In the "News" today.

Wankers the lot of them.

House of Lords expenses spiral by 29% in the last year! Fookin load of privileged leeches, they should all be strangled with their old school ties and their bodies dumped in the Thames.
Well either that or just sack them. Seriously though loads of them have claimed more than most of us earn in a year and have contributed zero to the house at all.

Found this.

Could she be in trouble?

I do hope so.

Will she resign?

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Gotta feel sorry for these poor feckers,

Two men who bought a £4m-winning scratchcard with someone else's debit card details have been jailed for 18 months for fraud.

Jon Ross Watson, 34, and Mark Goodram, 38, bought the winning Red card in a Waitrose store in Clapham Common on 22 April 2019.

The pair pleaded guilty to three counts of fraud at Bolton Crown Court on Tuesday, where they had been due to stand trial.

Sentencing them, Recorder Sarah Johnson said: "You must have thought all of your Christmases had come at once. Despite knowing you had fraudulently acquired that prize money you tried to claim it."

The court was told that the men travelled from Bolton to London on Easter Monday in 2019, where they planned to go begging.

John Watson (left) and Mark Goodram were jailed for 18 months each this week

They then went to the Waitrose store, where they bought £71 worth of shopping, including five scratch cards, using the same method.

One of the cards had a prize of £10, which they claimed at the Londis store, while the other had the jackpot prize.

Watson phoned the National Lottery line at 10.50am and told the operator that his friend had won the jackpot.

Goodram came onto the line and said he would be sharing the prize with his friend, before being told the payment would be made by bank transfer, she said.

Ms Fitzpatrick said: "Mark Goodram explained he did not have a bank account. The purchase of the winning scratch card had been made by debit card from a bank account, however, which immediately raised suspicions."

'Shamed and ridiculed'

The court heard the pair spoke to the media when the prize was not immediately paid out to them.

Recorder Johnston said: "You had the audacity to plead your sense of injustice in the national newspapers subsequent to the fraud being uncovered."

She said their crime had deprived the next law-abiding customer to buy a scratch card in the Waitrose store of "a life-changing sum of money".

The court heard Goodram, of no fixed abode, had 24 previous convictions for 48 offences.

Robin Kitching, defending, said Goodram had longstanding addictions to drugs and alcohol.

He was sentenced to a further month for a Bail Act offence after failing to attend court in November.

Watson, of Nuttall Avenue, Little Lever, had 74 convictions for 143 previous offences and was jailed earlier this month for assault occasioning bodily harm and theft from a shop, the court heard.

Nicholas Ross, defending, said Watson understood his wrongdoing and, as a result of the case, found himself "shamed and ridiculed" by members of the public.

Its a shame the winning ticket didn't get sent to the guy whos card paid for the ticket.

Earwegoagain wrote:

Gotta feel sorry for these poor feckers,

Two men who bought a £4m-winning scratchcard with someone else's debit card details have been jailed for 18 months for fraud.

Jon Ross Watson, 34, and Mark Goodram, 38, bought the winning Red card in a Waitrose store in Clapham Common on 22 April 2019.

The pair pleaded guilty to three counts of fraud at Bolton Crown Court on Tuesday, where they had been due to stand trial.

Sentencing them, Recorder Sarah Johnson said: "You must have thought all of your Christmases had come at once. Despite knowing you had fraudulently acquired that prize money you tried to claim it."

The court was told that the men travelled from Bolton to London on Easter Monday in 2019, where they planned to go begging.

John Watson (left) and Mark Goodram were jailed for 18 months each this week

They then went to the Waitrose store, where they bought £71 worth of shopping, including five scratch cards, using the same method.

One of the cards had a prize of £10, which they claimed at the Londis store, while the other had the jackpot prize.

Watson phoned the National Lottery line at 10.50am and told the operator that his friend had won the jackpot.

Goodram came onto the line and said he would be sharing the prize with his friend, before being told the payment would be made by bank transfer, she said.

Ms Fitzpatrick said: "Mark Goodram explained he did not have a bank account. The purchase of the winning scratch card had been made by debit card from a bank account, however, which immediately raised suspicions."

'Shamed and ridiculed'

The court heard the pair spoke to the media when the prize was not immediately paid out to them.

Recorder Johnston said: "You had the audacity to plead your sense of injustice in the national newspapers subsequent to the fraud being uncovered."

She said their crime had deprived the next law-abiding customer to buy a scratch card in the Waitrose store of "a life-changing sum of money".

