Oztalgian

Today is our winter solstice but as we a short on henges here we're all off to the pub. The sun is on its way back to see us for summer, yay! For those that like a technical explanation tomorrow there will be a whole two seconds longer daylight than today.

A scrambled 1-1 draw with Denmark, who are not in FIFA's top twenty is hardly championship winning form.

The bookies have tipped Forest to finish 17th next season so according to them it will be another difficult season.

England had an emphatic win over the West Indies by eight wickets in St Lucia. Phil Salt scored 87 not out off 47 balls. Next up South Africa who managed a tight win over the USA earlier in the day.

Having looked at the manifestos of the leading parties, at the history of the "leaders" and their past performances and U turns. Looking at the state of the UK at the moment, everything is broken or at best barely functioning. I have to question who would want to be the Prime Minister? Whichever party is elected its leader and everyone in the cabinet are on a hiding to nothing. To fix some of the major issues it is patently obvious that taxes are going to have to rise and inevitable that services are going to be reduced through all levels of government. Anyone that is telling you otherwis

Even though I was brought up in a North Notts mining village thankfully I never worked down the pits. Sadly I have lost family and friends to diseases brought on by the conditions underground and even a few to accidents.

The 2024/25 fixtures are out Forest start the season at home against Bournemouth on 17 August Their first away game is against Southampton on 24th August. Home a week later versus Wolves Not a too difficult start to the season. The first local Derby is at Leicester on 27 Oct. Stags Fixtures are being released on 22 June We have to wait until 26th June for the Magpies fixtures to be released.

I did one careers visit down one of our local pits and said "Not bl**dy likely". In the mid sixties I started as a toolmaking apprentice on 4pounds 3shillings and 11pence a week. First year fitters and sparkies were on 20 quid down t' pit

All the manifesto's sound a bit like "Billy's Weekly Liar" to me. Is it still going?

To be honest, pretty pi$$ed off. Something is eating my pansies and marigolds, the first suspect was snails and slugs and as we have visitors with dogs I can't put any baits down. I reverted to using some empty butter plastic cartons and carefully sunk so the top was at ground level and dutifully put some beer in them as they are supposed to be attracted to the yeast. I used a cheap supermarket own brand called Smithy's Bitter. Checked them this morning, nothing, so it must be caterpillars or something else, possums or even rats. I tasted the "cheap" beer and it was the nearest thing

I thought it was Malcolm

After a scrappy 1-0 win against Serbia, you must be having a laugh!

Australia just managed to beat Scotland with two balls to spare means England have qualified for the last eight. England now meet the West Indies, South Africa and the USA which sets up the four semi finalists.

My experience here is that you have your MRI and CT scans, the radiographers do the report and the report and scans are available to the specialist via a log in to the system within about two hours. I wonder what takes so long in the UK? Is the NHS so overwhelmed, understaffed or just inefficient.

Thanks DJ. This guy is as good a satirist as I have seen in a long time. If you take away the sweary bits he reminds me of David Frost

Didn't the MGO B8 from Huntington Street go right past Bestwood pit. Mind you it was a bit of a Tour de Notts on that one.

Tesla Model Y is the best-selling car in the world for 2023 having sold 1,223,000 units. I find this surprising because the ones I have looked at had awful build quality, ill-fitting panels with unequal panel gaps, very sparsely painted areas, loose and mismatched colours on interior trim. Tesla Model 3 was the tenth best selling with 508,000 units Toyota RAV4 came in second with 1,076,000 units, no doubt many of these were the hybrid version. Toyota had 5 of the top 10 best-selling vehicles worldwide. BYD Auto Co manufacturing only all electric and hybrid vehicles had 3 of the top s

What do the football fans think of England's chances in the European Championship starting this week?

Babbington pit did not close until 1986, as did Hucknall No 2 pit Babbington was within the city boundary. Linby closed in 1988, Gedling closed in 1991 and Calverton in 1993. All could be accessed by public transport even if it took some time.

Now that beats both Tim Tams and Penguins

Noodling? Catching catfish by hand or in OZ looking through mullock heaps to find any missed pieces of opal. I tend to "bimble" around on the internet.

The leader of the opposition has just come back from shopping. She has treated me with a Penguin biscuit and a Tunnocks Caramel Wafer Biscuit for afternoon tea. Tunnocks Wafer biscuits are exactly as I remember them and I used to love Tunnocks Teacakes and Snowballs. Now it comes to answering the biggest chocolate biscuit question of all. Are British Penguin biscuits better than Aussie Arnotts Tim Tams? In a back to back taste test I declare Tim Tams are better. Penguins are longer in length but the chocolate on the Tim Tam to me is smoother, creamier and has more of a chocolate flavour

Could it have been home made with ginger essence which was available from most chemists and at the CO-OP then?

My Grandad did that and the paper was always the Nottingham Evening Post. If you did that today you would have a multi coloured bum as the printing ink comes off the newspapers really easily today.

Good point Stuart. C. When we did ours it was an Australian government doctor in the UK and in those days the where with all to fake documents was not as easy to come by.