something to do with a certain dust cloud

More likely to be to do with the high-ish amount of pollen about at the moment. link

Assuming your milk is cold, the first one will cool most – see Newton's Law of Cooling for more details.

I've had something similar. I got a chest infection a few years ago following a long flight (back from a diving trip ironically) which led to a cough that wouldn't go away. After some months of varying degrees of coughing – some pretty bad but particularly bad after colds which seemed to come more frequently than before – I went to see the GP who sent me for a chest X-ray (clear) and gave me a salbutamol inhaler to relieve the symptoms. After another 6 months of a cycle of colds – cough – colds etc I found one weekend my breathing got so wheezy that I could hardly walk upstairs. Mrs R sent me to the doctor (left to my own would have just died in pain rather than admit illness) who immediately prescribed a course of steroid tablets (instant cure, next day I felt as though I could run a marathon) and referred me to a specialist, and have been on inhaled steroids for mild adult onset asthma ever since, the trigger in my case being viral infections. It took a long time to diagnose this as most of the time my lung function was above average for my age and as the doctors said, there no reason why someone in their 40s should suddenly get asthma so they were looking for something else.

If you have got asthma once it's diagnosed it's easily manageable – the only thing it's done for me is prevent me diving (PADI seem to have a total ban on diving with asthma, although I don't see why if it's properly controlled. I think BSAC may be more enlightened).

Conditions were still good this morning:

but it's been raining since 7pm and lots more expected overnight. :?

Here's a little graph for you

Best to use up-to-date figures. Here's another little graph for you, which may illustrate the problem somewhat better:

Spot the trend?

BBC apart from that annoying backdrop that changed colour behind the speakers' heads during close-ups. Mrs R gave up watching because she said it gave her a headache although I think her shouting at Brown every time he tried to smile may also have contributed.

by the time they are due we will be sorted

The most important thing is that by the time they're due we're seen by the people we want to borrow from as being back in control of the economy so that the debt can be refinanced at a similar or lower rate, hence the emphasis on deficit reduction rather than debt reduction. Trying to use inflation to solve it usually ends in tears.

you are mixing up the deficit figures and the national debt

In spongebob's defence it's an easy mistake to make, as Our Glorious Leader demonstrated yesterday:

We’ve got a deficit reduction plan, cut the debt by half over the next four years…

Brown shows contempt for anyone who doesn't agree to the Masterplan shock horror! Hardly news. More concerning is his reluctance to own up when confronted by the tape on R2 – "…if I said that…"; MTFU – either admit you're wrong and apologise or stand by what you said. But I'd be fascinated to know who dreamed up the tactic of getting Brown closer to the people in the first place – there was no way that that was going to end well. Same person who told him to smile more perhaps?

Remove capital gains tax exemption on houses – will help sort out house price inflation and get extra tax in.

Additional tax on second/third properties (anyone else looked at the Sunday Times rich list and been struck how many people now make fortunes from "property"?)

Cut state benefits from people who don't need them (child trust funds for millionaires – wtf?)

Replace public sector pensions with a properly funded scheme

Ailgn public sector pay and benefits with private sector, (£38K PAs for schools – wtf again?).

etc etc

Edit – oh, and forgot – stop fighting expensive wars without first thinking about how we're going to extract ourselves from them.

Thatcher and and her mate slick Ron removed the controls from the Financial sector

Bingo! You win the prize for being the first to blame Thatcher!

what does seem unfair to me is taking home less than 50% of any part of income

So you are not concerned that the richest one percent of adults globally own 40% of the entire worlds assets?

Seems to be some confusion between income and assets. Are you Gordon Brown by any chance?

Apparently not autistic or ADHD but INTP:

99% of those you meet perceive the world around them differently from the way you do

which explains a lot.

I certainly remember having free milk when I first went to school but then not getting it later on and I wasnt born till 1974.

+1

sorry smart alec nay-sayers.. we had milk in little tiny milk bottles with a straw..

