mockney piers

Although apparently the rumours of Peterborough kicking off are unfounded. :-/

In the actual rolling news this was highlighted, which I thought was absolutely delicious. "Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast urged the British government to order the police to stop their violent confrontation with the people, IRNA reported in the early hours of Tuesday. Mehmanparast asked the British government to start dialogue with the protesters and to listen to their demands in order to calm the situation down. The Iranian official also asked independent human rights organisations to investigate the killing [of Mark Duggan] in order to protect the civil rights and civil liberties ..."

My son's at the same place, surely a place with only size 1 trainers must be as safe as you get. Are trains still running to DH?

There are a billion things contributing to our currents states of affairs, X Factor has definitely played its part however small. There are some truths in those french opinions like the dehumanising effect of globalisation, how that is in any way shape or form peculiarly anglo-saxon is just bollox though.

Short term Magpie >> 1) Immediate and robust police prescence to stamp out the rioting Absolutely >> 2) Zero tolerance of low level crime (by all) I like the sound of that, its one of those things that always plays well to the gallery, the corollary of course being what do you do with them. Our prisons are already full, we can't afford lots more of them, and the culture responsible for the looting actually deems time inside as a badge of honour, so that ship has sailed. >> 3) Investment in schools/training/etc with a focus on discipline, and it sounds glibs but also extra-curricular activities - sport and music keep teenagers focused. Why glib? I quite agree, but there's years of effort to be done to erode a culture that belittles education and believes there are no prospects anyway. This is spot on, but its for the long haul and must be a genuine policy of real investment, not papering over the cracks or appearing to be fulfil a manifesto promise whilst spending the least amount possible to do so. >> 4) Benefit overhaul - need to break benefit dependency culture And we've heard this time after time for 30 years too and I'm still not sure what it's supposed to mean. In practice it means tinkering with the system at little gain but often high cost, doing nothing to decrease dependence but making damn sure there is little dignity left in anyone stick in the situation. I suspect what you mean is wholesale benefit removal, this will certainly break dependence. Hell it may just break the gordian knot, but I doubt it. Noones found an answer to this, I'd be interested to hear if you have suggestions rather than repeating an electoral soundbite. BUt hell, at least you're suggesting things Magpie, better than sherwick's knee-jerk tedium.

damn, I thought this was going to be organising a looting free-for-all!!

Jeremy, you can click on what I thought were teepees (apparently they are fires) for a description, someone got attacked and more roving youths as far as i could tell. I don't think anyone connecting this with the cuts is suggesting there's a political motive. I think the implication is that 30 odd years of neglecting those at the margins of society and particularly demonising our chlidren, I think feral is the preferred term, that we have created an disenfranchised underclass, those services were barely even a sticking plaster, but that the savage cuts have removed even that. Throw in wider unrest, economic doom on our screens every night for three years now, double dip recession, US downgrade, wars, famines and things look a little odd. Now throw in tensions and a localised riot and this lot have thought 'hell we can do that because it looks like we can, fuck you yeahhhh fun', this is just the blindingly obvious, if tragically depressing upshot of how our society is predicated. It isn't the fault the coalition (im with Brendan, I think labour have much more responsibility for this), they may well have been the straw that broke the camels back though. Those denying any political aspect (with a small p) or saying 'not the cuts, they are necessary' are utterly blinkered if you ask me.

quite brendan, quite. Anyway, this is quite a neat map of last night's trouble http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=207192798388318292131.0004aa01af6748773e8f7 Looks like my house was a little oasis of tranquillity.

to be honest if he was in london he'd appear before the testicle to do some soundbite about how marvellous the police are then retire to some posh club to drink martinis and tousle his hair.

