It's not surprising -- it just isn't worth it for most people. To do it well, you variously need land; upkeep time; knowledge (pests you don't need, creatures you do, plant nutrition, how to harvest without doing damage, control of wastage, fertilizer issues, varietal information, home-cooking skills, canning skills); seed sources; patience; storage, fencing to control animal forage, sometimes a permit...

Yeah, not really. The knowledge is simple.

What you have to prepared for is losses. If you plant everything expecting perfect vegetables in a few months without doing anything else, you're bound to be disappointed. If you plant everything perfectly, and manicure them them perfectly, and expect perfect vegetables, you're also bound to be disappointed.

Home grown stuff has losses, always. Slugs are my nemesis with growing beans, but I grow enough of them (not much, only 10 plants or so) to make the losses less hard to bear.

The chef had gone home for the evening, so he was unable to order *steak and chips*. Instead, he was told that only cold sandwiches -- presumably containing nutritional vegetables instead of greasy fried potatoes -- would have to do. And, quite honestly, I fully expect that lunch was provided for the cast and crew.

I admit that I'm a tad concerned about the build up of toxins that you mention -- are you trying to suggest that the cast wasn't allowed to go to the toilet for the entire day?

The BBC is a public broadcaster, funded and owned by mandatory license fees in the UK.Clarkson was on contract to the BBC. Once the organization confirmed that unprovoked verbal and physical abuse had occurred, they had to take action or leave the corporation open to an indefensible lawsuit from the victim. They can't exactly say, "Yeah, get stuffed. We have extensive policies promoting equality and prohibiting harassment and violence in the workplace, but we're ignoring them because the presenter is popular and profitable."

No doubt Clarkson and pals will make a profitable jump to Netflix or Sky to make a similar motoring comedy show. Meanwhile, the BBC has a chance to reinvent Top Gear with younger presenters and a reinvigorated format (there are only so many new Lamborghinis, Ferraris and Aston Martins that can be driven around a track in a cloud of smoke every week and only so many routes for contrived road trips through war zones in ancient sports cars).

In a lot of countries, it's legal for kids to drink at 16

In the UK, it's legal for kids to drink at 5, and it's perfectly legal to give 5 year olds alcohol too. They can drink in a pub if having a meal at 16, at 18 there are no restrictions.

AC GP's link does not cherry pick. If you look at the relevant graph, teenage suicide has remained relatively stable over the last 15 years. The only age group that has seen significant rises in the last 15 years is the 45-64 year old category.

One of the problems is that being able to hack into anyone's accounts is not a preserve of the intelligence agencies. Other people do, and will do it all the time.

I like my Western, secular democracy too.

Which limits exactly should our government respect, and which should they not?

I gave Microsoft about £100 8 years ago for this PC I'm writing on's operating system. Now, you can claim I'm stupid and clueless enough to have paid that money if you like, but you'll have to show me how I would have played all the games that I have done since without having bought the operating system.

Make that 8 years ago.

What's wrong with Windows 7 that makes you want to upgrade?

I'm still running Vista, with (mostly) the same hardware I bought this system with literally 10 years ago. Directx11, stability measured by power cuts, simple to run.

I'm still waiting on my free upgrade from Vista.

However, I'm one of the few who liked Vista, and still run it (on the system I bought it with, a core 2 duo E6850, XFX 650i motherboard, and a brand new (old) gtx 470 graphics card I got off ebay for £29).

You mean like YouTube or Vimeo? Yeah. That would be too easy.

I just let Mickey Delp know that he was on Slashdot. He's wondering who the hell Raymond is.

Of course going to mars is nothing like going to California. However, if you look at the success of very early north American settlement, it's possibly broadly similar, in that just about everyone died. People still wanted to go.

So have BT just not updated their blocks then?

It shows just how effective they were in the beginning.

What are you pissing through nowadays, then?

The dodo wasn't hunted to extinction, apparently it tasted pretty awful. Introduced pigs and dogs ate its eggs.