Marmora Man

Santerme Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I expect a Trafalgar class submarine is sailing > South as we debate, with a load of Spearfish > torpedoes and Tomahawk missiles, it kind of tips > the balance Tho' to date there have been no leaks or rumours to that effect. For a submarine threat to be effective you need your opponent to believe there is one, or more, submarines in the vicinity. During the Falklands war the submarine threat to Argentinian ships was magnified by judicious rumours when in fact at leSt one of the suspects submarines was 8,000 miles away looking at an entirely different problem.

The Turkish Quarter ( Marmora / Scutari / Mundania / Therapia) suffers badly from irresponsible owners and dog shit. I would welcome positive action from Council / EDF and the wider community to encourage greater awareness of the problem and action.

I went to see Midsummer's Night DReam last night at the Rose THeatre Kingston. The theatre opened about 2 years ago - it was built with minimal public funding (from Kingston Council), which could be seen as pump priming money, and much private funding. It now runs with no Arts Council subsidy and relies totally on the generosity of its sponsors, patrons and fee paying attendees. It has delivered some outstanding shows and the current production of Midsummer's Night Dream is sublime - proving that when led by a charismatic director and backed by enthusiastic, driven supporters "art" can flourish without full time public funding. For those able to get tickets (it's almost a sell out) I cannot recommend it highly enough. Certainly the best MSND I've ever seen and one of the best Shakespearean productions of my lifetime - up there with Anthony Sher as Richard III, ADrian Lester as Henry V, Simon Russell Beale as Hamlet and as Benedinck - except that this was an ensemble production, admittedly with Judi Dench as Titania, but she is part of troupe of strolling players not the star of the show. The "rude mechanical's play within a play was the funniest I have ever seen, with the actor playing Bottom enjoying himself immensely and taking the whole audience with him. Rachel Stirling as Helena was great and all other players first class. I would expect to see the young, and relatively unknown, cast members in lights within ten years as leading actors of their generation.

Huguenot Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > True MM. > > Then you've got Shelley who was a spoilt rich kid > who pretended to be a skint because he thought it > made him more real. > > Maybe that's what we should lay at the Arts > establishment? Sell them the benefits of a cut in > funding for the sake of a gritty realism? Would be an interesting debate.

Hugenot, I too support Sean's general thesis that art is important. I'm less convinced that publicly funding of art is important. I did make the point that through history art had been created by impoverished artists or wealthy dilettantes, some supported by wealthy patrons. Off hand I would suggest that Van Gogh, Constable, Mozart, Gauguin, Pissarro and John Kennedy Toole fit the impoverished and unsupported mould - while Piccaso, Michelangelo, Henry Moore and others had the advantage of wealthy patrons - there will many others that fall into each camp - making my broad point broadly true. However, I'm glad you agree that there's no special case to be made for ring fencing public funding of art.

Jeremy Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > anna_r Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > Is the food good? > > Yep! Seconded - mushy peas as an extra recommended

I have heard that Anatolia, the former Turkish restaurant on Forest Hill Road, is to become an off shoot of the Sea Cow fish & chip shop brand. Can anyone confirm? If so - with Si Mangia, Omrith and perhaps a Sea Cow all within 200 yards does this make Forest Hill Road a mini foodie destination?

But Sean, is "ART" so special that it deserves unique status when considering the hierarchy of public spending cuts? If all subsidies were cut from new and aspiring artists you would still have the wealth of millennia available to see, read. listen or consider. If the new and aspiring artist is truly committed and passionate he / she would find a way to create his / her art regardless of public spending cuts.

plimsoul Wrote: however, clearly, if one does not feel that art plays an important part in our society then there's not much that can be argued to change said mind. Plimsoul: As the OP let me restate the question - given imminent cuts in public funding should arts funding be ring fenced and protected or should they take an equivalent or greater cut as the rest of public spending? I consider art plays an important part in my life and any life - literature particularly, but also the theatre (subsidised and non subsidised), museums, art galleries, exhibitions and cinema. Nevertheless - health, education, the police force, defence, science are also important and they too will be taking cuts.

