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But all that pales besides the most disturbing aspect of your post. What on earth are you doing
chopping
basil? And in a
processor
?? Basil should always be
torn
, and
by hand
.
Otherwise you completely destroy the flavour. And if you were making pesto (
British
pine kernels best) then a mortar and pestle gives much better results.
Our country may be on the verge of bankruptcy, our business leaders devoid of any moral compass, our great sport may be in terminal decline….
..but that’s got me laughing.
Pinza,
Where can I buy a Pestle amd Morter that is made in England. I think you are right about tearing the Basil.
But all that pales besides the most disturbing aspect of your post. What on earth are you doing chopping basil? And in a processor?? Basil should always be torn, and by hand.
Otherwise you completely destroy the flavour. And if you were making pesto (British pine kernels best) then a mortar and pestle gives much better results.
Nice one.
The Register has:
"Betfair suffered a brief outage this morning – one of several glitches the site has suffered in recent weeks.The problems at the betting exchange have alarmed customers, who could get stuck with an open position which they cannot close.
An unusually helpful spokeswoman at Betfair explained the problems were related to moving the site’s data centres to Ireland earlier in the year.
She said: "Because Betfair works 24 hours a day, seven days a week, we can’t just put updates on at night. And because of the move to Dublin we had to put a freeze on upgrades to the site.
"We did anticipate some wrinkles as we dealt with the backlog of improvements after the move. We’ve had about 30 releases to push through – a really intense period of activity – and a short window to get them done before spring racing starts."
She said no one had felt the problems as keenly as Betfair staff but that the betting exchange had picked its moment as best it could.
Betfair is now licensed in Gibraltar but remains headquartered in Britain for tax purposes – it employs 1,200 people in the UK. It hopes to take its betting exchange business to the US soon."
See: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/08/betfair_quarters_gibraltar/
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Where can I buy a Pestle amd Morter that is made in England. I think you are right about tearing the Basil.
Good man.
There’s a nice, simple "junior slopes" model here, in
echt
Leicestershire Stoneware, for a mere £3.99:
http://www.dunelm-mill.com/shop/stonewa … stle-85965
For a luxury fashion statement in Grampian Granite (£39.99), there’s this:
http://www.torquato.co.uk/giant-granite … estle.html
But it won’t do the job any better.
- Total Posts 17716
Everybody should be patriotic like Nigel Farradge.
But how do you achieve this ?
Through "taxation without representation" ?
Through market restrictions and minimum effort to become competitive ?If we do these things then what is the difference with China and madame Mao ?
The infamous German Hermann Goerig who was quite eager to talk to his captors said "we lost the were because we nationalized aircraft production" and "the Meschermidt designers failed while the British Spitfires produced by private industry were a lot better". It does seem of course like everybody has a "Germany lost the war because …" personal favourite, but that one was Goerig’s – who was a wise man in his time even though you may accuse him about everything.
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Everybody should be patriotic like Nigel Farradge.
Better still, we could import your countryman Aristotelis Kalentzis, the infamous National Socialist horse archer. What an alliance. Between them they’d sort everything out, no trouble I’m sure (not). Certainly no ethnic minorities left to worry about.[attachment=0:21thz14z]KASSAI_22_-490×600.jpg[/attachment:21thz14z]
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Everybody should be patriotic like Nigel Farradge.
Better still, we could import your countryman Aristotelis Kalentzis, the famous National Socialist horse archer. What an alliance. Between them they’d sort everything out, no trouble I’m sure. Certainly no ethnic minorities left to worry about.[attachment=0:1hbe9lmw]KASSAI_22_-490×600.jpg[/attachment:1hbe9lmw]
Aristotelis Kalentzis indeed.
I did n’t know of him but it looks fun now that I googled him.
I will tell everybody about it.
Nigel Farradge is not nat. soc., is he ?The ultra right are against betting on horses though.
This appears a common thing they have with the left.
When I was small my uncle told me that in the USSR if you had 13 correct football results, they were giving you a pair of sneakers.Threenaps,
Like you, I’m a keen value hunter, and like you, an educated consumer. You wouldn’t buy cheap toilet rolls made from illegally sourced timber, I know, when you could buy toilet rolls sourced from sustainable forests. Who would nowadays?
Last week, there was a 6f handicap with six runners at Lingfield. The winner walked away with around £1,400 and the placed horses rather less. Total trade on Betfair for that race approached
£1million.
