You cannae spell cannae like that

Education Scotland would appear to disagree

There’s really not 800 though, are there, really.
Maybe it is a Glasgow thing – the Orange Order organised No march in Edinburgh during the Indyref wasn’t really any problem.

Konabunny – I’m not saying what I think should or shouldn’t be done. Just that there’s a different background up here, some of it law, against which the obligations of all parties have to be measured. Some of those labels such you’ve used are what the law seeks to prevent.

I don’t particularly care what they do as long as no-one gets hurt and they clean up afterwards. Outlawing spoken words doesn’t outlaw the mindset and that’s what really needs to change.

JY – up here there’s anti-sectarian legislation which is often argued infringes freedom of speech. So there’s a different backdrop against which to judge what should / shouldn’t be done by event organisers and Councils.

Aye. I recall many years ago people at a place I worked trying to make sectarianism sound fun. Went a bit quiet when I asked them how many friends they’d buried having that fun.

Maybe idiots want to be tribal and if it wasn’t this, it would be something else. At least this is predictable and manageable.

This all seems a bit odd to me.

I grew up in Northern Ireland and before the Troubles started, lots of people just used to go out to the parades and fields no matter who was behind it – it was just a day out and one of the things you used to do. Clearly that was lost a long time ago.

How do you get back to the position where it is just another activity and day out without the idiots hijacking it?

A friend of my brother did it to a car stopped at lights 30 odd years ago. Through the rear windscreen and ended up on the back seat of the car with the two cops in the front seats somewhat unimpressed.

Totally impressed by the efforts of these guys.
Quick question on the crossing at the loch – are they not allowed to head towards Achneigie bothy on the singletrack north side of the river and cross somewhere there? It is many years since I had to do that in high water when on foot, but it got me across.

Skye is pretty good Ton, but there’s also plenty just the other side of the bridge if there’s a bit too much weather on Skye.

Arrived there a little later than the rest one time to find they’d been working their way round the malts. One guy declared the latest to be the best he’d had… only to be told it was a brandy.

Sligachan Inn – the gantry looks vaguely familiar

If you’re interested in the area and are a regular user of those trails, you could consider helping out with the funding of the permanent replacement. I’ve used the old one enough over the years to feel obliged:

Donald Bennet memorial appeal

Maybe this?

GM airbag problem[/url]

The ferry to Spain is a convenience thing and when the kids were really young it was easier to manage them on a 24 hour ferry than short ferry and long drive. It became part of the holiday and worth the c. £200 extra, as it was then, to arrive in Spain fresh, particularly as my wife refuses to drive “on the wrong side of the road”.

These days they can cope better with driving, I’ve got a better car and so we need fewer motorway stops and just drive through France.

You said Vauxhall, so GM. Our Saab has GM electrics and the windows do random things often enough. Park, lock, come back next morning and 1 window open – that sort of thing.

Always happens when someone has disconnected the battery for whatever reason. It may be the shunt damaged the connection to the battery and it is a response to that. Maybe. Maybe not. One thing I have learned is that GM electrics are more random than wives.

It was easy to assume state control of East Coast because its owners withdrew support and could not fulfil franchise obligations. I referred to them being passive earlier. Of course a state controlled body could bid for future rail franchises. In terms of political and financial capital I was referring to the likes of power companies – seeing as I’d mentioned them earlier. I’m much less concerned about transport than utilities.

So you think French state owned railways for example can ran railways in the UK better than British state owned railways

You’re very good at trying to put words into people’s mouths, but I didn’t say that.

The difference is the passage of time and the improvement in quality of management generally and who took responsibility for doing that. Other countries improved the company management and invested. We sold our companies to people who would. Can’t change that. So now we don’t really have enough scale in state owned industries to mount bids for nationally significant services. Trying to undo that would require political and financial capital of epic proportions and time beyond the horizon of any politician.

There’s no argument that the company needs to be taken over by the state to ensure continuity of service.

Some of the public may be interested in state owned services, but that is different from the public interest. I’m ambivalent – I’d like to seem them managed more in the interest of the public, but I recall how crap service was from BT, BR etc so I’m not entirely convinced public ownership gives a guaranteed overall better outcome.

Actually the state rescue of a failing business is very much against EU rules. For it to be permitted requires special approval from the EU

But much easier to get / get round where there’s a public interest and if there’s a passive target happy to be taken over. Then there’s unlikely to be a large lobby against it.

Like they did when we nationalised the east coast line

State rescue of a failing business is different from nationalisation of a profitable business. East Coast / Lloyds / RBS are not the same as going after EON, NPower etc.

I discovered that every time I wash the car it rains just after. So I don’t wash it much anymore.

Paying someone? Only a couple of quid to the kids if they do it. It will be filthy a day or two later so hardly worth it.

My brother, when he was about 4 or 5, tried to push a wheelbarrow, tripped and hit his face on the edge of the barrow. Bit through his tongue almost to the point of severing it and if the noise was anything to go by, that ranks pretty high on the pain scale.

