Untill smoking is banned I find this morally wrong. It's the user's fault if they die not the dealer.

It's a bit of an oversimplification to equate the drugs trade with the tabacco one. I certainly don't class the local newsagent who sells cancer sticks as being on the same moral plane as a dealer who may sell drugs using very dodgy tactics to very vulnerable people.

But setting aside moral arguments, the simple fact is that junkies are expensive. They have to steal an inordinate amount of stuff to get enough money for drugs, they're largely inactive in the official economy, and we have to pay for their treatment. And I am for treatment. It seems rather daft that at the moment the government is so afraid of it that it often employs an ALMO like Turning Point.

Remove the target system that means doctors don't offer advance appointments and get paid more.

24/7 utilisation of every major asset where possible. MRI scanners and the like.

Increased employment. Seriously. There are people walking around that look like the living dead. I don't care what they do, so long as they're doing something, and sober for at least 8 hours a day.

Some research on the price elasticity of booze and a minimum price / unit if it will actually cut consumption.

Proper home economics taught in schools.

Massive sentences for drug dealing.

Improved road design. 300 people a year croak it after driving into trees at the side of the road.

I suspect the big savings are to be made in cutting demand…

Passats and A4s have a dull as ditchwater reputation for driving experience, but they're the best Derv engines of that era really.

Two problems – they hang onto their money like crazy. Compare the prices for a VAG diesel to the equivalent Mondeo TDCi or Pug HDI and you'll see what I mean. The other thing to look for is history, just so you know it hasn't been clocked. They can stay very tidy looking for a long time.

The A4s and Passats both share the same design under the skin. The front suspension wears, and there are lots of arms to replace to get it all back to good nick again. Can be very expensive.

The A6 is obstensibly on a different platform, but I wouldn't be surprised by major similarities in suspension & chassis design etc.

Injection pumps on the old diesels can get horribly noisy.

I'd personally be inclined to go for a 1.8T, which will have plenty of go and reasonable economy. I'm sure they'll also be a lot cheaper to buy than the diesels, which may work out better if you don't do major miles.

Individual opinion is fairly worthless, as few of us get to try out many components and bikes.

On the other hand, the bike journos do get to try out a lot of stuff, but probably not for long term durability, and magazines often make more out of ads than the cover price. You can see how that could skew opinions and result in PR copy going straight into the mag. And all humans have preferences, which will make their way into reviews here or there.

Even when you get to quite large and well resourced consumer surveys, you still have problems. The big car surveys for example – is the typical Honda owner more likely to treat his car well than a Vauxhall that'll typically go to a fleet driver? Is one guy going to have different expectations to another – Merc drivers often seem to be willing to accept nearly any bill, as it is a Merc…

I just ask the bloke at the bike shop. I know him, he's a good chap and he doesn't sell you anything you don't need, and he sees a lot of bikes, so he knows which bits are rubbish. Which is ace.

I did. Everyone seems to say it's indescribably awful, even Mr Parry, and I seem to remember he was a Marine, and they don't let softies in.

Someone I know who's gone travelling is going to have some tomorrow apparently. I really cannot understand why.

The life model folks normally prefer the great sagging old crones as there's more to draw!

+1 for kick the hell out of social services.

They will dodge doing anything if there's any difficulty in doing it (ie, being old to f-off by the man of the house). To the point where there are cases where women move in their new chap who's a known sex offender, kids will be in genuine danger and they won't do anything about it. Or a kid's been kicked out by their parents, but SS won't do anything because it's the weekend. They are absolutely unreal.

And whilst I'm at it, most of the services designed to engage with these sorts of parents fail. Surestart is a case in point – the govts own research says the impact it makes is unmeasurable, and it's because the people who engage with these services aren't the problem parents.

I'd not have a cold bath, because I'm not enough of a tough guy! But a real hot one does cause more vasodilation, and therefore more bruising / tenderness.

I also subscribe to the choclate milk theory of protein shakes. It's cheaper and it tastes nice.

I'd avoid the canal / cycle path as a route to work and take the road. Way too much potential for that sort of thing.

That said, once you were in that situation your only option was to defend yourself.

As for calling the police, you're having a laugh. They wouldn't be interested – even if they do pick up the right lads, they'll say nothing, the CPS won't be interested (rightly, as there's little chance of a conviction off the back of it) and they'll be on their way pretty happily. The police know this, so they probably won't bother coming to have a look.

As an aside, the other day I had a smackhead/alcy looking bloke follow me up the road for a good half a mile after he'd seen me take a phone call, doing the "oi, mate, mate, oi mate" routine, clearly hoping I'd stop so he could try and pinch my phone / laptop etc. What the hell are you supposed to do in those situations?

