Sometimes it's much cheaper to fly on Xmas Day/late Xmas Eve/NYE/1 Jan because everyone wants to fly before or after those dates. Of course, there's a reason why that is…

Registered address thing above: bugger – bottom right hand corner, not left hand corner, obviously. I'm not wearing my wellies so I can't remember L&R, apparently…

They rarely ever get to court as the only way they can successfully win a case is if they can prove you parked the car. That requires evidence that they very rarely get. No proof that it was you who parked the car (registered owner is not proof) no case. Simples.

I can't find it in the English legislation (it's probably in the Supreme Court Act or civil procedure rules or somewhere), but you can get the court to make an order against the owner for preliminary discovery to establish the identity of the driver. As to whether anyone actually bothers doing this, I have no idea, but the legal mechanism is certainly there.

Also: damages wouldn't necessarily be limited to the 3 quid (or whatever) parking, esp if they've already been agreed in the contract as liquidated damages of 100 quid or whatever. The loss covered isn't limited to the parking cost but also the e.g. profit lost by the 5 people who showed up and couldn't park, so didn't shop at the supermarket. And the whole point of having liquidated damages is that both parties agree in advance what a breach is going to cost so you don't have to go about proving it every time.

Spankmonkey: don't take this the wrong way but your post is exactly the sort of unhelpful cut & paste guff that you find on bulletin boards.

Not quite correct, a contract needs to be balanced and agreed by both parties, you cannot agree to a contract when a. you have to be already on their land to read said contract, even then you have not agreed to it, as it is unbalanced! just a few of my points on where they fail

There is no requirement for a contract to be "balanced": the court won't interfere with a bargain made under normal circumstances by normal people.

You accept the terms and conditions offered by the company by remaining parked in the car park. Contract formation in car parks has been done to death a million times – Shoe Lane Parking is the classic case on this. There are requirements for the display of the terms i.e. so they're reasonably obvious, but that depends on the facts on the day.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thornton_v_Shoe_Lane_Parking_Ltd

1) Sections 82 to 84 of the Companies Act 2006, if a PCN or any correspondence from a Private Parking company does not have their registered address and Co Number they are in Breech, most use a PO Box so they are illegal.

If you read the letter posted, the registered address is printed in the bottom left hand corner.

2) Data Protection Act, most Private parking companies are registered to process information for the prevention of Crime, parking is a Civil matter so they are breaking the DPA by processing your information.(I mean to process an invoice / bill) getting your address is not illegal sending an invoice is as they are not registered to use information in this way!

This doesn't represent the DPA accurately, and in any case Athena is registered for purposes 1 to 9.
http://www.ico.gov.uk/ESDWebPages/DoSearch.asp?reg=4443410

3) Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 & Statutory Instrument 1999 No. 2083. Basically as you have not had pre-sight of their T&C’s or had any influence their terms are biast and unfair, you are already in the car park before you can read them. Their T&Cs wont hold any substance.

As above.

4) The Civil Enforcement of Parking Contraventions (England) Representations and Appeals Regulations 2007 si 2007 No 3482. A PCn must include details to appeal to an adjudicator, most will only give their own address, they are not adjudicators and as such they do not comply with the regulations

A PCN (as discussed in those Regulations) is a Penalty Charge Notice (issued by/on behalf of local government) which takes its force from statute; the letter is a Parking Charge Notice (issued by a private party) that takes it force from contract law.
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2007/uksi_20073482_en_1

I can't be bothered to go through the rest, but 95% of what you've said is barrack lawyering that's based on deliberate or inept misunderstanding of the real position.

When parking and land use are such big and basic industries, and the world is knee-deep in lawyers, does anyone really think that it's so difficult to set up a legal regime to stop people parking on your land for longer than you let them? The legal mechanisms are all in place – the only real question is whether the supermarket company can be bothered pursuing it to the courts or whether they just say "sod it" and make off with the money that people send after the first 2-3 letters. My feeling is that it's the latter – but the only people that really know are the parking management companies themselves, because they are the only ones who know how many demands they make and how many lawsuits they file.

