In a word, yes. Although I have a son myself.

Why would they do that ?

The Conservative government categorically refused to hold a referendum before Britain joined the European Economic Community in 1973.

So presumably continued membership is not dependant on specific support from the British people ?

I suppose their position would be that 36 years ago a Tory government was in favour of joining a free trade community (the old EEC) and that they are still in favour of that, just not everything else that comes with the modern full fat EU. You can agree or disagree, but it's not an illogical position.

We all know it was Labour's policy to leave the EEC in the 80's right?

karnali – to be honest the bite valve developed a leak quite quickly. Bought a new locking valve though and it's been fine since. Wouldn't surprise me if they've changed the design of the bite valve since then as I've noticed it's different on some of their other packs.

Also the bladder is positioned quite high, fine for biking but not so sure for running, not if it's full at least. Though I've not tried any other designs for comparison.

does anyone knwo if you can carry a bottle on the outdie of the decathlon one as its hard to tell from pics.

I've got one of those though in last year's colours, used it for biking and running. The side pockets are quite small, useful for keys or mobile phone. The expandable pocket at the back is about right for a helmet when unzipped, zipped up you could put a small water bottle in there, think a large one might go in ok but fall out in use (mine generally contains a banana or other snack) – but why not use the included bladder for water?

on the other hand we have the likes of Fred Goodwin behaving in a totally cavalier and dare I say corrupt manner and costing the taxpayer some £32 billion! Surely a more pertinent pronouncement would be along the lines of what they plan to do about their thieving cronies in those areas who got us into the mess in the first instance

Whose cronies?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jan/21/sir-fred-goodwin-gordon-brown

Now look, don't get me wrong I'm not a particular fan of the Tories – but Labour have got to go.

The main thing holding the NHS back is lack of/insecurity of funding and interference by politicians. If the clinicians and managers were left to do their job free from interference with adequate, secure long-term funding, then the NHS would be second to none.

If you don't want politicians interfering with the day to day running of the NHS then you won't be wanting to vote for Labour then, will you, as they attempt to micromanage everything.

Hannan's description of Iceland before the bust doesn't seem very different to anything else I read at the time, apart forhis claim that being outside the EU had something to do with it (which is of course simply an article of faith for Hannan).

It was greedy money for nothing types in Britain who happily invested tax payer's money in Icelandic banks without thinking it through, and Gordon Brown's FSA that thought it was all fine.

The meaningless but surprisingly common "should of been" is nothing to do with education, it just means you don't read much and spell things as you hear them. What you've heard but never seen written down apparently is "should've been", i.e., a contraction of "should have been" which of course makes sense wheras "should of been" is just some words. ;-)

http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/

Good tip normally is to search for singles each way rather than return and if you specify specific trains you can get a cheap price.

Of course you'll need to schlep around the tube from Paddington to Euston or Kings Cross which is a pain, or tube all the way from airport to Kings Cross.

Edit:
Just found £52 one way on Saturday, 5 hours including tube, via website if you book particular train in advance. An open ticket will cost an a fortune.

CHB – as others pointed out already, councils that contracted out refuse collection (or dinner ladies) to private companies have avoided the issue of needing to equalise the pay of dinner ladies and bin men.

the tory leader of leeds council is on app.£200,000 a year – why don't we cost cut on his salary and benefits , no-one needs that amount of salary.

That didn't sound right, so I checked.

Turns out the council leader, even according to the GMB, earns £45,000 including allowances.

The chief executive, however, is on £190,000 – he is a council employee, not a political member of the council.

http://gmb.live.rss-hosting.co.uk/Templates/Internal.asp?NodeID=98970

Politicians (LibDems at least) on the council think that these very high salaries for senior management in the council should be tackled:

http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/Leader-wants-council-top-staff.5653698.jp

Now, I wonder which party was running Leeds council when the chief exec was appointed?

No, but what fascinates me is how the guy with the funny username, was able to precisely predict when the bust was about to happen. I mean the guy according to himself is not "an accountant, let alone the Chancellor of the Exchequer or Prime Minister".

And yet, he was able to precisely predict that American financial institutions would go tits up. Why, even the US Treasury wasn't able to predict that. He must be very clever indeed. Or full of sh1t.

It wasn't too hard to think 2 or 3 or 4 years ago that the economy seemed to be based almost entirely on borrowing money to buy useless crap made abroad and that house prices couldn't go on increasing for ever, and moreover that it was probably a bad thing if they did.

All binges end with a hangover, everyone apart from Gordon knew this. He probably knew it as well but was just desperate to get to be PM before the music stopped.

TP = Traffic Protocol

Press and hold while on an FM channel until TP dissapears from display

But if you can point me to the ONS page about the £1200pm and £6000pm earners trying to buy £100 bike bits then I'll be pleased to read it.

Is this through the cycle to work tax scheme or not? (serious point, such tax rebates disproportionately benefit higher earners)

As DezB said, they quite often only want to do these things for a few weeks or months anyway when they are that age.

I loved the fact that my son had to call the instructor "Sensei Bob". ;-)

Input £1million to the economy, say paying for 10 good doctors.

