So guys … tell Auntie C_G … if the woman in your life asked you to, would you?

Well, it would be rude not to acquiesce once you have been asked and all that.

Just when things were getting all serious we have had several threads that have been hilarious. Top show everyone. :lol:

Thanks for all the politics and Gates baiting, so I still need to solve my Googling problem, anyone? Also if I have to get yet another browser, which is the best?

You don't have to get another browser. If you are happy with it stick with IE. As mentioned above why not try a malware scan. If necessary use more than one. MS offers a free one, Defender, which you could try.

It's one of those terribly clever ideas from those lovely people in Brussels who decided that MS needed to be cut down to size and have subsequently chased them on a number of increasingly stupid ideas. There were versions of Windows without IE (as per EU requirement) of which precisely none were sold. MS volunteered to provide a browser chooser (what you are now talking about) but that didn't satisfy Opera either as apparently they were paranoid that because O comes lower down the alphabet Opera would never be chosen over IE or Chrome. Given that a significant number of consumers who use Windows don't even know what version of Windows they are using let alone what browser they are using I don't really see that this is going to make much difference other than a number of users will randomly pick something that flashes in front of them without having the faintest idea what they are doing or choosing. Apparently the EU thinks this is a good thing which will quite possibly open up more security issues on home PCs as those users who choose something other than IE will not necessarily know enough to go out and get security updqates for their carefully chosen browser.

Not sure I understand the logic of why Opera were reasonable? There was a flurry of their users who abandoned the product because they thought Opera were being total numbnuts in their approach. Sour grapes from a company that clearly don't make a good enough product. But rather than compete and make their product better they go whining to the EU.

Depends on how you plan to use it. Goldfish (now owned by Barclaycard) is ok and will give you points on purchases which can be exchanged (eventually) for vouchers that you can spend in places like Currys and JLP. The return isn't brilliant but is better than a lot. The BA airmiles card used to be reasonable but only if you like flying BA and are likely to use the miles. I believe that the best return is generally on the cashback cards and, if you get the right one, Amex is one of the best – certainly for the first year – 18 months. Downside is that not all places that take credit cards will take Amex (mostly down to their terms and conditions for retailers and the fact that they charge them more per transaction than the other card companies) Widespread view is that the store tied cards such as Tesco / Sainsbury's are pretty poor as the clubcard / nectar points are not very generous.

Might be worth a quick check of the moneysavingexpert web site as a starter for 10.

One of the funniest threads on here for a while. :lol:

Not interested in having my undercarriage modified in any way, thank you very much. It's still as nature intended and I for one am keen to keep it that way. None of this "rummaging" and "bacon smells" for me!

I guess what this thread proves is that those of a left of centre bias will not see or understand those of a right of centre bias. And vice versa. Some of it is very amusing "banter" but sometimes it gets a tad heated as all of the keyboard warriors rise up and a bit out of hand and personal. Not ideal.

Personally, I cannot stand G Brown as I believe him to be the worst Chancellor in living memory and not much better as PM and hope very much that he is dumped firmly out of No 10 at the election. But that's my personal opinion and one that will not resonate with everyone. We have freedom of choice and those who disagree and would want to see another 5 years of him will have their opportunity to vote for him. But even 20 years from now I won't be wishing for a funeral pyre and a street party when he dies.

Our home cinema experience has been done pretty much on the cheap mostly due to a home cinema / wife incompatibility issue. Happy (ish) compromise is that we have a new TV (Panny 32" G10) and a blu-ray (Sony BDPS360). Part of the compromise was that we could use this as our entertainment centre so had to sound at least reasonable with music only. Sony does a pretty good job. So, because of the requirement for reasonable sound (and on a budget) that pretty much ruled out an AV amp and we have stuck with our hifi amp and speakers (Rotel RA931 and Tannoy Mercury S). Ok, so we don't get the bass end kick that you do from a sub but overall the sound is pretty good for both movies and CDs. More likely to end up upgrading the amp and speakers than going for an AV amp and speaker package though.

Crikey bit touchy aren't we? This thread is really bringing out the sensitive types

Not really. Just reponsding in true STW style. :lol:

Some people sweat more than others regardless of fitness. How about falling off your high horses and accepting that rather than waving your sweat free willies about chaps? Oh sorry, I forgot. This is STW. :roll:

And who, on a ride to work won't at some point decide that a gentle pootle is not really where it's at and will start timing themselves and attempting to set / beat their personal best? Or come across another rider and decide on a silent race with them? And after all that still not get sweaty?

