There was an interesting comment from an Italian (I think) commentator at the weekend who seemed to be one of the few people looking beyond the political point-scoring. He said something to the effect that the UK being outside the EU was all very well for the UK which would find new trading partners, but the Eurozone’s main external trading partner is the UK and if we look elsewhere they’re completely fubar given that they have more than enough problems as it is with a debt crisis now to be followed by mandated draconian austerity measures.

Also worth bearing in mind that the UK is still the second largest net contributor to the EU after Germany. Under current circumstances they’d be mad to risk the UK leaving the EU and having to find 57bn euro pa elsewhere so there’s still plenty of negotiation room there.

We’re on our second Petporte – first version was not as robust as the current one and eventually the catches that hold the door closed failed – I should have learned my lesson about being an early-adopter years ago. Current version like the one in footflaps’ photo is more robust but the flap’s smaller and our larger cat has a bit of difficulty with it sometimes, so if you’ve got a large cat make sure it’ll go through a Petporte-sized hole before you get one. We ruled out the Sureflap because there wasn’t a mains operated version.

needs something that activates the mechanism before he bats it

Petporte does this, it activates when the cat puts its head under the scanning thing. You can programme how long it stays open after this if your cat’s a bit slow.

what’s the problem with Europe deciding upon our fiscal and social policy

Nothing, provided we have collectively decided in a democratic way that this is what the country wants. There is, however, plenty wrong with this being imposed on us by the EU in order to prop up a flawed implementation of a currency.

Does anyone on here actually want this for Britain? Anyone?

No, but on the other hand if this had happened with Brown’s budgets maybe we wouldn’t be in quite such a bad position now? Just saying like.

they may well make decisions just to spite us now

And you think they’re not doing that already? The tobin tax, whether a good idea or not, is simply a way of postponing problems to the future – probably until after Sarkozy’s elections problems are over. The long term solution is for the Euro to become a grown-up currency and have a viable central bank acting as lender-of-last-resort, which probably means the Germans bailing out a few other countries through Euro-bonds or whatever. It’s Merkel’s intransigence that’s causing the problems at the moment, not Cameron’s.

new and sustainable comic system in Europe

Sometimes autocorrect is almost prescient… Or maybe that’s what you meant to say! :-)

I get that occasionally with my desktop PC. It seems to be related to the graphics card getting hot so I guess it’s some sort of software/hardware interaction problem. Best way to minimise it I have found is to uninstall the AMD video drivers and reinstall the latest set from the AMD site. The uninstall is the important bit – don’t just install the update! It’s also worth checking that the graphics card and fan are clean. I’ve never managed to completely get rid of the problem – next time maybe I’ll get an Nvidia card.

Edit: my mac with ATI graphics doesn’t have the problem so maybe that is the answer!

Rio – DOMESTIC

The original point was that expensive energy will reduce demand; my point (possibly not well made) is that there is a limit to how far that will take you.

energy is going to be more expensive no matter what line we take

Not true – we can go on lobbing cheap coal into power stations for the foreseeable future if we want. A policy of expensive energy is a decision that someone has taken, and it is one that may well be reversed by popular demand when people understand the consequences – after all, people are not typically good at taking the long term view when it comes to impact them.

Its very simple to make mechanisms to prevent fuel poverty while penalising excessive consumption

And what is “excessive consumption”? Should we make electric trains go slower or do we put up rail fares? What about an aluminium smelter – do we put up the price of metals or do we just import from countries with more enlightened energy policies? What about other manufacturers – again, maybe we import from other countries as ours get uncompetitive? Can’t see any of this leading to much of a future for this country.

IME if someone stands to make money out of the proposal then you’ll have a hard time standing in its way unless you’re prepared to spend an equal or greater amount of money fighting it. However, usual practice seems to be to put in the worst possible proposal that won’t get rejected outright first with the expectation that some changes will have to be made and they end up with what they really wanted whilst still being able to say “we listened to local concerns”. So when the planning application goes in respond to it in a reasonable way with reasonable objections and there’s some chance you’ll get changes made. And don’t get stressed about it – it’s far too easy to get wound up about these things. Good luck!

We supply ‘bits’ for Nuclear power stations and looking at the tenders flying round the office in the last year there are going to be new plants built.

Good, I was seriously beginning to worry that this countries energy policy was being driven by badly researched Guardian opinion pieces and Daily Mail-esque “we’re all going to glow in the dark” hysteria. Maybe there is some hope after all. I bet most of the work and profits go to overseas companies though.

According to the National Audit Office it cost £87bn to means test benefits in 2009-2010

I think it’s saying that £87bn was paid out in means tested benefits, not that it cost £87bn to means-test them. Even our civil servants aren’t that inefficient!

