Meenzer

This is the Cooking thread, not the CT's Food Porn thread - I was sharing the recipe. Anyway, it looked like that. There's not a great deal you can do to beautify mince and dumplings.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/mince_and_dumplings_47431 Come to Daddy.

Germany may be an exception of course, but I'm pretty sure the figure there is more like 20-30% (depending on who you ask). Of course it might be a question of how certain institutions are classified and/or where you can get the kind of education you need - if it's only available at university here then you're not going to not go, given the chance...

http://theweekly.co.uk/brain/hurrah_bah_archive/

Not really - it works for the Germans, for a start. When I was teaching English over there, kids of 15-16 who weren't after a university education would often start "learning" specific careers. Not to the extent that they were tied into that particular job forever, but they'd study combinations of vocational and academic subjects plus on-the-job training for a certain profession - I worked with classes of everything from booksellers and jewellers to mechanics and garage attendants. Even the latter had to learn English, but specifically including the kind of English they might actually need in their jobs, e.g. when dealing with foreign drivers who needed help. Just a small example, but ultimately the country isn't obsessed by that whole "university is everything" aspiration that Blair forced upon us here, and it recognises vocational and career-oriented qualifications as equally valid. It also has a hugely healthy engineering sector, strong exports and a SME landscape to be proud of. Funny that...

There's more straw men in here than in a... straw man factory

Fascinating stuff about the background to tomorrow night's Croatia-Serbia match, some of it familiar of course, other parts less so: http://www.wsc.co.uk...srb-22-mar-2013

Boris? Bring it on!

My week so far, except for the part after "Deadline" in a couple of hours from now marked "Cider".

And we get to play fog man back.

Makes his weight loss even more impressive if so

That will.

Pendulous

"Mah na mah na" surely offers some potential for a manly singalong here.

This household approves.

Aspiration Nation, your dream's coming true!

I thought of you when he smarmed that one out. Talk about low-hanging fruit. The irresponsible support for another house price bubble is exactly what they crucified Gordon Brown for.

They'll be taxing the moon landings next.

If he'd shown any hint of awareness about what he'd done...

I know it's a side point but didn't McManaman deliberately handle the ball moments later? Apparently that wasn't worth a yellow either