chrisp65

With regard uni places, fees and Bicksters attitude toward everyone and anyone getting a crack at Uni. I'm in a fairly unusual position of being middle aged and in full time employment, but to further my career I've just completed (and gained) a BSc. I think I can honestly say that I now have some letters that will impress people that don't have a clue what the course entailed. But did I learn anything new? No. Was the teaching up to speed with real world developments and current practises? Mostly, but hardly cutting edge. Was the course tailored to prepare the full time students for the real world in a design office. Nnnnnnno. Not. Even. Close. O.k. perhaps we teach people to think and not just to know how to work to today's standards and norms. Did the course encourage thinking, improvisation and innovation? Did it fook. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that I'd personally now have a very different attitude towards anyone sending in a CV with a degree from there instead of a few years of sitting in a real office cracking on with the mundane bottom rung stuff. A very enlightening couple of years. I didn't even turn up to get attendance marks after year one, more important stuff to do than get a tick in a register which unbelievably contributed towards marks (5% for attendance!) on a degree course. I had no idea you could get marks towards a degree......for attendance. Other students (the fulltime ones) had absolutely no idea how to organise themselves. Did Uni show them how to organise and prioritise? No. Did Uni simply mark them down in a sink or swim attitude to non submission of work? No. Uni simply permanently moved deadlines and altered set tasks to ensure everyone could manage just fine. Which is great, because out in business world, those students will have loads of Clients and managers that will also move deadlines and ease tasks to make sure everything stays nice and comfy. I was always a great believer in University education and experience for everyone. Then I went to Uni. Perhaps fees, which i was always opposed to, can actually be a force for good. Weeding out people using it as an option other than going and getting a job they didn't really fancy and weeding out silly courses and making employers realise that if someone has done the job for 25 years and doesn't appear to be totally incompetent, perhaps the paper proof is a pointless waste of money. Oh, and I ain't naming names until the paperwork comes through!

Nick Clegg not attending Margaret Thatcher's birthday party in Downing Street today.

my understanding of the child benefit cut off was a desire for a crudely simple system. Yes, there were 'cleverer' ways of adopting a cut off with phasing and means testing etc but the ethos was to keep it simple stupid. To be fair, there is an arguement for a tax that tries not to cost money to impose. Then today we are told that uni tuition fees are going to be allowed to be raised by varying amounts, when you re pay is triggered by when you earn £21k, the interest rate you pay back at may depend on your circumstances, there will be more loans and grants available to the poorer students. Well fook me! What happened to keep it simple from last week?

I presume that was just a bit of trolling / flaming / unthinking generalisation that wasn't meant to be read seriously by anybody from my office that's been laid off recently?

In the building society this morning putting some money in my nippers' account, old lady at the counter taking ages, creating a rather large queue. Eventually she was handed a big brown envelope, shoved it in her bag, turned and announced to everyone in the queue 'right I'd better get straight off home because I've got £5,300 in here'. The was a collective groan from queue and staff alike.

Ever eaten sausages legov? always be careful how you answer a sausage eating question, it's probably best to be non-commital or say you've never had more than a couple of plain pork bangers whilst at Uni

Have to say, whilst there is a great arguement for the universality of child benefit, there's also a compelling arguement that someone earning £19k pa shouldn't be contributing towards the benefit handouts for the children of millionaires. It'll be interesting to see the biggest losers once the full package has been revealed, this is just one piece.

Dave Chance - Hi Ho Aston Villa! ha ha! pot noodle for the ears, crap and I love it.... 5.....4.....3.....2.....1.....