The court heard Goodram, of no fixed abode, had 24 previous convictions for 48 offences.

Robin Kitching, defending, said Goodram had longstanding addictions to drugs and alcohol.

He was sentenced to a further month for a Bail Act offence after failing to attend court in November.

Watson, of Nuttall Avenue, Little Lever, had 74 convictions for 143 previous offences and was jailed earlier this month for assault occasioning bodily harm and theft from a shop, the court heard.

Nicholas Ross, defending, said Watson understood his wrongdoing and, as a result of the case, found himself "shamed and ridiculed" by members of the public.

Its a shame the winning ticket didn't get sent to the guy whos card paid for the ticket.

Why because they used a nicked debit card, feck em serve them right

Graiser wrote:

Earwegoagain wrote:

Gotta feel sorry for these poor feckers,

Two men who bought a £4m-winning scratchcard with someone else's debit card details have been jailed for 18 months for fraud.

Jon Ross Watson, 34, and Mark Goodram, 38, bought the winning Red card in a Waitrose store in Clapham Common on 22 April 2019.

The pair pleaded guilty to three counts of fraud at Bolton Crown Court on Tuesday, where they had been due to stand trial.

Sentencing them, Recorder Sarah Johnson said: "You must have thought all of your Christmases had come at once. Despite knowing you had fraudulently acquired that prize money you tried to claim it."

The court was told that the men travelled from Bolton to London on Easter Monday in 2019, where they planned to go begging.

John Watson (left) and Mark Goodram were jailed for 18 months each this week

They then went to the Waitrose store, where they bought £71 worth of shopping, including five scratch cards, using the same method.

One of the cards had a prize of £10, which they claimed at the Londis store, while the other had the jackpot prize.

Watson phoned the National Lottery line at 10.50am and told the operator that his friend had won the jackpot.

Goodram came onto the line and said he would be sharing the prize with his friend, before being told the payment would be made by bank transfer, she said.

Ms Fitzpatrick said: "Mark Goodram explained he did not have a bank account. The purchase of the winning scratch card had been made by debit card from a bank account, however, which immediately raised suspicions."

'Shamed and ridiculed'

The court heard the pair spoke to the media when the prize was not immediately paid out to them.

Recorder Johnston said: "You had the audacity to plead your sense of injustice in the national newspapers subsequent to the fraud being uncovered."

She said their crime had deprived the next law-abiding customer to buy a scratch card in the Waitrose store of "a life-changing sum of money".

The court heard Goodram, of no fixed abode, had 24 previous convictions for 48 offences.

Robin Kitching, defending, said Goodram had longstanding addictions to drugs and alcohol.

He was sentenced to a further month for a Bail Act offence after failing to attend court in November.

Watson, of Nuttall Avenue, Little Lever, had 74 convictions for 143 previous offences and was jailed earlier this month for assault occasioning bodily harm and theft from a shop, the court heard.

Nicholas Ross, defending, said Watson understood his wrongdoing and, as a result of the case, found himself "shamed and ridiculed" by members of the public.

Its a shame the winning ticket didn't get sent to the guy whos card paid for the ticket.

Why because they used a nicked debit card, feck em serve them right

I did say at the end that the money should have gone to the guy whose card paid for the ticket but yes I do feel sorry for them.

A robot vacuum cleaner made a break for freedom after giving staff the slip at a Travelodge hotel.

The automated cleaner failed to stop at the front door of the hotel in Orchard Park in Cambridge on Thursday, and was still on the loose the following day.

Staff said it just kept going and "could be anywhere" while well-wishers on social media hoped the vacuum enjoyed its travels, as "it has no natural predators" in the wild.

It was found under a hedge on Friday.

Staff at the hotel posted the story of the robot vacuum's great escape on social media, asking for it to be returned, if found.

"Today we had one of our new robot vacuums run for its life," the assistant manager wrote.

"They normally sense the lip at the entrance [to the hotel] and turn around, but this one decided to make a run for it."

Its disappearance was not noticed for about 15 minutes and despite a search, it appeared the vacuum had made a clean break for it.

The assistant manager assumed it might have been found, and taken, and pointed out it was only compatible with the docking and charging station at the hotel, so was "useless" to anyone else.

While some readers joked about the robot's adventures, one feared for its safety in the great outdoors, pointing out that "nature abhors a vacuum".

However, much to everyone's relief, the device was found nestled under a hedge on Friday afternoon by a (human) hotel cleaner sprucing up the front drive.

