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10 Downing Street is one of the most heavily guarded buildings in Britain. Apart from the decorative policeman, the front door cannot be opened at all from the outside because it has no handle, and no one can enter the building without passing through an airport-style scanner and a set of security gates manned by armed guards.

In the first five years after Tony Blair became Prime Minister, 37 computers, 4 mobile phones, two cameras, a mini-disc player, a video recorder, four printers, two projectors and a bicycle were stolen from inside the house.

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If you can work out what these words have in common, you are a lot smarter than I am.

Banana
Dresser
Grammar
Potato
Revive
Uneven
Assess

Are you peeking or have you already given up?
Give it another try . . .

You will kick yourself when you discover the answer.
Go back and look at them again; think hard.

OK . . . Here You Go . . . now check your answer under the cartoon below
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Answer:

In all of the words listed, if you take the first letter, place it at the end of the word, and then spell the word backwards, it will be the same word.

Letter written by a farmer:

Rt Hon David Miliband MP
Secretary of State,
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA),

16 May 2007

Dear Secretary of State,

My friend, who is in farming at the moment, recently received a cheque for £3,000 from the Rural Payments Agency for not rearing pigs.

I would now like to join the "not rearing pigs" business.

In your opinion, what is the best kind of farm not to rear pigs on, and which is the best breed of pigs not to rear? I want to be sure I approach this endeavour in keeping with all government policies, as dictated by the EU under the Common Agricultural Policy.

I would prefer not to rear bacon pigs, but if this is not the type you want not rearing, I will just as gladly not rear porkers.

Are there any advantages in not rearing rare breeds such as Saddlebacks or Gloucester Old Spots, or are there too many people already not rearing these?

As I see it, the hardest part of this programme will be keeping an accurate record of how many pigs I haven't reared. Are there any Government or Local Authority courses on this?

My friend is very satisfied with this business. He has been rearing pigs for forty years or so, and the best he ever made on them was £1,422 in 1968.
That is - until this year, when he received a cheque for not rearing any.

If I get £3,000 for not rearing 50 pigs, will I get £6,000 for not rearing 100?

I plan to operate on a small scale at first, holding myself down to about 4,000 pigs not raised, which will mean about £240,000 for the first year.
As I become more expert in not rearing pigs, I plan to be more ambitious, perhaps increasing to, say, 40,000 pigs not reared in my second year, for which I should expect about £2.4 million from your department.

Incidentally, I wonder if I would be eligible to receive tradable carbon credits for all these pigs not producing harmful and polluting methane gases?

Another point: These pigs that I plan not to rear will not eat 2,000 tonnes of cereals. I understand that you also pay farmers for not growing crops.
Will I qualify for payments for not growing cereals to not feed the pigs I don't rear?

I am also considering the "not milking cows" business, so please send any information you have on that too. Please could you also include the current
DEFRA advice on set aside fields? Can this be done on an e-commerce basis with virtual fields (of which I seem to have several thousand hectares)?

In view of the above you will realise that I will be totally unemployed, and will therefore qualify for unemployment benefits.

I shall of course be voting for your party at the next general election.

Yours faithfully,

Nigel Johnson-Hill
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MURPHY'S LESSER-KNOWN LAWS:

1.  Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright -- until you hear them speak.

2.  He who laughs last, thinks slowest.

3.  Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.

4.  Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't.

5.  Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently-talented fool.

6. The 50-50-90 rule:  Any time you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there's a 90% probability that you'll get it wrong.

7.  If you lined up all of the cars in the world end-to-end, someone would be stupid enough to try to pass them, five or six at a time, on a hill, in the fog.

8.  If the shoe fits, get another one just like it.

9.  The things that come to those who wait are the things left by those who got there first.

10. Give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he will sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

11.  A flashlight is a case for holding dead batteries.

12.  The shinbone is a device for finding furniture in a dark room.

13.  A fine is a tax for doing wrong.  A tax is a fine for doing well.

14.  When you go to court, you are putting your future in the hands of 12 people who weren’t smart enough to get out of jury duty.                                           

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A Gradely Prayer

 by Teddy Ashton

Give us, Lord, a bit o' sun
A bit o' work an' a bit o' fun
Give us all in t' struggle an' splutter,
Our daily bread an' a bit o' butter.

Give us health, our keep to make,
An' a bit to spare for poor folk's sake.
Give us sense (there's some of us duffers),
An' a heart to feel for all that suffers.
 

Give us, too, a bit of a song,
An' a tale an' a book to help us along.
An' give us our share o' sorrow's lesson,
That we may prove how grief's a blessin'.

Give us, Lord, a chance to be
Our very best; brave, wise an' free.
Our very best for oursels an' others,
Till all men learn to live as brothers.
 

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Yesterday is history,
Tomorrow is a mystery.
Today is the present -
A gift to make the most of

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Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.

Life is a beauty, admire it.
Life is a dream, realise it.

Life is a challenge, meet it.

Life is a duty, complete it.

Life is a game, play it.

Life is a promise, fulfil it.

Life is sorrow, overcome it.

Life is a song, sing it.

Life is a struggle, accept it.

Life is a tragedy, confront it.

Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.

Life is life, fight for it!”

Mother Theresa

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THE SENILITY PRAYER

Grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway, the good fortune to run into the ones I do, and the eyesight to tell the difference.

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Another for the feminists

Scientists have recently suggested that men should take a look at their beer consumption, considering the results of a recent analysis that revealed the presence of female hormones in beer. The theory is that drinking beer makes men turn into women.

To test the finding, 100 men were fed six pints of lager each.

It was then observed that 100 per cent of the men gained weight, talked excessively without making sense, became overly emotional, couldn't drive, failed to think rationally, argued over nothing and refused to apologize when wrong. No further testing is planned.

“God grant me the serenity to accept things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

and the wisdom to know the difference

When you're feeling so important

And your ego is in bloom,

When you simply take for granted

You're the wisest in the room

When you feel your very absence

would leave a great big hole,

Just follow these instructions -

They will humble any soul

Take a bucket filled with water,

Put your hand in to the wrist

Pull it out - the hole remaining

Is how much you'll be missed

Splash wildly when you enter,

Stir a lot and splash galore -

Then stop, and in a minute,

It will look just like before

The moral of this story,

Is to do the best you can -

Be proud, but please remember -

there is NO indispensible man...