The salient issue re. Heathrow is that it snowed for only 2-3 hours on Saturday morning. Yes it snowed hard, and it was completely understandable that the airport had to be closed for a while, but 48 hours later and still not much happening? Shameful.

Still, we must build a third runway. Because being unable to keep two clear is not enough FAIL.

Welcome back – nearly there! You have been missed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_WXXTDg_hk

I’m Coming Home for Christmas

Found the free champagne

This is a better version. Too much war propaganda on the video of the other one for my liking.

In this one the dad arrives after the baby has been born.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q33P9pL6Bxo&feature=related

Craig:

If it’s any consolation, I have been sitting on a bus for the last 14 hours. I’m now on a boat, still about 2 hours away from home. No free champagne for me =( I can’t even buy alcohol as I still have to ride my motorbike over a mountain with no sealed roads.

Great vid ‘somebody’ eh scintillating

Did JIT (just in time) work in the UK – I think it did – we were used to producing things ‘just in time’ or 3 months later.

Lots of people shouting at the Dutch staff at the minute, which is a bit silly as there is nothing wrong with their airport.

Welcome back, Craig. We’ve got a proper White Christmas this time. Coming back from Ghana, you’d guard against chilblains.

My relatives are all stuck in the coldest, snowiest, corners of Britain, so I guess I’ll be sharing turkey in MK with my housemate’s cats. This place looks like an Xmas postcard, mind you. Wonderful!

Christmas wishes to all the family (inc. Frazer, if he’s looking in).

Craig, it’s not only BAA/Heathrow. The same chaos is happening at all Paris airports, Brussels, Berlin, Frankfurt … you’re probably just lucky being stranded at an airport where everything works.

I like ‘left wind thinking’…

Or rather, welcome back … when you finally get home.

I think frustrated passengers just need someone to shout at. It can be awfully therapeutic.

BAA now flogged off to Ferrovial (the founder did well under Franco – see below) couldn’t run a whelk stall and their vacuous PR gentleman Mr Teacher just mouths empty words.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article4174404.ece

Lord Stevens ex Met Chief Commissioner is on the BAA Board. Don’t know how many times I have seen his name on lists of board members. A nice little earner once you have done a stint at the Met.

I don’t agree with The Cartoonist’s version of events from what I have been hearing. Have just seen a massive queue at St Pancras where they have been standing outside the station for over 4 hours. Babies/children/old people included. Disgraceful. Like BAA, Eurostar are shit at public relations and customer care.

This on the 12 arrests today. A Sky goon is standing in an empty street in the Midlands again mouthing empty words. They are all SO good at it.

http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/thread/1292850689.html

Welcome back Craig. Those are good examples of the Left vs. Right idiocy. I think the root cause is the polarisation inherent in the two party system.

Follow @eurocontrol on twitter. Brussels has just run out of de-icing liquids. An apparently there were punch ups in Frankfurt near the Lufthansa desks.

I see that Auntie Beeb has noted this phenomenon and is blaming the same operational-capacity ethos.

“There are of course airports that claim to tackle snow and ice with ease. Stockholm-Arlanda, the biggest airport in Sweden, currently only has severe delays involving flights to Paris, London and Frankfurt and that is because of problems at those airports.

“In fact, in the five decades since Stockholm-Arlanda opened, it has never closed because of snow …”

“In an airport like Heathrow – much busier than Stockholm-Arlanda – which can often be operating at 98% of capacity, small amounts of disruption can cause rafts of cancellations.”

Mate, check your e mail and welcome back !

All KLM and fBA lights to Heathrow today definitively cancelled. Hope to get on a small plane to London City, but then so do two thousand other people.

Not even free champagne. Cremant de Limoux.

Welcome home Craig well nearly home. Have a glass for me. You are spot on. What most people havnt thought of is its all about the global warming bull shit. People honestly believed in it and truly thought that it would never snow again so why buy de icer grit shovels or 250000 snow ploughs. It is also about its someboby elses job. Years agoevery council worker would pitch in and clear snow push cars or generaly help out, now you need a 3 day course to use a shovel or push a wheel barrow full of grit. and elf and safety rules forbid you from pushing a car or helping out its not my job and i havnt done the course are causing the country to grind to a halt.

Stuart, you’re right about our Rules And Regulations culture; good judgement seems to have been mostly replaced by a “ticks in boxes” mentality. But if those in charge were taking global heating seriously, they’d know that it is likely to give the UK much colder winters, because of the Gulf Stream.

