Michael Howard – he used to be totally in favour of the death penalty until the Guildford 4 were found not guilty when he realised that they would have been hung despite being innocent.

He publicly changed his mind on capital punishment after that,

I think changing your mind is one of the most interesting things someone can do, you don't need to think to have an opinion, but to have changed your opinion shows thought, or understood, or witnessed (perhaps). But I would only say Michael Howard could be admired for his cameo in Dawn Penn's version of 'You Don't Love Me (No No No)'

Time Out's "Paris Walks" book is excellent. You get a real flavour of the city as a place to live rather than visit, if that makes sense (its written by people who have moved there and discovered it, rather than visited and researched it). It has a knack of taking you to all the key places whilst being away from the crowds, we were in the shadow of Notre Dam and had the street pretty much to ourselves at one point.

Monster days of walking and a place to crash are the only holidays I know (that don't involve a bike). But then we've been told we holiday harder than most people work.

I'd agree, its the edges that are the ball ache, not the the big, flat expanses, with decent paint rollering takes no time at all, so the paint pod is only saving time (if it saves time) on the quick part of the job.

Just about any competition like that (including the ones you get on food packets, drinks, newspapers) should have a free entry option. So the competition on a tin of beans should have the option to enter without buying the tin of beans. "No Purchase Necessary". Otherwise its a lottery, and not just anyone can run a lottery. Strictly speaking the question should be difficult enough to get wrong (and a good proportion of people entering should actually be getting the answer wrong) otherwise its a game of chance – a lottery, rather than a game of skill.

Surely watches were invented long after a gentleman went out wearing a sword?

Yes but before watches were invented gentlemen would wear a portable sundial on their left wrist.

Cloverfield!

I'd second sticking it on eBay, with a long, detailed synopsis of its faults. You should get a few hundred for it, people will buy it if they know the extent of the work it requires, or if they know that they bit they want to strip out is good

Axminster[/url] do some Japanese pull saws quite cheaply, some fold, some allow the blade to separate from the handle (keep the cover for the blade so you can pack it in a bag). Very thin kerf as the blade is in tension when you cut, so less effort in the cut and weighs nowt.

Have you noticed that recently opened supermarkets have hardly any automated checkouts, but older ones have loads?

Why might that be? Do you think that planning applications get massaged through with the promise of "local jobs"? How long is long enough to hope that people have forgotten that?

My GF attended a consultation for a new sainsburys recently. The consultation consisted of two questions:

Do you like Sainsburys?
Do you think Local Jobs are important?

She asked why only two questions, the answer to one being of no real importance – who cares whether you like Sainsburys or not -and the other can only really be yes. She was told by the 'consultants' that is was because there wasn't room for more questions on the piece of paper.

Other wise places like HSS do mobile gantries, quite a pick and mix, but if you found one long enough and tall enough you could lift the stone up, roll it along the gantry and lower it again. The trick is making sure the account for the height of the stone and the lifting tackle and make sure you end up with something tall enough. You'll usually find lifting stuff is a bit trickier to hire and some hire co's will have specialist branches as the gear needs frequent checking and certifying

Rather that lift it out of one hole and dropping it into another a couple of feet away… maybe cut a trench between its present location and where your moving it and kind of walk it across. Not much more digging than you'd need to do anyway.

For 80 quid I'd make damned sure I stayed awake all night just to get my moneys worth

they are filled with helium so that you can pull rad airs, and never come down.

I used to do the commute in the opposite direction from shawlands to killie, opposite the rush hour, but in the days of the nasty old A77 and it would take about 25mins door to door. I now live in Sorn and don't have to commute anywhere anymore, but frequently work up in Glasgow. 30 miles (with Killie at roughly the halfway mark). Its only 40 Minutes from here to the Kingston Bridge, so long as you are outside the rushhour. I finf the rush hour period is pretty short on the M77 compared to the M8 and the Great Western Road horror. I rarely find that the rush hour adds that much time getting the the same point, although the sensation is that you are in it for a long time, rarely adds more than 10 mins. The issue with moving south if you work in the north of the city is the travel times north to south across glasgow itself, same as it would be if you move to Shawlands really.

If you've got flexibility over your workhours then its fine. I'm usually either on filmshoots and need to be in the city for 7ish otherwise I plan my day around a 10am start/7pm finish and traffic is never really an issue. I'm perfectly happy to make the early start otherwise and sit and have a nice coffee when I arrive if i need to hit more conventional start time.

