Oh, for the days when all that you worried about when buying a telly was the screen size - and whether your new video recorder did Long Play or not....

Am I the only one in thinking that there are too many "standards" these days ? What with 720p, 1080i, Hi Def, 3D etc etc.....at the end of the day Ant & Dec are still as irritating no matter how high the definition is.

When they say that they are taking on more staff, presumably this is to cope with all the HR / Security / Health & Safety regulations that the EU and Government believes are absolutely critical to impose during a recession. I work for a small business and the amount of time we are spend on this stuff is just laughable. Its a wonder any small businesses survive at all.

If a "young person" wants to travel outside of europe they've still got to purchase a passport, so they'll have 2 possible forms of ID to lose rather than just the one......and how much will it cost if they lose the ID card AND passport - as chances as they'll keep in the same wallet / purse that they've "mislaid" somewhere

Virgin seem to be going along the right lines -- why dont we just buy a few of the Spaceship One craft and adapt them ?

First of all the Government forces us to switch over to digital telly, causing unnecessary cost and confusion for many people and creating increased enviornmental damage through the manufacture and disposal of addtional STB's, TV's etc

But now there is even more confusion for people by the need for an additional STB to receive High Definition. I wonder how many people who have bought HD TV's with freeview installed realise that they STILL won't be able to receive those broadcasts without having to buy yet more equipment ? I think there is a general perception amoungst the public that if you purchase an HD TV with freeview built in that this means they will actually be able to receive HD TV broadcasts WITHOUT the purchase of additional equipment. That this is not the case should be made much clearer

Given the number of illegal immigrants working as cleaners in the Governmnent, maybe its a good job.

If speed cameras are generating a lot of money in fines, then they are surely failing to deter people, so should be removed and replaced with some other option.

Also, in Nottingham we are being threatened by a workplace parkiing tax to pay for a tram extension - I hope the Conservatives want to scrap this as well

If the chavs tried to press charges shouldnt they also be charged with wasting police time ?

This is clearly fake - we couldn't launch cheese into space as it would fry in the Dave Allen belt....and did anyone notice the dairylea wrapper blowing around in the gale force wind as Neil Armstrong planted the flag in the moon landing footage? There is a cheese conspiracy happening here.

The bloody obvious point is that CCTV only works when people are identifiable on it. The awkward truth that is that the simple techniques of wearing a hood, baseball cap / balaclava or a veil over the face is all you need do to avoid it.

Whilst we're at it, I don't believe that man has reached the top of Mount Everest either. I've personally never seen it, and those mountains seen in the clearly fake pictures could be from anywhere - in fact I think I recognise Snowdonia in the winter - or is it a TV studio ? After all, clearly no one could survive the climb due to the cold,. lack of oxygen and yetis. And what happened to the original footage of Hilary and Tensing reaching the summit ? This is clearly a conspiracy.

Hope this is the better than the Tytn II which is forever freezing and requiring resets.....

What about shutting down the Energy Saving Trust ? I've just noticed on their website they have these gems of wisdom:

"Let the sunshine in - cleaning windows and pulling back curtains during the day will help you take in more natural light and warmth from the sun."

"clean your oven door - you'll be able to check on food without opening the oven and letting heat out"

Thats the planet saved then......

...and what about the amount of carbon put out during the design, test, manufacture and supply of the bikes......????

A few weeks ago I spotted something on the EST website - here is the correspondance:

My original query was:

Your website states that "Leaving gadgets and appliances on standby across the UK wastes over £900 billion worth of energy"

This seems like a very large figure - can you tell me how you have arrived at this figure ?

In response, the EST replied:

Many thanks indeed for pointing that out. It’s a particularly unfortunate error which makes the statement 3 orders of magnitude out. Total UK energy spend is in the region of £30 billion and wasted electricity due to standby consumption is in the region of

£900 million. This figure is derived from work done by the Market Transformation Programme. More information on UK standby consumption can usually be found here:

http://www.mtprog.com/cms/product-strategies/sector/cross-sector

However it looks like they’ve removed the documents temporarily for updating.

Kind regards

The Energy Saving Trust Knowledge Services Team

Perhaps if we politely asked all the teenage darlings currently patrolling our streets to remove their hoods and face masks and look nicely into the cameras then maybe they'll start to perform the function that they are apparently for. Until then they'll just continue recording the innocent majority going about its daily business.

