bridge too far

Indeed!

Ed M being Jewish you mean? Because he doesn't actually have a lisp

Witney in Oxfordshire

Such a workhorse though, bless him

My mortgage rate with a smallish building society mirrored the US LIBOR rate. I wonder if I have been overcharged? It's paid off now but I wonder if I will have a claim for compensation? However, I'm proud to say my bank won't be implicated

n Sensible lady! My daughter buggered her back lifting her baby in and out of a 2 door car

And there's set no. 2

One of the commentators was saying he has fewer ankle ligaments than normal because of a very bad sprain when he was a boy and that he was born with a patella in two sections rather than one like most people. These two conditions make him prone to injury apparently.

Yep - one set up!

I went into Waterstones today to see if they had it in stock. They only have two copies available from their warehouse (for the whole country?) and those are the hardback version. Paperback due out in October they reckon. Shame - I wanted it for holiday reading next week but I won't fork out for a hardback

Do noise pollution regulations apply to classic cars? Near to us is a man who owns a very old Chevrolet (I'd say probably 50s / early 60s) It's a beautiful car but very, very noisy - like it has a hole in the exhaust. Is that legal or is the car exempt because of its age?

Dearie me - what IS the world coming to? Broke RBS and bent Barclays. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18612279

To special shops for poor pensioners?

Me too!

These bankers *tch* They're all crooks

[h=1]George Osborne 'a coward' for making Chloe Smith defend fuel U-turn [/h]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18608133

Bloody hell! I could write a book on NHS procurement and PFI! I understand a little bit about the pharma side (my other half works in pharma research) and I recognise that the development of drugs is HUGELY expensive and not always successful and that the costs have to be recouped. But I was never involved in drug procurement. As for PFI, well hospital buildings were in desparate need of updating and the governments (of whatever hue) couldn't afford a conventional funding mechanism. PFI was supposed to deliver on time and on budget and, largely, it did. The risk was supposed to revert to the 'developer' and most contracts had break clauses meaning the hospital could walk away from its buildings after 25 - 30 years without penalty. This was perceived as a good thing as changing care pathways meant fewer beds were needed as patients generally spent less time in hospital. The biggest problem with PFI, in my view, is that when it was first conceived those NHS managers found it hard to work in the commercial culture. The developers recognised this and took advantage. For example, they were very good at the whole contract variation mechanism. The developers also borrowed money at a high rate and the 'rent' reflected this. However, once the buildings were up and running, the developers renegotiated their borrowing rates but didn't pass this on to the NHS.

As a former NHS Procurement Manager I have to disagree Once the internal market was introduced a situation arose whereby hospitals competed with each other for work. An example of this would be one hospital paying to have an outreach Radiography facility at a health centre at the edge of its catchment area in order to pull in patients from that area rather than them going to another hospital. Another example (and if ever there was a reason for leaving procurement with the 'experts' rather than medics this is it) was me getting a great deal for hip and knee replacements only for the lead consultant to say 'Oh I was trained to use x implants, no way am I going to use the ones you're recommending - even though his colleagues were quite happy with my deal and it would have saved the Trust £thousand Another example was when in-house services such as maintenance, catering, cleaning were outsourced and (non medical) consultants were hired to replace folk in areas such as procurement, audit etc. Far more expensive and often inferior levels of service. However, the biggest cost was the huge hospital building programme. It was desperately needed because of decades of low levels of investment and I think we'd all agree that hospitals are much nicer and more efficient places to be treated in. But, boy, the cost of PFI (introduced by John Major, I hasten to add, but continued by the Labour government.) How quickly the construction companies and investment vehicles learned how to rip off the NHS.

That's right - she has an autoimmune disease disorder and hasn't played much recently.

You really should ignore Davydenko's low ranking this year, TDD. Players' rankings (not the same as seedings) are very much dependent on the ATP tournaments. If they don't play in those tournaments for whatever reason their rankings suffer. The Williams sisters have both had their rankings slashed in the past because they've been injured and therefore unable to play in ATP tournaments. Maria Sharapova was out of the top 5 in 2007 and 2008 because of shoulder injuries and was ranked 126 in 2009. She was ranked 18 in 2010.

If he was expected to win in a semi final, he would have been ranked no. 1 or 2, wouldn't he?

Absolutely right. However, look here: http://www.atpworldtour.com/Tennis/Players/Top-Players/Nikolay-Davydenko.aspx And you will see that 2010 was the first year he'd been outside the top 10. From memory, I think that may have been because of the distraction of the claims that he'd been involved in a betting scam (he was cleared). The way that seedings work is that top 16 are expected to beat lesser ranked players and then start to meet each other in the later stages of the competition. So, with respect, the fact that he's ranked 47 this year is a bit of a red herring. Just take a moment to read just what he's achieved over the past 5 years. He was no pushover

That's not quite right. The seedings are established and then it's a draw to see who plays the seeds.

You know as much about the NHS as you do about tennis, methinks The 'medical people' would rather use their highly qualified resources and training to treat people rather than push pens. Much better value for money that way.

Jamie in not reading / failing to understand tennis and the ability of Murray's first round opponent shocker Respected commentators were saying that Murray could well fall at this first hurdle - he treated it like the high jump and made this very talented and experienced top 10 player look like a novice.