For me the site has been a lot slower since the silly looking new Olive Oil and Popeye bar was added across top page along with the banner.

The new over-sized (and surely way too large?) addition does not seem to move or jump around, and should not affect speed, but that seems to be the only thing that changed.

I noticed in the past 10 minutes that those horrendously annoying emoticon smileys are apparently gone, (HURRRRRRAH!) so maybe we'll see a pick up in speed?