edited due to being even more dull than usual

As with everything where you’ve only a got a few words to get your point across the statement that Christianity ain’t cool for UK kids is a bit too sweeping to be an absolute truth. There are plenty of things going on in that particular scene that you may not be aware of. Greenbelt is a 3 day festival that attracts about 20,000 people every year and has been going for about 20+ years. There are Methodist Yoof gatherings every year that fill out the Albert Hall once in the summer and once in the winter (capacity a few thousand?). It may not be seen as trendy and cool by all, but clearly there is an appetite for it amongst some. Let he who knows how to define cool cast the first stone. If it doesn’t hurt anyone, where’s the harm? Equally, not everyone present is necessarily a Christian. Perhaps some went along simply to see Scrubious Pip or Royksopp or Billy Bragg (hurray one I’ve heard of). But equally, not everyone that goes along to a Prodigy gig actually wants to be a twisted fire starter. I know that I went to one of these a long long time ago, I can’t remember the name of it – it was around about the time of the Red Wedge bandwagon and had a lot of the same bands. My reason for going was certainly a bit more earthly than heavenly and centred around sleeping bags that could be zipped together. But I remember being utterly surprised that there were so many people there, mostly wearing yellow for some reason I’ve since forgotten if I ever knew. Don’t crucify me too much on my stats above mind, I’m no expert, just trying to add a little balance.

Rover appeared to get there act together for the 75. I know a guy at work that is keeping his well beyond the usual 3 / 4 year cycle because its the car he's enjoyed the most.

can we all agree that funding and expenses finished as a score draw? it's all a bit circular, it's like that slogan in tehran a good few years ago: USA is worse than USSR. USSR is worse than UK. UK is worse than USA. Or something like that anyway. There isn't a party that would do well out of proper analysis of finances. I'm sure if we ever found the guy that funds Plaid Cymru he'd turn out to be Belgian or somesuch.

it's a tricky question pay and pay relative to others. If I set up my own business and persuade everyone in the UK they need to buy my widget for £1 that costs a penny to make, why shouldn't I be able to pocket 65,000,000 times 99p less tax? No reason at all. But why should the Head of British Waterways (the man in charge of canals ffs), earn a quarter of a million pounds? Why should six people working on the Olympics earn £200,000 per year each? I know it's this weeks fashionable thing to moan about public salaries, but they really do need to be brought back in to line. Are we really saying that if the top 2 jobs at British Waterways had their slaries halved we'd get a noticeably poorer team of people applying for the job? Are we really sure the PR man for the olympics is worth the same as 15 clinical hospital nurses? Or that if the salary had been less we wouldn't have got the position filled? That's the unfairness that Ed Milliband needs to address. In fairness, the words comming from the Alliance suggest they too are seeing this is an area that needs to be addressed. In the grand scheme of things the few million this small group of people earn is small beer compared with the sacrifices that need to be made. But we need to see this kind of thinking coming through. When the hospital close to you has 30 less nurses, you are unlikely to think, phew, well atleast the waterways are in good well remunirated hands. I think Ed could be a good refreshing choice for a few years. Certainly, if the coalition lasts a few years he could be a good counterpoint. His brother may well be coming around to the thinking that perhaps, just perhaps, he's better off being the leader after the leader after Brown.

Police will nearly always attend a burglary immediately if the perpetrator is on the premises at the time generally yes you're right, unless of course you live in a town of 46,000 people and a surrounding population of a further 30,000 and when you phone to say it's happening right now they tell you 'sorry, only two of us on duty tonight, my oppo is already out on a call and I'm not allowed to leave the phone unmanned'. this, incidentally, is a differenct incident to the ones mentioned earlier. happily, all these little anecdotes are from a different part of town, we got out as soon as financially possible, but in lots of ways it was a worthwhile experience to know what it's like to live 'somewhere like that'

I used to live in a far more 'lively' part of town than I do currently. I used to phone the Police about various incidents, but after a while realised I was simply wasting my time and a succession of 5p's so I stopped bothering. A couple of choice examples: Used to live directly across from an off licence. One night the alarm went off and there are people running around in there. Phoned the Police and said come now and you will catch them in the act. I then waited for the Sweeney and Gene Hunt to arrive. Nothing. The guys left with there boxes of goodies. All a bit odd I thought and eventually went off to bed. An hour later, my phone rings, it's the Police asking if they are still there!!!! Old ladies across the street had their window put through by someone I was able to describe, I told the police and they weren't interested in taking a description as 'we could never really prove it'. Last one, a local flat was clearly being used by a gang of yoofs as a general fencing / distribution centre including stolen cars. I tipped off the police, they raided and got shit loads of evidence. With a dozen teenagers cuffed and on the street and being loaded into vans they knocked on my door and thanked me for the tip off. I don't have a great opinion of the Police at present. As long as they've been given nice cars to chase round and round in at night they are happy.

