sotonjoe

FWIW, I'd rather have a go with Jayne Wisener who plays Lauren...

Certainly, I'd run a mile from any woman who addressed me using an interent pseudonym. She might have seen my failed attempts at sarcasm on here for instance.

I'm not sure the Old Bill would see it like that, but it's good to see people getting involved in politics, no matter how small!

Well, the Tesco call charges are 20p / min and texts are 10p each. However, you do get half price calls and texts to your 5 favourite numbers, so that'a 10p/min and 5p/text. For the sake of argument, let's stick with the standard prices and assume that our £60 monthly credit is going to be split evenply between calls and texts. We therefore have £30 to spend on calls and £30 to be spent on texts. If my calculations are correct, that would work out to 150mins of calls and 300 texts. So you'd get a fair bit less to play with but you've only spent £330 as opposed to £449 on the handset, so you've saved £119 up front. Over the 12 months, that £119 is equivalent to an extra £9.91 per month so you're certainly paying for the extra minutes. My advice is to make sure you use them, otherwise they will have been expensive! ;-)

Sounds exciting, but a little bit Dr Who for my liking.

There's a billboard with David Cameron's ugly mug on it at the junction of Shirley Road and Waterloo Road. Somebody has painted over his pupils with white paint to make him look odd, as well as painting "*****" and "vote lib" on his shoulders. I lol'd.

So it will do some good then. As I said, nobody here thinks it full proof, but you tried to state it will do nothing to improve safety. What's your alternative?

looks a little common to me but each to their own.

Any particular reason for choosing the O2 route as opposed the Tesco one? I guess you decided you wanted the extra minutes?

For teachers I guess it's not really an issue. A teacher charged with child related offences is hardly going to be able to keep it under wraps. I don't know how volunteer organisations like the Scouts etc work so can't comment on them. There's something to be said for holding more info about us though I guess.

Nobody is putting their entire trust in the system; if you read the thread you'll see there's much scepticism about the current system. However, to say that it does not increase safety at all is just plain wrong.

RIght, but the CRB isn't about screening parents, it's about screening people who work with children and that's what this conversation was about. Talking about parents who abuse children is a separate issue. Checking to see if somebody is a convicted paedophile before employing them to work with children, surely reduces the chances of paedophiles working with children.

ps ponty ... the thread title should have had the word "cancelled" in it but I arsed it up. Could you alter it please?

I'm sure they'll find some mischief to get up to instead.

What an absurd statement. How can it possibly not make children safer? Nobody is suggesting it's foolproof, what is? But how on earth can you suggest that checking criminal history doesn't make kids any safer?

The group have decided to cancel according to the BBC

lol

DD .. are you having a laugh with that comment!?!?!?! Yes ... it's a fair requirement that all people working with young people have to prove they have not been convicted of anything dubious. How on earth could that be wrong?!?!?! What alternative would you suggest? Just seeing if job applicants look like paedophiles?

You don't have to have more than one as a rule. The duplication comes when you conduct new activities which require a CRB check. You then need to get a new one in case you've been convicted of anything since having the last onedone. It's just a piece of paper showing your criminal record status at the time the check was done. They're not 'live' documents which are automatically updated. It's pretty archaic.

can't find the tips on that website, is it a wind up?

As I said, the current system does not require teachers to physically hold a hard copy of CRB documents. As a rule they are held on file by employers as there's no need for a teacher to hold a hard copy. When changing jobs, the prospective employer will arrange for a new check to be done which is then held on file. Bear in mind as well, Mr A can easily walk into a school where he'e not known and claim to be Mr B who is a qualified and checked teacher. There's no such thing as a teacher photo id and all other forms of id are easily stolen. The current system would be in no way prepared for teachers from one school going to another. Anyway, why on earth should they? At secondary level for instance, how on earth can a teacher walk in to another school and start teaching kids they have no prior experience of. This sort of suggestion assumes that all students at all schools are taught exactly the same material and this simply isn't true. If you're not going to teach them it's pointless bothering at all, remember schools aren't a free babysitting service. And remember that just because the schools were 'closed' it doesn't mean that some teachers weren't either still working in schools or working from home.

Do you pick his **** up?

CRB checks would prevent this from happening. Teachers don't necessarily carry, or even hold, paper copies of their CRB check (it is usually held by employers) and without this sort of documentation they wouldn't be allowed to turn up to a 'local school' and start working with children.

A newspaper report by The Times, referred to by the OP as " the press". You misunderstood and posted a facetious comment about Wikipedia not being "the press".

The Hero is fully touch screen; it has some buttons at the bottom but these don't prevent you from using the touch screen for everything. It's not very competitive price wise now though, especially when you look at the 'slow' 500mhz processor against the 1ghz processor on the Nexus One It's still on 'expensive' contracts with poor data allowances or £360 sim free. If they droppoed the price on it significantly due to the arrival of the Nexus One, it wouldn't be a bad option. On the Tesco deal, the phone is yours. I don't know whether their contract continues rolling at the end of the 12 months or whether you are forced to go out and find another deal. You'd probably want to go and get a better value plan though as I expect you could get more minutes etc for the £20 per month. The PayG route plus simplicity sim is more expensive but you do get more minutes, it all depends on whether you need them I guess. Based on your comment at the end about wanting the phone to not be eclipsed by newer designs etc, I stand by what I said about now being a bad time to buy a smartphone, expecially an iphone. I know there are always new models coming out but the reality is that the smartphone market has been relatively static over the past 12 months. Now things are going to get very interesting. We'll see the fruition of Android on handsets whilch truly rival the 3GS and Apple will try and counter that with something special in the new Iphone. If you want to keep the phone for at least two years, why not wait for a couple of months or so and get something cutting edge? Even that handset will be old that two years down the line, but the 3gs will be even older! Your hand may be forced if your phone is really about to die; I guess your options are a 12months iphone 3gs deal or getting a cheap pay and go phone to keep you going until you see what HTC, Apple et al announce over the next couple of months. The reality is that Apple are going to eclipse the 3gs with a newer, better phone in June. You need to decide if that will bother you or not.