Killie itself is better than it was when I worked there, it was suffering from planning blight for a while and while it still has a few black holes it also isn't bad as a place to drop in and out of now.

If you are wanting rural in the killie area, rather than the town itself then the Stewarton area is worth a look, as is Fenwick. I just drove past a to-let sign near Waterside (look up CKD Galbraiths) but it looked like a pretty big place. Theres a house and a flat both available on the estate where I live, house is pretty pricy but perched on a cliff over a wee gorge, flat is crazy cheap and beautifully situated, but I've never seen inside.

Choose a household insurance that covers your bikes well rather than seperate bike insurance if you can. M&S are pretty much the default but try Co-op, AA and one I've forgotten the name of run by John Lewis.

Some household cover includes, or allows you to add a bike, but see what you are actually covered for, I had one policy once that listed the bikes but I later found out they were only covered while they were in the house, not while they were actually being used as bikes.

Specialist Bike cover often has lots of conditions – bikes only secured with locks from their list – not locked outside between certain hours at night etc.

M&S covers anything, doesn't care how you look after it of how/what/when something happens, and thats as much assurance as it is insurance.

Is greasing the mechanism not the answer to your own question. I think in reverse I doubt you compress the mechanism that easily (if its stiff) unless you really lurched backwards

Can I be a skankycrackwhore?

Yes, but how would you like to be reincarnated?

A whistling chuff

Also at 6 ft, in broad bike size terms (with all these wacky new bike frames that don't allow for conventional measurements) I'd say you are a 'large', rather than an 'extra large'. At 6'6" I'm more of an 'extra large'.

centre of the BB to the of top of the seat tube normally, these days a lot of bikes have a sloping top tube with the seat tube extending further above the junction so the measurement to the junction doesn't mean much

For hotels try Casa Kirch and Casa Verado, both run by the same people, the verado is more trad in feel, kirch is more moderne.

We stayed at the Verado,

Comfortable, sylish and no frill at the same time. The Verado is close to the action, a short walk from all the main attractions but away from the noise and clutter. Its in a stunning, peaceful spot, they eye in the storm really

http://www.casakirsch.com
http://www.casaverardo.it/home-hotel.php?lang=ENG

Venice is astonishing. Its expensive, but don't expect to go shopping. Walk, eat,walk, drink walk walk walk walk. Its beautiful but its dead theres no real life there and no real shops (well theres lots of shops but for the most part they are just interesting to look at, not interesting to buy from). So you only really spend your money on refreshments.

I doubt the extra body work on an estate amounts to very much weight. But the spec of the brakes might reflect that the estate is equiped to stop more weight, so unladen it might be a bit 'overbraked' compared to the hatch. The hatch with its diesel is already part laden. The disk/drum thing might not make a difference as much as how the brakes are set up (how much effort the servo is adding, how much leverage is being applied by various elements in the chain. They might feel different, but whether they objectively have more or less braking power would require something bit more scientific.

A lot more happens than just a facelift. The un-facelifted version is pretty much the beta test, lots of little spec changes get made at this point to address common faults in the original version, or to revise production costs (downwards usually)

The problem with the Mail (and now the telegraph, where some former Mail seniors now reside) is their journalists write what they are told to, if during their investigation they unearth the facts that would render their story bullshit (which is usually often), then their choice is to ignore the facts and write the story they were given, or have their story passed over to someone who is willing to ignore the facts and write the story they were given. How many times do you think they are going to pass over stories before they find themselves with a lot of time on their hands.

In you remember the old Giles cartoons, set in a hospital, there would always be a child with measles and a thermometer in them. Measles was frequently serious enough for kids to be hospitalised.

Looking it up, the fatality rate from measles for otherwise healthy people in developed countries is in fact 3 deaths per thousand cases.

It can also lead to corneal scarring and ulceration and acute inflammation of the brain and subsiquent brain damage – perhaps the cause of your friends deafness.

Its a shame that in the aftermouth of vaccination scares / hoaxes such as the MMR bollox that the press show no willingness to correct the situation or clear the air, perhaps because of their own sheeplike complicity in the whole thing. Perhaps because they daren't look over their should at the misery in their wake

The MMR hoax is facinating: An 'expert' being bribed by lawyers to conjour up supportive evidence for use in a trial. The 'expert' takes a half million pound bung. The press are either fed or seize up on the 'evidence' and cover the story as if its an issue that is dividing the medical profession 50/50 when in fact its one insubstantial excise being weighed against a conclusive mass of evidence and opinion.

