Verbal

If you want to play 'political point the finger' then yes, Labour should have done something about it, as should the Major government before it. If you want to figure out how it all began, why it still persists, and how possibly to get out of it, then you have to go back to the rise in the mid-70s of the Chicago School. These ideas are still very much en vogue, sadly.

He flogs fags.

Quite.

Wrong. The de-regulation of the banking system, that led directly to the credit crunch, goes back to the 80s and the enthusiastic political adoption of Chicago School economics (notably Milton Friedman - the economic guru of Thatcher and Reagan). This is what led directly to the destruction of the building societies as mutuals, and ultimately to the property bubbles that have been behind successive collapses. Spain is merely an extreme example - a property boom, created by a de-regulated banking system gone bananas. Remember that the credit crunch was also caused by a fatal combination of a property boom and absolutely no regulation of the banking system. The failure of unfettered capitalism embodied.

3 more to come.

This has 0-4 written all over it.

Crikey. He's at the bus stop already: "I've got a lot of hunger..."

Celebrating your STDs is not what we're going for here.

I've lived and worked in the US twice with something called an O-1 Visa. Lots of paperwork and cost my company quite a bit. Not sure how different this is from H1B.

But don't WUMs try at least a little bit not to look like complete dumbasses? Unfortunately, I think the poor little mite actually believes it. Anyway, I can't wait to see JR and Lambert rip a few defences apart.

Oh good. They will cave.

If for any reason you do part with the £800+, do make sure you send it with a County Court Summons to reclaim it. You'd win easily and cheaply.

Dune in 'I've never seen the effect of a camera flash' shock.

You can't. But lots do. Drop in to the Old King's Head in Santa Monica - most of them will be there.

Thank god Nigel is finally listening to you. I wonder why it took so long?

What would that be? That Saintsweb announced it first?

Especially when compared to NJ.

Yes, my little pedantic one, I have.

This is one of those classic 'the US does it so much better' cases. Hiring cars in the UK is a NIGHTMARE - the rental companies are constantly in search of ways to sting you if you're in the slightest way oblivious of any pre-existing damage. So much so that it seems to me to be organised fraud. In the US, by contrast, renting cars is easy, cheap and a real pleasure.

I have a feeling we won't be seeing Guthrie in a Saints strip anytime soon.

Another snub! I love a snub.

Tommac wasn't a director, just the local business manager in a shed in Fulham (which he referred to as 'Mayfair').

If 'might' becomes 'will', don't forget to get your ESTA authorisation done. You don't need a plane ticket to do it. For the US, Trailfinders in Kensington are still one of the most competitive agents out there - much better than online services in my experience. Think about staying at the Paramount. The rooms are TINY, but stylish, and the hotel is the centre of activity for film and theatre people. It's also right by Times Square.

I'll try one last time to drag you at least into the last century, Charlie. We no longer talk about 'human nature' like we're leftovers from the Enlightenment. Molecular biology has put a decisive end to that. Human nature is found in the double helix. Nowhere else. Also your 'fundamental difference' between explaining and excusing is specious in this case - it was a play on words, obviously. If you want to argue that it's 'within our nature to act badly' in any causal sense, you have to give a genetic explanation. There isn't one. Nor are such normative concepts as 'good' and 'evil' reducible to biological causation.

Ok Charlie, tell you what. I'll go and look at a microscope, and see if I can find any Nazi genes. What should I look for? Some sequences in the form of swastikas? It's not just weird to believe in the idea that a resistance to political evil is cultural and and acquiescence to it genetic - a belief for which there is precisely no evidence - it's also dangerous. It effectively excuses those who fall into line with Nazism, et al. You're left with: "I was only following (genetic) orders, honest, guv!" By the way, I wasn't suggesting anything remotely like there are 'national characteristics' in any other sense than that different national cultures have different effects. The Nazis actually understood this rather well, which one reason is why Vichy was created: the French have an overarching cultural identity in nationhood, built around language. Put French people, talking French, in puppet positions and you are more likely to get the cooperation an occupier requires - no matter, it seems, how awful that occupier actually is. (And after all, the Nazis had a war to fight; the last thing they wanted to do was spend inordinate amounts of military time trying to cling on to unruly occupied peoples). In Britain, the plan was different: entice a corrupt royal and stick him in as a collaborating figurehead. But we've been here before...