in the late 60's when I went to a grammar school there was at least one grammar in every catchment area - often two (one boys and one girls) and occasionally more. In addition it was common practice for children to move from Grammar, to Technical or Secondary Modern and vice versa at ages 13 and 16 if heir current schooling didn't suit them. This meant that for any catchment area there was a comprehensive system available - albeit based over a number of different sites. Flexibility was the key - and it worked, allowing movement between schools and different types of learning / teaching. The reduction in the number of grammar schools - a politically driven decision rather than one based on research - and the creation of "lump everyone together" comprehensives that don't always deliver good teaching has had an entirely predictable result - competition for those schools that can provide high quality teaching and good outcomes. Regrettably turning the clock back is impossible - so for the future what can be done? I suggest the answer lies in good streaming, a return to the idea that teachers know best (not central government or local education authorities) returning management of schools and school curricula to the head master / mistress together with an improvement in both pay and status of good teachers. Unfortunately to achieve a real turnaround would require at least 10 years and few, if any, politicians are prepared to wait that long. PS: I scored 100% in the Dispatches maths test in 7 minutes. edited to adjust dates

Letter In a letter to the Times on Saturday 13th Feb a number of artists and others argued that public funding of the arts was essential stating that ?The arts should be at the heart of government social and economic policy. The arts are neither luxury nor sideshow. They are fundamental elements of an open, free and healthy Britain? As my headmaster used to say ?discuss? I take an opposite view to that set out in the letter. Great, and lesser, art can be created without public funding ? it can be argued that lack of easy subsidy acts as a necessary filter to ensure true passion and commitment on the part of the artist. Throughout most of history art has either been the province of struggling, poverty stricken, artists in actual, or metaphorical, garrets, occasional wealthy dilettantes ? or has been heavily subsidised by wealthy sponsors. Only in the last 50 years has significant public funding become the norm. With real pressure on all public spending it is impossible to argue sensibly for the arts not to take their share of any cuts. I would go further and argue for arts funding to take a higher share, proportionately, of any cuts ? not to zero but to a point where the many arts associated quangos have to be reviewed seriously and the quality of the art being subsidised becomes a major criterion.

I have no idea how you might access info you seek - but the BMA may have information. You seem to have an "agenda" - have you or one of your family been affected by a decision or decisions made by a possibly tired doctor? I think you overestimate the impact of long working hours. 1 in 15 doesn't seem to be a significantly higher figure than alcohol and other substance dependence in the wider population. In my own experience at sea I routinely worked a 90+ hour week for up to three months at a time - then a 5 week break, working a 40 - 60 hour week for three of the weeks and a two week holiday then back to sea and long hours again. I learnt to get by on 4 hours sleep a day with occasional 30 / 45 min cat naps as well. I was probably performing at 95% optimum but I could do that for weeks on end - I'm sure junior doctors did the same. Remember they are supervised and have access to other, more senior, rested and experienced consultants.

I bought my son a net book to replace his broken laptop. ?230 from PC World (they have some trade in deals at present that might be worth a look too) - does all you ask Ratty and more but has no DVD drive - tho if needed peripherals can be added. Upsides, light, cheap and very portable. Downside - small"ish" screen.

TE44 - have you read the Book Outliers? In it the author suggests that any skill requires 10,000 hours of practice. The skill could be violin playing, ice hockey, cricket or surgery. I have worked in / around health for 18 years. Prior to the imposition of the 48 hour working time directive junior doctors (now known as Foundation 1 & 2 doctors) would routinely work 65 hours a week or more under the supervision of more senior and experienced doctors. This gave them real direct experience of a very wide range of symptoms and medical problems. Coincidently this meant that their three years of training gave them about 10,000 hours of practical experience. The supervision meant that the risk of errors were detected, controlled and minimised. The acknowledged tiredness that junior doctors experienced meant that they became used to making accurate diagnoses under pressure and stress - something to be appreciated when they are dealing with a major medical incident in the middle of the night. They would then move on to specialised training as surgeons, physicians etc in one of many sub specialties, again supervised by senior practitioners - and again clocking up about 10,000 hours of practical experience before gaining "Consultant" status that meant they have been tested by exam and peer review as ready to practice unsupervised as a doctor. Reducing the hours that junior / training doctors can put in directly affects their knowledge and skills base. There are two options: a. Increase the training time to give them that experience but this would require a massive expansion in the number of doctors if patient care isn't to be compromised. The NHS cannot / will not fund this. b. Accept that, in the future, doctors will have less experience than in the past. This is the route that gov't and the NHS have chosen. It is also why the Medical Royal Colleges - established to develop and improve the quality of doctors are complaining and campaigning for opt outs. I support the Royal College of Surgeons and others in their campaign - there is no doubt that patient care and medical cover has been and is being compromised in order to meet the European Working TIme Directive (EWTD) - also that the EWTD is being flouted, with implicit consent of hospital management, to ensure patients do receive the care and cover they need.

