our Sydney

To Mr Ali so it is ok to bully someone on this forum if he is you mate is it? To Toast see above To Mr Nelson Ta To whoever is admin on this forum please de reegister me I have no wish to be on this forum any longer To the rest of you . . . Enjoy your "guests" Regards Syd

You can get help for this you know Best regards Syd

I'm not sure what a Texas Rangers Jersy would do for you but if it helps go get one. On every other point on this post apart from one I utterly agree with you . . . . While the world will probably go to hell Stick with it, there are good days to! Very best regards Syd

"To distinguish juice made with oranges from juice which is merely orange in colour." What like Mango-juice? Best regards Syd

Hello Mr Hein Thank you for the explanation . . . I think that clears things up a little though. . . Mr Time I think I like your explanation better as that is a referance to another game I think I do not even slightly understand (though it was quite exciting to watch the two times I went to a match) but having all ball games involving money and lots of running around and a ball filed into "meaningless nonsense" is much better form a personal view point. Many thanks again Best regards Syd

Please help me here, I do not understand. . . why employ someone with the job of fetching the ball for the players, then have them lie on to of the ball instead of passing it back to ple players. . Further why not ask "hello young scamp can I have my ball back please" instead you kick the little tyke and get sent off. . Sorry just another aspect of football I do not understand and makes no sense to me at all . . . Best regards Syd Ps please don't make me put this in "ask a deathlister" it is too focused a question, I am working up to "football. . . why? What? and how do you get away with that?" which will go in there one day.

I appreciate as a simple European I may be missing something here, but where does the right to bear arms prevent you from having a properly licensed system that at least tries to prevent the sociopaths and those with serious personality disorders and even those suffering temporary mental illness possessing fire arms? I can't see that the freedom to bear arms demands that you do not have sensible regulation that tries to guarantee the right to life of the innocent. You can still have the general right to posses arms for the masses, just make them go through a screening process to stop the guns easily getting into the hands of those who are likely to kill their neighbours for no reason. Best regards Syd

Good for you, Lardy. I've got similar plans pencilled in next week re Bruce Springsteen. Booked for Bruce and have just found I've won £500 on the premium bonds, woo hoo! Now shall I book for Coventry as well or wait and see if they drop another Wembley date in? Tough decisions If you really would like an opinion Coventry, Wembly is so anty-septic a venue. Best regards Syd

You have just reminded me why I am so glad that we are all different . . . personally I find that "trash can" quite stunning I shall carry on enjoying his work when I see it. Best regards Syd

I would like to nominate my engine. . . . took it apart and it is just the top end that needs a rebuild, bottom end is fine so this is not going to cost me lots of money to fix and I may actually run at the start of the season! Best regards Syd

OK Mr Nelson I shall have a go got to the station this morning, trains not running so went back home to work from home. . . in the time I would have spent commuting I have stripped the oil system off my dragster engine, removed the electrics and removed the front engine mounts in preperation for pulling the engine tommorow lunchtime. you may like cutting out rust, I like working on the oily bits! Best regards Syd

Where the fuck is the Torygraph getting all these names from? Do their obit writers hang outside veterans clubs and slip a tenner into the pocket of the barmen when they leave in order to get some tips? All joking aside, it'll be something along those lines. Basically a combination of a matchless network amongst those highly individual but also highly clubbable types coupled with an open door policy everytime some upper-crust accent rings their obits desk and opens a conversation with; "Can I speak to someone about an obituary, you see, my old chum Bunny just bought it, dashed fine fellow he was..." Or it could be just a case of bunging a few quid each month in a brown envelope to a public servent in the records office just to give them a call if someone interesting should come up, (so to speak!) No reason to suspect that News corp are the only ones doing it! Best regards Syd

