Sport is adversarial, and the aim is to find one winner. The electoral system is not like that at all

Really?

I am starting to tire of this "between them Labour and Libs got 54% of the vote therefore they have the popular mandate to rule". That's like saying Liverpool and Everton got more points than Chelsea in the Premiership so they should share the trophy instead.

Whichever way it goes it could get messy and the Libs may not come out of it smelling of Roses.

– Cleggs gonna look stupid if he goes with Labour after going on about working with the party with the most votes/seats
– the Libs start throwing their (little) weight about to make stupid policies happen. Won't be a good advert for their beloved PR.
– Labours track record of blaming others – it'll no doubt be the Libs fault if things go pear shaped in a LibLab pact.
– Again, Cons won't be far behind blaming Libs if they cosy up together.

Doom mongers again…
Goodbye NHS if Dave gets in and unless you're on £150K min you will lose out.

Can no one else see the irony in those statements.

Too many cooks in a coalition – surely you just end up with laws that don't harm anybody but don't actually give any benefit? Sort of the Mondeo equivalent of politics?

Richey finishing kit? Or Syntace?

GB will be remembered for not saving for a rainy day when all was shining around him, selling gold at third of current price etc. His legacy is not over yet and he may well be remembered for leaving the UK with massive debt, fault or no fault (to be fair continual growth wasn't down to him either). That and nicking stuff out of my pension without asking.

I suspect Labour 'support' PR to snuggle up to the Lib Dems, knowing a combined Lib-Lab coalition is always going to beat the Cons. Hence Cons opposing it.

Think if Cons get a working coalition it'll last for a while. They'll have quite a while to blame the previous government for getting us into this mess. After all, Labour have been trotting that soundbite out for 13 years now.

My worry with PR is you'll end up with BNP getting seats unless there is a snazzy way of mucking the votes around to avoid that. But then is that fair? Not that I'm sticking up for those toerags but if people are complaining that Libs should have 24% of the seats can they then turn round and say its not right that BNP (or whoever) don't get their 'rigthful' percentage too?

Would you end up with the, say, Green party deciding things potentially with their small number of votes.

Maybe we should stop the Party Whip idea, so that MPs can vote for their constituencies (or their heart) rather than be bullied into the party line?

Would Clegg lose all credibility by going for a Lib-Lab pact? He's been spouting out all through the election he'll support the party with the most votes/seats.

But I imagine Brown will be required to fall on his sword to keep the Labs in power in a coalition. Regardless of if he wants to or not. I can just see him as they drag him our of No. 10 in a straightjacket "No, no, I'm the one who can lead the country out of all its' problems. Me I tell you, Meeeeeeeeeeeeeee"

Worryingly yesterday I woke up thinking of kids song "there's a worm at the bottom of the garden, and his name is Wiggly Woo".

Must stop the bairn watching the Tweenies….

Wouldn't gloat over Cons 'losing' the election. The party that gets in is gonna be the most unpopular for many many years and potentially may implode the Labour party once they start having to do the deep cuts, lose jobs etc.

2 years down the line you might find a massive Con majority after the LibLab coalition blows up.

Hopefully it reflects we aren't yet voting for a president like the USA, but for a party and voters decide on policies, not whether the guy is handsome and has a nice smile….

If he doesn't pay you must file an unpaid claim against him otherwise you will still get stuck with the eBay selling charges.

Personally I'd have emailed him back saying ask questions first, not after buying it. Sounds like he/she might back out but just explain you will have to put a dispute in against him/her for recovery of fees.

Few years ago mates went up to D&G for Christmas I think. Ended up in a charming little village called Dalbeattie one night. One of those places where the locals all pointed and shouted "strangers".

I didn't go out one night as I was feeling a bit rubbish. Unbeknown to me the others decided to have a pull-a-pig night. Half asleep I just remember the door bursting open with an overweight drunken Scots lass piling into the digs saying "Hello, my name's Deedee". I still have nightmares.

Wasn't there some strange stat last week that half of poeple polled would vote for Lib Dems if they though they would actually win!

Yes, gonna be interesting what people actually vote for when they've got the ballot paper in their hand in private rather than in front of a researcher. Do you vote for Labour to make sure Cons don't get in, or vice versa. Could be a few shocks if the 'tactical' type vote kicks in.

Must be a few Labour MPs (Ed Balls possibly?) that are a little nervous if the Cons switch to voting Lib Dem.

All the gel seemed to do on my bike was make the bars fatter. I think I may have taped it up a bit tight though and it lost all that squidge it had out of the packet.

The Specialized Phat Wrap and Pro Gel tape on my two bikes is nice though.

Agree with Clubber. Brown is dead in the water whatever way he looks. Lose election and he'll be gone, Lib-Lab pact will not want him as PM, though may accept Milliband etc. as a replacement, maybe with Vincey-boy as treasurer, Clegg as Foreign Secretary or something.

The young bloods will not want the severe cuts in spending on their 'patch' so they may be quite relaxed about being in opposition to a Cons/Lib coalition.

Though a dangerous game if Libs force through PR as their price for being Kingmakers….