In 2008 / 09 there were approximately 16 million patient episodes - of which 5 million were daycase treatments. This does not include GP episodes - which will be significant. SOURCE NHS Information Centre. TE44 suggests there were 10,000 cases of negligence in 08/09. As a rough proportion this equates to 0.05% error rate. Which is pretty good in an organisation that relies heavily on humans and is therefore subject to human error. ?769 million represents less than 1% of the NHS budget - others will have a view as to whether this represents value for money or not. For me it seems about right - it would cost a lot more than ?769m to reduce the already tiny error rate in any substantial fashion.

Over recent years there has been a growing tendency to commemorate deaths, particularly deaths by traffic accidents, with informal roadside shrines and flowers. In the immediate aftermath creating such a impromptu shrine is understandable - tho' maybe not to everyone's taste. Churchyards and cemeteries are more conventional places for permanent memorials. The one's I spot most often are on Grove Vale, there's another near Victoria, 2 on the A2 on the way to Dartford Bridge and I spotted another in Cornwall this weekend. The most recent is on East Dulwich Road following the tragic accident two weeks ago. Question - how long should such informal and impromptu memorials be allowed to remain? I instinctively abhor unnecessary rules and legislation but there comes a point when the shrine is are way past its prime and guidance might help both the council and relatives - withered flowers, fading photos, tattered football scarves, waterstained cards and letters do not inspire and surely do little for grieving relatives and friends. I am sure local councils are reluctant to "tidy up" for fear of offending relatives and friends but doing nothing at all isn't sensible either. Is four weeks too short a period, perhaps six months is too long - what would be about right?

As far as I know as long as you touch in and out on all train services there's no need for any complicated extension. My Oyster Card isn't for any specific zones it's just for use on relevant transport systems. EG: Today I used my Oyster card from Herne Hill to Victoria this morning - which is not a usual journey but I had just taken the car in for a service nearby. I "activated" the card at a card reader near the station entrance (hard to find but eventually located it) and validated the journey by touching the card reader at Victoria. Cost ?2.10 for a single journey pre 09.30 - which was less than a single would have cost otherwise (about ?2.80 I think).

While the boundary changes are considered to have an impact in ?giving? the Conservatives more seats than they would otherwise win under the old boundaries ? it doesn?t go anywhere near far enough (and probably couldn?t) in addressing the current built in bias toward Labour. This is not the result of some sinister plot or deal but down to the geographical distribution of seats, numbers of actual voters and reflects history, geography and a tendency for people to move out of inner city areas if they become more successful / well to do. In 2005, Labour took 56% of the seats with 36% of votes cast, the Conservatives took 32% of seats with 33% of votes cast and the Liberal Democrats took 10% of seats with 23% of votes cast. So broadly the ?old constituencies? appear fair to Conservatives, biased toward Labour and unfair to Lib Dems. When Conservatives or Lib Dems win seats they tend to have large majorities ? which could be considered as wasted votes. Where Labour win they tend to have smaller majorities spread over a larger number of constituencies ? more efficient distribution of voters gives them the majority of seats. In 2005 Labour won a seat for roughly every 28,000 votes cast in its favour, the ratio for the Conservatives was 42,000 and 110,000 for Lib Dems. It will be interesting to see what the ratios are after May 6. For the Conservatives to win big at the 2010 General Election will require a very improved turnout of Tories in the tighter constituencies currently held by Labour (possible) and a collapse of the Labour vote (probable) but unless the overall swing in key marginals is over 10% a hung parliament is a real possibility; a 5% swing to Conservatives would only bring about a balanced outcome with roughly 45% Labour seats, 45% Conservative seats and 10% Lib Dems.

???? Wrote: In terms of governemnts, the 3 most Radical since the war > > Atlee's - nationalisation, the full welfare state, > creation of NHS > Wilson's - the great Social reforms of the 60s all > progressive on abortion, death penalty, divorce > and homosexuality > Thatcher's - privatisation, freemarkets, reform of > dinosaur Unions And two of the three could genuinely be called progressive in that they moved the country and political thinking from one paradigm to another - and, I would argue, to a better place - the Wilson Government and the Thatcher Government. The Attlee Government replaced the "old" paternalistic approach of society with a paternalistic government - reducing personal responsibility and increasing government responsibility. Many of the Attlee reforms have been watered down to the point where they are unrecognisable - except, unfortunately, Government sponsored paternalism.

