Rob W

"Strange how they always land in unpopulated areas.." About 3% of the world's surface is covered by urban areas - and most of that occcurred in the last 30 years (<2% even 15 years ago) So not so strange ......................... of course if one lands on Moscow or New York the relevant idiots might assume it's an N-strike and push the button

same advice as everyone else - once it's out of warranty a good local garage will do a far better job at half the price - and often a lot quicker We had a real runaround with Volvo, found a decent garage who do everything from Mini's to Ferrarris and have never regretted it at all

Always worth scouting a few local art shows and galleries - see womtheing different and prices aren't that high for something decent

drug fiend.....................

Wolfy get some qualifications, go to uni and spend 8 years doing astronomy and geology it will be faster and less painful for the rest of us

can see us on 49 points again at the end of the season............ more mid-table mediocrity TBH

Australians = anywhere in the UK would do - they drive hundreds of miles there just to get a beer

you mean like us fighting Germany (="fellow christians") After 30 years odf discussion in the meeja you don't know the first thing about Shia & Sunni and their differences If you know so little about Islam I'd suggest you don't post about it

well Christianity was still pretty bizarre 1500 years after it was started - burning witches, burning heretics, strangling unbeleivers, fighting crusades, In fact it's still pretty bizarre Isalm will sell out and settle down and you'll be left with the odd nutter in the Free Islamic Movement of Jeddha

Well if Ashley kicks in a weeks earnings that's his privelege - he put the cash up to buy the club If you owned the Club how much of your money would you put in? All of it? 10%?? 5%???? Why would anyone just pour all their cash into a football club FFS?

stavagna I know not - but if it's Stavanger........................ Not much to do in town other than the old town (10 minutes) and the Cathedral - fbulous scenery around mind Don't even think of drinking and driving and they are very keen on breathalysing the morning after driver 'n aall Make sure you load up with duty free booze..................

can be pretty cool and wet in winter NZ

shudderrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

they may be "behind"them in the sense they surpport them but that doesn't make the Govt of Ukraine Nazi - I suspect the BNP are "behind" the Tories and UKIP but ......

shouldn't invest in the industry you work in - firstly because you are doubling the risk if the industry goes down the tubes - job & savings at risk and secondly YOu think you know how the business works or should work whereas the crooks in the City are working to a completley different agenda - buy, sell, insider trade...................

trouble is the rich can always employ people to find the loopholes - first thing is to cut the loopholes and close your ears to the screams of pensioners,etc etc

You MUST have an arrival address for the ESTA form It's valid for a couple of years at least and you update it before each trip so don't lose the number Normally they put you through the full electronic fingerprint scan on arrival the first time you use it - after that they often skip it or just ask for one hand

