Snooze

Problem is that France and other countries like them have a big advantage over us. They are self-sufficient in lots more areas than we are: power production (nuclear), agriculture, etc. Which means that when the government runs into economic problems (which they ultimately do/will as a result of pandering to their populace when they complain), they can just say "Va te faire foutre" to the rest of the EU and the world, jack up their import duty and close borders. Our lack of self-sufficiency and dependence on globally-mobile business (like the so-called "financial services industry") means that we don't have that fall-back without a lot of up-front work, which the government STILL aren't tackling. I think it's going to get a whole lot worse - like Tubby says - £2/L will come round pretty quick. And demonstrating aint going to help - the country simply can't afford to subsidise demographics like motorists and car-fanatics any more.

Only thing with the ones round here is they only give you 6 months to do it in and the places are quite busy. To fit mine in, I ended up having to do it down near Portsmouth somewhere. Had to give it some serious beans down the A3 to get there in time.

Yep - just need to sit in a room for a couple of hours listening to them talk and watching a couple of videos. I DID appreciate that it wasn't a 3-hour, "speeding is bad m'kay" preach and I learned a couple of vaguely interesting facts, but nothing that's affected the way I drive.

Love that advert: bwahahahahaha

That's about £9k ? Surely for that money you can get a less-than-perfect one and get it tidied up, no?

New job teaching Chinook pilots how to open the loading ramp from inside the cockpit?

Not sure about the sounds, but I presume the new AI has too much of a processing overhead..... processing power that was required to run at the higher resolution and frame rate.

The insurance companies do seem to be loading a lot of the current burden onto young drivers these days. Was always more expensive, but it seems to be getting significantly higher. I wonder what the (age of driver vs. number and cost of claims) stats are like that cause that.

Feck me. If I could have any ONE car in the world, this would be it.

Apparently James Blunt is going to perform at his funeral. Details are currently unclear about which song he'll sing.

@£7-8k you should definitely be holding out for a manual.

I'd buy that for a dollar.

Says "GF", not "girlfriend"!

Love this bit (emphasis mine): "We've spent 5 years just making it look prettier than everyone elses."

http://me.abelcheung.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/beating_dead_horse.gif

Also, the fact that this one is already in Ireland and taxed (I assume, as the ad states it is being used at weekends) probably adds a good deal of value to an Ireland-based buyer.

I guess it's a TT

......that's what SHE said!

This is an N/A, btw.

Brown paper wrapped up with string. Cheap as anything and a great, traditional look.

I am desparate for the housing market to take a dive! We can't afford to move out of our 2-bed semi in this (insanely overpriced!) area at the moment into something with more space for the boys - a nice big 50% drop in house prices would be fantastic! So I think I'll have take your word for it on the warm feeling stuff!

Chris - the money I have to earn to pay for my £150k mortgage is, indeed taxed through PAYE. The £100k asset value that I have earned simply by sitting on my fat ass in said house is not. Doesn't seem fair to me. Like you say - it's not my fault the property value has gone up, but without any sort of regulation, it's part of the reason that we are ALL screwed. I'd rather my house was still worth £150k and the economy was more stable.

Benefits and taxation need to take into account ASSETS as well as INCOME. I see plenty of people (especially in the retired demographic) sat with £500k+ assets in property still claiming every benefit known to man. The problem has been massively accentuated in the past couple of decades with the ridiculous increase in asset value compared to income levels as the property market went ballistic. Until we tax assets properly, we won't get things under control. And, as unpopular as it sounds, I think we also need a reduction in the minimum wage. That, coupled with reduction in benefits might actually incentivise people to work and kickstart some industry again?

Rebate will only be for as long as you've been there.

Not a good comparison of 1 billion and 1 trillion. Numerically, it's a comparison of 1 billion and 60 billion. I think it was intended as (and succeeds IMO) an illustration of the fact that 1 billion is an effing big number!