chrisp65

My wife did an OU degree (Maths, Science and Geology mash up!), in a way, just to prove to herself that she could. It wasn't relevant to her work but she had always felt she'd missed out on that Uni side of life. The degree was hard, but it suited her to fit it in around 'normal' life. What did turn out to be quite important for her was to go along to the meet ups, the tutorials and get in with a small number of like minded people. That way they could set up 'homework' evenings where they could coach and cajole each other and have a bit of moral support rather than being totally on their own. It worked a treat. Take advantage of as many field trips / get togethers as you can manage. It definitely helped her.

It took me a while to end up there, but yes, agreed. I'm a lot happier in my own skin now. Actually, I should just add it was much much more of an anti-dad attitude than a conforming to my friends taste thing.

What do you mean by 'feasible'? Can it be done? Of course. Is it at all likely? Not on your nelly. is it possible? 100,000 homes per year? of course it is, ONS stats show that for decades we used to build over 300,000 per year, all through the terrible bankrupt 1970's when we were 'broken' where the Green Party would allow 100,000 homes per year to be built would be interesting, you will struggle to find 100 towns a year for 5 years to accept a 1,000 house developments in the existing confines of the town and I'm not sure the Greens will allow new towns to be built on newt occupied grasslands so history says yes, easy, but practicality suggests it won't happen (imagine the amount of road it would commit the greens to building!)

If you've got a Distant Echo Scooter Club badge sewn on the back of your parka and a pair of black n white bowling shoes at the bottom of your burgundy sta press then there's plenty to be wary about getting caught playing that stuff!

for all the piss taking that goes around mate, it's a good place to get your ideas out in the open and hear some feedback best of luck to you

you never know, on the Syria thing, perhaps the intention was to be a good boy and play the game the right way in backing the PM on a military adventure... ...and then somebody noticed, out of the window, public opinion and mood that was shifting to a position of 'oh no, not this clueless blood letting shit again?

Brumpic Birmingham 1972 everyone follows Brumpic on twitter, right?

He may well have got there by accident, but the action, however dubious or whatever the actual intention did actually stop us getting involved in a Syrian conflict it later transpired we knew next to nothing about. Why knowing nothing about the intricacies of any region in conflicts we get involved in is ALWAYS a surprise to us, probably needs a bit of thought.

in what time frame?

30th what?

superb

Yep, and Cameron said if he didn't reduce immigration to tens of thousands we should kick him out. All a bunch of shysters.

Do they have nukes? No. Exactly. So is it fair to deny them nukes and let them be repeatedly invaded and bossed around? By that logic, world peace can be achieved by giving everyone a bomb.

and this is what annoys me so much, with this story, and any 'story' on the NHS and immigrants etc Tomorrow, the Mail will have an article saying Miliband is scum for false accusations calling Cameron a blood thirsty murderer. Meanwhile the Mirror will have an article showing how Miliband saved the world from war and warned Cameron he was about to cause genocide. Neither story is true, neither story will have actual facts. Hundreds of thousands of people will believe the media they've selected because it panders to their prejudice. My dad clutching his Mail will be able to argue with my mother in law clutching her Mirror, both sure it's true because it's in the paper. Either or both of them could possibly read around the subject for 5 minutes, but won't bother. They will then go and vote for their prejudiced choice feeling vindicated they've struck against the liars on the other side.

Lefty BBC article on the actual speech I'm struggling to see what's quite so offensive to the tories in that speech? I suspect we are all being treated to a 'westminster village' tiff over the staged angry reaction to a leaked over egged preview of not very much.

Ah yes, the hotel breakfast. When you wonder, is it ok to revert back to the yoghurt and grapefruit I started with now I've had two plates of fried food? No? OK lets just have another coffee and a load of croissants. That's continental sophistication that is. And maybe some salami and cheese, because although that's weird, the Germans over there did it so I'm giving it a go. This banana is for later.

In all fairness to the DUP Health Minister Jim Wells, he has now apologised for saying that adoptive gay parents are more likely to be child abusers. 'The comments I made do not reflect my views or those of my party'. I suspect the comments he made actually do very much reflect his views, he just knows they can only really be aired amongst friends and colleagues not holding up mobile phones.

ein bisschen enough to know if they're talking about me, (providing they are talking slowly and clearly)

I work in Kent, if that's the future, 'dim diolch'.

Can you quote the piece of the speech where he says that? There appears to be a bit of hoo haa here over the exact wording and the underlying meaning of briefing notes for a speech that hasn't actually been given yet? I could be an hour behind the arc.

we've already won the toss, we have the momentum...

Whoever persuaded women that they should shave off their eyebrows and then draw them back on, well, genius bit of scamming.

I guess that's the whole 'arms race' thing? I don't know, but I'd guess the existing systems we have probably have a shelf life. The subs can probably be tracked so they aren't the surprise mystery strike force, they probably need more and more maintenance and spend too much time being coaxed into service. The missiles might be easily tracked and relatively slow and newer shield weapons and interceptors 'might' be capable of knocking them out over Finland instead of Moscow? I'd guess once a deterrent is old, it's less scary and less impressive. Otherwise I guess guns would still be old school single shooter pistols? There's a whole argument about preventing war that I'm sure the Ukrainians and Georgia and Afghanistan would be interested in, not to say the Vietnamese, Cambodians, Balkans, Libya, El Salvador.....

A couple of these lined up, for novelty value and in the spirit of purely scientific research. I'm expecting it to taste of chips, candyfloss and hen parties.