That included on-course hedging, high street hedging, client backs, client lays, two way trades and in-running business from the track.
The £1 million total generated by the race did not include traditional win bets made with on course bookmakers, high street bookmakers, online levy paying bookmakers, Gibraltarian parasites, the Tote, other minor exchanges and illegal layers. Nor did it include business where the winner of the race was included in multiple bets.
The winner of the horse race received around £1,400. Just to remind.
Consumers are thinking more and more about where their products come from and the impact of production on areas such as the environment and local culture. Commodities such as coffee, chocolate and other items (basil?)
As a keen consumer of horse racing I look at the figures above and they are simply wrong. They jar. There is something wrong with them. They shout the words "completely unsustainable position" from the rooftop.
Therefore, I made a decision as a consumer not to bet with Betfair. Now they have left Britain, I am even less likely to bet with Betfair in the future. That’s my choice as a consumer – about the strongest personal power I have left.
As a
gambler,
I have lost time and time again when I see the Betfair odds available on horses I fancy – particularly, as in your example, on outsiders. Betfair is far and away the best environment to back outsiders.
But I’m just not confident or comfortable that the above equation – and Betfair’s part in creating the equation – will sustain and develop the sport I love. It’s not just about price.
Thanks Pinza,I have now ordered one.
Maxilon 5, I understand that you are saying Betfair will no longer contribute as much into the only sport I follow and they will continue to profit from, and this being unacceptable to you, you will not give them your cash and now bet elsewhere. This is commendable. As you say you are exercising the power you have, consumer choice.
I am not a person that makes large bets, and it would take a huge amount of people like me to take their small bets somewhere else before Betfair would notice a small dent in their profits.
On Oddschecker there are numerous bookmakers and some other exchanges available to place bets with or lay horses also.
Which ones are still registered in England, pay taxes here, and contribute properly into racing?
Also who owns these companies, does their dividends paid end up outside England and benefit other economies? There is nothing wrong with that unless those profits are helping support regimes that are unacceptable.
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It is not really in the interest of the states to drive away punters through high taxation. It is not in the interest of other professionals in the racing industry to grab excessive money for the pool either, i.e. owners, trainers, jockeys.
The racing industry is funded by the punters and only occasionally by advertising revenue.
The group of people who bet on the races has two salient properties, size and mean life. With the lowest prices, such as those advocated by European monopolies, people are driven away and the fact that it is not the tax announcements as such that trigger them to leave is unimportant.Let me tell you a story that sounds a little crazy but it’s true.
In the summer 2009 a real big surtax of 10% was announced. As a result the high street agents went on strike for one day because they thought it too heavy. On the day the strike had 100% success but there was one company owned shop that stayed open, because it is operated by company employees and it is not part of the agent’s network.
I already knew the advisers of the finance minister had advised him thus "tax them because they are idiots and they can’t tell the difference". I knew of this because somehow it was leaked to the press.
So I went there to see what happens.
The place was crammed. The heatwave was such that tropical bacteria were having a party, but it was jam crammed. Even if I wanted to bet myself, against good judgment, it was impossible.
I said to myself "those folks here are likely to be dyed in the wool supporters of the ministry’s taxation measures so let’s not agitate them", but when some of them spoke to me they said they were against the tax and the minister "was a thief" !
I departed in despair.
The ministry’s adviser’s were 100% correct and it was a triumph for the communication experts working for the government.One year later however what was the picture ?
It was state revenue from horse racing down by 50%.
It seems to me that it did n’t work so well and it’s like this:You and I are about to start on a journey through the Gobbi desert each with his own vehicle.
There is n’t enough petrol and you quit, you don’t start the journey.
Me, the fool, decides to have a go.
Am I going to make it through the desert ?- Total Posts 17716
Also who owns these companies, does their dividends paid end up outside England and benefit other economies? There is nothing wrong with that unless those profits are helping support regimes that are unacceptable.
"Unacceptable regimes" that allow horse racing and betfair ?
That’s got to be something for the book !The truth is no company at this moment pays tax for cross border betting to the client’s country (Italy maybe ?).
That’s the common practice in commerce.
If you buy 1000 rotating fans from Germany, UK gets no VAT. Germany does. Also no one asks the electrical company "how much you got from Greek-British-Portuguese customers this year".
