£1,700,000,000!  It looks bigger than £1.7 billion when you write it down in full. It makes the Euro Millions lottery look like small change.  As a red- faced Cameron bangs the table and fumbles for words, we just shrug in a ‘what’s new’ fashion. As Cameron blusters, EU leaders are queuing up to put the boot in, already threatening to hold back the UK’s £3 billion rebate.  Dave probably won’t roll over until he has found a few tweaks to the method used to calculate the extra payment. That should reduce the bill by a million or two. Then he’ll call it a negotiated reduction to show how he can change EU minds.  Meanwhile, Nigel Farage can’t wipe the smile off his face.  The bill from the EU couldn’t have come at a worse time for the Conservatives.  Nigel probably considers the demand as the cost to the Conservatives of the Rochester & Strood by-election.  And with Christmas on the horizon, can you imagine the greeting in one of the cards Cameron will receive?

Thank you for our Christmas present

                                                                        Angela & François

To compound the problem, Cadbury’s have decided to stop production of their gold foil wrapped chocolate coins, so one method of payment has disappeared!

   Tea with the Tony & Cherie Blair is available for offers over £5,000 in health spa Champneys charity auction for Pink Ribbon breast cancer.  They describe the tea as ‘a once in a lifetime experience’. They have a point. How often does anyone get the opportunity to discuss weapons of mass destruction over tea?  To date, there has not been a stampede to take up the offer.  There’s a surprise.  Maybe an early view of the Chilcot Report would have got a better response!  RIP Chilcot. Sadly, it’s a great charity that’s missing out until someone takes a punt.  Whoever does put up the money can always claim a sudden illness on the day!

    Lamps seized by police during raids on cannabis farms have been loaned to Rotherham Football Club to improve the grass in goalmouths.  The lamps are suspended on goalposts to provide extra heat to promote growth.  If a few seeds drop off the lamps it could produce a whole new meaning to scoring in Rotherham matches.  We can’t wait to see the quality of goal celebrations as the season progresses!  They could easily put Strictly Come Dancing in the shade. 

    Between us, our collection of useless, but sometimes interesting facts, never ends.  We’ve found some classic information from Birmingham’s Aston University this week.  They have found that public transport is a haven for bacteria.  The average square centimeter of seating on the underground yielded 1,390 micro-organisms.  As a comparison, a lavatory seat has around 50 per square centimeter.  During working days we were used to fighting for seats on rush hour trains.  We can only imagine that once this information spreads, the biggest battle will be to become first in the loo, with the door locked until you reach your destination. Clean seat, anyone?

    We can’t seem to avoid Russell Brand in the media for the last few days.  He’s written a book, which came as a surprise in itself.  Most of the critics have panned it and having heard him on television and radio, we can understand it.  I’m not sure if he uses a funny voice to answer questions he doesn’t like, or if he has a funny voice. The biggest shock in some ways is to see the time a programme like Newsnight devoted to the man.  Please come back Paxo!   Listening to Brands nonsense brought to mind a real philosopher.  I can’t imagine what the father of the field of logic would have made of the ramblings of Brand, but one of his sayings sums up the situation.

                        We are what we repeatedly do.

                                    Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

                                                                                                Aristotle

Take a look at Brand’s behaviour.  It tells more about the man than anything he writes!