Quite right. I never understood the appeal of Ubuntu, excepting when it acted as a strong emergency cd for hosed systems --- at which it was excellent; it's sudden lunge into Unity, like Microsoft's equal panic into Metro, seems both pure fail and stormy petrel of future accepted, planned-for, managed decline.

Oddly there are a few Linux 'personalities' who appear to actively favour Windows methodology, not to mention Microsoft's undoubted power, and wish either to join with them ( and be subsumed if the history of MS is anything to go by ) or become indistinguished from them. Personally, I have not the least objection to collaboration between operating systems ( as MS feared, such sharing would erode MS's leverages ), but if I wanted to use Windows I would, and not a Windows clone.

Since both KDE and traditional Gnome are perfectly usable, not to mention other managers, I doubt if the decline of Ubuntu thanks to Unity and other excitable ideas such as this will amount to more than a footnote in Linux history.

Ah, but consider how a great artist, such as your American Master, Thomas Kincade, can capture the very soul within with brushstrokes and glowing colours.

In some works he summed up a nation.

A Thespian, dear boy ! A barnstorming thespian brought up by travelling people whose only reading-matter for ten years was 'Silver-tongued Orators of the Bar', and 'The Tragedies of William Shakespeare'.

And 'Bleak House'.

Please note: any parent who allows their baby to be filmed dancing is in clear violation of the prior art rights of the makers of Ally McBeal.

Fortunately too, both Mr. and Mrs. Obama regard each of their respective fans as a close personal friend, and actually take the time to craft considered individual replies to any message or query, even helping with their homework on occasion.

Can't say I've ever read a direct incitement to murder on any website. Then again I can't read Arabic.

I'd look into Orange --- from what I understand they don't care for non-residents registering ( though they used to, and may still do, allow an hotel as a valid address ) --- but here is their Camel Pay-As-You-Go sim, if you hit show details you can see the rates for each country which average 15p a minute ( but 6p for the USA ). http://shop.orange.co.uk/mobile-phones/plans/paygSimPlanList.jsp?selectedTariffName=Camel You could prolly get someone in England to post you one, or buy one off Ebay.co.uk. If there was difficulty registering to a non-British credit card ( and that's not a given ), nearly every other damn shop in Britain sells top-ups for all the sim providers. Alternatively, starter packs of sims are sold in stores, but those would not have cheap roaming. Here are a couple of quite recent links discussing this problem: http://www.ricksteves.com/graffiti/graffiti134.html http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10251727-94.html The latter affirms: 'Buying a SIM card when you get to London from a local operator, such as Orange, can offer even better deals. Orange offers a variety of service options for prepaid customers. In general, domestic calls range from 30 cents to 40 cents a minute, depending on the exchange rate. (All calls are billed in local currency.) And texts are about 20 cents to send and receive. With a special international plan, customers can also make international calls for as low as 10 cents a minute. Orange also offers free text messaging for customers when they "top up" or add money to their phones. One plan offers 300 free text messages with a 10-pound top up. And you can get 600 free text messages with a 20-pound top up and a 30-pound top up gets you unlimited text messages until the card expires.'