On an unrelated point, I'm seriously concerned about the use of "underfire" as a one-word adjective.

You're so right. With easier firing and hiring, and corporations regularly taking steps to minimise their employee rolls, those lucky enough to have jobs can be confident of a steadily rising real income level. It's worked beautifully in the US, after all, hasn't it? What? Oh.

Surely, though, if they'd just come from work at A&F, they'd have had no shirts on at all?

Sorry, you guys are probably trying to talk about this seriously, aintcha.

This is silly stuff. The provision of improved fertility control to the developing world is a win-win: carbon emissions are reduced, benefitting the rich world, and infant mortality reduced. That doesn't mean compulsory population control would be justified, of course: but this is a straw man of Summerisle proportions. No-one is seriously proposing it. But where contraception and maternal healthcare are provided, and where child healthcare is of a high enough standard that parents feel confident their children will live, the birth rate falls. In Bangladesh, for example, we've seen how women's employment is directly correlated to women choosing to have fewer children. Poor people <i>want</i> to have fewer children; they just have to have access to contraception, and to feel confident the ones they do have will live to look after them in old age.

Thanks mystery helper! I'm doing 30 sit-ups a morning, I'm not sure they're making any difference, I should probably try to up the number. Danger zones is definitely something I'm working on.