Personally I like both. Love doing adventure races and rides out in the "natural" stuff, but also love the fun that can be had in the trail centres where you have a nicely defined trail that allows you to just enjoy riding and not having think about the navigation etc. Hopefully, like most things in life, the people who really get worked up about trail centres don't visit them. :lol:

It seems to have been added as an after thought or small print that Bridge and his girlfriend were not going out at the time of the affair. Inclined to agree that it's not really a big issue to Bridge who his ex went out with after the breakup. However, very bad form from JT and inexcusable. Wonder if Bridge is using it as a convenient excuse to get out of England team as well as he is widely regarded as not really being very good and any abuse / criticism from under par performance at International level may be too much for hiom on top of everything else.

We have used a laptop for a while. Advantage is that it is useful for other things but also has a finite life before the battery runs out (don't have a charger / lead that runs off the cigarette lighter). Both of them have mp3 players so got a bargain little splitter cable that allows both of them to run their headphones from the same socket.

Works for us on longer journeys.

A decently secure OS? Mac? Hardly. The Mac OS is not the most secure OS around and is arguably less secure than Windows. The main reason it seems to be more secure is the fact that the Mac OS has not really been the target of hackers as the installed base is not really that big, or hasn't been. It is getting bigger now so don't be surprised if there is a rise in the incidents of Macs being hacked or the target of malware. There is a lot of tosh spoken on this and other sites about how wonderful and sparkly Macs are and how crap Windows is although, to be fair, Vista was a bit of an abomination. A lot of people like to hate MS and seem to construe that because we hate MS everything they do must be crap. Intelligent thinking there chaps. Very bright. And because Apple is cool and sexy looking everything they do is brilliant and perfect. It's not. There are some fundamental differences between them in that Windows is not written for a specific set of hardware that is controlled by MS. Apple on the other hand manufacture their kit and can therefore tune the OS to that hardware.

Ultimately it will come down to how you want to spend your money and what represents good value to you. If you like the Mac and want to spend more omney on it (comparable to a PC) then go ahead and do it. If you think it is a bit steep then go for a PC. But don't get sucked into the hype that by buying a Mac you are buying a more secure machine.

If you don't mind me asking what on earth are you living on to only spend £200 month on food?! I assume that this includes other household bits and pieces or is it just food?

On the OP topic, as others have said it really comes down to what your priorities in life are and how extravagent your lives are. People survive on much less than that but you may not like the compromises you have to make. If you do that maths and the numbers are very close I would be inclined to say that you won't do it as there will always be some disaster that crops up and needs money and if you are already living right on the limit then you will be pushed over. If you have some savings then you at least have a slush fund you can dip into if you really have to for an emergency.

Must say I'm no expert on these matters but there does seem to be some odd advice creeping out in here.

45 minutes for a 10k is a bit disingenuous as there are quite fit people out there that just happen to be slow runners. It might feel easy and comfortable for you but that doesn't mean it will be the same for everyone.

The general wisdom on these things suggests that your exercise levels need to be different between aerobic and fat burn. Personally I'm not quite sure how it works but less intense exercise is seen as better for burning fat off. Some of the gyms around our way are now offering these so called metabolism checks where they measure your metabolism and propose an exercise programme that makes your training more effective. I am a tad sceptical about this myself although there's at least one person in my gym who claims that a modified exercise programme that consisted of more walking than running enabled her to take several minutes off her 10k time (and she was quite fit to start with).

The abiding rule is eat less than you burn is the only guaranteed way to lose weight and watch the type of stuff you eat. Some foods may have equivalent calorie counts but may contain more fats which sit on your body and as you get older seem to refuse to budge anywhere. Don't neglect core / ab training as well to tighten and tone those muscle groups. And the hardest one of all is to reduce the portion sizes. My biggest downfall as, like yourself, I am rather too partial to my food it is an exercise in willpower to reduce the portion size. Do it for long enough though and it will become part of your lifestyle and thus easier to maintain going forward as the last thing you want to do is put in a huge effort to lose the weight only to put it straight back on again once you reach your target weight.

Not sure there's very much in there to help, but there you go.

I think it's great. A proper winter for once and in our neck of the woods more snow than I can ever remember. Fantastic. I'm not really a great fan of the cold and much prefer warm weather but to have had some variety this past month or so is great.

:(

that Cameron billboard is so sad…because its so very true

Hmm, and Uncle Gordy hasn't?

I don't think I would go so far as to call myself a callmedave apologist but I would far rather him than the current incumbant who has already done more than enough to screw this country over.

