DJKillaQueen

I think some fundamental points are being missed here... That over the past three decades aprrox two million social homes have been sold under right to buy schemes and the majority not replaced (there are currently 1.8 million people on council housing waiting lists nationally) Inflation in the price of private sector housing has outstripped many salaries. The soaring Housing Benefit bill is a direct reflection of that where almost 700,000 people in full time work need help paying their rents. 68% of recipients of HB are social housing tenants (2012 figures show around 6 million receiving HB). If we want to talk about social engineering, we may as well talk about deregulation too that led to over inflation of housing values and contributed to the current crisis. We should criticise the right to by scheme too. There are many factors in recent decades that have brought us to here and those have been discussed at length in previous threads on the subject. There are no easy solutions. At the end of the day all people need somewhere to live that they can afford and all cities need a mix of socio-economic members to fulfil all the layers of employment etc required to function. Morally, given that life is not a level playing field and birth is the luck of the draw, penalising a person simply because they are poor is something that the welfare state was designed to eradicate. That is the mark of a civilised society. On a practical level we can consider it like this. If person A works for person B for a low wage and then has to travel more than a reasonable distance to get to that job, then eventaully the cost of travel makes that job untenable. That's the problem with shunting the poor to the suburbs and beyond. Also in British cities, the suburbs are typically 'leafy' and the preserve of the middle classes. The poor have traditionally been more central. It's only in recent social history that the centre of towns and cities have become gentrified....mainly as industry has declined and conversion of warehouse and former factories into luxury flats aimed at trendy young professionals have replaced them. London is an anomalie to that, having always had a wealthy central district, but then again, the poor have never been able to afford to live in those districts so there's nothing new happening.

I was reading a book at the moment which is my only reason for engaging with this thread....stop over reacting! Here's the breakdown of passengers dead and survived submitted after the disaster....as illustrated in the book I referenced. First class passengers Men survived 58 Men died 115 Women survived 139 Women died 5 Children survived 5 Children Died none Second class passengers Men survived 13 Men died 147 Women survived 78 Women died 15 Children survived 24 Children Died none Third class passengers Men survived 55 Men died 399 Women survived 98 Women died 81 Children survived 25 Children Died 53 Crew Men survived 189 Men died 686 Women survived 21 Women died 2 I think those figures speak for themselves. That's why I find them interesting. You might want to try reading some research in depth H just once instead of relying on five minute internet searches ;)

Yes it is true. Most first class women went to the port side. On the starboard side mostly first class male passengers were gathered. Hence the first boats on the starboard side containing men. There were only 16 lifeboats plus four collapsables. First class passengers had easy access to the lifeboat decks which is why so the majority of those lowered in the lifeboats were first class. In fact, two thirds of the first class passengers survived compared to only a quarter of third class passengers. I can thoroughly recommend Walter Lord's book. It is thorough and was written at a time when the writer could still collate witness accounts to build what is considered the most thorough and best researched account of the sinking.

LOL Michael. That isn't in Walter Lords book.....an oversight perhaps? I agree El Pipe that class was incidental rather than a conscious conspiracy....and simply a reflection of the times. Far more true to say would be that there was no practised evacuation plan in place. No lifeboat drill had been practised and what is evident from Walter Lord's book is that many of the crew were playing it by ear. The first lifeboats lowered were full of men because there were no women on the upper deck. That is because in an effort to prevent panic...no sense of urgency was communicated to the passengers, even if they were told the true gravity of the situation. Basically everything that could have gone wrong for the Titanic did. But we saw this recently too with the Costa Concordia. Passengers were not assembled on deck or lifeboats lowered until it was too late to do so. When a ship takes on water, passengers should be sent onto deck immediately....it's the safest place to be. But on the Costa they were initially told to stay in their cabins. Time that could have been spent getting passengers methodically and calmly into lifeboats was wasted. And I once wrote a letter of complaint after travelling on a P&O ferry in a force 7 gale at night. I saw that the fire doors (which by law should be easy to open) to the life boat decks had chains and padlocks on them! It was quite soon after the Estonia tragedy so ferry safety was high profile. It's this kind of complacency, because passenger ships rarely sink, that lead to unecessary death and poor procedure when something does go wrong.

The Time of my Life from Dirty Dancing is a good one.....especially when the women start lifting the men :))

I've had cats all my life. Plenty of them went outdooors and none of those that did died before the age of 14, and usually from old age.

That's all true, along with there being no organised evacuation plan in place. But class was at the heart of the locked doors and gates. The first class passengers were not subject to the saame scrutiny through immigration...so class plays again. And some male first class passengers used their upper class status to insist on being allowed into a lifeboat (the first boat to be lowered only had two women in it!). So class was very definitely dealing different hands to the passengers. The crew had decided that the first class women and children would go first followed by the second and only then would the third class passengers be allowed up (by which time it was too late). Some took things into their own hands and found other ways up or charged the crew and gates. All in all there was enough room to evacuate every woman and child although there were women and children who would not leave their husbands behind. First class ladies who felt that way it seems were allowed to take their husbands. Class again.

Also....why go to a park to survey young people? Surely it would be easier to distribute a questionnaire through local schools if the survey is genuine?

Chawumbawumba too.....

