DaveR

Vieri was always going to miss the pen - it was like Baggio all over again. You have to feel a bit sorry for Fiorentina, there were long periods when Rangers didn't even try and play, so it's difficult to say the best team won. Having said that, Rangers' defence were superb - where will Cuellar be playing next season?

"We tend to do well against Ipswich in the playoffs" Everybody does well against us in the playoffs - it took us 4 goes last time, and we had a much better side than now. Like everybody else (except Baggies maybe) I really fear for us if we do go up.

Blah blah blah, real fans, rattles, woodbines, folded up newspapers for shinpads by 'eck What a load of b@llocks Back to important things - the Chamionship promotion/play-off race. Will Watford continue to lose to crap sides? Yes! Will Palace inexplicably fail to beat Burnley? Yes! Will Ipswich trounce Hull, sail through the play-offs, repeat their "miracle first season in the premier league european qualification followed by disastrous second season ignominious relegation amidst vicious in-fighting" Here's hoping. Whatever happens, will Warnock continue to be the most annoying football related w@nker on earth? Certainly

"How do you grow your own period property? Is there a kit out there somewhere?" You persuade punters that [insert name of edgy inner city neighbourhood here] is 'up and coming' and a house there is just like a house in [insert name of adjoining smug gentrified neighbourhood] but much cheaper.

They will be OK, but I would be a tw@t with 6 saucepans - hey presto, Jamie Oliver!

I think the idea of "supporting local businesses" is a strange one. Buy what you want from whoever sells it at the right price and offers you the best service - why would you do otherwise? This doesn't mean that independent retailers can't compete - just that they have to do so effectively. As an example, I buy cheese from the place in the ED Warehouse frequently, because it's really good cheese, and the service is great - they are knowledgeable about their products, friendly, they encourage you to taste etc. It's a lot more expensive than a supermarket, but it's worth it - to me. If it's worth it to enough people they will do well. I never bought anything from Booteeki or Raisin (and I have 2 kids of my own and hordes of nephews and nieces) because I didn't think their stuff was worth the money. I guess a lot of other people thought the same.

"Once there was a man selling apples. Everybody bought his apples so he put the price up. They carried on buying his apples so he put the price up some more. They still bought them. So he put them up some more to see what would happen. People still bought them. So he carried on putting them up bit by bit every day until one day people said. ?We don?t have enough money to buy your apples anymore.? .....so one of them started growing his own apples, and selling them to the others, a bit cheaper. And the first man had to sell a bit cheaper as well. And some of the people had already switched to buying pears, so to persuade them to buy apples again, they both had to sell apples cheaper still.............

I think some retailers have over-estimated the demand for luxury (read expensive) stuff. I'm surprised Booteeki lasted as long as it did.

"Well - I'm sure there were chains but nothing like nowadays. As I said there are no single-shop EA on LL now I think..." Some of the chains are franchised, so if they go broke they close, unless they can find someone else to take it on - unlikely at the moment

Re: Monty Hall, you definitely switch. Think of it this way - if you stick, you have 1 door. If you switch, you have 2 doors. There is 1/3 chance the car is behind each door, so by switching you have 2/3. The fact that one of the 2 has a booby prize doesn't change anything.

Economic +1.00 Libertarian -4.05 Looking at the international chart on the website, not one of the politicians on the libertarian side of horizontal axis. Power corrupts.....

"It does make me laugh on this forum when someone says anything about parents / prams / babies in public places, all the parents come out fighting! One must not generalise, but as Snorky says, you don't notice the nice parents so much, you notice the bloody horrible ones who think that having a baby gives them some special right to basically be a total tw@t." All the parents come out fighting precisely because, on this issue, there are so many generalised comments - witness the title of this thread! Being a parent doesn't determine whether someone is a tw@t or not, it just gives them a few extra ways of expressing it i.e. "please walk on the road, I'm coming through with an enormous pushchair". And being a parent doesn't stop you thinking that some other parents are tw@ts. Or even telling them.