From the beeb:- Another trial has ended with no-one convicted over the brutal murder of PC Keith Blakelock in the Broadwater Farm riots in north London almost 30 years ago. So why did the latest attempt fail? The family of PC Keith Blakelock have been trying to seek justice which has eluded them since 6 October 1985 when he was so savagely cut down in Tottenham. Beaten back by young men wielding an array of weapons, PC Blakelock fell and was attacked and sustained multiple injuries which proved fatal. He was stabbed 43 times. The riots were an unmitigated policing disaster. They failed to act on intelligence, conduct inquiries within the rules, deploy officers appropriately, protect their own officers from serious harm and to secure the crime scene. The trial has been a long and arduous one for all involved. In the absence of any forensic evidence against 45-year-old Nicky Jacobs, a successful prosecution was always going to be a challenge. Firstly it was not broadly fresh evidence. Two anonymous witnesses using the pseudonyms of "John Brown" and "Rhodes Levin" had previously not been seen as credible witnesses to mount a successful prosecution. Both men were adults when they themselves were involved in the attack on PC Blakelock, while Mr Jacobs was a juvenile. During the second investigation into the murder that concluded in 1994, these men were offered immunity from prosecution on the grounds they admitted kicking PC Blakelock whereas they claimed Mr Jacobs had stabbed him. A third witness, a cousin of Mr Brown and known as "Q", was identified in 2009. He came to the Old Bailey and spun a yarn of what he saw which at times was fantastical. He suggested he had seen two Rolls Royces on the estate the day before the riots - one silver and one gold - where black men had passed what looked like sawn-off shotguns from one Rolls to the other. But he placed the murder scene on another part of the estate. His testimony sometimes mirrored that of his relative, although bizarrely he denied Mr Brown was his cousin. Q was often incoherent and had serious lapses of memory. He has a long history of alcohol and drug abuse, which at times, listening to his evidence seemed to have impaired his rational bearing. He was a man who sounded like someone 20 years older or one who is seriously ill. His certainty on one fact alone, that Mr Jacobs was guilty, defied the uncertainty and inconsistency on a whole raft of other facts. He was also evidentially inconsistent with other key witnesses to the crime, in particular the police officers. A very inconsistent fresh witness he turned out to be. The fourth strand of evidence was a poem written by Mr Jacobs in 1988 while he was serving a sentence for affray arising out of the riots. In it he appeared to admit his involvement in the crime but perhaps this was too ambiguous. It could have been the rantings of a mixed-up deluded young man who had clearly chosen the wrong path in life. An attempt at boasting, making himself bigger than he was perhaps? The final evidence presented by the prosecution was a brief exchange of words with an arresting officer when Mr Jacobs was suspected of being involved in a burglary in 2000. He was alleged to have said "you don't want to mess with me I did Keith Blakelock". Nevertheless, the officer failed to report this conversation to a senior officer at the time and only provided a statement 12 years after the event. Was this too inconclusive for the jury perhaps?

"Why the Chinese sought fit to start looking in the area on their own is a mystery" 153 Chinese citizens on board FFS - of ocurse they are looking - they have a duty to look imagien the same over here if the Govt said "can't be bothered - we'll leave it to the Aussies and the yanks..."

Very sad - christ - only 25 with two small kids

Poor Wee Eck is going to be disapointed - he had his name down as Next King of Scotland

The Jacobite claim of King Albert of Bavaria, 90, and Prince Franz, 60, can be traced through the will of Charles Edward Stuart's younger brother, Henry, or "Henry IX" as he became when the Young Pretender died in Rome in 1788. The Bonnie Prince discarded his mistress, Clementina Walkinshaw, and entered a failed marriage to Princess Louise of Stolberg in 1772. But there were no children. Henry, a Roman Catholic cardinal, died in 1807. The cardinal, ironically awarded a pension by the Hanoverian George III in his later penurious years, passed the Stuart claim in his will to the former king of Sardinia, Charles Emmanuel IV, said by the Jacobites to be Charles IV. The right derives from Charles's great-great grandfather who married Henrietta Stuart, James II's sister. From Charles Emmanuel, a member of the Italian House of Savoy, the Stuart claim then passed to his brother Victor, and then through Victor's daughter Mary Beatrice to the House of Habsburg-Lorraine. Mary Beatrice's grand- daughter married a prince of the Wittelsbach family, then rulers of Bavaria. Any power the Wittelsbach lineage had ended when the Wittelsbachs ceased to have royal authority, when Bavaria became a republic at the end of the First World War. However the royal title is still used by the Wittlesbach's senior family member, King Albert, and his bachelor son, Prince Franz. Count Christophe Preysing, president of the Administration of the Dukes of Bavaria, told the Independent on Sunday: "Prince Franz does not like talking about this matter of the Jacobite title. He really doesn't want to mix himself into British royal problems." The prince, who studied economics and business, is an international trade diplomat who frequently travels abroad. "But most of the time he is in Munich at his home, the Nymphenberg Palace," said Count Preysing. Keen on the arts, like his Scottish ancestor, the Jacobite Prince of Wales is a former president of the International Council of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. King Albert lives at Berg Castle in Munich, the family's other royal home.

now that is funny

nobody knows nowt on this one I'm afraid.........................

once arrived at Paddington to see this unbelievable mob of shysters waiting to get a train to the Festival - looked like they'd rounded up every Del Boy and Chirpy Cockney Sparra' in Soho and the East End didn't look like honest tax payers either