OP: let me ask you a question: how much money are you willing to spend to fly with a specific airline?

Because otherwise just do this:

We looked up the flights on http://www.kayak.co.uk and then just went and booked direct with the airline… but the site also ties into loads of other travel sites.

Travelocity, expedia (can be quite good), opodo (still going?) etc etc. Then check the airlines' websites – all of them i.e. UK, Australian, US…

Etihad, Emirates, Qatar Airways were all very good. Singapore. Whatever. Anything except those snotty **** BA.

As for walk-in travel agent shops: well, they might be worth trying but I have never, ever found them to be useful. Also, there are no charter flights to Oz.

there is any connection between Paisley and Johnny Adair?

Is the connection that Adair passed through Paisley on his way to Bolton? :lol:

I won't repeat myself again.

You still had time for a tautology, though! :lol:

sorry – should have added: the company i linked to above isn't just a minicab rental place, it's a normal hire car place too. 15 minutes!

In China, your wife may be amazed to disciver that they have managed to drink tea without milk quite succesfully for a long, long time.

In China, ourmaninthenorth may be amazed to discover that they have managed to drink tea with milk quite successfully for a long, long time: from ???? in the southeast to the tea with milk in Inner Mongolia to milky tea in Xinjiang province in the west. In fact, "Herdsmen in northern Xinjiang customarily have milk tea at least three times a day".

So the OP's wife's dilemma will be solved if she simply links up with the nearest Uighur herdsman upon arrival, as apparently they have a ready supply of both milk and tea. Knew we'd get there in the end. :mrgreen:

the pharmacists' governing body has a duty of care for patients seen by their members. It's therefore totally inappropriate for them to give out mis-advice (tacit or otherwise).

The Pharmacists' union doesn't have a duty of care to pharmacy customers (not patients) – otherwise you could sue them every time a pharmacist gave you duff advice. The Pharmacy does, though.

If the pharmacy writes into the contract that the pharmacist is expected to sell emergency contraception and the pharmacist doesn't, then they can be sacked. The rules of the pharmacists' union don't affect that.

And you're still conflating the pharmacist's decision not to sell emergency contraception with bad advice. It's not advice at all. It's a refusal of service. It's a free country. The individual pharmacist is free not to sell things they don't want to and the individual customer is free to go somewhere else. It's not as if there's a shortage of pharmacies in the UK – they're bloody everywhere.

Frankly, I'm inclined to spend £25 to get 900 mins and international capability.

Most PAYG does roaming (and has done for a while).

Yes, yes, I can…if you're willing to take the 15 train to Croydon from London Bridge/Victoria. If you are, "The Garage" offers 89 quid for old Nissan Micra to 145 quid for new Skoda Octavia. Everything in between depends on size and age. Added bonus: if you get the Octavia, it's probably got a Minicab sticker which means no congestion charge…

http://www.thegaragecarrental.co.uk/minicab.shtml

The only good bit is the 'Mr Soft' travellators…

Love them esp when you get the ones with the big Dunlop logo still on them

</dork>

Ignoring your attempts to trivialise Ms Chakrabati's work

I'm not sure Ernie's trivialising her work as much as objectifying her. hth. :)

Perhaps ask your local GP about the short/long term exposure to Melamine poisoning, they can then google/wiki it for you!

That made me lol.

Woppit – so far you've flounced off this thread twice and made three posts saying how uninterested you are in what poster X is saying. And yet you keep coming back and replying practically line-by-line! If you think someone is tedious or trolling you, then just MTFU and ignore them.

I find Josie Dew and Dervla Murphy's books to be the travel equivalent of Paulo Coelho. I don't mean that as a compliment but others might see it as one.

The only cycling books I've actually enjoyed are …back in the showers and Escape Artist. The Hour was a bit of a trudge, mostly because the guy who wrote it didn't even seem that keen on what he was doing!

Depending on how basic the car is, it might only be a couple of bolts keeping the back seats in. You could just unscrew them and stick the seats in the attic – you never know, you might actually want to use them one day!

Jesus wept.

