It was interesting to see that students at Saltley Academy in Birmingham are being
encouraged to follow the tenets of Saint George (The ‘Trojan horse’ school opening pupils’
eyes to the brutal realities of Islamic State, 13 July). I hope it is pointed out that Saint George
was probably born in Turkey and that his mother was Palestinian. They should also know that
as well as being England’s patron saint he is revered by Muslims and Christians in Palestine,
and is the patron saint of many other European countries. He is indeed a multicultural hero.
The Euro is now at 1.41 for £1. I travel quite a lot in Scandanavia and pay about 2% from my British bank for buying goods in a Euro zone.
But the bank takes a further 2 and a half percent when I use the cash machine.
I found a way around this is to get cash back at a local supermarket then you are charged only 2%. as a purchase.
I know this works in Finland but can you tell me other Euro zone countries where you can do this?
All languages have their colloquialisms and pet sayings.
I lived in Finland for many years, and apart from Finnish being one of the most difficult languages to learn, the sayings can make a direct translation seem like so much gibberish.
It needs a good knowledge of the coloquialisms to make sense of the content of some of it.
I have found this with some other languages as well.
Has any one else had this sort of experience?
Some British expats in Cyprus are facing a "financial nightmare" after the country's unprecedented EU bailout.
After nearly four decades of hard work in the UK Terry and Hazel Rose thought moving to Pyrgos in southern Cyprus would give them the perfect retirement.
They brought everything with them from Maidenhead in Berkshire and hold many assets including bank deposits over the 100,000 euros (£85,000) threshold.
They are likely to be subject to a levy between 30% and 40%.
Terry, who spent most of his career working for the British Army, told Sky News: "It's disgusting, it is my money, fair enough if you want to tax money people have earned in Cyprus but this is mine.
"It is a nightmare and yes I'm very angry."
With every bank still closed they have emailed their bank manager but have heard nothing back so simply do not know if a big chunk of their life savings will vanish.
Hazel added: "We love Cyprus, don't get me wrong, but this is the final straw. Sometimes I wish we'd never moved out here."
Their house is now in negative equity and moving back to the UK is not financially viable.
At the 'Taste of Britain' cafe and deli in Limassol almost all expat customers are concerned about what may lie ahead.
Owner Ann Bruce who moved here from Lancashire nine years ago told Sky News: "A lot of people come in here with very sad stories.
"It is frightening that the banks, an official organisation, that for years we have trusted, now you can't trust them any more."
The bulk of the British expats live in the resorts that stretch along the coastline of Cyprus but so do many wealthy Russians.
Amongst the Brits there are deep suspicions that some Russians were tipped off about the crisis and moved large amounts of money out of Cyprus.
It is hard for people to prove but British business owners told Sky News they have consistently heard anecdotal evidence that Russians were withdrawing massive amounts of money in the days before the crisis began.
British expats, though, can only concentrate on their own affairs.
Chris Parry, originally from Lincolnshire, now works as a financial advisor for 3D Global around Limassol and has been busy organising forums where expats can turn up and ask questions about what the financial crisis may mean for them.
He told Sky News: "In the great words of Dad's Army we're saying 'Don't panic' but most of my clients are naturally very worried.
"Most people who move out here are pensioners and the money they bring out here that's it, they can't add to it."
Banks in Cyprus are now due to open on Thursday and extra security staff are being drafted in to help control the crowds of people that are likely to turn up demanding money and information.
A senior Labour politician has called for reassurance from the Government over the savings of thousands of UK servicemen and women in Cyprus banks that could be raided as part of an EU bailout.
Britons with bank accounts in the country face having their savings targeted following a £10 billion rescue package by the Cypriot government with its eurozone partners and the International Monetary Fund that includes a compulsory one-off levy on deposits.
European officials said people with less than 100,000 euro (£87,000) in their accounts will have to pay a one-time tax of 6.75%, those with more money will lose 9.9% - a move which could affect thousands of Britons.
Kevan Jones, Labour's shadow armed forces minister, called on ministers in the UK to reveal whether they had fought to exempt British forces personnel in Cyprus from the levy.
"There are thousands of UK service personnel and their families based in Cyprus who could be impacted by this. Some may have served in Afghanistan," he said. "Ministers must tell us how many personnel and their families could have their savings docked and whether they argued for exemptions for our forces. If not, the country will be angry and will want to know why not. Service families have been hit by cuts to allowances and permanent reductions in pensions by the Government. If our forces' savings are raided while they are stationed in Cyprus as part of their military service the whole country will be outraged. Our heroes should not lose out while serving their country."