Stuart embarrasses himself by not being able to distinguish between global climate and local weather.

Not embarrassed at all Andrew. I personally dont believe in climate change or global warming as the planets tempreture hasnt increased in 15 years. But the point I was making was that the authorities have been duped by the global warming con. I was told last year by a local authority manager when we had the cold spell. We dont stock grit and have got rid of our ploughs and gritters because snow events will be far less due to climate change.

Thats what I meant prick

Bloomin heck, Cheeba Cow (at 12:47pm), who are you? The ‘Milk Tray’ dude? (!)

Clark, in the spirit of necromancy: so then, it’s bye-bye Gulf Stream, hello Moscow!

Technicolour:

On winter raven

I ride the left wind

Craig, safe journeys always and have a happy Christmas and New Year.

The Just In Time culture contributes too. ‘They’, the gangsters-in-charge-, don’t want their money lying idle in stacks of salt in stores. Similarly we now hear that the de-icing fluid is in short supply at Heathrow.

The culture is prevalent throughout. Even a wiper blade assembly for my 5 yr old car has to be ordered (can’t just buy the rubber blade now) and British Gas engineers no longer carry a full complement of parts as they used to.

Breakdown Britain.

Been in Schiphol for 13 hours now and actually have a boarding card for a flight that is listed to leave! The 1900 to London Coty shows delayed to 1950, but that gives a perhaps spurious air of confidence it will actually fly.

I have been told though that my bags won’t be on it and I will need to fill out a missing bags report on arrival. They should be with me in a few days, which inspires no confidence at all.

Good luck Craig – we were hoping to go out via Schiphol later this week. But it’s looking pretty unlikely we’ll be able to get out of the country. Europe is cut off!

Hope you make it for Christmas. Note: don’t try Eurostar – I came through St Pancras this morning and there were queues all round the station and repeated announcements in French and English begging people to cancel or postpone their journeys.

Craig, great to have you back in mad Britain, were they can fight high tech wars, but can’t buy low tech snow clearing equipment.

How about plan B. I’m sure you will be able to get a train to either calais, or Ostend.

details: Ostend to Ramsgate ferry LD lines, booking online,. check it out, its a 4 hour crossing from Ostend.

Another point, can’t you try and get on to a commercial/freight/postal flight as a paying passenger to Ramsgate? just an idea. cuts out all the failures inbetween.

Tried to find a company, the only thing I could find was a 12 hour commercial flight from Rwanda to Ramsgate.

I would try the ferry from Ostend, you’ll be certain to get home. heathrow is embalmed, some planes are frozen solid, they haven’t moved for days, they just can’t get their act together.

Take care.

Yep, Craig’s right about the lack of ‘stretch’ in all sectors. Same with hospital beds, and for the same reasons. The market, great for selling goods, simply is not an efficient mechanism for provision of public services. Makes big profits for a few fat cats though. Of course, some of us having been saying the same thing for 30 years. Smug? No. Angry? Yes.

I agree, too about risk-averse corporate culture. The situation, though, is not helped by the massive number of spurious claims put in every year by members of the public and some employees (the ‘banana skin’, ‘tripping over the kerb’ effect). In the case of employees putting in such dubious claims, insurance companies often tend to pay out for, eg. back ‘injuries’ en masse, then raise the premiums for everyone – great profits all round!

It’s also important to recall that by far the most deaths and serious injuries at work still occur in the construction industry. In countries without safeguards, the death and serious injury rate is far higher.

Like all public institutions, the HSE (Health and Safety Executive) is being attacked – not just by this Govt; it was the same with the New Labour Govt – and denuded of physicians, inspectors, etc. One wonders whether this too will be privatised/ outsourced.

So there is a real continuing need for sensible H and S practices. But I agree that sometimes things can be taken to ludicrous and laughable extremes; I think that anno has written about the effct on his (electrical) work of this type of red tape.

Thank God they didn’t get a third runway to foul up.

Colin Matthews CEO BAA has just been on Ch 4 News. He made a slip of the tongue and referred to ‘heavy snowflakes’ meaning heavy snowfall. He denied that the parent Ferrovial has been cost cutting.

Heavy snowflakes! What hippies get when they ingest too much acid in the middle of winter.

