Care, feeding and education of. They have been my largest single expense since they were born. Fortunately I can think I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel as their undergraduate courses are nearly finished.

Not so; it's amazingly easy to sign up for Costco in UK, much easier than getting a card for Makro or Booker. If you really want to seize the savings -- which can be considerable if you can resist the temptation to over-indulge -- and you haven't joined, I'd say that shows a distinct lack of imagination.

You are so right. The first mobile provider to offer roaming charges that are as as low as even *double* what I pay at home, will get my business immediately. As it is, the roaming charges (I am mainly interested in data) are so prohibitively high that I disable data as soon as I get near the border. The provider loses out, I lose out, and it's only the suckers who sustain this deeply flawed business model.

I would mod you up if I could; you are right on the money. Here is an interesting article from yesterday's Observer (UK Sunday newspaper). It addresses the same issue basically.

I usually find that a generous cleaning of the windshield will send enough water over a tailgater to get the "drop back" message across.

The only spam that gets through to me these days is typically content-free - it doesn't appear to be advertising anything, often the body is completely empty. As the sender won't have had any acknowledgement, what on earth is the point of that kind of email?