DJKillaQueen

Did someone shoot the fox? No sight nor sound since the first post!

I think Webb and his linesmen did very well. We all know what Van Bommel has got away with all tournament, Webb made no hesitation in booking him. 15 yellows and one red is more a refelction on the players than the ref and for all the prostestations Webb and the linesmen were spot on for the goal. b

No person legally can 'reserve' the public highway. Just move them to the curb and park. If cone owner comes out and protests tell them to do one or you'll call the Police......sorted.

LOL.... Apparently Blair earns ?300K an hour as a speaker. Who on earn in their right mind pays anyone 300K to give a speech?

mockney piers Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Err no. Turned a nasty little low level insurgency > into a refugee exodus of half a million people and > a desperate escalation of brutal tactics by Serb > security forces. Errr a little bit fanciful to say the least. Yes Blair is as responsible as the US for the botch job in Iraq, but are you seriously blaming the conflict in former Yugoslavia on him? Kosovo is primarily populated by ethnic Albanians who are unhappy with Serb rule. Both lay historical claim to Kosovo and those are tensions that go back to well before Blair was even born.

Kirsty Young is talking about an industry wide problem. Most TV execs ARE men and most women working in TV are pretty and young, and that includes behind the camera too. It's not an industry where there's exactly a lack of people wanting to get into it either so the powers of those already in there to change that culture are limited. There is an idea and it is the same in the music industry and film industry, that younger women are preferable to older women whereas men can be any age. Just look at how many older actors get cast in leading roles for example compared to how many women? And of those that do....how many look like Kathy Burke? If Timothy Spall where a women he'd never have had a film career, let alone one that has lasted so long. The same is true of the music industry. The Rolling Stones can tour at 60 but can you imagine people paying to see a girl group touring at 60? Annie Lennox has spoken out a lot about the sexist ageism of the music industry. And it won't change until we demolish the use of women as symbols of 'perfect beauty' in our culture. Women have always had to be glamorous to get noticed, whereas men need only be interesting.

I think Quids is really trying to say that he deeply regrets the 'I luv EDF and Ladymuck' tattoo he had done after a night of one too many stellas...>:D

Noel Coward Alan Jay Lerner

DaveR Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The damages payable if the car is a write-off > should be the replacement cost, like-for-like. > Have a look at auto trader, find a car that is as > similar to yours as possible (make, model, age, > mileage, spec), and the cost of buying that car is > the figure you should be asking for. You know as well as I do that the insurance company will do their own 'research' and decide what they think is a reasonable sum to pay. And most claimants find that insurance companies don't pay out what they need. So Cal is right to be cautious. But mileage is a good point and the thing that will show mileage of course is the MOT certificate. So dig that out Cal as proof to the other insurer of the mileage of your car.

Spain did their homework against Germany and it should be a high quality final. I knew Howard Webb would get the final. Best refereeing team in the tournament by far.

hmmm didn't you know Jimmy that you should never let bailiffs into your home (unless you are being evicted of course)? They have no right to enter your home unless you let them in!

The Motor Insurer's Bureau is the body that settles the claims of unisured drivers. Your own insurers are most likely only to pay out what they think your car is worth (which for a ten year old car won't be much) because the price you pay for your insurance is linked to the value of the car. New cars cost more to insure than older ones. Some policies list a value that the car is agreed to be worth, so check your policy to see if it lists an insured value for the car. My policy lists the value of my old car to be ?750 for example, so I would not expect to be paid anymore than that if the car were to be written off or stolen. If I wanted a higher payout I would expect to have to buy more expensive insurance. If your policy does list a value for the car, they are not obliged to pay more than that but should pay at least that and if you've been a cunstomer for a long time you should be able to negotiate something in return for your continued custom. You almost certainly should be able to claim some damages for 'out of pocket' expenses from the other drivers policy. Hire of car could be considered to be a legitimate claim. But they will apply the same model when determining the value of your car and are not obliged to pay above what it's worth. As you were not in the car at the time or suffered any direct injury then you are unlikely to be successful with any claim for personal stress or inconvenience. Unfortunately these kind of accidents happen and the key is to make sure you have the level of insurance needed if your car is involved in an accident that results in the loss of the car.

