the submersion indicator (more like slight hint of moisture in the air sensor) in mine has turned red.

I have heard (i.e. have no idea whether it's true) that if you paint over the moisture sensors with clear nail varnish, it stops them turning red if in fact they do come into contact with moisture. But, obviously, it makes me wonder whether that's correct because after all, nail varnish itself is moist, so wouldn't that make them turn red? :?:

If the trail centre finds CCTV of the guy and, for instance, his car's number plate, and if the cops don't feel like doing anything, then you can obtain owner's info from DVLA (preparing for litigation is a legitimate reason to access that data) and then sue him in trespass for assault. Only problem on a practical basis is getting the tape from the trail centre and making sure they don't delete it.

remove genital piercings?

Konabunny and baldysquirt – it's a shame that your respective friend and partner have had such bad experiences early in their careers.

Don't get the wrong idea – I should also have said that she loved her job, worked endless hours and was buried in the detail, and has since gone on to do at least 2 or 3 other jobs in the same sort of child protection/youth justice/whatever the right term is. (Also, like everyone else I happen to know in the health/caring/teaching professions, she is superprofessional in working hours and batshit crazy outside them – not sure if that says more about those professions or the people I choose as friends!). But all the same she was thrown in the deep end and given too much responsibility by default when so many other positions were unfilled. This was 6-7 years ago – maybe everything has improved since then.

Oh dear, most of you really wouldn't like what I'm CAD modelling right now….

Is it a giant mug of tea? I like tea.

"The plan is from what i understand, is for the new crossrail trains from east to west london will stop at ooc and continue to Heathrow in a bout 5-10mins -there will be 14trains per hour in each direction."

OK…makes a leetle more sense now if the Crossrail station was going to be built anyway: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Speed_2#Crossrail_interchange

Baldysquirt – your gf's experience is very similar to my friend's experience as a ~23 year old new graduate: thrown into the deep end with an unmanageable caseload, no support, chronic understaffing and completely out of their depth. Anyone that cares about what they do would be driven crazy; anyone that doesn't care about what they do shouldn't be doing social work in the first place.

In line with what was said above, "as having no knowledge of a subject is no bar to expressing an opinion on here, then I'll chip in my tuppenceworth", I'll chip in too, admitting that I have only second-hand knowledge of social services through a) someone who was reported to social services for something more or less similar to the off-night-shift-can-of-beer story above and whose case was dealt with discreetly and appropriately, and b) a whole bunch of people that deal and work with kids in really crappy situations.

My impression of being a social worker is that by nature it is incredibly hard, presents a lot of very difficult dilemmas about risk and conflicting objectives, involves dealing with the victims and perpetrators of unfathomable misery, and is emotionally and intellectually draining – and all of this interspersed with positively impacting someone in a way that can change their life for the better. Moreover, by virtue of the apparent poor management and poor funding of the services as they are now from the top down, most social services departments (to my ignorant eyes) seem to be a complete shitshow of an unpleasant place to work. This is such a difficult and important job that we want the best people available to do it, to reward them properly for it, and to make their working environment and processes as comfortable and conducive to success as possible. And what do they end up with?

I've done some pretty tough/high-pressure work in the past that involved following some pretty nasty and violent people, but I don't think I would last a week as a social worker.

If that's the best reason to keep the Royal Family, then why not get Jim Davidson to do it? He's just as much a historical relic and I'm sure he'd do it much cheaper.

The Royals = Tourism argument is nonsense. Millions of people show up to see Versailles, the Kremlin and Neuschwanstein even when their aristocracies have been given the elbow and their assets nationalised.

And that doesn't include…

…and nor does it include the land that was stolen.

it's his sense if humour he knows fine well what he is saying and is apparently very down to earth.

he's just ****, in that case.

My parent had a car stolen and recovered, and it didn't seem to have been listed as stolen/recovered on the register (dealer didn't say anything when we sold it, at least).

Sometimes the thieving scumbags like to put a needle (used!) into the seat so when you plonk your bum down……….. Well you can guess the rest!

Urban myth?

Never understood the 'loud pipes saves lifes' argument. Usually a patch on a HOG riders jacket

But posers would never e.g. wear a hi-viz jacket that would be 100 times more useful in saving lives…

According to the plans there are going to be links to Heathrow

It's unclear to me WTF is going on here – according to the Grauniad the "link" to Heathrow is going to via "Old Oak Common" (I'd never heard of it) – so a brand new station that's neither at Heathrow nor in the centre of town. lolwut?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/mar/11/adonis-high-speed-rail-blueprint

Been with smile for years: no problems whatsoever. Their online interface isn't superflashy but it's simple, no flash and it all seems to work. Call centre staff are all very good although I often can't understand their funny accents (Yorkshire).

I would not piss on Royal Bank of Scotland if they were on fire. I keep a current account with HBOS that has a 20 pence balance – I get a tiny, pathetic bit of satisfaction knowing that it costs them money to keep me as a customer.

was he the last of the great orators, killed off by the sound byte hunger of the media? Or the icon of the "Loony Left" image that nearly killed off his party?

Well, he was too centrist (for the time!) for the Militant tendency but he certainly had the Loony Left image thrust upon him and either didn't know or care how to correct it, and preferred to explain his ideas and beliefs instead. In this respect, he displayed a great deal of integrity but also showed poor judgment in politicking and winning elections that might actually have let him put his ideas into practice.

Daily Mail forum. Home of the barking.

"Torren cottages, Glencoe. Don't know if they take dogs though. Can dog sleep in car? "

+1, they're excellent. Private fishing (river and loch), wifi, decent heating. Next to Clachaig Inn, the classic Glencoe pub. Dogs are allowed: "Dogs and other pets are welcome provided you bring their own basket, bed or blanket and they do not use the sofas, chairs or beds. They must be house trained and under control. Maximum 2 dogs in each cottage."

http://www.glencoe-cottages.com/accommodation/

Etihad are very good – Abu Dhabi airport a bit noisy and cramped imo though. Superior to Emirates, at least in the cheap seats imo.