..or, if someone was so desperate to watch TV whilst on the move, why not just buy a pocket TV and watch it for nothing (license fee aside, of course) ?

...or just cancel Eastenders and Coronation Street - just think of the savings, as blokes across the country aren't kicked out into the spare room to use their games consoles whilst the missus watches the telly

Most people are perfectly happy with the current DVD format. Blu-Ray appears to be yet another solution looking for a problem - a problem that the public just doesn't perceive that it has. There is also a danger that the public feels bombarded with different "new" technologies - to the point where they are simply switching off from the whole subject. Mos people are too busy going to work, worrying about the mortgage and whether they can feed the kids tonight to care if Blu-Ray gives a slightly better picture quality or not.

The galling thing is that the self same Banks and Financiers who are crying out for Government hand-outs are the self same ones who were totally pleased to see whole industries go the wall if they faltered or failed to keep paying out profits. Let them go bust and let these one time "high flyers" have a taste of their own medicine.

So why hasn't the National Lottery fund chipped in with some money ? Presumably they'd rather spend it on some politically correct "box ticking" exercise than actually daring to do something that preserved BRITISH heritage

Why should we be bothered about this ? If the boot was on the other foot, I'm sure the Americans wouldn't give a toss about us Brits being defrauded - so why should we care ?

I seem to recall in the dim and distant past that many thousands of voters "disappeared" from the electoral register when the poll tax was introduced in the late 80's. I wonder what happened to them ? Were they all subsequently fined ? Or are they still missing off the register ?

We'll only have a clear IT policy for the NHS when there is a clear idea about what the NHS is for and what its meant to be doing. The reason for previous IT projects going awry is due to them constantly moving the goal posts and the current utterly shambolic state of the organisation.

I'd be interested to hear from Amazon,.Sony exactly how these e-books will benefit the planet ?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you don't actually need any power to read a normal book printed on paper ? Unless of course you are reading in a dark room, in which case you'd probably have the light on anyway ?

And what about having to recycle them at the end of their life ?

I'm surprised Vista came in at number 34 on the priority list - I can only assume that were only 34 entries on the whole list ?

I'm led to believe that Linux (a strange beast of which I have heard mystical tales) generally requires less hardware and so might allow the Government to achieve at least some of its aims......

Is it me or has the quality of television programmes dropped in direct proportion to the cost and quantity of all this new technology - and who really cares if Paul O'Grady or Big Brother is broadcast in HD ? Its still a load of old crap, just higher definition crap.

I seem to recall that Britain used to have an excellent record of developing its own planes without the endless "partnerships" with Europe or America. These joint ventures always lead to compromises, which the RAF then tries to rectify by throwing yet more money at the project. Perhaps if we just developed our own aircraft then the initial cost may be higher but they would more likely be fit-for-purpose from day one

I cannot understand this criticism of the NHS. We (the ungrateful public) should feel honoured and privileged that they spend £90BN of our money each year, and still manage to kill off an increasing number of patients themselves through unclean wards and equipment (the true figure is covered up of course by the medical establishment). At least if they start having clean keyboards, then all the managers, consultants and bureaucrats will be clean and safe - just a pity about the patients......but then again, they always come last in the scheme of things with the great god NHS

This is typical of the culture within the entertainment and electronics industry at present - there is too much emphasis on hardware, and not enough on providing quality entertainment that is worth paying for. Does it really matter if you can make out detailed skin tones on a performer ? I would like to think that people watch a film or TV show to be entertained by the storyline and script, not simply as an expensive way of demonstrating otherwise pointless technology. And when we are constantly being preached at about "green" issues, can the manufacturers explain just how flogging this unnecessary equipment will benefit the environment ?

Its amazing how quick these companies are at answering the phone when they think they are going to get a sale - its only when you've got a query or a complaint that they keep you hanging on. The times reported by Which though are nothing compared with what NTL used to be like......I'd be regularly be kept hanging on for 45 minutes only for someone to hang up the call.

I completely agree with Mark Vale - criminals just brag about Jail time or ASBO's

Instead, lets put them in the stocks for a month dressed as Dame Edna Everage and remove their willies - lets see them brag after that.