Jesus wept yourself! I like tea with milk in and if I go somewhere that's not common, it's hardly cultural oppression of others to choose to drink tea the way I like it.

I would honestly have thought that anyone going would do a small amount of research into what they might expect when they get there.

What, you mean like

scanning the web looking for info

and asking around online?

Strange how not one openly gay man has commented on this thread

How would you tell?

Just at the moment, I have no interest in what you are saying. At all.

Sorry.
You mean, "I just wanted to let you know that I am not interested in what you're saying, and so I'm posting this comment to let you know that I considered your comment to decide whether or not I was interested in it, and my response is that I am not interested in it. However, I may reconsider that decision at a later time".

Meanwhile, someone else said that Netanyahu probably doesn't like gays any more than he likes Palestinians. Actually, Israel's not such a bad place to be gay (relatively speaking, and certainly in comparison to other countries in the region – there are supposedly a few gay Palestinians and other Arab refugees in Israel) and Netanyahu dropped by an LBGT club that had been attacked by bigots and criticised Iranian and other countries' bigotry in the UN: http://www.gaypatriot.net/2009/09/25/in-un-speech-netanyahu-condemns-iran-for-subjugation-of-gays/ He is still, of course, a gigantic tosser.

they should start a new series with Reg Hollis as a private detective.

Only if they let him look like he does off duty:

That's a completely shit definition of fascism because it describes practically anyone that uses force to achieve a political aim as a fascist, which makes the words "fascist" so broadly applicable and makes "fascism" so devoid of distinctive ideology that they become analytically useless. In fact, it would mean that by, say, 1941 the SS would not be considered fascists in exterminating Jews (because they were not a small group of individuals and weren't acting against the majority) but the Warsaw Uprisers or Bielski Partisans would be considered fascist because they were seeking to impose a political ideology (that Jews shouldn't be exterminated) on the majority using violence.

I think you need to go back to a definition of fascism that considers what the essential "building block" of society is (individual, nation, country, class, religious community), who owns the means of production (the state, entrepreneurs, mobilised labour), attitudes to religion and how stylish the uniforms are.

Those membership rules would lend credence to an employee screaming discrimination.

It's the employees that the members of the organisation, not the employers.

I could be a member of the Muslim Butchers' Association which had a rule that said I shouldn't be obliged to handle pork, but it's going to be **** all use when I show up for my first day at the Walls meat rendering plant. (Does Walls still exist?)

or…an old style bulb replaced with LED?

i wouldn't pay for it. i just don't care to read it constantly enough that it would be worth it for me. plus i hate murdoch but that didn't stop me buying sky in the past, so maybe that's an elephant.

too bad micropricing never took off.

given the de facto backing of their stance by their governing body, can you see a dismissal getting past the cry of discrimination on grounds of religion?

The membership rules of their governing body are irrelevant to the employment contract with their employer. They are in the same position as the Muslim dude who didn't want to handle pork products when serving canteen food to swine i.e. they can get ****: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8064474.stm

This may be an unpopular thing to say but…

1) the legal principle is sound: there was a contract between the driver and the landowner when the driver parked there which included liquidated damages. The driver breached the contract. The driver is are liable to pay the damages.

1a) the internet forum advice you get that says "this is all totally illegal, it's a scam, it's a fraud etc" is wrong.

1b) although I understand that in E&W law the amount of the liquidated damages has to be "reasonable" (this was the bank charges issue, wasn't it?)

2) the "how did the DVLA get my address" is a total non-starter of a complaint. you're allowed to access DVLA info to prepare or launch litigation, legal claim etc.

3) the real question is how far they can be bothered to chase this as a contractual dispute so that you can compare the likely risk (of being successfully sued and hit for higher costs) against the likely reward (not paying the forty five quid). Unfortunately, no-one except the parking companies knows if and how often they actually bother suing anyone for this.

Both of the pharmacists you mention were employees of chain stores. They should both have been sacked by their employer for refusing to dispense emergency contraception.

Top Vatican officials — including the future Pope Benedict XVI — did not defrock a priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys, even though several American bishops repeatedly warned them that failure to act on the matter could embarrass the church, according to church files newly unearthed as part of a lawsuit.

