Auntie

CL - validation is essential, but more from the accessiblity angle. But not all suggestions for validation need to be included. The AA standard is often good enough, AAA standard sometimes can make a site worse rather than better. Common sense also has to come into the mix. Some things you can 'leave' they may not be critical, but if you want a wide range of people, with varying skills, browsers, and disabilities to fully utilise the site, then successful validation is clearly a plus. Accessability / validation is more that just that of the site 'working' in different platforms, there are other issues, can you change the font size? is it using 'alt' and 'title' tags for images? (alt only works in IE not in Firefox) have you got 'click here' scattered around the site? which means nothing to blind people using browsaloud or similar software. Just to mention a few. Turning to the housing market............!

Laurajon..... words fail me! Shaker, you have oodles of time! Mate of mine bought a two bed place 6 years back, coming up 50 at the time. 23 year mortgage. Been overpaying £200 a month for the last 2 years plus negotiated reduction in term, currently it has has 11 years to run. They're planning to reduce term again soon, so should it should be paid in 7-9 years.

I'm all for a bit of drama!! Good on you RB. Lets just add a bit more drama, just for the fun of it. I like this from The Message........ You Who Call Evil Good and Good Evil: Doom to you who buy up all the houses and grab all the land for yourselves— Evicting the old owners, posting no trespassing signs, Taking over the country, leaving everyone homeless and landless. I overheard God-of-the-Angel-Armies say: "Those mighty houses will end up empty. Those extravagant estates will be deserted. A ten-acre vineyard will produce a pint of wine, a fifty-pound sack of seed, a quart of grain." Now before all you God haters out there pounce and call me a mad-man. I am not for a nano-second suggesting God will 'Judge' these individuals personally. Nah. He ain't doing that stuff just now. Is just a good ole case of Karma. If you deal dirty, then sure as eggs is eggs, it gets dealt back...... eventually. If you aren't being just, righteous, fair, kind and honest, then what you dish out...... Sure is taking a long old time though innit!

Lander, you might like this site..... Green Energy Investors

<rant> Here 'flippin here!!! If you don't work you don't eat. With exceptions of course. I am so tired of spongers. I know there are vulnerable people who need help. But I had a little aunt, stone deaf, and just over 3ft big, who worked her entire life!!! And she had arthritis. So hey all you layabouts, get a job! </rant>

This is a key point. My two closest colleagues are drowning in debt, but both on good wages, regularly into overdraft one week after pay day. For one it's wreckless, for the other, a single mum, she's just trying hard to keep a roof over her head. Last night, out with two mates, both spending way above their earnings, mostly to meet the needs of growing families. The one has re-mortgaged three times in the last two years to send kids to Uni. Her comfort blanket, 'My house keeps rising in value'. Another mate very distressed because 18 months ago she felt she could cope financially, now with the energy increases, including petrol, she has no surplus. These are just five people I know personally, for whom the chickens are coming home to roost. How many more are out there? But they'll be okay, house prices always rise and they can MEW some more.

This happened to save squillions of NHS pounds. The service was provided virtually free to the NHS. Job adverts in the high-end mags you mention are HUGE. It could run to £10k for one job advert (the sort Dog loves to list on a regular basis!) But maybe I am totally naieve. And it is just one big conspiracy, to keep every one in the dark. The NHS is still going to hell in hand basket whatever happens. If iSoft don't get it, then the internal competition that NuIdiotLab did away with 10 years ago, and is now re-introducing...... will!

...... which bit of the fourth child do you have?

Easy tiger!

Well I for one don't really care if he's a bull turned bear, or that he's posting on other sites. Just hope he's right. Hey PG, how long you been in the BTL game anyhow? RealistBear, it IS a great bear week! I remember a few other weeks like this in the past two years. Hope this is the real thing, my patience is wearing thin.

