Ken L

A little bird tells me that there is going to be a big price hike for Passports in October. If anyone is getting close to needing a new one, now might be a good time.

Wrong link mate. Try this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4673908.stm

What does this mean for us ? I have to say that when I read his, my first thoughts were not "Oh good, at last the Americans are going to take the bull by the horns and deal with the fact that they are the biggest per capita poluters on the planet". They were much more along the lines of "So, the administration will be re-tooling the production lines in Detroit at tax payers expence and then doleing out huge sums to US auto manufactures in technology subsidies. Meanwhile, a whole new generation of crap American cars will get dumped on the European market at subsidised prices, robbing our workers of their jobs". Am I being fair or should I stop reading Michael Moore's books ?

There are lots of comments comparing the printing the the cartoons with printing jokes that make fun of the holocaust. ****** ! Printing a few lines on bits of paper cannot be compared with an event that cost 20 Miliion people (most of them not jewish) their lives. The world simply cannot allow itself to be held to ransom by religion - ANY religion. If the muslims of this world chose not to caracature mohammed, fine, just don't expect the rest of the world to respect those veiws any more than we're going to stop eating pork, walking around with an intact willie hanging between our legs or wearing clothes other than a dress.

I actually did see King Kong but it was the only film on the list that I have seen and there are three on there that I've never even heared of. To be honest, Peter Jackson did manage to recreate some of the emotion of the original in that Kong is big and tough but also lonely, caring and sad. Ultimatly though, the whole movie was disapointing because it felt like what it was - a remake with lots of (often pointless) pretty visuals to try to make it appeal to a modern audience. I just wish that Jackson had focussed his talents on something more original.

Brokeback Mountain - 8 Crash - 6 Good Night, and Good Luck - 6 Memoirs of a Geisha - 6 Capote - 5 Munich - 5 Walk the Line - 5 Pride and Prejudice - 4 The Constant Gardener - 4 King Kong - 4 Are they going for some sort of record ? Will this years Oscar winners all come from the lowest grossing films of the year ? Has anyone actually paid good money to see these films ?

I bet that there'll be a sudden increase in the level of attention paid to strange waxy lumps washed up on beaches now that people realise that they can be worth. It also made me realise that the description of ambergris in Melville's almost impenetrable "Moby Dick" is quite a way off being accurate.

what's wrong with a bald head and ginger beard ?

Fair point Vagabond. The problem of going from a collection of compounds (even complex organic compounds like proteins and lipids) to a functional cell with the ability to replicate is still a sticky point but I firmly believe that eventually we will understand the incrememental processes that allowed it to happen without some form of supernatural intervention. As with many ideas, just because we don't understand the minute detail of every aspect of it, doesn't mean that the overall concept is wrong. Humans evolved elsewhere and came to earth - Utter rubbish ! I supose we also brought all of our primate relatives with us, buried a fairly decent fossil record for a bit of a laugh, errased all signs of the technologies that allowed us to get here from another world and yet somehow found the problem of re-tweaking our DNA so that we didn't end up squinting in the brighter light of our new planetary home utterly intractable ? My thoughts on religious indocrination in schools are probably best left out of a family forum.

Dodgy question really. Evolution deals with the diversification and increasing complexity of life, not it's origin.

I've just bought a Faden 4 piece uptider rated to cast upto 10oz and 10 feet long. The casting range might be a little over optatmistic but it is still a powerfull rod and balances up nicely with a big fixed spool reel so I should be able to hold it for hours. Check it out or wait till I've had chace to test it on my forthcomming India trip and I'll tell you if it's any good.

The main stumbling blocks to a sensible policy are religion that preaches that ending life is always a sin and doctors who are trained and expected to preserve life at all costs. As said, there obvious pitfalls to be avoided such as topping the mentally ill or allowing relatives to either bully people into a decision or basing their choices og monetary gain but a sensible path isn't that difficult to find for the majority of people. IMO the current situation where doctors can only (legally) withold treatment untill someone passes away through dehydration or starvation is totally unacceptable. We treat animals better than that.

OK, My thoughts are these: 1. The price is an obvious rip off. I was in Lidl today and whole frozen chickens were a quid each ! If the bird was free range, it would be a different matter but it isn't. 2. There is no way of tracing the source of the meat so it could be condemed, stollen or whatever - if sick birds start making their way into the foodchain, she's putting herself right in the fireing line for H5N1 along wityh her friens and family. 3. Without knowing that he has premises that are subject to health inspection, there is no way of confirming that the meat has been processed and packaged in a hygenic environment. 4. There is no way of knowing what temerature the meat has been kept at durring processing and storage - it certanly isn't refigerated when he turns up in his ordinary saloon car. 5. The bird might appear fresh but that means nothing, I've known of butchers that would defrost a frozen chicken, pip it in hot water for a moment and thenpat it dry so that the skin looks fresh. 6. The fact the she hasn't got sick yet is no guarentee that she won't get sick in the future - On five out of every six goes, nothing bad happens when you play Russian Roulette. I supose what it comes down to is that I'm only to well aware of some of the meat scams that go on out there and am more than willing to believe the worst of a bloke that wants to make a black market income by selling chicken to the elderly at rip off prices. It also winds me up to hear my aunt defend the guy by saying that he provided her with a usefull service when her leg was bad - she's now had a hip replacement.