The internal correspondence from bishops in Wisconsin directly to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope, shows that while church officials tussled over whether the priest should be dismissed, their highest priority was protecting the church from scandal.

It's a lot easier to prosecute paedophiles and take steps to minimise their operation than it is to stop global warming.

Yes or no? If no – why?

Hold on, what's the question?

very cool video, thank you for posting! (it's very well shot, too)

"gotta disco up the mountains" :D

IME…

Do you have any experience of Catholic pharmacists refusing to sell morning after?

Does anyone? Has there been a documented case of this or is it entirely hypothetical so far?

toys19: are you a landlord or the 1% of agents that actually know they're doing? And are you in Edinburgh by any chance?

You can no more hold every member of the catholic church responsible for this than you can blame all muslims for commiting acts of terrorism

No, that's not a good analogy at all. 9/11 was committed by a relatively small group of people who claimed to be acting in various people's names. There were only a few people who actively supported that group and funded them. Those people bear some responsibility for 9/11.

Unlike Islam generally, the Catholic Church has a fixed hierarchy and organisation. Its leader is clearly identified (well, His earthly deputy, anyway). Those who actively support and fund that organisation are aware of what they are doing.

You might think that the Catholic Church is God's appointed organisation on earth. You might think that it has done vastly more good than ill. You might believe that the abuse of those sinners will be punished many times over by God. But if you show up for church and donate money, you're not in the same boat as some hapless random Muslim dude who's getting blamed for all the shit that someone else did.

I had some devout muslim staff working for me in a nursing home – they did not want to serve alcohol to the residents. There is no way I could or should make them serve alcohol

does this mean i can stop cutting drunks out of cars or just leave druggies houses to burn as i dont believe what they do is right?

Actually, neither of those situations is analogous to the self-employed pharmacist. If you're an employee and you sign up for a job that by its nature involves serving alcohol or cutting drunks out of cars (or, for that matter, a Muslim butcher that works at a pork processing plant) then tough shit – you shouldn't have taken the job in the first place and you can either do it, or stand up for your beliefs and **** off.

On the other hand, if you were, for instance, a self-employed towtruck driver who refused to work for pissheads that had crashed their car, or ran a catering business that didn't do events that served alcohol – well, that's your problem. Same with the pharmacists: if they want to miss out on the business, that's their problem.

these guys must be non-judgemental, contraception is an arkward subject for teenagers both preventative and emergency..sure that a teenage lass who's bricking it about being pregnant needs some religious do-gooder tutting and huffing about supplying the morning after pill

Is tutting and huffing what's going to happen? Or would the pharmacist just say "sorry, I don't sell contraception, you'll need Smith's down the road"?

If you have an agent why aren't they dealign with this?

'cause they're all (OK, 99% of them) are useless ****, for landlords and tenants alike.

Once the tenant has gone: suit in contract/negligence against the agents for failing to manage the property effectively?

Funny how all the miracles happened many many many years ago isnt it?

1961 is not all that long ago… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_MacKillop

Funnily enough, I feel myself coming down on the side of the (tiny number of, and possibly only hypothetical) observant Catholic pharmacists here.

IF they're in private business (i.e. not a pharmacist in a hospital etc) and they're not discriminating against a type of customer on an unethical basis, shouldn't they be allowed to decide what they will and won't sell on the basis of their loopy beliefs?

If a Muslim butcher doesn't want to sell pork because it goes against his religious beliefs, should he be forced to?

If Asda doesn't want to sell the explicit version of Lily Allen's CD because it goes against their "family values", should they be forced to?

If a mid-40s, male pattern balding, Audi-driving, MTBing architect ;) doesn't want to design a new church for the Catholic Church because it goes against his athiest beliefs, should he be forced to?

Or is there something essentially different about pharmacy as a profession than butchery, architecture and greengrocery? I dunno.

Is the website legit – like, will any of the rights holders get any money?

Have you tried turning it off and turning it back on again?

And if that doesn't work, have you tried turning it upside down and shaking it? (sfw)