Slean Wolfhead

James Blunt was here a few months ago. They don't come much bigger than that. :wink: Bill Bailey comes every year, can't get rid of him.

These things are always a nightmare because everybody has an opinion....usually seen between Sydney arguing with Melbourne, Adelaide coming top, everybody knocking Canberra, everybody forgetting to include Perth. The difference in this poll is that it's based on fact and measurable statistics on 9 environmental factors, so they're compared exactly like for like Health, Longevity, Environmental, Jobs, Incomes, Service Access etc... It's funny watching all the Canberra knockers out this week...completely missing the point. You can have an "opinion", but an opinion cannot outweigh "facts"; there is no argument to be made and you can safely ignore the ranters. If they added on "access to a beach", then Canberra wouldn't have come top. If they'd have included, "ability to find a pub, get smashed, then walk home with kebab and chips and not require a taxi", then Canberra wouldn't have been top. If Australia didn't have compulsory voting laws, then civil engagement wouldn't have scored as highly against the rest of the world and Australia would be lower on the list. If you're a young person, looking for clubs, hiding from your parents, big city living in a high density urban environment where you can disappear for 5 years, a bit of seediness and life learning, then Canberra wouldn't be the best place to experience that....go to Sydney or London! If you've already seen that and done it, Canberra's the perfect place to progress to for a high quality life and a great wage. But just going on the facts and the measures in the OECD ratings, it can't really be disagreed with.

Best place to live in the world isn't it? ;-)

Nowhere is cheap, there is expensive and very expensive. Rentals are currently far cheaper than buying, but there's the old adage about dead money. However, i'd rent for at least 12 months....you can drive good bargains right now. An option. Look at Queanbeyan or Jerrabombera for living and Googong for work, they're close. Some decent plans around showing the extent of the building works planned for the next 15 years...5500 homes? http://googong.net/

http://www.allhomes.com.au/ah/act/rent-residential

They all need to land. I think the BA flight 15 stops for a refuel at Singapore, then carries on. You have to disembark though, so no real difference to changing planes altogether. If you've got to disembark anyway, you may as well go on a better airline than BA.

You tell DIAC the old and new passport number so they can transfer the VISA entitlement to it electronically, no labels anymore. 1. Carry the old passport as well, just in case. 2. On the way out, you can ask them to check the new passport and confirm the VISA is registered against it. If it's not...well they can sort that while you're away so you don't have trouble getting back in through immigration.

I remember that from the Bill Bryson book. He gave up using his British sarcastic humour when he got fed up with people just staring at him and blinking slowly.

I've just sent them a reply. Been trying to update my address for the last year and they keep on sending threatening letters to my mother (where we lived for a month 2 years ago), ignoring the request to update addresses to Oz and then sending her the penalty notices for non-payment. The issue is, i seem to have been getting letters from both Self Assessment and a different HMRC section....who don't know what they're doing. I filled in the forms when we emigrated, the P80. Maybe that's upset the system, who knows? Finally got the details updated after i sent the huge list of previous correspondence with a threat to report them for harassment unless they updated the address details and sent it to me. Got that done, received login details in the post (!) , logged on, submitted late tax return, owed no tax, but penalty was applied....which then went to my mother in England.... I just despair. I paid the £100 online to be rid of them, then they send another statement saying i owe them £1200. It's just laughable The reply i sent to them was just F Off, they'll never get another penny from me. It's no wonder the system is in such a mess if this is the service standard, yet they let Vodafone off billions while their boss is getting wined and dined and taken to Wimbledon. My Oz tax return was submitted in 10 minutes, both years, the Oz Government single sign-on system is light years ahead of the UK...tax, medicare, doctors visits, all in one place with employment details, health insurance, super contributions already pre-filled and ready to go. I'll gladly use it and even ENJOY using it to keep track of my finances.

Maybe, but isn't the current external factor the uncertainty of the looming Scottish independence vote, the UK economy having performed much better than it's rivals so it should be strengthening and not weakening? I guess 18th September will be a big day with massive repercussions either way. I think i'm going the 50% route now, then will take chances afterwards. I'd rather get a slice of 1.73 now than risk getting 1.60 for the whole lot in a month. A nice bonus will be to get a rebound of up to 1.85 - 1.90, the direction it would otherwise be heading.

