DaveR

"Dave that's the point the workers are asking for more than the minimum." No, they're not. They're asking for LLW and asking others to back them on the basis that anything less is transparently inadequate and implicitly immoral. And as far as I can see, you are backing them on that basis. I don't know what current pay rates are but it has been suggested, and not contradicted, that P'house already pay more than other cinema chains which suggests they already pay more than minimum wage. I entirely respect the rights of staff to try and negotiate better terms, but it's between them and the employers, and they don't help themselves IMHO with a slightly disingenuous appeal for a boycott.

I suggest you look a bit more closely at how LLW is calculated. It takes a variety of household types e.g different numbers of earners, dependents etc. and works out living costs, then comes up with a weighted average. It is not intended to represent the minimum for any job or, more pertinently any worker.

"If you work a 36 hour week it is less than ?17,000 p/a before any deductions. Fancy living on that in an area where one bedroom flats are often ?1000 a month in rent." Is poverty wage defined as not enough to rent a one bedroom flat, by yourself, in SE22? If that is the test, you'll find precious few employers, particularly in the retail/leisure sector, who pay enough to meet the test. If the staff at Picture House want to strike for more pay, that's a matter for them. To observe that they are not poorly paid comparatively for the job they do is relevant. To suggest that the LLW is a benchmark below which any pay for any job is not just inadequate but somehow immoral is just nonsense. Equally, to suggest that the fact that a company makes profits is somehow indicative that they should inevitably pay their staff more is ludicrous. FWIW, I am in favour of decent pay because I think it is the long term interests of both businesses and wider society, and I would support a London specific increase in the minimum wage, but the ultimate judgment lies with employers. I won't be boycotting the Picturehouse.

"Like the indigenous population before them, some of the interlopers are arseholes and some of them are very nice people indeed. No one group has the monopoly on being idiotic or being great neighbours. It is just some people find it difficult to get on with their neighbours or lack the social skills, personality or temperment to do so. This isn't anything to do with how long someone has lived in an area it is do with people living in close proximity of each other." This. It's the perfect answer to about 25% of the posts on here, that basically consist of people whingeing about some ill-defined group of other people.

Any non-compulsory insurance market suffers from adverse selection - the people most likely to take it out are those who think they are likely to need it - and so doesn't offer value if you are low risk. Products like mobile phone insurance are particularly bad because it's very difficult to build pricing models that reflect risk - you can't really ask someone to tick a box saying 'are you very clumsy?'

Nothing in ED that I know of. Belgrave Harriers are a top club and operate in Battersea. This one is in Ladywell: http://www.sfactoracademy.co.uk/

Less than LLW does not = poverty wages.

Mulan. Refuses to get married off, takes her Dad's sword, runs away to join the army, defeats the Huns, saves China. Never wears a big dress but does persuade three manly soldiers to dress up as geisha types (Disney not so hot on distinguishing East Asian countries/cultures). An excellent role model. As already pointed out, most of the really princessy stories are straight remakes of ancient fairy tales, and even the Disney versions are almost antiques.

As mentioned on another thread, the rumour is that Tsunami are opening. http://www.tsunamirestaurant.co.uk/ I have no idea how likely this is to be true.

Louisa, the only person sneering is you. As always.

"Christ - are you from the colonies as well ? Where are you all coming from ? as papa smurf used to say" Why are you such a tiresome and obnoxious tw@t?

"Teachers will be pleased he's gone" Parents and pupils less so.

"There was an opportunity to put an old wrong right and reroute deliveries or reduce significantly the delivery vehicle size." This seems to me to be the nub of it. If you compare what is proposed with the current situation, it's difficut to make the case that either pressure on parking or disruption from deliveries is going to be much worse (maybe a bit worse, maybe no worse at all, but impossible to know). But if you compare what is proposed with what the immediate neighbours would ideally want the gulf is vast, but that's not how planning usually works.

vgrant, you have a fantastically casual approach to defamation.