Approx one third of first class male passengers survived (58 of them). On the other hand 81 third class female passengers (around half) and 53 third class children (two thirds of those in third class) died. In total from the passenger lists, 126 men survived whilst 154 women and children died. Of the crew, 189 men survived (approx a quarter) and all but two female crew survived. More than enough room then to save all of the women and children if class hadn't been such an issue.

lol quids.......I agree...couldn't wait for the darn ship to sink in the end! H has a point regarding lifeboats though. The same could be said for not giving parachutes to airline passengers for example. In rough seas, lifeboats and life rafts have limited use anyway. But in the end all the mistakes are academic. She should never have hit an iceberg. She was going too fast at a time when other ships in the srea had stopped for the night for safety reasons. Responsibility for that is with the Captain. I think Captain Smith was complacent. That his years of experience had seen a revolution in ship buidling and the safety attached to vessels. That he belived the folly that a ship could be so safe it couldn't sink. And because of that he took a risk with speed to perhaps end his career on the glory of a record breaking maiden voyage. It's just a theory but one I think to be more likely than a man, reknowned for being a natural leader, who commanded the respect of everyone around him, being pressured by a company boss, of a company he was about to retire from working for.

Reggae goes down well at many of the 'white' dos at my tenants hall.

Only his position as Managing Director singles him out for criticism, but his reply also I think typifies the psychology of a person determined to survive no matter what. I don't sit easy with the notion that his position makes a determination to survive immoral. It's a difficult one for me. I think Ismay saw a chance and took it. Who wouldn't do the same? I personally think the mistakes on Titanic (and that's everything from design to the voyage itself) are too numerous to blame on any individual. By the time of the launch of the last collapsable, the scene on board would have been one of fear and panic and chaos. At that moment, there is no hierarchy, social or otherwise - just people.

Cats are all different. Some know their way around instantly. Others take time to get used to their patch and know their way around. I live on the first floor of a four story block of flats. One cat knows what floor she lives on. The other always goes too many floors up and I have to go and find him! All of the neighbours know him now though :). I suspect that if your little lady is one of those who forgets which garden she lives in, it will only be a matter of time before all the neighbours know her and will be able to point her in the right direction. She's chipped too so I'd try not to worry too much.

I suggest a mix of floorfillers...both modern chart stuff and club, reggae and cheesy classics. I'd start with the chart stuff just to get the tempo up and signal the start of a disco, and then throw in some guaranteed participation floorfillers like Cha Cha Slide, Macerena, Oops Upside Your Head and yes, even the Hokey Cokey (you'd be amazed how strangley popular that is). Later on, Sean Paul and some reggae classics thrown in go down well. Some 80's and some classic house club tunes...Robin S, Show Me Love is a must etc and a splash of seveties disco favourites. Don't forget Summer Nights from Grease either. To wind down, RnB works well mixed with some sloweys, motown etc.

Also if you look at the passenger list for those who died and survived and you look at it divided by first class, second, steerage and crew, what is immediately apparently is that a fair few men from the first class passengers were first into lifeboats with their wives (you have to remember at the time that upper class people thought they were born to rule and were not going to be told by a seaman what they could and couldn't do). The press at the time poured huge guilt on any man who survived. 'Women and children first' became replaced with 'women and children only'. It's only with the passage of time and the fuzz of historical account that the story becomes focussed on one or two characters (whether factually correct or not)....a natural consequence of simplifying a tale before it passes into legend. Hence the cry of E.H. Carr in his book 'What is History' warning of the need to study the historian as much as the history she or he writes.

:))

Yesterday I bought a copy of the book 'A Night to Remember' in Sainsburrys (they are selling it for ?3.75) because I wanted something new to read (and have read pretty much everything else but the one book held as being the best book written on the disaster). I completely missed that I bought and started reading it on the 100th anniverary of the disaster though!!!! Doh..... I'm already half way through it but the foreword points out that there is no evidence to support the claim that Ismay put pressure on the Captain to increase speed. It's impossible to know for sure why a liner was travelling at speed in the dead of night in an area that had received iceberg warnings. It was Captain Edward Smith's last voyage. Icebergs also didn't normally veture that far south and the Captain had changed course several times to avoid sighted icebergs. The iceberg that Titanic hit was it's SEVENTH warning about icebergs. So there has to be a lot of questions asked as to why a Captain of that level would ignore the sum of his experience because of the pressure of a White Star Managing Director. After all....it's not like he would be fired if he refused is it?

Hi Karen, I have Louis Armstrong singing that track and would be more than happy to either loan you the original CD or copy the track onto a cd of it's own for you. Will pm you my number xxx.

Indeed :)

Christian group books anti-gay ads to appear on buses So sad I don't know whether to laugh or cry! What the heck does post-gay even mean?

Pickle Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > It's not your standard cattery - she only takes a > few cats and is a true cat lover. Our cat came > home with a goodie bag containing his favourite > treats last time... Cooked chicken and prawns! I > don't think he wanted to come home :) LOL...Gloria sounds fab. Will search her details if ever I need to use her services too.

I think you've got it all about right josh. I'd move them last and when they get to the new place make sure their water and food bowls are already out. Litter tray too and any bedding they like to sleep on. They'll be fine in their boxes for a few hours - just give them lots of attention - and they'll be absolutely fine.

I think it's a good idea too.

Having a separate section though might give the wrong message too....that crime is so prevalent that it needs an entire section of its own. Most threads reporting a crime or road incidents seem to hover for about a week and then sink anyway (unless thre is a spate of similar crimes) so I don't personally thinks its an issue.