Cloud

Mind you, the behaviour on the boats between Sweden/Finland/Estonia is usually disgraceful (even Tallink's board of directors were causing mayhem at one point!) - and Finns have quite bad problems with alcoholism in general.

This thread reminds me to stop complaining about having to pay 2 euro for a half litre in expensive pubs in Poland

Wonder if it really is to do with noise, or if they've simply decided to pull the plug? It was never a profitable venue as far back as Zuu, though I have no idea if HMV/Barfly/whatever managed to make it profitable. The rent/lease was fairly high as well from what I remember.

Jayne, who did your website? It's almost exactly what I've been looking for - even down to the appointment system!

I managed once to get rid of many of those types from Drummonds by taking part in what can only be described as "experimental" music. Experimental as in "let's see how many people leave after we play 20 minutes of noise while abusing them".

What about putting adverts on the podcast itself? Could be a much more reliable way of getting money - spotify et al show that people aren't adverse to an advert or two if it's worth listening to.

You know what makes me laugh? I found this when looking at the Lemon Tree listings - THE LEMON TREE : New Art Exhibition Opens Now - if they're going to hire an assistant programmer, wouldn't it make sense to interview in someone with knowledge of art who might be able to expand the job role into that area, too - and even potentially mixing the two in some way? Or is this just way too logical?

Utter bullshit through and through - it's a shame that APA are pulling exactly the same nonsense that the old Lemon Tree management used to pull. I could understand them knocking you back based on the interview - but to reject you on the basis of not having relevant experience? What utter crap, and more to the point - their loss. You would think that an "assistant programmer" would be expected to have their finger on the pulse of the local community, but obviously not! I recall that you were successful in getting funding from ACC in the past for music related projects - which anyone sane would see as a huge positive. Probably, and sadly, they simply didn't want anyone who was capable of shaking things up a little and away from mediocrity.

No surprise there, the job will have already been filled, just that they need to advertise it because they're publicly funded.

Would a VPN not work? You'd have to pay for it, but I doubt that they would restrict access to VPN providers - and you would be able to surf whatever you wanted through them without any hassle. I use one here to access UK-only stuff.

The problem nowadays with Soviet era aircraft is that while planes maintained to a Western standard are fine (like the ill fated TU-154 here) - a lot of them are still being flown by people who are really cutting back on maintainence. There's at least two crashes of the same TU-154 type that seem to be a direct cause of lack of maintainence - but the planes, with modern avionics and so on are no more dangerous than your average Boeing 737 or Airbus A320. The same plane, incidentally, had brand new Rolls Royce engines fitted just last December. Yup - that's basically it, it was too noisy for the EU for passenger flights. The EU also bans the use of "hush kits" which would bring the craft within noise limits - but the plane itself, when equipped with Western technology, is really not a bad craft at all. Apparently it's quite normal to separate them - in this case, it's just a monumental fuck up. But Kaczynski did have the stubbornness of a mule - who would really want to refuse the President?

The thing with the Tupolev is that it received a full overhaul in December, and was structurally sound. So far, the reports are saying that it didn't crash for technical reasons - after all, the minimum visibility for landing at Smolensk was 1000m, and the plane attempted to land in visibility of 500m or less. Quite a few experts have pointed out that the Tupolev was actually quite a decent plane - they were only banned from the EU for noise reasons, and many of the crashes were nothing to do with the plane itself. It was also built for difficult conditions - and the accident record is comparable to a similar workhorse, the Boeing 727. But as you say - what were so many top brass doing on the same plane? That's pretty much the sentiment of most people here. Most people see it as the Polish President has died, not Lech Kaczynski the person. Likewise with the others - it's beyond politics. I saw an old man yesterday, at least in his 80's. He was absolutely destroyed, his face told a picture that I never thought I'd see - he looked completely and utterly emotionally crushed. It's impossible to overstate what this means to Poland - imagine the Scottish Government being wiped out at Culloden, and then you might start to grasp it. Someone told me today that the Catholic cathedral in Aberdeen had the front doors open for the first time in eternity - which says it all. The only problem? Jaroslaw has a real chance of getting elected on a wave of emotion, especially as the Acting President (and the government's chosen man in the upcoming election) is even more of a robot than Putin or Brown!

People are shellshocked here. There's no other way to describe it, but for so many important figures to be wiped out in Katyn has...probably the only way to explain it is that everyone seems absolutely bewildered. I've just been out for a walk round the city centre, and people of all ages are out, lighting candles, especially at the Katyn monument here. The churches are packed in the centre - I looked into one service and people just seem...not here? There's no other way to explain it - so many people have been killed - one shocking statistic is that 6 out of the 7 highest military commanders have been killed! It's impossible to explain it in words, but this goes beyond politics.

BBC News - Anti-fascist charged after Bolton protests Yet another incident in a long line of "anti-fascists" actually being nothing more than thugs - and certainly no better than the people who they're protesting about. Do they really not realise that by getting themselves arrested and causing trouble, all they're doing is making the far Right look respectable in the eyes of the average person? I don't agree with the EDF, but UAF are just making themselves look like mindless morons - just like the ANL and other "anti-fascist" organisations throughout the years. edit : this article, if the ACC is quoted accurately, is very telling - Arrests As Rival Groups Clash During Demo - News - Heart London

The shower head (or at least mine) is reflective, so it's an ideal mirror. And if you aim it right, there shouldn't be much spray from the shower, so job done. I also turn up the shower to the maximum heat to make sure that it's as easy to shave as possible. (first time I did this, I thought I'd burnt my feet!) Shaving in the evening, now that's weird!