God, whatever you do don't buy a Smeg fridge. Scandinavian name, built by Italians. Light comes on randomly, shelves in the door are made of cheese and fall out on a weekly basis. Worst thing I've ever bought.

Could you get a simple basic Bosch fridge for your money?

Can't put Buy-It-Now up if anyone is bidding on auction alas.

Normally stick to a regular route with a few detours depending on how I feel, though did go on a bit of a random "ooh, wonder where that road goes" on Monday with a vague knowledge that I just needed to turn left at some point to pick up a known road/village again if I needed it.

Managed to discover some nice little roads before I'd realised I'd put 25 miles onto the route (must get computer back on bike…) and got a strict talking to from Mrs Breathe for being so late back.

Yes the police, courts, prison NHS, schools, bin men, army etc can all cut there budgets by 25 % and it have no impact on service delivery. Do you really believe that?

Yes I can. It would stop my police force buying surveillance vehicles at £30k and selling them a couple months later at auction for £6k because they'd bought too many. Maybe it would make them think once before spending money…

A cloud is just a big server somewhere. Hosting is is just a server somewhere.

Getting people to contribute to blog etc. won't matter where it is. Probably have to pay some form of hosting fee I'd expect regardless.

I get the bank holidays added to my leave entitlement, then get 4/5 of that to use in the year. I'm expected to take all bank holidays off as leave unless that's my non-working day.

As Monday is my non-working day then I don't have to use holiday for the majority of bank holidays and get a few extra days to play with.

I'd expect something similar for yourself. You'll not lose out as you only need 4 days to take a full week off. If they expect you to take 5 days for that then I'd expect you to keep your full entitlement.

Take you chance – end early and the guy may not pay (no comeback on that one), leave it to run and get a better price.

Don't forget you lose all ebay/paypal protection doing it on your own if that worries you.

Just get him to say in his defence he didn't see the red light as he was texting his mate at the time

Doubt Clegg could claim he is independent from the elite financial rulers, IIRC his father is a very, very rich banker who makes Camerons "riches" look meagre.

Yeah, don't go crazy buying some massive drive. The RAID will only be the size of the smallest drive and will probably format the big drive down.

You might be able to then buy another big drive to replace the original one that was still working and do some jiggery pokery to get a bigger RAID if you thinks it's worth it, but it could end in tears.

Hung parliament, Lib-Lab pact. Will be in for a year getting abuse from The Sun et al. Then the press will hope the Cons get in after a year of bickering between the others in 'power'. And order restored for them….

Depends on your thoughts. Google sell advertising, if Google know where you are then they can target their marketing more specifically, imagine them suggesting a nearby Starbucks, or BP petrol station etc.

Depends if you think that's intrusive and they know too much about you. Really depends what you search for in previous computer use. Might be embarrasing for them to suggest a certain "establishment" whilst you are out with the missus…..

Try Tusk[/url] – they have a range of bike specific stuff.

Was off one day when my new frame turned up. It ended up with two coats of Autoglym Super Resin Polish and a coat of Extra Gloss Protection. It was very shiney.

Mud seems to fall off it or just brush of easily.

I think you can safely read the "everybody is on 6 months probation" as "complain now, and you'll be sacked in 6 months"….Sad but probably true.

Any of your guys wear glasses and a p**spot helmet on your commute around Newcastle?

I keep seeing this guy on various bikes, like properly "this weeks bike is a Santa Cruz", next weeks is an On-One – maybe seen him on 10-20 bikes so thinking he may be bike shop related.

Currently on a Ridley cx/hybrid thing around the Gosforth area.

It could well be that 35% like the Libs when asked in their own home, but most of them couldn't be bothered to walk to their polling station and vote.

Everyone likes the underdog. Most probably want Portsmouth to beat Chelsea in the FA Cup final but doubt many would go into a betting shop and put their money down on it.

Interesting to see if the Cons/Labs turn on him in the next debate, or maybe they need to be his 'friend' as he could well be the kingmaker in a hung parliament.

Be warned, if you get your mate to 'bid' for your frame and he/she wins then you'll have to stump up the eBay fees for selling it unless you file an 'unpaid' claim against your mate who may not be happy about that.

Half the price you paid for it?

then you can still sell to the 2nd highest bidder.

Every "second chance offer" I get is always rejected because I assume it to be shill bidding.

Might start at 18:00 but there'll be a long line of planes waiting to take off so you'll be joining a big queue. Disruption like this takes days to clear up as planes are in the wrong positions (like the plane taking you back from Switzerland is still sitting at London ready to make the journey across).

Try it for a week on just a buy-it-now price. See if you get any nibbles that way

Standard strategy is to start bidding at 99p and get bidders interested so they start trying to outbid one another – you normally get the most that way when the red mist descents in the final few minutes, but it does take nuts of steel to put expensive stuff on for a quid.

Personally I think reserves are a waste of time because people will see they aren't going to blag a bargain and will not bother (even though they will normally end up paying more than the reserve!) .

Always worth maybe putting a buy-it-now on but this will disappear as soon as someone puts an auction bid in (annoylingly).