pap

Well, call me cynical - but I've often marvelled at the sheer amount of energy in this world. Aren't we forgetting the bloody huge supply of water? Isn't water comprised of two things that burn very well? Putting my tin-foil hat on for a bit, I've always been amazed that oil is somehow the only game in town. We live on a planet with potential sources of energy EVERYWHERE. Oil, gas and nuclear are presented to us as the only viable sources of energy, largely because there are vast sums of money to be made at every stage. If there was some political will behind cheaper sources of energy, I'm sure we'd be surprised at the refinement our ingenuity affords. The problem is that no-one is putting any effort into it, because the status quo suits too many interests.

I ended up getting this for the PC as well ( missus is now on the PS3 version ). Started a new character. Last one was a Wood Elf with archery as the main skill and magic as a backup. This time, got a High Elf with the priorities swapped. Magic first, then bows for when I'm out of Magicka or sneaking. I would definitely give the following advice to anyone interested in magic. Get up to the college of Winterhold as soon as you can. The loot you get from completing those missions is awesome, and the trainers up there can teach you spells you can't find anywhere else.

It's worth your money in the sense that it'll probably last 50 years with that level of commitment Really though, it is probably not going to fit with the amount of free time you have.

Seriously, how? I know Cameron and co gave it all the flannel about immigration caps, but their hands are completely tied when it comes to migrants from the EU. The most the incoming government could have done is put a bar on the EU's newest citizens from coming here, and that's only if they can point to immigration from those countries adversely affecting our labour market, and could only be applied until 2014. So that just leaves countries from outside the EU. We can cap those, right? Well, not really. See, as part of an EU trade deal with India, we agreed to allow a load of Indian IT workers to come and work in the UK. There's nothing racist about saying you can't fit two pints in a one-pint country. Also, we haven't even sorted out the problems that arose from previous waves of immigration. Would any business cope with the turnover of people in the UK? Undoubtedly not. Any decent boss would look to take stock and consolidate. That's exactly what we should be doing. Unfortunately, there is no way we can do that while we're signed up to the EU. We could be deciding that right now, but Dave and co, arch-nemeses of the EU when it was a vote-winner, bottled it on the big day when people were actually asking for it.

Been listening on Solent. Apparently, a masked man asked a security guard for the cash box he was carrying to the local HSBC. Guard hands it over, bloke jumps into a silver Cavalier and does the offs, mowing down a woman during his escape. The OB have found the car and the cash box, but not the perpetrator. They haven't given any other details about the lady who was hit or whether the cash box still had any cash in it.

You don't join as such. Oddly enough, it's the right-wingers that decide whether you're in it or not.

Soggy?

This amuses me. This is slightly disturbing. Are you outside his house now watching the rapid ill-defined shadow puppetry on his curtains?

What's all this about, trousers? Approval? Disapproval? On a related subject, when are you joining the Liberal Elite?

Just spotted this. Aren't you supposed to be a complete failure if you're still using public transport past 30?

I buy either the Independent or Guardian. Whatever I end up buying, I reckon Private Eye is an absolute must. Helps to work out how much b*ll*cks was in the newspapers over the last couple of weeks (answer: a lot - even in the lefty papers, but especially so in the right wing tabloids). An interesting question, dune. In your particular case, your love of the Daily Express says "reading age of around 12".

Agreed. I've got no problem getting the kids decent stuff. They are doing their "jobs". They can fight like feck with each other in the house, but generally they're a credit to us whenever we're out as a family and are bringing home the bacon in terms of educational achievement. If any of these things stopped, so would decent Chrimbo presents.

We save up over the year specifically for Christmas. Kids get between £300 and £400 quid each on presents.

That thread is a good read. I do feel sorry for the Cov fans. Spent a bit of time on-site in Coventry. They're generally a good bunch, and don't deserve the crap they're going through. Fair play to them for their gallows humour though. That makes me chuckle, even if their situation doesn't.

Well, as I said, that's "according to him". We can all be guilty of a bit of revisionism when recounting stuff. I'll defo mention the part about section 5 to him though.

Only really seems difficult because we're told we have to keep the current system alive at all costs, as if it's a point of truth. While capitalism has done some great things, it's definitely not fair. People pay a lot of money to keep it that way. These figures just seem slightly more obscene than normal.

Nope. That is what he got nicked for, according to him. I was in the Family Section so didn't see it myself.

Well, put up against some of the other things that he could have said or done, it does seem a bit Mickey Mouse.

Also known as 'completely missing the f**king point' (not you, people who use that line of argument)

Interesting, solentstars

A/H'd = arseholed?

Don't think he dropped his cacks. Just stupid enough to do something that was highly visible and would have been picked up by the rozzers.

Well, I know one of the people who got arrested. He got nicked for bending over, pointing at his arse and asking if the Brighton fans wanted some.

High pay affects the entire country, irrespective of who it is being paid to. There are gradations in every market, but the resources of the highly paid dictate the top end of that market. Take London for example. Most normal people cannot afford to buy something decent because the top end adjusts to what people can afford. Everything else, rightly or wrongly, grades down from the obscene prices at the top of the market. The net effect is that many Londoners feel they're never going to get anything out of the city on the wages they can attract, giving them two options - stay trapped finding the rent each month or move out of the city. On your point about footballers versus high earning execs. We all know that footballers have shorter careers than executives. I'd agree that they are still being over-compensated, but then, us taxpayers haven't been forced to devote a great deal of our income into sorting the finances of football clubs out. The same cannot be said for many of the FTSE companies, which have been propped up by our cash. Also, I would imagine that it's a lot harder for footballers to avoid the higher rate of tax than it is for FTSE companies to avoid their bills. Why is it okay for the likes of Vodafone and Barclays to pay a fraction of their corporation tax when your average small business has to pay full whack? Ultimately, having a chasm between the richest and poorest citizens of a country never works out well. History is littered with populist uprisings when the gap gets too wide. So in my view, the disparity between the pay people get is hugely important, and affects us all, whether you realise it or not.

Unfortunately, I will be sat in at home in Liverpool with the missus and my two daughters. (Who are, of course, a carefully constructed facade built over a long time and at great expense)