Thanks Mockney for a rational response. T'other responses don't even begin to respond to the question. Hugenot has made some predictable stabs, but they are based on assumptions of my position not the thesis posited. TomChance makes some similar assumptions but does, at least in his final paragraph, contribute. I'd happily debate the points they make on another thread - but that wasn't the focus of my question I suppose my thinking is: a. Policies labelled as progressive seem to involve continual change. b. Continual change isn't necessarily a good thing c. I fear that progressive policies and politicians tend to be based upon unsustainable optimism rather than thoughtful analysis. The three examples I gave were not meant to represent any particular political stance - they were presented to illustrate that what started out as a good idea can, at least in some people's opinion, turn into something less good if no brakes are applied, no post implementation review carried out and instead continual change, always moving away from the original status quo, is adopted. So my original question becomes "are progressive policies necessarily a good thing?"

Why is the word progressive invariably used as a positive? Gordon Bown insists Labour can win the next election "by showing we are the progressive party", David Cameron says he has a "progressive reform plan for Europe" and Nick Clegg says ?the Lib Dems are the progressive party now?. All use it to burnish their credentials as politicians for the future. Progress implies a journey toward an end point. Progressive seems to imply a continual, never ending journey, a perpetual revolution perhaps? Change and challenge are an intrisic part of human endeavour. Childen challenge patents, new political ideas challenge old, new products, services, systems and tools overtake and replace the old. Such challenge and change has, historically, been ameliorated by (small c) conservatism that kept the pace appropriate and acceptable - preventing swift irreversible shocks to society. I am not sure that progressive politicians, of all hues, recognise this. Britain signed up for significant change in the late 40s with the creation of the welfare state - but many of that generation would be appalled at how the progressive changes to the concept have brought UK to a position where over a third a of all families rely upon tax credits. In the 70s many voted to join the Common Market - a free trading economic union. Many are now aghast that progressive politics has turned the simple economic mutual society into a quasi overly bureaucratic superstate. In the 90s controls on immigration were relaxed and a growing multicultural society to replace some traditional ideas of Britishness were positively welcomed by the current government as a progressive measure to reflect British tolerance and open borders. With hindsight it is possible to see that this policy has had diversive and detrimental effects on UK society and cohesiveness. It is not possible, nor desirable, to prevent change but should it be controlled and directed to best effect? What word could be applied usefully to challenge the, I believe, incorrect belief that progressive politics and progressive policies are always positive and good?

Jeremy Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The last I heard, we were supposed to be a > capitalist country with a market economy. In my > opinion companies should be free to judge what to > pay their staff (over 50% of it will end up back > in the public purse as it is). And actually, the > majority of city workers earn a fairly normal > salary - most of them are not wealthy. > > I can understand the pressure on the likes of RBS, > but the government didn't bail out every firm in > the city. And not all the banks are guilty of > irresponsible practises. But needless to say, the > tax has acheived its objective of grabbing the > headlines and securing a few votes. But making very little money in terms of the overall deficit. Probably measured in just a few millions - and this government is spending approximately ?2,000,000,000 a day, so ?500m would represent 25% of a day's expenditure and less than 0.05% of the overall tax spend.

We were warned that works would commence on 11 Jan - but it was a surprise to see Conway's in action at 7.15 this morning. Fortunately I had parked on Scutari anyway. While we have a Marmora Road audience - can anyone identify the new non pooper scooper? It seems to go in cycles - a few poop free weeks than a newcomer arrives, or someone loses the will to clean up after their dog. If you own a dog - scoop the mess.

Help. I now own and like my iPhone - a major upgrade from 2001 technology that was my old phone. However, with the old, very old, Nokia I could getin my car, slip the phone into a cradle and have complete hands free telephone service available (including voice activated calls) via a small microphone fitted above the sun visor and using the radio speakers. I cannot find a car phone fitter that can give me this level of functinality with an iPhone. Ideally I'd like to be able to listen to iPod music, use the iPhone Sat nav app and have a voice activated hands free telephone. Any advice would be most helpful. I'm prepared to buy / have fitted a new radio - what I don't want which has been offered is to link phone to radio by bluetooth and stick the ophone in the glove compartment, losing Ipod & Sat Nav options.

RosieH's comment reminds me - there's a new ad in cinemas for Chivas Regal. Not a whisky I'd particularly recommend but it does suggest that all whisky drinkers are smooth, suave and perfect gentlemen. Good PR.