No more boom and bust eh? Mr prudent eh? Bellend. :wink:

Running the Vectra estate. Big as a barge and the engine is willing and reasonably pokey. Pretty economical – I cane mine and still average 42 mpg. Which should give you somewhere around 500 miles out of the tank. I lent it to my parents for a week a couple of years ago while we were away and they managed 750 miles out of a tank of diesel.

Pretty cheap for servicing (20,000 mile intervals) and in my experience they are pretty reliable. Not the most involving car to drive but in general cheap, reliable and practical.

I suppose it is a bit too much to have the speakers on the other side of the room away from the adjoining wall? Although I suppose it may be better that the speakers are facing away from next door.

Personally I can only hope that Brown is sent packing at the next election. Almost single handedly the biggest disaster to have hit this country. It's getting to the point where his own party don't want him – not exactly a strong mandate for "strong leadership". Nick Clegg would have done better keeping his mouth closed as the more he speaks these days the more the public will feel they have been saved from making a poor decision in voting for the Lib Dems. And shiny Dave has lost his way a little recently. So, all in all, not a huge choice. The sad reality is that whoever wins the election we are going to be in for a pretty grim few years trying to pay off the humungous debt we are being saddled with. 8O

Do you want to tell us what your music system is and where and how your speakers are placed.

Not sure how much it will help other than us nosey parkers get to consider your hi fi. :-)

All things considered I don't think the Beeb is that bad. It is, after all, "light entertainment". I quite enjoy Silent Witness – it's aesthetically pleasing, easy on the eye and brain and mildly entertaining. The period dramas are really not my thing at all so I don't watch them and I dislike soaps so don't watch them either. ITV does seem to hang its schedules around the mass popularity shows but there is still the odd watchable thing. Red Dahlia was ok although it was not much more sophisticated than a longer than usual episode of Midsummer Murders. And for me Kelly Reilly was rather pleasing on the eye.

You get the odd good documntary but the problem with pretty much anything in print or on the TV you are at the mercy of the angle that the producer is after or the bias that the presenter / writer has. Inevitably this means you can never be sure of the truth of what's happening so you end up taking all of it with a pinch of salt.

For those that like the US shows then yes, I am sure a number of them are very good. However, have you ever watched TV in the States? The series we see over here are the cherry picked nuggets from swathes of turgid, talentless, cringe inducing guff that saturates the broadcast waves. And you can't even play "spot the ad break coming"….

Got to be worth doing even if it is only for a few years. Some friends have just come back after 2 years out there. He loved it – she found that there were a few problems / old fashioned attitudes around women in technical roles and she had a hard time. Overall they are happy to be back home now but left some things unvisited to allow scope for a return.

It really is about what suits them. Mrs BC currently has a small men's frame whereas my daughter really liked the Trek WSD. Personally when I ride a WSD bike they just feel all wrong and I wouldn't want to be cycling up a steep incline or having to hop up a step on one but perhaps they feel different to the ladies riding them. But you will need to do more than just spin round the car park to try it out.

Yup – she does it for me too. In a responsible and tasteful way, of course.

Sony bdp360s blue ray player from Richer sounds. Bargaintastic, a great little player and you will still have some change left over for the chinese hooker. :-)_

I think the answer is yes if you mean long term financial gain. Quite a lot of the "pop bands" appear to make a good living for a short while but the money soon disappears when they do. Single sales these days are not what they used to be (look at the Christmas #1 – approx 500,000 sales) so it will still probably be album sales. The artist gets a small percentage of these and rack up enough hits and you will earn a few pennies. Long term the real money will come from a sustained career where you perform live and you write good songs yourself.

Or get attached to a decent record label and allow them to give you a wad of cash to ease you along the journey.

On the whole I like riding with my missus. She has a few health issues which means it tends to be slower and a lot more stop starty than I would like but it is still good to get out with the whole family. They all like the more technical riding rather than pootling along a tow path so at least it is interesting riding but it generally won't burn a huge number of calories. I do get to do a bit of riding on my own or with other faster and fitter people but overall riding with the other half and the kids is a good fun activity that we all enjoy.

Probably the bbc web site. Go via the 5live link and they tend to keep the last few reviews. They may also be on iTunes. The Beeb also keep an archive of specific film reviews from the Kermodious.

