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So the chancellor has delivered his review, what do people think, are you fearful for you job?
a lot of numbers quoted but at least 16000 jobs in the public sector to go, scarey days indeed.

Anyone watching this?

theres a 1 to 2 year waiting list to get into Divis Tower

God theres some hateful people in there, as always but it has all the makings of another great series.

taken a dislike to these two already

http://www.bbc.co.uk/apprentice/series6/shibby-robati.shtml

and

http://www.bbc.co.uk/apprentice/series6/stuart-baggs.shtml

what are these things? are they something new or have I messed up my settings?

Stolen from the GAA thread

Any on here with this crowd? I have been with Virgin and  looking around its one of the dearest about, TT offering 14meg, unlinited calls to uk landlines, unlimited d/l, unlimited calls to the us and canada, line rental and router, all for £28.48. there is a £39.99 connection fee

Anyone watch these two eejits, bonkers, but funny

Guys

I have started getting the same email twice, one after the other, I am with NTL and I am using Out look. NTL have updated their email so that could be the problem, anyone else haveing such problems with them?

I couldnt believe that some parents would be so selfish as to take hush money to let some pedo off the hook, bastards, in my book that are no better than the pedo.

  charity has condemned the parents of a four-year-old boy who accepted money from a man who sexually abused him instead of reporting him to the police.

Gerard Raffell, 42, a teacher who lived in Daventry, Northamptonshire, agreed to pay £18,000 to the boy's parents.

He was eventually arrested when the boy told of the attacks four years later.

Peter Saunders, of the National Association of People Abused in Childhood (Napac), said: "We are flabbergasted - it goes beyond belief."

Raffell was sentenced to a three-year community sentence at Northampton Crown Court after pleading guilty to causing the boy to engage in sexual activity and seven counts of possessing indecent images of children.


  I don't know of any parent who would put a sum of money before bringing the abuser of their child to justice

Peter Saunders, Napac
He was also placed on the sex offenders register for 10 years and banned from ever working with children.

Mr Saunders told BBC Radio 5 Live's Gabby Logan show: "This judge has let a man walk free who has sexually abused a child on many occasions - other children will still be at risk from this man.

"Those parents should have been brought before the court for something because it is outrageous - they discovered their child was being abused and did nothing about it.

"How bizarre - go away, give us some money and go off and abuse children elsewhere.

"The consequences of abuse are profound, they are long standing, they are deeply deeply damaging to the individual.

"I don't know of any parent who would put a sum of money before bringing the abuser of their child to justice. It's incomprehensible."

A spokesperson for the Crown Prosecution Service said: "Gerard Raffell was initially charged with three counts of attempted rape and four counts of causing or inciting a boy under 13 to engage in sexual activity.

"At a plea and case management hearing, the defence indicated the defendant would be prepared to plead guilty to four counts of causing or inciting a boy under 13 to engage in sexual activity.

"In accepting this plea this young victim was spared the ordeal of giving evidence in court.

"This was explained to and accepted by the family."

A spokesman for Northamptonshire County Council said it could not comment on the case in detail.

He added: "We can confirm that the council acted swiftly as soon as this issue came to us as a result of the police investigation to identify the needs of the child involved and respond appropriately
from the BBC

all
trying to get my hands on 11 plus practice pepers, or the new equalivant. anyone got any they would like to share? PM me please

so many humpy hoors on here

Psychologists have found evidence of a strong link between time spent surfing the web and depression.

The longer people spend on the internet, the less likely they are to be happy, according to researchers.

An online questionnaire was used to assess levels of internet dependency and depression in 1,319 individuals ranging in age from 16 to 51.

In general, the longer people spent online the more depressed they tended to be, the scientists found in a study published in Psychopathology journal.

A small group of the worst-affected individuals were both depressed and addicted, a study by the Institute of Psychological Sciences at the University of Leeds found.


But it is not clear whether using the internet causes mental health problems, or whether people with mental health problems are drawn to the internet.

More work is needed to answer this "chicken and egg" question, study leader Catriona Morrison said.

"There was a high correspondence between the amount of time spent on the internet and levels of depression," said Dr Morrison.

"If you look at how dependent people feel they are on the internet that is likely to correspond with how happy or sad they feel."

Her team identified a small group of 18 hardcore internet users who spent many hours online each day and were classed as "internet addicted".

