BarryRiley

I doubt he'd be able to recommend someone to do specialist non-NHS work

Although it's a taboo subject in a country like Britain where people are obsessed with not offending anyone's left wing sensibilities, poorer areas of the country do clearly have more problems with crime and social exclusion which trickles down to the offspring. Good schools are not found more in middle class areas because people with money moved around them, they are there as a result of the type of people in the area. People with well-paying jobs generally value education more than people at the bottom of the pile because they don't have the 'school dint do nuffin for me' mentality. Why do you think people privately educate their kids - it's not because the teachers are better, or even because the classes are smaller, it's because the poor people can't send their kids there and the students are less likely to have their education destroyed by little Connor who takes up most of the staff's time chasing him around corridors. I'm not saying all lower-class people are like this - not at all, not even the majority, but there clearly is a correlation.

This. Why do you think schools in the most deprived areas have worse Ofsted ratings than schools in the least deprived? It's not that they have better or worse teachers, it's that they have a different culture of student. Don't judge everything on Ofsted results - as has already been mentioned, the goalposts are constantly changing and will continue to do so under the conservatives. There are schools which have gone from 'outstanding' to 'requires improvement'. Unfortunately, schools will only get worse under the current government. Already any decent new teacher leaves the profession within a year. If you can afford it - educate them privately. They will stand a much better chance.

You live in Sheffield, surely none of this is a surprise to you. Na get tha'sen dahn t't Rawson n polish off a few jars a mild. I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing that Sheffield doesn't have fancy wine bars. In a way maybe it shows that Sheffield just isn't as pretentious as Leeds or Manchester. It knows it's a simple Northern city and it knows its place!

Smart phones ruined driving whilst talking/texting. I could operate my Nokia 1110 whilst piloting a spiraling fighter jet. I didn't even have to glance at the screen once. Now you can't even switch the things on without staring directly at it.

Do you have any figures on accidents caused by people using their mobile phones whilst driving or are you just being reactionary? I don't doubt it's more dangerous than not doing it but the amount of people on this thread parroting the party line without a shred of information is astounding.

Torrent it. As long as you download the same version you're not breaking any laws as you already have the license.

If a Wifi extender is receiving a weak signal, then it can only send out a weak signal. It can't create something that doesn't exist. As for using it in a hotel, I can't imagine it would make much of a difference. Firstly, you'd have to go and place it somewhere between yourself and the router, which will probably be in a corridor / laundry room / restaurant, which isn't feasible. If you just place it in your room it's going to be receiving a signal with very little strength. It's like doing a relay race and having the last person stood 1 metre from the finish line.

You won't need to save any drivers from the computer, because the drivers you have will be for Windows Vista and they won't work on 7. Install the operating system, get the network adapter driver done first and then download Drive the Life which will scan your system and automatically update all available drivers. Don't bother manually searching through manufacturer websites - it's a waste of time when a piece of software can usually do it all for you (and it's free) It is perfectly feasible that Microsoft may have dropped support for some of the hardware along the way but usually everything's fine.

You still need an internet connection. If you're talking about the ones I think you're talking about, all they do is take an existing network connection and output it in the form is a wifi signal. Therefore it still needs to be plugged in to something to get the internet from it. An alternative if you have a data contract with your smart phone is to switch it to Wifi Hotspot mode. This will transmit your internet data that you usually use through your phone wirelessly to any other nearby devices. Either way, you still need to actually pay for the internet access.

Erm...it says "anybody know the place or address".

Champs is just awful though. Especially the clientele. I'd go with the casino myself.

I didn't see a post asking for your opinion on the matter.

I'm not sure about this. It certainly doesn't allow you to just go and start claiming benefits on day one. I live in Southern Europe and I had to work 6 months before I could receive publicly insured health care. I'm also pretty sure I wouldn't have been able to receive unemployment benefit as soon as I landed. This is fundamentally one of the major downfalls of an EU which includes countries with different economic strengths. There's no benefit to countries like the UK and Germany opening their borders to countries like Slovakia because it's always going to be completely one-sided. The stronger country ends up gaining a mass amount of immigrants and having to pay out to accommodate them while the weaker country gains none and has to pay out nothing. It levels the playing field but at the expense of the stronger countries.

Yes this massive recession has affected us all. Except the rich of course, who have gotten richer and widened the gap further. You don't actually believe this 'there's no money to go around' crap do you?

This. I hate the bizarre pretentiousness of Cafe Rouge. It's a chain restaurant poorly designed to look like it's in the centre of Naples. At least McDonalds has a air of honesty about it.

RDX Fitness, if you're going to spam the forum with ads, try not replying to questions asked in 2013

This. I have no doubt at all that Sheffield Council are acting illegally in their responses to FOI requests. They are filing anything they find incriminating under the label of 'vexatious', freeing them of the responsibility to release the information relating to them. I sincerely hope they are brought to justice over this and whoever is in charge loses their job.

The problem with 'nice wine bars with relaxed atmospheres' in England is that the only time you can really use them is a weekday because at the weekend anywhere that serves alcohol will be wall to wall. You might get a seat if you get there at 1pm and stay put but you're not just going to be able to walk in at 8pm, grab a table and enjoy a nice relaxed evening. Plus the lack of table service means that half of your night is going to be spent standing behind 400 other people looking for a 'nice relaxed evening' at a bar. I used to like Sheffield nightlife and it has some great bars but I would always avoid the weekend like the plague. I used to enjoy a nice quiet Sunday pint though.

What? How did you miss the fact that Meadowhall had a pub for most of its existence? It was poor, sure, but it definitely not 'non existent'.

I'm with this guy. Taybarns is fantastic! It sometimes gets too full though but if you can't get a table you could always sit in the middle of a council estate and eat your own shoes - it's pretty much the same. Anyway, to add to the discussion, when I last lived in Sheffield I ate at the Riverside near the Hillsborough stadium. It was a tasting evening trying out a menu before it was released and the food was just outstanding. As for the Admiral Rodney - I really don't get the fuss. It was pretty much Wetherspoon's standard fare last time I went.

I don't understand this. If someone doesn't physically acknowledge your kindness in the form of a hand gesture which you deem to be appropriate then you remember their plate number and don't let them out again? Ha, so British!

Binnington. it's Binnington

That's ridiculous. If you had to search for, identify and get permission from the next of kin of everyone ever filmed, photographed or recorded for media we would have no archive footage of anything. No Queen's Coronation, no World at War, no documentaries, no news footage.

Why do you use the word 'They' when you're clearly talking about a company you either own or work at?