The funniest one of these was the restauraunt menu that included Soup - Cream of sum yun ghai.

The bird isn't sold as free range. It's just a chicken. My whole point about the suplier guy not being linked to a butcher or poultry suplier was the lack of any sort of traceability. I've also walked in in the summer and found that a chicken has been delivered and left in the porch for a couple of hours on the understanding that my aunt would pay next time..

My aunt regularly buys chickens from a bloke who comes to her door. He charges her £5 for a single large chicken and she appears totally unphased by the fact that she could buy 3 or 4 frozen supermarket chickens for the price that she's paying for this one. As far as I've been able to find out, this bloke is not part of a butchery or poultry suply business with a normal retail outlet and as she lives in the middle of a large connerbation, it's not as if buying from him is supporting local food producers. So my question is this: What other reasons can I put forward for NOT buying from this guy ? I have a few in mind but lets see what the AN crew come up with. Of course if you think that buying meat and poultry on the doorstep is a good idea, I'll listen to any arguments going the other way as well.

Don't throw your rattle out of the pram. In a couple of hours you'll have turned almost all of those jokes arround and posted them on other forums with blokes at the butt of the joke. BTW. I was tempted to do the patronising thing and say "Don't throw your rattle out of the pram love." but basic survival instincts kicked in and I thought "She may be miles away but she knows what I look like and just might hunt me down and kill me". I went out with a girl like that once..........

Women are like Lino. If you lay 'em right, you can walk all over them for 30 years. Women are like snow flakes. They are all beautiful. They are all different. They can all be cold as ice. But they'll all melt when they land on your face...... In fact: Women are Like... ...the stock market They're irrational and can bankrupt you if you're not careful. ...computers They take too long to warm up and a better model always comes along once you've already got one. ...Saran Wrap Useful but clingy. ...horses Fun to pet and ride but a pain to feed and clean up after. ...parking meters If you don't feed them with enough money you face serious consequences. ...fax machines Useful for one very specific purpose but otherwise just high-maintenance paperweights. ...political campaign contributors If you let them talk about themselves long enough you wind up in bed with them. ...refrigerators They're always cold and never seem to have a beer when you need one. ...blue jeans They look good for a while but eventually they fade and have to be replaced. ...country western songs They're annoying, they all sound alike, but if you really listen to them you'll get depressed and drink a lot.

An accidental follow thru whilst farting I can understand but there's just no excuse for doing a cannonball in the tub.

That may well be true but to imply that she invented the bullet proof vest is a bit like saying that the first bronze age smith to produce pure copper invented the printed circit board.

An owner with a freezer/cupboard full of bait and terminal tackle that can be purchaced without going into town to find the local tackle dealer - especially if it means a phone call and a short wait and then it's dropped off to the house/peg as needed. The ability to pre order fresh bait like maggots and casters and have them waiting in the bait fridge so that customers can fish on the day they arrive without risking an escape in the car. A decent covered porch so that anglers can strip off their wet/muddy gear without walking into the house. A good map of the local waters with peg numbers and catch reports. A good map of the local area with details of shops, petrol stations, take aways, pubs etc. Details of a local taxi firm (pubs again). I assume you controll the fishing rights on the closest water. If so, decent, safe fishing platforms that can be used even if there's a bit of water on the river. If they can be made accessable to the disabled, so much the better.

Yeh, but, no but I hate people who use utterly pointless additions to phrases init. Y'know warra mean ?

Avoid futons ! They look like a good idea - they arn't.

I'm not a fan of suspending hard lures. They always sink on a wire trace and it's had to control their running depth at distance. Soft plastics are another matter and I love being able to twitch and jerk them subsurface.

The rod sounds fine but as has been said, the Ondex isn't exactly built for distance fishing. Your best bet would be to load your 30lb braid onto another reel and spool up with 10lb Fireline* - making sure that the spool is reasonably full but not quite as full as you'd fill it with mono. You've not said what reel you're using but a smallist (fairly light) one will help you move the rod quickly enough to punch the lure out. I would personally use a 1000 size Shimano on the sort of gear you're using. If all else fails, try fishing some little soft shads on jigheads or some 3" swimbaits (much the same thing, just that the jig is built into the lure) 'cause they're heavy enough to cast further and they work pretty well with a simple straight retrieve at this time of year. * I'd move over to a fused line like Fireline at low breaking strains (although 10lb Fireline actually breaks nearer 16lb) because it's much less prone to wind knots and looping on the reel.