And go to bed knowing the convicts from the colonies have taken over the third position.

And go to bed knowing the convicts from the colonies have taken over the third position.

Hope the Brits went to bed early because they picked up another gold on the cycling track tonight to get 3rd position back

( How come the Brits are suddenly the best in the world on the bike track? )

And go to bed knowing the convicts from the colonies have taken over the third position.

Hope the Brits went to bed early because they picked up another gold on the cycling track tonight to get 3rd position back

( How come the Brits are suddenly the best in the world on the bike track? )

For the Commonwealth Games a few years back we built a top-class velodrome in Manchester and for the past few years have been throwing money at the track sport. Road racing is difficult with the traffic density in the UK, but there's some top-class riders there, too.

And go to bed knowing the convicts from the colonies have taken over the third position.

Hope the Brits went to bed early because they picked up another gold on the cycling track tonight to get 3rd position back

( How come the Brits are suddenly the best in the world on the bike track? )

For the Commonwealth Games a few years back we built a top-class velodrome in Manchester and for the past few years have been throwing money at the track sport. Road racing is difficult with the traffic density in the UK, but there's some top-class riders there, too.

Australia has gone from 6 cycling golds in Athens to a solitary silver this time.

They have already identified the sport as a priority for funding in the future with the aim of getting back near the top in London.

The Brits are having a huge games and everyone may beat the Russians. They didn't win a single medal of any colour in the swimming cube for the first time in about 40 years.

As an aside. a lot of the ladies now look like ladies. A much better state of affairs than when the East German womens team were more than capable of kicking the Sh%^&$e out of the entire British boxing squad.

It's the old joke about the East German Lady Shot Putter complaining to the team doctor about getting hairs on her chest. 'Don't worry', he says, 'it's the drugs, all the ladies will get hair on their chest'. She answers, 'Yeah, but I'm getting hair on my balls as well!'

Now that was funny ( probably true......but funny )

It's the old joke about the East German Lady Shot Putter complaining to the team doctor about getting hairs on her chest. 'Don't worry', he says, 'it's the drugs, all the ladies will get hair on their chest'. She answers, 'Yeah, but I'm getting hair on my balls as well!'

Good one - I read it as I had a large sip of lukewarm tea and managed to laugh, choke and spit the tea all over my keyboard

It's the old joke about the East German Lady Shot Putter complaining to the team doctor about getting hairs on her chest. 'Don't worry', he says, 'it's the drugs, all the ladies will get hair on their chest'. She answers, 'Yeah, but I'm getting hair on my balls as well!'

Good one - I read it as I had a large sip of lukewarm tea and managed to laugh, choke and spit the tea all over my keyboard

So situation normal ...

Anyone old enough to remember those woollen vests and underpants that I wore as a kid (circa WWII).

Itched like buggery. The little oicks these days don't realise how easy their life is.

Just the thread for this one......hahahaha

Two muslim Pakistani's decided to move to Britain.

When they arrived they made a pact that in two years time they would

get together and see who had become the most British .

After the two years they met in a pub and one said to the other

"Well, I am so British, I have a Beckham t-shirt, drink British beer, have

a British bulldog, I fish and I play golf. How British have you become?"

The second one replied........

"Bugger off home, you Paki bastard!"

What does being British mean? Ask the Spanish

Last Updated: 12:01am BST 10/10/2006

The popular image of migration, invasion and massacre defining which races live where in this country is not borne out by the facts, says Stephen Oppenheimer

The great immigration debate has ancient roots. Our history books tell us that the Celts are the indigenous people of the British Isles, and that they were bloodily massacred and substantially replaced in England by invading Anglo-Saxons 1,500 years ago.

Basque man

Britons share a common ancestry with the Basques of Spain

Thus, the story continues, people of Celtic origin dominate in Ireland, Scotland and Wales, while Anglo-Saxon genes monopolise England. On both counts, this is wrong, along with the popular ideas of what it means to be English.

In the past we have relied on ancient chronicles, archaeological finds and the study of language and literature to sketch a picture of how the British population has changed over the ages. But with the development of genetic tracking, we are now able to trace back from the DNA (genetic composition) of our current population and work out, with greater accuracy than ever before, who arrived in Britain and when.

