Well Vox if you do measure separations as you say you do then yes you have every right but I am referring to a particular incident (without being too specific) that happened on our watch where a particular separation was measured on two aircraft with completely diverging tracks on a basis that the handover was not completely clean.(recordings were seen and it was eventually clean as soap!) At no point there was going to be a reducing separation (on the contrary). This was for me an attempt to nail someone from our side on a technicality by one particular ACC supervisor who we know well and who thinks ATC was invented downunder so he is always in the right!!! Like you said we don't really give a dead trout about how much holding there is or how much fuel is wasted, we do our jobs as efficiently as possible and helping out each other even you guys at ACC whenever possible. This means that we do not measure the spacing you give nor if there is a chance of a reduced separation. We just deal with it and thats the way it goes! I am sure most of you think the same way.