SpuffMonkey

AArrrgghh really bad news - it was so beautifully shot!

How could I forget Harold & Maude? One of my top films ever!

Chinatown is an ace film Apocalypse Now too

Yeah maybe - but we've got rid of small worthless coins in the past and the world didn't end! I even remember halfpenny (new and old), threepenny bit, farthing etc

I wish they'd get on an abolish all the "copper" coinage - its pointless - start at 5p or 10p

From what I've read - the sloe/frost thing is just that it breaks down the flesh a bit and makes the flavour come out more easily - I just bung them in the freezer for a day or two..

As long as it takes ;-) People say you should decant off the sloes after 3 or 4 months - but personally I've had stuff sitting on them for years with no bad effects. As long as you don't get what I had happen with some plum vodka I made - I left that a long time and when poured it came out in long sticky lumps - freaked me out a bit and it got poured away, though I read later that it was just the pectin in the fruit doing its natural thing - a bit like when you make jam and it sets. One of my recipe books says you can eat the sloes after taking off the gin - with cream or covered in chocolate - I tried that too - but I wasn't keen :-(

You're right there - I don't know why either? As witch says the blackberries are about done - but where I've been picking is in a quite built up area - but no one seems to bother to do it - had about 5kg just from one patch in the last few weeks - you'd think in this time of austerity people would make the most of freebies - but hey ho - I'm quite glad they don't... Still a mate has just given me a heads up on a heavily loaded damson tree - so off to check that next

Shame you're not closer - I would've stood you a pot! ;-)

Taking advantage of the very clement autumn weather - I've been out foraging for stuff and today had the big cook up to use all that I had collected So made - rosehip syrup, raspberry cordial, sloe gin, spicy haw sauce and Hedgerow Jelly - yum!

Well - the difference as far as I see it is that while Scotland, NI and Wales got their own assemblies with defined powers and spheres of influence, that is not proposed (by the Tories) for England - so there is no clear division of what is an "English" matter and what is a "British" matter, so who decides which is which and when MPs from other parts of the country can and can't vote - which leaves the system (even more) open to political abuse. As I say - I think a more devolved decision making and spending system would lead to a better outcomes - lord knows I don't think local councils are a panacea - but they did provide widely available decent housing to many, local schools and colleges, infrastructure decisions etc before these powers were stripped away - I know there were scandals and graft - but I don't doubt that there is plenty now - just at a bigger scale. I certainly don't think that the rest of the country IS London and the south east, as I don't live there myself and see the results - the south east has a large percentage of the population living there - but an even bigger percentage if you just consider England - decision making and financial assistance is very skewed towards it - a couple of examples in the paper recently... Transport - the subsidy for public transport in London runs to over £2000 per head, whilst in the North East its under £6 - now I understand London is an expensive place and the capital etc etc - but that seems a bit too different to me - as London doesn't have to try and run routes out into rural low density areas. Also - there has been long term lobbying to get the A1 in the North East turned to a dual carriage way - its the only main north south connection to Scotland in the east of the country and the cost is reckoned to be about £1 billion - a large amount - but that amount has just been nodded through to create two more underground stations in London - it hardly seems equitable does it?

Yes - but an English only assembly would make London and the south east far too dominant (even more so!) - the large cities did a fair job until they were emasculated in the 1980s - far from perfect - but then, what isn't? It seems absurd to me that planning applications in a local area can be overruled on a whim by a Govt minister, or local school set ups or whatever - the constant centralisation of power goes a long way to disenfranchising us - all decisions seem so remote. When you actually stop to consider how an "English votes for English laws" system would work - it becomes hideously complicated without a radical rethink of the structure of governance and a change to a more federal system - though plenty of other countries seem to manage on a federal basis without chaos...

Nice - my folks were watching it from their garden (in Southport)- you need to go "across the moss" to avoid most of the queues!

Yeah - those were pretty much my words to him - but...you know...kids! He's on a limited budget and wants a laptop as he intends to go off to Uni next year. He's pretty much settled on one of these now...PC Specialist Cosmos II 15.6″ Notebook Review | eTeknix so we'll see how it goes!

As others have said - Vaillant or Worcester - Which always recomment them for reliability. We had our 30 year old Vaillant replaced last year with another one - it was still working, but parts were getting very difficult to find. I seem to recall that there is a calculator on the Vaillant site somewhere that works out the size of boiler you should get.

Thanks

Take it you're not in a (hush my mouth) Virgin area...I've always found it very robust - yes they cap your speed at peak times if you use it heavily - but tbh the capped speed is better than I can get through a BT line at full whack.

Mine passed its MOT today with no major work...phew!

Well should be fairly easy to check - patch one of the working digital lines into the socket you're interested in and plug the working digital phone in - if it works - you know the cabling isn't going to be a problem and you can put the working phone back as it was and cable up the new digital. If the new one doesn't work - you'll need to look at the phone system or phone configuration...

Hi - as per title - my teenage lad has got temporary work in the summer hols and wants to buy a laptop that will handle games - he'll only have about £750 to spend - so anyone know of any half decent ones for that price? Cheers

Yeah - the mag I favoured - PCPlus went a while ago as did the music mag I subscribed to - I guess its just the way of things and sign of getting...old(er)

Yeah - mine was like that - we had an electrician in to do some bits - he saw the wiring and said that unless we committed to a full rewire immediately he'd have to issue an enforcement notice - and to be fair he was right - behind the fusebox, the wires came through the cellar wall with no insulation cover at all - could've gone at any minute..

We force desktops with different colour schemes for admin staff, teachers and students - it makes it easier to spot "inappropriate" logins

Yeah haggle for the full price of the work, but obviously bear in mind how much you want the house against how easy it would be for them to tell you to naff off and flog it to someone else...

Not many divisions where you fing Dennis Skinner and Peter Bone in the same lobby!