Cukoo, there is a lot of dispair out there and you seem to miss it entirely. Two incomes affording a house is totally unacceptable, and we seem to be following the American middle class into financial mayhem. Americal Middle Class fall into the Two income trap A long article, but if you have time or inclination, worth a read. To sum it up, two incomes being able to afford a house leaves utterly no safety net if one partner looses job or health. It's a double whammy, people on £40k can only afford a one bed s**t hole, so no room for kids. They up their salary multiples, get two bedrooms to allow for family expansion, one looses their job........ You work it out. Sigh, you seem to have utterly missed the fatal economics the country has been allowed to be sucked into. Like walking along a lovely beach then stepping into quicksand.

A valid point. I know plenty of older couples in that situation. Add to that the numerous empty properties. In my block, 18 flats, there are 7 unoccupied for various reasons. Next door to me, the flat has been empty 12 years!!! The little old guy who owns it pops in once a year to run the vac round and clean the windows. The flat below me, empty, as the couple live abroad. Been that way three years. Opposite me, 23 new builds 2 bed 2 baths. £250k Finished 18 months ago, still only 11 sold. This is highly populated North London. There is a shortage of properties. Yeah right! And of course inflation is running at 2.5%, oh excuse me, down to 2.4%

Is damn tough to sustain the arguement. I just keep schtum now. Two years ago me and a bloke I work with, who lost his shirt in the last crash, worked hard to persuade a colleague not to buy, but the purchase went ahead. She reminds me of this now and then, and the other bloke is also telling me I am completely wrong, and that it is different this time. I watch in disbelief as prices round me rise again. But I definately, absolutely, completely, totally believe it will crash...... ..... I think?!

All these cuts drive me nuts. Tone has been pouring money into the NHS, creating loads of new jobs over the last few years. Growing the economy. Yeah rite. Now they have run out of dosh, and all the poor sods they have been employing in the last 8 years are being given the boot. Is just another of their managements ****-ups.

Nail..... on..... head.......!

Wonder if in a couple of years, they will cease to call it the property ladder and call it the property snake!

Ah, I see. Missed that bit. TTRTR Well done for getting to megapost level! Charlie, you get around a bit! Must be warping all night!

OzzMo, I'm wondering how the 'eck you found time to track TTRTR's 40 posts. I post at work and at home. And I'm the boss, so ner.

A colleague is in training for the Moon-walk, 26 miler. Been off sick more not less. Twisted ankle, ricked knee, cold caught by walking in the rain. Doctors visits, pah! Exercise smexershise!

My bloke looks great, but most importantly, he looks like a bloke, Also, a few of the androgenous males on this thread hinted that if blokes are not body scrubbing and moisturising that they ain't washing. Well this particular male don't stink. In Body Shop yesterday, and a man mountain behind me was loading his basket with all manner of smellies. "Ah sweet..." I remarked to the checkout girl "Must be for his Mum!" "Nah..." Says she, "Its for him, he comes in every month and buys heaps." Yikes!

You lot are restoring my hope in the male species. I am sick and tired of androgenous, preening blokes. My bloke never buys me cards or flowers, always wear black jeans, black plain t-shirt, cat boots and never wears after shave. And he would never, ever go shopping with me. But he can hang doors, fix tyres in the pouring rain, rescue me when I am lost, and protect me from monsters. That's what I want!

Hmm.... He would though wouldn't he, he wants people to keep on investing in BP. Not likely to say;"Yes crude is running out, head for the hills." Chevron is debating the oil supply issue on their very classy website, in the simplest of terms, they are alerting people to the realities. I like this quote, "It took us 125 years to use the first trillion barrels of oil. We'll use the next trillion in 30.

Good post. I posted a few of these historical headlines on another thread but Sam kindly reminded me 'but this is 2005' Hmmmmm.... Certainly looks like history repeating itself. But maybe I'm deluded.

ILBB, sorry to labour this point but....... Council of Mortgate Lenders Scroll down a bit..... ..... and under 'Gross mortgage lending' click on House purchase loans, number value and affordability, summary. (But I did make it all up, really......)