Snowball

When the Halifax bought the Leeds people who had held an account for the 10 years previously were given shares in the new company. I had an account registered in my name when I was born so I was 10 when I had my first experience with shares. My mum sold them for me right away which was foolish in hindsight, but I got over a grand at the time so I'm not complaining!

I'm with Pipex, it's great but more expensive. Even when we failed to unplug our modem during a storm and some lightening buggered it they replaced it for free (even though we should have been charged as they had to send a BT engineer out and it turned out that it was our fault). I've only ever had a couple of problems connecting and they've sorted themselves out in minutes.

I flew from London Heathrow to Aberdeen yesterday evening, and it was sheer hell. We were on the 19:45 flight, just after the time that they had stopped cancelling them, so ours went ahead. We got there at about 5.15pm. We checked in at a machine then queued for just over 2 hours to put our bags in at the "Fast Drop" service desk. The problem was, they had two huge long snaking queues as opposed to the system that they normally have, and people were just joining blindly having no idea what they were for, then finding out after queueing for an hour that they had in fact been in the wrong queue and should have been sent to the back of the other one. Instead BA allowed them to stay and hold up all of the people that had queued correctly. The check in desk couldn't actually see the queues due to a barrier in front of them, so kept taking people from the queue that was most obvious to them, the queue that snaked round and zig zagged in front of the barrier. The queue we had joined (the supposed fast one), came round the side of the barrier and out at a bit that people don't normally queue at, thus we were totally ignored and had to resort to shoving our way to the front and pointing out politely that there were about 250 people in *both* queues. Anyway, the reason for the queues wasn't actually the new regualtions, because people knew about them and were prepared. In fact, the amount of extra hold baggage being thrown onto the luggage belts behind check in had caused them to break, so they couldn't send *any* luggage to the planes at all. The belts moved for about 10 seconds at a time then gave up again. You'd have thought that such a problem would have meant that they'd be treating it with more care, but no, they kept flinging heavy things on regardless. So we got to the gate with 10 minutes to go before the plane left. They let us on in time, but we were half an hour leaving because the pilot was late (?!) because of the motorway being in chaos. Then, to top it all off, when we got back to Aberdeen, it turned out that because of the belt trouble, they had only managed to get about 10 cases onto the plane, and had let us take off without anyones luggage without telling us. We all had to queue up in Aberdeen Airport at 10 when we landed to fill out missing baggage claims (about 150 people). We were told we'd get them today but noone has turned up yet. All of our valuable stuff that would normally be in hand luggage is of course in our unlocked canvas suitcases. Aargh. I know that this is a long post but the attitude of British Airways was so ridiculously lax and they very nearly seemed to take pleasure in the chaos, so I'm ranting. A lot.

I'm having to go to court because of my bloody neighbour. He's being done for breach of the peace. It was my other neighbour and I's peace that he breached.

I'm positive that I read in a recent Evening Express (I know o_O ) that each pillar is going to cost 10K a year to maintain. I really don't see how sending a council worker to scrape the old posters off and stick new ones on could possibly cost that much. It's not like whoever does it would have to travel far and wide to reach them. Unless they pay them 30K a year or use gold flecked glue I have no idea how they could explain 10K per annum.

I hate people who can't be quiet on public transport. I don't think that everyone should be strapped in and gagged, but the last 4 times I've been on a train I've left wanting to shoot somebody. I'm mostly talking about groups of young teenage girls and football fans. Yeah, sure, everyone in the carriage wants to hear your conversation and watch you be thoroughtly anti-social and disrespectful. People have absolutely no consideration for the people around them anymore. OK, rant over, I'll get back to clogging up Markies and Union Street now (I'm only 21, no matter how old and crotchety my post sounds!)

Hah, when I first listened to Supermassive Black Hole, I thought to myself that it sounded like a Britney Spears/Marilyn Manson/Scissor Sisters hybrid. Then I come on here and see it compared to Britney and Marilyn... I'm glad I'm not the only one! I loved it but was still kind of disappointed that they'd gone in that direction. Now I've heard their other new one that they played in Dundee I can't wait for the new album...