Over the past two years, I have traced and mapped sources and dates of migration of the male and female gene lines, which had arrived in the British Isles before 1950.

The first and most important discovery I made is that three-quarters of British ancestors arrived as hunter gatherers between 7,500 and 15,000 years ago, after the melting of the ice caps but before the land broke away from the mainland and divided into islands.

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Our subsequent separation from Europe has preserved a genetic time capsule of southwestern Europe during the Ice Age, which we share most closely with the former ice-age refuge in the Basque country. Overall, three quarters of our modern gene pool (two thirds in England) derives from this early source.

The first settlers were unlikely to have spoken a Celtic language but possibly a tongue related to the unique Basque language. There were many later immigrations and invasions, and each left a genetic signal, but no subsequent immigrant event contributed much more than a 10th of our modern genetic mix.

Even "Celts", if they are to be defined by the genes which arrived at the same time as the Celtic language, fall into the class of an immigrant minority. So, who were they?

Archaeological orthodoxy has them hailing from Central Europe, and sweeping into the British Isles during the Iron Age. But there is no genetic or convincing historical evidence for this widespread conviction. However, my view is that Celtic ethnicity, both modern and ancient, is still a valid concept.

We know that today's "Celts" in the British Isles have real cultural and linguistic connections to former Continental Celts in south-west Europe at an early stage – specifically, in France south of the Seine, in Iberia and Italy.

The earliest Celtic inscriptions, in Gaulish, Celtiberian and Lepontic (Celtic languages), have been found in these same regions, dating from well before Caesar and showing a clear linguistic relationship with insular-celtic languages.

Barry Cunliffe, professor of archaeology at Oxford, suggests that Celtic language developed along the Atlantic fringe of western Europe during the first four millennia of maritime trade, and was carried north into Ireland and Wales by metal prospectors from 4,400 years ago.

New linguistic estimates give the age of the Celtic branch at around 6,000 years, consistent with Cambridge archaeologist Colin Renfrew's view of the Neolithic spread of Indo-European languages.

My study found good evidence for Neolithic gene flow from the Mediterranean, around Spain to the British Isles, including at least one sizable genetic colonisation event in Abergele, North Wales, which matches the archaeological evidence of an early copper mining colony there around 3,700 years ago.

This flow provided a third of modern male genes in that part of North Wales, but less than 10 per cent in the rest of Britain, with the highest impact on the English South Coast (10 per cent) and least in Ireland (four per cent). Clearly the dominance of the "Celts" in Britain has been hugely exaggerated.

Contrary to popular belief, we have no cultural evidence to support the view that Celtic was a common language of ancient Britain. Rather the opposite, since an even greater flow of Neolithic-dated genes (10-19 per cent of modern gene lines) and cultural influences were impinging on eastern and south-east Britain from Scandinavia and north-west Germany over the same period as the Iberian (Spanish) influx.

The fact that Britain was one island is of no help in arguing for one language, since the highways of influence were maritime, not land-based. A recent Cambridge study has suggested that the antecedents of English may date earlier in England than the Anglo-Saxon invasion and have links to Norse.

My study also disproves another popular idea – that an aboriginal population was massacred by Anglo-Saxon invasions in the Dark Ages. The key historical source that has led to this conviction is the sixth-century monk Gildas's tract "On the Ruin of Britain".

The gory embellishments of this latter-day Job have led to the entrenched view that Angles and Saxons came over from the Continent, slaughtered the Celts in England and became the "English".

In the aftermath of the invasion, Gildas anticipates Enoch Powell's "Rivers of Blood" speech, speaking of "fragments of human bodies, covered with livid clots of coagulated blood, looking as if they had been squeezed together in a press".

In schoolbooks the invasion is classed as genocide. Genocide means the deliberate extermination of a nation. If that means the death of more than 50 per cent of the people, I am certain, after studying the genetic story, that no such thing took place in Dark Ages England.

There is specific evidence of an invasion from the Anglo-Saxon homeland at the base of the Danish Peninsula, but on my estimation this amounts to only five per cent of male gene types in the British Isles.