I'd avoid the canal / cycle path as a route to work and take the road. Way too much potential for that sort of thing.

That said, once you were in that situation your only option was to defend yourself.

As for calling the police, you're having a laugh. They wouldn't be interested – even if they do pick up the right lads, they'll say nothing, the CPS won't be interested (rightly, as there's little chance of a conviction off the back of it) and they'll be on their way pretty happily. The police know this, so they probably won't bother coming to have a look.

As an aside, the other day I had a smackhead/alcy looking bloke follow me up the road for a good half a mile after he'd seen me take a phone call, doing the "oi, mate, mate, oi mate" routine, clearly hoping I'd stop so he could try and pinch my phone / laptop etc. What the hell are you supposed to do in those situations?

On the other hand why do you think nurses have to be from the uk (although I'd happily admit I'd prefer it)? If the nursing posts are filled with qualified staff then there isn't really much the NHS as an employer can do about it.

I suspect what happens is other countries pay a fair whack to train nurses, who after a few years experience up sticks and come to work in the UK. So effectively we're robbing poorer countries of nurses by not training enough of our own.

I know a lass who's a nurse, and it's not a job I'd ever choose, so I can see why we're short of them. The shift patterns are terrible (ie, all over the place) and you have to calculate dosages etc. despite that. In fact, I'd be utterly amazed if people don't die because of the way shift patterns are arranged.

TandemJeremy – Member

Tron – of course some countries have better outcomes – they spend more on healthcare. Its not rocket scinece. we have comprehensive care for what is still well less than 10% of gdp. The average in the EU is 12% of gdp. USA is 16 – 18% of gdp.

They may well spend more on healthcare, and so should we, when we can afford it. The problem is that the extra money we've chucked at the NHS hasn't seemed to have as much impact as it might have.

Gone Fishin

Can you explain to me what state subsidy goes into my pension. As far as I can tell the only money that goes into mine is from the money that I earn. These contributions are, like your 9%, not liable for taxation. Unlike yours however there is no employer contribution. So where is the subsidy?

You get tax relief on the money you put into pensions. Which I suppose may be considered as a subsidy. I consider it as a small sliver of sanity.

TandemJeremy

Good – can we have private sector wages as well? As an experienced shop floor nurse I get £12 per hour – thats degree educated ( at my own expense) and 30 yrs experience. £12 per hour. £24 000 pa.

Yes. The current idea seems to be that people in the public sector get paid a bit less, but get to take the odd sicky, generally slack a bit whilst being immune to being sacked, and get a very good pension. I'd much rather the public and private sectors were on an even footing, so it's clear whether or not the public sector is paying the going rate.

TandemJeremy

Which countries should we copy? Please tell?

I have no idea. Quite a few countries beat us in terms of life expectancy at 65 and cancer survival rates.

kimbers

people only have pension envy since that nigel lawson came up with the idea of pension holidays to liberate tall that saved pension dosh into the economy

Let's not forget that Gordon removed tax breaks on pensions, making pensions that were previously healthy go sour.

As for the NHS, yes, I expect they will make cuts, and I hope they do. I have temped in the NHS, and know a few people who work in it at the non-clinical end. If someone turns up with a quite ordinary workrate, they are hailed as being incredibly productive. GPs currently have a bonus scheme that means they get paid a fortune for making their patient's experience worse. Much like the council, sacking someone is incredibly convoluted, so a lot of people who don't want to be there are still on the staff due to the pension etc. I'm sure anyone going through the thing with a fine toothed comb would find lots of similar savings. And that would be the way to do it.

I think it goes without saying that the pension schemes of all public sector bodies need to be looked at. Private pensions need to be improved, and public pensions need to be on a par. Same goes for sick pay, fringe benefits etc. Public and private jobs should be directly comparable.

Ultimately, to me the answer is pretty obvious – we keep tweaking this and that with the NHS, but there are countries which have excellent healthcare systems. The most sane option would be to copy them.

The problem is if the next government (whoever they are) simply cut all budgets by x% and the management simply close / delete more or less at random.

I genuinely wonder if we can ever sort out kids like these. I hope we can. Ideally we would have a good system of adoption in place, as the statistics suggest that kids brought in car have a fair chance of being further abused and ending up in prison.

In my opinion, there should be serious consequences for the parents. Preferably longer jail sentences than the kids get. Something needs to be done to give the message that people need to bring their kids up in a sane manner.

The internet says 255mm vented and around 1.3 tonnes. They're not massive, they're not tiny. They're probably helped a lot by the regenerative system.

