bridge too far

icecream

weaving

moses

Mainly because most agreements are for phases of schools and not just one. And, from my experience of a scheme with 13 schools, it's not just the buildings but the whole infrastructure including city wide IT schemes that link in to the city's central system and into the NHS systems too. It usually involves hard and soft FM being devolved to the JV partner and these contracts are incredibly complicated. If it takes a single PFI hospital roughly 8 years to deliver from strategic context to handover, it's not surprising that multiple buildings would take a fairly lengthy time to complete. Some people think BSF is for a single school. It's not.

hay fever

Duly

I've just been watching the Greco-Roman wrestling. Is it me, or does anyone else find this 'sport' somewhat disturbing?

patch

sinners

errors (comedy of...)

Notwithstanding she's from Portsmouth, she's right to challenge Sky. A condition of being in the EU is that goods and services should be available to all member nations and their citizens. It's an important test case. And I'd f***ing love it if Sky lost.

Never mind, they've had a last-minute new policy making session to deal with all this. They're going to introduce a married couples tax break before the next election for couples in ALL tax bands. Tough titties if you're a couple of many years' standing and don't believe in marriage.

rain (same rider as above)

sprouting (not that I want to win, you understand )

cheese

Special K - as someone who has audited many BSF schemes, can I make a couple of observations? The initial bidding process is a bit long-winded but it should be remembered that the schemes are often in phases. One major city's BSF that I looked at involved 13 schools in total. In order to deliver each school fit for purpose, that meant 13 lots of headteachers, school governors, parents and representative children had to be involved in the process. Without 'stakeholder' (I hate that term) involvement, the delivered school might not work. Also many of the schemes involved the NHS Primary Care Trusts. However, once the schemes were agreed in principle, the next steps were quite quick. Most of the schemes were, in essence, PFI schemes (with Local Education Partnerships setting up JVs with the successful contractor). Although I'm against PFI in principle, most PFI schemes deliver on budget and generally on time. Often a Guaranteed Maximum Price is agreed leading to a 'Pain / Gain' deal. There have been some poor projects, as there have been in traditionally procured projects. But there have been some superb ones too.

There is something wrong when people are better off on benefits than in work and maybe, if some people were able to earn a decent, living wage instead of the peanuts some jobs offer, they would be more inclined to work. If I was in a position where my family would be better off on benefits then I would do what was best for my family. They would come first.

has died, it's just been announced.

jinx

society

I once went to a very posh restaurant in London called the White House. The Maitre D' had to lend my partner a tie before we could go in.

morning

Judging by the Panorama programme I've just been watching, the Insurance industry needs to hang its head in shame too.

false

^^^^ 'ard