So far LD's analytical thinking seems to have stretched to 'tomatoes are red, fire engines are red, fire engines are tomatoes'. Not really worth pursuing or countering. Like Santerme says, have a little patience, the truth will out. It strikes me that there are a number of strands to this sorry tale. The looters is a red herring, low lives and cynical opportunists, always take advantage of this sort of situation for personal gain. The shooting. Once we look past the ins and outs of the immediate incident we seem to have two things to really consider, why it doesn't seem non-sequitur to many of the locals interviewed that a 'good man' would of course carry a weapon for protection, and why the same community feels that recourse to the police is simply not an option. Police harassment/brutality. The met has changed immeasurably over the last 20 years, especially in terms of race sensitivity and relations, yet problems persist, stop and search is still both routine and seemingly arbitrary and still causes tension*. On the other side of the coin, met moral is at an all time low, the police seem not to be able to do anything about drugs on the streets and the concomitant violence. Social tensions; as stated by some unemployment is rising, yet with an increase of disenfranchisement there have been swingeing cuts to social services, outreach, youth work and youth clubs with a resultant increase in gang activity and simmering social tensions. Simmering things do often boil over. Whether or not one agrees with the cuts and I make no judgement here, there were a million warnings from analysts, commentators, politicians and most importantly those on the ground that this sort of thing was an inevitability, and so it has proven.....again..... *I should add that I think race here is also largely a red-herring and it's more to do with the attitude of the police to youth in the area rather than to colour.

spooky, not that we've ever cross-posted before ;)

I quite like Simply Indian on Tabard St. It's small and friendly and the food passes muster, but the ace up the sleeve is it's a BYO, but both they and the Royal Oak (one of my favourite pubs in the area) are happy for you to buy pints there and bring them over.

there are a couple of such apps for android as well. 'Star Chart' is really nice.

proactive policing == shooting people? Wow, are you working in the newspeak department?

Oh well, start the season as we mean to go on. To be fair, though a pretty uninspiring affair we were the better team through much of the game and squandered a few chances. The goal was pure west ham dna defending, we'll let in a shed load of those in any season, it's ok as long as we're scoring. I though Piquione looked a bit isolated and there was evidence of a few long balls and iffy challenges, I hope that isn't Big Sam dna taking root.

Also why the right turn only onto champion park, a bit weird that one.

Episodes, yep that was good.

I think you're describing a supernova. I don't think it would happen that quickly as the matter would be visible for quite some time (days to weeks). In fact had a quick swizz on Nasa to see if there have been any recent ones, and there have been but not visible as described by you, in fact one of them was detected 400 years after one bright enough to be seen by the naked eye did occur. Was there a distant house on a dark cliff that looked like it was in the sky where there was a lad playing with a dimmer switch in one of the rooms perhaps?

Have you seen the lady with the air piano, a sort of modern take on the theramin? I read an interview with her where she made it sound really cool, and then watched the video on youtube. I wanted to like it, I really did, but oh deary me, what a load of cock.

My favourite is the Dinosaur park in Crystal Palace. That's *my* favourite mind...

I'm with you HB, though I did get sucked into House as it avoids the usual medical drama cliches, just sets up its own to follow slavishly and formulaically every episode. It's also quite funny.

get home, play with child whilst cooking, feed child, get annoyed by child refusing to eat, play some more, check on cooking, give up on child's dinner, throw away wasted lovingly prepared child meal, put child to bed, serve food, get complaining child up, allow him to eat most of my dinner, put child to bed again, watch an hours drama whilst collapsed on sofa, go to bed. Rinse and repeat five times, add a bottle of wine into the mix on the fifth night, add bathing the child every third night. Sometimes if full of beans manage 10 minutes on xbox just before bed. I may have to join quids down the slippers shop.

Are we really indulging this? How come we are forced to sit through tedious safety demonstrations on flights, but I notice birds taking off all the time without so much as a health and safety certificate...I mean it's one rule for them and another for us....it's about oil I tell ya!!

I remember once when a lady had a fit and a small crowd gathered to try and help/gawp. A smart dressed man pulled out an impressive looking cell phone (yes it was that long ago) and loudly described the situation to his mate. When someone pointed out that he might perhaps better spend his time and energy ringing the emergency services he had to confess that it was in fact a fake phone and he was in fact a bit of a wanker. Anyway, maybe there's a lesson for us all there about decoys or something....perhaps filled with explosives and a receiver, but I'm sure that would be an irresponsible, if satisfying, solution.