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Spooky, this literally just came through for us, maybe it was prompted by the forum post? 

You're very welcome sir 

I've got to get this in quick before Clive comes back from holiday and resumes the helm once more of customer service and review moderation, repairing all my damage 

I don't get to do much review moderation, so it's been quite good fun filling in and no doubt I'll get into trouble, but here's some of my favourite ones in the last week or so

Poor old Royal Mail seems to get a lot of flak...

I don't know, why?

HMRC are another good source of upset people. Liked the fact he signed it "Fed up"

Royal Mail getting some more flak 

Parcels kicked down the street by children?? Where do you live? Time to move house 

Then I had a look at our reviews. I reckon our man Clive has been bribing people, because we haven't had a single review since he went on holiday!

Clive you are fantastic??? What exactly were you doing?  Suspicious review if I ever saw one...

Oh gawd, who rattled the lefties  

Originally Posted by Rebecca (PayforPrecision)

“Yay, we can blame the Tories, I KNEW it! 

I do feel for the dairy farmers, it must be a nightmare job at the moment. I heard that the Morrison's milk costs 23p more but only 10p goes to the farmers....”

My understanding is that the retail price of a litre of milk will go up by 10p, all of which will go back to the farmers. According to the original BBC article:

"The Milk for Farmers brand means a four pint bottle (2.27 litres), which now sells for 89p, will cost an extra 23p."

I suspect this is where the 23p figure has come from. So farmers will receive 23p for each Four pint plastic cartoon you buy.

Or have I got that wrong? 

Hi Emerald, appreciate your passion for Forever Living, but we keep self promotion contained in the Village Market, rather on other peoples threads. 

I'm sure if First Aid is interested, he will PM you or get in touch.

What an unbelievable statement, "ok supplier, if we have to, we'll pay you a little bit more than it costs you to produce it"! Imagine if everyone treated suppliers like that! Trouble is, if they unite, then the supermarkets simply import from overseas, and we all moan about the prices going up.

Interesting listening to one farmer on the telly who was lamenting the passing of the Milk Marketing Board, which was apparently scrapped by the Tories in the 90's. The idea was that the Milk Marketing Board which was set up in the 1930's would decide the price of milk, guaranteeing a minimum price for farmers.

But the Tories argued it should be left to Global market forces, allowing competition, which is why the MMB was scrapped.

Just looked on wikipedia and remember some slogans from my youth:

"full of natural goodness", "is your man getting enough?", "milk's gotta lotta bottle" (written by the advertising executive Rod Allen), and "drinka pinta milka day". In the 1980s, they ran the "Accrington Stanley, Who Are They?"

So with the benefit of hindsight, was it wrong to scrap the MMB, and is the answer to reinstate it? Or does that go against our free economy principles?

Been reading with interest different spin and peoples interpretation, since the news broke on Monday that the Google business is being broken up into subsidiaries that will come under a newly created parent company called "Alphabet". Not Skynet as prophesied by some  

If you haven't heard, then you can you read the official announcement on the Google/Alphabet blog: G is for Google

It actually makes a lot of sense and I've said in the past that I think Googles real long term future will be in automation, ie it's self driving car business which it has spent years pioneering, drones and the inevitable quest for AI.

But Google search is the huge money spinner that can bankroll some of these amazing and incredibly expensive projects.

So Larry and Serg are handing the reigns of their baby over to a new CEO, while they concentrate their efforts on Alphabet and it's many projects.

It's an enviable position, they have pretty much infinite resources at their disposal to pursue whatever ground breaking technology takes their fancy, capable of innovating and creating a market place from scratch, that few competitors will be able to keep pace with. Which in turn will ensure continued market dominance, providing more revenue to pursue ever bigger projects and ambitions.

From a business owner and techie perspective, you can't help but be a bit jealous, and in awe. But also just a little nervous. Maybe the day of Skynet has just inched a little closer? How much power will Alphabet wield in 10, 20, 30 years?

How about a little game. How long do you think it will take for a simple 1 page website called Alphabet to get established and generate some traffic?

Particularly when it was set up by the founders of Google  

SEO wise, not too much on-page content. Interesting URL: https://abc.xyz/

Good news is, it's mobile friendly 

Good to see they have been following the Google guidelines. Wonder how long before they get some SEO consultancy emails from India?