Probably! Thanks Syd. My last comment on the matter is that some Aussie States have considered seceding from time to time. Western Australia sometimes becomes bitchy towards the eastern part of the country and wants out but their moves have never gone too far. Tasmania is also an interesting case: it is one of the poorest parts of the nation with all kinds of economic problems and lack of infrastructure. Some mainlanders compare it to the southern USA but this is really unfair. Nevertheless it does have a lot of problems. However, in the 19th century, before Federation turned all of the independent British colonies into a single nation, it was extremely prosperous. Back in the 1990s, some economists were asked to produce a hypothetical model of how Tasmania's economy would perform if it became an independent nation. According to their models, it would thrive. I wonder if anyone has done similar modeling for Texas and Louisiana. Maybe if they had to fend for themselves, their economies would kick-start and the outcomes would indeed be better. I am sure, over time, if they were independent their grudge towards "the north" would lessen and their Bible belt fundamentalism would become much more moderate. Of course, there is no way Washington will let their oil producing states go, and as Angry notes, there is hardly a groundswell of support for this movement but it is interesting to speculate about while we wait for Oscar Niemeyer to kick the bucket. Can I at this point say SCOTLAND? I think you can, but what point you are trying to make is unclear to me. It is undoubted that much of the Scottish population is concentrated in the central industrialised belt, as such it bears little resemblance to either Tasmania or the southern states of the US. There are many dispersed communities in Scotland but they are not the norm as in the southern US, further the UK as a whole has fare more uniform standards of living and welfare support than the Southern US. While being part of the UK enables it to enjoy many services that would be denied it if it had to pay for them on a per capita basis. It finds itself in the position of contributing income from its resources to the United kingdom economy however the development of those resources came about at relatively favourable terms as a result of the union (just ask Nigeria what happens if you invite BP in and don't have a big stick to threaten them with!) and many services are available to Scotland at a much reduced cost compared to similar sized populations in Europe (like TV services). Over all I think comparing the southern US or Tasmania with Scotland is like comparing chalk and a medium sized halibut but maybe you can bring clarity to the situation. Best regards Syd I was not trying to draw a direct parallel between the exact situations. However, there is talk of how these states would fare outside of their current national framework which is entirely theorectical but in Scotland there is a very real process, where these types of argument are going to be discussed at length over the next two years and the population of Scotland will have to make a choice. Each side will make the choice seem as black and white as possible but in reality they will be weighing up what is most important. Alternatively I could responde in Monty Python fashion - "BURMA" "What did you say Burma for?" "I panicked" I think you have hit the issue on the head with your comment about trying to make the Scottish independence issue seem black and white. A more complex proposal I cannot think of, politically and socially, as the separation of the UK. It would make Mr Morgan’s vision of the splitting up of the US seem like a harmonious paradise of a clear cut logical future . . . I really do recommend the book it has some brilliant Ideas in it! Best regards Syd

Probably! Thanks Syd. My last comment on the matter is that some Aussie States have considered seceding from time to time. Western Australia sometimes becomes bitchy towards the eastern part of the country and wants out but their moves have never gone too far. Tasmania is also an interesting case: it is one of the poorest parts of the nation with all kinds of economic problems and lack of infrastructure. Some mainlanders compare it to the southern USA but this is really unfair. Nevertheless it does have a lot of problems. However, in the 19th century, before Federation turned all of the independent British colonies into a single nation, it was extremely prosperous. Back in the 1990s, some economists were asked to produce a hypothetical model of how Tasmania's economy would perform if it became an independent nation. According to their models, it would thrive. I wonder if anyone has done similar modeling for Texas and Louisiana. Maybe if they had to fend for themselves, their economies would kick-start and the outcomes would indeed be better. I am sure, over time, if they were independent their grudge towards "the north" would lessen and their Bible belt fundamentalism would become much more moderate. Of course, there is no way Washington will let their oil producing states go, and as Angry notes, there is hardly a groundswell of support for this movement but it is interesting to speculate about while we wait for Oscar Niemeyer to kick the bucket. Can I at this point say SCOTLAND? I think you can, but what point you are trying to make is unclear to me. It is undoubted that much of the Scottish population is concentrated in the central industrialised belt, as such it bears little resemblance to either Tasmania or the southern states of the US. There are many dispersed communities in Scotland but they are not the norm as in the southern US, further the UK as a whole has fare more uniform standards of living and welfare support than the Southern US. While being part of the UK enables it to enjoy many services that would be denied it if it had to pay for them on a per capita basis. It finds itself in the position of contributing income from its resources to the United kingdom economy however the development of those resources came about at relatively favourable terms as a result of the union (just ask Nigeria what happens if you invite BP in and don't have a big stick to threaten them with!) and many services are available to Scotland at a much reduced cost compared to similar sized populations in Europe (like TV services). Over all I think comparing the southern US or Tasmania with Scotland is like comparing chalk and a medium sized halibut but maybe you can bring clarity to the situation. Best regards Syd

