How We See The World

Basic rate taxpayers to get £120 Chancellor Alistair Darling has put up the personal tax allowance by £600 - meaning anyone earning up to £40,835 will gain £120 this year. Mr Darling's £2.7bn tax cut for this year came as part of measures to help those hit by the 10p tax rate's axing. He told MPs he would lower the level at which 40p tax is paid - so higher earners did not gain from the change. Tory George Osborne accused Mr Darling of "cynicism". Lib Dem Vince Cable feared it was a "short-term gimmick". The shadow chancellor said Mr Darling had been "humiliated" into coming to the Commons with "a mini-Budget to clear up the mess made by the prime minist…

An interesting historical series or an opportunity to drool over Sean Bean? Discuss. :laugh3: Seriously though. I was given the Sharpe boxset as a birthday present, and have been re-watching the series. I've found myself appreciating the historical side of it more than I did when I was a teenager. THe filming is pretty impressive too.

It is the classic wedding photograph pose – the happy couple smiling for the camera as they sign the register. But the tradition is being scrapped in register offices as a result of Government guidelines which state that photographing the register breaches data protection rules. It will mean an end to thousands of happy snaps – such as those taken at the wedding of TV weather girl Sian Lloyd and her husband Jonathan Ashman. The new guidelines say photographs of couples signing the register could invade the privacy of others because their signatures may be visible on the same page. There are further fears that details taken from the wedding snaps could be u…

Johnson hails new NY partnership London mayor Boris Johnson has hailed a "new era of co-operation" with New York after a new partnership was announced between the two world cities. The new Tory mayor met his counterpart Michael Bloomberg at City Hall. The exchange programme is designed to share best practices in government innovation, London's mayor said. Outside City Hall there were protests as the BNP's Richard Barnbrook entered to sit on the first meeting of the newly-elected London Assembly. The Innovation Exchange Programme will look at transparency and accountability, efficiency, transport, policing, education and skills and environmental polic…

These days Lebanon at stake and on the edge of a second civil war, result of interfere of many countries in Lebanon domestic affairs. In this thread we will see what gonna heppen in Lebanon with the daily news, articles and analysis of history and the current events.

have you all ever heard about this film or book? i've seen it today and it was really good which there was a part made me sad :cry: this film is documentary... i already wrote it in my blog, you can check it out ;) sorry for my english isn't good there, though here too :) youtube <object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_b1GKGWJbE8&hl=en"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_b1GKGWJbE8&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>

Labour looks set to come third nationwide, BBC research suggests RESULTS ROUND-UP General turnout looks like it will be about 35%, similar to last year Projected national vote share: Tories 44%, Lib Dems 25%, Labour 24% Worst share of national vote for Labour in recent history Surprise Tory win in Southampton and solid progress in north Greens and BNP make little progress nationally, UKIP up 1 Labour is on course to suffer its worst performance in at least 40 years in the local elections in England and Wales. BBC research suggests the party has fallen into third place nationally with 24% of votes, with the Conservatives on 44% and Lib Dems on 25%. So…

James Whale had been with Talksport since it launched as Talk Radio in 1995 Radio host James Whale has been fired by Talksport after urging listeners to vote for Conservative candidate Boris Johnson in London's mayoral elections. The comments were made on 20 March during his late-night programme. A Talksport spokesman said: "James Whale's contract with the station has been terminated after a breach of the Ofcom Broadcasting Code." Under Ofcom rules, presenters are banned from showing any bias towards a political party before an election. The Talksport spokesman described the matter as "very unfortunate". "We have investigated the matter and after se…

British film director Anthony Minghella has died at the age of 54, his agent has said. Minghella, whose films include Truly, Madly, Deeply and Cold Mountain, was chairman of the British Film Institute. In 1996, he won an Oscar for directing The English Patient and was also Oscar-nominated for writing the screenplay for 1999's The Talented Mr Ripley. He has also directed a TV episode of book The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, due to be screened this Easter. A 90-minute pilot, directed by Minghella and co-written with Richard Curtis, is due to be screened on BBC One. Minghella began his career as a writer with his early radio plays winning several award…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUxapJXl228 :smash: Ooooh I hate it soooo much, makes me want to throw my TV out the window when it comes on. Look love, no-one likes you anymore, stop trying to be sexy, get over it and fine yourself a job in Debenhams :artist:

Higgins won the title for the second time last year beating Mark Selby Champion Higgins to face Stevens Defending champion John Higgins faces a tough first round match in the World Championship at The Crucible after being drawn against Matthew Stevens. The Scot beat Mark Selby last year to lift the title but will need to be at his best against the two-time losing finalist from Wales. Ronnie O'Sullivan plays 17-year-old qualifier Liu Chuang from China. Stephen Hendry faces Mark Allen while Steve Davis meets Stuart Bingham in the Championship which starts on 19 April. "There are no easy draws but Matthew is one of the toughest I could have got," said tw…

I just came across a Darren Brown recently and have watched his shows Trick of the Mind and Mind Control on the internet. I wondered if anyone else watched him. How popular is he in the UK because he is really not heard of in the States??

I noticed a lot of people here are Harry Potter fans, so this is a place where anyone can talk about the great series without being made fun of. This may contain spoilers so I think only people who have read all the books should check this thread out. My opinion: great book series, decent movies. I read the first four when I was a kid, then stopped, then read the final 3 a few months ago. It got me started on reading again, so I am lucky I read the rest of them. Also I dont think its just a series for kids, the final few books have some heavy elements in them.