This does not give enough genetic evidence for even a 10 per cent cull (that is, a decimation), except in parts of Norfolk and the Fens, which reached about that level of intrusion.

This means there was not just substantial continuity of population, but a survival of around 95 per cent of indigenous gene lines at the time. Even the Vikings achieved a higher estimated overall level of genetic invasion.

This new genetic evidence gives a fresh perspective on fears that immigrants are diluting what it means to be British. When Gildas spoke of the Anglo-Saxon invasion he exhorted the surviving and unrighteous British kings to "seek for the rule of right judgment [on] the proud, murderers, the combined and adulterers, enemies of God, who ought to be utterly destroyed and their names forgotten."

But should we lightly wish such a fate on foreign invaders? After all – Celts, Angles, Jutes, Saxons, Vikings, Normans and others – are all minorities in the modern British gene pool compared with the first unnamed pioneers from the Basque country who, 15,000 years ago ventured into the empty, chilly lands, so recently vacated by the great ice sheets.

# Stephen Oppenheimer, professor at Oxford University, is the author of 'The Origins of the British: A Genetic Detective Story' (Constable), available for £18 plus £1.25 p&p. To order please call Telegraph Books on 0870 428 411

The history of the world - part 2. ( the boring bits)

Not one mention of " hoodies " or warm beer. Bloke does not know what he is on about !!!

Descended from the Basques? How often do you see someone walking round, looking miserable, with a silly little black beret and smoking XX cigarettes.

No - no way.

Edit: They're Dos Equis ciggies - I was almost at the Castlemain score.

What about these guys........LOL

A list of British University student exam blunders have been published by the Telegraph and includes this explanation from one of the importance of the railway in 19th century Britain.

"The railways were invented to take the weight off the motorways."

On global warming, one student wrote: "Tackling climate change will require an unpresidented response."

And another, on the threat of diseases, wrote: "Control of infectious diseases is very important in case an academic breaks out."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics...m-blunders.html

What about these guys........LOL

A list of British University student exam blunders have been published by the Telegraph and includes this explanation from one of the importance of the railway in 19th century Britain.

"The railways were invented to take the weight off the motorways."

On global warming, one student wrote: "Tackling climate change will require an unpresidented response."

And another, on the threat of diseases, wrote: "Control of infectious diseases is very important in case an academic breaks out."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics...m-blunders.html

From that link.........

Other examples come from students at St Helens College of Art and Design near Liverpool, who were asked to "outline the importance of the four Noble Truths to the Buddhist faith".

One offered the baffling response: "Nirvana cannot be described because there are no words in existence for doing so. Not non-existence either, it is beyond the very ideas of existing and not existing."

Well, the curriculum may have changed since I went there, but the standards haven't.

Other examples come from students at St Helens College of Art and Design near Liverpool, who were asked to "outline the importance of the four Noble Truths to the Buddhist faith".

One offered the baffling response: "Nirvana cannot be described because there are no words in existence for doing so. Not non-existence either, it is beyond the very ideas of existing and not existing."

Well, the curriculum may have changed since I went there, but the standards haven't.

I can't help but wonder if the student passed the exam. Probably gone onto bigger and better things at a front counter at McDonalds

CB

Kylie Minogue will star at what is being touted as the most expensive private party ever staged - a STG16 million ($A35 million) soiree at a new luxury hotel in Dubai.

British newspapers reported that Minogue will be paid STG2 million ($A4.4 million) to keep 2,000 guests spinning around at the opening of the Atlantis Hotel on the man-made island of Palm Jumeirah.

The November 20 beach party will mark Minogue's first performance in the Middle East.

The hotel's management company, Kerzner International, confirmed the Australian songstress would be the main attraction at the party where the guest list will include politicians, actors, musicians and the Dubai royal family.

A STG3 million ($A6.58 million) firework display will light up the entire resort as guests party the night away.

The 1,539-room luxury hotel, which is expected to welcome its first guests on September 24, is a joint venture between Kerzner and the Dubai government-owned Istithmar.

^ Not exactly sure what that has to do with the thread, but since this is bedlam....