I'd just buy decent branded bits. It's fairly new, so you may not need to run to Brembo disks. On the older stuff, the screws tend to be siezed in / mangled and it's worth changing them.

What the other bloke said. Astigmatism correction. Freaks me out when I change from glasses to contacts (glasses correct astigmatism, bog standard contacts don't), despite hardly having any astigmatism. Everything seems out of perspective for a while.

And they do get the prescriptions wrong sometimes. Some opticians cock up very rarely, some places cock up much more. Often the big nationals employing locums.

What car? Some cars are overbraked, some are underbraked, some have tendencies to warp disks. If it's underbraked, you need good stuff. If it's overbraked, then you can get away with the cheapies. Always do pads and discs together. Not worth just swapping half of it.

Brembo are the daddies of the brake disk world. If you have a car like a 406 that tends to warp disks (causes judder under braking), or a car with small brakes for its size (some Ford Kas), get Brembo disks. They also always come with new retaining screws, which is extremely helpful. All the others are pretty similar, and tend not to come with new retaining screws.

Pads are much of a muchness, so long as you're buying a decent brand like Mintex / Pagid / Brembo etc. If you buy the cheapest ones you can find, don't be surprised if they aren't very good.

There are a lot of people selling axle sets for specific cars on ebay, with mintex disks and pads at good prices.

My only other advice is to bleed the brakes properly, and to ensure that everything goes back as it should. Some cars have plastic ducts to direct air to the brakes that can go missing, and you should replace the caliper bolts as a matter of course. Costs a couple of quid, but you know they're threadlocked properly and won't round off next time.

I've actually put Quim down when playing scrabble with my girlfriend and her gran. Fortunately her gran is quite sound and will also put down anything she can to get points :lol:

My advice is not to bother. In all honesty, the hours and pay in consultancy (field ecology, planning, CFSH etc. which I assume you are going for) are ridiculous (17K with anti-social / dangerously long working hours seems to be the norm for a starter). A lot of people I worked with struggled to maintain a relationship with their girlfriend due to the hours, and a fair few people had car accidents.
The hours are ridiculous for a good reason – there are people queueing up to do it for free. If you can get in with one of the large engineering firms and specialise, you are likely to have considerably better pay, conditions and prospects.

Voluntary work is something I am dead against. I've done a couple of days scrub bashing and hedge laying with charities, and I couldn't see how it was going to get me anywhere. Despite that, everyone will tell you need to volunteer to get on the ladder. To me, volunteering as a career move is simply another mechanism that reinforces the advantages of the wealthy, and acts to drive down wages.

The other issue is that a lot of voluntary / charity groups are useless. One of our undergrad assignments was to critique a management plan – several of us picked ones from a Wildlife Trust (with a fair number of paid staff), and they were unspeakably poor.

However, if you do want to get into consultancy, my advice is to get in touch with every single one you can find, and ask them about seasonal work. Most will employ people before graduation to help with newts / bats / reptiles from Feb to September, and this can translate into real jobs. Some will even pay you an hourly rate to do the work! If you stick in the sector, this will probably be the best paid period of your life for a few years – at one point I was managing to clock in > 60 hours a week, all of them in daylight and expenses for 700 miles a week. When they take you on as a perm, you're salaried and you will struggle to ever see your time in lieu, let alone overtime.

And yes, spec apps are the way to go. Most jobs are not advertised well, if at all, most consultancies don't have the cash kicking around to spend on recruitment firms, and don't have any dedicated HR staff.

You will not get many people to work in London on 20k – those that can afford it will tend to be the rich kids with private education, parent's house in London and a degree from a top uni – they will be going for jobs with IBs and FTSE 100 firms.

A mate did his placement about 5 years ago, on 20k, with the fairly obvious opportunity of carrying on working for one of the world's largest IT consultancies for double the salary if it went well. He could afford to live as a) he lived in a naff flat near hangar lane gyratory, and b) he worked all the hours there were, so he had little opportunity to spend his wages and c) lived on expenses much of the time. He did it because he knew there was the prospect of 40K and a good name on his CV after graduation.

I agree with the people saying formalise it – there are far too many small businesses who advertise grad jobs when they really don't have one, so grads are rightly wary of small firms. On the other hand, there are plenty of small businesses who want to have someone for three months before they decide to sell the family silver and invest in someone's training. Something along the lines of "there will be an initial evaluation period, and success in this period will lead to XYZ" would be the way to go in my opinion.

The other thing to do is to get in touch with all the local uni careers departments. Some are rubbish, but others are really very keen, and will effectively do much of what an agent will do, without charging you for it. All unis are desperately keen to get people into jobs to improve their performance figures.

