Sunday Service - UK National Debt - how Britain owes over £1 trillion

The debt bombshell website spells it out accurately. We are stuffed. See here for more. I have taken their front page figures and statement below.

It's a truly frightening figure. Why is the world's sixth richest country so deeply in debt?

Every year the UK runs a large budget deficit. The Government spends more money than it can tax, so we plug the gap by selling bonds to investors at home and abroad. These bonds - known as gilts - have to be repaid in full, with interest. Added together, our unpaid loans make up the UK's national debt.



Right now, that debt is growing violently. The Government forecasts it will soar to an eye-watering £1.5 trillion by 2016. To put that in perspective, the UK went bust in 1976 running a budget deficit of 6% of GDP. In 2012 that deficit is going to top 8.9%.

Historically, our debt burden was heavier after World War II. But like any loan, if the money isn't invested wisely we end up borrowing even more. When the Government runs up huge debts and produces nothing to show for it, we're the ones that shoulder the burden. This year that burden will grow by £138 billion.



The state has been wasting our money for decades. Weak politicians have bribed voters with endless amounts of borrowed cash. As a result, in 2012 the interest on the national debt will cost £44.8 billion a year. That's more than we spend on defence, and not much less than the entire education budget.

Future generations won't thank us for mortgaging their future. At best, national debt will be a millstone round our children's necks. But if lenders lose faith in Britain there could be profound consequences for our currency, our country and our lives.

Read on for the complete guide to Britain's debt »

What's the answer? I have no idea but the current coalition idea of carrying on spending and printing money won't work. Especially when pensioners, savers and everyone else are getting relatively poorer every year in large part because of the money printing.

Saturday Kitchen - Poached pears in spiced red wine

This is good stuff as a pudding and is fat free





Ingredients - this recipe serves 6.

1 vanilla pod

1 bottle red wine

225g caster sugar

1 cinnamon stick , halved

fresh thyme sprig , plus sprigs to serve

6 pears , peeled, but kept whole with stalk intact

Method -

Halve the vanilla pod lengthways, scrape out the black seeds and put in a large saucepan with the wine, sugar, cinnamon and thyme. Cut each piece of pod into three long thin strips, add to pan, then lower in the pears.
Poach the pears, covered, for 20-30 mins, making sure they are covered in the wine. The cooking time will very much depend on the ripeness of your pears - they should be tender all the way through when pierced with a cocktail stick. You can make these up to 2 days ahead and chill.

Take the pears from the pan, then boil the liquid to reduce it by half so that it's syrupy. Serve each pear with the cooled syrup, a strip of vanilla, a piece of cinnamon and a small thyme sprig.

Per serving

235 kcalories, protein 0g, carbohydrate 51g, fat 0 g, saturated fat 0g, fibre 2g, sugar 51g, salt 0.3 g

See the BBC Good Food website for more details.

Fact Friday - A monkey was once tried and convicted for smoking a cigarette in South Bend, Indiana. 30 more.

For Your Warehouse of Useless Knowledge. Not entirely sure how true these all are!

1) 1,525,000,000 miles of telephone wire a strung across the U.S.

2) 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

3) 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily.

4) 123,000,000 cars are being driven down the U.S's highways.

5) 160 cars can drive side by side on the Monumental Axis in Brazil, the world's widest road.

6) 166,875,000,000 pieces of mail are delivered each year in the U.S.

7) 27% of U.S. male college students believe life is "A meaningless existential hell."

8) 315 entries in Webster's Dictionary will be misspelled.

9) 5% of Canadians don't know the first 7 words of the Canadian anthem, but know the first 9 of the American anthem.

10) 56,000,000 people go to Major League baseball each year.

11) 7% of Americans don't know the first 9 words of the American anthem, but know the first 7 of the Canadian anthem.

12) 85,000,000 tons of paper are used each year in the U.S.

13) 99% of the solar systems mass is concentrated in the sun.

