Merlin of Flyote

Was Jesus married, well Mary Magdalene is the person believed to be his wife. Were there female disciples, it is generally believed to be so. Is the bible the truth, probably not. The men that wrote it probably put in it what they wanted people to read. Does any of this matter, not really.

A sad day today. R.I.P. Neil Armstrong

Looks like a SNP website to me (very anti-english). When I was younger the National Athem had 3 verses but verse 2 was not sung, last time I looked it had grown to 6 verses. Of course the Queen is also queen of Scotland through James 6th (James 1st of England) and she is Elizabeth 1st of Scotland.

bbc.co.uk is showing olympics coverage as it happens. Four teams players have been disqualified from the Badmington for trying to lose thier first round games.

Over the centuries, knighthood has been bestowed for a variety of reasons. Currently, British citizens who achieve something on the world stage seem to get knighthood. There are various "orders" of knights. The folks in the UK get to decide who gets UK knighthood. Unfortunately it's not us folks that get to decide who gets knighted, but a government panel who draw up a list, and ultimately The Queen (or more likely her advisors) that decide. These are then usually bestowed upon the recipients in what is called 'The New Years Honours List' (along with OBE, MBE, CBE etc). The public can nominate people for awards, but these would normally be people who would not have caught the media's attention, like someone who has done outstanding charity work maybe. On Bradley Wiggins, if he does get knighted, it would be listed as 'for services to British sport' or something like that. Hope that's cleared things up for you. Also, I forgot to mention, Non-British citizens can be awarded on 'Honoury Knighthood', but I'm not sure if they are given the title 'Sir'. Like Ronald Regan. Actually The Queen doesn't decide, the government does, the Queen does as she is told (constitutional monarchy).

Here in south-east England it was drought conditions until March 2012 since then April, May, June and July record rainfall and floods. Jet Stream was too far north, now it's too far south (record rainfall in Cyprus). Dare I say Global Warming!

In Britain we don't now have Grants, we have Loans instead which have to be paid back when you earn over £21,000pa albeit at a reduced interest rate. The previous government wanted to get 50% of the population into university. When I went to school it was probably about 10%. There were many more apprenticeships. We have lost most of our manufacturing to China and others. We need to have a manufacturing base to make money and employ the people for whom academia is not the right choice. Service industries just move money around, manufacturing creates money. One problem we have is that "bankers" now encourage entrepreneurs to manufacture elsewhere because it's cheaper and they make more profit, although it's worse for the economy.

Today they have elimited 2 places from the 2020 competition leaving Tokyo, Istanbul and Madrid in the running. Wether or not the swimming pools, velodromes and halls etc. are used afterwards is down to the government, certainly it looks like it will be the case in London. Some of the events like Equestrian (Greenwich Park) and Shooting (Royal Artillery Barracks) are temporary and the places will return to their former use afterwards. Sailing is down on the south coast at Weymouth/Portland Bill.

Again, it depends on the jurisdiction. There are places that have laws that make it next to impossible to prove a pedestrian at fault. In Britain pedestrians have the right of way, drivers have to avoid them. You should expect that the pedestrian will step off the pavement onto the road and drive accordingly. That's the reason for a 30mph limit in built up areas. Talking of quiet vehicles in the old days trolleybuses were a problem as pedestrians sometimes used to step off the pavement in front of them because they didn't hear them.

As said in Britain Mothering Sunday is in March, we don't celebrate Victoria Day though. Also not everybody will be off work on the Diamond Jubillee weekend.

Sometimes places have different names according to which country you're in. In Britain we call it the Persian Gulf. Another example is the English Channel which the French call La Manche

Also mobile-phone theft is a growing type of theft. When you're not aware of your surroundings you not aware that you're about to become a victim until it's too late.

Lets not forget the value in rejuvenating a run-down part of a city. The Stratford area now has new transport links (both underground, overground and High-Speed rail),and a new shopping centre as well as the Olympic park, the new athletes accommadation will become affordable housing after the games, and it will leave many new venues for national sports and a new tower to rival the Eiffel Tower in Paris (at least in starting in the same vein). Add to that the proposed new river crossings including the Cable-Car from the Dome at Greenwich to Canary Wharf and the East London Bridge at Thamesmead/Dagenham and you can see a major update of the area taking place. All of this makes perfect economic sense for it to be hosted here, and it will be the first time London has hosted the games in their own right. Both 1908 and 1948 were last minute emergency measures, after a volcano in Italy and WW2 making the previously chosen hosts impractical.

Best to sit at the back. You've never herd of a plane reversing into a mountain. Russian planes on test flights, reminds me of Concordski (Tupolev TU144?) Seriously though, I used to have a business which carried Russian school-girls from school to and from Heathrow airport. They would try to avoid flying Aeroflot and try to book British Airways mentioning the state of the Russian planes.

The UK had a government of National Unity during WW2 NOT a minority government.