We will be up there soon dont you worry. C'mon you Magpies!!

I'd say "trunk" rather than "tailgate."  ("Tailgate" I associate with parties hosted out of the back of the car in the parking lot (car park) before the start of a football (American) game.  Don't laugh - I've been to ones with a table full of chafing dishes set up, oriental carpets laid down on the dusty ground and a full bar.)  And don't forget windscreen/windshield, indicators/turn signals and wing mirror/unspecified maybe "side" maybe just "rearview" mirror.

I have no idea what we'd say about a car with an engine at the back (in the trunk?).  Most Americans would probably call it "an *ss-backwards yurpeen car."  

I've been following the Brand/Ross story in TOP as well and I would like to post the same thing here as i did there:

"It seems odd that when you ring your mobile phone company or BT, one of the earlier options given to you by the automated system is report a nusiance call. I wonder if this would count as one of those? Personally, I've never found so called "joke" telephone calls or wind-ups funny as they are always at someone expense."

That is the problem, isn't it, pw?  The phone companies and regulators do tend to want you to involve the police before they will do any more than log your complaint.  Mr Sachs probably thinks that extending the period over which this matter is in the headlines - not to mention having some smart lawyer advancing 'fair comment' and 'public interest' defences, no matter how spurious - is the last thing he wants.  


hmm...can't really see either of them as a lesser-spotted Jagger, ollie; but it's a good point and one that Mr Sachs is probably aware of.  I'd have thought that sacking them, as opposed to prosecuting, is both proportionate and appropriate.

MONTHS!!  


Fair point - but what Ross and Brand did is the purest bullying, and I suspect that a visit from PC Plod - assuming the police did take it seriously, and in the full glare of publicity they'd probably have to do something - would put the fear of God into the pair of them, as well as sending a message to Ross and Brand wannabes that what they did is actually quite a serious matter.

I just heard OFCOM is now involved.  I don't know whether to cheer or bemoan the fact that they probably wouldn't do this for an ordinary citizen unless the old bill was involved first.  And how much will a nip from the mighty gums of OFCOM hurt?  I don't really know what they can do other than force a clamp down on spoof calls from the BBC, which would hit genial japesters like the Dead Ringers crew.

I'm sure it's not a straightorward matter, but if the contracts of the two could be nullified I'd find it quite satisfactory.  If we then discovered that their previous earnings were salted away in, say, an Icelandic bank account...