ImpetuousVrouw Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The brutality which many of us witnessed in the > 70's, 80's and 90's was just as bad or worse than > the young people dish out now. We are what has > changed. We have become older, more comfortable > and more easily shocked. That's not really true though. I was an 80's teenager and you rarely heard of teachers being attacked by pupils or parents and there were not anything like the number of child murderers there are today. 13 children stabbed to death in London alone already this year. It was a comparatively rare thing up to the mid 90s. Gang culture in itself is nothing new but has primarily been an adult thing. There have always been school bullies but the import of gang culture into our schools to the extent it now is, is a recent development and it is far more brutal and criminal than the isolated bullying that went before it (go back 100 years and you find the opposite is true of course). It is an imported culture, that has been made easier by the internet and the globalisation of the media. It is no coincidence that as the internet and technology have grown so has the range of images the average child is exposed to. They are also far more informed than they've ever been and not always in a positive way. In many cases technology had become the babysitter of the home....replacing parenting. Far too many parents have no idea what their children are up to and worse still don't care.

By the way folks, under the direct debit scheme a company has to give you 10 days notice in writing if they intend to increase your direct debit. If they don't do that they are in breach of the rules and you should report them to Energywatch - the power industry watchdog and of course complain to the company themselves.

James Barber Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- It was at that point > they went wild. > This I agree with. > Currently of every ?4's spent by the government ?1 > is borrowed. This is staggerlingly unsustainable. > Currently this huge borrwoing is at a cheap rate. > If confidence slipped the interest borrowed up > would drstaically rise as it did in Greece and the > cuts would be harsh in the extreme. > There is some truth in this but this constant comparison to Greece is unhelpful and dare I say scaremongering. The Greek economy is not like our own or indeed many of the larger economies of Western Europe. Inefficency in tax collection from it's citizens is the obvious difference but there are also other key differences that made Greece extremely vulnerable in ways that the UK , France, Germany and so on would never be. > Sheffield Forge. The loan would have enabled > production of nuclear power stations in the UK. > Better ways of making and minimising electricity > than via nuclear power. > The grant would also have enabled Sheffield to manufacture for export. It's ludicrous to think that nuclear power won't have to be some part of our energy provision in the future (unless you want to fund vastly more expensive solar panels). If anything, electric consumption is more likely to go up than down, simply because population is likely to grow, more homes are likely to be built and people are more likely to live longer. We don't have any natural resources anymore, apart from Wind and one of the reasons our energy prices are so high is because we have to import most of it. I would expect you as a Liberal Democrat to have a moral standpoint on anything nuclear (and we'll always disagree on that) but to deny an area 3000 much badly needed jobs on an idealogical basis rather than economic and fiscal need defies common sense (although that is not the reason why the Conservatives took away the grant). > Fuel poverty is terrible concept in this day and > age. In East Dulwich of the 3,000 roofs around 640 > are uninsulated. > That's all well and good (and I completely support that) but it does not solve the more immediate problem of fuel poverty - many people already do ration their energy useage, many don't turn on the heating ever (so better insulation won't make any difference and many of those live in flats anyway). Do you at least agree that energy companies should be forced to offer the same rates to pre-payment customers as they do to their other customers or do you think it's perfectly reasonable for the poor to be descriminated against in this way? > Benefits. I personallythink we need intensive help > to try and change peoples lives so they no longer > need benefits. REally hardto do that now while > economy so slowly moving. The time to have really > started this was when the economy was booming and > not just after the bust. But little happened then > and we are where we are. Well it's hard to do full stop. Employers have prejudices against the long term unemployed, people over a certain age, people with health problems and those are real challenges that any government would and indeed has found difficult to tackle. And I don't think they can ever be solved unless we start paying employers to give jobs to these people. We just have to accept that there are always going to be groups of unemployable (through no fault of their own) people. The key is to find ways to engage them in society and accept that taxpayers will have to pay for it. I agree though that in boom time Labour could have done far more to encourage businesses to regenerate areas of high unemployment but again the private sector wasn't growing at any great rate and that's because the boom was not really a boom at all. It was funded by debt, too much of it with nothing of any substance underneath. I don't expect the Conservatives to do anything about that anytime soon, yes they'll get the deficit down but they won't regulate the basis by which debt is the engine of the economy. Labour did do far better in their help for the unemployed than the previous Conservative government. They set up specialist agencies run by private sector companies who offered tailored specialist help (as opposed to no specialist help to those other than the unskilled and illiterate under the Conservatives)....In Southwork we have Work Directions and Southwark Works (or Ingenus) who invest money into the people they help and that's been particuarly helpful to skilled people who often need specialist support that they just won't find at the jobcentre. The short term cost is higher but the success rate of getting people back into work is high too. My concern is that the Conservatives will do away with that and go back to a 'one size fits all' approach which will be a failure. Labour invested heavily in helping 16-25 year olds which wasn't as effective as it should have been and also locked out older unemployed people from things like retraining, as young people were always given priority on places (whether they genuinely want to to learn or not). I know for fact that many young people only went to college to get the EMA payment with no intention of learning anything. A waste of time for teachers, a waste of money for taxpayers, and denying perfectly good course places to older people who genuinely want to retrain or learn. In the worst cases colleges won't fail any pupils because they don't want to lose funding (I know of one college where this happens). The end result is that some young people are given qualifications they haven't achieved and it doesn't take long for prospective employers to work that out. The same criticsms can be levied at those sent on work placements. We have to get away form the culture of 'getting the numbers down' as priority and focus on the quality of the help/ training given, make sure that it's properly funded and the right people are matched up with that help so that both they and employers benefit from that investment. I think we are in agreement there. And then we have to find other ways to deal with those that truly are disengaged from any part of getting into employment. Some of that has to be done in schools. But of course, none of the above will make an iota of difference if there aren't the jobs out there for these people. There is no way that over the next four years anything like the number of new jobs needed are going to be created. And I dread to think just how desperate those living on just ?65 a week will become.

