DaveR

"by definition if a Family or individual arrives from abroad to live here and thus present themselves to their Local Council they are immediutely classified as "Homeless" and placed at the top of the waiting list with all other Homeless Families whether they were previously resident here or not" Most people arriving from abroad are not homeless when they get here - they have made plans, and that applies whether its an American investment banker taking up a rented house in Mayfair (rather fewer of those for a while I guess) or a Chinese restaurant worker dossing down with 5 others in a room in Chinatown. Getting the council to house you is not an option most people want to choose - if you claim asylum at Dover these days you're likely to end up first in a hostel somewhere and subsequently in a flat no-one else wants to live in on a housing scheme in Glasgow. The problem (in London at least) is not that 'indigenous' Brits in real need can't get housing - it's that there's not enough council housing (particularly in certain London boroughs) to give subsidised housing to people who have been priced out of their neighbourhoods. Anyway, if you are a single person working full-time can you really claim to be in 'need' of a council house? Bearing in mind that you may be able to claim housing benefit in any event, depending on your earnings.

I would normally shower in the morning anyway, so if I cycle and shower at work (in theory) it evens out because I'm taking less time to get out of the house. I reckon I take less time showering at work than at home as well. But, as others have said, it's more about freedom/control than saving lots of time. You can vary your route and your pace depending on how you're feeling. You can also save some money, but you have to resist the temptation to spend a fortune on your bike and gear - in my experience lots of cyclists really struggle with this!

Dragon Castle and Hong Kong City (Old Kent Road) really are the closest places for decent chinese Nothing surprising about horrible food from Chopstix!

I feel sorry for Spurs fans, but I can't see a quick fix. They haven't got a proper ball-winning midfielder in the whole squad nor any leadership on the pitch, and Ramos' body language makes you wonder about his ability to motivate what must be a pretty demoralised set of players.

I have certain favourite authors who I return to again and again, but if I'm going to try something new I'll often pick up something that has won/been shortlisted for a fiction prize - no guarantee you'll like it, but obviously quite a lot of people did, so worth a go. Have a look here; list of Booker prise winners and nominees.

I agree that Thai food here is nothing like in Thailand but that's hardly surprising - restaurants here have to make a living feeding Brits, the majority of whom will have very different tastes from the average Thai. The result is often food that is too sweet and too creamy, from too much coconut milk. I quite like both TCC and Sema - the food is fine, but I find the service at TCC a bit offhand, and Sema is very noisy when it's busy. Some of the best Thai food I've had in London has been in greasy spoon caffs taken over by Thais - they still do fry ups but also do curries, noodles etc. There is one in Lower Marsh Market, behind Waterloo, and one near Kings X. I haven't been to either for a few years now, but used to have lunch in both regularly. If you happen to be in Putney I would also recommend Talad Thai on Upper Richmond Road.

"There do however, on this forum, seem to be an unreasonable number of people predisposed against hypocrisy. " You say that like it's a bad thing?

Royal China at Canary Wharf is fantastic - best dim sum in London, right by the river. Along with Giraffe there is Strada and Wagamama at the South Bank Centre (not everyone's idea of good food, I know). Cafe at Tate Modern is good - busy though. Further out, The Depot in Mortlake and Tootsies in Richmond.

I've resisted jumping back in to this one, but here goes... If the worst thing you can think of to complain about is a passing fad (and it will pass) for kids and childish 'celebrities' to use the word "gay" to mean "a bit rubbish" then it kind of demonstrates how far we've come in terms of acceptance of homosexuality. If you are complaining about actual discrimination, abuse, violence etc. everybody agrees that it is wrong and should not be tolerated. If you are suggesting that prejudice against gay people is tolerated more readily than racial prejudice, I'd say that's a massive over-simplification, and using as your examples the aforementioned derogatory use of the word 'gay', and the lack of media coverage of a particular murder case doesn't really persuade me. And if you start a thread entitled "racism and homophobia" and then deny that it's about 'comparative victimhood', it's going to seem a bit disingenuous...to me, at least.

"So are you saying it's not so hard to change your sexuality?" No - read the post At the very least gay people have a choice about the ways in which, and the extent to which they express their sexuality in their everyday lives, and how and to whom they reveal it, and thereby expose themselves to prejudice.

