Earthling

Q1. It's the other way round. Whenever the press, right-wing, left-wing, off the wall, independent, whatever, are taken to task over lies and smearing, then it becomes 'Freedom of Speech'. Q2. When we all stop buying, reading, believing and being titillated by their worthless lies, when we all stop being more concerned with which celeb is knocking off which other celeb than what's really happening to our society. I don't buy newspapers, I don't read their websites, I haven't for a very long time. When I did buy a newspaper, it was in the morning to do the crossword on the train to work.

A society gets the journalism it deserves.

Where's the 'Like' button? Falcon? F-16 Combat Pilot? Airborne Ranger? M1 Tank Platoon? And a whole host of others, I've still got them all somewhere. My ex nagged me into taking away the monitor and all the other bits from out of her loft, but neither of us can find the actual ST box anywhere. I suspect it's buried under the second layer of loft insulation. I really want to find it.

Since we all seemed to have had Amigas, I'll have to trot out my Atari 520ST, bought to replace my Spectrum ZX+2. Sold the 520 6 or 9 months later to replace it with a 1040ST. Twelve-inch colour Atari monitor and an external floppy B: drive and an Epson (I think) tractor feed printer. About two years after I bought it, I bought a 9600 baud modem and dived into Bulletin Boards. When I got it out of the box, I remember thinking, 'Hang on, it's got a serial port and a parallel port. This thing is the Real Deal'. '1st Word' was my introduction to word-processing and a desktop publishing application, that I can't remember the name of. 'Serious' stuff had to be run in 4-colour Medium Resolution, games were in glorious 16-colour Low Res.

I had a similar model. It ended up as one of the first editions of Smoothwall's 'Firewall in a Box'. 2001, I think.

Have a good one, @elsiegee40 and @Greenbeast

You cycle? In South Wales? Wherabouts? I'll wager you're not in Bedlinog.

Only because there aren't as many babes playing bowls. Otherwise, I find it just as absorbing.

So far, so good. We have no Facebook page nor official Twitter account. Music dept has an unoffical Twitter account which the HoD runs, updates, manages etc.We have a website, an on-line VLE, ParentMail, letters home etcI have this recurring nightmare in which we suddenly decide to have a Facebook page.

Is that the one where they all chase after a postman on a moped? When I saw that during London2012, I thought it was so sweet, I had to watch it again. Curling's great. Strategy, precision, focus, calm.

Still getting this on my laptop and RDS session, and had loads of calls about it. Tried it on an IE 10 install, had the CAPTCHA letters submission page but didn't go as far as the multiple tabs/pages opening. Someone saw me using the pc and decided they had to use it 'Quickly, just to check something'. Same when I go in the kitchen to wash the cups, someone else always wants to get to the sink. I'll check with the Grid later today.

Yes, it is.

Oh well, just a thought. Had a kid try that on years ago, here.

Don't suppose some puckish wit has changed the font colour to white, have they?

Yes, have both of those here, Welwyn Garden City, only two users affected at the moment, but thanks for that anyway.

^^^This Took one look and clicked it off again.

Ermmm...... I hadn't noticed. I read the posts, don't look at much else.

Is that what you want? What you really, really want? Hey, someone had to say it.

That's the impression your posts give. Why shouldn't these things be mentioned in the same context?

Where's the 'Like' button?

Oh. You mean like having your moat cleaned and drained on expenses, like Douglas Hogg did? Or watching a porn movie in a hotel, like Jacqui Smith's husband? And the countless other misappropriations of our money, but hey, let's all beat-up on the Benefit Claimants, because they're an easy target for all of us

I agree entirely on the housing build, but Housing Association rents are bordering on extortionately higher than council rents. The difference between the HA flat I was offered and the Council flat I was given was a staggering £147 pm. The Council flat that I took the tenancy on has more living-space, is in a nicer part of town, better appointed and a much nicer aspect when you look out the window. I can only assume the extra £147 goes to profit and to pay someone's over inflated salary. Multiply that by 48 flats in the block and you have a healthy sum of money extra every month. The Site Manager of the HA block, when I asked why it was so much more expensive than council, said 'Well, there's the lift maintenance'. The block where I live has two lifts. Next answer, please? I'm afraid it DOES matter who's in charge of the stock.

Wondering whether to send it to D&T as a future project.

I've said before on here somewhere that the only way out of our current housing crisis is to reinstate the old Council Housing system that Margaret Thatcher dismantled in the 80's. It worked. Flawed, like everything else, but it worked. There was no need to dismantle it other than blatant electioneering and vote-garnering. That's why people with 'more bedrooms than they need' don't have anywhere to go. But this, too, is probably a topic for another time, another thread.

^^^ What he said. Tricky one. Obviously I'd like to say 'No, my social conscience would prick me too much' but I'd probably have shareholders and other investors to consider so I'd probably say 'Yes, of course I would'. If I were a private multi-millionaire, then I'd probably set-up some kind of tax-reducing foundation while donating money to my favoured charities. At my time of life, I've realised that NO ONE needs multi-billions or multi-millions to live on. One of the saddest things about my 'Win The Lottery' fantasy, is that I would probably buy some land and build a walled compound for my family to live in, in our separate dwellings. You know, soon as you get rich, you start cutting yourself off, separating yourself, from the real world. What we have to do is change the tax system to remove all those avoidance tactics, or as many as possible. Plug the loopholes which allow blatant under-assessment. Why does the tax system have to be so sacrosanct? Why can't we make those changes? We're told, stridently, that these companies 'Will move somewhere else, damaging our economy, losing vast numbers of jobs etc etc.'..............let's call their bluff, why not? Would our economy really be better off or worse off without, for example, the rate-fixing, fraud-committing bankers? I heard the same thing in the 70's about equal pay for women and in the 80's and 90' about a minimum wage. None of it happened, and now Georgie Oz has gone on record saying he'd like to see the Minimum Wage increased. In the year before an election. How socially conscious of him, the cynics amongst us are forced to think.