I would look at: Honda Civic / Jazz, VW Golf / Polo, Seat or Skoda Golf / Polo. Avoid doing daft things like buying a 1.4 Golf – a 1.4 VW engine might go round the world twelfty times, but it'll only bang out 60bhp, whilst the Japanese equivalent will be managing 100.

Toyota are also reliable etc. but they just don't excite me at all. The Aygo is astonishingly spacious inside, but also built on the same production line as the small Pugs and Citroens.

Of that lot, the VW group stuff will be the cheapest to maintain. Parts for VWs are surprisingly cheap, Japanese parts are eyewateringly expensive. That said, depreciation may come into more than maintenance costs.

The Suzuki Swift is small, properly small in the back. It also has a terrible ride.

If you're doing major mileage, it may be worth going diesel (say more than 25k a year), but otherwise, petrol is the daddy. Less complicated, more reliable, cheaper to buy.

It's well worth if you're a higher rate taxpayer. Less so if you're a normal rate bod.

A mate worked at Norwich Union – apparently their average pension pays out 50% of what's in the pot before the policy holder kicks it. So my advice would be to pick something you can actually get your cash out of!

A lot will credit check you before allowing you on the premises. This is because they exist purely because of the margin they have on credit.

Others actually offer good deals. I'd also look into brokers – there are a few around who will get you new motors for good prices.

My guess is THE CHANGE. Men have a mid-life crisis and buy a sports car. Women stop ovulating and rant and rave at everyone.

To be honest, if my mum started blanking people there'd be a serious argument. But we're like that – because we're happy to argue, you don't have silly schoolchild style tactics like blanking and gossiping.

Renting can be seen as "dead money". But so is the interest you pay for on a mortgage.

My view with renting is that you have a lot of advantages. You can move fairly easily. If you split up, or one of you gets the sack, then you can cut your losses and move somewhere cheaper or with your parents very easily.

On the other hand, with a mortgage, you are tied to one location. If you need to move for work, it's a lot more stress. If you lose your job, you HAVE to make the mortgage payments or go broke. That can be a career ender in some professions. Do not view having a mortgage as owning your own home, because it isn't. The bank own your house, and you're paying them for the luxury of not turfing you out. I personally wouldn't enter into a mortgage with anyone I wasn't willing to marry and have a joint bank account with.

For what it's worth, an unrefurbished flat where I used to live costs £120k. The mortgage on that (based on 25 years, £120k purchase price and 5% rates) is nearly 40% more than I was paying my landlord, and the place had been done up, and he had to fix everything that broke.

My aim when I come to buy a house is to be able to put down a good deposit (around 25%), and to pay the mortgage off in 10 years. That will probably mean 10 years of not having huge disposable income, but the long term payoff is huge.

One option that can work out well is to get on the council house list, then RTB the property at a pretty hefty discount. However, it really depends on what the council estates around you are like, and what your moral standpoint on it is.

3 unspeakably poor A levels.

Geoff in a geography/ecology BSc. I also have a certificate in hedge-laying. Did get me a job, so the knowledge got used, but I didn't enjoy the job much.

Currently taking an MSc in working for the man!

Educated enough to be horrified by the spelling and grammar of my peers. And I am aware of the fact that mine isn't perfect.

[Mike at Dialled] In Taiwan, working in a factory/welding up bike frames is still seen as a good honest job. Over here, most people would consider that kind of work beneath them nowadays. That's just one reason why Taiwan has a thriving manufacturing industry and Brtain doesn't.

There are also plenty of people who'd be glad of the work. They'd still be dearer than doing it in Taiwan.

To me the obvious reason why we don't have a "thriving" manufacturing sector is that we have relatively expensive labour, so everything that can be mechanised has been. As an example, there are far fewer steelworkers in Sheffield than there were in the 70s or 80s, but more steel is produced.

To put it another way, welding things together isn't a good way of making a living in a country like the UK – once you've got the line set up, and the welder on the right settings, almost anyone can be trained to do it repeatedly. On the other hand, Brant's mate needs to be able to weld to make a living, but he also needs to understand the MSA rule book, a bit of physics and engineering, a few things about vehicle dynamics and be a skilled fabricator in order to make a decent roll cage.

One of the issues here is nobody knows what the policy is – at some points it has been described by a tax break for all couples, at others as being just for couples with children.

I doubt the Tories actually know what they're going to do, and I wouldn't be entirely surprised if they find some real shockers in the books when they get in, purely because the current lot know they're on their last stand.

I can't see it myself. The idea that quality will be better just because it's in the UK is way off kilter in my opinion. Taiwan has one of the most competitive economies in the world, and a hell of a lot of experience of building bikes.

