DaveR

I think there are relatively few people who actively subvert the system, but there is an unhealthy obsession amongst a sizeable minority with getting into "the best school", hence the endless discussions of Heber vs Goodrich vs St Johns, and the frankly insane level of competition for entry to JAGS and Alleyns at 4 y.o. However, most of the posters on the thread in the Family Room are only concerned about getting a place in an adequate i.e. non-failing school that is practical to get to. As has already been observed, both on this thread and others, the reason why so many ED parents have not ahcieved that relatively modest aspiration is Southwark's conscious decision to ignore demographic shifts within the borough.

"Comeon EDF who's met the miserable old bastard Walters or the crazy genius Syd RIP? " Both Syd and RW went to Cambridge HS for Boys, where I went years later, after it became a 6th form college. There were still a few teachers there who had taught both of them. I (together with pretty much everyone else in Cambridge in the 80s) used to see Syd around town fairly regularly.

Was someone talking about Phil Collins? My great uncle taught him to play drums.

I flew back from Singapore on an A380 last week. No different to a 747 when you're sitting inside, tbh. Except the inflight entertainment system kept crashing. It was a very long flight.

It's also worth saying that there is a significant difference between gazumping (where an offer has been made and accepted, albeit falling short of a binding contract, and one party then resiles) and selling a ticket on at a profit. I can't argue with MM's line at all - it is the only rational assessment of the situation. However, I am also a football fan, and if a fellow fan of my team with a spare ticket offered it to me for more than face value I would think they were a c%nt. I suppose the difference between that situation and a concert is that a far greater proportion of football fans have a real attachment to the club they follow and a reasonable expectation that others are the same, and that there is therefore a sense of common interest.

I think there are very few places in London where simply being out after dark puts you in danger. Using a cashpoint makes you more likely to be a victim because it is apparent that you are going to have something worth taking i.e. cash, even if only a small amount, and if the time and/or place mean there are few people around, it becomes more likely again. Having read this thread I'd think twice about using a cashpoint on LL in the early hours, even though the actual probability of being mugged is tiny. I'm certainly not going to stay at home after dark.

"It was easy to rubbish because it was rubbish, it didn't argue for anything, just attempted to poke holes in straw men." If you accept that the anti-capitalist argument is a straw man then his pint is made "For instance there is no such thing as a free market. there are import duties, and vat and health & safety and unions and laws, and unfair trading practices between rich countries and poor countries. It's a fallacy. So was finkelstein essentially advocating a free market as oppose to the regulated one we have today?" Did you read the last paragraph? "Nobody serious believes that this capitalism should be unregulated. Nobody serious believes in complete laissez faire. But nobody serious can really believe any more that there is some brilliant alternative we haven't thought of. Can they?" Because the last time anything remotely like a 'laissez fair free' market it resulted in riots in manchester and London (proper ones) and famines in Ireland and India. Plus what the hell has banking regulation got to do with allocation of resources? The article addresses the failure of anti-capitalists, and socialists of the past, to find a fair and viable alternative to an economy based essentially on market principles. Or to put it another way, that what you describe as "a legitimate philosophical and moral position" does not lead to any practical suggestions as to how a co-operative, as opposed to competitive, economy might actually work.

"the future mismanagement of greedy directors and shareholders" Which is all of us - if you have a pension, savings, or any kind of stake at all in any financial product. The Finkelstein article from the Times (which you found it so easy to rubbish) pointed out the absence of a viable alternative to market economics, and I still haven't heard any suggestions. I haven't heard anybody arguing against better regulation, but its such a lazy assumption that you can wave a magic wand and come up with a system for allocating resources that operates fairly, democratically and without being driven by profit.

says it all, really

1 x apparently domestic killing + 1 apparent gangland hit does not = pattern of violent crime gunners, my condolences for your loss.