“Heavy snowlfakes, man! Cosmic. It’s so… white.”

ok the 1900 to London City was cancelled just as I was about to set foot on it, literally. The business class lounge then tried to refuse to let me in and said I should exit through passport control and report to the general arrivals information desk to book me a hotel. This did not seem to indicate they were going to pay for the hotel, and I would be out in Amsterdam with no boarding card to get back in, and no luggage, so I declined to leave. They seem a bit cross.

ingo,

stupidly the ostend/ramsgate ferry won’t take foot passengers

Oh dear, what a nightmare, Craig. I wish I knew someone with a pad in Amsterdam, but I don’t.

Craig, maybe you could hitch a lift as an additional passenger on a car ferry.

I mean as an additional passenger of a car that’s going on a car ferry.

They should have contingency in place. The labour and machinery they lack can be hired at short notice with little effect on profitability and without making their customers think twice about becoming involved with those people. British travel is a complete bloody disgrace.

Earlier this year scientists warned that the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the chemicals used to disperse the oil, had disrupted the Gulf Stream. Instead of moving warm water across the Atlantic to the UK and Europe, it hugged the east coast of the U.S. Yesterday, I saw a graphic showing that Greenland and the eastern part of Canada had temperature of 15

Art, thanks for that. Wow, can weather modification really be so easy to do?

Jeez, Craig, that sounds like a real ordeal. But I’d kind of like to be there to witness you at your obstreperous best.

Anyhoo, Auntie has once again produced a useful summary, re the rights of air travellers:

“Passengers with a ticket have a contract with the airline to get them from A to B. So that means the airline must try to re-route the journey – even if that means a bus or taxi transfer to another airport for a flight with a different operator.

“Alternatively, passengers can choose to have a refund. The Air Transport Users Council says that airlines are usually quite swift to give refunds.

…

“Some passengers have had to spend a night in a terminal building

If a flight is delayed, there are strict European rules in place, which mean that the airline is obliged to supply meals and refreshments, along with accommodation if an overnight stay is

…

“People flying into the European Union from overseas are also covered by the rules, as long as they are travelling on a European airline.

…

Passengers making their own way home, if stranded overseas, can claim ‘reasonable’ expenses when they return.”

Craig,

There’s a high-speed train from Schiphol to Rotterdam Centraal, leaving at 23.10 tonight and arriving an hour later.

The Stena Hollandica ferry leaves Rotterdam at 2.30pm tomorrow and arrives in Harwich at 8pm tomorrow night. It takes foot passengers.

Don’t know if that’s any help – or if you’re still reading.

Yep, dreolin, the Stenaline ferry from Hook of Holland (via Rotterdam) to Harwich offers very comfortable cabins which afford a decent kip at a budget price. You can claim the expenses back from the airline.

Alternatively, the Eurolines bus to London Victoria (via Calais) is OK at a push: you can stretch out and relax if you get a back seat and look suitably menacing when people approach.

However, I reckon Craig might get a reasonable flight by harassing the staff at Schiphol. He’s the one to judge, of course.

Good one, ‘the long way round’ dreolin’

Once in Harwich he still has to get to Ramsgate, the Sotuh East mainline was down today due to the wrong overhead line problems.

Craig, bloody well nick a bicycle somewhere, or hire a riksha till the new year.

rest your weary head somewhere and try again tommorrow morning. Flights to Norwich, Ellingham Hall and then on to Ramsgate? Just let us know I’ll pick you up from Norwich airport if you like. I’m motorised.

Chances are that flights will happen between 10am and 2 pm tommorrow, when the tempersature rises just enough to make them risk it.

What a darn prospect, a night in HAmsterdam, resist…

Stuart you are mixing one with the other. There are scientisst who believe, strill in global warming, bvut insist that the next fourty years might bring us more hard winters than we like.

Our summers will break record temperatures, but our winters will be more severe due to the increased moisture in’t air, sort of. Another feature are increasing chaotic weatherpatterns in summer, widespread flooding that has already made us re design drains and storm sewers.

Some don’t believe in global warming, I do not believe in fairies or the effectiveness of the war on drugs, there you go, balance restored.

What is far more surprising than the black and white positions in this global warming debate, is the fact that parents are overwhelmed by such huge, insolvable threats that they are pressed into a stressed inactivity and self denial of reality, the real problems will hit our kids full on and i do not expect them to like any of what we are doing at present, at all.

I don’t know if anyone is still looking at this thread, but on the subject of crumbling infrastructure, I live in a small Welsh town where all the main roads and most of the side roads are clear. We had no binmen yesterday and when I drove to the sorting office to pick up a parcel I overheard a worker on the phone say that she had no idea when deliveries would be resumed.