Worst job : barman in The Forum. The ordinary staff were nice, but with a supervisor with an attitude problem and zero customer skills alongside a manager who was suffering a serious case of self importance, it was hell. Then you'd get all the arseholes on corporate functions - the worst was Cornerstone, who ran up a 6000 quid bar tab on some big Charity lovefest where they could all feel important about themselves - yet they treated us like crap. You'd think that they would leave a nice tip to be shared out - did they fuck. I had to stop myself from questioning why a charity was spending 6000 on a bar tab in one evening. About the only saving grace was realising after over a month that the "tonic" button on the gun wasn't tonic at all, but rather some sort of rancid water/co2 mix. Not one person complained, mind you! Best job : the job I'm doing now. I teach Business English 15 hours a week and I have my own company dealing with translations to/from interesting languages and helping foreigners, along with providing some teachers. It's hard in some respects, especially when the bureaucracy is mind-bogglingly stupid - but all in all, it's really enjoyable. The only real difficult part is the hours - teaching first thing in the morning isn't easy when it's -15c outside and there's snow on the ground. But my office is painted a nice shade of bright green, it's located smack bang in the centre of the city, I don't pay much for it, and I share our part of the building with some really nice graphic designers - really can't complain.

Oh fuck :O

So he's getting a hiding from you and a hiding from the bloke that he owes money to. Not looking too good for the wee scumbag

I'm liking your chances... Is Anne Begg standing again? I'll be voting in Aberdeen North unfortunately, otherwise you'd be getting my vote!

They were the days! Didn't they used to have Northsound DJ's at the ice rink too? There was also the underage nights at the Palace and De Niros. I think most people my age tend to remeber the Palace more for the underage nights than for anything else... not cool AUSA killed the Gallowgate Union, not anything else. If I remeber rightly, they had to flog the place to pay off their debts - but the place itself was running at a profit. The Union was ace though, I still miss it, Thursdays were absolutely crazy in that place. The stories about the bouncers towards the end are true enough about Amadeus. I have a mate who was fairly wasted in there. He's sitting down peacefully, not bothering anyone, when a bouncer charges up, grabs him in a headlock and throws him through the doors into the entry area bit. We're all "err...wtf?" and follow. Bear in mind that at this point, he's been sitting peacefully, wasted, for about an hour or so. Turns out that they're accusing him of smashing a toilet - yet we know he hasn't been near the toilet since we got there and it's plainly a load of bollocks. They demanded cash, he tells them to fuck off, they threaten to call the police. We told them to piss off, only for them to threaten to beat us as well - though at this point, they hadn't actually done anything but throw him through the doors. Eventually, they let him go with a promise to come back and pay for the damage. Utter bollocks, and I remeber thinking at the time that they had some sort of racket going on. To this day, I don't know - but there was definitely something dodgy about them demanding cash like that. Wasn't Amadeus owned by First, incidentally? I thought that's why they ran the buses - because they could do it cheaply. I remeber towards the end, they were practically throwing free drink and entry vouchers down your throat.

They allegedly have evidence, but it hasn't been forthcoming, nor does his medical file have any evidence of his condition. This is why the whole thing is interesting - you can't actually blame China for not considering it if there was no prior medical evidence of his condition. My personal feeling is that the mental illness claim was invented for public relatons reasons - no-one's going to feel sorry for some idiot who tried to take 4kg of heroin into China, but they'll feel sorry for him if he had mental health problems. I'm not buying the Bipolar claim at all - it seems more likely that he was simply naive and gullible. Probably the best way to describe him is as someone out of touch with reality - his actions in Poland certainly show this. Whether or not that's enough to diagnose mental illness is horribly subjective - is someone who doesn't conform to society's expectations mentally ill? Having said this - his execution is almost certainly a wakeup call to anyone thinking about smuggling drugs in that part of the world.

They should tell the USA to piss off until a fair extradition treaty is in place. Apart from that, I'm struggling to see what juristriction the Americans have - the "crime" was committed on UK soil. I don't believe he has mental problems either - he knew fine well what he was doing, but the reaction of the Americans has been absolutely ridiculous. Likewise with the NatWest Three - America is merely overstepping her authority and she needs to be told where the line is. The only evidence has been kept secret, apart from the publicly available information such as him threatening quite a lot of people in Poland when he didn't get his own way and threatening to harm his Polish wife. As I said - his background is hardly squeaky clean.

So you believe his family over the medical evidence provided by the UK to China? The only reason people believe he was bipolar was because his family said so. There's no medical evidence, no real proof of this - and his own family are now attacking the British state for not 'doing enough' when the UK has actually been praised for how much pressure they put on China. Keep an open mind, that's all.

There's several good points about this - - If he was so ill, why did his family let him go to Poland to try and start an airline, build a mosque, etc? - Likewise, where was his family when he was travelling to obscure Eastern countries? - He apparently was never diagnosed with any mental illness in the UK - The relatives are now blaming Britain - why not themselves? - He was quite a nasty piece of work here in Poland, again, where was his family when he was getting investigated by the Internal Security Agency here? I'm not convinced at all that this guy was completely innocent.

Mine can. Better than me She also treats speed limits as something to be ignored!