An interesting analysis, but I would disagree on a few key points. A confrontation between govt and union power was inevitable and inevitably bloody, if it was to result in any meaningful change - the interests on both sides were too strong. The miners' strike was neither the first nor the only industrial dispute of the 70s-80s that saw violent confrontations on the picket lines (Grunwick and the 'Wapping' strike are two notable examples). I'm also not sure that relations between the citizen and the state were irrevocably damaged during this period; at one time it looked as if the police might never recover from appearing to be the tool of the Tory government but in truth I think that phase passed fairly quickly (despite the fact that industrial disputes were far from being the only outbreaks of significant public disorder during the 80s). The subsequent history of mining communities up and down the country has varied enormously up and down the country, and lots of other areas saw sudden and dramatic job losses without any associated disputes and disorder. I think you will also find that patterns of property ownership had differed between the UK and most european countries for many years before 1979 (an Englishman's home has long been his castle!), and in any event that it is a myth that overall home ownership rates are massively lower outside the UK (see here for example). It's arguable that greater mobility (and hence a higher turnover in the UK housing market) is a consequence of weaker community cohesion, rather than a cause. The sale of nationalised industries involved many previously state owned operations that were not infrastructure related (airlines, steel, freight), and the process has since been largely repeated throughout the developed world, even in countries with far stronger 'corporatist' traditions. The dreadful service provided to customers by the old state monopolies was a standing joke (and continued to be so in Italy, for example, when I lived there is the 90s). The one area where I would say it has been pretty much an unmitigated disaster is in transport. A Very British Coup is an interesting work of fiction, but a Labour Party led by Tony Benn (who was being touted in the early 80s as the man to lead Labour into the next general election) would have been unelectable, even in 1982.

Potsuali = Pozzuoli v. good pizza even better in Battipaglia, home of mozzarella di bufala

I remember getting back pissed one night to college halls and finding in the fridge a neatly wrapped packet of sandwiches thatc someone had prepared for the next day. I opened them, took a bite out of each one, then wrapped them back up again and put them back. It still makes me laugh.

I fully accept that everybody has a right to waste their own money doing whatever stupid thing they want to, and they ought not to be continually badgered about what a fool they are. If they die needlessly as a result of their own stupidity, so be it. Here's my theory. The explosion in popularity of alternative therapy is a consequence of a combination of self-obsession and high disposable incomes. A large number of people have (or until very recently had) a fair amount of spare cash after paying for necessities. Spending on therapy makes people feel good in the same basic way as buying new shoes or Ipods i.e. the sense of rewarding yourself, rather than any particular utility derived from the product. Therapy however has a special attraction because it emphasizes your sense of uniqueness ("I have particular problems/sensitivities that conventional treatments can't address"). What's more, the actual process involves a 'professional' therapist further reinforcing this message ("I have to spend a lot of time with you and design a course of treatment that is tailor-made for you). And, it's that same message that is likely to lead to any discernible positive effects - you genuinely do feel better. It's also a lot easier to defend from charges of shallow selfishness than if you are blowing loads of cash on shoes and bags* So, homeopathy can work, if you are the kind of person who wants it to, or a kid who doesn't know any better. But it is, definitely, just water. *This suggests that women are more likely to indulge in alternative therapy than men, and I have no idea whether this is generally true. I do believe though that most men don't need to go to a therapist in order to be persuaded that we are the best thing since sliced bread - we know that already. Am I right lads?

"very little true loyalty in the modern game" True, although maybe that's always been the case. From soccerhistory.org: "In 1891 the Football League had 448 registered players, most of whom were part-time or full-time professionals. The Scots, on the other hand, remained steadfastly opposed to the introduction of professionalism until 1893. The most vocal opponents to its introduction were Queen's Park and the Scottish press, who regularly described footballers who were tempted south as "base mercenaries " or "traitorous wretches"

"Well DaveR, thanks very much for ruining my life - I really do need to be bringing some money in, you realise there's a credit crunch on, right?" A bit harsh? There's obviously money to be made here - just hold your nose and dive in! If you're lucky you may get a visit from an Ascended Master.

I haven't read anything about the universal laws myself, but I did track down this review from Amazon which may be instructive: "After I read 'We The Arcturians', I bought 'The Light Shall Set You Free'. The first time I opened it, I was on a short solo camping trip to a favorite spot in the Zaleski Sate Forest near Lake Hope here in beautiful Ohio. That night, I read about 30 or 40 pages and then went to sleep. I am someone who love and uses crystals, and I had some with me that night. I set them up at the 6 corners of my hexagonal tent. I also had one hanging straight down over me from the roof supports and one around my neck. Well, that night my body was full of electricity as I was visited by 8 Ascended Masters! My dreams were all lucid as one Master after another would come to me (in the tent!) and deposit geometry into my body. Can you believe it! I tell you, this book contains very high vibrations and those vibrations are trasnsmitted into your 4 bodies (physical, mental, emotional and spiritual) when you read it, much like the channeled material of Barbara Marciniak. I recommend these books by Norma Milanovich because she has a direct link that she shares through these books. I understand she has workshops also, but a healer may want to have the reward for healing to just be the fact that she is able to do the healing and not have it be alot of money for further information installments. This same experience recurs whenever I open the book and read another chapter, another Universal Law. In any case, get this book and launch your earth-bound self to heaven as your Higher Self gets grounded here on the planet Earth... OK? It's worth the small donation to her bank account only if you believe the material as I do. It's a great journey, one of fun and amazement!"

