The only good thing about doing a tax return is this stuff gets sorted pretty easily.

Being able to get an education to degree standard should be the right of every single person in this country. Not just for those who can ‘afford’ it

Hmmm…well yeah but is that the point? I mean too many people at Uni costs too much – there’s no benefit from having more than we need. Not sure how we determing how many we do need but it does seem that people are required to have degrees for jobs that in the past didn’t require them.

So I think the choice was either to increase the cost to the student or to reduce the number of students; the latter option is a bit difficult really as the capacity is there and school kids now consider Uni more of a default option than they did a generation ago – indeed more recently than that.

Edit – maybe the country should pay for the brightest students, say those that get 3 As or Bs?

That’s a pretty fast card

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

No, it’s for sh*tting and farting out of.

Homophobe.

Depends on which week innit.

Isn’t that what the back door is for?

There’s also your right hand man but best to clean up any mess afterwards – especially if in her hair.

My mate married a girl then divorced as they never had sex – she found a dodgy card from a phone box in his coat which didn’t help things. The odd thing was they did have sex when engaged but then they moved in to her parents’ house and she said she didn’t feel comfortable having it there but when they married they were unable to achieve entry despite trying. My guess is she never really fancied him as she was surprised he asked her to marry him as they weren’t really dating at the time – just friends. So she should have said no but she was a shy person and I think she thought it would suit her well. He is now married again and just had a kid…so no more sex for him for a while….

you pay around a net 60% of sticker price over a year, then £70 to cyclescheme and 3 years later you own the bike

That is an appropriate option but employers don’t have to offer this. What seems sensible to me is the monthly payments should add up to 75% of the bike value (without VAT) then the employee pays 25% at the end to buy the bike from the company.

Handsomedog.. it’s the company’s bike, they can do with it what they like! You are only hiring it remember…

So that means they’ll pay for repairs?

It’s all a bit rubbish really as the company are making money from this and could now make more by charging fair value – that is they’ve recouped the cost through the monthly payments – and more as save Employer’s NI – then they can make even more cash by charging you 25%.

Garmin Nuvi 265 for me too – when I was looking the free traffic mgt function set it above similarly priced competitors.

Well it might indicate an ability to do hard work; long-term unemployed have little to prove that they are employable – not that I’m suggesting this scheme is the answer.

I used to work out in a gym where a couple of guys would do anything other than lose their benefits – one worked cash in hand the other just didn’t work. I think the above scheme might have an impact on them – probably just pi55 them off really.

Set ours to 15 degrees but not used it yet this winter – have had a few log fires though. When it does get cold an hour or 2 in the morning and a few more in the evening is all it’ll be on. When it gets cold at night I’ll put some pyjamas on but it doesn’t get that cold in Surrey.

I moved last time using a Luton and a mate. Only just fitted everything in – I blame the wife’s clothes…. I had moved the bikes and some other stuff up earlier. Now live in a far bigger house and would pay people to do it for sure – the cost is pretty small to what the other costs will be if I move house; indeed I hope to never move again.

So are we all bothering to be BPA free?

religious reasons for saying this?

What religion says the pill isn’t OK but other methods of contraception are?

It’s a funny old world…would never occur to me to block someone’s drive even if I was struggling to find a space, or mind if someone parked in front of my house if not blocking my drive.

I’d never sell the kids- not for £742 anyway.

:D

I didn’t think there was much money/demand for C these days; people I knew moved into java and .net type things.

I’ve done a number of these and always come out as INTJ – mastermind apparently ;) . Not many of us around – 1 to 4%.

Put my house up for a company car???

Well that doesn’t matter though the cost of arranging the mortgage is likely to be a bit much.

I’ve got one of these for catching small mammals. Got to be careful about killing grey squirrels though – RSPCA won’t be impressed if they hear you’ve killed one in an inhumane way….

Might be worth looking here as get a good discount and they do finance but not sure about the rate:
http://www.drivethedeal.com

This is why I’ll be keeping my offset mortgage going even if I could pay it off.

Arnold is very green for an American….

David Cameron joked that Mr Schwarzenegger would help “terminate the budget deficit”.

Bet that got a giggle.

I know some people in Anglesey who rent them out if you’d prefer Wales to Scotland?!

The Tories did start the rot when Polytechnics morphed into (generally second rate universites).

The change happened in the middle of my HE time – I started off at an average Poly (Sheffield) and ended up at a decent Uni (Warwick). I believe the opinion at the time was that Polys had a 2nd rate feel to them that wasn’t really fair as the best Polys had better courses than the worst Unis. I think initially Polys were more vocational but by the time they changed they were similar IME – my Warwick MSc was pretty vocational really and you could study more academic courses at Poly if that was your thing. So I believe the change removed a level of snobbery – or at least attempted to as mostly we know the best and worst Unis and which one you went to does matter to a degree ;)

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/students-to-pay-%C2%A336,000-for-magic-beans-201010123157/

the libdems have sold their soul

Need to sell all sorts to clean this mess up.

I always stayed around the Upper West Side area close to 72nd Street when I used to go regularly.

As I understand it, there will be penalty clauses to stop parents with the means to do so paying fees up front.

Really? I’ve not seen that but have seen a stupid suggestion about getting those who pay off debts early to pay more.

Well I’ve always considered the idea of being average to be a bit of an insult anyway….

K, government keep telling us graduates make £100k more across their working life than non-graduates.

Is that before or after tax?

Anyway, that’s on average so if we do get a bit of cost/benefit analysis going on then some of those media degrees might not get so many applicants. Boring, but I did business and IT – including a MSc paid by the Govt with a grant ;) – and I’ll make a lot more than an extra £100k over my career assuming it doesn’t fall off a cliff any time soon….

Better for who ?

Do you have a degree? Was it a good investment for the country?

For instance engineering degrees can create good problem solvers. Good problem solvers are useful in areas other than engineering !!!!

Yeah but the skills learnt would be even better if used for engineering!!!!!!!!!!!

Palm of your hand just before slapping your mate on the back for riding that gnarly section so well.

Ones I’ve seen recently:

The Office (US version)
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Inbetweeners

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1916317,00.html

Yep can buy any bike at the price they’re asking. As it happens I got my last one from the Crawley store but don’t know why you’ve been told to use that one. May as well go to the Gatwick one if going out that way.

Having heard about the recent changes in the scheme not sure I’d bother getting a bike through it now.

that is usually done by the most able and brilliant minds of our time who would still get to uni anyway

Ooh you intellectual snob ;)

Well maybe it’s about investment return – is it worth the country investing in people to study something that is unlikely to give a decent financial return? I do think we need people to study all sorts of things but maybe some courses aren’t any more worthwhile than on the job training. Also, so many people study one thing then work in a different area which is also not an ideal use of public funds.