Ingo

Thanks I understand that and all the pseudo science that global warming worshippers believe in. I personally think its bullshit and even if its true then long hot summers where things grow followed by cold winters to kill off desease and pests wont be a bad thing and every kids and adults ideal climate if people are honest. The continents already have this and Russia for example is a huge producer of cereals. The main reason for recent crop failures is more to do with inneficient and out dated farming and irrigation methods. If countrys spent more on adaptation crop irrigation, drainage, snow ploughs,4×4 ambulances etc and less on stupid wars then we wouldnt have a problem. To me it sounds like we are entering a new medieval cooling period as part of earths natural cycle all to do with sun spots or earths core temp, or god being upset with us or any other excuse people want to give us. Up until a week ago people from the met office couldnt say if we would have a white christmas saying they cant predict long term weather. But global warming scientists are predicting 100 years in advance. If this was a court case I would use this contadiction. You cant have it both ways saying if I use this cold weather as proof of the non existance of global warming because its local weather but you can use it as proof of global warming because its predicted that this may be a sympton of long term global warming? Using your logic you can never be wrong. If its hot your right if its cold your right I am 45 years old and I cant tell you whats normal weather for the UK I have seen 6 feet of level fall snow in scotland and monsoon rains in london causing flash floods my mum did not go to school for nearly 6 weeks in the 40s due to several feet of snow in Norfolk we have always had a variable climate “If rape inevitable lie back enjoy”

Stuart: Clearly you don’t understand the difference between weather and climate. For the hard of thinking (such as yourself), there’s a difference between the weather where you happen to be, and the temperature trend of the entire planet.

“If rape inevitable lie back enjoy”

Still being repeated then.

Bloody wonderful.

@Stuart – I’m no climatologist, and I guess most of us on this thread aren’t either. With it being a complex subject, I either have to trust people who have done some thorough research, or the people who are doing the research themselves. I think it is fair to say that the vast majority of climate scientists – of the order of 95% – are agreed that we are entering a man-made warming period, and that we need to do something about it in order to ensure the planet (or certain areas of it) remains habitable.

The effects are already being felt at equatorial areas, which are already subject to substantial and unusual flooding. In the UK, we are lucky that are weather system and our location protects us from the early effects of climate change.

If you research this yourself – a risky proposition if you have already made up your mind – then look at what the representatives of tiny islands around the equator are saying. They are nearly tearing their hair out, as they realise that within a generation, some of the places in which they live will be underwater. Plenty of sources for this – Monbiot’s “Heat: How to Stop The Planet Burning” has some first-principles analysis, useful even for sceptics.

@Stuart – what did you mean by your “if rape inevitable” comment? I’ve never heard that phrase before, but I can’t think of any interpretation – even if it is intended to be metaphorical – other than one that is disgustingly and violently misogynist.

Yeah, I missed that “if rape inevitable” comment too. Jesus H Christ, are you just trying to discredit yourself? Do you actually expect people to nod sagely and say, “Yup – he’s got a point there.” What sort of scumbags do you hang around with?

@glenn, I googled it. Seems like it’s an established metaphor, albeit one of the most unpleasant I can recall hearing.

God political correctness gone crazy here aswell get a life you lot that metaphor has been used for years and by far more prominebt people than me. Get a life you lot only a paid up member of the P.C brigade would get offended by it in this context.

Just to balance if anyone is genuinely offended for themselves then I apologies I didnt wish to make offence or be-little rape.

“During the campaign, Williams publicly made a joke likening rape to bad weather, having quipped: “If it’s inevitable, just relax and enjoy it”.[3] …

“Clayton Williams raised over $300,000 for the 2008 John McCain presidential campaign. However, a fundraiser at Williams’ home for June 16, 2008 was abruptly rescheduled and relocated[7] after Williams’ controversial 1990 comments about rape were rediscovered and mentioned to the McCain campaign by ABC News. The campaign condemned the remarks, saying that they were “incredibly offensive”.[8] The campaign said it would not return the money Williams had raised, as it was donated by other individuals.”

Hmmm

“Rape quip and final years

“On November 24, 1976, his weather spot came up just after a report of a violent rape of a five year old girl. Tex [Antoine], who had only been aware of the topic of the report, and not the fact that a child was involved, thereupon quipped: “With rape so predominant in the news lately, it is well to remember the words of Confucius: ‘If rape is inevitable, lie back and enjoy it.’” (The same joke later helped derail Texas gubernatorial candidate Clayton Williams’ 1990 election bid and got Indiana University Basketball coach Bob Knight in trouble during an interview with Connie Chung in 1988). Roger Grimsby led the 11 p.m. newscast that night with the official apology from WABC.”

