Uh, no. They are not chopping down the amazon for paper for books, they are chopping it down to create 'usable' land for agriculture (with usable in quotes as it only stays that way for about 2/3 years until it is nutritionally deficient and the topsoil has washed away). They usually make paper from renewable pine forests, which only cause any ecological damage if sited in an area that was not previously covered with pine (as pines make nearby water sources slightly more acidic). Luckily, in places that pine grows really well, you usually have a pine forest already.

Or possibly from this we should conclude that being ill makes you poor and grumpy?

A five finger pinch? Surely I am not the only person who holds the phone in one hand and navigates with my thumb? I don't want to have to use my phone two handed, i might be carrying something.

Thankyou for your sarcasm. All those who could not in fact translate this really wanted to feel stupid.

It would be ok...ish.... if entry to this school was not on a lottery system. What if you end up there and don't want to go into IT? What if you want to do art, or music or another subject that needs adequate funding rather than just being shoved in as a sideline (if that)? What is wrong with going about education the normal way, where you go to school to get a broad education, then go to university (or college of whatever americans do) to specialise, or go off and do a modern apprenticeship in something useful? Or basically have any choice in your future if you want to do something other than being a low level, non-university educated IT grunt worker? Would you want your child to go to this school? Because I sure wouldn't.

Unlike the vast majority of people on this site, I am a typical XP user. I turn my computer on, i browse the internet, i play minesweeper, i use microsoft office, i turn it off. So why do i need to pay a hundred quid or so? Is it the joy of sorting through my computer, finding all the useful software and documents, finding all the disks that go with them, upgrading, discovering that half the old software doesn't work, swearing a lot, discovering that the OS crashes or doesn't install at all because my computer is too rubbish, having to relearn a whole new way of doing things etc. Does this sound like a fun day or two (with no email at that) to you? Because it doesn't to 66% of the population. Moving to Windows 7 has basically all the disadvantages of moving to some form of Linux for the typical user (i.e. "what does this button do? why wont dungeon keeper go?? where has the off button gone this time???"), and if you can't convince people to do that for free, why would you be able to convince them to pay a rather large sum of money for the privilage?

Many of you seem to have missed the bit where it said "the 'Daily Mail' reported." For the non-British who have not heard of it, this is roughly equivalent to "a homeless man in a tinfoil hat wrote on a bit of used toilet paper". I am not sure there even is an American newspaper equivalent for scale of simply making things up. It is a newspaper full of a mix of "immigrants are ruining everything", "get off my lawn", "the economy killed my grandma", "Boris Johnson talks sense" and the oh so lovely letters from their readers Chances are, all quote, names and mentions of government bodies are totally made up.