Shhh! Don't tell anyone but it's really the next location for Camp X-Ray

GCHQ certainly want linguists but they don't seem very well paid. Pakistani guy I knew applied for a job there but stopped when he saw how pathetic the wages were. He now works happily for P&G. He also told an amusing an amusing story about being a student in the US. When his fellow students found out he was from Pakistan, some asked if he rode a camel! After he was asked this for the third time, he started saying that he kept one in the parking lot behind his apartment.

We should improve private pensions? How please? This means using a lot of computing power to find the best stocks or funds and trying to beat the market. Professionals have tried this for years and it doesn't work. I have spent much of my life in the City BTW and am an IFA/broker. The great argument in investment management at the moment is active management (stock picking) versus passive (try and follow the market). Both have their points so some fund managers now use a hybrid approach. Warren Buffett gets it wrong occasionally but does do lots of research. Improving private pensions essentially means predicting the future and as we are basically free to invest/save/spend/live go where we want, we are going to be wrong sometimes. PM me if you wish george@cancerifa.com

Jolly good to hear this project can be actually done but in 1985, The Science Museum in London built his Analytical Engine No. 2. It weighs 2.6 tons and has 4,000 moving parts http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/onlinestuff/stories/babbage.aspx Take your kids to see it when you are on holiday in London and tell them to leave their laptops at home....

Can thoroughly recommend a visit to http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/ which also houses The National Museum of Computing http://www.tnmoc.org/ Of the codes generated by the 12 different ENIGMA-type machines used by the Germans, 2 were never broken. And finally, the museum is used as an intreresting location for corporate events and weddings.