Alan Stubbs

....and those of us whose fishing time is seriously restricted make sure we've got friends 'who know' and follow their lead! BTW Budgie, I'll give you a call at the end of the month...business heading your way.

Paul, it's a lifestyle issue. The impact of fuel price probably has less impact on me than on most. On the other hand, I work in an industry which is massively over-capacity and the company has had to broaden its horizons and become a brand rather than a single product entity. This has had an impact on salaries, but as a country we've over-paid ourselves massively for years, it's not necessarily a bad thing. I realised long ago, with the advent of digital print, that things woud become a compromise between acceptable quality / speed of delivery / cost and this would spread across british industry and consumers. I'm not often right in life, but I am in this. Whilst cost becomes the consumer's key driver, British industrial output for domestic consumption will rapidly become a luxury.

I have no patry politics other than to say that Blair and Brown were a disaster to those who had planned to retire. Without a mandate, they decimated my pension and I have to face working a year more than intended for every year they were in office. I may think Cameron and Clegg look like a pair of public school buffoons, but I haven't suffered under their tenure at all - whereas I had from their predecessors after they'd been in office for the same period.

Barclays and RBS? I don't think so. As it was, barclays bolstered their balance sheet by exchanging equity for arab and far eastern money, I think you'll find - because the terms were more favourable. It was HBOS and Lloyds who, under government pressure, subsumed RBS's business. Barclays most definitely didn't have anything to do with the RBS farago. It's easy to slag off the current government, but we ended up getting what we deserved because voter apathy failed to deliver a clear-cut result. As far as the redundancies go, I think the Civil Service (a misnomer if ever I heard it), are more likely to blame for this. If you take things literally, the Secretary of State for Defence is responsible for policy, the executive, ie Civil Service, for its implementation. Yo may not like the policy, but many of us didn't like the policy of the last shower - defence was so important that the Secretary of State for Defence was also, for a time, the Scottish Secretary, too. One very good reason, in my view for getting rid of them.

In my lifetime the biggest culprit in funding the minority interest brigade was Ken Livingstone, who seemed to think it was appropriate to grant funding to any group capable of making a noise and delivering votes to his tribe - unless they were white, male and heterosexual. Typical of the point I'm making: 'Only Women's Press'

In the not too distant past I seemed to be commuting between Aberdeen, Helsinki San Fransisco and Heathrow each month. Pink Elephant weren't the cheapest, but the difference was marginal. However, they were the most efficient by a distance - and after a while they included a full valet of the car with the parking fee - because they knew me.

None whatever... It's cheaper to park in one of the secure 'off-site' carparks (eg Pink Elephant) who run courtesy buses to and from.

Sad to see him go, but having seen him twice last year, my opinion of him nose-dived. Gratuitous abuse of the audience... were they responsble for him starting a song in the wrong key and having to stop and re-start? According to him they were. Whilst he generated some good tunage and he was certainly a decent exponent of what he did, he was a copyist who rarely acknowledged his sources. The exception being Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac. He owed the inspiration for Still got the blues and Parisienne Walkways to Roy Buchanan. It is sad to see him go, but is music the poorer for it? Definitely not.

I love to read people who not only educate, but allow their natural character to shine through... Terry Doe and Jim Gibbinson come rapidly to mind - and rarely a product name mentioned innecessarily. Good luck Steve.

I totally agree. I set my licence fees to come out by direct debit and am grateful for their entitlements. What would excercise me is any diminution of rights without consultation.

Makes my efforts look thoroughly mediocre. That said, when I want a photographic likeness, I take a photograph. Budgie and Elton know what I mean.

Graham King took quite a fair bit of abuse when he went through a phase of catching a barbel known locally as 'The Traveller' from, I think Adams Mill, before it succumbed to what is thought was an attack by an otter. It seemed to be that he was catching it at a weight increasing by an ounce at a time for a while over a few months.

Murph, I'll call you at around 3.30pm today. Help, advice and money saving re your account. I've had mine for 15 months and it's been trouble-free. I dislike it's lack of function s which are a given on other phones -p-t-p bluetooth being one (but on the plus side, you don't get battered by advertising when walking through town. I'm going to wait for the new iPhone later this year, when it'll be a toss-up between that and the HTC HD2. The Android OS is very user-friendly, but the iPhone is so simple that even a technological numpty like me can manage it easily. The benefit of Android are that you don't have to rely on the excrescence that is iTunes. The downside is that the app market for Android is nascent by comparison to the aforementioned iTunes. As for the HTC HD2 - thescreen is large and the image quality is incredible. However, I would strongly recommend every smartphone user to but a cover and screen protector. If it's uninsured, £300-£550 is a lot of wedge to find when you drop it or have it stolen.

The rear end looks klike a really uglied-up version of a BMW1 series, and the front looks as if it's turning Japanese kamikaze pilot - squinting and showing buck teeth. It makes the Porsche Panamera look pretty - and that takes some doing.

I think I'd have been tempted to seek prosecution of the police officer for also causing undue suffering. Those pursuers of masturbatory delight aren't above the law. My colleagues have often said that if you want to know anything about the technique of crime, ask a policeman.

Carl, I truly know what you mean about procrastinating.... I was walking around complaining of chest pains for over 6 months before I did anything about it. In that time, I'd fallen down stairs when I fainted, fallen from a stepladder when I fainted, fell over getting out of the shower when I fainted (see the pattern?) To cut a long story short, I was in California and knew if I didn't sit down in the hallway of the office I was in, I was going to fall. It was the forst of 3 myocardial infarctions I've had in about 6 years. I now have a mild level of angina, which is sometimes debilitiating, but I know what it is and take action appropriately. I can laugh at how much of a wimp I was bricking it at the thought of a trip to the butchers, sorry, doctors! Alan

I doubt urea-formaldehyde will degrade significantly as it's used to bond the paper laminates together in the making of stuff like Formica. In the mid-70's I used to import about 1500 tonnes / month of saturating base kraft into the UK for just that purpose.

I'm glad it's been diagnosed, but wish you hadn't had to suffer the indignities in doing so. Nonetheless, I like your style of raconteurism!

Emma, I learned the hard way after my heart trouble - Don't force the recovery. Take it gently, listen to your body and when it says slow down..do it. I feel better now than for years. I hope you make the level of recovery I did... and may it help your blood pressure stay within the bounds of reason. PS. Bernadette sends her best for a full recovery, too.

They should have been really inflammatory and replaced the red cross with a red crescent.

Bernadette reckoned it's more successful than me!

My uncle is in Sydney for the next 4 weeks staying with his daughter and her family Damien, his son-in-law has got them tickets for the whole of the last test. I will be stuck, tv on, and radio commentary over the top of the pictures and generally speaking highly envious.

Wingham Lakes are by the road from the Roman Fort of Rutupiae (Richborough) and Canterbury. Richborough and Sandwich have an amazing history and I suspect the farms around there have a few stories to tell.

If it was, it's a bit too late for John Wyndham!