Fuse

I've only got a few minutes, so my reply will be brief. I might add some more later if nobody else posts anything useful though! If you type in "mortgage calculator" into Google you should get some sites popping up that will allow you to roughly work out how much a mortgage will cost you per month. Bear in mind these are only rough guides though, and the real calculation is going to be based on a whole heap of factors. Also bear in mind that those costs are just the mortgage repayments, there'll be other one off costs like solicitors fees and the like that certainly aren't insignificant. Don't forget costs like electricity/gas/water bills, food, council tax, tv licences, etc. too, as these usually always add up to more than you originally estimate!

Personally I wouldn't consider buuying a car that doesn't have at least 6 months left on the MOT. If that car has no MOT at all, then you only have his word that it's road worthy. You could buy it, take it to be tested and find out it needs hundreds of pounds of work on it, and you'd have zero comeback as you've bought it as seen. If I was you I'd pay a little more and get one with a valid certificate.

It sounds like a pretty shitty situation. My advice would definitely be to move in with your grandparents. Moving into sheltered accomodation will, I imagine, be very detrimental to your studies in terms of trying to get anything done outside of college. For that reason I'd advise against it, as I would against dropping out and getting a job. You've only got one more year left and completing that should be a high priority. While moving in with your grandparents may not be ideal, at least you'll have somewhere safe and homely, so for those reasons alone I'd choose that option. I'd also advise showing them a little more respect than referring to them as 'senile old fools'. They're family after all, and at times like these when you really do need help, they seem to be there for you, cut 'em some slack yeah?

Foo Fighters have never really done it for me I'm afraid. I've got a couple of their albums, and I like some of their songs, but I've never really understood why they've become as massively popular as they have. To me they're nothing special at all. If I had to choose between the two, then Chilli Peppers every time, mainly on the strength of Blood Sugar Sex Magik. Out of their newer stuff my opinion is very similar to that of FF. There's some songs I like, but the albums as a whole don't have the same impact or appeal to me that Blood Sugar had.

I've never been in any of those halls as far as I can remember (well, not sober anyway), but it's worth noting that both Harry French and John Philips are at the student union side of campus. That makes it good for nights out, but bad for getting to the engineering department, as it's about a 10/15 minute walk, whereas Telford is in the student village, which is pretty central to everything. The only year I lived in halls I was in Elvyn, the rest of the time I lived in town, so like I said, I can't really comment on how nice the halls actually are. Just thought it was worth pointing out the locations in case you hadn't checked it out yet.

Just a cheeky little post to say the red Polo GT that Andy (Tank Rider) posted on page 4 is for sale if anyone's interested. PM if you want any details and more pictures. Tank Rider, OD404, Deagledaddy and Adam and Dave from Tartybikes can vouch for me if you're worried about buying from a stranger Edit: included pic

As mentioned above, a large part will depend on whether you are sure you know what you want to do as a career in the future. If you do an apprenticeship lasting several years, when you finish you'll only really be qualified to do whatever it is you trained for. If on the other hand you did a more general degree, there are a huge wealth of opportunities in many different career paths that will be open to you. For example I graduate in the summer from a mechanical engineering degree, and I'm basically qualified to apply to a huge range of different careers. For example, I've now got an engineering/management position with Severn Trent, while other friends on similar courses are going for pure engineering jobs, and one guy even getting a place on a sales & marketing scheme. If you're sure you know what you want as a career (and the fact that you've listed mechanic or construction, two wildly different disciplines suggests to me you don't) then by all means go for an apprenticehip. If on the other hand you don't know for sure what you want to do, then picking a more general way of continuing in education may be a better bet to help keep your options open.

I was talking about free weights though, not with the smith machine which I'm assuming you're using.

I assume you mean like Nicolas Cage does in ConAir, and if so I'm not surprised you couldn't do it, because it requires a huge amount of shoulder strength. You basically need to be able to shoulder press your own bodyweight, something which very few people are capable of.

Spelling is still important, because you need to know the first and last letters, and the middle bit is the rest of the word jumbled up. I doubt it would work if you mispelt the word and had wrong letters in the middle Still, it is a rather cool phenomenon.

Well, I'm getting a combined birthday and christmas present this year. It's still quite a lot to be getting, but my parents must be in extra generous mood this year. I'll be getting this little baby: I bought it back in September, and it's been sat at my parents house for three months just waiting to be played! I think it's possibly the best present I'll ever have been given, and I think I'm more excited about it than any christmas when I was a kid

I love Slash, one of my all time favourite guitarists. Technically he's not the best out there, but he just seems to pour a lot of emotion into his solos. Zakk Wylde was as amazing as ever during Crazy Train. I don't like the guy one bit, I think he's a complete [insert expletive here], but he is one awesome guitarist. I noticed that Ozzy's voice seemed completely shot though, there didn't seem to be any vocal range in his performance. Whether it was just an off day I don't know, 'cause I don't remember him sounding that bad at Download last year.

I never said triceps weren't involved in bench press, because they are. What I said was that they are a synergist in the exercise, while the pectorals are the target areas. Of course having bigger triceps will help with bench press, just as bigger triceps will help with shoulder presses, but it doesn't mean they are the main muscle involved. You said bench press was all about the triceps, which isn't true. Take it to the extreme, and imagine the hypothetical situation of a guy with enormous triceps and absolutely nothing on the chest (impossible, but it's an extreme example) and he wouldn't be able to bench press hardly anything. Basically the bench press, like many other free weight exercises, is a compound exercise, so it works several muscle groups at once, but in any of these there is usually one major muslce targetted, with the others being synergists or stabilisers. In the bench press the target is the pecs, and the tricpes are synergists.

