Lighthouse

I'm guessing not... "The wings will be operated by the drivers, who will be able to use them when they are within a second of a car in front which they are trying to overtake" It's a good idea IMO, but I'm guessing as soon as the car behind gets 1mm infront of the car they are trying to overtake, technically the overtakee is within 1s of the car in front and can use the moveable wings too. I predict lots of juicy controversy over this rule.

It's the same for me. I have no problem at all with young people wanting to be educated so they can get a decent job. It's the people who don't think they should pay for their degree, even though all of them can afford it, and so thrown their toys out the Pram. Defacing a monument to war heroes and a statue of Sir WC isn't exactly endearing them to the rest of the nation.

I know, that's why I took £30k. It's a moddest figure, which a qualified graduate could reasonable expect to earn.

No it's not, there is a massive difference. If you get sacked tomorrow, you don't get to stop paying your mortgage. You can't buy a house and then delay paying it off for years until you've got a decent job. The deal students are getting is far cosier than any mortgage on the market.

At a rate of about £15 a week (assuming for a second he gets a job earning £30kpa). So this bloke wants to go to uni, but isn't willing to give up 3% of his future wages to pay for it. Wow, he must really have a passion for his career.

Yeah, it doesn't really help their cause when people like that are on their side.

So on the one had there are students breaking into buildings, throwing rocks, snooker balls and feck knows what else. However you are outraged at the Police for running towards them. If you play with feathers, you get your arsed tickled. Anyone who is enough of a tool to start a fight with a bunch of riot police deserves all they get.

I think 3 seasons in the treatment room is enough to draw a conclusion for me. Sorry Lee, useful player but time to move on.

Glad it has passed. It's a good proposal for Britain and perfectly fair. Waaaay back in this thread someone was quoting potential students from low income families saying they were put off doing a course by the high levels of debt. GOOD! They can f**k off and not do the course. Not being able to pay for uni is one thing but not being WILLING to pay for it is completely different. If you don't have the belief to see a course through and have a sound plan for getting a job on the end of it, you should not being going to uni. This is what a uni student should be: "I want to become a XXXXX For this I will need a degree in XXXXX I'm not able to pay for this course, but when I have completed it and got a job and CAN afford it, I intend to repay the tax payer in full". This is what a student should not be: "I've just left school and I was never that good and didn't really get decent grades. I don't really know what I want to do as a career yet, but I kinda like doing XXXXX and want the life experience of going to uni. I'm not so sure I want to do XXXX any more because the new tuition fees mean I will have to repay all the costs when I get a job."

So what you are basically saying is people from lower income families can't understand the concept of a decent salary and paying back the loan when they can afford it? Nonesense IMO. You're right £21k isn't that big a salary, but you're not paying back £30k a year from that. You're paying back a certain proportion relative to your earnings. Let me put it this way. If I had just left college and got a place in medschool, and my parents didn't have a bean between the pair of them, I'd still go for it under the proposed scheme.

What has class got to do with this? You pay the fees back when you are employed and earning over £21k. Then you pay an affordable percentage of your wage each year, regardless of whether you are the 4th Earl of Derbyshire or Wayne the Hairy from Paulsgrove. If you're a surgeon earning £60k a year, you can't really use the argument that you're from a poor upbringing.

I vaguely remember hearing on the news yesterday that we were hopefully of pulling troops out of Afghanistan over the next couple of years. I'm sure the whole country is behind that, myself included. Nobody wants our boys over there getting killed. The simple fact is that irrespecitive of the political reasons for going in/pulling out, we can't just up sticks and leave. It would create a similar country to the one the Soviets left behind when they pulled out. Tribal rule, tyranny, persecution, discrimination, fundamentalist Islam... basically a whole lot of messed up people with sick ideas on world affairs and a chip on their shoulder. It's nothing to do with trident. Bed time.

If I might propose another spin on that story...

This was done to death on a thread a couple of months ago, people will always disagree on this issue. Many people, myself included believe a nuclear deterant to be critical to the long term security of Great Britain. Many others don't believe a deterant is important and therefore think it should be scrapped. There's no point arguing because it's just not going to happen. You might as well say I'm healthy and never use a hospital, let's cut healthcare from the budget. Costs need to be cut accross the board. This includes students.

