OT: Back

Right... so your criterion for god food is "cheap" and presumably "lots of it" then? If you want to eat Italian, go to Italy. The crap served in the US and the UK is not, by any stretch of the imagination, Italian. Not even from "Italian families" most of whom have never been to Italy (in the UK most "Italian" restaurants are Portugese, Maltese or even Egyptian). The few Italians I have met running restaurants in the UK have never worked in catering in their home country and have little idea how to cook. They serve up pre-prepared pap similar to stuff sold in Asda. They can't even get a pizza right FFS.

Right... so some tart oozing out of her clothes makes the food better?

Something else that's s**te, Nascar.

Yep, that one. It tastes like s*it and has next to no vitamin content. I have a friend, lives in the UK, parents live in America. His mother was seriously ill and diagnosed as vitamin deficient. She complained to the doctor that she ate lots of fresh fruit and veg and he replied that American F&V has a very low vitamin content because the growers ensure that there's lots of water available to make the fruit big and juicy (and tasteless and vitamin free).

Two in my (extended) family. My mother had alzheimer's and lived in a near vegetative state for far longer than is the norm. In a very caring NHS facility. My SIL's sister had MS and was similarly well cared for.

Heh heh. How many Britons do you know who've truly seen all of the UK? But fly off on holiday every year.

that's owned though driven is different ;)

france! dude that's extreme! i'd sooner go anywhere but there!

I love France.

My wallet hates it.

your such a grumpy old man!

LMAO

never said it wasn't but then i never bought up essex i was talking bout wales being full of the welsh and rain

so my 56 day ban would stop me going back?

No, but you will, going by what Mr Firth has said, need to apply for a visa and go through the rigamarole of visiting the US Embassy as part of the application process to be interviewed by immigration officers there.

According to the US embassy you are ineligible to enter via Visa Waiver. You have to apply to ACPO to get a statement about your arrest/conviction record and visit the US embassy to queue in line with the other criminals and you have to pay them $130 to find out if they will let you into their festering crapheap of a country.

OTOH you may get away with it.

Agreed. Although I've met some nice Americans, it seems to me like American people on their own, or just a family / couple etc are fine, but once you're discussing the American people as a whole, or even huge groups aren't that cool.... For example the gang of 'people' on News 24 in the middle of the night the other day, who were from the deep south, like Alabama type places, and who all agreed that a black man should 100% not be in the White House. They even made a few like, back handed glib comments regarding, basically, someone assassinating (sp?) him, but with out any direct threats or words. These bottom feeders were unlike no one I'd ever heard before, they were just openly racist and saying the 'n' word (beeped out), just saying these things like it was perfectly normal, and they had kids there as well. It really was just disgusting, the fact even in the 21st century people can be that pathetic and stupid.

It's things like that which put me off, that and the gun crime. I'd maybe consider Alaska though having been there, it really was nice and even Anchorage as the biggest city was more like a town with loads of nice little houses, grassy areas, and people generally seemed to be nice. I didn't get to the capital, Juneau, as we were mainly doing arctic circle / eskimo village /glacier / Mt. Mckinley by chopper type stuff and also a little of British Columbia, so were a fair way away. Although the fact that there was no direct flights back then (there is now) meant we had to change at O'hare after some 15 hour wait and also it counts as an internal flight, so you get crappy planes heh.

I don't think that's a list to be ashamed of at all. Even owned, at least one was 220bhp of a MR sports car. And it's predecessor (sp?), the light and nimble sports car. Then another powerful RWD car and a little hatch that a lot of people regard as the best handling FWD car about - I disagree btw, the Clio managed to save £5k, accelerate faster without torque steering and lap quicker than a JCW on 5th Gear :-p

Seriously though, I love the Cooper S Minis, I know the turbo'd engine is better in everyway and loads and loads of owners report seeing +10bhp or more on the rollers, but I just love the sound and permanent grunt of the supercharged version. I totally almost bought a supercharged JCW that had all the certificates from the dealer and things, but it had the bigger, but really scratched alloys and they wouldn't fix them all along with the rest of the deal - which in itself was no better than average, so including probably close to £300 of wheel refurbs I'd have to spring for it was just getting worse :-(. Bloody Merc dealers - it had an awesome history of been traded in for an SLK hehe! Was bloody fast though, so much low end grunt, and it had the LSD so it just gripped like a mentalist on the big roundabout just near there. I can't beleive that for £200, everyone didn't spec the LSD, it made huge positive difference.

Turned out to be the right choice though, as I imagine the 'ring trip would have been a bit 'over cosy' as neither of the lads that came with me can be sub 15 stone hehe, I look so tiny in the photos of all three of us! Also with regards to the Mini, I'd have lost more on it than I did on the Clio (£2k in 4 months hehe :-) It was so worth it, if not just for the pro photo of me driving it on the 'ring, and it gripping like a monkey to it's mums back), as the Clio was a bargain and the Mini was at the high end of average.

We spent like 140 euros going from Monaco to Calais - so, the length of France really, on the toll expressways hehe. Now that was extreme heh. On the upside, we passed loads of speed cameras, which I left notifications of turned on on my TomTom by mistake, and we passed most of them at 3 figure mph speeds with me grinning and giving a universal hand signal of communication - just to keep up foreign relations you understand ;-)

(I know, I'm an arse hehe :-) )

Your view on the world is a poor perspective if you can't see beyond the blinkers.

Here you go:

No, but it's not the first time that I've heard about this advice from the embassy. My reading of this is that at least the London embassy seems to operate in CYA mode when asked for advice if someone needs a visa or not.

If you say so. But then again, maybe I just know where to find good food, both in a restaurant and a shop. *And* am willing to pay for it.