El Pibe

"people who blithely swallow the filth that's peddled by the likes of the Mail" will never see the other side of it even if you scraped it into the weaselly eyes with broken plastic rulers.

looks monkeyish to me.

Y god, for a second I tought Tony had been allowed back!! I was just about to re-engage my skin-crawling sex banter filter again.

H, the quoted 60mb is on dedicated cable, it's unsurprisingly not available on ADSL via BT infrastructure. Peak times you would expect a detox anyway, that's why they're peak, though I've done some spot testing over the weeks and get about 3-6 mbit at peak times, but they don't last long. I was stuck on 0.8 for years due to poor infrastructure on the Brixton exchange ADSL so I can live with that.

i suppose there has to be at least one upside to leaving london then ;-)

found it. reviews here http://www.whatstove.co.uk/romotop-stoves/romotop-stromboli-stove.html and i thiiiink, this one, which was meant to be a Morso but this was half the price http://www.whatstove.co.uk/jotul-stoves/jotul-f-371-stove.html

I'm with most in that Canal Dreams seemed an odd hiccup in a purple patch. Whit seemed a to sleepwalk a little and I didn't like the Business at all, so gave up on his terrestrial stuff, though weirdly bought Stonemouth a couple of weeks ago on the back of good reviews. I thought the reason the non sci-fi suffered was because his heart was in his other books. Consider Phlebas is a fantastic book full stop, and the quality remained good until a curiously nihilistic Matter, which was almost a Cormac McCarthy novel without the stark beauty. I've actually not read any Banks since but have Stonemouth ready to go on my bedside table.

we'll use wood, but that's not really an issue in rural ireland, we'll heat the house as much as possible with water heated using solar thermal which, thankfully considering where it is, works very efficiently through cloud!! The house is airtight and ludicrously well insulated so we're hoping that the woodburners will provide plenty of heat and make us less dependent on gas. We've an 9 8kw one in the main open plan living/dining/kitchen (where the oven should provide heat too) area and a 7 5.5kw one in the sitting room. Maintenance will be a pain, especially with two.

Loved his books since I was a teen. And comes across as such a lovely chap. The South Bank show with him is worth tracking down. Very sad news indeed, he'll be very much missed but leaves a great legacy with his writing.

Snap too

Like Louisa I lied enough to get in to a category more appropriate to my self image. Whew!!!!

xpost

They're a great deal more efficient than an open fireplace, last longer on less and give off more heat. If you don't like the look of traditional wood stoves there are some pretty funky designs around these days. I agree you can't really beat a proper open fire , but as we've built an airtight house that isn't an option, even the stoves need to be sealed and supplied from an external pipe. we went with a couple that were vaguely similar to this, though can't remember the brand here are some funky ones http://www.stovesonline.co.uk/wood_burning_stoves/Contemporary-Designer-stoves.html THis site is excellent http://www.whatstove.co.uk/stove-reviews/stoves/stove-reviews/_c35/

"Which bit of the OP's "I don't do sci-fi" is hard to understand? " errr the bit that actually says "do do sci fi"

Sure, I was just wondering how people were doing with the puzzle. We'd managed to follow some clues to a key somewhere in the pacific but got no further.

Miliband resigned because he's tilting for a position in the United Nations and is avoiding any possible hint of a hint of controversy that could stain his CV.

failing to avoid the wriggling worm of trolling, and avoiding the question as such (ok I won't, the answer is yes) I do think there's a pretty poor understanding of the term fascism full stop in this country, we tend to conflate alot of things with nazism and create a sort of miasmic shibboleth that hinders rather than fosters understanding. Likewise any understanding of communism is immediately undermined by the mention of the antigodwin 'Stalin'.

a while since a mash link, but this one was rather good, IDS's ?53 a week diary http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/iain-duncan-smiths-53-a-week-diary-2013040264369

https://maps.google.co.uk/?ll=51.464756,-0.077696&spn=0.026522,0.064888&t=8&z=14&layer=c&cbll=51.464756,-0.077696&panoid=7gbOJjWOwTh3AGP0qDXe6w&cbp=12,10.12,,0,13.33 actually can't remember quite where you liv, but there be dragons ish

google maps and street view have gone a bit odd today. has anyone found any treasure yet?

if you do do sci fi then Battlestar Galactica is a must!

I'd have thought any snarling villain is too obvious so no to pauline 'come walk my dog and leave your skateboard as a glimpse of subsequent plot deviec' quirk and mark's 'get orrrrf moi laaand, yier dead meat moi luvver' sidekick. I thought the vicar was too obvious but they've been giving us a dose of all round community good guy so he's shot to number two in my list. I'd say Ellie's husband as only real all out good guy so far, even get's on with grumpy rozza, has to be top of the list.

Autocomplete is not your friend on this is it!! Have to admit gingaropeteleoik has me stumped.

never underestimate humanity's capacity for stupidity.

"The heir apparent" ha ha, apparent[ly] not! Why should it matter who he stood against, if he has political convictions not served by his brother's then why the hell shouldn't he? Specious argument. Sporting metaphors are lazy metaphors and I'm afraid your interpretation reflcts none of the craft but stands merely as an inference. For instance to me it's too close to to a music metaphor (ie being heard to strike the right note, clssic nu labour) and "if there's grass on the pitch...", for that reason alone probably best avoided.