You have the right attitude to survive, you'll be alright. It's all about getting your foot in the door here, especially Canberra.

They also used to get the benefit of retaining their non-fixed abode status by shutting the caravan parks for 6 weeks a year and buggering off to Tenerife over winter :-)

It annoys me when Americans talk about a "British" accent, as if it's something that actually exists. It is strange though, that with our internal propensity to identify ourselves as distinct people within something larger, we consistently buggered up large parts of the globe by creating, changing, joining and and shaping other countries without understanding them at all.

Sentosa's artificial, it was a swamp island for years and they thought they'd never be able to build on it, plus the currents bring all the rubbish past it. It was known for being a body trap for dead bodies floating across from Singapore during WWII and the Japanese occupation. The beach by the Golf course is also one of the sites of the WWII Sook Ching massacre of hundreds of Chinese where they were marched into the sea and machine-gunned. Occasionally, they still dig up skeletal remains. It's why the hotel pools are so good and "beachy"...they don't expect people to want to use the real beach or swim in the pollution.

F1 isn't on Foxtel, as in a subscription channel. It's on national Free To Air but has adverts..channel names seem to vary between states. I think WA had a problem last season where they weren't getting qualifying televised and fans were not happy? They use the British commentary. It's pretty crap actually...some of it's on SD channels, sometimes HD. Last season we watched Qualifying on one channel....we sat there the next night watching some dumb film and the race was on a different channel. Pretty shoddy setup sometimes for free channels and who's got the rights for what....check your state.

I liked Nusa Dua, very quiet though and a bit artificial behind the gates. The rest of it....I'd think I'd rather go to Thailand. If you're going to put up with the hustle and bustle, Thailand does it better.

If there was a God, is this when he'd send a plague?

I was recommended the Mantra at Mooloolabra. A better beach than Noosa, great location, supermarket next door.

There were 300 flights a day through that airspace. I think Kenny Everett had it right about the Russians, been nothing but a stubborn pain in the arse for 2 generations now, with another lunatic dictator who wants to wind the clock back 30 years.

To be fair, when you book your ticket would you check to see what route it takes to explain a cost difference? I flew over Ukraine 3 weeks ago with Singapore, along with Qatar probably the best airline in the world. They weren't the cheapest either.

How many frequent flyer points do you need for anything useful, and how much has it cost in shopping at one store? I only ask because I was up to about 60,000 Emirates points once and it took years of flying before i got a one way Bus Class upgrade to Dubai, and that was only through a 50% off points deal in winter. My mate has his own house building company in the states. He puts over a million US dollars a year on building materials through his credit card and gets Airmiles on it. It gets him 2 return flights home to the UK every year. For over a million dollars spent !

They did a review in the UK a few years ago. They're only worth having if you stay loyal to one supermarket. But if you stay loyal, you thus miss out on special offers from the other supermarkets. When they trialled buying goods without loyalty cards but went to supermarkets based on what they were advertising as specials that week...it worked out cheaper than having any loyalty card. There seems to be a load more junk mail in Canberra and every supermarket gets a flyer dropped every week....all you have to do is read it. I made a conscious decision after leaving the UK and cutting up the Boots Card and Sainsbury's Rewards not to have anything in Australia. It feels so liberating not to feel obliged to shop at one store only and regain CHOICE :-) I guess if you only have access to one supermarket then you might as well have a loyalty card....but then you're probably paying more to start with through lack of local competition.

Make sure it's Windows 8.1 and not Windows 8. That fixes a lot of the poor feedback and user frustrations. You'd need a touchscreen laptop, if you don't get a touchscreen stick to Windows 7. Chromebooks are great, but best if permanently connected to the internet. They rely on a connection to synch information, that's why they're so nimble and cheap. If you're doing a lot of offline working, stick to a conventional laptop.

I think that's what everything north of Watford is like, but the media (and overseas media) just translate London to meaning the UK.

It's not like your local duck pond you know :-)