Kuwait will surely stop in Kuwait even if you don't get off – "direct" is not "non-stop" iirc.

I don't think you've got a moral dilemma there 'cos you've already decided it's moral. You're not ripping off the cooncil either.

I think you have a strategic/prospects of getting found out problem!

I had the same as jfeb but much gnarlier ;) and thickly covered with half an inch of ancient road grime and 3-in-1 oil slime that didn't come out for months…

Big Dummy – I have useful leads/advice but can't work out how to PM you or email you through your profile. HTF do I do it?

I can't comment with any accuracy or citations (just like all STW advice, then ;) ) but enough to say with changes to enforceability of foreign judgements, European Arrest Warrants, much more cross-border debt collection etc etc the last 10 years has just about seen the end of the days where you were safe in one country from problems incurred in another.

And don't forget to tip…everyone. It is not optional!

don't make me have to buy the book for one recipe (and then return it)

Hmm, if only there were some kind of state-funded service where you could find copies of popular books, take them for a while and then return them for no charge. Oh wait! There is! :)

Seriously, have you been to a local library recently? They're really good nowadays.

You will never stop lively banter

Yeah, but this is what *all* bigots, misogynists and **** always say about abusive and derogatory language: “fackin’ell, darlin/midnight/spacker/whatever, can’t you take a fackin joke, it’s just a laff, innit? Jesus, they’re so fackin touchy, aren’t they?”. It’s hardly a convincing argument.

Fwiw, I tend to see “jey” as actually rather anti-homophobic because it ridicules the childishness of homophobes’ attitudes, whereas “gay” (meaning pathetic) is just tedious and annoying. I mean, Chris Moyles says it. How naff must it be?

You are talking nonsense.

Not the first time. :(

Fever Pitch was quite good even though I hate football (maybe it’s a book about football for people that hate football). High Fidelity was OK but holiday reading.

Atlas Shrugged – Jesus wept.

I plough through spy and detective novels constantly. But OMG the frigging Bourne Supremacy etc books are awful. Terrible. The first one is just about OK so that you think hmm, I might as well keep going (they’re only 2 quid in second hand shops) but the second one is just *abominable*.

There are a couple of good Tom Clancy ones (by the standards of airport novels) but most of them are too “he put down his CX5 that had been made by master craftsmen in the small Swiss town of Nutzsplatter, pausing only to admire its 5mm adjustable magnitude, which a professional with training in the Lumumba camps between 1976 and 1978 could consider to be…” shite. Yes, we get that you’ve done the research but it’s still crap.

Can’t believe no-one here has mentioned Paulo Coelho! A gf got me that once…think it was then when I realised it was all over…

you can’t be that happy and feel that good for that long without a payback sometime in your life…

S’funny, it doesn’t seem to ever work out the other way around for truly miserable people. I don’t think philosophically what you say is true.

Medically, I suppose it all just comes back to what you (one) mean by “significant”. If significant means “enough to bugger you up” then you just have a circular statement (if you take enough E to bugger you up then it will bugger you up).

I would say that unless they are shameless rip off merchants,

You noticed he was talking about wedding suppliers, right? :(

aren’t SCART leads directional? Have you tried it the other way around? Or am I just talking nonsense?

it’s not as tricky as it looks – i am not very techie and even less musical and it all came out fine. certainly no worse than my mate’s wedding where the bride had hired a live DJ and then gave him a list of songs to play and in which order they had to be played!

also, only downside is that whoever does the mix knows exactly what’s next: “yes, Stevie next…now Kylie…the B52s song the maid of honour wanted…” :lol:

if don’t happen to be a white anglo-saxon.

As opposed to all those black Anglo-Saxons?

Sorry – WASP tautology is a pedant’s hot button.

Yes. **** ’em. You may want to point out that South Africa has incredibly high road death rates and that car crashes there often lead to vigilante mob violence (an activity I would endorse if only mobs could be trusted to use their mob violence power correctly).

he did send me flowers, and that makes all the difference

jesus x christ. even with the delivery fee bumped up, how can they possibly make a profit on that?

surely?

I knew Clinton was a voracious sexual predator but I did not realise he went that far.

That made me LOL (Clinton was a shagger but not a predator).

“made to measure in China for £4.99”

499? 49.99? surely not 4.99…

because it doesn’t do the crossfade on burning CDs (unless iTunes has changed in the last year).

Now is good. =:)

Hertz does free child seat rental if you rent using a AAA (US equivalent of RAC) travel code for your booking. They never check for AAA membership ime. Don’t know if that applies for rentals in the US only though.

Also, ime, the problem with rented child seats is that no-one ever washes them – which means they *stink* of hot child piss.

Cheaper to just take them with you, isn’t it? Or are you going LCC that will charge you for that, too?

Considered just driving…?

Oh, do stick a sock in it, TJ. There are people on this board with 100,000 quid’s worth of bike and car in their garage. Spending a portion of that to share the most important event in someone’s life with a few dozen/ score/ hundred of your closest friends and relatives is perfectly worth it, and if you want to. There’s nothing wrong with not wanting to yourself but don’t dump on other people who do!

FWIW, in the 2 years I have been to two weddings which were the most fun of my life: one had 400-500 guests and took place over two days with four locations; and the other had about 50 and took place in a community hall venue in a nature park with most of the arrangements done by the (incredibly gracious and friendly) bride and groom. So pretty much both ends of the scale – but both fantastic because they were fun and what the brides/grooms wanted for themselves.