Nick Deverill

Actually England is already out.

I think there is an competition in a South American country for over paid young men kicking a modern substitute for an inflated pigs bladder.

Oh yes, didn't you know?

Yes, I loved it. From an initial starting point, the reader is gently lead in to believe one thing and then have it shown to be completely wrong.

It's been slow for a while but at roughly 2110 BST (an hour ago) I can't load any page. Not that I'll finish the story I was reading before bedtime as it's bit big but still annoying.

I've now re-read it and it is a very worthy tale telling as it does tell of a condition that gets scant coverage.

Laptop and large PC done and both clear. I'd have been annoyed if they weren't as they both have virus protection and I hardly ever open a zip file unless I'm convinced about the source.

The word 'that' is one of the most overused in the English language. It's actually worth doing a word search for 'that' and reading the surrounding text both with, and without the word. If the meaning is the same, delete it.

Indeed. It's a well researched period piece. I could readily imagine it as a short film.

I use Classic shell with Windows 8.1. Not perfect, but pretty good. Laptop doesn't auto sleep at all well, but it's so simple to instruct it to, I've given up worrying. The trick for me is to set the power settings differently between plugged in, and not. For me, a press on the on/off button puts the laptop to sleep if it has mains, and shuts down if on batteries. For the way I use it - ideal.

I was on of the first hackers! Had to actually go on site - long before home connections etc. Would be about 1976 I think when I was still at school. Skipped a bit but had a BBC Model B, put a disc drive on it. 5.25 floppy. My first home PC was a 486 that I put a CD drive on - at a time when it was a cutting edge thing to do to a computer. I think the computer I had at work was a 386. Pretty much from then on, the home PC was better than the work one.

It's a story that works on many levels. I've now read it twice to make sure I'd caught everything.

Server is down now, so perhaps Timmy is cleaning it.

Hopefully this can be read anywhere as the same story on the BBC site probably can't: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/cat-saves-boy-vicious-dog-attack-article-1.1791876 Cat, boys best friend...

I can remember pestering my teacher to start reading lessons. My excuse? I was five. By about the age of seven, I had a reading age in the teens and, with help of my father, paid weekly visits to the town library. I don't think any schoolteacher until I was 11 taught me anything about science that I didn't already know from books. A process started by a teacher to get the reading speed up as some kids were very slow was eagerly seized on by me and by the time of the last speed test, I was clocking 1300 words per minute and passing with ease the comprehension exercise she set. At 10 years of age. My grandfather didn't believe it and tested me with a book from his collection so I had no previous knowledge of it. He too had to admit I could do it. Has to be said though, if a story is well written, I slow down. I do use many of the published speed reading 'tricks' although in my case, they all were found independently by me as the one thing I hadn't read - was a speed reading guide. Shame I'm now deaf as I'd always planned on being a visiting adult for kids to read to at school on my retirement. Teachers need a lot of help with the 5 to 11 olds as although I live in an affluent area, some parents quite simply do not help their kids enough. This I think is the core of the article. What is needed is a friendly adult to impress upon them that with an unillustrated book, or a radio play - the pictures are better. The only limitation is the scope of ones own imagination. If only I could write at the same speed...

Blocked in the UK - but some USA proxies work.

Best take Chaucer off the shelves and secondary school curriculum then. He used the 'C' word several times in his Canterbury Tales. However, as Bill Bryson recounts in one of his books, Chaucer was a bit undecided as to how it was spelt. Not really my theory, but the Victorians have a lot of blame as the original definition of a rude word uses the crude or rustic definition of rude. Largely a class affectation that spread. The Victorians were the ones who put 'dresses' on piano legs, lest the men get excited, renamed a bird the Wheat Ear (clue to the older name, bird has a white bottom) and yet, took the art of pornography to new heights. Very mixed up!

Interesting, especially since I'm deaf as well.

Who have duly collected their placards from the same place - probably the one that paid them... Not even a pretence at being personally made, Three colours of paper and the same font.

It's not particularly realistic, but at under 3 minutes in length, the problem is making it all hang together. And actually, I think the scary being is cute - but then I always was weird!

And very short at under 3 minutes long. http://www.lifebuzz.com/scary/ No idea if the sound track is any good as I'm deaf, but you don't need sound for this anyway.

I'm not sure the cancer cluster under an HV line theory is proven. But this is something different and doomed to failure! To make the system as described work, you need to set up an alternating magnetic field. I've got one, it charges my electric toothbrush! The range though is pitiful, unless the toothbrush is within a couple of millimetres (bit less than 1/10 of an inch) it doesn't get any charge. In real life, the strongest magnetic field one will probably find is a MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) machine in a hospital. Ok so they are shielded, but if you put one in the open it wouldn't reach that far, even with 1.5 Tesla that most are rated at. Sure it's thoroughly evil at the close range they operate at, but even without the shielding I doubt a compass would be bothered at 100 metres (bit more than 100 yards). And that is where the idea falls over, you'd need a stupid number of magnets and they'd be charging a suitable phone, and making anything metal a bit warm. So wildly inefficient. If you've a spare hour or two, the comments on the article make interesting reading.

Wow! And subtitled too (I rely on them being deaf) I've always liked what the local video store called World Cinema as you get two for price of one, an interesting story and an understanding of the local culture.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks Hamlet - William Shakespeare

We sort of did. They experimented with permanent British Summer Time. We all got armbands to walk to school in the dark, and in case anyone wonders - I was only 20 miles north of London. Glasgow would not have had sunrise until 10. The experiment was judged a failure and cut short. It ran from October 68 to October 71, four years, but originally planned for five years.