—————-

“that metaphor has been used for years and by far more prominebt people than me Get a life you lot only a paid up member of the P.C brigade would get offended by it in this context”

Bullshit.

“only a paid up member of the P.C brigade would get offended by it”

OK, so next time you’re at your next Conservative Jam and Cake sale, give it a whirl. I am sure your non-liberal brigade will find it hilarious, and regard you as all the more colourful for it.

And as for Conservatives, let them eat jam and cake! Yes, it’s the first time I’ve heard that metaphor, too – but maybe that’s just my ignorance. Some metaphors are best ditched, not because of PC-ness but for all the reasons outlined by Jon and dreoilin; I note that Stuart’s apologised for any offence, so I think he’s taken the point.

I agree though that the climate thing is by no means straightforward. I have read critiques of Monbiot’s provenance as well. The question is less whether sea-levels are changing and islands being submerged, glaciers melting, the subtropics burning-up, etc. as whether human activity has caused all of this. Many people in the ‘developing’ world regard the Climate Change issue being instrumentalised as a means of controlling their growth. Maybe that’s an inevitable response though. I simply don’t know.

Changing the subject slightly, Craig finds it weird that what he calls ‘health and safety bullshit’ has become part of corporate culture.

I think that betrays a fundamental misunderstanding.

I don’t deny that the sort of thing he describes exists, but in fact it’s a product of corporate culture. It has it’s origins in the willingness of wealthy corporations to pay out relatively small sums on even spurious claims in order to avoid being tied up in costly and inconvenient litigation.

In my experience, this practise only made it’s way into the public sector relatively recently. I well remember at a public sector job I had in the ’80s we had a situation where a man made a spurious claim that work done by my colleagues had caused him to have an accident. “The private sector would just slip him a couple of thousand to **** off” my boss commented (he was quite forthright), before explaining that we couldn’t do that, we were accountable for how we spent the public’s money.

It’s worth remembering also why we have health and safety regulations in the first place. Not so long ago, my oldest friend died of an industrial disease contracted whilst working for a negligent employer. Trust me, it wasn’t a nice way to go.

If anyone doubts that such practises still exist, they only need to familiarise themselves with the appaling safety record of big companies like Corus. But of course, that’s just not a fashionable issue.

Nicko at 5:53pm, what you say is exactly right; it accords with much of what I wrote yesterday. It’s a complex subject.

UGG UK at 5:22pm – hello, nice to meet you. Be a devil! Eat snow! Ride the left wind to the farthest dominion. Become cucumber. Psych-in!

I’ve watched men die from mesothelioma (one of the asbestos-related malignancies). It is a terrible, terrible way to die. While one can control (at least to some extent) pain, one cannot do anything, really, for slow asphyxiation, which is exactly what happens in mesothelioma and some other lung diseases as well. I remember every one of those guys – ex-shipbuilders – and their families. One of the main characters in the novel, ‘Joseph’s Box’, Archibald MacPherson, has this disease. In some respects, the fiction demanded it, but in a key way, it was my very small and insufficient way of paying tribute to the guys for whom I could do nothing.

I know that’s not what Craig was talking about in his original post. I’m just developing and extrapolating the subject. Serious industrial disease remains a legacy in the UK and of course, as I said yesterday, is an active issue in both rapidly industrialising countries and underdeveloped countries. Scandinavia probably has the best and most comprehensive occupational health systems in the world.

Nicko is absolutely correct in relation to the dynamics of the insurance companies/employers/employees vis a vis payouts versus expensive legal process – whether or not the claim is genuine.

“BAA invests in only enough cold weather equipment to cope with a mild to normal winter. It has not tied up capital in equipment that may be fully needed only once in every five years.”

BAA was privatised a quarter of a century ago. It owns seven airports. That makes for 175 airport-years of private sector operation.

Can you prove that they have had thirty-five airport closures due to bad weather in that time?

And that state-run airports have better reliability?

You might at least notice that Stansted is in operation and is also owned by BAA.

And has to put up with the same H&S laws.

An accurate illustration thats hits the mark and can also be applied to many other organizations

Thanks to Suhayl Saadi for your kind comments. I wasn’t sure if I’d explained myself properly, but obviously you managed to piece my fragmented thoughts together.

