maybe to answer a pub quiz question I can't get

Tuts loudly

;-)

I blame society for this pointless thread.

Clearly what she is saying is that it does no-one any favours to blame an amorphous entity called "society" when in reality society is just a collection of people who all have to make an individual contribution.

I'm not a massive Thatcher fan, but I find the constant abuse of this quote irritating.

Or are you being even more literal than I give you credit for?

That's odd, my post went in the wrong thread. Hmm.

assuming the Tories do what they say they will then thats what I believe will happen. The massive public spending cuts will put many people on the dole queues and send us back into recession. That would not be so likely under a government not ideologically committed to tax and spending cuts

Yes it would – which is why Labour ducked responsibility, and Conservatives needed Lib Dems to have their hands dipped in the blood.

Cuts are coming, they always were, didn't matter who won the election.

ernie – you're not doing yourself any favours by putting that Thatcher quote in context. If you're not careful people might read it properly and see what she meant, rather than what what the spin has been for the last 25 years or so.

Nice US spelling BTW. Whered'ya lift it from?

+1 for the Sennheiser CX300

molgrips – if you want a police state, a good way to do that would be to give the police any powers they ask for.

Their job would be loads easier for example if they didn't need evidence, or could beat confessions out of suspects, etc.

Stu – that's the trouble, not really done any C++ or Java in anger. Used to be a C programmer then spent quite a few years as a technical author. I understand websites and can read php etc. but not an expert. C sharp seems to be where it's at currently so I'm teaching myself that.

If you need someone to document an API on the other hand, I have plenty of experience of that…

Ooh – thanks for asking. It's called 'CodeSpin', just a simple guess the code type puzzle. Just done to learn my way around XCode and Cocoa Touch really, but thought I'd tidy it up and release it. I've tried to make it more interesting by making it against the clock and adding a scoring system.

Trouble is unless it sells enough to get into the top sellers list, no-one ever sees it – chicken and egg situation.

molgrips – the difference between all three parties plans on reducing the deficit are tiny. The argument about NI and the timing etc. were largely illusory smokescreens to avoid them having to spell out the awful facts to us child-like voters. There's a graph somewhere on the BBC website based on published plans from all three parties, can't find it now, but there are three lines, all going the same way, the difference between them isn't really significant.

molgrips – are you seriously saying that Labour wouldn't have had to cut public spending if they had won?

It looks like they've deliberately ducked out of coalition with Lib Dems precisely so they don't have to do the necessary cutting themselves, now they'll pick a new leader in opposition while complaining about 'Tory cuts'.

Classic banner across BBC news screen just now:

Breaking News – luggage seen at back of Number 10

Barmaid was quite grumpy too

This seems to be normal for Derbyshire IME… bloody townies coming out at weekends and spending money in their villages…

I just don't understand why syncing wouldn't work with multiple iPods and playlists.

OP is saying they want to delete stuff out of their itunes on computer to save disk space. If they don't turn syncing off, itunes will delete stuff off the ipod too if they do that.

Good luck Pook – nearly six months unemployed now for me, apart from a spot of freelancing and writing an iPhone game which very few people have bought. On the plus side, after 6 months I can work for competitors and customers of my previous employer which might make things easier.

kimbers – this is a pointless aside, but I don't know what you are trying to say. Conservatives were never going to have a referendum on a treaty once it had passed into law, it would be pointless. Only UKIP headbangers thought that would be sensible.

Lib Dems and Conservatives have different views on Europe and the EU, but as there aren't any treaties coming up, it won't be a problem, they can simply agree to differ.

cast iron garuantee on a lisbon treaty referendum anyone?

Lisbon is done and dusted, what would be the point of a referendum on it now?

or can you drag playlists too? – never tried it (i'll shut up now)

Yes. Best way to do it if you have more than one ipod is to turn off syncing but keep playlists for each ipod in itunes and just drag those onto the ipod.

How exactly do you reconcile Tory and Lib Dem policy on electoral reform/immigration/education/tax etc etc?

replace the word Tory with labour in that sentence, then add civil liberties

Unfortunately, because of the way our first past the post system works the Cons got a disproportional number of seats

It's Labour that got the most disproportionate number of seats.

I bet if you asked most people who voted Liberal which would be their next best choice, it would be Labour.

I'll start – I voted for Clegg, I want Labour out. Cameron with Clegg in the cabinet is what I wanted, expected, and think is the only option.

Does this help?

