mockney piers

Could you catch a honey monster with it? I bet its pelt fetches a pretty penny on the black market!!

Hmm, "the case for alarm is grossly overstated". Not very reassuring really. Plus far too many retired types, US Navy types, Broadcasters (?) and a very brief random poll of the professors found two economists and an oceanographer.

The clown toy in Poltergeist I found scary, never found the one in It remotely scary though. Noseybonk, now he was terrifying and deeply disturbing!!

A quick point, I'm not sure about all the state channels mentioned, but certainly RAI and TVE have editorial policy dictated to them by the government of the day, and don't have the Beeb's much jealously admired independence. Of course this government has managed to pull the teeth out of that independence (like so many other civil liberties) to a certain extent using inquiries, bullying tactics and political pressure, but at least it has never managed to garner control over editorial policy. And apologies for the cheap political point Huguenot.

have a look back at that screen, does it now show a hexadecimal password? I've noticed on my netgear that anyone connecting without a netgear dongle has to put in the whole hexadecimal password rather than the user firendly one.

Just about every asian kid I went to school with was a Ugandan emigre. Definitely one of his stupider moves. Very reminiscent of the expulsion of the jews in Spain in 1492 as it goes. Most moved to Naples, Portugal and Ottoman Empire where they served well as administrators, money lenders, artisans and even munitions manufacturers in their imperial rivalries...smart move!!

Could not Africa take care of its own though? Tanzania got rid of Amin after all (ok, he did attack them, but still a precedent).

I'm with you. When Railtrack decided that injury and death compensation was cheaper than an expensive new signalling system installed at Paddington prior to that accident thanks to the notorious signal that had been passed 8 times, then someone should have gone to prison. I just think there's a difference between that and a tragedy due to a whole series of fuck-ups, and poor responses to it. That should be for a court to decide however I guess, rather than my opinion or a inquiry/whitewash.

It's what my friend Andy did to his neighbour when he (err the neighbour) was being an insufferable, antisocial menace. Cut off his broadband in one fell swoop (well, wireless anyway). And seriously *Bob*, it would only take one hacker to use your network or one pervert to download some child pornography for the rozzers to be at your door, leave alone the more realistic issue that most broadband packages are capped at a surprisingly low rate, and a few episodes of Eastenders on iPlayer later and your neighbour (or you) is whacked with a ?100 surcharge bill. I don't want to be all boring and everything but theft is theft.

I'm kind of with you Keef. There were so many factors in to the awful events of that day, and perhaps in a perfect world there may be personal liabilities that could be identified, but it mostly seems to me they were large scale organisational mistakes. There clearly were lessons to be learnt and changes to be made across a broad spectrum of organisations and personal behaviours and things have improved. I'd say to the point where stadiums needn't be all-seater anymore. Often following any sort of tragedy there's a cry for answers and blame. Some of it must help the grieving process and there may be some catharsis involved also. But there isn't always someone (specifically) to blame, sadly bad things happen. Was the Herald of Free Enterprise commercial liability or did experienced sailors just make a mistake with tragic consequences? But I can't help feeling that the search for answers or blame can often be counter-productive, and two decades down the line nobbling a copper who misguidedly turned away an ambulance, I can't believe will do anyone any good, and as you say, it won't bring anybody back. But thank god this has never happened again, at least not in this country.

amazes me that people still leave their networks unsecured. By default netgears are on: http://192.168.0.1 username: admin password: password to get on them. Just change the admin password and change their login password. Only if you don't like them of course!

Gah suddenly remembered, I saw Bonnie Langford in panto this crimbo and she was smoking, I kid you not!

Ooh. I was at terminal 3 Heathrow yesterday awaiting the return of missus mockers when who should come striding through the arrival doors, looking something like a cross between Noel Cowerd and a St Bernard, but the selfsame small-door Se?or Portillo himself!!! He cut something of a dash I must say. and he really was dressed something like this...

I'd have thought paying people to look after children is perfectly acceptable. Paying people to rear them strikes me as a dereliction of parental responsibility. See also Madonna...