Here is the current stats from Alexa, be interesting to see how quickly that changes 

I reckon it will break the Alexa 100,000 rank in 30 days. Any other wagers?

This is my kind of story

Bruce Dickinson, front man legend of Iron Maiden and very experienced pilot, was tootling about in his World War 1 Fokker Triplane of Red Baron fame, when he looked at his fuel gauge and went "Cor blimey", well maybe he said that, I just made that bit up.

But he was running low on fuel so diverted to RAF Halton which is a training base, but under a system called the Strasser Scheme, all RAF airfields and 99% of civilian ones will let any aircraft land in an emergency and let them have fuel.

What an amazing plane!

Image courtesy of the RAF

RAF managed to get a bit of PR out of it  What ho chaps...

Squadron Leader Gary Coleman, Officer Commanding Operations Squadron at RAF Halton, said “We applaud Bruce Dickinson’s decision to divert into RAF Halton rather than press to his destination with potentially low fuel. To see such a well-regarded pilot, and world-renowned rock singer, make this decision is great for our student pilots to see – it makes them realise that anyone can find themselves low on fuel due to unforeseen circumstances and that the right decision is to divert."

raf.mod.uk - Iron Maiden Lands at Halton

Stirring stuff

So Morrisons will introduce a repackaged brand of milk that will be 10p a litre more expensive, but this will be passed directly to Dairy farmers.

Like most people, I like getting a good deal from the supermarkets, so it seems to go against the grain to voluntarily pay more for an identical product you get cheaper on the next shelf.

Also it's hard to stomach with a business head on, when the cause is over supply, from a variety of reasons, when we all live and work to a supply and demand principle.

But I'm also concious farming is not an easy life, and it's not the sort of business you can quickly set up. If we lose dairy herds or any type of farms or food producers, they are not easily replaced when demand changes in the future, and we end up reliant on importing milk from Poland.

There's a great infographic on the Beeb site which I've borrowed below, but it visually shows the issue.

Image courtesy of the BBC

For consumers where times are hard, then every penny counts, then an extra 10p per litre is a big ask. 

I'm going to try to, for me it feels like the right thing to do, but it will be interesting to see what the reaction is of the British public over the weeks and months, and if the other big supermarkets follow suit.

This is also a superb marketing coup for Morrisons, which my cynical side is trying to suppress, and I hope we don't have  a story breaking in about 5 years where it was revealed only 5p went to the farmers 

But what do you think, is it a good idea? Would/will you pay an extra 10p for your milk?

Or do you believe the industry as a whole should simply pair fairer prices in the supply chain, with the obvious increase in prices for consumers?

I couldn't believe this when I heard it on the news today.

So the airport departure shops and concessions have been pocketing some of the VAT money that we are charged when buying your book, suncream or whatever.

They always ask you for your boarding pass, which I assumed was some kind of pointless security exercise, but it's actually to establish if you are flying outside the EU. If you are, the retailer can pocket the VAT element as there is no requirement to pass it on to HMRC.

The Independent newspaper is reporting a grassroots campaign of people refusing to show their boarding pass to retailers, and boycotting those that refuse to serve them.

According to the BBC

Treasury minister David Gauke said VAT relief at airports was intended to reduce prices for travellers.

He warned it was not meant to provide a windfall gain for shops.

Passengers do not legally have to show their boarding pass when buying goods at the airport.

Absolute sharks! Then on the radio there was a spokesman from WH Smiths trying to justify it by saying how can we separate VAT from travellers inside or outside the EU? Well you seemed to be doing it already by checking boarding cards and pocketing the cash!

I suspect there will be a big backlash from this and we shall witness people power in action 

So it looks like a Greek bail out deal has been just about agreed, to stop them going bust by the next deadline which is August 20th.

The new deal would see them receive £60bn which should see them through 3 years, and let them pay the previous bailout repayments.

Borrowing money to pay back money? Sounds like a teenager who has gone off the financial rails and the bank are about to cut their cards up.

I wonder how this thread will read in 3 years time, or if Greece will be able to turn things round. At least it looks like the Euro is secure for a little while longer.

Greece says bailout deal broadly agreed - BBC News