It was dusted off and "is now back sitting happily on a shelf with the rest of its robot vacuum family", the hotel confirmed.

It's begun the robots are becoming self-aware.

"We don't know who struck first. Us, or the machines"

Nature abhors a vacuum lol.

I was reading earlier about a Saxon king called Egbert while only 12 inches tall he was useless as a warrior but made a great ruler.

Isn't Morrissey a moaning wanker? I see that he wrote an open letter to Johnny Marr asking him to stop using his name. I haven't seen or heard anything from Marr apart from his music which is awesome and unlike Morrissey he has had real longevity, Morrissey has never been as good as he thought he was and without Marr his music was the same old finger pointing angry dirge that the man himself has become. He's also furious with the Simpsons for daring to portray him as a twat with slightly right wing racist tendencies which he actually is. Go away and take your fooking Gladiolus with you.

Earwegoagain wrote:

Isn't Morrissey a moaning wanker? I see that he wrote an open letter to Johnny Marr asking him to stop using his name. I haven't seen or heard anything from Marr apart from his music which is awesome and unlike Morrissey he has had real longevity, Morrissey has never been as good as he thought he was and without Marr his music was the same old finger pointing angry dirge that the man himself has become. He's also furious with the Simpsons for daring to portray him as a twat with slightly right wing racist tendencies which he actually is. Go away and take your fooking Gladiolus with you.

the smiths made morrissey and his solo stuff sucks balls so i wouldnt be so quick to diss the 3 guys who helped put him on the map if i were morrissey. But hes always been a twat with strange views.

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They have found Shackleton's ship Endurance which has been lying in 10,000ft of water in the Weddell sea for 115 years! It's in incredible condition because of the lack of timber eating worms. They will leave it be as it's a monument or so something similar.
If you haven't already then read "Endurance" the story of Shackleton's Ill fated trip to the Antarctic the best story ever written about proper men and if fiction you'd declare it far fetched.
In a nice touch they found the wreck on the 100th anniversary of Shackleton's death in South Georgia, RIP the Boss. (Springsteen my arse).

A great story!

P&O Ferries to sack entire British workforce and replace with cheaper foreign and agency staff.

Extraordinary stuff! Can they even do this? I would have thought employment rights would have a field day!

POI wrote:

P&O Ferries to sack entire British workforce and replace with cheaper foreign and agency staff.

Extraordinary stuff! Can they even do this? I would have thought employment rights would have a field day!

seeing as its a british company i dont think they can do that without legal ramifications

They should be blacklegged by everyone in the UK disgraceful behaviour. They claim to be losing money hand over fist yet the parent company made £270m in dividend payments last year. Using Covid as an excuse to be cnuts imo. Even if they have to do this they could have phased this over say three months absolutely heartless twats.

Earwegoagain wrote:

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They have found Shackleton's ship Endurance which has been lying in 10,000ft of water in the Weddell sea for 115 years! It's in incredible condition because of the lack of timber eating worms. They will leave it be as it's a monument or so something similar.
If you haven't already then read "Endurance" the story of Shackleton's Ill fated trip to the Antarctic the best story ever written about proper men and if fiction you'd declare it far fetched.
In a nice touch they found the wreck on the 100th anniversary of Shackleton's death in South Georgia, RIP the Boss. (Springsteen my arse).

Incredible story, real men, where did it all go wrong? Can't believe the government of the day didn't demand at least one trans something be included in the crew.

Angry wrote:

POI wrote:

P&O Ferries to sack entire British workforce and replace with cheaper foreign and agency staff.

Extraordinary stuff! Can they even do this? I would have thought employment rights would have a field day!

Seeing as its a British company i dont think they can do that without legal ramifications

P&O Ferries is not British but owned by 'DP World' which it is a subsidiary of 'Emirati Multinational Logistics'. The company CEO is Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem and has it's HQ in Dubai.

There's gonna be a big stink as P&O claimed £150million in furlough payments when their ferries were tied up due to the Covid pandemic. Also, minibuses filled with Colombian seamen were said to be in a dockside car park waiting to go aboard ferries and take the redundant seamen's jobs.

Earwegoagain wrote:

They should be blacklegged by everyone in the UK disgraceful behaviour. They claim to be losing money hand over fist yet the parent company made £270m in dividend payments last year. Using Covid as an excuse to be cnuts imo. Even if they have to do this they could have phased this over say three months absolutely heartless twats.