I'm tlking about the voters TJ. People voted to get Labour out, whilst not being keen on the Tories. Many libdem votes were anti labour votes, not anti Tory votes.

Except that you've ignored the part where I said that almost all Lib Dem and Labour supporters would put the Tories last.

but it's not true… Many people voted lib dem to get labour out. I don't buy this Lib and lab are natural allies stuff, they're not. Look at issues like civil liberties for example.

You can turn off syncing in iTunes then drag and drop, so yes you could remove files from the pc without losing them on the iPod and still add new music via iTunes

if I were you though I would definitely buy a cheap back up disk to copy the music to. Once you've spent a day or so ripping CDs you won't want to run the risk of having to do it again, beleive me!

Are you asking if you can purchase tracks from the iTunes store and then play them on non-apple players?

Walk in minor injuries clinic if your local hospital has one, a nurse can x ray and have fiddle with it. It's possible you've damaged the tendon, but best to check it's not broken.

It's beginning to look like no-one really wants to form a government as they know they will have to cut services and raise tax, and the negotiations are all about avoiding being the fall guys…

I don't think Left VS Right is a useful narrative anymore. A lot of the above Lib Dem policies align better with ideas which have been floated by small state Tories

Not only that, it's worth remembering that Labour lost seats to the Conservatives and also to the LibDems. Conservatives also took some seats, though not many, from the LibDems. So in effect the voting shifted from Labour to he LbDems and the Tories… so this idea that the vast majority of people voted against the Tories isn't right – it's surely more accurate to say that most people voted to get Labour out, without being all that keen on the Conservatives either.

hes saying on the tv right now hes standing down

after the Labour conference in the Autumn – he wants to stay on until then to "ensure the economic recovery and oversee the setting up of a stable government"

in other words "please can I just stay PM for a little bit longer, go on, pleeeeease"

Surely if they'd just amde them all 3g compatible from the start (and they've obviously designed it that way) it'd cost just the same. You're not telling me that a sim socket, an aerial and some software costs £100!

I used to work for a computer company (I won't mention the name, besides it's pretty much defunct now) that sold IT systems to hospitals, local government, etc.

The mini systems in the 70s and 80s had been built by this company but by the early 90s they were buying Unix boxes and putting their own badges on them along with their software. They'd then run about 100 terminals off the one unix server. Naturally, if you wanted to run 200 or 300 terminals for a particularly large site, you'd need to pay more, so as well as more terminals you'd need a server upgrade. Having paid thousands for the extra terminals, you'd also need to pay for the server upgrade – which in some cases meant an engineer coming round, taking the back off, and flicking a DIP switch. In other words, they bought a load of boxes that were all the same from Motorola or whoever, but then provided a range of 'options' to the customer.

Bakewell Tart

Bakewell Pudding, I think you'll find. Completely unlike the Mr Kipling nonsense.

At least one of the two "original" bakewell pudding shops has a restaurant that does pub food type stuff, followed obviously by a bakewell pudding for pudding. Not sure about other pubs in the town itself, but second the recommendation of Monsal Head up the road – worth it for the view, plus last time I was there was a decent beer on.

I used my old phones to listen to the radio. I would then text or play games too. Can't "multitask" with it, that annoys me.

I'm writing this on my 18 month old iPod Touch whilst it is playing music… double click of the home button whilst in the web browser brings a popup dialog box to change tracks…

They're selling like hot cakes in the US so I suppose they can charge what they like. It's annoying that things are more expensive in the UK than the US, but it's not just Apple that does that.

Are Sinn Fein terrorists?

Not currently. But they never take up their seats in Westminster, it being the belly of the beast and all. So it affects the number of seats a coalition would need.

Who are you talking about?

Sinn Fein.

If the LibDems agree not to vote down a Conservative Queen's Speech, then Cameron goes to the Queen to ask permission to form a government. If Gordon doesn't vacate number 10 forthwith, the Queen sends the army in.

I suspect the last part won't be necessary though.

Contact bank immediately and explain the transfer was made in error. They should sort it out. I did the same thing with online banking once, contacted them straight away and they sorted it.

Why on earth the system doesn't have some error checking I don't know, it's very easy to transpose or mistype a digit, and there are simple ways to ensure that if you did this it wouldn't give a meaningful account number, but clearly the banks can't be bothered with making things safer.

if 99% of people screwed up their vote, the politicians would still regard that as an obvious sign that the public were so thick

and they'd be right.

Almost went for Clegg until I found out his wife has not become a British citizen

Eh? Why on earth should she?