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tipton
The remaining British men are being released from Guantanamo Bay, so it's worth recalling again that one of their predecessors was asked: "If I wanted to buy a surface to air missile in Tipton, who would I see?" How about Windy Miller? Oh no, that was Trumpton. And where was the follow up question, if I wanted to launch a surface to air missile where would I go? Where better than the Birmingham - Wolverhampton canal which goes right through the middle of Tippers.
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driving just got cheaper
Britain's leading retailer of nasty clothes Asda has cut the price of a litre of petrol by 3p. Owned by global superpower Wal-Mart, Asda already has a bad environmental record: joint bottom of a table exposing companies selling furniture from rainforest wood and a leader in the banana price war that put small growers out of business to name but 2. More seriously, their cycle parking is generally of the cheapest, most awkward design and woefully inadequate in number.

On the plus side, the price of new cars is apparently set to rise for the first time in years: booming demand for steel in China has put the price up.
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stingy
ITN news last night was at great pains to point out the seriousness and generosity with which the US is taking the tsunami relief effort: it came up twice in the bulletin. Whatever the reasons for this emphasis (simple coincidence? genuine newsworthiness? pressure from paymasters or politicians?) it shouldn't obscure their initial reaction of $15 million aid: what they would perhaps give if noone was looking. This gesture was rightly slammed as "stingy" by Jan Egeland of the UN. (Compare spending in Iraq: $1 million per second.(costofwar.com))

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