Cotton Traders - A Good Source for Wardrobe Staples

Advantages: Easy to use. Good quality merchandise. Good service.
Disadvantages: Inconsistent fit. Clothing is functional and unexciting.

...INTRODUCTION Cotton Traders (CT) has become a staple source of clothes for me. In my darkest days, pushing almost 25 stone, it was my only reasonably priced, mainstream source of outsized clothes that did not carry the psychological baggage inherent in ?Big & Tall? and ?High & Mighty? type shops. With sizes up to 4XL for T-shirts and polo shirts, and waist sizes up to 52 inches, it was a godsend. The only downside was that ordering from them helped perpetuate the illusion that my size was OK. In fact, it was when I started struggling to get into CT?s biggest clothes that the penny finally dropped and I took decisive action to manage my health. The good news, for readers at least, is that I have ordered clothes from them for going on three years, in various sizes, and have built up enough experience ? both good and bad ? to be...

Hishyeness 27.05.2009 · Read review
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Review of Cotton Traders

Independence when we need it most

Advantages: Politically independent, sceptical, strong on the environment and civil liberties
Disadvantages: Above average price, some unexceptional columnists

...Recently, Tony Blair had the effrontery to carp at what he described as ?the fusion of comment and news? by British newspapers, in effect accusing them playing free and easy with the truth. This was pretty rich, coming from someone that had done so much to elevate spin and news manipulation to their present eminence in British politics. Reflecting, though, on the antics of some of the popular press, particularly those that have bent over backwards to support him, one felt that there might be a germ of something in what he said, despite the identity of the person saying it. Then he singled out The Independent for particular attack, and at once it became obvious that this was yet another exercise in tendentious Blairite axe-grinding. For The Independent has been stalwart not only in upholding a factual approach to news reporting...

torr 10.12.2005 (22.06.2007) · Read review
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Review of The Independent

Rogue traders are being watched

Advantages: tries to keep the general public informed
Disadvantages: none unless you're a rogue trader of course

...No this is not about the Nick Leeson movie starring Ewna McGregor and Anna Friel, nor is it concerning the group who gave us ?Voodoo child?, it is about a simple BBC program which brings helpful information to the general public. Although the title may sound as though this show follows some dodgy traders around whilst they go about their business of ripping people off, maybe glorifying them in some way, well let me inform you that is not? in fact it is the complete opposite. * What is it? I hear you ask. It is a fact based Consumer show which began its life on the BBC channel in 2001 and has become so popular it is now in its 7th series It is presented by Matt Allwright, an investigative journalist, and Dan Penteado, a private investigator, who travel around the UK, and even Europe, on a Honda Super Blackbird motorcycle...

blissman70 17.03.2009 · Read review
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Review of BBC 1 Rogue Traders

As independant as the next one.

Advantages: See text.
Disadvantages: See text.

...I iwould just like to write a review on independant stores, that has come from my own experiences of living in Plymouth - a city whereby its main shopping centre is almost split in to two different areas as we shall see from my writings. For those of you who are familiar with the layout of Plymouth city centre, you will know that it is laid out over two main streets that are enclosed in a main riing road system. There is a main road that runs at right angles throghout from top to bottom, from the main train railway station to the Hoe (where I must add Sir Francis Drake famously played and finished or so we think a game of bowls as the Spanish Armada were approaching). In general, the majority of the more well know shops have been on the eastern side of this road with the more independant quarter being on the western front...

dynamicnurse 15.05.2009 · Read review
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Review of Independant Stores

Independence and Interdependence

Advantages: In principle, self-determination is always desirable
Disadvantages: In practice, individual cases differ and the outcome can be problematical

...Taken literally, this proposition requires little thought and certainly doesn't merit a full review. Yes, of course Scotland should be free to declare its independence from Serbia. I am yet to hear a cogent contrary argument. It's a non-debate, and whoever dreams up "current debate" questions for Ciao should have stopped to think for a second and drafted this one more carefully. So let's not take it literally, and address two related and, I hope, more intelligible questions, even if they're not exactly what Ciao asked: 1. Does the experience of Kosovo in relation to Serbia have any lessons, either of principle or practice, for Scotland in relation to the United Kingdom? 2. Are national independence movements generally to be welcomed or deplored, or is it impossible to generalise? * * * * 1. Does the experience...

torr 11.03.2008 (30.03.2008) · Read review
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Review of Kososvo declares independence from Serbia. If Kosovo why not Scotland?