"but as the thread started out with a gay person suggesting that persecution of gays was deemed more acceptable than racial persecutions, it then moved on to "ah but it is some people's belief that homosexuality is wrong" which surely gives ballast to people like" I don't think anyone has simply said "some people think homosexuality is wrong"; the point I have made (and which, after this post, I won't make any more) is that this thread, and James' posts on the previous thread, invite comparison between different types of prejudice in a way that I do not think is constructive. There are many 'minority' groups who could say to the world, "you've learnt how to stop hating black people, why can't you learn to stop hating us?" And many people, not just homophobes, will respond - "it's different". And like several posters above, I don't want to get into the debate about the extent to which homosexuality is the product of a free choice - suffice it's always a choice whether, for example, to go on a Gay Pride march, but it's kind of hard to change your skin colour.

Religion = lifestyle choice - James The Bible, the Koran = "some old book, written by blokes, translated by other blokes and to all intents and purposes, worthless as a guide to modern life" - Sean Mc Guys, you may be right on the money in terms of the mores of contemporary London (and again I largely agree) but several thousand years of history and most of the rest of the world suggest these can't be written off so easily. And if the racism/homophobia comparison does have any validity, what are you suggesting in practice? "institutions and the media must respect all groups if we are to have a fair and tolerant society" Apart from Chris Moyles, which institutions tolerate homophobia? I'm no expert but institutions like the police and the armed forces (which were widely seen to have been bastions of prejudice) seem to have made huge strides dealing with both racism and homophobia.

James, it's a pretty piss-poor leap from my criticism of your argument to your conclusion that I'm anti-gay, so I'm going to ignore it. "And a gay pride march is obviosuly not the same as a march by religious fanatics preaching hate and intolerance. I can't believe that you could equate the two" You believe this, and so do I, but many observant muslims (and christians for that matter) believe, entirely sincerely, both that homosexuality is a sin, and that the liberal media/establishment ignore them and/or belittle and mock their beliefs. That's the problem with comparative bigotry/tolerance - whatever you decide is 'bad' or 'worse' there will be many others who disagree. "As for evidence that low-level homophobia is ruining people's lives, this month's Attitude magazine is full of heart-breaking stories about kids bullied at school for being gay" - fine, post a link and then we can read them. "The very lack of coverage on the Liverpool gay murder compared to London gang-related stabbings shows that it's not a priority for the media." Good point, but do you think it says more about media attitudes and the way media priorities are set than about general attitudes/behaviour in wider society? All I'm saying is that if you are arguing that homophobia remains a real problem and that more could be done to address it, you may be better off (a) not constantly making allusions to racism and (b) providing some examples or evidence to back up your assertions.

James, if you want to discuss homophobia, go ahead. But the title of this thread, that you started, is "racism and homophobia" - why invite the comparison? You think that discrimination against muslims is equally wrong - but do they? If muslims complained to you that gay people get to march through london shouting out their beliefs, but when they do it they get arrested, what would you say? Particualrly if what they wanted to shout was "homosexualtity is abhorrent to God!" "Subtle, low-level homophobia is still ruining people's lives and it's not right." If you have some evidence for the first part it might be more interesting. And if it's true, who's disagreeing? "Your last remark is particularly sad, especially when I think of that teenage boy murdered in Liverpool for being gay. Shame on you" And are you suggesting that this murder is being less effectively investigated than a race-related crime would be? And do you have any evidence? That's the tenor of the thread, but I'm yet to be convinced. But apparently I'm part of the problem. Is demanding a bit of rigour in your arguments homophobic? I hope not.

There are principled and practical arguments against the proliferation of street CCTV cameras. Tne principled argument is based on (as the wired article discusses) the connection between privacy and human dignity. We all have an expectation of privacy as we go about our everyday activities, even in 'public' places - how would you feel if you knew that a camera was not just in your street, but following you as you left your house each day, observing all your movements, conversations? The presence of CCTV cameras makes this possible and leaves the discretion as to how much information, and of what type, is gathered and retained, to the operators (the initial deployment of cameras is usually subject to far greater scrutiny than their subsequent use). This sounds paranoid, but it is perfectly easy to attract suspicion without having done anything wrong. Do you ever go to football matches, on political demos, give money to animal rights campaigns, or do you have close friends who do? The practical arguments are manifold and largely obvious. The deterrent effect pushes crime out of view of cameras rather than preventing it. The chances of any specific incident being observed and usable footage obtained are slim, and the greater the number of cameras, counter-intuitively, the slimmer the chance. The more screens an operator is watching, the more chance they will miss you being mugged. The greater volume of material being obtained, the less chance it will be properly reviewed, let alone retained for any period of time. As to reassuring those described as "the timid", I think the overall net effect is zero. The appearance of cameras in a particular location both suggests that there is a problem with crime, and that it is being addressed - simultaneously worrying and reassuring. Unless you live there and know that the neighbourhood is doing fine without them, in which case it's just going to piss you off - back to you, Marmora Man.

