lotsmorewine

This lady is intelligent and speaks well, but she's not elected, she heads a small pressure group. Why does she get so much air-time on the BBC?

I'm looking for a metal mailbox that could also be used to hold small parcels. Those I've seen only accept letters, or have a constricted top opening to prevent theft. I'm not bothered about security so I'd prefer one that opens right up if required. Any suggestions (UK only)?

It seems to me that there are 2 types of horse in the UK. Some horses seem happy to live in a field and munch the grass, provided they've got some company, a supply of water and some trees to shelter under or behind.

Other horses can't be trusted to eat or drink themselves and have to be coralled into a muddy area by electric fences. They need constant attention, buckets for water and all sorts of clothing and headgear. They need a ramshackle shelter and, rather than being ridden, they prefer to be driven around the countryside.

It strikes me that this second type of horse offers no advantage and it would be better for the countryside as well as for the owners if only the first type of horse was bred.

Living in the English countryside we don't have much in the way of public services, leisure activities, shops or transport, but at least we have a nice landscape and tranquillity. However, this is now threatened by massive industrial wind turbines. We're already doing our bit to combat climate change, we heat our houses with coppiced or scrap wood, we turn lights off, the council houses have heat pumps and every pensioner has solar panels on their roof.

So, given that most energy in consumed in towns and cities, what sacrifices are people there making? If they're not prepared to have 400ft turbines sat between their houses perhaps the government should ban private cars in any densely populated area.

We did our best to integrate with the Anglo Saxons, e.g. by supporting their cricket team and not wearing spiked helmets in the streets. But now it seems that the Picts and the South Saxons have managed to infiltrate so many foreigners into the Danelaw and Mercia that the game is almost over. Pillaging is now illegal and there's no point being a farmer if all the land is covered by houses. Let's go and invade somewhere else. Anyone remember where we left the longboats?

I keep seeing men and women standing around with sandwich boards advertising Domino's Pizza. These people are obviously immigrants from outside the EU; they presumably aren't people who've been admitted with key professional skills, so are they illegal immigrants or asylum seekers? And is the company being charitable to give these people employment, or misguided?

The Americans have started to replace some traffic lights with roundabouts to help with traffic flow (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13863498). So why are British authorities installing traffic lights on many roundabouts?

Is it because migrant workers don't understand roundabouts, or just that the councils don't trust us to sort ourselves out?

Last night in Tesco I noticed a man dressed as a Pathan tribesman and a woman in old fashioned Bedouin costume with a veil. If immigrants won't conform to our drab conventions, should British people be encouraged to wear traditional dress instead? We need not go to the extremes of wearing medieval clothes or impractical apparel, just something different with a bit of character that expresses our history or beliefs. Any suggestions?

I was thinking of buying a Motorola Defy, but I understand that the operating system is going to be upgraded to Android 2.2 soon. If I buy it now with 2.1 will I be able to upgrade later, or am I better of waiting until 2.2 is pre-installed?

I'm thinking in particular about the instructions for slow moving vehicles. I thought there used to be a regulation about a queue of 7 vehicles, but the current online advice is a bit more vague: ' Do not hold up a long queue of traffic, especially if you are driving a large or slow-moving vehicle. Check your mirrors frequently, and if necessary, pull in where it is safe and let traffic pass.'

There is a serious safety point - I've noticed how many frustrated drivers trapped behind a slow moving truck or caravan will eventually take great risks to overtake these vehicles. If someone is blatently ignoring the highway code guidance is it possible for the police, or a citizen, to arrest them?

I going to plant an English yew hedge (about 17m long). If possible I'd like it to be an established hedge fairly quickly. The prices for 40-60cm bare root plants are quite competitive; for a bit more money I can get 60-80cm plants, but would smaller plants establish more quickly?

Leaked figures suggest that the UK defence budget will be cut by 8%, that's about £3 Billion a year. In the same week Nick Clegg has given away £7 Billion (over 4 years) to subsidise nursery places for the 'poorest' 2-year-old kids (those whose parents don't work, or hardly work at all). The UK armed forces have already lost over 1/3 of their strength over the last 20 years and their budget has been cut again and again. Doesn't the government realise/care that the armed forces have a war to fight, and the next war to prepare for? Are the LibDems running the asylum?

Marx said 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his need', but that doesn't seem to match the complexity of the system New Labour has left. How about: 'From each according to his ability, provided it's work he wants to do and it's not worth working more than 16 hours a week, and cash in hand doesn't count and I do get it all back in tax credits don't I?'

I wish to publish some big tables on my website. I want the information to be easily readable, but I don't want people to be able to download the whole lot. Converting the spreadsheet to a browser-readable pdf looks neat but, even with all the security options set in Open Office it's still possible to save the whole document using the browser file menu. There must be an easier way than cutting and pasting each cell into an html table?

Gordon Brown has said he'll resign, in the hope that the LibDems will prop up the Labour government. Surely this is a mad idea, even if they can cobble together the numbers in parliament, the electorate would be so cheated that they'd turn on both parties. So we'll end up with a Conservative coaltion, or a minority government, or another election and Brown will still be out and Mandelson will still be in the House of Lords, pulling the strings of his replacement and making plans for 5 years hence when someone else has sorted out Labour's economic mess.

East European immigration has given me a money-making idea. I would run 'Great Escape' theme weekends. Players would be told 'You have escaped from a POW camp and made your way to a Baltic port, where you hope to get a boat to neutral Sweden. The population is either hostile or scared of the political police. Hardly anyone speaks English. Your mission is to find a friendly contact and escape capture for 24 hours.' Then I'd dress them in old civilian clothes and drop them outside Lidl in Boston, Lincolnshire. What do you think?

I want to buy a quantity of good quality, large slabs to pave the front of my Georgian house. Some of the Bradstone/Stoneflair etc products look OK on the internet, but I'd like to see them close up before comitting myself to buy. Is there a showroom anywhere in the Midlands/East/North of England with a good selection of paving?

The government claim that we need to restore growth in order to reduce the deficit. But over the last few years, growth has meant consumer spending, based on personal debt and supported by cheap imports and immigrant labour. Surely this can't be good for our economic future, let alone the environment. Could we have growth without these side-effects? Do we need growth at all?

Whenever I drive I end up stuck behind a succession of trucks. If the goods they're carrying are going any great distance (most of the trucks are foreign registered) why can't it be by rail and boat? These trucks are causing jams, causing accidents (as frustrated drivers try to pass), damaging the roads and burning up diesel. Is there a pressure group that actively campaigns against them? I know most of what we buy comes by truck, but there's something seriously wrong with our economy if we need to move so much stuff about all the time.

Gordon Brown's been insisting for years that we don't need any more helicopters in Afghanistan. And now suddenly it seems we need so many extra helicopters that we can risk big cuts in what's left of our military capability elsewhere. Has something changed or was he just lying before.