LOL....anywhere know where I can get a magnum 45 then? That should scare the fu@*&rs !

I have no issue with coalition, only coalitions formed by a party that lock out a party with more votes than them. The Conservatives could have ruled as minority government with Labour then having an equal say in matters along with yourselves. That is what the electorate voted for. What will now happen is that Lib Dem MPs will be forced to vote for policies they have no belief in (like the VAT rise) because your whip will demand they do so for the coalition. Just because the rules allow for something else doesn't make it right or fair (as we saw with MPs expenses for example). To be honest I think Labour are rubbing their hands with glee. They'll be back in power next time round after the four miserable years the country is about to go through probably. All of that aside though. There is no doubt that Lib Dem influence could save us from a complete disaster but you need to do far more to make sure that the Conservatives are held back from their most unfair policies. There needs to be government investment in the umeployed and business to get job creation going. Telling people they should move is just not good enough. You know as well as I do that Conservatives have a total belief that the banks and the free market are all that are needed to take care of things (in spite of all the diasters to emanate from that model of the past 30 years). We can not go back to a world where the banks are so in control of our economy, unregulated. The cancelling of the Sheffield Forge grant was a huge mistake imo. Investment will have far more benefit long term than the extra year or two it might add to reducing the deficit. I half get the sense that the Conservatives only desire is to clear the deficit so that at the next election they can say 'we returned the country to the red' like that will be a vote winner. It won't matter that unemployment will have risen and repossessions shot up, that the poor are poorer and that vulnerable people have been pushed over the edge. I believe the Conservatives are naively over optimistic about growth in the private sector, esp in the grip of recession. The Conservatives also conveniently forget that the swell in piublic services under Labour is partly the result of their previous complete lack of investment in public services. Have we all forgotton what life was like under Thatcher, unless you were affluent of course? Conservatives under invest, Labour over invest but most people would say that over investment is preferable to the debacle of before. A lot of vulnerable people are going to be hit by the coming welfare reform (along with newly unemployed) and so far we've seen no financial commitment to make sure jobs are created (only the opposite, cuts that will cost jobs, at least half a million of them). This is a real concern. Several bodies have warned for example that the tests used for reassessing ESA and Incap Recipients (intended to be trialed for 18 months before review - so again a myth that Labour were not addressing the issue) are extremely flawed and that 80% of appeals (which in themselves cost money) are successful. Why the coalition sees fit to start reassessments in October using these same tests is mystifying. Again it seems the desire to cut has taken presidence over real consideration for the best means for accurately sorting those fit for work from the truly vulnerable. And you know as well as I that those most likely to be hit are those with mental health problems (people least able to fight for themsleves). NO-ONE can live on ?65 per week for very long (wether mentally fit or otherwise). How on earth do you expect people to cope? I personally spend about half that a week on electric and gas (averaged over a year) alone! lol.....How do you afford food and everything else on top? The extra ?12 per week that ESA is worth to the vulnerable in nothing to Cameron but it's everything to those people. The real bottomless pit with welfare is housing benefit, but typically Cameron won't do anything that involves regulating the vastly over inflated housing market and rents within it. Capping higher rents doesn't go far enough. Fuel poverty is a real issue and that's something I'd like to see governamnt tackle too. It can not be right that the poorest people using prepayment meters are paying up to 20% more for their fuel than other customers whilst at the same time being locked out of finding cheaper suppliers if they have a debt of over over ?100. Many of these people got into debt in the first place because of steep rises in fuel prices (compared to small rises in benefits). To then further punish them, esp when the meter system ensures they repay the debt is scandalous. Food for thought James.

