Strange how most of the obits I've read give detail on his showbiz career, but fail to mention that he was also a successful jockey amateur jockey and had a passion for horses. It seems the obit writers can't be bothered to dig beyond what is already popularly known.

You'll be missed little guy.

"Actually tipping hurts people who do these kinds of jobs; it allows the boss to pay them less, frequently less than minimum wage. "

That is a crock put about by people who don't want to tip. I don't know about where you live, but hereabouts it is flat illegal to pay basic wage below the legal minimum.

Even so I never tip on the credit card bill, I always tip cash in hand to the staff. Not because bosses might not pass on the full tip, but because I don't necessarilly want the tip sharing out between the staff. There may be some slackers in there.

Before they hype we caught a few seconds of the ceremony on TV and my wife's first words were, "will you look at that silly tart". Seems like everybody thought the same way.

That's amazing. He's two and a half inches shorter than I was when I was born!

Renovated? To renovate something is to renew it. Since that hotel was never even finished I don't think it can be renovated. I think you mean the hotel has finally been finished.

Now I'm confused. Milk and flour amounts to white sauce not gravy, gravy is essentially the juices taken from cooked meat thickened and seasoned. But what really has me confused is the idea of gravy (or rather white sauce) on biscuits.

I take it you also mean something different from me when you say biscuits?

Did he lift the front of the car clear of the ground, or just lift one end of the body on the suspension? The former would be very impressive, the latter not so much. Most people could lift one end of the car on the suspension - think see-saw or teeter-totter. Go outside and try it.

Yup. There's no way that was written by a six year old. Not only is the writing and drawing generally too good, but the errors are not the sort of errors a six year old would make and therefore probably intentional.

Why is it that so often it is assumed that what people used to do is the right thing to do? The "wisdom of the ancients" surely isn't all it's cracked up to be. People live longer and healthier lives than ever before and yet we are supposed to listen to the advice of people who had shorter and less healthy lives.

Jeez that's a real amateur job. An expert could have done it with an awful lot less explosive. Sure it wouldn't have gone with such a big bang, but so what.

@PacRim Jim if you read the linked stories you will see that the guy had been living in his car for several months and probably had a stock of food which would have lasted him for part of that time. And the extreme weight loss would have sustained him and therefore generated body heat. According to the original story he lost "over 20kg" that's over 45lb.

And the igloo effect really does work. Ask anybody who ever slept in a snow hole. BTDT and it actually gets kind of snoogy in there after an hour or so.

All sort of makes sense except for the handle that prevents the thief releasing the case. What you want to happen is: thief snatches the case, all hell breaks loose, thief drops case and runs.

What you don't want to happen is: Thief snatches case, all hell breaks loose, thief tries to drop case and discovers he is trapped, thief shoots victim.

"Roads run between two distant points — two towns, for example."

And he falls at the first fence. A street is a paved road, simple as that. It comes from the latin Via Strata meaning paved road. The naming convention has never been strictly applied except occasionally by pedantic local authorities. The article doesn't even seem to touch upon Grove Close, Gate, Crescent, Mews or Court. All of those do have meanings, but they have seldom been rigidly applied.

Jonas you got it. There are all sorts of reasons why there may be kids crossing the street to and from school outside those hours. You have neatly pointed out that legislators are idiots.

"Frank Zappa is probably most well-known as an incredibly inventive and technical guitarist, at least among musicians."

And there you go. Musicians are a minority. Frank Zappa is known to the vast majority who know him at all as a singer.

Sure he was a guitarist, a political activist, a composer and other things too. He was a multi-talented and multi-faceted gent, but ask most people what he was and they will say "singer" or maybe just "Frank Who?"