Another point to make is that the combined effect of the reduced role of the trade unions in national life and the decline of a culture of deference has meant that employees are much more inclined to take up issues with their emloyers as individuals and certainly rather more likely to take legal action in pursuit of compensation.

Just to illustrate what I mean with an example from the real world, in my late father’s working life, if people had a problem with their working conditions they either addressed it collectively, usually through a union, or they suffered in silence. The idea of sueing an employer would have seemed quite ridiculous.

Now people are less likely to have access to a union, but as we see, companies have to keep sizeable reserves available to ward off unwanted litigation. I myself worked for an organisation that had a cast-iron case for dismissing a particular member of staff but chose to pay him to drop a proposed tribunal case. The argument was that it would be cheaper and easier that way and (rather cynically) that he would accept a relatively small sum as he knew full well his case would be unsuccessful if pursued. An accurate assumption as it happened !

Inevitably, working on the assumption that all claims, no matter how ill-founded, cost time and money, companies attempt to head off litigation by indulging in absurd precautions, the classic we all know about being “this product may contain nuts” on the back of a peanut packet !

Hey guys check out heraldscotland.com I got a part in the Xmas pantomime!

Yea, I’m the back end of the horse.

As you can guess it’s not a speaking part as such but I do get to rim the arse of the bloke on the front!

Love to all!

Wow that’s great ChebaCow!

Is the guy on the front wearing a kilt to make your job easier?

Can I be stand-in for the bloke on the front one time?

Happy Xmas!

My pleasure, Nicko! I agree with you,(re. your post at 2:20pm), on all of that – including the very astute systemic point about the individual vs collective dynamic – that is spot-on.

Actually, Nicko, I just checked your fascinating and wide-ranging blog and I see that one of your friends died of asbestos-related disease; I’m very sorry to hear that.

I know parts of Notts/Lincs very well, as it happens. Small world, eh!

Did you ever see the Ken Loach film, ‘Land and Freedom’?

In connection with the fascinating gravestone, here too is an interesting link:

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/la-pasionaria-the-fading-icon-1.989866

Suhayl: The notable talk-show host and writer, intellectual and something of a renaissance man Thom Hartmann, had a father who died of mesothelioma. Unsurprisingly, he’s had a lot to say on the subject in recent years. It does indeed sound like a pretty terrible way to go, and I did sympathise with Archie, even though he certainly had a dark past.

Suhayl: The notable talk-show host and writer, intellectual and something of a renaissance man Thom Hartmann, had a father who died of mesothelioma. Unsurprisingly, he’s had a lot to say on the subject in recent years. It does indeed sound like a pretty terrible way to go, and I did sympathise with Archie, even though he certainly had a dark past.

I do hope that the spambot above was indeed ‘unconscious’; for anyone knowingly to have (inherently mockingly) parroted my statement on this subject in relation to Nicko friend’s death would suggest psychopathy at the very least.

In other words, someone dies of mesothelioma and you play spambots.

Glenn, thanks for the info. and it moves me that you sympathised with ‘Archie’; I did want to make a complex character, one who was difficult to love or like but who, nonetheless, was human and real.

Well, thank you to Suhayl and Glenn for your comments.

Suhayl : I’ve added the link you provided to Favourites to look at properly when I get a little spare time (whenever that may be !). I’ll have a look at your website sometime as well.

It is indeed a small world.

Sorry, I’ve not seen Land and Freedom – I rarely watch political films, though I do like Edward G Robinson in The Stranger.

Welcome home Craig well nearly home.

There is one aspect of health and safety bullshit that had real consequences for me. I have mild autism and secondary mental health problems. I was stuck at Gatwick airport for 8 hours once, and they have about 5-10 small electric cars that move at about 4mph. Each one apparently needs to emit a 100+ dB noise, the whole time, which to me feels like an icepick through my eyes.

I am told this is for visually impaired people. How this sound coming from all around, from a hundred feet away, all the time, is suppossed to help anyone who cannot see is beyond me. And can’t the driver just look where he is going at 4mph?

They have the same thing in shops like B+Q and after the above, I cannot go in those places.

100. Magic number. Dig it. Fast pace. But where is truth…?

I can’ t but agree.I each wanted to write in my neighbourhood something like that but I imagine you’ r faster.

[IMG]http://www.sedonarapidweightloss.com/weightloss-diet/34/b/happy.gif[/IMG]

Ah, your so witty. Just like Evelyn Waugh.