Westcoaster

Sorry guys, I'm going to have to cry off, I have childcare issues this weekend Here's to the next meet - have a great time on Sunday.

Another important reason for pursuing independence, is the completely different political perspective of Scotland. 30 years of Thatcher and post Thatcher (including new Labour) policies have marginalised the voters in Scotland. Through out the '80s and once again, we have a tory government which is as alien to the Scottish voter as Le Penn's far right party in France. Scotland is by habit and tradition, a centre left, social democracy, with a strong public interest in social welfare, health and the principals of free public education at basic and higher levels. The pseudo right wing, 'greed is good' philosophy of the tories carries no weight in Scotland. Politically, we have more in common with the Scandinavian countries, than England.

For those who were confused about the NHS status in Scotland, it's totally independant: "NHS Scotland (Gaelic: SNS Alba or Seirbheis Slàinte na h-Alba) is the publicly funded healthcare system of Scotland. Although they are separate bodies the organisational separation between NHS Scotland and the other three healthcare organisations each commonly called the National Health Service in the United Kingdom tends to be hidden from its users due to the co-ordination and co-operation where "cross-border" or emergency care is involved. In 2006, the NHS in Scotland had around 158,000 staff including more than 47,500 nurses, midwives and health visitors and over 3,800 consultants. In addition, there are also more than 12,000 doctors, family practitioners and allied health professionals, including dentists, opticians and community pharmacists, who operate as independent contractors providing a range of services within the NHS in return for fees and allowances.[1] It had an operating budget of £9.3Bn in 2008/09.[2] Healthcare policy and funding is the responsibility of the Scottish Government's Health and Wellbeing Directorate. The current Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing is Nicola Sturgeon and the Director-General (DG) for Health and Social care is Derek Feeley.[3] A website has been created to mark 60 years of the NHS in Scotland" From wikipedia As for the Scottish military, application for NATO membership will provide lavish supplies of US equipment. Well that worked for the former Eastern bloc countries!

I'm very much in favour of independance for my home country, I always have. It is not enough to be ruled from London and patronised in the way that we are. I also get irritated by patronising remarks about whether Scotland can manage as a country on it's own, with a population of 5,222,100 at latest estimates, that makes Scotland slightly smaller than Denmark and Finland in population, but larger than new Zealand, Norway, Croatia, Slovenia the Baltic states and Ireland. There are numerous natural and renewable resources and sufficient high tech, engineering and medical research jobs to keep the country at the cutting edge of scientific developments. There won't be a problem in maintaining a First World lifestyle or GDP. The largest problem may be the influx of economic immigrants from other parts of the EU! The problem with the UK government, is that it will wish to retain it's Security Council priviledges and it's nuclear deterrant, without having the resources to back them up. Bring it on I say, I'd love to see it happen in my lifetime!

Someone called?

Is it too late to get involved in this? :-)

I have them on my Supra and my other car, they do work, but as soon as you see a hint of yellow, the tyre has lost 4-5 psi. They are handy on a car you don't use a lot, as a quick visual indication before setting off, but not a replacement for using a proper tyre pressure gauge regularly.

I really will try to make my first meeting! 1. Drift_bear 2. tDR / Brian 3. Geo 4. Joiner91 5. Scott M 6. Tony tt 7. Monsween 8. SPG-26 9. Norrie88 10. Westcoaster

Living in one of the wettest parts of Europe ensures that I get plenty of wet weather driving practice and I find my stock(ish) JDM TT auto is secure and planted in the drizzle, light rain and torrential downpours that we get in Argyll. My car wears Falken FK452s, not a top brand, but a good budget tyre. I think that there are a fair number of Supra drivers that are not used to rwd cars. My own driving history started with Hillman Avengers, Mk3 Cortinas, Imps and Morris Marinas, back in the 80's. If you didn't master rwd pretty quickly, you'd be climbing out of ditches on a regular basis. The 'children' who have driven little but Corsas, Clios and Fiestas, have little concept of rwd behaviour and consequently drive powerful rwd cars in the same carefree way and suffer the consequences. Fwiw, I'm a great believer that serving some time riding motorcycles helps you read road surfaces like your life depends on it - generally because it does!

Now at 53 hours without electricity, I've had to move in with relatives until the Hydro board remove all the trees from the popwer lines On the plus side, no damage to the house, but this is the third time in 5 weeks that we've had to bin the contents of the fridge and freezer.

I'll chuck a few in.

Bonus? What's a bonus? What's a pay rise? Ah silly me, I work in the public sector, so I'll just wait till I'm 67 and languish in my 'enormous' and 'gold-plated' public sector pension. Although I'm not sure how that'll put food on the table in the new year.

I dare you to tell the Big Man that!

C'mon the big man!

Check the trap on the bottom front behind the flap, for foreign objects. Usually hair grips, coins and other random objects stick in there. Our Bosch Maxx is 8 -10 years old, lives in an outhouse and has only requires 3 sets of motor brushes in that time @

Blimey, you get about!

What he said. I used to have a fairly new Mini Mayfair back in the 80's and it wouldn't run in the rain! It ran with yellow marigold gloves over the dizzy cap as a temporary measure, but binning the points and fitting an aftermarket electronic ignition set up, eventually cured it for me. Then I just had the rust to cope with...........................

Sounds like you two fishwives ought to get on with your work!

A ridiculous over-reaction indeed, Unison and other union leaders ought to have known better.

Well I'm a member of Unison and haven't had such an e-mail, so I've e-mailed an official I know in Unison, who says that story is total rubbish! Perhaps you want to provide proof of this rumour? Unison's press releases here: http://www.unison.org.uk/asppresspack/pressrelease.asp

That would've sounded better if 73% of private sector business wasn't in the service sector, instead of manufacturing. Looks like that imaginary teacher is expected to live till they are 84 1/2 if they're a woman - not an unachievable feat these days!

I work in the public sector, I have done for 26 years, the government haven't put a penny into my public sector pension. Your mistaking civil servants who work for the government with other public sector workers, most of whom do not have anything like a generous pension or even decent pay rates. When you retire and get pensioner premium and council tax rebates because you have no pension, who do you think pays for you? Tax payers, including those with occupational pensions that still have to pay income tax after they retire on their pension income!

That's alright then, everyones taxes will pay for you in your old age as you've made no provision yourself.

They're not, divide and rule the populace is working well in your case. Who should pay for the economic crisis? The public sector workers? The Private Sector Workers? Or the useless Merchant Bankers that got us in this mess? If most private sector companies stopped wasting money on private heath insurance as a perk for staff and put the money into pensions instead, then there wouldn't be this misapprehension that a public sector pension is generous! Oh, Clarkson's an arse, isn't that why we laugh at him on a Sunday night on Top Gear?

Passed at 3rd attempt for my car licence back in 1983:senile: Failed the first attempt on 'undue hesitancy' as I sat and waited for a truck to reverse onto a building site instead of trying to go around it, even to this day I think I was right! Second attempt a month later, I failed on 'insufficient use of the mirror'. I failed to make the wildly exaggerated head movements which apparently are required in the test. I did pass my motorcycle test at the first attempt in 1993 though!