14) A 10-gallon hat barely holds 6 pints.

15) A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.

16) A cockroach can live several weeks with its head cut off.

17) A company in Taiwan makes dinnerware out of wheat, so you can eat your plate.

18) A cow produces 200 times more gas a day than a person.

19) A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.

20) A dragonfly has a lifespan of 24 hours.

21) A fully loaded supertanker travelling at normal speed takes a least twenty minutes to stop.

22) A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue.

23) A giraffe can go without water longer than a camel can.

24) A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.

25) A hard working adult sweats up to 4 gallons per day. Most of the sweat evaporates before a person realizes it's there.

26) A hedgehog's heart beats 300 times a minute on average.

27) A hippo can open its mouth wide enough to fit a 4 foot tall child inside.

28) A hummingbird weighs less than a penny.

29) A jellyfish is 95 percent water.

30) A "jiffy" is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.

More daft facts here.

Thursday Drinks Cabinet - Port - can't be beaten when with good cheese.

I had some port the other evening at a dinner party with good cheese. You can't beat that combination. It is lovely.




Port wine is a Portuguese fortified wine produced exclusively in the Douro Valley in the northern provinces of Portugal. It is typically a sweet, red wine, often served as a dessert wine, and comes in dry, semi-dry, and white varieties.
Port is produced from grapes grown and processed in the demarcated Douro region. The wine produced is then fortified by the addition of a neutral grape spirit known as aguardente in order to stop the fermentation, leaving residual sugar in the wine, and to boost the alcohol content. The fortification spirit is sometimes referred to as brandy but it bears little resemblance. The wine is then stored and aged, often in barrels stored in a cave as is the case in Vila Nova de Gaia, before being bottled.




The wine received its name, "port", in the latter half of the 17th century from the seaport city of Porto at the mouth of the Douro River, where much of the product was brought to market or for export to other countries in Europe. The Douro valley where port wine is produced was defined and established as a protected region, or appellation in 1756, making it the oldest defined and protected wine region in the world.
The English have played a key role in port eg. what was to become Warre was set up by Englishman John Clark in 1670, Croft was founded in 1678, Quarles Harris in 1680 and Taylor’s in 1692.




See here for detailed information on Port from BBR.
Port comes in all shapes and sizes and prizes. Go on give it a go.
Tip: Also amazing with chocolate.

Wednesdays Joke of the Week - Part 4 - eg Four fonts walk into a bar the barman says ''Oi - get out! We don't want your type in here''

31. So I went to the Chinese restaurant and this duck came up to me with a red rose and says ''Your eyes sparkle like diamonds''. I said, ''Waiter, I asked for a-ROMATIC duck''.

32. Four fonts walk into a bar the barman says ''Oi - get out! We don't want your type in here''

33. I was having dinner with Garry Kasporov (world chess champion) and there was a check tablecloth. It took him two hours to pass me the salt.

34. There was a man who entered a local paper's pun contest.. He sent in ten different puns, in the hope that at least one of the puns would win. Unfortunately, no pun in ten did.

35. I went down the local supermarket, I said, ''I want to make a complaint, this vinegar's got lumps in it'', he said, "Those are pickled onions''.

36. I backed a horse last week at ten to one. It came in at quarter past four.

37. I swear, the other day I bought a packet of peanuts, and on the packet it said ''may contain nuts.'' Well, YES! That's what I bought the buggers for! You'd be annoyed if you opened it and a socket set fell out!''

38. A lorry-load of tortoises crashed into a trainload of terrapins, What a turtle disaster

39. My phone will ring at 2 in the morning, and my wife'll look at me and go, ''Who's that calling at this time?' ''I don't know! If I knew that we wouldn't need the bloody phone!''

40. I said to this train driver ''I want to go to Paris". He said ''Eurostar?'' I said, ''I've been on telly but I'm no Dean Martin''.

Jokes courtesy of newslite.