I'll be interested to see the longer term reactions of (i) the mainstream republican political class and (ii) the wider republican/catholic community. In particular, whether McGuiness et al will weigh up the political advantages and then make sure that the police 'discover' the perpetrators of these attacks.

"Would you also be voting Tory at the next election?" Yes. Like you, MM, I'm a libertarian at heart, and the Tories are the closest we've got to a libertarian party. The fact that they appear to be less socially conservative now than before makes it an easier choice, and the disaster that is Gordon Brown makes it easier still.

from the cwasu website - "independent research....from a feminist perspective" How is that different from independent research from an independent perspective? "My bad: men don't really rape. Or when they do, it's only very occasionally and only when the woman is wearing a mini skirt." No, they do. And sometimes that gets reported to the police, and sometimes they get charged, and sometimes they get convicted. And there are hard, undisputable numbers for each of those. And there are also numbers for women who say in surveys that they have been raped, or sexually assaulted, which may or may not be reliable depending on the methodology. But all of those numbers are less than 1 in 10.

So all your stats are essentially based on one survey/one group of connected surveys? - not v. compelling.

"*Bob* Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > It's completely absurd - not to mention insulting > - to suggest that within the midst of a group of > friends who you haven't even met, that there's > guaranteed to be a swathe of abused women, > silently carrying on. Absolute bollocks. It may be unpleasant, but absurd or untrue: no." It's exactly this kind of crap which caused this debate in the first place. Lots of essentially sensible people intuitively think that the 1 in 10 stat is suspect, not least because it seems likely that included in there is conduct very different from rape or sexual assault but that is somehow caught by the definition of 'victimisation'. When people say "that stat is not reflective of my experience" they are patronised as sheltered middle class types, or else the argument falls back on the "non-reported" masses i.e. victims who are willing to take part in a survey but won't have told anyone else - kind of difficult to check. When those on the other side of the debate say "we know loads of women who have been raped or assaulted", this acquires the status of gospel. This campaign is essentially about priorities - asking people to agree that it is right to spend more money and time on this than other worthy causes - and deliberately overstating your case is not helpful.

"For me this is a very simple case of saying rape and sexual violence are common, much more common than you might think, and we need to provide better care to victims" I guess this is my issue - is rape 'common', and is it much more common than people think? These questions are genuinely difficult to answer, particularly when every survey has to distinguish between "self-defined" rape figures and those derived from (widely differing) definitions employed by whoever is running the survey. The British Crime Survey use 'force' as the key concept (unlike the criminal law where 'consent' is key) but neither 'force' nor the wider term 'sexual victimisation' are defined. These stats are deliberately presented as simple and shocking in order to persuade people that this is much more common than they think, but the stats are not simple, and do not accord with many people's experiences, and so there is a risk that it is counter-productive - just look at this thread. I would advise anyone who is minded to make generalisations about this topic to go and sit through a few rape trials - it won't be pleasant but it will give you an idea of just how difficult it is to come up with easy answers.

"Dave, I could be wrong, but I think Rosie explained the source of the figure much earlier in the thread" No, I don't think she did, other than to say this: "One in ten is a statistic that shows the likelihood of women being the victim of gender-based violence as defined by the UN" which doesn't really amswer any questions about source, reliability etc. It was Rosie who raised the issue of rape convictions and talked about the need to "educate" potential jurors - dangerous ground if you're not sure of it. As for the need for more specialist centres for victims, to be brutal this is a question of healthcare priorities - more for rape victims = less for cancer sufferers. I don't agree with many (or perhaps any) of the other critical posts on this thread but this is an area rife with dodgy stats and well-meaning but misguided campaigns. It's also inevitable that lots of men feel alienated, whether you think they should or not. There comes a point where broad brush messages just aren't helpful any more (is violence against women really an issue where there is a general lack of awareness?) and when bald stats (1 in 10) provoke disbelief rathern than sympathy.

"They are the 1 in 10 and they are out there and this campaign is about making it ok for them to come forward and giving them somewhere to go." I've been looking on the site for this campaign trying to find the evidential basis for this stat and I've had no joy as yet. My issue with this (and with lots of other campaigns unrelated to gender issues) is that there is a belief that if your cause is just enough, it doesn't matter whether your stats are reliable, or whether your message is massive simplification of a complex issue (or indeed a number of issues that are in fact only superficially related). Emotive appeals are all very well for making people feel good about public displays of concern but not particularly helpful when trying to work out, for example, what (if any) changes need to be made to the criminal justice system to increase the conviction rate in rape trials.