% above base rate tracker*

I was on a standard variable rate for the first 3 years of renting out the house, and that was awesome. However mortgage companies being mortgage companies, when my consent to lease renewal came round, they would only renew it if I changed to a different mortgage deal.

I like horses


I totally agree with all of this, except there's no way the horse would have been put down - there's quite a shortage of horses in the UK, if you can believe that. It would have easily been sold, and probably for good money (police horses (like most working animals, and all police animals) are exceptionally well trained).

That is by the by, however - assuming there's no waiting list for po-po-ponies that she jumped, she did nothing wrong, you're quite right.

Mm. I wasn't aware of 'oss shortages. I have a friend who runs a greyhound re-homing charity and finding suitable foster care for them is a nightmare.

As I alluded to in my last post, the language used in reporting this is quite telling. "Met loaned oss" not "lady fostered Met oss". Rabble rousing words.

Yep. When bullshit reporting like this becomes MASSIVSCANDALS, it makes it likely that some actually really shitty stuff in the future doesn't get attention that it deserves due to fatigue.

I also can't help but think there'll be extra expensive suitability checks put in place on the oss foster scheme. Hopefully not so expensive that they decide it's not worth the bother and go batshit mental with a boltgun and sex instead.

The policeman from 'allo 'allo is the president of your students' union?

I'm hoping the fact that I don't own any silver rimmed glasses is enough to determine my innocence.

I've arranged a date this thursday with a hottie that is way outta ma' league. I can't wait to hear her excuse to leave. It hope it's a belter.

Poker stars had an iPhone app. You can play with the real money in your account.

So, already the most expensive app I've ever bought after going all in on KK.

\
"In your dreams."

I would go all in in that, well before the flop.

Man, google image search does do much better. But they're all from an edition of fhm that I remember buying 10 years ago.

"I want you inside me."
\

Somewhat tangentially, I ran the numbers a few years ago on Davina McCall. (Insert here)

It went something like... she was paid half a million quid for hosting Big Brother. This boiled down to about 20 hours of screen time. So call it £20,000 an hour.

She did several voiceovers for Comic Relief. Say she took a morning to do them - 3 hours.

Did Comic Relief gain an extra 60 grand in donations purely because Davina McCall did the voiceover and not some generic person? People often say that for charities, time is better than money. But for someone earning £20 grand an hour, this is palpably not true.

(Stewart Lee did similar about Russell Howard and a bike ride.)