I've got an old Nottingham built Raleigh in the shed, and it's not very good. Because it was cheap. Building something in the UK doesn't automatically make it quality.

Definately varies by person to person. I found the girlfriend's Golf a bit wearing when we drove around France, and that's a relatively quiet and civilised thing.

I did a couple of months doing 1000 miles a week in an old Citroen Van at 85mph, I think that did it for me driving anything with a lot of road noise :lol:

No, I haven't. I'm sure whichever ones John Lewis sell will be excellent.

But seriously, if you can, get him used to wearing his hearing aid. It only gets harder the older they get…

Years ago, my dad had a 90. He was always going down the woods shooting (actually in the woods, not just to the woods), has a farm etc. He sold it within a couple of weeks of buying it. It would go anywhere in the woods, but they are bloody awful as cars.

I've got to say from my experience of being in modern ones, I'd never pick one as an everyday vehicle. There are any number of japanese 4x4s that'll do 80% of the off road stuff but quieter, comfier and more reliably.

That said, having been in and driven a couple of 4x4s, I'd never have one unless I actually needed to go properly off road on a regular basis. They're just horrible – the body roll is terrifying. Vans are far more civilised road vehicles.

I can see what you're saying. However, if a marriage tax break is effective in improving educational attainment & reducing crime, drug addiction etc. then it should over the pay off well economically over the long term, and result in increased general wellbeing.

Obviously a tax break isn't effective for people on extremely low incomes who don't pay a deal of tax, but I've no idea how many people work part time rather than claim benefits – I suspect the benefits would be a better deal than part time work almost every time.

I used to be an Environmental / Ecological consultant. The catching newts, finding bats and snakes and so-on business is hell on earth. The pay is poor, the hours are horrendous during the season (Feb-Sept), and there is massive competition for jobs. Promotion in that side of things is very often based on time served (ie, bat licences – you'll need to go and volunteer to do more night work with a bat group until someone will sign you off). Further qualifications will stop you being held back higher up the tree, but do nothing for you at starter level in my opinion. Often you will need to have done considerably voluntary or seasonal work in order to get a job – I was the only person on my degree course to have a job lined up.

The environmental engineering side of things seems a little more sane. You might be required to be on site at the same time as a load of builders (ie, 7) but at least they don't need you there at 11pm, 1am, or indeed, all night. You also get to visit the grottier sites that are full of poisonous chemicals. Did some ecological surveys on a former coking plant, and again, really not my cup of tea.

And yes, both involve a fair amount of report writing and local plan consulting. Very dull.

That said, in both cases, you are effectively paid to ensure the client bends the rules to breaking point, minimising their costs. And you are more or less entirely at the mercy of the demand for housing.

If your sister has an Earth Science background, surely geology for the oil business is the obvious choice? Certainly would be mine if I'd done geology!

To be honest, winter tyres make more sense than snow chains to me. If they work better below 7C, then you could stick them on quite happily for a good 4 months or so.

I reckon if everyone had to use snow chains, a good 30% of people wouldn't learn how to put them on, and wouldn't be able to work it out when they needed to. Of those who did work out how to put them on, probably 90% of people would use them to drive on clear tarmac. We don't get the kind of snow you need for snow chains – you need a uniform covering. Often you will go from snow to cleared road several times in a journey. And then you'll get the people who don't give a monkeys keeping their chains on for a 80mph run down the cleared motorway…

Put it this way, in the golf the air intake for the engine is down behind the driver's side headlamp. The air for the vents comes in through the scuttle, and there is a rubber sealing strip that runs the width of the scuttle to avoid mixing of underbonnet and cabin blower air.

1) You'd think there was no way for petrol vapours to make their way up the inlet tract, through the throttle body, and down the inlet pipe, especially not under a constant vacuum due to the fact the engine's running.

2) You'd think there was no way for smells to get from under the bonnet to the cabin intake.

But somehow, it did. At the same time as I did the plugs, I think I did the oil. Any excess petrol tends to wash down the bores and get into the oil, so the smell may get back out through the crankcase ventilation system.

Grip is related to rubber compound and tread pattern. Pretty much every high speed rated tyre you see has very large tread blocks. This reduces squirming compared with small tread blocks, as far as I know. It certainly seems to give better turn in and stability to me even within legal speeds, athough it's impossible to test these things properly as a general tyre buyer.

I suspect Luke works for a fleet maintenance / leasing firm and they're looking to cut corners. Perhaps they should stop changing brake fluid too?

You can smell petrol at concentrations that are nowhere near flammable as far as I'm aware.