We are all constantly being lectured at by the BBC about Global Warming, so I'd love to find out what the carbon-cost of this whole unnecessary project is - ie how much CO2 will be pumped into the atmosphere during the manufacture and shipping of all those TV's and STB's that will be required - let alone how much extra energy is used in the production of the programmes themselves

Why bother with this ? I'd like to see some fresh ideas for new sci-fi series, rather than constant re-hashes of old 60's and 70's shows - lets see some originality !

Perhaps Nick Park should sue ?

With the BBC constantly force-feeding us stories on the news about how the planet is doomed from MMGW - I'm wondering how encouraging the public to purchase DAB radios is going to help things ? I assume that they aren't all made in Carbon-Neutral factories, with non-polluting materials and shipped to us on sail-boats ?

Perhaps the BBC would like to tell us how much additional CO2 will be pumped into the atmosphere as a result of this policy, and how much of the ice sheet will be lost as a result ?

This role sounds like a job for the Fairey Rotodyne - but hang on, that was cancelled to save money....

I see a theme emerging here

To make the voting system work, you just have to make voting compulsory (and include a "None Of the Above" option for those that do not wish to vote for a particular candidate) and allow voting over several days including a weekend - and there you have it. No need for postal voting.

Anyway, if alcohol was sold "at different outlets" then we'd all be slagged off by the Greens for driving there. So I am helping to contain global warming by buying my booze along with the weekly shop, and therefore cutting my CO2 emissions. I Thankyou.

The whole drive to HD formats typifies the contradictory messages being fed to the public regarding consumption v green issues. On the one hand we are being asked to reduce consumption to save the planet- the next minute we have huge manufacturers like Sony and Toshiba trying to flog uneccesary extra bits of hardware (I'm guessing that they've not been made in carbon-neutral factories?), which also probably consume more power, and for what reason ? Why exactly is this needed ? What benefit does it really bring humanity ? I'll go and calm down now in darkened room.....

And here was me thinking that people watched films for the storyline and characters, not simply for the quality of the picture. What a fool I've been !

Shami Chakrabarti said: "What type of society uses a low-level sonic weapon on its children?"

The question should be "What type of society allows its children to commit crime (including murder) due to lack of a deterrent"

Maybe she'd prefer it if we scrapped the Mosquito and allowed kids to go around stabbing and shooting one another instead

The rotodyne was a fantastic aircraft - and the scientists at the time seemed to have resolved the noise issues.

I say lets re-start this project before the Americans grab the market with one of their over-engineered solutions.

If the Government could channel a tiny fraction of the money that it wastes on NHS bureaucracy to projects on this kind, it would really help boost British industry and encourage youngsters to study science.

Just when are people supposed to watch TV on their phone anyway ? I can't think of anyone who would watch telly on a mobile at home - you certainly can't do it whilst driving, nor can most people do it whilst at work - or any other activity come to think of it, other than sitting on the bus or train

And is anybody really going to pay through the nose just to watch Jeremy Kyle on the 28 Bus to town (and also watch their phone battery drain away) ?

I suspect that the problem is not tighter IT security, but appropriate IT security levels that still allow people to do their jobs. I'm sure that most people who work in large organisations have come across incidences where IT Security is actually too tight and restrictive - this then forces people to find "alternative" methods of carrying out their job (eg sharing user-id's and passwords because a colleague has higher level access to a system), rather than going down the formal route with all the bureaucracy and obstructive attitude's that seem to stem from IT Security Departments

Is anyone seriously going to p*ss about with voip if there house is burning down ?

I'd like to point out that there is no "Digital Dividend" for the public - merely the unnecessary cost and trouble having to switch over from what for many people is the perfectly adequate analogue system to the more expensive, complicated and unnecessary "Digital" system.

Any "Digital Dividend" will be in the form of license money paid to the Goverment and hardware manufacturers selling STB's and Digital TV's.

Ordinary people find IT security too difficult to setup, clumsy and awkward to use and when it doesn't actually stop your PC (or whatever device) from working properly then it can certainly slow things down to a crawl. When the IT security industry makes it products "idiot proof" AND secure then I'm sure most people will do the right thing and set up the appropriate systems - but until that happens the ordinary user will continue to be scared off by the complexities involved.

Britain will never have a Government funded manned space program whilst we are still in thrall to the great god NHS. The public would much rather see its money wasted on bureaucracy in the NHS than spent on exciting science projects