There are 59,000 British residents in Cyprus and 1.1 million Britons visit the island every year, the Foreign Office said. About 3,500 British military personnel are based there.
An anonymous British serviceman contacted Sky News to say: "Service personnel have no way of reaching their money and all electronic transfers have been barred by the Cyprus banks. Service personnel and their families are furious but can do nothing." British expat David Symonds told the same channel: "The view is that the timing is cynical. It's a long weekend here. Electronic banking links have been closed. Monday is a public holiday. Banks don't reopen until Tuesday, when they do there will be queues of people on the pavement waiting to get their money out. Tempers could get frayed. Those frayed tempers could well lead to violence."
News of the levy came as a shock following strict assurances from president Nicos Anastasiades that he would not accept a deal which required depositors to share in the losses. Lines formed at many ATMs in Cyprus as people scrambled to pull their money following news of the raid on their savings - an unprecedented step in the eurozone crisis. Cypriot bank officials said that depositors can access all their money except the amount set by the levy - which is expected to raise £5.8 billion - and officials added that withdrawing funds on Saturday would not reduce anyone's levy.
Bank of Cyprus UK assured customers in the UK that their deposits would not be affected by the levy, as it is a UK bank and is protected by UK financial regulation. Laiki Bank UK said on its website: "Your eligible deposits with Laiki Bank UK are protected up to a total of 100,000 euro by the Cyprus Deposit Protection Scheme and are not protected by the UK Financial Services Compensation Scheme. Any deposits you hold above the 100,000 euro limit are not covered."
Bank bosses are due to meet with Central Bank officials to figure out their next steps, while Mr Anastasiades has called for a meeting of party leaders to assess the situation. Cypriot and European officials feared that forcing depositors to take a hit would undermine investors' confidence in Cyprus and other weaker eurozone economies - and even possibly lead to bank runs.
@YahooNewsUK on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook
BEST OF YAHOO! NEWS
This could happen to you
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year-
The news that all of Britain has been waiting for — Will and Kate are pregnant! — is more than just a boon for the baby-mad media; it's a reassuring symbol of continuity for the monarchy and, by extension, the United Kingdom itself.
Girl or boy, it means a future sovereign for the British throne is on the way. It's only the second time in 1,000 years of English history that a reigning monarch, great-grandmother Queen Elizabeth II, would be alive at the same time as three generations of her future sovereign heirs. In effect, her already stable Windsor dynasty is bolstered again.
Nearly 20 months after their wedding, Prince William of Wales and his wife, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, are pregnant with their first child, the palace announced Monday, after the duchess was hospitalized with severe morning sickness.
If you read my last blog, we were in Sark, in the Channel Islands, moored for he night.
We sailed the next morning at 6 o'clock, compass set on Alderney, what a rough ride weather was bad and we were knocked about a bit.
Anyway the Sat Nav. got us to Alderney and the weather calmed down a bit. of course being in a Cat (Catamaran) the sails were reefed, on arriving at Alderney, after looking at the charts e decided to dry out ( putting the Cat on the beach at high tide and sitting on the sand at the low tide) making a more comfortable night. The charts showed a sandy shore. WE headed towards our comfortable mooring when the harbour masters vessel intercepted us and directed us to a buoy to more for the night, ok you don't argue with the harbour master so we went to the buoy and parked and paid the ten pounds mooring fee.
Next morning we looked at where we where going to moor and saw jagged rocks, the chart was out of date.
going ashore at Alderney was an experience, you could see the French coast quite clearly.
But the one thing that sticks in my mind is all the people in the island looked the same. Dunno if this was because it was a small isolated island and everyone was related, maybe, you know what I mean.
WE did the tour of the German gun emplacements and had a good time in the local pub.
The next day we set sail for France, but that's another story.
Sailing was my life at one time, based at a marina in plymouth Devon (Mayflower Marina) I would sail Europe.
The Channel Islands were a favourite with us, me and my crew, 16 hours sail from Plymouth across the channel.
Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney and Sark were our main stops.
Sark is a strange one, we came up to Sark at night and decided to go ashore to stretch our legs. What a eerie place, the mists were roiling in and not a human in site, we walked for half an hour and came to a house with the lights on as we were pretty well lost by this time I knocked on the door to get directions, no reply and the door was open, I picked up my courage and shouted whilst warily walking into the hallway, nothing, it was like the Marie Celeste, not a human in the place I had a look around in case someone was ill in there, but not a soul. Well we left the house as we found it and continued walking.