"weirdly i would have thought that now wsa a genuine window of opportunity to do something." I can't remember who wrote that the conflict could pretty much be explained by the sentence "when I'm weak, how can I compromise, when I'm strong, why should I compromise?" I guess the black-white comment was more aimed at the moronic Chomsky quote above, but it remains the case that the Israeli 'oppressors' live in fear to a far greater extent than, for example, Brits did even at the height of PIRA activity, and that fear is reflected (and exploited) in Israeli domestic politics. Ironically, it would probably be easier to deliver some kind of workable two state solution if Israel wasn't a functioning democracy. And on the Irish comparison, the brutal truth is that the peace process was only possible because the Republicans were able to deliver real peace despite not being any closer to a united Ireland, and the elected government were able to do a deal with terrorists with little or no political fall out.

To be fair to steveo, one of the reasons that there has never been a lasting consensus in Israel in favour of a proper peace deal rather than 'security' is that there has not been a Palestinian consensus either; Hamas rocket attacks are not the first self-defeating tactic adopted by a Palestinian group who can leverage political support by being more radical than the 'sell-outs' who are doing a deal. That's been the story for the last thirty years or more, and even more so as it has become clear that no Arab state, individually or collectively, has either the will or the ability to remove the Israeli state by force (which was always Plan A, let's remember). Anybody who thinks that reading history leads to a neat black-white approach where Israel is the oppressor and the Palestinians are the helpless victims needs to read it again, if possible without moving their lips at the same time.

Is that a cloth cap or some namby-pamby middle class incomer baseball cap?

Crikey, a pretty quick jump from "it's not clear" to "it's a scam" and then "disgusting and vile" 10 seconds of googling suggests the director of the ltd company has worked for a couple of very well known charities so it might be wise to defer judgment

Regardless of the 'fag' issue, any assumption that Westminster paedophiles = public schoolboys is pretty tenuous when the MP against whom there currently appears to be the most evidence is Cyril Smith. I took it as a lazy class-based stereotype, if anything.

I don't think it's counselling you need.....

Message from Tfl - pretty much every other European country has operated largely cashless systems for years, and the world has not ended. Only 1% of fares were paid cash. Stop moaning and get on the bus.

best justice system in the world? I dunno. Most systems have strengths and weaknesses, and v difficult to judge using the criterion most people would instinctively reach for i.e. how good at convicting the guilty and acquitting the innocent. Exposed miscarriages of justice are so small in number that they don't give you a great indication. generally better now than in the past - almost certainly. Better judges (more professional, better selection and training), better rules of evidence and procedure (swings backwards and forwards between being accused of unduly favouring prosecution and defence but overall reasonably well-balanced and sensible) and better juries (this is necessarily a bit speculative, but if people in general are more open-minded and fairer than in the past, and I think that they are, that probably translates to juries) re Rolf, there's no rule that says someone can't be convicted on the uncorroborated evidence of a single witness, and as already observed, in his case there were lots of witnesses who appeared to be reasonably consistent in what they described. If witnesses have been or expect to be paid or otherwise make money as a result of giving evidence or the outcome of the trial that has to be disclosed e.g. if someone has sold their story. A speculative hope for future compensation is a bit different but still fair game for cross-examination (but a high risk strategy)

Bells and Potter Perrin in Streatham. PP have a wider selection in the shop but both can order in practically anything and are good for advice.

SJ, I know some of the lawyers involved and know most of the others by reputation, and although I don't know the judge I know the type pretty well. More importantly, I don't understand the narrative of any corruption/conspiracy story. The fact Brooks counsel was from DC's brother's set just doesn't take you anywhere - it was his job to get her off, and he did. What could DC do - ask him to try harder? Plus, everything that happened in the trial happened in public, in the presence of a whole load of journos who would be on to any hint of irregularity like a shot. Even if I put my most cynical hat on, if you want to fix a criminal trial the people you nobble are the cops, maybe the cps, not the barrister.

It's a pretty tenuous connection to government - A Cameron has been at the Bar for 25 years and there's never been any suggestion that he has any political leaning, and the idea that it might influence a member of his chambers is completely unrealistic. Being head of chambers is not like being someone's boss (tbh it's a thankless task). And still no indication of what the suspicion of corruption is? It's not a suspicion that's been aired publicly by anyone as far as I can see, probably because there are zero grounds