Harold Wilson removed school milk for secondary schools in 1968 and Ted Heath removed it for primary schools in 1971. Since then I believe it's been a local authority decision. But it's no doubt all Thatcher's fault – "Harold Wilson – Milk Snatcher" doesn't have quite the same ring… :roll:

I remember at my school a few people drank the milk but most of it was thrown away – it was a post-war policy designed probably as much to help milk farmers as the children.

Fascinating – roughly evenly split between the 4. But then no government has ever taken much notice of what's in their manifesto once they're in so it's probably not a good basis for deciding.

DC, GB or VC.

Looks like Nick Clegg's campaign managers need to get their act together… :-)

found it pretty watchable

Probably a YMMV thing – we've found it drops frames and stutters as though it's just not quite powerful enough, but yours may be slightly newer/more powerful.

We have a Win7 starter netbook – I find it does most things that you'd expect to use a netbook for, but then I wouldn't expect a netbook to be a good multimedia device given the poor graphics. It does Skype ok but I wouldn't really want to watch a film on it. Win7 starter is definitely better than XP provided you can live with the limitations and it has the bonus of being still in support. You do get Windows Media Player with it (but not Media Centre) so it's not as bad as it seems. It also comes with the option to upgrade the version on-line for an appropriate (?) fee…

One surprise is that it works really well with a remote desktop connection to our desktop PC running Vista so if we want to e.g. re-encode media files we do it that way rather than wait a week for the netbook to do it.

Probably safer than playing roulette but not as much fun.

This time last year was a good time to invest. I gather the more cautious investors are now moving into cash (but probably not Sterling) pending the results of the election…

I think Works is deliberately not compatible (at least not easily) with Word.

Never had a problem with this, and Microsoft list it as a feature –

"Share & edit Works Word Processor and Spreadsheet files with Microsoft® Office Word and Microsoft® Office Excel and vice versa"

Only put on what you really need, don't go installing stuff just for the sake of it; even now Windows tends to get fragile if you do lots of install/uninstalls and before you know it you'll be into re-installing the OS in the hope of a magic cure.

Windows' own Firewall should be fine (make sure it's turned on), likewise Microsoft Security Essentials should be ok for virus/spyware unless you plan to be really careless (in which case nothing will help you). Ccleaner seems to be fairly harmless if you need that sort of thing (hiding your tracks). Use Firefox if you like it but don't get too hung up on the supposed security problems with Internet Explorer, Firefox has similar issues. Use Open Office if you don't want to pay for MS Office, but you may have MS Works already which does most of what most people need. I've never found a good free image retouching tool for Windows so good luck with that one…

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c004.html

Aaargh… read that and it's done my head in – so many circular arguments. Still, looks like incest's ok after all…

Isn't just the same as the rates that preceded the poll tax?

I'm not a tax expert, but as I understand it rates were based on the notional amount you'd get if you rented out a property. Council tax is based on bands to which a house is allocated based its market value. This makes Council tax more regressive; I believe once you're in the top band that's all you pay even if you live in a stately home.

The main reason some people didn't like Poll Tax was because it made them pay tax when they didn't before, and had little to do with whether it was "fair". Poll tax probably isn't fair (few taxes are), but no-one seems to have come up with a valid reason why current taxes are more fair, unless you consider an arbitrary figure based on your house and your postcode to be a good basis for taxation. Personally I can't see why a large family on low income scraping by so that they can have a big enough house should pay the same tax as a rich person in an apartment, but I guess as it wasn't Thatcher's idea it's "fair".

btw council tax was John Major's idea, and he was a Tory too, you know.

a pivotal moment when a pi$$ed off country told the government of the time it had had enough

So the electorate (30M+ people?) vote in a government that has poll tax as a central policy, and then 3000 people riot in Trafalgar square because they don't agree. Isn't democracy wonderful. :roll:

Now we have council tax which is fairer because??? :?:

ntfs or whatever it is mac wants to call it

HFS+ I would guess – not much NT on a Mac.

