Well, 1 could be considered a number of days...

Not least, manila folders actually still exist and are used.

This tallies perfectly with my experience. Only as this is the UK and we don't have UPS stores to take stuff to, UPS came and collected the Xbox (for free). We got the box shipped back a few days later working good as new.

I really can't fault Microsoft's after sales care on that front. It was far less of a hassle than I'd have thought.

They had to make that conversion gel somehow.

Thanks for first proving my original point, and secondly for reminding me that that place does sell some bizarre shit :P Next time I need a sugar fix and I'm near there...

Does that actually exist?! "Geranium and cherry cupcake" is precisely the sort of thing one would say Waitrose sell if you wanted to take the piss out of them...

If it does, well, that does sound fairly nice...

Or you can go somewhere like Waitrose and get better quality for not that much more money. Certainly not £3 a cupcake - I know Waitrose have a reputation but it's not that expensive.

Even if it isn't the sole factor, it does seem to be something that winds a certain section of the Republican base up even more.

And really, let's face it, do you think the "birther" loons would have got anywhere near the traction they did if Obama was white?

I think you misunderstand. The GP doesn't care about that. The GP wants to get high.

It is technological improvements mostly. Computerised switching means there is little to no human involvement in the average telephone call, which brings the cost right down. Calls are so cheap for BT and their ilk that It would be cheaper to run the entire network unmetered than it is to itemise, send out and collect payment for telephone bills.

Line rental prices are the level they are because they are the price BT levies, and unless you've got your own LLU facilities in the exchange you have to rent subscriber lines from BT. Even if you are LLU, the last mile is still going to be BT-owned anyway. There's no escaping them.

What should have happened with BT's privatisation is infrastructure (as currently vested in Openreach) being owned by and rented from the government at cost price, with telcos providing services over those lines. What happened is both infrastructure and telco services were privatised into one BT behemoth, with the infrastructure then later hastily sorta-kinda split off into Openreach. Who are owned by BT, and who own the entire telephone network - essentially being a private monopoly. We have all the problems of a monopoly with none of the benefits.

Trust the Tories to have dreamed up such a stupid scheme though. A lot of people got very rich from our core telecoms network being sold off at a pisscheap price, and everyone else is still paying the price more than 20 years on.