My dad has admitted that he occasionally felt imminent physical violence from me, something he never really felt from my older brother despite a couple of handbags shovings they had (they had a more turbulent relationship on the whole than us), and he admitted that he on several occasions fucked with my head to see how far he could push me and on two occasions he knew he had to leave the room rather than take a punch to the face (when I was about 17), but then my dad could be a bit of a wanker frankly!! At 78 he still likes to goad, and will still belittle my brother from time to time with barbed comments. My brother and I have oft reflected that we learnt as much about what not to do as what to do re parenting from our dad. As Philip Larkin said...

I'm with you Brendan, but if people really don't like it I'm happy not to insist. Just don't take oik from me, it's one of my favourite words.

cheeky oik!!

I'm willing to concede that if people find it offensive and sneering (and doubtless it is often used with either or both intents) then I'm not going to pursue it's liberation as a cause. But I always took chav to be a certain attitude, regardless of class; god knows in Letchworth town centre of a saturday afternoon it's just as likely to be middle class kids called Timmy hanging around with their hoodies up and their trousers practically down, flobbing on the ground and intimidating little old ladies than the lads from the Jackman's estate, most of whom have better things to do like jobs and the like. In my day we called them wallies. How about oik, is that ok?

Apologise that my point was so obvious it didn't require stating, as a non-parent I shall butt out this thread as clearly out of my depth *retires and licks wounds from non-violent disciplining*

Indeed, indeed. Still, I did enjoy seeing Simon Cowell briefly lost for words!

"MP - you are assuming that the children you see on TV behave that way because they lack physical discipline" Actually I wasn't arguing anything there about discipline, more that as wonderful as love and encouragement are, it should be tempered by a reality check. You can't just give unconditional positive affirmation otherwise they end up with unrealistic self image and expectations of life. Discipline is also necessary, but as I said attempts at physical discipline on myself achieved nothing and were abandoned immediately. "because their parents have no moral code" That's a bit harsh. They were mouthy, but I don't think they were necessarily bad kids, I suspect their parents weren't very polite, but immoral or amoral is somewhat pushing it. Mind you on reflection I had pretty good parents who were good examples with a strong moral code, that didn't stop me from being a pyromaniac little oik who drunk and took drugs from a pretty early age, and it didn't really do too much harm, I'm mostly a pretty normal member of society.

probably ad nauseum

I hate myself but did anyone catch Britain's got Talent? It was my first and will remain my only experience, however there was an interesting moment when 2 youngsters (15-16ish) did a dance routine that they'd sorted down the youth centre of their estate. Now I'm all for encouragement and keeping kids out of trouble, but there needs to be some sort of realism with encouragement. These kids had obviously been praised to the point where they thought they were good (and believe me they were dreadful) and reacted rather mouthily to the judges, actually they rejected the notion that they weren't good enough, it was the world's issue, not theirs (Dulwichdoll springs to mind). Not entirely sure where I'm going with this, but as wonderful as love and encouragement are, alone they don't prepare anyone for the harsh realities of the world. Now this should in now way condone a good slap, and until I do have kids it's tough to say where I stand, as some level of discipline I think must be necessary. From my own experience Dad's anger was terrifying in it's own right though he would never be violent with it. He did briefly experiment with a slap to the hand with a ruler but gave up when it was obvious that it was in no way a deterrent as revealed by the surprised "is that it?" look and smug grins on mine and my brother's faces with the realisation that that was all we got for our naughtiness and avoided nasty punishment like loss of tv/video game rights etc.

Alberto Iglesias (Albert Churches, great name, no relation to Julian Churches as far as I know) soundtrack to Hable con Ella, sublime. I noticed when shuffle was on that I thought iPod was going mad when what was obviously a Bon Iver song came on, but it claimed it was Dinosaur Jr - I Got Lost, only to realise it was said song. I can only assume Bon Iver really liked that song!!!

I do worry when police bend the truth and use bullying and their 'authority' to achieve their ends, it must be the thin end of the wedge surely. Breaking the law by being on the concourse without a ticket? Absolutely ridiculous. Another example of officiousness masked by lies and half truths, celebrated incident of PCSO trying to stop someone filming. http://current.com/items/88856223/you_can_t_picture_this.htm