Not sure of the technicalities in this particular case, but I do know you cannot simply make somebody redundant, then employ someone else to do their same job, straight away.

What happens a lot, is that the job role is dispensed with, then an employee is offered the chance to basically apply for their old job, under a new job description, and usually with a reduced salary and inferior terms and conditions, or, take the redundancy package. I’ve dealt with this sort of shit quite a lot, and it’s often very messy.

What is even more peculiar in this case though, is they don’t even appear to have offered the current staff the opportunity to keep their jobs via the outside agency, albeit that would be a bare-faced kick in the teeth.

Czarcasm wrote:

Earwegoagain wrote:

They should be blacklegged by everyone in the UK disgraceful behaviour. They claim to be losing money hand over fist yet the parent company made £270m in dividend payments last year. Using Covid as an excuse to be cnuts imo. Even if they have to do this they could have phased this over say three months absolutely heartless twats.

Not sure of the technicalities in this particular case, but I do know you cannot simply make somebody redundant, then employ someone else to do their same job, straight away.

What happens a lot, is that the job role is dispensed with, then an employee is offered the chance to basically apply for their old job, under a new job description, and usually with a reduced salary and inferior terms and conditions, or, take the redundancy package. I’ve dealt with this sort of shit quite a lot, and it’s often very messy.

What is even more peculiar in this case though, is they don’t even appear to have offered the current staff the opportunity to keep their jobs via the outside agency, albeit that would be a bare-faced kick in the teeth.

My wife had it done to her years ago it was called a consultation at the time, took about three months and they all lost their holiday's, that was a shitty sly thing to do this is just jaw droppingly bad.

Czarcasm wrote:

Earwegoagain wrote:

They should be blacklegged by everyone in the UK disgraceful behaviour. They claim to be losing money hand over fist yet the parent company made £270m in dividend payments last year. Using Covid as an excuse to be cnuts imo. Even if they have to do this they could have phased this over say three months absolutely heartless twats.

Not sure of the technicalities in this particular case, but I do know you cannot simply make somebody redundant, then employ someone else to do their same job, straight away.

What happens a lot, is that the job role is dispensed with, then an employee is offered the chance to basically apply for their old job, under a new job description, and usually with a reduced salary and inferior terms and conditions, or, take the redundancy package. I’ve dealt with this sort of shit quite a lot, and it’s often very messy.

What is even more peculiar in this case though, is they don’t even appear to have offered the current staff the opportunity to keep their jobs via the outside agency, albeit that would be a bare-faced kick in the teeth.

Compensation has been offered to the 'average' worker of something like £13,500 if they sign for that. However, if they fail to sign up to that it will be reduced to £3000.

Hugh Midde wrote:

Czarcasm wrote:

Earwegoagain wrote:

They should be blacklegged by everyone in the UK disgraceful behaviour. They claim to be losing money hand over fist yet the parent company made £270m in dividend payments last year. Using Covid as an excuse to be cnuts imo. Even if they have to do this they could have phased this over say three months absolutely heartless twats.

Not sure of the technicalities in this particular case, but I do know you cannot simply make somebody redundant, then employ someone else to do their same job, straight away.

What happens a lot, is that the job role is dispensed with, then an employee is offered the chance to basically apply for their old job, under a new job description, and usually with a reduced salary and inferior terms and conditions, or, take the redundancy package. I’ve dealt with this sort of shit quite a lot, and it’s often very messy.

What is even more peculiar in this case though, is they don’t even appear to have offered the current staff the opportunity to keep their jobs via the outside agency, albeit that would be a bare-faced kick in the teeth.

Compensation has been offered to the 'average' worker of something like £13,500 if they sign for that. However, if they fail to sign up to that it will be reduced to £3000.

Yeah I’m not up to speed with this case, but there are subtle differences based purely on the wording, that can dictate what you can and cannot do with regards to re-hiring. A ‘severance’ agreement rather than traditional redundancy can sometimes enable an employer to recruit against the person whose taken severance. But it is all a huge potential legal headache.

Red in the news today that P&O are to pay sacked employees from £15k with over forty people getting over £100k. Begs the question why they didn't offer them a severance package the day they sacked them?
Seems quite generous my wife got made redundant from a job shed been in for fourteen years after announcing she was pregnant and got about £750 and that was in the halcyon days of the EU.

Dubai World also have the contract to run the new Freeports, like the old failed Freeports but new, they should be fabulous places to work.