I'm ashamed to say I had to turn down an backstage pass to this.

I have to pluck my nostril hair that day, unfortunately.

^ Not exactly sure what that has to do with the thread, but since this is bedlam....

Following an earlier kink in the thread on Exam screw-ups.

Ancient Egypt was inhabited by mummies and they all lived in hydraulics. They lived in the Sarah Dessert and travelled by Camelot.

Moses led the Hebrew slaves to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread which is bread without any ingredients. Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments. He dies before he ever reached Canada.

Solomom had three hundred wives and seven hundred porcupines.

The Greeks also had myths. A myth is a female moth.

Homer was not written by Homer, but by another man of that name.

Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people advice. They killed him. Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock. After his death, his career suffered a dramatic decline.

In the Olympic games, the Greeks ran races, hurled the biscuits, and threw the java.

Eventually, the Romans conquered the Greeks. History calls people Romans because they never stayed in one place for very long.

Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The Ides of March murdered him because they thought he was going to be made king. Dying, he gasped out :"Tee hee, Brutus."

Finally, Magna Carta provided that no man should be hanged twice for the same offence.

In midevil times most people were alliterate.The greatest writer of the futile ages was Chaucer, who wrote many poems and verses and also wrote literature.

The ancient britons had rushed mating on the floor of their huts.

It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenburg invented removable type and the Bible. Another important invention was the circulation of the blood. And Sir Francis Drake circumcised the globe with a 100 foot clipper.

The greatest write of the Renaissance was William Shakespeare. He was born in the year 1564, supposedly on his birthday. He wrote tragedies, comedies, and hysterectomies, all in Islamic pentameter. Romeo and Juliet are an example of a heroic couplet. Romeo's last wish was to be laid by Juliet.

The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Then his wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained.

One of the causes of the Revolutionary War was the English put tacks in their tea. Also, the colonists would send their parcels through the post without stamps. Finally, the colonists won the war and no longer had to pay for taxis. Franklin discovered electricity by rubbing two cats backward and declared, "A horse divided against itself cannot stand." Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead.

Soon the Constitution of the United States was adopted to secure domestic hostility. Under the constitution the people enjoyed the right to bare arms.

Gravity was invented by Isaac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in the autumn when the apples are falling off the trees.

Johann Bach wrote a great many musical compositions and had a large number of children. In between he practiced on an old spinster which he kept up in his attic. Handel was half German half Italian and Half English. He was very large.

Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he wrote loud music.

The nineteenth century was a time of a great many thoughts and inventions. People stopped reproducing by hand and started reproducing by machine.

Louis Pasteur discovered a cure for rabbis. Charles Darwin was a naturalist who wrote the Organ of the Species.

The First World War, cased by the assignation of the Arch-Duck by an anahist, ushered in a new error in the anals of human history.

The sun never set on the British Empire because the British Empire is in the East and the sun sets in the West.

Source:

very good!

It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenburg invented removable type and the Bible. Another important invention was the circulation of the blood. And Sir Francis Drake circumcised the globe with a 100 foot clipper.

Spectacular, that has to be real as you couldn't make it up.

>

>ESSEX HURRICANE APPEAL

>

> >>A major hurricane (Hurricane Shazza) and earthquake measuring 5.8 on the

> Richter Scale hit Essex in the early hours of Friday with its epicentre

>in Basildon.

> >>

> >>Victims were seen wandering around aimlessly, muttering "faaackinell".

> >>

> >>The hurricane decimated the area causing approximately £30 worth of

>damage.

> >>Several priceless collections of mementos from Majorca and the Costa Del

> Sol were damaged beyond repair.

>

> >>Three areas of historic burnt out cars were disturbed. Many locals were

>woken well before their giros arrived. Essex FM reported that hundreds of

>residents were confused and bewildered and were still trying to come to

>terms with the fact that something interesting had happened in Basildon.

>

> >>One resident - Tracy Sharon Smith, a 15-year-old mother of 5 said, "It

>was such a shock, my little Chardonnay-Mercedes came running into my

>bedroom crying.