Independence for whom...?

Advantages: See text.
Disadvantages: See text.

...I would just like to add my own thoughts to that of independant schooling, if that is OK with all of you lovely Ciao people. As a person who grew up going to a state secondary school (or whatever it could be classed as now!), and becoming a nurse my views are quite on this side. I am however quite sure that there will be some people ready to slay me alive for it, but I do not really care now. As they are quite small minded people, who obviously don't really give a hoot about the opinions of others. I am not really in favour of people paying out a lot of money for their children to go to a private school, as in my mind a lot of them turn out to be people who think that they are God's gift to civilisation. Would you really want to pay out loads for education in order for them to find later on in life, that they are equally as qualified...

dynamicnurse 10.04.2009 · Read review
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Review of Member advise on independent schools

independant opinion

Advantages: a few
Disadvantages: not many

...Independance Day is a pure and simple action movie - don't expect too much from it. If you don't take the film too seriously, you will almost certainly derive at least some enjoyment from it. But 'some' isn't always enough. At the time, Independance Day's special effects were unsurpassed, but now it seems as if every other movie released has similar or even superior visuals. So, what does that leave? Not particularly much. It's not that it's a bad film, as such, it just doesn't try anything new or particularly spectacular. If you rent it rather than buy it, you probably won't be disappointed, but there is very little here to make you want to watch it more than a couple of times. A few years ago Independance Day was the film that you had to see, and after all these years I can still remember jumping out of my seat at one...

martinwright 05.06.2001 · Read review
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Review of Independence Day (DVD)

Rogue Trader

Advantages: Great story line, true life
Disadvantages: Difficult to understand

...waving, finger signals, shouting in the trading room, and this is where one of his assistants mucks up. Instead of buying a contract, she sells them. This causes a loss of £20,000. Coming up to Christmas the losses grow up to £10,000,000. Through good luck, and hard work he manages to trade of of that position and makes all that money back. Trying to recover all that money he has to recruit more people onto his books. Pierre Bo Marche is his answer. This guy is one of the biggest traders in town and the commission Nick earns off him is massive. But he hasn't made it because he's only really made a loss into a break even figure. Never the less, it shows up on the balance sheet as a profit of £10,000,000. Nick is a star, and gets to go to London to host speeches and so on. Into the New Year then, Nick gets a shock...

TheBroomCupboard 04.09.2001 · Read review
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Review of Rogue Trader (DVD)

The true fight for Independence

Advantages: great SFX, fantasic extras, some comedy aswell.
Disadvantages: zilch nadda nadda

...the virus and launch the nuclear weapon attached to the craft. Meanwhile, on earth the greatest aerial assualt in the world takes place on July 4th (Independence Day) and as they look like they are heading for defeat when the missile launched at the crafts primary weapon misses and no-one has any missles left excet for the alcoholic from the convoy. This guy was not believed from the biginning and now he has the chance to save the world, (how ironic) when his missile is left jammed he makes the most difficult decision to fly into the primary weapon himself before it is fired causing the destuction of the huge saucer. After the word is spread the ship start falling all over the world and the two who flew the craft to the mothership return to earth with a crash but unharmed. As for the extras there are quite a large selection, from...

hades2003uk 13.08.2003 · Read review
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Review of Independence Day (DVD)

Always Independent

Advantages: Readability, good journalism, excellent photography
Disadvantages: None really

...I started purchasing ‘The Independent’ regularly about 5-years ago. Before this, I had wandered between ‘The Times’ and ‘The Telegraph’. I have to say that, for me, ‘The Independent’ was a revelation providing an excellent combination of good well-researched journalism within a wide range of subjects. It is a newspaper that I feel comfortable with. To describe it as a newspaper, in my view does it little justice. Of course it has news, which it reports with accurate up to the minute copy – but it also has in depth coverage of current topics, historical features and the like, and, of course sports. One area of this newspaper that demands special mention is its photography. This stands far above the other broadsheets with photographic subjects always well defined, to the point...

croabh 17.03.2001 · Read review
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Review of The Independent