Ragnar

.....were responsible for using Sarin gas, then would that justify military intervention in favour of Assad?

A friend of mine told me he was looking into getting a Celestron NexStar 5SE, for around £650.

It is a 5" Schmidt Cassegrain with a GoTo mount.

I have a 5" Maksutov Cassegrain, also with a GoTo mount, but only cost me £370.

I advised my friend to go for something with a bigger aperture for that money.

But why is there such a difference in price?

Just for the record, I know they are small telescopes, I bought mine for specific reasons.

I intend my main scope to be a 10" Dob, which I am hoping to order in the next couple of weeks.

They're never seen in the same place twice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vstma42lHEk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzAFuMtCb38

McCarthyisms?

The one in question is La Fest Cavallino (Festival of the Horse).

The problem is when you select a race, the load screen comes up, and the blue bar fills up, then nothing happens, apart from the list of drivers and cars at the top of the screen carries on scrolling across the top.

I have gone off and left it in this state for over an hour, and it still doesn't do anything. Then on the odd occassion I do get past that, the game freezes anyway.

Any ideas what the problem is? I don't get any trouble from any of the other seasonal events, just this one.

West Brom back four.

http://www.fchorticulture.org/wp-content/uploads/2...

Since the Dunblane shootings, in the late 1990's, there were severe restrictions placed on the ownership of fire arms.

The reason being that the gun man (I won't mention the gits name) used legally owned guns to do the rampage.

My own objection to these laws was that it doesn't matter whether the guns are legally owned or not, because a fruitcake who wants to go on a shooting spree, with the intention of committing mass murder isn't going to get pangs of guilt over using illegally owned guns.

Since these gun laws were brought in, gun crime has soared, and we have had two more lunatics go on a shooting spree.

That is not the end of it. The police in Wordsley, West Midlands, have uncovered a swivel eyed hooting head cases huge haul of weapons. I don't know about the NRA, this stash looks like it would impress the IRA.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1374728/Sa...

I have spotted a toad in my back garden. As there can be anything up to five cats back there during the night (next door has three, I have one, and somebody over the back has one).

So I considered this toad to be in a fair amount of danger. So I captured it and took it to the bank of a nearby brook, which is in some woodland, about 100 yards from where I live.

I couldn't think of anything else that I could do for it, but was this the right thing to do?

....sound Anti-American if I said "Bollocks to Obama"?

Only there is something I need to get off my chest.

Lets be honest, if Steve McLaren got us to the World Cup finals, then we would not have performed any worse than this.

Time for an English manager, time for England to play with English mentality.

Every Englishman has seen what has been wrong with England in this World Cup. The modern English game is different to the kind of game we have tried to play.

Beckenbauer was right about us, and the warning sign was in bringing Heskey back to be the big man up front to knock down the long ball to Rooney. But that style is a relic of English football from 15 years ago,and if that is Capello's idea of English football, or the classic foreign view of English football, then it is time for an English England manager.

I can think of no one better than 'Arry.

Has anyone else noticed how Theodens speech before the Battle of Helmsdeep closely resembles a verse out of the Old English poem called The Wanderer?

Theodens Speech:

Where is the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?

Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?

Where is the hand on the harp string, and the red fire glowing?

Were is the Spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing?

They have passed like rain on the mountain, like wind in the meadow.

Who shall gather the smoke of the dead wood burning?

Or behold the years from the sea returning?

The movie version is somewhat different to that penned by Tolkien.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tzx6d5h-5Mg

The Wanderer:

Where is the horse gone? Where is the rider?

Where is the giver of treasure?

Where are the seats at the feast?

Where are the revels in the hall?

Alas for the bright cup,

alas for the mailed warrior,

alas for the splendour of the prince!

How that time has passed away,

dark under the cover of night,

as if it had never been.

I am no Mercian nationalist, I am happy to be English. But for those of us born within the old kingdom, does it stir your blood that London wants to take away the Anglo-Saxon horde that most likely belonged to King Penda?

