Okay, he is, now, best known for the Malcolm Tucker role but I remember him better in other roles; the Angel Islington in a BBC adaption of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere (although that show was really stolen by Paterson Joseph's Marquis De Carabas) and as Uncle Rory in the TV adaption of Iain Bank's Crow Road.

And it's kind of nice that the Doctor is portrayed by an actor older than me again. That hasn't happened for a while.

Yeah, freight seems a good justification for this. However I expect that the majority of road use is about moving people between locations so remote control seems a bit pointless.

Or maybe it's a growth opportunity. I guess you could hire a chauffeur in another country to drive the vehicle for your commute to work while you read the paper. Or maybe drive it home after a night on the town. "Yes officer, I'm completely drunk but I'm not driving the car. I've hired a guy on the other side of the world to do it."

Farewell Sun-Earther Iain El-Bonko Banks of North Queensferry; that's the Culture style name he gave himself once. I don't think there will ever be a fictional place that I wanted to live in as much as your Culture.
I encountered him a few times at Edinburgh Book Festival events and other signings. It was handy being able to say "Make it to Iain, spelled the same way".

Aye, the CCTV cameras are just being installed everywhere these days.

Actually, some claim that we are. I think that the story might also have been on slashdot a couple of weeks ago.

90 these days. And gearing up from heroic instances is enough to get you into Mogu'shan Vaults LFR, although being flung in with 24 other random people can be a bit of a trying experience.

Anyway, you wouldn't need to be in the same raid, any toon on the same realm could whisper the raiding lawyer (or any realm if said lawyer had responded to your RealID request).

Male motoring reporters don't like electric cars. Simple fact.

In the UK Top Gear program, the only presenter ever to make a grudging positive comment about an electric vehicle is James May, nicknamed Captain Slow by the others. I suspect there might be an agenda at work there.

I live in UK and the first association I make when encountering the word "python" is with Monty Python's Flying Circus. That would also be true of many people I know. Why would anyone want to use that as a trademark in this country when so many people will immediately think of a comedy team?

The article is big on using "if", "might be", "could range". So that $195B will represent the most wishful of optimistic estimates. We need to get the technology for better assessment of the composition of asteroids when they're still a distance away before trying to figure out how to harvest them when they're nearby.

It's going to be complicated.

Could end up that Scotland is part of the EU and the rUK exits the EU. Then Wales and Northern Ireland could be unhappy about still being lumped with England since the strongest anti-EU sentiment is definitely concentrated in the south-east of England.

The Conservative party is the most vocal anti-EU of the main parties and yet also the most vocal about adopting Central European Time. Bit schizophrenic, eh? Of course the pro-Tory press will daily promote the idea that European legislation on human rights makes it easy for terrorists to avoid jail and give all prisoners who actually end up there a cushy time while immigrants get an easy life at tax payers expense. The people who swallow all that seem to be a bit oblivious to the fact that EU directives on human rights and employment also protect them, which is the real reason the Tories want out; it'll be easier to oppress the proles.

Same in the UK. The European parliamentary constituencies are larger than national parliamentary constituencies, so a MEP will represent many more people. In the European vote I have a choice of candidates, normally one from each of the main parties and possibly the occasional independent. I can't recall my choice from the last one now but I think it was 5 or 6 candidates. In comparison local government and national parliament elections offer a choice from about 7 to 12 candidates depending on how many single issue candidates there are.

Popes have resigned before, admittedly not always by choice, but a surprising number seem to have taken the name Benedict. Benedict V, IX and now XVI. That's half of the popes who have stood down named on the BBC site, so that 50% number is a bit dependent on how good their researcher is.

Top marks to Celestine V who in 1294 issued a solemn decree that it was permissible for a pope to resign and then promptly did so.

If the UK government is going to bulk buy for a better cost then there are probably other parts under the government umbrella that are going to get some. Like M16. Like the police. Could be useful to buzz in for some pictures of faces in a crowd.

It's either a careless typing mistake in typing the name of my home town of Auchterarder, which would not be serious in any way because I'm a very poor typist, or it's a case of being unable to correctly name the place in which I spent my first eighteen years which would be indicative of something more serious.

There's a debate about that further down the thread. But you're correct that the cardboard cores of paper rolls were also a regular feature on the required materials list.