It can be said, perfectly legitimately, that the effects of unplanned immigration include strain on public services, and downward pressure on wages for some jobs/trades. For example, there are sure to be some parts of the UK where some residents are genuinely worse off as a result of recent substantial immigration from Eastern Europe. The BNP trade on this by offering a simple solution - in the short term we will favour "you" (i.e. local white people) and in the long term we will make "them" (everybody else) go away. It's a horribly divisive and unpleasant message (and reveals the essentially racist nature of the organisation) but it is attractive to people who are not represented by any of the major parties, who have generally focussed on the alleged benefits to the national economy, and ignored specific local issues.

bignumber5 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > To denote a poor level of accuracy - "couldn't hit > a bulls arse with a cannon" Iused to have a FIFA Wold Cup game for the 98 cup, and it had John Motson saying "this fella couldn't hit a cow's backside with a banjo" which always made me smile Also, "couldn't find their own backside in a dark room"

Umbra = latin for shade, -ella = diminutive i.e. little (portable) shade

Hoa Viet is very good, and further afield, West Lake on Deptford High Street is even better.

I've got a renault scenic automatic (and was concerned about reliability) but it's been great - I have had 3 kids in car seats in the back, and its a squeeze, but it will be in any regular car. No significant problems, and I know a mechanic who specialises in renaults so cheap servicing etc. It is my second ex-Motability car i.e. it was previously supplied to a disabled or mobility restricted person under a govt funded scheme. These are supplied new and sold off to private dealers after three years. During the three years they are serviced/maintained by the scheme, and generally v. low mileage - my Renault at 3 years old had 15 000 on the clock.

richardfalls, I'm intrigued by your suggestion that *Bob* is a closet laydee - do you have any other evidence apart from his/her Top Trumps faux pas?

Albert Camus was also a keeper

There's been a lot of research on the issue of obedience to authority, one of the key conclusions being that support from others leads to high levels of compliance. The implications are consistent with common sense - if we educate our children to accept discipline from others, and as adults are supportive of collective discipline by other adults, kids are more likely to accept it. Easier said than done, I know, but I do regularly ask/tell other people's children to stop doing things which are clearly wrong/dangerous etc. There have been occasions when parents of said children have been a bit touchy, but frankly, I don't care - just have to be prepared to run away if things get properly nasty!

Atila, the guy in this case got a life sentence with a 12 year minimum - is it out of touch, or being a bleeding heart liberal, to suggest that might be a reasonable punishment? The tabloids will always scream "only hanging is good enough, only 12 years in prison, no second chances, the victim never got a second chance" etc. Do we hang all murderers? Or give them all a whole life sentence? The point is that judges actually have to make dispassionate decisions - what is the appropriate sentence for a truly terrible crime - and they do it regularly. Far from being out of touch, judges in the criminal courts have seen more misery, mayhem and bloodshed than any of us. Your comparison with the legal director of a finance company doesn't seem particualry relevant. citizenED is also dead right about prison - the sad thing is that for a lot of inmates, being surrounded by drugs and violence is not much of a shock - that's what they're used to on the outside.

"Truth, as ever, stranger than fiction" You know how it is - you haven't had a chance to read the paper, you get properly settled in the 'smallest room', then you notice that novel you never finished.....

"I worked for 8 years in the legal department of a very large finance company and my direct line manager was the director of legal services who was also a barrister. He was actually only a few years older than me, but his grasp on reality was wafer thin. Reason?? Born with a silverspoon in his gob, lived in a huge house somewhere near Henley on Thames, and he once told me that he felt it would be a good bonding exercise for me and my team, who were earning about ?18k each at the time, to go to Monanco for a Formula One weekend at a cost of, wait for it, ?4k each. Tenuos grasp on reality? Too f**king right." This seems a tenuous basis to comment on the criminal justice system.

"As for rule of law, I gave up on the legal system years ago and see it as an anarchic out moded system ruled by dusty old men with a tenuos grasp on reality. Most of the statutes we have are centuries old with about as much relevance as a full suit of armour." There have been more criminal justice acts in the last 30 years than in the previous 300 - whether it's done any good is another matter. The stereotype of lawyers and judges as fusty and out of touch is a convenient fiction for those who prefer trial by tabloid, but it is a fiction. And 12 years minimum does mean minimum, and then on licence and thus liable to recall for the rest of your life.

What were the grounds for refusing permission for the extension? Why are Black Cherry so sure that having the extension will make such a difference to their bottom line? Personally I couldn't care less if they close Now Inside 72, that's another matter.....