Throwing the election - yep, who'd want to be a Republican prez in the aftermath of W? You'd live a life of hassle.

HeatherB ... why?

yes, ice as the weapon of choice - melts away, no prints, no rifling! However, let's resist and desist.

For God's sake. Just buy vinyl - they can't screw with that.

Lest I. lol!

By the way - on the topic of democracy. Who voted in the bankers? Who has more impact on our lives - the bankers, or the politicians?

Just thought I'd ask.

Lawyers rejoice! Can you imagine the coniption fits of a police force required to prove the precise calibration of distance and data handling accuracy?

What if you always stayed on the inner possible edge of your side of the winding road? Or the outer? Who's to prove?

Welcome in advance the marginal cases where 1mph over becomes 1mph under, and the police waste more precious resource farting around with this mess.

In fact - I'm so happy about this, I will re-train as a traffic-fine evasion lawyer.

Oh yes I will.

Posh Asians would say Pohk-iss-tohn. The same way "fragrant" can become "fra-grant", the first a being soft, i.e. "frah-gront". It's irritating to the tuned English ear - the only ear to be tuned to - but seems to represent a cultural norm.

Perhaps the next president of the USA is pronouncing it correctly in the manner a more outward looking statesmen would, rather than an insular and word-shredding idiot bent on the destruction of the modern world.

By saying Pohk, he may be implicitly reaching out to people he's surely going to be working with, paying them the honour of correctly pronouncing the name of their nation, which might show diligence, research and respect. Gosh - those would start to add up to diplomacy! Wow!

So rather than ostentation, my bets are with informed adoption. It's a risk in the US, given the majority of the population quite happily say "eye-this" and "eye-that", they have asked me whether English is spoken in England, and believed me when I claim to be from India.

The risk being people call him ostentatious.

My bets - this is not an insular politician. He's making serious moves, and in some societies, viz many Asian, this is how you do it.

You start by ceasing to insult your audience by mispronouncing their name.

An adder in England is a viper. Ouch.

This has drawn out some of the funniest commenting I've ever seen. Fabulous - it's on my wall of glory.

Don't f*ck with Chuck. One glimpse of Delta Force and you should know better. Mistervega, watch out, Bruce hired Chuck out of RESPECT - not just some hired dummy off the street.

Gordon Brown - yes, deceptively dopey is the key. Just remember Tony Bliar's phrase "the great clunking fist" - in their tiffs I'm sure TB had one or two of them land on the chops. And now that GB (ever noticed that? He has his nation's initials) has stopped smiling like some rictus parody of TB, he's actually looking like the man, and could even pose a problem for Chuck. No he couldn't. Bush? Only thing he's hitting is gonna be the bottle, then the floor. Putin, hmm, unfortunately, good point. Especially in his camos.

#14, you deserve a career in highly-paid comedy. Brilliant. As if anyone would actually DO that.

Beautiful morning, highly amusing.

Sony, no contest. Reaction time is key. Samsung also on my blacklist, after selling me that crummy thin phone that broke in my pocket. Wouldn't refund. Thanks Samsung! Never again, no product.

Editor!

Repetition "unlimited data" in 1st sentence. "imminently reasonable" should be eminently. Who knows what an omnivorus is? A creature with every characteristic of all Paleolithic animals? Personally, I eat anything, and declare myself omnivorous.

Does it matter? Of course it matters.

Won't squash kids?! Ha! I can see the injured infants and the lawsuits rolling! Horrid idea, and how lazy do you have to be! Buy a British McLaren and be done with this useless gadgetry.

Tweed has been ever-lovely for anyone who's ever been near an electric guitar.

Crows also recognise humans that disturb them, and take up group scolding of that human when they approach. Didn't you guys publish that?

Haven't read all.

What about the homicidal kid who keeps his sharpener intact, knowing with a turn of the screw he can do away with his love-rival in a gory sharpener assault? Swiftly to the jugular. Or with a compass. Aren't there 1,000 ways to use a ruler to incapacitate? How about poking out an eye?

Poor kid is right. Napalm the buttnut who pursued this, and all their evil henchpeople who bothered to type it up.

Welcome to the 21st century - with these treatments, the next generation can be relied on to be less capable than the last.