Their average depression score was more than five times higher than that of non-addicted users, and they were more likely to be moderately or severely depressed.

The addicts spent proportionately more time browsing porn sites, gaming sites and online communities.

They also tended to be young, having an average age of 21.


"While many of us use the internet to pay bills, shop and send emails, there is a small subset of the population who find it hard to control how much time they spend online, to the point where it interferes with their daily activities," said Dr Morrison.

"This study reinforces the public speculation that over-engaging in websites that serve to replace normal social function might be linked to psychological disorders like depression and addiction.

"We now need to consider the wider societal implications of this relationship and establish clearly the effects of excessive internet use on mental health."

Incidents such as the spate of suicides among teenagers in the Welsh town of Bridgend in 2008 have led to questions about the psychological dangers of social networking sites.

Some experts are worried about their potential for fuelling depressive thoughts in vulnerable teenagers

Breaking News. more to follow

Right, where is the best place to get cheap drink, the carryout vaiety?

tescos are doing 24 tins of Carlsberg for £10, they were selling a lot of them

... to sort your clocks out. they go back by an hour at 02:00 so it will be be 01:00 at 02:00 and not really 02:00.

As Milltown Row aint about I will do a poll for this. I am sticking to the 10 on the TV show and see what we get.

the poll will close on Wednesday and I will change it to food.

Stick in some really useless trivia/facts that you know?

if you add up all the numbers on a roulette wheel you get 666

His words, not mine...

how can he think its heart warming FFS.

US kidnap survivor 'doing great' 
 


Suspect's rambling account
Garrido's 'forensic awareness' 
A woman freed in California 18 years after being kidnapped at the age of 11 is said to have had a happy reunion with her mother.

Jaycee Lee Dugard had been living in her alleged kidnapper's home in a suburb of San Francisco after her abduction 200 miles (322km) away.

She and the two children he allegedly fathered with her are "doing great", stepfather Carl Probyn said.

Mr Probyn said his ex-wife had been struck by how young Jaycee looked.



Jaycee's stepfather gives details to ABC's Good Morning America
He and Jaycee's mother divorced after the abduction and he told US media how he had endured years of "hell", under suspicion of having played a part in his stepdaughter's kidnapping.

Jaycee Dugard was forced into a car on her way to school in front of his eyes. He had tried in vain to give chase on a bicycle.

Ms Dugard's alleged abductor and his wife have both been arrested as police search their home in Antioch.

Phillip Garrido, 58, is being held on suspicion of various kidnapping and sex charges. He is already a convicted rapist and kidnapper.

His wife Nancy, 54, was allegedly with him during the kidnapping in South Lake Tahoe, a town in California's Sierra Nevada Mountains.

'Guilt over bonding'

Ms Dugard has retained custody of her children and is staying at a motel in the San Francisco region, according to the US authorities.


She, her two daughters, her sister, her mother and another relative were at the reunion on Thursday, Mr Probyn said.

"I think they're pretty happy," he added.

In interviews on NBC, ABC and CBS on Friday morning, Mr Probyn said the most surprising thing to his wife had been that Jaycee still looked very young.

"She looks very young, she looks very healthy," Mr Probyn said. "She told me that Jaycee feels really guilty for bonding with this guy. She has a real guilt trip."

He said he was struggling to understand why his stepdaughter had not come forward earlier.

"I don't know if she was brainwashed, I don't know if she was walking around on the street, I don't know if she was locked up under key for 18 years, I have no idea," he said.


OTHER SOLVED ABDUCTIONS
Elisabeth Fritzl (Austria): Held 1984, aged 18; found 2008
Shawn Hornbeck (US): Abducted 2002, aged 11; found 2007
Natascha Kampusch (Austria): Abducted 1998, aged 10; escaped 2006
Elizabeth Smart (US): Abducted 2002, aged 14; found 2003
Steven Staynor (US): Abducted 1972, aged 14; escaped 1980


Timeline: Jaycee Lee Dugard case 
DNA tests are being taken to confirm Ms Dugard's identity as the police investigation progresses.

Police have removed a car from the suspects' home in Antioch.

They said they had found a vehicle which matched a description of the car originally described at the time of the abduction.

'A disgusting thing'

Fred Kollar, undersheriff in El Dorado County where South Lake Tahoe is located, this week described finding a makeshift compound in the backyard consisting of sheds, tents and outbuildings.



