...and talking of appreciation and pay (I feel thread drift coming on...)
I was looking at my take home pay from Jan 03 and compared it with my pay for Nov 06. After nearly 4 years of slog, I am now better off by £116 per month.
So all those 'pay rises', all those exams to get promoted, all those ticks in boxes to move up a scale... Gordon gets richer whilst I have remained static.
And I concur with pba-target about the UN payments, I well remember Bosnia in the early 90's, watching the French and Dutch get their UN cash and tax breaks whilst UK bods got diddly.