Loz

Louisiana, As I said, the Emergency Travel Document system has just been overhauled - once it is all rolled out then you normally will be able to get one within an hour, provided you have the documentation in order. Oh, and 90 quid. It is all new. There used to be an 'emergency passport' (a one page a4 sheet valid for a single journey) and an temporary passport (only issued by a small number of embassies/consulates and valid for a year). Both are being phased out in favour of the new ETD introduced last year. All the other informal arrangements are going as well.

You still would have lost on penalties, quids.

Oh please. CCTV does not make you safer. It might make you feel safer, but that is just perception.

dulwichmum Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > He was saying that the parents should be > celebrated... what an arse. I don't think they should be celebrated. But they shouldn't be condemned either.

Personally, I think the lack of respect for adults by children is a by-product of the current hysteria about paedophiles. What we have done is prevented adults from pulling up badly behaved children on the basis that all they have to do is make a few crafted accusations and they will be, at least initially, believed. Kids know how powerful the p-word can be. Ask any teacher. Honestly, if I saw an incident involving children I would almost certainly walk past. It's not worth the risk these days. And I hate that I would do that.

ImpetuousVrouw Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > I've had my full driving licence accepted for > travel to and from Paris when my passport had > expired, but I think you are right in that this > would at the discretion of the immigration officer > rather than a right which travel with and ID card > is. That must have been a while ago. I doubt you'd get away with it these days - an airline especially would refuse to fly you.

Edited, coz I can't read.

Is she a dual nat? What passport did she travel on? If she travelled on a UK one, the British Embassy can help her out. It will help a lot if she has her passport number to hand.

Yes and no. Yes, in the same way that accepting a throw-in when you know the ball came off you last or accepting a free kick when you know the defender didn't contact you is technically cheating. The cases of a striker telling a ref to not give a penalty because no contact was made when he fell over his own feet can be counted on one hand. Possibly one finger. But, no, in that both of those happened in the heat of battle and I suspect both were secretly surprised when no whistle sounded. There is a big difference to that and going down clutching your face when no contact was made. That is cheating. There is a big difference between 'got away with it' and 'setting out to purposely con the ref'.

Growlybear, et al. This is not laziness or work priorities behind this decision. As the Telegraph article said, '[Mrs Schonrock] said she and her husband had gradually exposed their children to taking greater responsibility and risks and the result was children who ?we have been told are well adjusted, mature and independent for their respective ages.? ' And I bet they are as well.

Musing out loud: Could HB be actually raising the average rent, thus clawing more people into needing it and creating a never ending cycle? Rents, almost by definition, can only be at a level where people can pay them. Does HB give that ability an artificial boost? Would therefore lowering/capping HB actually cause a drop in rents (causing, admittedly a few landlords to go bust)?

Dunno if you are being purposely thick to make a point, but he means the definition of 'seriously injured' is very broad.

Why wait five minutes? Get the useless sod during the national anthem, I reckon.

If you add to that, "and immediately shoot any player faking an injury" you've got a deal.

Statistically, the biggest danger to a child is their parents and close relatives. Discuss. Or ignore.

Boris Johnson can be a daft bugger, but sometimes he hits the nail firmly on the head.

At this point, can I mention the oft-written dangers of the child-snatchers dressed as clowns in the Dulwich area? Honestly, these parents sound like the sort of hands-off parents that should be the norm. How other people can say their style is 'unacceptable' is, frankly, unacceptable. My money is that these kids will grow up to be a couple of very well-rounded human beings. Other should learn from them, not condemn them.

I'm not sure you could ever come up with a better definition of 'middle class' :))

I would argue that he didn't cheat anyway. He committed a foul and accepted the consequences under the rules. He saved the goal and won he game for his team. It's no real difference than, say, pulling the shirt of a player to stop him getting head to ball. If you want to talk about cheats, lets discuss the divers and actors and the like. The players who feign injury to get a free kick or, worse, a player sent off. Rule change proposal: All games with television coverage shall be retrospectively reviewed by a panel of referees after the game, with cards and suspensions given out for 'simulated actions'.

The rules used to be that provided UKBA agreed, the airline would fly you back and the Borders staff would check your identity on arrival. Some - in fact most - consulates could issue an emergency passport (which was an A4 sheet of paper) if needed. Some countries didn't accept this document for transit people, so they are changing. They are rolling out a new system that will issue an emergency travel document (like an 8 page mini passport) that is valid to complete your trip and get you home. The ability to fly back without any documentation will be removed. All embassies and consulates will have the ability to issue this document. That's not true. You need a valid passport or national ID Card. A driving licence won't be accepted.

Sometimes, as the current LibDem dilemma is showing, simple Left/Right doesn't quite explain everything. I don;t know if you've seen this before: The Political Compass It tries to expand the 2D left/right model into a 3D left/right, authoritarian/libertarian model. Still simplistic, but better. As a guess (and to probably start a debate), I'd say: - Labout: Red Quadrant - Tory: Purple Quadrant (though I'm sure some would argue they may be Blue) - LibDem: Green Quadrant - The Coalition: Purple Quadrant. I'm currently very slightly in the purple quadrant, having (I'd guess) moved from the green quadrant I was probably in when I was younger. Which is probably why, even as a (current, but swingable) LibDem voter, the Coalition policies aren't too much of a problem for me. But it also shows why the LibDems could equally partner with either Labour or the Tories, as although they match Labour on the economic scale, they can sit alongside the Tories on the social (authoritarian) scale.

I would point out that little to none of the deficit is caused by bailing banks out. The deficit is entirely caused by us spending more than we earn and, like it or not, most of that is expenditure on the public sector. And it's better to sit on our hands at the moment until those banks return to profitability so we can flog the shares off and get the dosh back, hopefully with a big profit. Also, HAL is absolutely correct in saying banks create money. It's not an argument about what drives the economy, GDP, etc, it's just that our monetary system basically defines debt = money. When you take out a, say, ?250K mortgage the bank creates that on it's books and magics up the money out of pretty much nothing (not entirely true - it actually magics it up from reserves of about ?25K). When you pay your mortgage off, that money disappears from the system.

frierntastic - you also missed the error about "people inheriting million pound homes tax-free" - the budget did not raise the inheritance tax threshold one penny. And also CGT *was* raised this time - but only if you are in the higher tax brackets.

Balls on QT was strange, too. He does this weird thing with his eyes and eyebrows when he's talking that makes him look like a startled rabbit. It's very disconcerting when you are listening to him.

Woof is not on holidays. His family are though, so he's been put in kennels for the week. Sadly, no wireless internet for him.