Benchpress is all about the pectorals actually (the chest basically, for those who don't know). The triceps are a secondary muscle.

Great Britain and United Kingdom are two different things, both of which can still be used. Great Britain: England, Wales, Scotland United Kingdom: England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland The official name is actually United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but that's a bit long winded. Most people use the two names interchangeably, whereas they actually have two distinct meanings. With regards to calling it the Union Jack, this should only be applicable when it is flown from a ship, as a jack flag (flag at the bow of a ship). If it is flown elsewhere it should be referred to as the Union Flag. Again, most people use the phrases interchangeably, despite the fact that they have two different meanings.

Well, if you're going to be the person driving the car the majority of the time, then technically it isn't legal. Realistically, nothing can be proven, and loads of people do it when they first pass due to the much lower insurance cost. The other disadvantage is that you can't build up a no claims discount whilst you're driving under someone elses insurance. It can be so hideously expensive to have your own insurance for the first couple of years though, that it's often best to be on your parents first and take out your own policy a few years down the line.

Even having reduced your prices so drastically, they will still be making a profit, else they wouldn't try so hard to keep you. They're far from stupid, it just goes to show how big a profit margin they're operating to if you go by their standard prices.

Just managed 81, bit disappointed really, thought I should be able to do 100+. I did a weights session last night though, maybe I'm still tired from that! :- One-handed press-ups aren't too bad, not sure how many I can do in a row, but I can certainly do them. A lot of it's to do with getting your body position right so you're balanced, but yeah obviously you need a good strength/weight ratio as well.

Or the more likely scenario is that both captions were written by two different people (not unreasonable considering the pictures are from two different news agencies). If both were done by the same author, then both sets of people would have been described as either "finding" or "looting". Stop looking for racism that isn't there.

I'm sorry, but you haven't really got a leg to stand on. The simple fact of the matter is that you broke the law and got caught. Yes it's annoying, and you'd rather not have to pay it, but just deal with it, it's a £30 fine not a life sentence. The argument that there's worse crimes going on out there, why pick on us doesn't really wash either I'm afraid. At what point do you stop? Yeah I was riding on the pavement, but there's some vandals over there spraying graffiti on the wall, that's more important surely? Yeah I did the graffiti, but there's some underage drinkers over there, that's more important surely? Yeah we're underage drinkers, but there's a drug dealer over there, surely that's more important? Yeah I'm a drug dealer, but that guy just mugged an old lady, that's more important surely? Yeah I mugged an old lady, but that guy just killed a man, that's more important surely? A little extreme perhaps, but you can't complain about being fined when you broke the law. The police are there to enforce all laws, not just the ones that you haven't broken. And I highly doubt that the police are turning a blind eye to everything else because of the paper work. Just because you don't see people being arrested left right and centre doesn't mean nothing is being done. Honestly, you give the police all this stick, but I'd dread to think what sort of level our society would fall to if they were abolished.

I think you're going to have to, I'd be surprised if any insurer is even willing to quote a 17 year old on a Golf GTi!

A girl I know at Loughborough is looking for people that do interesting things to film them for a four minute documentary to be shown on the Channel 4 website, and possibly to be aired on tv sometime in the future. I mentioned to her about trials riding, and she seemed keen on the idea. So basically, are there any riders from Loughborough, or the surrounding area, that would be interested in being filmed? Ideally she wants to do it during August, but I'd guess most folk are back home for the summer, so it may have to wait until September sometime. Oh, and she has a degree related to this sort of thing, so she's not just doing it randomly, she's hoping it might help with her career. If anyone is interested reply here and I'll see about getting her to contact you with more details about it.

Battery life was always what kept other handhelds from toppling the Gameboy. Technically the Gamegear from Sega was a more powerful piece of kit, and the games looked better, but it took loads of batteries and lasted about five minutes. It's no use having a stunning handheld console if it's not portable because it needs constant recharging. You're the only person I've seen state how long the batteries last though, so maybe it's better than I'm thinking. Nintendo has always dominated the handheld market, but it remains to be seen what happens between the PSP and the DS. I wouldn't bet against Nintendo, but then this does seem to be the Playstation generation and I'm sure the PSP will sell bucketloads regardless of how good it actually is.

First off, wearing hair gel will not make you go bald. It's a myth, along with others like washing it too often causes baldness, as does blow drying it. While these might be bad for your hair in terms of making it dry, and prone to breakage, the hairs DO grow back. Whether you go bald or not is genetic. The guy who was bald by 22 would have gone bald whether or not he had long hair, short hair or used a tub full of gel on it every day. The fact is that you lose loads of hairs every single day, but they all grow back. It's natural for hair to fall out and be replaced. I know it may look like a lot in your hand, but when you consider there are more than 100,000 hairs on your head, it isn't really that much! If you don't think it's normal, check out a womans hair brush sometime, those things are absolutely caked in hairs that have come out!

As has been mentioned, it's an 8 valve, and puts out around 75bhp, which is good for 60 in about 11 secs. And the wheels should fit, the Polo uses four bolts, which should be the same as the wheels you took off the Golf. I wouldn't stick anything any bigger than 15's on though, else you're going to need to start modding the arches. Anyways, good choice of car, they're pretty inexpensive to run, reasonable performance if it's your first car, and pretty reliable for the most part. I've had mine for about 3 years now, and it was my brothers for 3 years before that.