I've got a 2004 Impreza WRX. The temperature dropped to -12C last night, and half an hour trying to get into it, without setting the alarm off, it won't start...well it does, but then it switches off.

Is this the immobiliser?

What this about Germans digging huge holes in beaches, for no apparent reason?

I have a 2004 (54 plate) Impreza WRX, which has done 37k miles. I have noticed that whenever I go over a speed bump, or a bad road surface, that I can hear something rattling from either my brakes or suspension.

The car handles fine, and if I need to hit the brakes, it stops just fine. But it also sounds like I have something coming loose from around my wheels.

I have taken the front wheels off, and had a good search for something loose, though I havent taken anything apart. I found nothing wrong, but the car still sounds like a bag of nails when going over speed ramps, or bad road surfaces.

Has anyone else had this problem?

I've just bought Dawn of War 2, and went through the installation process, then it gave me a CD Key which I have written down.

But whenever I try to play the game, I get a message from Steam telling me that the game is currently unavailable. Now I don't expect to pay good money for a game only to be able to play it at some one else's convenience.

In my rant, I almost forgot the question.

Is this what the future of PC gaming is likely to be?

If so I am glad that I've got and an Xbox 360 and PS3!!

I am all for stopping piracy, but not with this farce.

So Relic and THQ can stick their games up their ****.

Has anyone else had this problem?

Is it likely to become common practice, that paying customers have to go through as big a rigmarole, to actually get their games working, as those who illegally download them from torrents?

A rumour has got back to me about an unmarked police car, which is a gold BMW 5 series probably an M5, operating between Gloucestershire and Worcestershire, possibly on the M5 motorway.

Apparently what they're doing is coming up close behind sports cars, and if they react by putting their foot down, they then put the blue light on and pull them over for speeding.

Would they do this? If so is this entrapment?

In all fairness, if I have someone driving too close, I slow down, and will slow down to a painfully slow pace to make a point, and usually that works.

But that's potentially fatal on the motorway, especially if your in the outside lane, and there isn't space in the middle lane to pull over.

A rumour has got back to me about an unmarked police car, which is a gold BMW 5 series probably an M5, operating between Gloucestershire and Worcestershire, possibly on the M5 motorway.

Apparently what they're doing is coming up close behind sports cars, and if they react by putting their foot down, they then put the blue light on and pull them over for speeding.

Would they do this? If so is this entrapment?

In all fairness, if I have someone driving to close, I slow down, and will slow down to a painfully slow pace to make a point, and usually that works.

But that's potentially fatal on the motorway, especially if your in the outside lane, and there isn't space in the middle lane to pull over.

Were they celtic?

Or the remnant of an older culture than the celts?

(Sorry about the brackets, had to use up 20 characters, for some bloody unknown reason. I mean "Who were the Picts." was not an attempt at brevity, it was the only way I could think of formulating the question.)

My father was English, from the West Midlands. My mother is Scottish, from Moray. But I was born and raised in England.

Now obviously, I have nothing against Scotland, I love the place, and the people. I don't make any effort to hide my Scottish ancestry, and am as proud of my Scottish heritage as I am my English heritage. But I personally see myself as English. If I was born and raised in Scotland, I would have considered myself Scottish.

The question is, what do you think I am? (apart from a pillock!)

You'll all have to forgive me for this question, I'm English, and don't have a 100% grasp of the rules of American Football.

But could the Cardinals have opted for a field goal when they was within 10 yards of the Steelers touchline?

FQ: If so, why didn't they? It might sound like hindsight, but before the phase where they got intercepted, I was wondering why they didn't take a field goal, to go in level at half time.

It might sound negative, but against the Steelers defence, you need to put points on the board when your in the Steelers ten yard line.

I'm glad they didn't, I've been following the Steelers since the early 1990's. My wife has relatives in Brooke County, WV. But if the Cards were playing anyone but the Steelers, I'd be cheering for them.