Useless knob who has somehow got lucky in todays culture of quality television. But then again I exercise my choice to not watch him. :-)

To be honest,as has been mentioned above, he is guilty. If he didn't pack his case then he lied at the point of boarding the plane – possibly twice. Maybe he didn't know what he was doing and is mentally ill. That still doesn't change teh facts of the case in that he broke the law and smuggled drugs. I don't think that executing him was the right thing to do but he should have been banged up for it. It's so easy to claim illness / no responsibility for crimes when it loo0ks like you are going to cop it. Tough – should have thought about that before doing it. Same with all th fuss over Gary McKinnon (or whatever his name is). It frankly doesn't matter if you have a mental illness – he knew what he was doing and he was breaking the law. No good pleading some kind of absolution of responsiblity because you are "ill". He was cloearly well enough to hack the US systems and therefroe well enough to know what he was doing. Looking for UFO info my arse! Stop whinging and take responsibilty for what you have done. Perhaps show a little remorse and genuine repentence for what you have done and people may treat you a little more kindly. Looking for excuses and claiming it's not your fault is not the best way to win friends and influence people.

Seems like you and Stoner have completely missed what was a fairly obvious point by Trekster. If you decide to just let things go to pieces you show yourself to be a pretty unprofessional person and one the company is betetr of not having. Sure the position has been made redundant but there was a choice about who could fill the remaining posts and Bushwacked lost out. Not an ideal situation and one I can sympathise with but for your own pride (if nothing else) you should continue to do a profesisonal job. If you have opportunities for other interviews then take them as this is clearly something you are entitled to do, but as others have said, don't burn any bridges.

Or a Vectra (Estate or hatch). Estate is huge and can swallow almost anything. Generally pretty cheap to run and the 150bhp 1.9CDTi can return very impressive fuel economy. If youare not fussed about having a "drivers" car then the Vectra is not bad. Personally I would rather have one of these than the older shaped Mondeo (frankly, I could never understand what the raving about them was as they were horrible to drive) although the new shape Mondy is very nice. Vectra is probably cheaper due to its regular motoring press / Top Gear bashing.

For the living room where you are more likely to want a bigger sound or better quality then the suggestions above about auditioning some separates would get you a muich better quality sound and one that you can upgrade over time. We have a Wave system in the kitchen because I wanted a DAB radio and something that plays CDs and makes them sound good (considering the environment) but that doesn't take up much space. The Wave does a great job. I tried a Denon and thought it was one of the workst things I have ever heard – nowhere near as good as the Bose. Yes, the audiophile snobs will tell you they are gash, but for the purpose I wanted it for it sounds more than acceptable – and was streets ahead of anything else at that price point. Yes, if you sit down and listen to it closely it is not perfect but for casual listening where you get at least some depth of sound I have yet to find anything that comes close.

Wow – what unhappy work places some of you inhabit! We have had cut backs over the past couple of years and ths year we had a team meal – food paid for but we had to pay for drinks. Many of the people in the team I work in are very rarely together and these events are a great way to catch up. There's a good number of them that are great company and a few of them are very good friends. We don't get enough chances in the year to meet up but we have a blast when we do.

I don't think you are quite correct there. I suspect that what people are reacting to is the idea that the union are suggesting striking at the very time when business is peaking and that while there may be a dispute with the management and issues in the company, the union feel it is quite acceptable to hold passengers to ransom over it. They don't seem to be showing too much consideration to the travelling public by calling for a strike. Or did I miss something?

And will the union executive be forgoing their pay as part of the dispute as well? I think we all know the answer to that one as well.

Is the mangement of the company good? Quite probably not, to have got themselves into their current state and perhaps theirs is not the best business model for these times (they have historically targetted business passengers as their prime market and now suffer as business flyers choose non premium fares for travel) and maybe they are too slow in moving. So now they are trying to work it out and maintain the business to keep people in jobs. And a large percentage of the company is going with them.

As far as a flying experience I have flown BA a number of times and they are still amongst the best of the airlines I have flown with. Those that think they suck should try a carrier like United or Ryanair.

Brinkmanship tactics. But not likely to win many friends or to enhance the reputation of unions. And, as with the Post Office, not really the smartest move to be making when the company you are working for is in deep doodoo financially. Well done chaps – let's have a strike where we can press for maintaining our wages and fail to see that we could take the company down and there will then be no wages at all. Strategic thinking there.

Cabin crew and unions I applaud your foresight and commitment to the uk economy.

•One-off 50% tax on bank bonuses of more than £25,000

Ok folks, it's going to be alright, we appear to have found a quick way to balance the books from our (approximately) £180b deficit.

Outstanding economics.

Seems like not many want to share, which is fine…

I suspect it is a combineation of factors including there njot being all that many and for those that do stick their heads above the parapet a rather visceral blasting by the (irony mode on) holier and more intelligent than thou (irony mode off) atheist brigade. They get an even harder time on here than the Marin owners! :-)

Ok. I stand corrected. Doesn't answer the question though and the pool of people is not significantly smaller by limiting it to deity believers. Really. Not in the grand scheme of things. :?