Great video – reminds me of some of the snow conditions in the alps last year. Just bought the whole film from iTunes to watch later.

iOS5 is a bit sluggish on my 3GS, particularly when opening the Messages app for some reason, but otherwise it seems to work ok. It’s fixed some bluetooth/WiFi problems so was certainly worth the upgrade for me.

Can imagine this might cause registry conflicts etc though?

Restoring a total image will also restore the registry, so no.

On the Time Machine equivalents, note my comment on backup formats. See if you could recover your data if the product was no longer available. Sometimes a simple copy to an external drive is best.

No

Depends what it is you’re worried about. If you want to recover the PC if the whole thing gets trashed then you need to use some kind of total image backup solution – I use Windows complete PC backup to a USB drive periodically for this; not sure if all versions of Windows have this though. Precious data (photos etc) gets backed up to a USB drive that’s stored in a fire safe when not needed; I’ve set this up to happen weekly on the PC using Windows backup (or whenever Time Machine gets unhappy on the Mac).

Beware of using proprietary backup solutions that use their own storage formats – you might not be able to get the data back in future if the product is no longer available.

Is this another Government scheme to keep the housing bubble inflated, and thereby maximise bank profits?

Wouldn’t have said it’s anything to do with bank profits – they’ve already factored in a drop in house prices. It’s more to do with appeasing those in the electorate that still think “property is always a good investment”. Over-inflated house prices are still the elephant in the room that someone needs to address.

Did it last April, amazing experience but very hard work. You seriously need to get some experience with hut-to-hut touring beforehand, not least because you need to make sure all your kit is ok and you know what to pack. 3 of us hired a guide so that we could go at our own speed and do it mid-week; even so, the huts were full and the route was busy. You won’t get that “Scott of the Antarctic” feel of being out in the glaciers on your own but on the plus side if it all goes pear shaped there’ll usually be someone along to help.

Pack light – I use a 30l rucsack with my crampons on the outside. Use lightweight kit – I’d certainly recommend Dynafit bindings and proper lightweight touring skis. It’s a ski-mountaineering trip so you’ll need appropriate insurance, there’s plenty of ropework and climbing with crampons and your skis on your back (depending on what route you take). Take wetwipes – water in some of the huts is of limited supply! And plenty of money in Euros or SFR.

We had fantastic weather – sunshine all day every day. Others are not so lucky so be prepared to fail if it gets bad. Overall a fantastic trip but one not to be underestimated. Enjoy! Oh, and take plenty of pictures. This is I think the Arolla hut. The former long-drop toilet at the right of the hut has been replaced by a more civilized indoor device but it still smelt a bit outside!

You need to find the shop with the biggest range you can, and try until you find something that fits. If you stick to the major manufacturers I doubt if you’ll find a bad boot (although you may find one that’s inappropriate for your type of skiing), it’s all down to fit. IME you’re more likely to achieve success if you go with one that fits well from the start than if you pick a particular boot because it takes your fancy or it got a good review in a ski mag and then have it stretched and modified.

Last time I spoke to a shop about the gekko skins was in St anton a couple of years ago and at that time they were still considered something of an unkown quantity and they said the earlier ones had not worked well in certain conditions. Since then I’ve never seen anyone actually using them so I’d guess the jury is still out. They seem like a good idea but if your skin fails catastrophically and you’re in the middle of nowhere you can very quickly get into trouble so I won’t be trying them yet.

Sport Conrad[/url] is good for skins, and indeed any other touring equipment; I use their generic Khola mohair/synthetic ones and they perform well – no problem with the glue or the fixings and like most skins they come with the cheat-sheets and a trimming knife. It’s very easy to cut them to size yourself, you don’t need to be too accurate. Black Diamond have some good videos about it on Youtube.

I get mine from Vetuk when ordering food for the cat.

Do the people on here seemingly complaining about getting less back from the state than they pay really not get that there has to be a significant balance of payment to the state to pay for things like teachers, doctors etc.?

From the BBC site:

Benefits include both cash benefits, including the retirement pension or child benefit, and benefits in kind, which includes public spending on health and education, amongst other things

As others have said, a very crude tool that doesn’t really tell you much.

Miss Morgan’s friends filmed and took photos of her while she was trapped.

Always good to be able to rely on your friends in a crisis. Kids today etc etc…

If you have a personalised iPod nano, you will receive a non-personalised replacement

Ah, that’s alright then, so I guess I won’t get back a refurb one that says “love and kisses from xxx” on the back; not sure how I’d explain that to Mrs R.

I’ve replaced most of ours with LEDs that consume abut a third

Efficiency of LEDs is similar to CFLs, so that seems unlikely unless you’ve improved the distribution of the light at the same time. I’m replacing our CFLs when they fail (which is usually long before their expected lifetime) as otherwise I would be wasting the embedded energy of production as well as creating unnecessary waste and pollution. If you’re replacing them when they still work you’re most likely wasting energy, not saving it. I agree that the CFLs are crap as a light source though.