> >>My youngest two, Tyler-Morgan and Megan-Storm slept through it all. I

>was still shaking when I was skinning up and watching Trisha the next

>morning."

>

> >>Apparently looting, muggings and car crime were unaffected and carried

>on as normal.

>

> >>The British Red Cross has so far managed to ship 4,000 crates of Sunny

>Delight to the area to help the stricken locals. Rescue workers are still

>searching through the rubble and have found large quantities of personal

>belongings, including benefit books, jewellery from Elizabeth Duke at

>Argos and Bone China from Poundland.

>

> >>HOW CAN YOU HELP?

>

> >>This appeal is to raise money for food and clothing parcels for those

>unfortunate enough to be caught up in this disaster. Clothing is most

>sought after -

> >>items most needed include:

>

> >>Fila or Burberry baseball caps

> >>Kappa tracksuit tops (his and hers)

> >>Shell suits (female)

> >>White sport socks

> >>Rockport boots

> >>Any other items usually sold in Primark.

>

> >>Food parcels may be harder to come by, but are needed all the same.

>

> >>Required foodstuffs include:

>

> >>Microwave meals, Tins of baked beans, Ice cream, Cans of Colt 45 or

>Special Brew.

>

>22p buys a biro for filling in the compensation forms.

>£2 buys chips, crisps and blue fizzy drinks for a family of 9.

>£5 buys B&H and a lighter to calm the nerves of those affected.

>

> >>**Breaking news**

>

> >>Rescue workers found a girl in the rubble smothered in raspberry

>alco-pop.

>

> >>'Where are you bleeding from?' they asked," ROMFORD" said the girl,

>"woss that gotta do wiv you?

>

ESSEX HURRICANE APPEAL

A major hurricane (Hurricane Shazza) and earthquake measuring 5.8 on the

Richter Scale hit Essex in the early hours of Friday with its epicentre

in Basildon.

Victims were seen wandering around aimlessly, muttering "faaackinell".

The hurricane decimated the area causing approximately £30 worth of

damage.

Several priceless collections of mementos from Majorca and the Costa Del

Sol were damaged beyond repair.

Three areas of historic burnt out cars were disturbed. Many locals were

woken well before their giros arrived. Essex FM reported that hundreds of

residents were confused and bewildered and were still trying to come to

terms with the fact that something interesting had happened in Basildon.

One resident - Tracy Sharon Smith, a 15-year-old mother of 5 said, "It

was such a shock, my little Chardonnay-Mercedes came running into my

bedroom crying.

My youngest two, Tyler-Morgan and Megan-Storm slept through it all. I

was still shaking when I was skinning up and watching Trisha the next

morning."

Apparently looting, muggings and car crime were unaffected and carried

on as normal.

The British Red Cross has so far managed to ship 4,000 crates of Sunny

Delight to the area to help the stricken locals. Rescue workers are still

searching through the rubble and have found large quantities of personal

belongings, including benefit books, jewellery from Elizabeth Duke at

Argos and Bone China from Poundland.

HOW CAN YOU HELP?

This appeal is to raise money for food and clothing parcels for those

unfortunate enough to be caught up in this disaster. Clothing is most

sought after -

items most needed include:

Fila or Burberry baseball caps

Kappa tracksuit tops (his and hers)

Shell suits (female)

White sport socks

Rockport boots

Any other items usually sold in Primark.

Food parcels may be harder to come by, but are needed all the same.

Required foodstuffs include:

Microwave meals, Tins of baked beans, Ice cream, Cans of Colt 45 or

Special Brew.

22p buys a biro for filling in the compensation forms.

£2 buys chips, crisps and blue fizzy drinks for a family of 9.

£5 buys B&H and a lighter to calm the nerves of those affected.

**Breaking news**

Rescue workers found a girl in the rubble smothered in raspberry

alco-pop.

'Where are you bleeding from?' they asked,

" ROMFORD" said the girl,

"woss that gotta do wiv you?

Well -you'll never get a life membership of the Blues Factory now. (But the Blouse Factory accepts anyone )

Edit - removed all those annoying > and >> symbols - so 'as 'ow it can be read proper-like - you know.

very good!