In betting matters the current thinking among Eurocrats is that this has to somehow be modified. But they are trying to do it by victimizing the punter.- Total Posts 17716
If you buy 1000 rotating fans from Germany, UK gets no VAT. Germany does. Also no one asks the electrical company "how much you got from Greek-British-Portuguese customers this year"
Do Greece and UK mean the same thing by VAT? So in the hypothetical case you cite, the German government receives tax on the
wholesale
price, and the UK government receives tax on the
retail
price when the fans are resold here.
The only person who pays is the end consumer, because the retail company can claim back the tax it paid to Germany against the tax owing to UK. Thus, Value
Added
Tax.
As to how any of this relates to Betfair’s avoidance of tax it should morally be paying, as a British registered company operating in the virtual world and with a Head Office here, but technical operating centres in Ireland and Gibraltar where the tax regimes are currently more favourable … well, I don’t quite see what your point is, Froddo.
Are we confusing (1) UK taxation with (2) Levy contributions? These are two different things, and Betfair’s contribution to UK Racing is essentially on a voluntary basis anyway.
Hasn’t Greece opted for a 30% gross profits tax over a 6% turnover tax. That’s the lesser of two evils since anything is better than taxing turnover. Racing, I believe, favour a return to levying turnover which tells you all you need to know about them.
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Hasn’t Greece opted for a 30% gross profits tax over a 6% turnover tax. That’s the lesser of two evils since anything is better than taxing turnover. Racing, I believe, favour a return to levying turnover which tells you all you need to know about them.
Why is a turnover tax "the lesser of two evils"? There seems to be an assumption here that we all object to paying any tax at all, for anything, but leaving that red herring aside, why is a turnover tax so much more iniquitous than a Gross Profits tax?
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Pinza there is no such thing as a morality in commerce and nobody pays more than they have to.
The principle of the thing is that those taxes should be as light as possible, because you and I the consumers are losers to start off. We start with -x percent of our capital and depending on the outler x varies from 25% to 5%.
If you open a shop and there are n’t as many customers as you expected then at the end of the year you will have to pay in taxes more than you earned. It happens everyday and those shops close down. But if the tax is light you may scrape home and don’t close down.
Most national gambling authorities and legislators do not understand. They think it’s no problem, the housewives returning home from the day’s shopping will spend a few coins for fun, and that’s how we ‘re going to raise revenue. They keep saying this thing ad nauseum but of course the system does n’t even remotely work like that. The real game needs the big time investor and without such it’s curtains.The fairest system might be to leave bettor’s winnings untouched. The companies then should have to keep separate books by territory. So Betfair, or it’s appointed representative rather, will have to pay some tax in UK, some in Spain, some in Greece and so on. And this tax should be based on profit of course, not gross volume of business.
If we in Greece don’t really like betfair, then let’s start our own exchange from scratch. We have computer experts from Cambridge-Oxford on the dole (!) and the ancient Greeks used to say "this is the bright stadium of glory", when they wanted to compel someone to do work.The tax proposals I hear from some of the "enhusiasts" are outlandish.
In one such last summer, the winners percentage in horse racing was going to be less than 70% of the total receipts. Those who supported it were probably able economic experts but novices in the field of sports betting and with such a system no race course can last it out form more than a few months, if such a ruling took effect today.- Total Posts 17716
Hasn’t Greece opted for a 30% gross profits tax over a 6% turnover tax. That’s the lesser of two evils since anything is better than taxing turnover. Racing, I believe, favour a return to levying turnover which tells you all you need to know about them.
They talked about 9% tax based on businees volume, then 6%, then 20% on profits (the latest).
The other thing might come to similar levels I suppose (I don’t fully understand your terminology).
Greece has to hand out some licences because Brussels now say that governments of member states may regulate things in their territories, but keeping a monopoly structure is no longer desirable.The funny thing about Greece is they are seemingly trying to tax the old national monopoly companies more than the foreign newcomers !
At the same time they will of course start applying censorship to the non-complying companies, using various kinds of filters.But there are also calls for censoring content of sports related websites, because they may have bookie advertisements.
Next week we are going to have some Cheltenham races in the national betting network, as those will be routed to us via the French PMU with whom we have partnership.
If I go to a horse racing agent next week and say "please let me see the racing post about Cheltenham" the house rule forbids it beacuse rp has bookie ads ! Many will let me but those who want to go by the book will not !
So when I say it’s dictatorial system like Franco-Salazar, it really is.
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