Rush drew heavily on Ayn Rand's writings, particularly in the 2112 album - loosely based on the 'Anthem' novel by Rand. In the UK they were seen as being politically right wing because of this, probably correctly, but rather unfairly also seen as racist - the logic being that Right Wing and racist are the same thing - which is often true in the UK. This also painted Heavy Metal as being either racist or politically unacceptable - a bit of a case of New Wave good, Old Wave bad. A bit off topic I think

The road maps in Cyprus don't acknowledge the fact that half the island is effectively another country. There's just a vague wording saying "Area inaccessible due to Turkish Occupation". How do you plan a route round that without upsetting anyone ?

Personally I love Windows 7 - I installed the Beta, and I'm finding it extremely stable - finding the drivers for my bits and bobs (especially Wireless dongle) was a pain, a bit like with Linux only easier, apart from that - it just works. I have it installed on a tiny drive with very little room for anything else - my kids use nothing else - despite there being no software, they do their homework using Wordpad, and surf the web, and that's all they need. I'll be updating all my 3 machines as soon as I can (having avoided Vista like the plague for some years now) My main reason is that I've seen that it's OK, and I'm ready for a change. The thing that might stop me is the price - any clues yet ? At work though my ICT people will as a matter of policy, only consider adopting a new OS when it gets to Service Pack 2 - they say that it's just not stable enough before then. I have a new works laptop on order which will be a downgraded Vista to XP machine as well. This - must do a clean install stuff is a red herring I think - they mean don't install over a beta version which is a bit different.

There's a fairly apocryphal tale of Kruschev visiting the US, and taken to a trade fair extolling the virtue of free enterprise. President Nixon supposedly provided a gift of a model of a fully stocked all-American General Store of pioneer vintage, explaining that his parents were shopkeepers and how such stores were the bedrock of American values. Kruschev's reply : "All Shop keepers are thieves !" Can't help but admire his comeback, whatever your politics. Wonder what he gave Nixon ?

I'm not saying don't sit back - just confident in the ultimate victory for common sense - sometimes takes a long time though. If there ever was a case for censoring free speech though it would be to destroy malicious Nazoid newspapers like the Daily Mail (actually forget the 'like the' - there are no papers quite like it) - and ironically I suspect they'll be right behind this pile of crap.

This isn't law, and probably never will be in this form. The UK has some pretty lurid (and rather excellent) comics - Viz for example, featuring Buster Gonad and his Unfeasibly large testicles, Tina's Tits - who thinks her breasts have magical powers, and Johnny FartPants - there's always a commotion in his underwear. This is "underground mainstream" if you catch my drift, and no one would outlaw these. Balance that against a screaming right wing press, and millions of people who are almost paranoid about paedophilia though, and you have a strong political pressure to be seen to be doing something. These people may be paranoid, but they have votes, and their fears are real, even if the causes are exaggerated. They worry in this particular instance about "near photo realistic" artwork - such as that in computer games, and loopholes by which people who possessed indecent photographs could escape prosecution by passing it off as photo-realistic art. Who is the victim - who knows ? But there is a very great public opposition to it - and politicians are reacting to it. - Believe me though they will react just as strongly to any attempt to outlaw comics - Old public schoolboys won't be easily seperated from their Beanos and Dandys

Any likelihood of being able to take a video clip with the camera ?

Microsoft want's to halt the move towards Linux ? Easy - Release Windows 7 with one version - no messing on with cut down home editions, business versions whatever - just one OS - Windows 7 Then sell it for no more than say £40 UK - and offer a home licence for up to 4 PC's for say £60 UK. Forget genuine advantage - virtually every PC in the world would be legit

As a head teacher who is involved in the planning for an academy to be opened in 2011-12, I can't help but think that you're fishing for flames. There is no way the funding for your academy would have been released without a coherent plan for ICT deployment - and also in case you haven't noticed the government are pushing rather strongly for Fully Managed ICT services across several schools. But somehow I think you did notice.

... it just looks pathetic. I started noticing this at the weekend, and just thought : Why are they using such an amateur looking icon. The firefox search bar icon is so much better.

You need a licence even if you just listen to radio. Albeit a black and white licence which is cheaper. No idea how much I've never had a black and white one.

I work in London, England. I commute 30 miles or so daily. At the station in the morning I can pick up a Metro - free daily paper (National but with a heavy London slant). On arrival in London, as I walk to the tube (metro/subway/undegtround) - I'm generally offered at least one other freebie - not usually a daily one - there's generally a TV/Entertainments based weekly and a Sports Weekly - which I never pick up - but lots do. As I'm walking I pass a rack of free papers - huge bins with hundreds of copies - containing dailies and weeklies for foreign nationals resident in London - there's a big pick up on Polish, Lithuanian and South African in my bit of London. Also there are bins dispensing the free classified ad papers , and the free jobs advertising papers, and the specialist car selling papers. On my way home, I'll be offered (several times) - copies of London Lite; and The London Paper - both free London dailies. Lot's of people pick these up. In fact you can get on most trains and buses in the capital, and there'll be one there waiting for you - you pick it up, read it while you travel, then leave it. As for the local press - most of that's free too - I walk into McDonalds close to my work, and pick up the Camden New Journal - free of charge. All of these papers also have an internet presence - but they all seem to be shifting lots of paper copies