Phaedrus

Wow! Congratulations, Angela... that's seriously prolific!

Yep, I'm with you on that one. Stuff dry cleaning. Everyone can just put up with me being crumpled :)

You might want to be careful with comments like that... if you'd ever heard me singing in the shower, you'd understand why :)

Well, clearly your problem is ironing! Stop that, and over half your problems will vanish instantly :) Seriously, I *hate* ironing. I'll iron shirts for weddings and funerals, but that's it.

The loyal subjects of His Royal and Imperial Highness, the Archduke of Crossover, wish to express their joy and appreciation on the occasion of this, His Highness' 500th post, and to register their hopes that they may continue to be enlightened by His Highness' wisdom in the future. :) That was unnecessarily pretentious, wasn't it? Congrats on the landmark, and keep 'em coming!

Well, she seems to be on the schedule. But she does seem to have been moving around a lot of late - if anyone sees her, any chance you could ask what's up?

Congratulations, Soleil! Always great to hear what you have to say!

I'd suggest that you look through the ads, find someone you like, and then look at her website and/or ads. Lather, rinse, repeat. If in doubt, you can always ask via email or PM; I don't think any of the ladies here will object to a simple and polite question, unless you give them reason to. As for rates - nobody here will give you those, I hope. Rates must come direct from the lady you're thinking of seeing. Nobody else has any right to comment on them at all.

First up - see this thread for a good explanation on the mechanics. Secondly, i don't think there's much rhyme or reason to how or when people give out rep points. It's all a bit random. But if what you have to say is interesting, or witty, or amusing, or contributes positively to the conversation... you still may not get any - but keep at it and you'll strike gold (or have it showered upon you) eventually. But you're dead right that one post can do a lot of damage. All I can say is... play nice. And if you must say something controversial, at least try to say something like "I know this may be controversial, and I'm not trying to be an asshole, but...". It may help. Not guaranteed, but it may. I tried walking on eggshells, but I didn't like it. They hurt my feet. Oh, look! You got some! Seriously: just do exactly that, stop worrying, and the rep points will look after themselves.

Three things to say on this. Firstly, even if the guys like ratings like this for the ladies, the ladies themselves generally like to feel that they're more than just a collection of marks out of ten (I think we guys would like to feel the same, if we're honest). If we piss them off, then they'll just leave, and we'll all be much the poorer for it. Secondly, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Your ten may be my one, and vice versa. And a lot of this is down to how well you get on with the lady you've just seen, which is yet another imponderable. Finally: please don't take a bit of well-meant feedback as a reason to take your ball and go home. Provided you respect the folks here, we'd all love to have you around.

A good question, but it might be worth starting a new thread on this...

Not off the top of my head, but Pub Italia is always a good place to start...

Could we stay away from saying which girls are hotter than others? That's not what this board is about. Please and thanks. What could you possibly do with a dancer that's riskier than what you might do with a SP? Unless, of course, you decide to break the SC rules (or go elsewhere) and live dangerously too, in which case... good luck, and don't come to me looking for sympathy if it all goes horribly wrong. Play safe.

A gorgeous redhead offering sensual massage? My interest has been piqued, for some reason :)

Gaaah! Why do I have to choose between atheist and Pastafarian? I can quite happily be either, depending on whether I'm trying to annoy Creationists or not :) Also, I totally think 'Agnostic' should be in the poll. Also also, for those who do want to debate the deep and meaningful... a shameless plug :)

We now have cause for celebration On CERB, and all across the nation. In the middle, and on both coasts For Old Dog's hit two thousand posts! We love your jokes, we love your wit Even though we envy it And - this may not apply to some - Some of us even love your bum! But now I must lay down the law. I reckon that I can be sure I speak for all, from shore to shore: Just give us, please, two thousand more.

You expect an unbiased opinion on this from me? Ha! Seriously... go with what you think you'll enjoy. I always did that while I was at school, which sometimes meant ditching things that I might have got better marks in, but I've never had cause to regret it. Besides, I - like most folks, I suspect - have now ended up doing something that has precisely nothing to do with anything I studied in full-time education... from which we can conclude that in the long run it may well not matter much anyway, so you might as well have fun :)

Apollo 440 - Stop The Rock

Behold! English Assets Stimulate Terror! (although he's quite obviously a Scot :) ) Next: NESSY

Sorry, but I think you're just dead wrong about this. Bird 'flu and swine 'flu are simply new strains of a disease for which vaccines have existed for years. The only problem with 'flu is that each vaccine is useful only for one strain, and so when a new strain appears and spreads quickly it takes time firstly to isolate it and develop a vaccine, and then to manufacture enough of it to satisfy demand - the manufacturing capacity to do this very quickly simply doesn't exist. FWIW, the 'flu shots which we get every fall are a vaccines aimed at the two or three strains that the experts forecast were most likely to be prevalent about a year beforehand; so the decision on what 'flu strains to vaccinate against this year was probably made last winter. This is, to some extent, guesswork. There's still no vaccine for Mad Cow disease (or CJD); it can't even be *diagnosed* in humans before an autopsy. What's happened there is that it's been largely controlled in livestock, thus reducing the chance of it making the jump to humans at all. It should also be said that developing a vaccine for HIV is uniquely difficult. Vaccines work by priming the body's immune system to recognize and destroy a pathogen; there's an obvious catch-22 here when the virus you're aiming at targets and takes out the immune system itself. As for HIV... yes, it's about money, but you've got it entirely backwards. The big problem with HIV research is that the big pharma companies aren't charities, and exist to make a profit... but if they do come out with a cure for HIV, or a vaccine against it, the pressure to sell at cost and to waive their intellectual property rights so that the manufacturers of generic drugs can also make it would be... immense. Some countries (e.g. South Africa) have already stated that they'll ignore patents and trademarks if they feel so inclined. This means that any company that does come up with some remarkable new development for HIV or AIDS will make no money off it... and so they don't bother investing much in the first place. That's why HIV research and breakthroughs tend to come out of academia, funded by charities and governments; future profit is less of an issue here. The big money for the pharmaceutical behemoths is made on treating the baby boomers' chronic conditions in first world countries where patients can pay and patents are respected, which is why we see an endless parade of drugs for cholesterol and arthritis and the other things we develop as we get older. But there's no nefarious plot to use HIV (or any other disease, for that matter) to reduce population in the developing world; the simple fact is that large corporations don't care about spending large amounts of money to develop a drug or vaccine on which they'll never recoup their investment. That's all. It's callous, yes, but that's the world we live in.

Sorry? I'm confused. I thought tinfoil hats were to prevent the government from reading your thoughts? Or are you saying that the government is staffed by zombies? Actually, now that I mention it, I may be on to something here....

Thanks, Malika. I have no clue who she is either, beyond that. But, in addition to her other assets, she does have a beautiful smile...

I'm not, 'cos I've already got one :) (Sorry. I'll shut up now.)