Q and Don Firth - Go back and read the opening posts on this thread and take a good look at the positions that you adopted at the outset.

Q I believe that you were all for tar-and-feathering people, according to Don it was all BP's fault.

Me? I merely pointed out that while BP was responsible it was not necessarily BP's FAULT.

Correction Don it has been a long time since BP stood for British Petroleum, yet your President persistently called them that. I think I can remember you arguing about the significance of your former President mentioning the name Saddam Hussein in sentences with references to 9/11 and the impression that created in the minds of the American public.

Q according to you BP were doing the drilling, not Transocean, it took me long enough but at least in the end I got an acknowledgement from you that you were in error and that it was Transocean who were doing the drilling. What failed was the cement job and the BOP both things controlled by American contracting service companies and they as far as can be seen have got off "Scot Free".

I do not believe Q that any of my posts have led you to believe about inherent British flaws, you have demonstrated that point of view from the outset. What I have done is to point out to both of you where you have been in error. Unlike the pair of you I have had the experience of working for the players in this drama and my personal experience of them has been that BP were by far the best of them, both Halliburton and Transocean were cowboy outfits in comparison. And please before you start wittering on about refineries and BP's safety record in the USA, remember that those operations were all former AMOCO assets, American run with American work, maintenance and safety practices, run by the same people that ran them before the take-over. Also remember companies do not cause accidents people do, in the case of the Texas Refinery the roots of the accident that happened there go back to actions taken by personnel at the plant seven years before BP took it over.

If you are going to discuss something at least get your facts right from the start.