I have never smoked and have never had the urge to. But one thing I can be certain of is that I if I were a smoker I would not care whether they came in a plain box, one with flashing lights or a black plastic sack.
Somebody tell the government its not the box that gets smoked as they seem to have neglected this fact.

I agreed with banning smoking in the workplace and the places I work have improved greatly due to it, Although in effect it just meant everybody stands outside instead now, And every office block and building can be spotted miles off by watching out for the smoke clouds.

I also think that cutting the advertising was a sensible move too, But I can not see how this idea with the plain box will work, Infact it could have opposite move by making smoking seem taboo which often appeals more to the young.

Also how much does the government really want to stop smokers?, surely stopping them will leave a huge hole in the taxes raised from this habit, I assume more profit is made from smoking than is spent on hospital care for smokers.

Happy St Georges day everyone, Don’t let the BNP take this day as theirs as it seems they want to do. Its not about racism and excluding people. It is about the united creeds,colours and cultures that make England such an amazing place.

When ingested in a jet engine, ash particles passing through the core tend to melt into a highly viscous matter which affects the turbines and so on, am I right?

How does it work with sand ingestion?

I believe that sand melts at a higher temperature than the components within volcanic ash.
So assuming that I would expect the heat generated by a jet engine is lower than the temperature needed to melt sand but is higher than the temperature needed to have an effect on volcanic ash.

It appears so far that all the test flights have not shown any damage to the aircraft, But it still poses more questions than answers for me.
Firstly I think when it comes to safety you can not take chances, So broadly I agree with the no fly zone situation until things can be proven to be safe.

These test flights are fine but I believe they have all with long haul aircraft and do not show any possible long term effects of flying in the ash cloud.
I personally want to know what the effects are on short haul flights to Europe, Who by the nature of this cloud will spend longer in it during each flight and also will have very short turn around times before they are back in the air again.

I appreciate that the airlines are worried about their futures and the risk of going out of business in a already difficult market, But surely the flip side of that is what if flights resume and the worst happens an a accident occurs, If you are a budget airline can you recover from that?, Both on a human loss and a business loss is it worth the risk?.

The European skies are among the busiest in the world and these test flights mostly being carried out where the ash was least dense so is it practical and safe to reintroduce routes avoiding the worst of this ash.

Its very much more questions than answers at the moment it seems, Ultimately mother nature is in control here and we need to adapt to it as for sure it won’t adapt to us.

Having worked with him and knowing others who also have I kinda think otherwise, but hey, we all have our opinions!

Musically, frankly he bores me but there’s no doubting whatsoever he’s a great player, and top marks to him for showing a wide variety of music on his show. I don’t really like the guy but I’m still glad he does what he does. 🙂

It is interesting to me that having spoke with a couple of pianists who said very similar, They said he is a talented player but lacks the emotion that many others have.

Personally I like what he has done for music and have to agree he can be rather annoying/irritating.

You are correct about the accident in 2006 in Malta although I am not sure whether this was a Red Bull race, it was called the Malta Aero GP.

A Yak-55, SE-KHD collided with an Extra N22JW and both crashed into the sea. The Extra pilot baled and was saved but unfortunately the Yak pilot died.

It was the Aero GP so not one of the Red Bull air race series.

The pilot today is a lucky man to walk away from that and credit has to go to the rescue services for getting to him so quickly.

I won’t be going not due to Al-Qaeda more due to lack of money and the threat from the wife if I were to go 😀 .
To be honest you have to expect such a threat from them they need to put their propaganda out there and try and scare people.

You have to expect trouble from these extremists but lets not give them the credit or the publicity they crave if we can help it.

I was not overly impressed with the episode with Bruce Forsyth as have not bothered since then.

As to American comedy in general I liked Frasier, I like “The Big bang theory” although I am not sure why.

Overall I just feel British older comedy shows were better written.