Harrowingly, the alternative therapy scene chuck their oar in too, uninvited, seeing that there are sides to be taken, they instinctively take the side opposing the conventional line.

The genius of it all in the the lawyers only had to bribe the one quack, the press, self appointed 'therapists', gossips at the school gates and sound-biting politicians did all the rest for free.

Meanwhile we re-introduce measles, a disease that has the potential to leave peoples children in a permanent near-vegatative state that will need minute by minute care for the rest of their lives (or if they are lucky, dead). Roughly one in a thousand Measles cases will result serious, permanent mental imparement. And there have been more than a thousand cases of measles since it was reintroduced, so there is like be be a tragedy out there somewhere. Measles is a third world disease, it has no place in one of the richest countries on the planet. If I was a parent of a child who I'd refused to inoculate I'd be shitting myself, if I was the parent of children too young to inoculate I'd be seething.

To my mind that all adds up to an act of biological terrorism – the spread of fear, and unreason, disease, harm, death.

I think thats a great story, why haven't I read it anywhere.

Whats the nature of the work you/he are in? If you are working on his premises, sitting at a desk he owns, using his tools/ equipment, his phone line, his internet connection through his computers then you're not self employed and nobody (important, like the IR) is going to see it that way.

Perhaps he can explain to you in what sense he believes you will be self employed

I second the bacon and banana sandwich……………YUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMY

Try this then – Croque Mouseur type toasted sandwich.

Dip the slices of bread in egg on one side and assemble a sandwich (egg sides out) containing:

Gruyere Cheese
Ham
Banana
Creme Fraiche

Fry gently until cheese is softened the creme fraiche is starting to ooze out.

It tastes so good I often eat it straight from the pan, standing at the cooker. Can't wait.

Or at least I used to, had to give up dairy products 🙁

Soy Sauce on cheese on toast is a cracker too

The Sanity Trowels?

mmmm bacon

Vague guesses – Female – English with french accent could be Smoke City, or maybe Shortwave Set,

My dad used to do a bit of silvermithing. He was partway through making a ring once and decided to put it on, it was a bit tight so took a few twists. Then realised the was a sharp burr on the inside of the ring and nice spiral cut all the way up his finger. Just as tight to get off again but a lot more slippery.

You should give your grandma a beer.

True: Don’t load her up a beer funnel yet or take her on a drinking marathon at your local pub, but in moderation, beer has been proven to have positive effects on elderly people. It helps promote blood vessel dilation, sleep and urination.

Sleep AND unrination. That'll be the beer then. Not that granny needs the help.

Only if its an american remake and professor Yaffel is played by Sly Stalone

I've also got a new supersexy circular saw with a pre-scoring function, give a beautiful factory-edge crisp square cut on MDF. Its guarded and safety featured to the max, so you'd need to be really keen to cut yourself with it.

BUT

Two sheets of 18mm MDF, with flawless square edges, sliding across each other, with a bit of speed and momentum makes a really good pair of scissors

I used to do a lot of woodcarving. Lots of wee cuts – usually while sharpening tool (oh right that'll be sharp now)

I gave up on regular plasters as they wouldn't stay on, so i'd keep a roll of plaster strip to hand instead. But never any scissor.

So i'd wrap a cut in the plaster strip, awkwardly the strip with stanley knife, then commence dressing the new wound, awkwardy cut the strip, then commence dressing the new wound.

One cut resulted three further stanley related injuries once

Don't know about delivery, but somewhere like Costco would perhaps be worth a look if you wanted to stock up.

The UN are quite good for delivery bottled water, but apparently there needs to have been some sort of major natural disaster or genocide thing in your area. Its a postcode lottery I tell you. 🙂

I've just taken on the lease of an old country estate sawmill as my new workshop. Its like a scene from Cloverfield in there.

Cheer everybody up with Comic Sans.

Make every letter a different colour of the rainbow

I like Helvetica Neue Roman.

Verdana if its for the screen rather than for print

I had a couple of weak, dizzy turns last week, finished work early and just went to bed. Was fully expecting to wake up with cold, but nothing seamed to come of it.