Some points worthy of note:

"From BBC Front Page News:-
A scheme to clean and refurbish the tomb of King Edward II in Gloucester Cathedral has been awarded more than £40,000 of Lottery money.

The grant will go towards a restoration bill of £100,000 and will also support a series of anniversary events."


So let's get it clearly established here and now that it is Lottery money. The other £60,000 required is to raised from other sources.

Skipy wails -
"£100,000? How the hell can they justify that for a clean up?
Am I missing something here?"

Yes, obviously Skipy is missing something. Since when did resoration = clean up?

But Skipy's wail continues:

"The £40,000 of OUR money could have gone to fighting gun crime, fighting MRSA, Kids charities, hospital etc. etc. but no, we are going to buy solid gold mops & buckets & pay a specialist tomb cleaner £1000 an hour to clean it!"

For a start Skipy the £40,000 is not your money, or our money, it ceased to be that the second the equivalent of 40,000 people waved goodbye to their bright shiny pound coins in the rather remote hope that they would win millions.

If you are a Labour, or Nu-Labour supporter, socialist, lib-dem, Conservative, or "A Don't Know" and you are seriously stating that today in the UK we have to rely on the amount of money spent gambling each week to fight crime, fight MRSA, fund Kids charities, fund hospital etc. etc. Best emigrate chum your country's well and truly f****d.

As you have not got the foggiest clue as to the work required to restore medieval stone work your last little blast of banality can best be left as a monument to your ignorance.

In telling the tale and History of Gloucester Cathedral the Tomb is of extreme importance and as such it represents a significant piece of English history, Sorcha being from the US can be excused for dismissing such things so freely. But perhaps she might be interested to heard that if she ever wanted to visit the tomb of the man who wrote the tune to her own National Anthem "The Star-Spangled Banner" she would find herself in Gloucester Cathedral. As the Cathedral is the burial place of the man who composed the American national anthem. Organist and musician John Stafford-Smith was born and educated in Gloucester and composed the music in 1780. The words to "The Star-Spangled Banner" were written and set to Stafford Smith's music in 1812 by Frances Scott Key after a British attack on Baltimore.

Classic example of somebody knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing, how much more dumbed down can we get.