Phillip Garrido allegedly fathered two children with Ms Dugard, police say
The true identity of the backyard's inhabitants only emerged after Mr Garrido was called in along with his "family" for a parole office hearing on Wednesday.

Suspicions had been aroused when Mr Garrido, who has a printing business, was seen acting suspiciously towards the children as he tried to enter the University of California, Berkeley, campus to hand out religious literature.

Diane Doty, a neighbour, has said she often heard children playing in the backyard.

"I asked my husband, 'Why is he [Garrido] living in tents?'" she said on Thursday.

"And he said, 'Maybe that is how they like to live.'"

The alleged abductor has himself told a US TV channel that his story was "heart-warming".

"It's a disgusting thing that took place with me at the beginning, but I turned my life completely around," Mr Garrido told KCRA television from El Dorado County jail.

Court records show that Mr Garrido was convicted of kidnapping and raping a 25-year-old woman in South Lake Tahoe in 1976.

Looked at this a few times and cant see any "boxer speed punches" being thrown, or any digs for that matter. One thing I did notice, there was a lot of them wearing the same blue tops.
I did think he was doing a piss at one stage, but it was behind the bar.

make your own mind up

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8161848.stm?ls

this is due to launch shortly and I have been trying for the last few days to have my number listed as ex-directory, and guess what! the site is suspended for "improvements" whilst this may be correct it was down on Thursday and Friday fro maintenance, with the message that it would be up on Saturday.

wonder if it is due to the volume of people trying to go ex-directory?

if you do want you number removed the instructions were

log onto 1, http://www.118800.co.uk/ 

2, Click on 'Ex Directory' at top right hand side of page, from there it's straight forward.

thats the way it was working but i cant get onto it to make sure. i will be getting my number off it if possible.

have many done this?

Start the rummaging in you piggy banks, and you childrens ones as well. I thought I had one,  it turned out I was just blind




A batch of 20p coins accidentally issued with no date on them could be worth £50 each, say coin collectors.

Tens of thousands of the coins have been produced in error by the Royal Mint at Llantrisant, near Cardiff.

They are said to be the first undated British coins to enter circulation for more than 300 years.

The Royal Mint said the issue had been resolved but wanted to reassure the public that the faulty 20p coins were still legal tender.

But with experts saying the coins could be worth up to £50 each, anyone finding an undated 20p may be reluctant to put it towards a loaf of bread.

The date on the new 20p was moved from the 'tails' to the 'heads' side when the country's coins were redesigned last year.

The coins without a date were created by accidentally pairing up the new 'tails' side with the old 'heads' - meaning no date appeared at all.

Legal tender

A batch of somewhere between 50,000 and 200,000 of the coins are thought to have entered circulation.

A Royal Mint spokesperson said: "The Royal Mint can confirm that a small number of new design 20 pence coins have been incorrectly struck using the obverse from the previous design, resulting in these coins having no date.

"The issue has now been resolved and the Royal Mint would like to reassure members of the public that these coins are legal tender."


COIN FACTFILE

The 20p piece was first struck in 1982
The Tudor Rose design was used continuously on the 20p until 2008
There have been two other coins with errors struck in the decimal era since 1971, but they did not enter circulation.
The first British coin issued with a date in numerals was the English 1551 silver crown of King Edward VI
From 1662 onwards all coins have carried the date of issue
In the mid-19th century, Queen Victoria issued a series of silver florins that were dated in Roman numerals
Source: The London Mint Office
Nick Hart, of specialist coin collector company The London Mint Office, said: "Last year the Royal Mint changed all the designs of our circulating coinage, which is a tradition every 40 years or so.

"And when they did this they struck a new design on one side of the coin and the old design on the reverse of the coin and that's led to one of the sides being undated - which makes them incredibly valuable."

He added: "We believe this extremely rare error will certainly get the public looking at the coins in their pockets again and noticing the excellent new designs launched by the Royal Mint last year on our coinage."

Matthew Dent, 26, from Bangor, Gwynedd, won a competition to design the first new British coin series for 40 years.

The London Mint Office said there had been two other coins with errors produced in the decimal era, but they did not enter circulation.

In 1983 some 2p coins were struck with a die that used the old terminology "NEW PENCE" instead of "TWO PENCE".

And in 1994 a gold £2 commemorative coin was issued with the wrong legend on the Queen's portrait side.

From  the bbc

and I am looking 10%