I don't know where you get the figure of £25,000 from but it's insulting to immigrants like my husband. There are various national and academic studies that have looked at this question and that is the sort of average figure they arrive at. The average figure includes all public services including ...

The economic benefits of immigration are debatable, but it's a very interesting topic (well, it is for me, as I'm an economist...). Immigration can certainly help address skilled labour shortages, but unfortunately much of the immigration we get is of the low- or no-skilled variety. Unless immigrant...

Thanks both. It's interesting that these cross-references are occurring in the latter half of the publication history of the FF series.

John Harris has written something pertinent for tomorrow's Guardian...

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... ip-eu-exit" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Can someone more familiar with the Secret Seven than I please remind me which SS book "cross-sells" the Famous Five (ie one of the characters is reading a FF book) ?

Thinking about the "allies" a bit more, there seems to be something of a pattern for the "allies" to be a bit younger in the second half of the series compared to the first. Yan, Aily and Tinker all seem to be younger than the Five, whereas in the first half of the series the all...

Power cuts - or at least brownouts - may become common again is there's now very little spare capacity in the grid, and we are taking ages to provide permissions for new power stations let alone build them.

The fire the other day at Didcot probably won't have helped either.

On one thread or other I complained about Five Get into a Fix where the place name Magga Glen is used. This was because the term Glen isn't used in Wales (in Wales it would normally be Glyn: e.g. Glyn Ceiriog, which is a valley near to where I live). However, we've been doing a bit more walking rece...

Political parties consist of thousands of individuals, some of whom are going to say daft things from time to time. The UKIP MEP who made the Bongo Bongo comment had the whip withdrawn as a result. He has since resigned his membership of UKIP. There are politicians from all parties who've let slip w...

I recall lividly Simon Barnes in 2005 structuring one of his eloquent Ashes cricket articles using the imagery of "A lovely day with a horrid end". He acknowledged the Famous Five, but didn't say which book it was taken from.

Afterwards someone told me I was absolutely safe as I was on a bike with rubber tyres This isn't true actually. You stand a good chance of being killed if you are struck by lightning while riding a bicycle or motorbike. They may be getting mixed up with a car, which protects its occupants as it act...

Did anyone else immediately think of Mr Roland when the photos of Roy Keane and his bushy beard were circulating a few weeks ago ? (I think he's shaved since)

Apparently he was the voice of Dobby in the Harry Potter films too.

It was cruel.

But they had form: her parents had Timmy expelled from Kirrin Cottage entirely when he was young because he chewed slippers and papers, and so George had to keep Timmy hidden at Alf's.

So their attitude to Timmy in this story is not difficult to believe.

Toby Jones* - Capt. Mainwaring * I've found out who he is now He was the lead in that one-off BBC drama Marvellous about the Stoke City kitman with autism, shown 2-3 weeks ago. He was truly excellent in that - best thing I've seen on TV in ages. I was watching a BBC comedy show called Detectorists ...