Out of the mist, like a ghost, came a lone cyclist. I waved him down and asked him the way to any moorings, he didn't say anything, just pointed in the direction of a small road, ok we took it and sure enough came upon a quayside with mooring pontoons.
We were a bit fed up by this time and not wanting to get lost walking back to the other side, I radioed our coordinates to my friend Mark who had stayed on board, he found the mooring pontoons on the map and set sail around the island. About an hour later he radioed us for a torch beacon to guide him in, in the pitch black a torch showed up like a lighthouse and he brought the boat to us.
We moored up for the night and chatted about the weird island of Sark.
Has anyone else been there.
Next day we set sail for Alderney, but that's another story.
I am living in Finland at the moment. The Finnish people have a natural tendency to paranoia, probably because of th occupation of the Swedes then the Russians. After being here for a while it rubs off on you (the paranoia) and you tend to blend into the bachground so as not to be noticed.
I was crossing the crossing point in the road (you know with the white stripes) no traffic for a couple of kilometres either way, and the lights on red, ok I started to cross when a voice bellowed at me(in Finnish) "Oh we cross against a red light do we. I stopped and looked to see a large man staring at me accusingly.
Now in Finland this could be an ordinary citizen taking the moral high ground, or a policeman. I better play on the safe side, I said in English "oh I'm sorry, there was no traffic so I decided to cross".
"It's against the law to proceed against a red light he bellowed (in perfect English, With that twang the Finnish have).
I began to get apprehensive, he sounded like a cop, and they can get you fined badly if they take against you.
I'm sorry sir, I have just come to Finland (been here three years) and I wasn't thinking, giving my best grovelling body language.
He looked at me,
his glare telling me what a stupid foreigner I was, Then fortunately one of his cronies came along, and he lost interest in the abject English figure waiting for the hand cuffs. and he wandered off with his friend.
I was still standing halfway across the road, and still not a vehicle in sight, I looked to see his attention was still diverted, and darted the rest of the way across and into a shop.
Quickly past the shop security and out the back entrance.
Yeh Finland is the land of the paranoiac, and I am becoming Finnish
tomcatwarne
turku, Lansi-Suomen Laani Finland
View Threads
View Posts
ReplyQuote
Watch out on Halloween
The world has long been fascinated with the idea that the blood of young people could have rejuvenating qualities, like a glorious fountain of youth, only horrifying. Turns out the world is sort of right.
A new study by researchers at Stanford University shows that injections of young blood can reverse the signs of aging in mice. The experiment is as simple as it sounds. Give an old mouse a syringe full of blood from a young mouse, and run some tests. Leader of the research team Saul Villeda and his team found that the boost of youth improved learning and memory in the older mice. Villeda shared his research with the Society for Neuroscience conference in New Orleans on Wednesday and did not understate its implications for conditions that are caused by deteriorating brain function. "I think any sort of disease that has that component, there is a chance this might help," he said. "What I am thinking is if we can address it earlier, when our body still has the control to prevent this from happening, then we might not have to cure Alzheimer's, we might just be able to stop it."
This is crazy, because in the past, crazy people have latched on to the idea that young blood could get them closer to immortality. Kim Jong-il, for example, used to "inject himself with blood from healthy young virgins in a bid to slow the aging process," according to The Guardian. Quite remarkably, it now appears that Kim Jong-il wasn't aggressive enough. Villeda actually supplied a group of 18-month-old (read: very old) mice with eight transfusions over the course of a month -- that amounts to about 5 percent of a mouse's blood supply -- and found that the brain connections in the older mice had increased by 20 percent after the treatment. "One of the main things that changes with ageing are these connections, there are a lot less of them as we get older," said Villeda. "That is thought to underlie memory impairment -- if you have less connections, neurons aren't communicating, all of a sudden you have in learning and memory."
This is actually not the first study to suggest that young blood reverses signs of aging. In 2010, a team of Harvard researchers connected the circulatory systems of young and old mice so that their blood mixed and found that it rejuvenated the blood-forming stem cells in the older mice. In the words of MIT's Technology Review, "They found that the procedure made the blood-forming stem cells in older animals act young again." The biggest difference in that study seems to be the mice's ability to produce immune cells, though it's unclear exactly what the long term effects of the blood mingling would have on the animals.
We've hardly discovered the fountain of youth, and we certainly haven't found proof of vampiric immortality. Oddly enough, though, we've discovered something in between, in mice at least. This does not mean you should take your vampire costume more seriously this year, though. The study did not cover the effects of drinking young blood.
So on Halloween watch out the cougars are about,
tomcatwarne Blog (12)