Not sure you can do that – I seem to recall that when I set up my external drive for Time Machine it grabbed the whole drive which scuppered my plans to use the same drive for backing up our Mac and PCs.

No doubt a Mac expert will be along soon with a definitive answer.

Edit – looks like I'm too late, a Mac expert has already been here…

those left in work have to generate the output and services to support those unable or disinclined to work

This is only really true of unfunded pensions, like the public sector ones referred to later and the state pension (which most people expect to gradually disappear). In theory pension funds should be invested in the industries that provide jobs for the next generation, which is sustainable and sort of how it used to work before the pensions industry was dismantled – a job started by Ken Clarke but comprehensively finished off by Gordon Brown.

There's a thread for that… :-)

Can't see it doing Labour any good, and they must realise that, particularly Mandelson. It's almost as though neither party wants to win. Are things really that bad? 8O

BBC news tonight had a piece on what happens if there's a hung parliament; preparing the electorate perhaps?

Some strange arguments on here. If you've got assets to pay for your care then you should be required to use them. If not, then it's fair that the state should provide a safety net (which I am happy to pay for). But it's not logical or fair for me to be expected to pay more taxes so that someone else can leave their house to their children.

If I get it right I plan to die leaving just enough to pay for the funeral. If the bus hits me first then that's a bonus for a few people. :-)

charlie brookers views on them

Ironically this link doesn't work on a mobile phone browser… :roll:

Interesting how every topic about anything Apple makes always descends into a pro/anti argument! :-)

Back OT – I'm a great fan of Runkeeper on the iPhone for running and biking. It's a good app for tracking but not brilliant for navigation, so depends what you're after. I've also used it whilst skiing, and if you're going off-piste it's great for seeing where you've been. If you want to view the maps whilst you're on the mountain you'll need a data connection but once you're back in the resort you can use wi-fi to download the maps and see where you've been, how fast, elevation profiles etc. Also can be used to provide co-ordinates to tell the rescue helicopter where to come if you need it…

It's a completely unnecessary and expensive device and if you get one you'll find yourself using it for hours and showing people apps until they start to call you an iPhone bore. Well that's been my experience anyway.

The GPS works fine without a phone signal. You don't say where you want to use it but you should be able to get some sort of unlimited data deal from your provider in the UK, but don't expect to use it outside the UK unless you're prepared for big bills, find a wi-fi service instead. To save you from yourself it doesn't do data roaming unless you explicitly tell it to. The default mapping application will cache maps so if you know where you're going and there's no data service you need to download the maps first. Other applications vary on how they handle this.

Another one for you to try – the full dealer service manual – http://www.sram.com/_media/pdf/rockshox/dealers/TM_MY08_E.pdf – definitely covers coils…

Try this one – http://www.sram.com/_media/techdocs/95-4310-745-000%202006%20Tora%20Service%20Guide.pdf – it's for a Tora but the insides for the coil U-turn are the same as a rev (or at least they're the same as my revs!)

Edit – problems with making the link linky, you may have to cut & paste it…

Letter from acedemics in the Guardian

Signed by 97 "…academics in the field of employment relations…" :roll:

Dear Mr Darling, about those cuts you've now admitted are necessary…

browns only fault

Must resist the temptation to respond… oh no, it's too strong :evil: . Can't blame Brown for a lack of basic understanding of economics amongst people but I can blame him for the spin that the population so easily accept. "Brown is a prudent chancellor" "no more boom and bust" "it's the banks' fault" "Britain is well placed to recover" "cuts now would derail the recovery" "our debt is not as bad as other countries". All rubbish but people lap it up.

I have powerful memories of the savage govt of the 80s that achieved a massive redistribution from poor to rich

I have memories of the government of the late 90s and 00s that achieved an even bigger distribution from poor to rich whilst masquerading as a left wing government. Not much to choose really.

The one thing I'd put money on is that Alistair Darling won't have his job after the election – he's been honest on record about the state of the economy and now about the state of public finances, which surely disqualifies him from any government role even if nulab win, can't have honesty creeping into politics… 8O