Is it really any better a buy that one of these?

That looks exactly like the torch I got from ebay last year; runs on 3 AAAs, no way is it 5W! Not bad value for the rear light and the handlebar mount though.

Are you using a mouse or a trackpad? Mouse is as above, trackpad needs a 2-finger click for right-click. If you’re using a mouse then a magic trackpad is a good investment when you feel the need to upgrade spend more money.

Yup insulation would improve things greatly

It would, but space heating is only a small part of energy consumption (about 20% as far as I can make out) so improved insulation doesn’t get you away from having to make hard decisions about energy supply.

I ordered my box on Friday, I’m hoping that by ordering late they’ll have run out of old nanos to replace it with and maybe I’ll get a new one… but more realistically I expect I’ll get one of the first ones sent back but refurbished. :( I wonder what they do if you had the personalised engraving on the case?

Real Primus stoves use paraffin.

Safety sheets for the gas canisters are on the Primus web site – http://www.primus.eu/templates/pages/product.aspx?ItemId=38052#

I’ve found that hiring decent touring kit can be a challenge, even in the big resorts; we had difficulty finding good stuff for one of our party even in Argentiere last year. Note that if you get the touring bug you’ll be wanting to go to more out-of-the-way places and this makes hiring difficult if not impossible. So if you want to tour you need to think about buying but it’s complex and you need to really know what you want so (a) give it a try first using rented kit and (b) find someone who does it and ask them. FWIW I use a pair of K2 Waybacks with Dynafit bindings for touring but there are many alternatives.

You really need to have your own boots, and if you want to tour you’ll need boots that will go in Dynafit bindings (or have 2 pairs!). Scarpa Maestrale is widely considered one of the best 4-buckle touring boots around at the moment (I have a pair) and it’s ok for piste bashing too, but the lighter touring boots are generally too soft for the piste. Lockwoods are good for both advice and fitting.

For piste skis I’d say its 50-50 buying vs renting, and a lot may depend on where you’re going and how you get there – it’s easy to bung them on top of a car but airlines are getting a bit expensive. I have Marker Barons on my piste skis so that I can do the odd bit of day touring but they’re far too heavy for serious touring.

Try Merlin – I’ve just got some 140mm Revelations from them for a very reasonable price. bike-components.de have various 2011 models going cheap e.g. Sektors for €249, also On-One have some cheapish Revs.

I read that they don’t work properly with extension sockets that have surge protection. Not sure if that’s true?

Probably depends on the surge protector – I’ve got it to work through a “protected” extension but speed seems to be better if you go from a normal socket.

I did the 5.0.1 OTA update on my 3GS last night and it seems to have improved responsiveness a bit. Also only took a few minutes – I’m guessing they no longer send out the whole image, just the patches. Now if only they’d do the same with iTunes.

Bose are undoubtably the best but are expensive for what they are. Some of the Sennheisers are quite effective and cheaper which makes it less painful if you tend to leave things on planes when landing in some far-flung place at a ridiculous time in the morning with no sleep; I currently have some PXC250s which work well and I won’t cry too much when I lose them.

I ordered some on Saturday morning, just got the email to say they’re on their way – good shout by the OP.

Presumably this is because new models are on their way which will make these ‘obsolete’

Hope brakes don’t get obsolete, they just get older. These will replace some 8 year old Hope minis which will be relegated to my winter hack bike. I don’t consider the minis obsolete – I can still get all the spares for them and they still stop the bike.

Edit: just seen clubber’s response – could have done with a smiley on that! :-)

Real Player – gone (I hope) but not forgotten, has screwed up more PCs than any virus I’ve come across.

SAP – a facade of integration across a bag of acquisitions.

I really can’t see why people have such a problem with iTunes – my first mp3 player came with a thing called Musicmatch Jukebox, now that really was an unusable waste of disk space.

Kitchenaid here – several years old and still going strong, but then again there’s not much to go wrong with them. Prices seem a bit stupid now for what is essentially a motor, a few gears and a bit of metal to hold it all together – I guess you’re paying for all that product placement on the TV cookery shows. The attachments are a bit plasticky though and I don’t see them lasting; I got them cheap in a cookery store in the US but I’d be unhappy paying UK prices for them.

We looked at Kenwoods and decided they weren’t what they used to be – some of them even have LCD displays FFS, can’t see them lasting 20-plus years like the ones my mother used to have.

I use a Halfords one for my forks (yes, I know) and it seems to be fine. Bought a set of these http://www.screwfix.com/p/circlip-pliers-set-4-piece/43041 to get my hubs apart (internal circlips) and they also seem to be fine.