You better hope it doesn't go to extra time! didn't even occur to me! and I've neverever left before the end either.............

working nearby and due to give someone a lift home from a party later the same evening - so have to 'waste a few hours' between 7pm and 10pm. With a little bit of effort I'll get my petrol on expenses and my ticket covered by a grateful friend of me missus that won't drive motorways! will there be free flags?

the Indie take your pick from 4 or 5 articles here.... I think that to challenge a 'state' visit that is charging an entrance fee and offering merchandise (vatican bunting at £12 for 10 metres anyone?) is probably the one that will hit home with a good number of people at the moment in the current austere times. I get the feeling that the sex abuse story is suffering from 'fatigue' along the lines of many 'bear shits in woods' stories.

So essentially, the article is a huge strawman as that's not at all true. Often Atheists see the dangers in religion, the harm it causes, and want to speak out against it. Speaking out against someones beliefs always causes people to react badly, and atheists are then painted as the ones stoking the fire. It's impossible for an atheists to truly comment on religion without someone claiming that they're being "nasty" because it involves completely writing off many peoples beliefs. mmm well I think we disagree then. Someone wishing to discuss my beliefs and challenge them and try to persuade me I'm just plain wrong is fine. Be it my choice of car, politics, religion or whatever I'm happy to face a challenge and either stick to my guns, but thanks for the work out, or admit I just learnt something and move on up. So speaking out is not always going to end badly. You tell me there are concerns over x, y and z and we can discuss it. You tell me I'm a mentalist that funds child rape and needs shooting, I'm less likely to bother engaging in debate*. I'm not suggesting atheists are all wrong and bad, no social grouping has bragging rights on being 100% made up of dicks. I'm just suggesting that the debate is often kinda surface deep reaction by numbers rather than informed criticism. *this is an example and not an accusation there you go, wouldn't it be boring if we were all the same

Intersting commentary in The Times today asking why atheists and humanists etc. so often have to be so nasty, even vile, in their condemnation of catholicism and the papacy. I can't link it unfortunately as the evil one wants a pound to access his little website. My precis of the article is: if they are so cock sure he's a nazi paedo lizard alien would their cause be helped by being a little less sensational about it all? Essentially, rather than websites overheating with vitriol about cultist child buggery an actual calm considered examination of whether an anti abortion stance helps women would be worth exploring. Or, would the third world be helped by taking the straight to hell stigma away from contraception. Or, would allowing priests to marry take away the cover of celibacy for kiddy fiddlers. One last one, would an investigation into the finances and riches of the church illustrate the financial priorities of an organisation that appears to have billions in assets but charges £25 a head to see the supposedly top representative of God on Earth? I just read that little article (didn't buy the paper!) and it reminded me of some of the threads here. It gets very predictable very quickly, which is a shame really. I'm not that interested in the Pope and if i had an instant vote button I'd probably opt out of stumping up a portion of my tax contribution on funding his visit. But then I'd also opt out of funding our vast military killing machine, payrolling royalty and giving Kenneth Clarke a winter heating allowance. However, others would probably wish to opt out of funding my kids' schools and my wife's job. So as a broadly civilised society we accept that not everything is for our personal selfish advancement. Doesn't mean we can't constructively try and turn the tanker around, inch by inch. Just means there's little point in runnning up and down the deck shouting ****! Looks like tomorrow's Independent may be worth a £1, and that I would pay for. Might link that once I've read it.

I know I know! had a little chuckle when I noticed that

security guards? big gold hat? £25 a ticket? official website has a merchandising page? what would Jesus say?

excellent job pitch you may wish to take some job interview style tips from this guy

olympic quantities of vodka and coke lined up for later, can't get started til after 9, apologies in advance circa 11:30pm

for no reason apparent reason an old memory just popped into my head: I remember standing to the side whilst my dad was attempting to get an autograph on a programme. My old man stood there, knee deep in a gaggle of kids all trying to get the same autograph. Unwilling to use extreme force and plough the little beggars out of the way he just stood on the edge of the group. ‘Fernando, Fernando, hey Fernando, excuse me, Fernando, over here, Fernando’. On it went for several awful minutes until I finally shouted across, ‘try calling him Ricardo and see what happens’. At which point Mr Scimeca looked up and gave me a wink.