WOOOW WOOOW!loving this post, had come to the conclusion after a year of being here USA, that the great expance of the US meant that consumer pressure didn't exsist, well done you and I will be joining the protest. my idea would be to choose dates for people to e-mail, this lets them know that it is organised, and people feel strongly on this subject, don't choose one date as this will overload the servers and in these days could be concidered terrorism! so much for free speach!. Landscape programs are cheap because they will get free stuff which they can advertise, and produces miraculous results quickly, also start cancelling you subscripions to the network that lets you watch this channel, I don't know it, so it maybe on a basic channel, but if not go to a basic subscription and tell your provider why! even if you loose some channels you like! you can always reinstate them in a few weeks, just get the point across, my feeling is that I pay for a package that is v expensive and all I watch is PBS and BBCA and I haven't watched them for 2 weeks, TV is rubbish here! never thought I'd say this, we are forced to pay $200 dollars a year by law! in the UK to watch TV (you can get sent to prison if you don't pay and people do!) which pays for BBC, but by heck it means that all the other channels have to keep up and we have some good programming! and the BBC by Law has to do educational stuff! and no ads, 4 channels and 7 radio stations, realised what good value it was now I am here, rant over good luck

I had chimed into sugarbreak's thread in the Conversations area but I'll add mine here, too. I've been "starpooh" for 11 years. It started when we were looking for a distinctive email address for our family. So we took a family vote. My vote was for "tearose" because I love the smell of roses. DH and my then 8-year-old DS voted for "roadkill" because they're both jokesters. My youngest DS voted for "no_nap" because, as a 2 year old, that was his favorite phrase. So I suggested "starpooh", named after a gorgeous desktop wallpaper that I had found. After much discussion (and whining from Mr. "no-nap"), we decided that starpooh fit our family. Starpooh wallpaper: I do love this pooh wallpaper but actually Classic Pooh is my favorite. Here is a link that might be useful: sugarbreak's User Names thread from 2006

re shutters We live in an old-ish house (pre 1840's) and have wooden shutters on all the ground floor windows. These are on the inside of the glass and when closed at night they are held together with a strong metal bar. They certainly help to keep out the cold and the noise of passing traffic. I think shop shutters would have been on the outside of the windows, there are still a few eg's of these in the UK in 'preserved' areas. Often smaller shops/stores wouldn't have had any glass in the window and customers would have been served through the 'hole in the wall' rather than coming in to the building/room. OT but apparently we should be able to tell the 'age' of our house by looking at the counter-weights of the sash windows, or the number of panes and size of the glass which indicate when they were put in (but we don't know what to look for !). We do, however, have quite a few panes of old 'crown' glass, slightly wobbly in texture and very thin, rather like 'picture glass' and no-longer used in windows ('ealth and safety). When a pane has to be replaced the windows no longer open/close so smoothly; the weight is different.

The following little rhyme used to be recited to us by my father when we had been cheeky or had 'showed off' (though never to him as he was way too scary . . . ) "A wise old owl sat on an oak The more he saw the less he spoke The less he spoke the more he heard. Why can't we be like that wise old bird?" ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ And I should still listen more and talk less!