Try www.laterooms.com as well... I got a hotel in Kensington there once for about 52 a night, for two people.

Great, thank you!

What time are things happening at the Tunnels tomorrow (Wednesday)? I'm working till 10, is it worth coming up?

The decor is cool, but the music and general atmosphere isn't very good.

I won 27.50 what with having an each way bet on Nil Desperandum. My horse also beat my boyfriend's choice, so I won that bet too, but no money was involved

Having had a look at these photos, only one thing really stands out... the background. Walls painted a nice vomit colour? Obvious gaps where posters used to be? It looks like some of these people are standing in about in an office circa 1975. It's obviously a classy establishment that deserves it's clientele.

That's odd, because on Radio One this morning they reported that the F.A. approached Embrace some weeks ago, and that they haven't even finished writing the song yet, let alone entered it into a competition with 99 other artists. Where did you hear that?

I think that the music scene/attendance in pubs and clubs in general will benefit, particularly in the first week of the ban. People have been talking about it so much that going out to the pub will be in everyone's minds. Some of the opinions of those against the ban seem to be verging on a simple dislike of change, for example "smoke and pubs have gone hand in hand for years." I understand this because I hate change myself, but this particular change the the government are making seems to make a lot of sense to most people. In conclusion: the ban will equal more people and draftier pubs, what with more traffic going in and out of the doors. Better wrap up warm.

Having had this argument with people (usually my boyfriend) countless times, I now say "Yes, I'm in favour of a ban becuse it will be nice, from my point of view" in the hopes that it will put a premptive stop on any debate. There's no point arguing, it's not really the type of thing where you can change people's opinions.

It's probably odd that instead of being grossed out at the puke, I wondered to myself why you'd need a phone book in the bathroom...

I like the Bluebird on Urquhart Road. Chicken fillets

Well, good to see that my team (the Bloo Toon) won't have to struggle for cash for the next few months... now if only I can convince my dad that what he really needs to do is spend 6 hours on a supporters bus with drunk Peterhead inhabitants to go to the city he hates most in the world, in no doubt crappy weather/road conditions!

Watching the 10 o'clock news last night I couldn't help but laugh at the ever-so British, matter of fact attitude the members of the public who managed to get on the telly displayed: "I was woken up by the whole house shaking. I thought it was an earthquake. But I'm still here. Half the ceiling's caved in. *points at pile of rubble on top of kitchen units* It gave me a bit of a fright." A bit of a fright?! The largest explosion since the Second World War gave you a bit of a fright? They were all so blase about it; it was great.

I find that most women don't know their own strength either. I know that I've hurt someone accidentally when I didn't mean to. Women have it in their heads that they are weaker, so what one woman might think is a playful punch to get their guy to stop doing something might earn them an equally painful one back. Not that I condone even "playful" punches.

Braodband seems to be screwed for now, due to server issues at BT. See this thread for details: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1735882

They did miss out an awful lot and it seemed like the first quarter of the book took place in the first 15 minutes, but it was still great. What annoyed me most though was the way in which they dealt with the Rita Skeeter subplot. I was also disappointed with Lord Voldemort at the start but I changed my mind at the end. I had him in my head as non-human, even when he returned, so that's my mistake really.

I've had one phone call from Toucan, but it was enough. The woman just would not take no for an answer. I was trying to be nice (because I'm a big wimp and didn't want to be mean), but no matter how many times I said that I really wasn't interested, she would gush on and on about how this was ridiculous, and repeat her "offer"- as if I hadn't understood the first time. So, I hung up on her. And she called back and asked me if the connection had been cut off, as I'd suddenly gone off the line! I'd imagine that she got the message after I did it again.

Well, if they did cause "disturbances" I hope they all get busted. The powers-that-be are less likely to take a protest seriously if some mindless idiots use it as an excuse to damage stuff and abuse the police.