Albertino took the footballer's documents, police said Ronaldo alleged Brazilian football star Ronaldo has been caught up in a sex scandal with three cross-dressing prostitutes. Having dropped off his girlfriend at her house in Rio de Janeiro on Monday night, the footballer picked up three prostitutes. When they all booked into a motel, Ronaldo discovered that the prostitutes were in fact men. According to Rio police, he alleges that the transvestites then tried to extort money from him. Local press reports quoted one of the prostitutes, Andreia Albertine - otherwise known as Andre Luiz Ribeiro Albertino - as saying that Ronaldo had threatened to hit him, on di…

Police last night entered the homemade dungeon where a 73-year-old engineer allegedly held his daughter captive for almost a quarter of a century, sexually abusing her and fathering up to seven children. Behind a hidden door they discovered a complex of small windowless rooms, less than six feet high, where Ms F claims that she was kept imprisoned with three of her children. Ms F, 42, effectively disappeared in 1984. Since then no passport, driving licence or other official document has been issued in her name. There are no photographs of her since she was at school. Ms F claims that she was seized, drugged and handcuffed by her father soon after her 19th …

Kris Marshall, the star of My Family, is recovering from head injuries in hospital today after being hit by a car, police confirmed. The 34-year-old actor rose to fame as Nick in the BBC comedy, which co-stars Robert Lindsay, and is currently the star of BT's broadband ads. He was out with friends in Bristol on Saturday night when he was hit by a car outside a pub. He was taken to Bristol Royal Infirmary where a scan revealed his head injuries were not life-threatening. A spokesman for Avon and Somerset police said: “There was a collision between a car and pedestrian shortly before 1am on Sunday. “It happened in St Augustine’s Parade in Bristol City Ce…

There has been outrage in Italy after the outgoing government published every Italian's declared earnings and tax contributions on the internet. The tax authority's website was inundated by people curious to know how much their neighbours, celebrities or sports stars were making. The Italian treasury suspended the website after a formal complaint from the country's privacy watchdog. The information was put on the site with no warning for nearly 24 hours. Sour grapes? The release of the information was one of the last acts of the outgoing centre-left government and has shocked many tax-shy Italians, says the BBC's Mark Duff in Milan. But it was also…

OUTSIDE the walls of Fort Concho, a former US cavalry station deep in the heart of Texas, a flock of slight young women were wailing and tearing at their long, pink and blue gingham dresses. Inside the fort 400 children, removed last weekend from the nearby compound of a polygamy cult amid allegations of rape and child abuse, heard the commotion and cried out for the parents they had not seen for days. Even for casehardened social workers flown in from Arizona and Utah to help soothe distraught children, ranging from infants to 17-year-olds, the scale of the distress was heartrending. “We want to reunite the girls and boys with their mothers, but right now we …

I have a Mac OSX, yet when I try to download the most recent version of Windows Media Player for Mac, which is Windows Media Player 9, it downloads on my desktop and then asks me what program I want ot use to open it. The Installation windows do not appear, and its not in a Zip file or anything like that its already extracted. Why can't I install a program for my Mac?

I have won tickets for the world premiere of the new film "Speed Racer" on May 3rd. Feel happy for me. It's quite weird, because I've never been a fan of the cartoon, I just saw a booth with a box to drop your name and address in and randomly signed up. Only bad thing is I've got to wake up at 9 on a Saturday to go see it.

As an ex-policewoman, Julie Pickford thought she knew how to deal with rowdy teenagers. So when she politely asked a boy to stop throwing popcorn at other passengers on a tram she was confident he and the rest of his gang would behave. Nothing could have prepared her for the shocking and violent attack that followed. Without warning, one girl stood up and punched her in the face and then a mob of up to 30 teenagers joined in, punching her and stamping on her. Mrs Pickford, 47, a mother-of-two who has a judo black belt, was powerless to stop the attack and briefly blacked out. With blood streaming from her injuries and £50 stolen from her handbag,…

A Premiership footballer had to play a key match moments after discovering his cousin, her husband and their two young children had been found dead after a house fire. The bodies of Reading star Kevin Doyle's cousin Lorraine Flood, her husband Diarmuid and their children Mark, 6, and Julie, five, were all discovered in the burnt out house in Ireland. It has since emerged that while the children died in the fire early on Saturday morning, their parents both had gunshot wounds. Police have refused to name a suspect but are understood to be focusing their investigations on Mr Flood, whose body was found downstairs near to a gun. It is thought he may have murd…

Researchers in Norwich have set themselves an easy challenge: finding 150 women prepared to eat a bar of chocolate a day. The chocolate is free, and made specially for the trial by a Belgian chocolatier. The intention is to see whether it improves the women’s health. The volunteers must be past the menopause, must suffer from type 2 diabetes, and must already be taking statins to reduce their cholesterol levels. They will also need the approval of their GPs. Postmenopausal women with type 2 diabetes are usually advised to avoid chocolate. Rich in sugar and fat, it is definitely not part of their recommended diet. Chocolate is also rich in flavonoids, compo…

Orang-utans have confounded naturalists by learning to swim across rivers and to fish with sticks. Naturalists were shocked to see the apes swim across a river to gain access to some of their favourite fruits at a conservation refuge on Kaja island in Borneo. Orang-utans were previously thought to be non-swimmers. The wildlife experts were equally surprised to see an orang-utan pick up a tree branch and stun a fish before eating it. Other apes introduced to the island were seen trying to spear fish with sticks after watching fishermen using rods. The naturalists also noted that the apes quickly worked out that it was even easier to steal fish from unattended lines use…

An old, balding penguin (in its twenties) was given a wetsuit by biologists so it could grow back the feathers and swim with the rest of its buddies. But the penguin takes it a step further. Suddenly he has this cool wetsuit and a new cocky attitude.