 Oh dear, it seems that North Ayrshire Council has £15 million at risk with Icelandic Banks  Bloody Icelanders, looks like they've has moved on from knackering our fishing industry to wrecking the whole economy!  Send in the gunboats I say!
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 Right Im off for a celebratory beer, thanks for you all keeping fingers crossed for me...I'm sure thats wot done it
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Fret not; in Northbumberland it is reputedly £23 million.... The best thing I have heard was on BBC R4 18:00 news....the UK is 'freezing Iceland accounts' - at least they enjoy fiddling while Rome burns
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 Why have these councils got millions of quid in bank accounts anyway?
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Fret not; in Northbumberland it is reputedly £23 million....
Trouble is I suspect Northumberland County Council's total budget is somewhat larger than ours. Our adjoining Councils, South and East Ayshire, which are about the same size have only £5 million and £3 million at risk.
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Why have these councils got millions of quid in bank accounts anyway? Perfectly normal Kate. Councils are obliged by law to have reserves in case of unforseen events eg floods etc and have to invest this to get a reasonable return. They do however have to spread the risk after the Western Isles Council put almost all its reserves in one bank (BCCI) a few years ago and lost it all!
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AT - you might well be right. To depress all further....pensions, stock options (if you are in that game)....best not too retire too soon.......
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My rebounder arrived today (trampette) and I've just put the legs on it and done some bouncing. Those windy boys won't know what's hit them when I start mega-boinging!!
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Mmm, reminds me a bit of the 'Form Tidy' prize that was given out on a termly basis at my grammar school for the form that kept their form-room tidiest. It was considered the height of embarrassment to win the thing!
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 Just been offered the job subject to a physical etc Well done, Chief. Hooray for disposal income and the shiny stuff it brings 
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Very disappointed that no-one seems to have noticed that it's National Poetry Day! And to start us off here's a footie poem I just heard on Sky Sports News! (unfortunately I can't find a link to the Sky item so you can't hear it in a Hull accent!)
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 Ello all! I've had a very good day today, we've been out on a community day out from work, only three of us went today but it was great fun and discovered a green heaven in the centre of Manchester. We've been planting holly bushes and ivy aswell as clearing areas for wild flower planting to bring in more insects and birds to the Clayton Vale area in East Manchester. Its a fantastic little place in the most unusual location. I'm definitely gonna go back and help out more and give them some promotion through my site as its a fantastic place and some great people working to keep it that way. Took some piccies of the day that you can see here.
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Boing!
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Very disappointed that no-one seems to have noticed that it's National Poetry Day!
No, now its POETS day. Piss Off Early Tomorrow's Saturday
DAY
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 Morning Blimey, the forum's been well and truly Trevored last night!  That hasn't happened for a while.
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 Bloody Icelanders, looks like they've has moved on from knackering our fishing industry to wrecking the whole economy! Send in the gunboats I say! LOL, AT. It's the cod wars all over again. Congratulations on your new job BBF. I have to go to work and do some teaching again today. *sulks*
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 Morning. Good luck in the new job, 'Nanafeet.
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Congrats BBF! What has "Two Post Trev" been up to now then? So jealous of the Brecons lot this weekend, felt tlike Friday yesterday as I had such a top day but now back to reality and I've got to work this weekend, sucks! Got the new Trail and TGO today and for once I'm actually really looking forward to reading them, looks like they have both bucked up there ideas somewhat especially TGO.
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 Great news, BBF TGO has a nice section on the far North West, including Judy Armstrong's write up of Quinag - must do that next trip. So we missed Poetry Day yesterday  'twill never do - here's an extract from Norman MacCaig's 'A man in Assynt' A man in Assynt (extract) Glaciers, grinding West, gouged out
these valleys, rasping the brown sandstone,
and left, on the hard rock below — the
ruffled foreland —
this frieze of mountains, filed
on the blue air — Stac Polly,
Cul Beag, Cul Mor, Suilven,
Canisp — a frieze and
a litany.
Who owns this landscape?
has owning anything to do with love?
For it and I have a love-affair, so nearly human
we even have quarrels. —
When I intrude too confidently
it rebuffs me with a wind like a hand
or puts in my way
a quaking bog or a loch
where no loch should be. Or I turn stonily
away, refusing to notice
the rouged rocks, the mascara
under a dripping ledge, even
the tossed, the stony limbs waiting.
I can't pretend
it gets sick for me in my absence,
though I get
sick for it. Yet I love it
with special gratitude, since
it sends me no letters, is never
jealous and, expecting nothing
from me, gets nothing but
cigarette packets and footprints.
Who owns this landscape? —
The millionaire who bought it or
the poacher staggering downhill in the early morning
with a deer on his back?
Who possesses this landscape? —
The man who bought it or
I who am possessed by it?
False questions, for
this landscape is
masterless
and intractable in any terms
that are human.
It is docile only to the weather
and its indefatigable lieutenants —
wind, water and frost.
The wind whets the high ridges
and stunts silver birches and alders.
Rain falling down meets
springs gushing up —
they gather and carry down to the Minch
tons of sour soil, making bald
the bony scalp of Cul Mor. And frost
thrusts his hand in cracks and, clenching his fist,
bursts open the sandstone plates,
the armour of Suilven:
he bleeds stones down chutes and screes,
smelling of gunpowder.
Or has it come to this,
that this dying ladscape belongs
to the dead, the crofters and fighters
and fishermen whose larochs
sink into the bracken
by Loch Assynt and Loch Crocach? —
to men trampled under the hoofs of sheep
and driven by deer to
the ends of the earth — to men whose loyalty
was so great it accepted their own betrayal
by their own chiefs and whose descendants now
are kept in their place
by English businessmen and the indifference
of a remote and ignorant government.
...
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