"There was some feeling that casual homophobia is tolerated more than casual racism, with the expression "that is so gay" as a derogatory statement being tolerated in a way that a racial equivalent just wouldn't be. It's not that one type of predjudice is more offensive than the other, but how widely tolerated it is." But that exercise does involves an "offensiveness comparison", doesn't it? If homophobia is as 'bad' as racism then it should be equally deplored. But is prejudice against the disabled also as bad? How about prejudice against muslims (who are themselves not too keen on the idea of gay relationships I believe) ? This thread (and the fact that it follows from a similar recent discussion on this forum) is all about special pleading - "people don't take my particular form of victimhood seriously enough" - which in the case of homophobia is, in my view, b%llocks.

Why compare homophobia and racism, like it's a contest? Is there some kind of universal tolerance-o-meter where you fail if you're not as vocally anti-homophobic as you are anti-racist? To use the word 'gay' to mean rubbish was quite common when I was a kid, then fell out of fashion, and seems to have been resurrected by a minority of people; more to do with a pathetic attempt to be retro-cool, I suspect, than hard-core homophobia. It's like using the word 'spastic' in the same way (see other thread). Offensive to some, tiresome and childish to most people, but what are you going to do - make it a crime?

There definitely is a class action is the US which has been settled and there have been announcements in the national press inviting those affected to make a claim Whether the form you have received is a scam or not I can't say, but I would expect the US lawyers to have obtained customer details as part of the discovery process, and they will want to recruit as many claimants as possible, so it may well be genuine.

MW74, if you want guaranteed agreement/sympathy, go elsewhere. A fox died under your decking, and you found it upsetting, and felt guilty because you'd put poison down, but not very guilty because it wasn't your poison that killed the fox. So far, so blah, but this is a public forum and you can post what you want. Other people post what they think, and you start getting all unnecessary. I couldn't give a stuff about foxes, small, medium or large - are you going to start patronising me based on the number of times I've posted on here, or conduct a behind the scenes whispering campaign? Get a life.

Fox = cute, rat = vermin Fully grown animal = pest Baby animal = Bambi Poisoning/shooting/trapping fox OK, hunting fox old-style not (because you enjoy it?) Rational thought has left the building....

The number of genuine moans on here about long waits for food make it unlikely that its simply a case of unrealistic expectations. Anywhere purporting to serve decent food needs a professional kitchen operation which can knock out 80 meals without losing the plot. A couple of people have mentioned the Palmerston, and they are a good example - pretty much always full yet the kitchen delivers.

"I also understand that sometimes our service over the weekends can bit a little slow however take it from me, there is only a handful of restaurants/pubs in the area that serve fresh homemade food, cooked to order......The error we made was not to inform you that we were busy, which we were i might add (80 covers from which 60 of those were pre bookings), for this i appologies" This is the nub of it, I guess. If you set out serve fresh food cooked to order, and you have a decent size place, you have to be set up to deliver, and that means enough staff, proper organisation etc. It's not good enough to say to customers "we're busy, there will be a long wait", especially if this happens every weekend lunch time (which in my experience at The Herne it does, whether you have booked or not).

Keef - your missing book is Dead Long Enough by James Hawes Do I get a prize?

I've always found the recommendations on this website reliable, and despite the name, the hotels are not all v. cheap - some good mid-range ones too. I know its obvious, but you also need to decide where you want to stay, depending on what you want to do and the type of neighbourhood you like, particularly if you are going to be there for a week. Le Marais or Bastille would be my first choices.

"We're serious danger of becoming a feeder club to the likes of Man Utd and Liverpool. Bah!" "Who was the last player we sold to Liverpool prior to Keane? Ruddock???" It's a sign of improvement - you've actually got some players good enough to interest them. And this is not meant as a dig - every club outside the big 4 will be able to tempt any player at any other Premiership club with the offer of near guaranteed Champions League football.