You've blown your own argument out of the water with that statement. Driving lessons are a luxury item, which you should not be paying for if you are struggling to afford food. I don't want to sound all "woe is me" but when I was in sixth form I had to cycle 10km each way to get to school. There's me with my typical middle class, moddest upbring cycling through rain, snow and hail to get to lessons, whilst the poor, underpriviledged kids were overtaking me in a 1.1 Fiat Punto, paid for in part by the tax payer. And apparently education favours the wealthy.

I hated that scheme when I was at school. I wasn't elligible for it (you needed a household income of less than £50k a year I think) and the kids that were spent it on fags and running a car, which I just couldn't afford. We were told the whole point was to provide money for school supplies and to persuade people to stay in education as opposed to going to work at 16. Both were ******. I doubt I spent £10 a year on supplies at school. A couple of pens and a rubber... pretty much it. If you do want to leave and get a job £300 odd a year from EMA isn't going to persuade you otherwise. Bullsh*t scheme, waste of money. Glad it's gone. P.S. Can someone please explain to me how this scheme is in any way elitist? As I understand it, you pay feck all up front and don't pay anything back until you're earning over £21k a year.

Would be good to have a safe standing area. Can't see why people vote against it, there are plenty of seats around if you don't want to stand.

Agree with Adrian on most points here. Safri for all his composure on the ball just didn't do enough. He never really created much going forwards, and when we lost the ball he was hardly busting a gut to go and grab it back. There was never the correct balance in midfield as you'd need to have a box to box, brick outhouse play maker next to him. Find me one of those outside the Premier League. Saga never disgraced himself at Saints either. On those two spell of good form he has he was on fire. When he wasn't (i.e. when he was getting mucked around by Burley or play in that kindergarten team) he still put a decent shift in. He clearly cared about the club for the effort he put in against Sheff Utd and for the goal celebration with Pearson after Lallana's goal at the Hawthorns. Good luck to him whenever he ended up.

Yeah, if you want.

So 2 Lotus teams on the grid next year then. Both using Renault engines unless I'm much mistaken and with a black and gold livery. Renault to become "Lotus Renault GP". Feckin' stupid decision if you ask me. This is the Group Lotus (i.e. Renault (the one Kubica drives for)) livery mock up.

They were alright, but Steps and S Club 7 were way better live. P.S. TSSFC, you should have told her he used to be the lead singer for wings and married Heather Mills.

It couldn't have been an Israeli shark. Old German women aren't kosher.

No. HTH

Was watching one of those ' Best Christmas #1s' programmes on some MTV type channel this morning and Steve Brookstein popped up. I'd forgotten about him, partly because I don't watch XF, partly because he vanished into obscurity almost immediately. That's not because he was any less tallented than all the other winners, but because he was less marketable. He was too old for teenage girls to have posters of him on their wall and dance along to his songs at a school disco. That's what Xfagtor (I just thought of that. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha) is all about. That's no doubt why the judges kept Cher in instead of the old moose last night.

The key thing you are overlooking is, we did not have a choice with Walcott. He was 16 and therefore wasn't signed on to a professional contract. Arsenal could have waited until Walcott's 17th birthday and signed him then. All we'd have got was a tribunal fee for his career development, which typically is around £600k. The rumour at the time, IIRC, was that Theo and his family didn't want to f**k Saints over like this and were insistant on a deal whereby we at least got a decent payment. £12m all in all was a decent deal at the time (Would have bought 133 Ricardo Fullers). IF he had stuck around and signed on professional terms, as you say we could have got £20m + for him. The fees for Crouch and Phillips were about right. Why you would want to sell him in January, before we were relegated is beyond me. Especially with Beattie gone and Crouch still unproven. I do agree though that more should have been invested from the Beattie sale other than the McQ transfer and a couple of loans. Imagine the amount of grief/money spending £2m on a decent centre half would have saved us.