Rabley Barn Studio (the woman’s gellery) is actually about 5 miles away from us. Must take a drive past it as I’ve never seen one of the Grand Designs in the flesh before.

Looked a bit souless and industrial on the TV. Will be interesting to see it in situ.

Not something I’d go to see especially but happened to be at the cinema at the weekend and it was either watch the International or go to Confessions of a Shopaholic with the ladies of the family. Easy decision to make and the International was better than I expected. Nice bit of gun play at the Guggenheim and not your typical Hollywood ending- where at least some of the bad guys get away with it.

I hope Goodwin’s remaining time on earth is utterly miserable and he dies in abject, long drawn out agony, the POS

Has he killed or raped anyone? Get a sense of proportion. His pension is based on his previous 10 years service where’s he’s probably taken some good decisions which are unfortunatley cancelled out by the daft one to buy ABS AMRO.

Despite what you may think about the size of his remuneration and subsequent pension are we now to start clawing back the pensions of everyone who’s made a bad desision in their working lives- if so lets start with Culpability Brown

Nice one Smee. From your post what you did sounds entirely reasonable although I have to say your posting was guaranteed to get a rise out of the self righteous PC tendency here- if that was the idea it worked ;-)

My favourite also. Drink it quickly as it doesn’t keep. I like all the Islay malts except Laphroaig- tastes like cough medicine to me.

OK Johnson was a good player and captain but what led anyone to believe that without any experience he could manage any team let alone England?

Ending up in a care home

Just because the guy is a bit unusual and chose to build an unusual (for the UK) house there’s no need to call him a nutter. Most of the UK population would think the people who visit this website are nutters because we choose to ride bikes up hills and through mud.

Fair play to him for trying to do something different architecturally but having said that he should never have been allowed to build it 2 m higher than his permission.

Crazy-legs, chemistry was going down the toilet in this country before the recession. If I were you I’d take the opportunity to try something else with bit more of a future. I’m a chemist myself and if I get made redundant again I’m packing it in and retraining as a gas fitter or something else vocational.

Liked them up to and including the Joshua Tree then they lost it. Just finished listening to their latest album on Spotify- its totally forgettable. Time to go and spend some more time with your money lads.

You’ve not been running long so it may be co-incidental hat you have got shin splints at the same time as changing running shoes- you may have been heading for them anyway. Have a look at your running style. I used to suffer from shin splints every time I ran regularly for more than a month or so and gave up running. About a year ago I took up running again and this time everything hurt- shins, back, knees, thighs. Ok I was about 20 years older than the last time I ran regularly but I didn’t think I was that old and knackered. Anyway I examined my running style and found I was running flat footed with my heel striking first. I basically taught myself to run again on the balls of my feet- not easy as my achillies tendon had basically never been used properly and was very weak. However as soon as I did this I got proper spring in my stride, my times were 20% faster and the pain disappeared

Trade unions strikes were not the reason for the destruction of car manufacturing and the coal industry in the UK, rather for the reasons I’ve outlined, it was management decisions and government policies which were responsible.

Can’t believe I actually agree with GG on something. Yes union power needed to be reduced to allow management to manage. However Margaret Thatcher having achieved that and given management the power to manage British management mainly cocked it up. Where companies, like BA, were competently managed they became world leaders. Where they were managed by generations of incompetents like Leyland/Rover they went to the wall. Not helped by the short-termism of the banks and successive Tory and Nu Labour governments acting like industry didn’t matter.

I hear the sound of chickens coming home to roost. There’s been overcapacity in car production for years and the shortage of cheap money has removed the safety net. Maybe if the manufacturers had taken action sooner they’d be in better shape to survive this recession.

Agree with sootyandjim going out of business with thousands of units of unsold stock sitting next the docks is madness. They seem to think the laws of supply and demand don’t apply to them. If you can’t get your goods sold then drop the price until they will.

One thing you can do straight away is open a joint bank account with your mum then at least you can make payments on her behalf. Also when she dies the money in it will revert to you without having to go through probate. I got POA for my dad. Ok it was about 5 years ago but I can’t remember it taking as long as some posters here have said. Just one visit to solicitors no doctors involved. Its not pleasant having the guardian/dependant roles switched but in my experience it will as cinnamon girl says save a lot of hassle later on.

Sounds Ok Coffeeking go for it- I know the area well as I’m from Stirling. Just think of the feeling you’ll get leaving work on a nice summers evening and pointing the car towards the Campsies.

My commute is 21 miles on lanes and A and B-roads over the North Wessex Downs to the other side of Wantage which takes about 30-35 mins with traffic only an issue for the last third from Wantage onwards. Beats the hell out of living in the Thames Valley which would be the alternative.

Anywhere next the sea and close to mountains- preferably N West Scotland but would settle for N West Wales

Stables Bar in the Royal Oak Hotel although not as good as it used to be is still pretty decesnt for food. Usually has one or two decent hand pulled ales as well.

Ghastly woman

Nota great fan of Wychwood beers- even been to the brewery- I find them a bit thin and insipid. They do a decent cider though.

Now this stuff is brilliant

Second everything that’s been said about Chester. Outside of my Scottish homeland I reckon its one of the best places in the UK to live. Lived in a village near Chester for 20 years before redundancy forced a move to Wiltshire. We were in two minds whether to move as I was thinking of staying put in Cheshire and travelling Mon and Friday- still not sure I made the right decision.

I use the Gaggia stuff about once every six months. As we live in a hard water area we have a Breville kettle that has the Brita water softening system built in. I always fill the Gaggia using water that’s been through the kettle filter to avoid scaling up the Gaggia.

Was fortunate to see him live a couple of times when he was at the height of his powers. My favourite track of his is probably “Small Hours” where he invented chill-out before anyone even thought to call it that.

The way the economy is going I’d spend it on canned goods and shotguns