This wasn’t the OP trying to solve his problem then:

Artillery Shell on Eurostar

Church hall round the corner. Visiting on the way to the butcher to get a pie for dinner. So what pie for democratic participation?

If you’re content to follow the dotted black lines, there’s stuff SW of Loch Broom and NE of it where you can make a loop to Aultguish.

Godwin!

What do I win?
Dunno, but would an SNP inspired Kristallnacht not do something like hunt down and intern Tories somewhere like St Peter’s seminary to restore it by hand for use as Social housing?

The best of the Gti’s I owned was a Mk2 Jetta 16V. even better handling and a noticeable power hike on the 8v. Should never have sold that car ( replaced with Peugeot 309 XS- why did I do that?!?)

Thanks for the reminder – fond memories of my Jetta 16V. At least I sold it for a Corrado VR6 though.

Several years after selling an 8V Golf GTi, I saw it rather tatty in the street with the owner it in. He’d just bought it and intended to restore it. Keep hoping to bump into it / him again.

I’ve switched off this series of the show for reasons mentioned above. I’d like to see more of the work and less of the presentation.

So many councils operate different ways of doing it. Edinburgh sends its to Cumbernauld, which is about 40 miles. No need for biobags – any bag will do.

They were going to have private sector partners build facilities at the SE of the city to reprocess everything, but after spending £millions of Council and Contractor money the SNP changed their mind and the project stopped.

I am sure he will be delighted to explain

Please no. The independence thread was quite long enough. Just look at that.

That guy shouting in Jim Murphys face is an anti-austerity campaigner and not officially sanctioned by the SNP at all….

I’m all for showing up the SNP’s nonsense for what it is, but I suspect that photo is from when he was fighting over social housing stock transfer and met various politicians. He was an SSP candidate, don’t think any other party would let him stand.

And considering that Trident’s replacement was designed as a minimum effective deterrant, and has since been reduced below that minimum effective level, it’ll achieve even less. Apart from diminishing our conventional forces that is.

Diminishing our conventional forces… Given the consensus on here seems to be that what our political leaders have done with our conventional forces over the last decade wasn’t the best idea, then maybe having a chunk of defence spending on something we know they won’t use isn’t so bad after all.

Thanks to the mess my neck and back got into from being hit, plus the desire to be able to cover the brakes in town, I’ve used one of these[/url] for years in place of the drops. Advantage is can use the same levers – the only new cost was the bar.

Then when pressed NS indirectly admitted they want to double spend the money saved, as she said they would us it for schools and NHS, and then in next breath that the money should go to improving the conventional forces. So which is it?

Without detailed costings we can’t say, but the manifesto seeks to fill “capability gaps”, mentioning more boats, and restore the Scottish Regiments. So some Trident savings are likely to be applied to that.

Whether you think your wife is right or wrong, could you please thank her, on behalf of my wife, for leaving all those nice, cheaper, just run in, 50k miles+ cars for her to look at shortly. Ta.

Tanjore on Clerk St. BYOB too.

It is an employment contract question on what her contracted work location is. Travel there is commuting and you can’t claim. Travel anywhere else isn’t commuting and you can claim to HMR&C – details below on how to, but if it is business mileage, collar the employer. There may be some travel policy lurking somewhere to refer to which is part of the staff handbook and covers travel claims.

https://www.gov.uk/tax-relief-for-employees/business-mileage-fuel-costs

Has somebody published a guide to bothies in Germany

Some used to be mentioned in some German travel guides – don’t know if they still are. I remember some MBA types lamenting that at Shenaval something over 20 years ago as it seemed to have heavy German traffic.

Why not just say that and explain why ?

OK. Because I’m an accountant and I’m highly critical of anything which doesn’t include a set of numbers which allow me to see how it is all supposed to work. There may be assurances it does, but I don’t want that. I want the actual numbers and projections. I get that from colleagues asking me if we can spend £X on their latest idea so I certainly expect it from someone seeking a mandate to run / influence government.

Unfortunately that’s also the conclusion I’ve come to on the other manifestos. Which doesn’t really help other than to turn me from considering any national issues to looking simply at local ones – has the current MP justified re-election or not for their constituency work?

Is there any point reading manifestos

It at least gives you an idea of what they’re going to prioritise in coalition negotiations. The alternative is not reading them and making a choice based on other people’s interpretation of what they stand for and I’d rather read the source material myself.

the ‘No’ vote on independence makes the SNP much more attractive for many of scotland’s voters who would like a proper left wing Labour party to vote for

This I can understand as possible. I’ve read the SNP manifesto and to the uncritical reader living under the SNP might sound like Utopia.

[/quote]Not sure Labour has a lot of activists in Scotland

There were quite a few round our way recently trying to drum up support. Very visible here trying to keep their man in post.

However I agree there will be another indy referendum

Not coming any time soon so all the factors which led to the rise in pro-Indy sentiment could well dissipate. Not least, there’s going to be no Westminster appetite to approve another referendum until the increased devolved powers have been used for a couple of terms.