He looks depressed. This was so stupid, even in 1947. What a horror to inflict on the child.

This is nothing more than a still PALE imitation of the fantastic work Pandora.com have done. No music engine matches it.

Unhelpfully, in the UK now it's blocked, because of rights issues. Funnily enough - o music moguls - my cd purchase rate has plummeted since I have been unable to access Pandora. I have not moved to downloads - I've simply - stopped buying stuff.

So go iTunes, but know that you go in the shadow of the greats.

Oh ye Americans, fie and fear on you for rejecting of the Englishe leadership, for ye seeest in these darkened days the retribution that is visited upon you, in the form of wild talking and beautiful women, who would lead you and lead you into wars pestilence and famine.

Look ye upon the shores of olde Englande, and knowest that the leaders there keep unto them the highest of integrity.

Or not.

May Obama reign upon ye, and happy shall be your years.

Just to be pernickety, I can't abide inaccuracy. That's reverse cowgirl, not missionary. What self-respecting missionary would position themselves like that?

Thankyou for this - fantastic nostalgia, and a poignant case of big company boys vs the evolutionaries

Agh this is such a false problem. Specialized have been selling seats with the appropriate perineum valley for at least 10 years. I used to cycle 8 hours on the trot, perineum happily nestled in the right place, and had no such dysfunction as these policepeople.

If they are however enormously overweight and miserably out-doing the efforts of seatmakers to assist them in their quest for nocturnal amour, then perhaps there are alternatives for returning to their adolescent invigorated state.

Honestly. Is this all we can talk about? You'd think there wasn't an imminent terrorist threat to all our healths. How times change.

Sticky seats. Yuck. Put this designer in the box marked "No more please". Certain security advantages though.

BB Gadgets has long provided excellent advice on product purchases. Now, colours flying yet again, you have effortlessly resolved my long-standing indecision over which helo to put on MY Christmas list. Thanks! No more sleepless nights.

Yep - Sale and Leaseback is very common with large assets

You think that's bad? Just imagine holding a foreign passport. Fingerprints, questions, routine suspicion ... and I'm from the UK, not anywhere near the Axis ... THE AXIS! Fingerprints! Dopey questionnaires (are you or have you ever been a member of the communist party ... uh, is that REALLY your focus?!)

! Pre-registration for travel next year!

I lived in the US for many years, in the 70s and 80s, and it seems they might have been glory days for freedom. How do you go from 'Stand by Me' to this?

And at the same time, how many shooting deaths per year? Road deaths? I know I rant, I know you know this, but what's going on?

I think they get their ideas not from brain-storming for months, but simply watching Blade Runner etc and thinking "hey, that'll impress the chief! Chief, Chief, ELECTRONIC identity cards!"

Ugh.

Cracking on the money assessment of that ridiculous rubbish - either the last-minute team leader's desperate surge of midnight effort to put SOMETHING out there, or the work of a brilliantly ironic marketing guru who's tapped into a whole new direction for society.

End result: Unwatchable, indigestible, repetitive rubbish. Oh boy.

#21 slightly demented statement. Everyone should do all they can, because in the end we will all roast. Developing or not.

You could wear these riding one of those BMW bikes with assymetrical headlights. Those bikes look drunk.

And the pants leg thing - that's in honour of shackled slaves, nothing to do with bikes.

You've got to wonder what's in the coffee. Talk about Hotel California.

Why is it not possible to create a VISUAL marker in discreet sections of frames? Why mess with the sound?

These idiots should simply price their product more competitively, eg $5 for a dvd, and stop using their legal power to push govts to support their market-distorted, excessive charges.

It's not like the movies themselves are ever that great.

For a free market economy, the US is showing some remarkable restrictions - stand up and fight! Oh, how the founding fathers would blush!

I think this is accurate - but haven't we worked rather hard to create an age of science and reason, rather than looking for easy excuses to fall back into blind reliance on "God"?

The God concept does seem to be nothing more than a sense of amazement. I'm God to my Dog.

And let's remember exactly what has been perpetrated over the centuries in the name of the loving God about which Jesus apparently preached. In fact, beyond patriotism, is God not the most often invoked concept to persuade the blind mass to go along with a plan?

Let's keep God at arms length.