Hi Mr Locker there are some interesting ideas of a future indipendent southern states of the US in here Richard Morgan I think one of the better attempts to look at modern southern states politics, and a good novel into the bargin! Best regards Syd

You guess correctly Best regards Syd

Hi Mr locker I think Australia is an exceptional case as regards educating it's population, a very high value has always been placed on a good education in Australia, and particularly distance learning. The various radio linked schools and collages demonstrated what could be done, without the success of which we in the UK would never have had the Open University. I think that the extreme remoteness of some Australian farms and stations actually created the drive for these distance learning solutions, small schools could not be sustained as some years there would be no children of school age in a 1000 square miles of country. I think also the nature of the Australian environment forced a lifestyle that could not fall back on subsistence exploitation of the natural environment (logging, fishing, hunting, subsistence mining) the way the southern US can and forced Australians toward white coller jobs. This in turn has forced a proper welfare system on Australia, also higher level of public sector jobs and more realistic levels of service industry wages, particularly in catering and tourism. Best regards Syd

As said above the southern states tend to have few large centres of population, generally the population is in small relatively isolated communities, the net result it is hard and expensive to educate the population to a high level. If your community is of 600 odd people, small village size, and is 30 miles from its nearest neighbour then your likely total school age population in a community is around 100 at any time, split across 12 years of education you may at any moment only have 7 maybe 10 students in any academic year, how do you offer a suitable range of subjects to those students? even if you bus them in from 10 surrounding communities to a central collage you do not really solve the problem, but you have added a huge cost to a day’s schooling. Add to this that you cannot really support large scale industry on the basis of say 450 work age individuals and you can begin to see why it is relatively hard to get much wealth into the southern states, The tradition of "small government" in the US just makes this worse, without a large public sector offering low skill high security jobs it is very difficult to get any wealth generated by the major industrial states in the North of the US into the relatively poor uneducated south. The really big irony is that the communities that could most benefit from a large public sector are those most likely to vote against them, talk about turkeys voting for Christmas! Best regards Syd

The little I know of this is that many (though not all) of the deaths were within one project group involved in encryption of battle field radio signals. One of these people "committed suicide" by driving his car into a disused cafe at 70+ mph with his car filled with cans of petrol, a very unusual way to kill yourself involving far more planning than most would choose. . . Surely the hosepipe from the exhaust would have done just as well! Best regards Syd

Possably the only people who could shamlessly milk a franchise for every cent better than George . . . they should be great together! Best regrads Syd

He was in the top 6. You're gonna put him ahead of Tony Sheridan, Billy Preston, Jeff Lynne and George Best? I thought he meant McCartney was top 6 in the Beatles, I can agree with that, as Ringo is the 3rd best drummer. . . in the Beatles. Quite frankly I would find it hard to rate any of the Beatles in the top 500 musicians or songwriters, they just weren’t any good, the original "emperor’s new clothes" Best regards Syd

I thought hurricane Sandy was just a promo for "the day after tomorrow 2 " Best regards Syd

Nobody 'wishes' him dead. I think Jim Steinman did, for a while. No I think that was just part of Mr Steinman's project to turn all music he is involved with into a bland, lifeless, sameness that just sounds like you died and went to musical hell. A hell where there is no hope of life ever returning to the form, while excitement is in future to be released in carefully controlled amounts that allow for a slow fading into a dead banality of sameness never to be revived . . . . oops . . . sorry got carried away there! Best regards Syd

Hello Yes you are/were correct about the Board of governors of the BBC, about their creation and appointment, however I referred to the Trust (which replaced the board of governors some years ago) and that is appointed by the culture secretary, Now the Trust appoints the DG and any notion that the chairman of the Trust being appointed by the queen is unfortunately a myth. Best regards Syd

Hi How could the BBC be anything but indipendent of government, after all the trust is apointed by the government of the day from a long list of government cronies, and they in turn apoint the Director General and all the senior managment, all totally indipendent Best regards Syd