Jimcalagon

And if no-one likes it then it's £30 million down the drain. Why not show the general public the various proposals and then ask for their views. It's called CONSULTATION. Look it up. And then look up MARKET RESEARCH while you're at it.

Yes, God forbid that the opinions of the general public about a facility for their use should actually be taken into consideration!

Watched 'Hancock' last week. What a waste of time. Typical Americans remaking a British show and totally missing the point. Will Smith was horribly miscast as Hancock, the character of Hancock himself was totally changed (and now has superpowers???). None of the classic lines were in there, like, "Stone me!" or, "A pint? That's very nearly a whole arm!" And the Sid James character was completely gone. Avoid.

Saw Rhumsaa having lunch in the Hop Garden the week before Christmas.

Iron Man - watched it twice this week. Class. RDJ is spot-on.

The new(-ish) version of H.G.Wells' "The Time Machine". I might have enjoyed it if I hadn't read the book or seen the excellent 1960s version. Silly rubbish which totally missed the point of the story - the speciation of humanity based along class divisions.

"The Use of Invalid Carriages on Highways Regulations 1988 [...] exclude(s) mobility scooters from road traffic legislation, but impose an absolute maximum speed of 8mph which must be switchable to 4mph when used on the pavement. Use of mobility scooters is restricted to people suffering from some physical defect or physical disability." - Essex Police website Use of Invalid Carriages on Highway Regulations Act 1988

Anyone can buy one and drive it - you don't need to be registered disabled, don't need to have a licence to drive them on public roads etc, similar to owning a pushbike. I'm not sure what the legal position is with respect to needing insurance but I would suspect that, again, it's similar to owning a pushbike. My mother in the UK, who is registered disabled, has one bought with her own money, has no insurance (that I know of) or any kind of legal authorisation to take it on roads/public footpaths.

...if you like bog-standard pub grub. And the most ignorant fucking staff imaginable.

You aint seen me - right?

My kids watched 'The Reef' on Sky Premier on Monday. The most god-awful piece of shite I have ever had the misfortune to be subjected to; a third - no tenth - rate rip off of Finding Nemo and (the execrable) Shark Tale. Crappy character design, animation which looks like it was done on a PS1, appalling script and relatively well-known voice 'talents' obviously gritting their teeth and thinking of the money. Avoid at all costs. On Sunday, however, we went to see Prince Caspian at the Palace. I thought the previous film was average and have a cordial dislike of C.S. Lewis's sledgehammer Christian allegories. Which makes it all the more surprising that I enjoyed the film a lot. My wife (who is a long-time Lewis/Narnia fan) said at the end "It would have been nice to see a film that was based on the book..." I'm currently wetting myself with excitement waiting for The Dark Knight.

cough <boat> cough <morning>

'The wise speak only of what they know'

One of the problems with government departments (and departments in large corporations) is that they are allocated an annual budget. If they don't spend the budget in a certain year, they don't get the chance to bank it for the next year. In addition, when they come to negotiate a budget for the next year (or whatever) then the bean counters at the top often say "Well you only spent £X million last year, so that is all you need this year". So it's in the interests of the departments to spend every penny they can lay their hands on, otherwise they get future budgets trimmed in line with the amount that they have actually spent, with little regard to changing circumstances.

Total overkill from the DOT again. I was going to quote the aphorism "using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut" but in this case it's more like using a nuclear bomb to open a packet of crisps.

Your quoted times are for a Port St Mary destination from Groves Rd - assuming you can't get the 17:08 express from town arr 1754 then you have a 1715/1720 from Groves Rd to psm 1812 - ok not as fast but somewhat better - obviously a Goves Rd starting point saves 10mins or so of the grind down Peel road - if a bus lane could be provided here then the bus times for all would be greaty improved Why would I quote times for PSM (or even be interested in them) when I live in Ballaugh?

The Island does have a decent transport system. What are you comparing it to? Earlier you said the buses are at 'silly times' but I don't really understand that. You would have to get the 7:22 in order to get into Douglas for 8:35, which hardly seems unreasonable. There is one bus an hour to where I live - the morning buses are OK, I can get the 8:02 and get in to the office before 9. However coming home I have the option of the 16:45, convenient if like most you finish work at 17:00 (!) or otherwise have to hang around until 17:45 for a bus which will get me home at twenty to seven. If I drive home in the car I am home just after 17:30, using the bus I'd still be sitting in the bus shelter at that time twiddling my thumbs.

Tell that to my wife who would have to rely on the bloody infrequent bus service to our neck of the woods when I'm working in Douglas Ha! Spoken like a true manxman. Cheap? We have two cars because we need them. Being a tightwad (who begrudged spending £107 on road tax this morning) if I could manage properly with only one car I would. Why wait for everyone else? If it's that easy why not just get rid of one now and show your 'green credentials'? The proper carrot would be to have a decent island-wide transport system to encourage prople away from cars. However the eco-nauts decide that they'd rather use the stick and penalise car owners without putting a proper alternative in place first. As feckin usual.

Bollocks. That's the trouble with you anti-car lot, all stick and no carrot.

I presume that we will have the usual DOT team of Civil Engineers and Traffic Management experts overseeing the construction.

Looking at the plans they look fairly sensible - the lanes should be easy to negotiate as long as you get in the right one to start off with. One thing I don't understand - Manx radio had this quote... Is the pub getting demolished? It appears on the plans.

I haven't seen the film but it sounds like one of those films where the science is laughable and would put me off it straigh away... If you got a fatal dose of radiation - i.e. one where you know that it is going to be fatal - you are almost immediately incapacitated and die within days - see 'K19 - The Widowmaker' or Shadowmakers for realistic depictions of the horrible consequences, or think back to the Alexander Litvinienko case. You can die from radiation exposure years later but it would generally be a cancer/leukaemia and you wouldn't know about it at the time.