eddie

I bet it would! I've only got the XK8 (no supercharger) but it's a great ride. It's a long-distance luxury cruiser rather than a hot hatch, though. And not much of it from the Ford parts bin, either! Car magazine did a head to head in 1998 between the XKR, DB7, BMW840Ci, Merc SL60, Porsche 911 and Nissan NSX and Skyline. The Jag won the day for many reasons, among them "the Jaguar handles the drama for you so your drive will be more relaxing .... The Jaguar's monstrous, relentless torque is wholly addictive and completely thrilling, but you can arrive at your destination unshaken even though you have been stirred". And they depreciate from new so fast that no-one will believe what you paid for a good used example!

Unless you've got multiple discs there's no real benefit in having separate partitions anyway - a disc problem that takes out one partition will probably take out the whole drive.

Are you serious? He spent all of the first term at the whim of focus groups. His determined future was one in which he was PM, pure and simple - look at the way he's hanging on now if you need proof. His legacy, that he bangs about, will be to have ruined the country. He's messed up the House of Lords, presided over an unprecedented loss of civil liberties, done himeself proud at the taxpayers' expense, .... Yeah, determined vision of the future, no doubt.

I heard of one chain some time back that was poised to fail when the bottom of the chain's buyer pulled out. The bloke at the top of the chain bought it so all the sales could go through!

Have you considered the Bose Companion 3 system?

Well, if you'd be happy with a compact or bridge with a fixed lens, why not buy an entry level DSLR and a single lens (18-200 or similar) and leave it on the camera (you don't have to use more than one, just because you can!)? For long exposures, as others have noted, you'll find the small sensor cameras generally perform poorly wrt. noise; in addition to the small sensor sites generating noise, they also get hot during long exposures which generates even more noise.

Interestingly, doing that could just make you more dangerous! See here.

You can get a new SLR for your money, but not a digital one. Warehouse express is selling the Nikon F80 for

You were technically self-employed - what you were proving to the IR was that you weren't a disguised employee. I'm surprised you had 18 months of hassle with them - how did they get onto you in the first place? Did you volunteer, or did they decide to investigate you? I've been contracting for 13 years (I've nearly disappeared!) and not had any hassle from the Revenue over IR35 (the only IR35-related hassle I've had was with my (now ex-)accountant who decided that my contract, which he hadn't actually seen, meant I was caught by IR35 and arranged my books to pay an extra 10K in tax. That's why he's ex. Regarding the permie vs contracting comparison, I calculated that to get as much disposable income as a permie as I got from contracting I'd need a salary in excess of 90K to take account of the fact that I couldn't organise my finances in a tax-efficient manner. And ion repsonse to the poster who suggests going abroad because this country has "had it" - if that's what you want to do fair enough, but don't do it for tax purposes; this country is a tax haven for the self-employed, why do think the government is trying to make self-employment so unnatractive by introducing punitive, but fortunately poorly thought out and ineffective taxation regimes? Final, but most important, piece of advice, get yourself a good accountant that you can trust - they'll save you far more than they'll charge. Good luck!

Not just more versatile buit considerbly better quality, too! Not really a "kit-lens" at all, in fact! Mine spends a lot of time on my D200. When my Sigma 70-200 f2.8 APO EX isn't there, of course!

Why should anyone tell your Mum? It's none of her business, surely? It's yours because you'll have a half-sister.

That's because fuel injection systems have a fuel cut-off on a trailing throttle, whereas coasting requires fuel to keep the engine ticking over.

Think again, the radio licence was abolished in 1972.

You're not an accountant, are you? If you are, I'm glad you'renot mine! The limited company pays, as you say, corporation tax on your gross profit. The dividend is paid out of the net profit. It pays you the declared dividend less the tax, and you acquire a tax credit. However, the deduction remains in the company's bank account - it isn't paid to HMRC, so you're not paying 29% tax. If you are, I'd suggest you find a good accountant. Actually, I'd recommend that anyway, mine saves me far more than he costs me.