Allioth,
On a side note, I'm currently at Stapleford and as yet not met anyone who has done or is going to do the Astraeus 737+line training, the ones that have all passed their IR recently have seemed to do to Parc MCC and then onto Ryan, with I believe good sucess, don't quote me on that but just what I've heard. However, I do believe a couple of guys did the Astraeus course and got taken on by Astraeus afterwards, so goes to show it can work.
Guess it's all horses for courses! Taking of which "beef or chicken" is a good bet in the gold cup today which is quite apt I think!
Enjoy Stapleford, good choice.. Really enjoying it there..