That's true, there have always been groups that would give you a kicking and steal your wallet. Similarly there have always been 'gangs' that would do similar to keep strangers out of their neighbourhood. But on the whole, those groups battled with other groups (mods vs rockers for example)and were adults, and if you weren't in those groups you were safe. But how many of those victims got stabbed and left for dead? Worse still how many children in the past decades got together to commit murder for no other reason than their victim lives in a different area? There is something very different going on today and to simply brush it aside as something comparable to mod culture of the 50's and in between is nonsense. It's far more violent and deadly and children shouldn't be living in fear of being mugged or worse still murdered by their own generation. I completely welcome the news from Mr Cameron this morning that teachers are to be allowed to use reasonable force against unruly children.

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Until children go back to fearing adults, be it their parents, teachers, police, and the law we are never going to eradicate teenage murders and the lawlessness of these teenage thugs. I won't even dignify them with the term gang, because they are just good old fashioned groups of teenage bullies. We had some boys break into our TA hall a couple of years ago. They were caught red handed and sentenced and so on. They were all barred from being anywhere near the Hall. One boy continuously would walk in there only to be marched out again by the staff. The one thing he would say as he was marched out is 'don't you touch me!'. These kids know every right afforded them, so much so that any form of man handling becomes impossible. He took great delight in being a complete pain in the a*** These kids know that they have to commit a thousand burglaries before they are put away. Similarly they know that adults have virtually no rights when it comes to dealing with them. And that is the major reason why discipline has broken down in many schools and otherwise. There have always been troublesome kids, but this present situation of so many troublesome kids being out of control and worse still committing murder is a new phenomenom that has gone hand in hand with devolving the ability of adults to discipline and the import of global culture and relaxation of censorship. If children don't learn at an early age that bad behaviour has consequences then they never will and sometimes the only way to teach that lesson is with a short sharp shock. We've gone completely soft with laws put in place by people who have only the best behaved and privately educated of children. They are the least qualified people to get us out of the mess they put us in.

Not a good sign when Mr Manning gets a mention in a thread!

Karen Carpenter and Nina Simone

If I were to go blonde I would age 20 by years!

James Barber Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- is positive and moves the country > broadly along Lib Dem values. > Which is another way of saying the party that came third is now governing the country...how very undemocratic. If you want to move the country along Lib Dem values, you have to win an election. ...not side with a party that is tradionally tough on the poor and lock out the party that came second. Was the pipe dream of political reform really worth the misery about to be heaped on the unemployed (both new and old) and poor? > The UK enterred into recession much earlier than > anyone else, much deeper than anyone else and is > taking longer to come out. This must be structural > with how the country has been run in the past. Yes, from economic conditions initially created by the Conservatives in the 80's (through major deregulation) and continued by Labour following them. But I don't see anything in your policies or the new Conservative coalition that acknowledge any of that, less still are prepared to do anything meaningful about it. The offered solutions simply are designed to keep the economy ticking over (while redicing the deficit) before retuning back to more of the same. That is neither sensible or radical. Then only policy we have had in relation to banks is a levy...where is the kind of regulation that will help to ensure we don't continue to have the boom and bust economy that we had for the last 30 years?...that's ONE recession for EVERY decade. We've learnt nothing.

That's what happens if you don't cook the chicken properly or at all even!