£500,000 comes straight back in income tax (so you can ay off half the loan)

Wouldn't you have to spend that 500k on paying the doctors for 6 months next year.. and then for 3 months the year after, and so on… meanwhile borrowing even more to make up the shortfall?

Those earning more would pay more and everyone would be left with exactly the same amount after tax.

That would require a 100% tax band.

Basic stuff people:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regressive_tax

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_tax

If you want any sort of green tax (tax on consumption) it will be regressive by nature (because based on usage, not ability to pay).

What stumpyjon said. I'd much prefer a few p per litre tax than a black box in my car linked by satellite to the government's mega-database (where are you driving today citizen?).

Another one for Bladerunner.

No mention yet of World War Two or atom bomb allegory, or of the anti-modern anti-industrial arts and crafts proto-hippy outlook?

I've been fine with a middling pair of Asics for the last 18 months during which I've gone from struggling to do more than a mile or so to 10k in 50 minutes type of pace. Had a period of shin splints at one point but worked through it.

As to all the gait analysis and different types of trainers – my question is how come there's none of this choice with, say, AstroTurf football boots? I reckon I get through a few km in each game… I can only assume there are other ways to differentiate footy boots for marketing purposes, like 'control surfaces' and other nonsense.

Raddogair – thinner socks maybe?

When one of our team broke his leg playing football last year the ref phoned for an ambulance, and quite right too. No-one was going to risk moving him and possibly making things worse, and how would we have driven him to hospital anyway? You could hold your arm steady and get in a car, you can't do that with a broken leg.

Some of the people on here sound like the opposing team who asked us to roll the guy off the pitch and carry on playing – they were lucky not receive any injuries themselves at that point.

Richard Scarry was my favourite when I was little.

Dr. Suess and Winnie the Pooh were what I read most to my son when he was small.

KoB – that's better ;-)

Oh no, I ride a knackered hardtail wearing even more knackered trainers, I must be a newbie. That said, can't think of anything on Cut Gate that would need either full sus or clips…

Simon, a lot of pubs did close directly as a result of the smoking ban. Drive around and have a look. Mostly pubs which didn't sell hot food. So the smokers now go to pubs which do sell hot food and annoy the diners.

Easy to blame the smoking ban, but it seems not to be true – pubcos are simply changing the types of establishments they run:

Mark Easton – pubs aren't dying

Also: if you banned smoking outside pubs, you might as well close half the pubs in the country in advance.

The moaners taking their kids for a meal on a sunny Sunday once a month in the summer, isn't going to keep them open I'm afraid

I think you might find that most pubs make much more from food than they do from self satisfied smokers masturbating, sorry, smoking away with their pint. Do all chemical dependencies result in aggressive self importance or is it just nicotine?

I suspect I may also have the personality of a carpet. Does that mean I can go out with her?

If so, result!

There's a free version of IDX Renditioner, limited to low res output I think but should be fine for trying things out.

Looks up from his copy of The Renderman Companion…

My favourite is Luxo Jr. from a year before – getting emotion out of anglepoise lamps was a work of genius by John Lasseter. Tin Toy is also excellent.

Loads of in-joke references to these early shorts in the later Pixar movies if you are paying attention…

<edit – I read iPod not iPhone, sorry. iPod works fine but my iPhone will connect but won't charge and goes into flight mode (this may have been fixed with latest update…)>

Apple changed the charging from 12v Firewire to 5v USB, you need a converter to charge from equipment that worked only on 12v (like car adaptors).

http://store.apple.com/uk/product/TS696LL/A

Bloody annoying of Apple to want another £20 off you but there you go.

Tape effects and techniques have been used by avant garde composers like Edgard Varese and John Cage since the 1940s. …
Of course none of these fall within a narrow definition of "pop" music so they don't count.

Surely the fact that The Beatles were using ideas from John Cage in pop music is entirely the point about them being the most influential band in pop music.

Did anyone say Serpico yet?

cruise control set to 75 and got 62mpg in my 2.2 Civic.

Think how good it would have been if you didn't break the law

Think how much more sensible a speed limit of 120 or 130kph (75 or 80mph) would be.

Of course the story was made up / exagerated, it's called hyperbole. Of course when Clarkson does it you can tell because he writes well unlike James Martin who just comes across as a wannabe.

all Homo Sapiens decend from hominids from what is now part of Africa

In fact all homo sapiens are from Africa, full stop. Your fully modern human ancestors were living in Africa a few thousand years ago.

(although whenever I see a picture of Martin Johnson I do wonder if our African forebears got jiggy with the European caveman Neanderthals when they got here rather than just killing them and nicking all their food).

I've got a Sony VGN-NS30Z at home and it's lots better than the Dell I have for work – the Dell cost more.

I got the Sony for the build quality, it looks and feels well put together, and it had better (future proof) wifi than many similar laptops I looked at, good processor, RAM and good size hard disk. Also I have a Sony camera, so the memory stick pro slot is handy.

However be aware if you are an itunes user, don't use the Sony Music Box software at any point, it messes up itunes (though hopefully the latest itunes has fixed this).

They should be designed to make that whirring noise that electric cars in science fiction movies always make.

Amazon link lets you see contents pages etc.