toofasttim

Cor! I didn't notice I was so close. Nah, serious question. He was a contemporary of Berlatier. Think he rode an Aprillia.

French rider, early to mid eighties. Touted as the next French world champ. Had a stupid parking lot accident and wasn't wearing a helmet. Was mildly brain damaged and lost his sense of balance and that ended his career?

Thank for that Jason. Great to have a teacher who can explain things simply.

Yes it is a bit confusing. You need to remember to integrate it.

Dabster, after Stalin died Kruschev admitted and apologized for the scale of the purges. Stalin was, without doubt, far worse than Hitler.

To digress, again: no argument here. WSC was destined for greatness. He was the first politician to recognize the threat of Nazism and the first to draw attention to it. The problem was that he had developed a reputation as a dramatist and zealous self promoter and was ignored. But, IMO, his greatest asset was that he recognized that Britain could not fight the war on it's own and needed the US. He also knew that it just a matter of time before the US was dragged into the war. To this end he courted the US, a position for which he was well qualified (being half American), whilst treading water.

Roughly 1933 to 1952 (Stalins death). The majority during the purges prior to the great patriotic war. Wayne, I'll say this again... I used WSC as an example of another politician who ruined thousands of lives. The circumstances are irrelevant for the purposes of this discussion. Neither he nor Thatcher are particularly unusual.

<Hijack>B40: Jeez the Magnox reactors used graphite as a moderator!!! Ever hear of the Wigner effect? Can you say Windscale?</Hijack>

PWR was the Westinghouse design. GCR worry me. Compressed gasses are scary things. Nor do I recall what gas they were using but, again, which isotopes could be produced as a result of thermal neutrons? Dabster I agree.

Under the circumstances at the time couldn't you say that communism/socialism was "rampaging ideological cancer"? Yes I agree that the analogy was simplistic but it was the best I could think of at the time. Oh and don't be so defensive about WSC. he was ridden with faults. Am I being patronising?

Dabster, sometimes a culture or society needs a serious kick up the a*** or, in management speak, a paradigm shift. Perhaps the UK was in a spot where it needed that? To see the old wood die and new take over when it was sufficiently mature? Labour, at that time, was pretty poisoned (as was management as we saw with the UK motorcycle industry). B40: I have read about the gas cooled reactor and if memory serves it was a bad bet. The PWR is a much better option. BTW I am a nuke engineer but not of reactors.

He he. WSC on Clement Attlee: "A modest man with much to be modest about.". Re coal: Is there still plenty left? If there is I apologize for my erroneous statement. But was it economical to extract it in the early eighties? If not would it have been economical if the mines had been more automated?

Well sort of. Attlees post war govt was the first labour govt. But the unions had been around well prior to that and led to the formation of the labour party. I apologize if I'm being patronizing In an ideal world yes. I doubt whether MHT went out to destroy and/or humiliate the working classes. Perhaps she had faith that UK industry would regroup and redirect itself after her demolition of the unions and the miners. If that was the case she was, sadly, mistaken as she was with the banks. One thing you cannot deny is that it was game over for UK mining. There was no coal left.

How many lives did WSC ruin with his incessant warmongering and self belief that he was destined for greatness? Yet he went to the grave universally mourned. Thatcher did what was necessary. That she didn't see or predict all of the long term consequences of her actions was human frailty.

FFS: I was about 9. At that age you develop irrational hatreds! Scarred? You mob have scarred me more Copey: yeah they used to hand out small bottles of milk for kids at junior school. Most kids loved it. It was an attempt to give poorer kids some decent food but is was given to all kids. Interestingly they used to have the same scheme in NZ and are now re-introducing it. b40rt: I mentioned that she ended the influence of the unions but the side effect was killed off over half of UK heavy industry and with it Britains position as an industrial power.

Hang on...smashing the power of the leftist loony's like Scargill and his ilk who were effectively the UKs unelected leaders was one of her better acts. I'll not take that away from her. Nor do I ascribe the entire GFC to her. The banks are guilty too. For a gross abuse of trust that she placed in them.

I was in the UK when she did that. I enjoyed that bottle of milk and hated her for taking it away.

Wayne: the problem manifested itself in 2007 but it took years before it assumed a magnitude where it could sink countries and the very large banks. It wasn't a light switch but rather a gradual decline for which Thatcher was, to a large degree, responsible.

Dabster has a point. She deregulated the banks which is partly responsible for the GFC. She was as divisive in life as she is in death. What intrigues me is: how many of the folk who are "celebrating" (with some enthusiasm!) her passing were alive at the time and were effected by her governance?

I'm not a big fan of freestyle but I have to agree with you Billy.

Maddison is an Aussie.

The unrest began last Tuesday when Al Qaeda announced that the number of virgins a suicide bomber would receive after his death will be cut by 25% this April from 72 to only 60. The rationale for the cut was the increase in recent years of the number of suicide bombings and a subsequent shortage of virgins in the afterlife. The suicide bombers' union, the British Organization of Occupational Martyrs (or B.O.O.M.) responded with a statement that this was unacceptable to its members and immediately balloted for strike action. General Secretary Abdullah Amir told the press, "Our members are literally working themselves to death in the cause of Jihad. We don't ask for much in return but to be treated like this is like a kick in the teeth". Speaking from his shed in Tipton in the West Midlands in which he currently resides, an Al Qaeda chief executive explained, "We sympathize with our workers' concerns but Al Qaeda is simply not in a position to meet their demands. They are simply not accepting the realities of modern-day Jihad in a competitive marketplace. Thanks to Western depravity, there is now a chronic shortage of virgins in the afterlife. It's a straight choice between reducing expenditure and laying people off. I don't like cutting wages but I'd hate to have to tell 3000 of my staff that they won't be able to blow themselves up." Spokespersons for the union in Liverpool, Newcastle , Middlesbrough, Essex, Glasgow and Australia stated that they would be unaffected as there are no virgins in these areas anyway. Apparently the drop in the number of suicide bombings has been largely put down to the emergence of the Scottish singing star, Susan Boyle. Now that Muslims know what a virgin looks like, they are not so keen on going to paradise.