DJKillaQueen

ABBA have been offered billions to reform for one off's, mainly by saudi's, but have never caved in. STEPS however are reforming....and given that most of the former members of UB40 were declared bankrupt on Monday we might see an announcement there soon too!

Equality wasn't really my point. Just because an animal is going to die (for food) doesn't mean it's ok to unduly cause it pain/discomfort before killing it surely? And I'd even question the need for it. Farmers have for centuries managed perfectly well without factory farms. What factory farming has done is to give power to (I think) five multinationals who actively work to force farmers out of business unless they adopt factory farming methods (even seeds are being patented now!). That is certainly true in America. And the fast food market facilitates it. We all know how unhealthy fast food is and the consequences for those, living on a diet of it.

That's a really good idea Peter, and may well be the best option for me. Thanks for the butcher heads up too. I did see that some farms have on sight abbatoir facilities and some of them open air too which makes far more sense to me than shipping animals for miles in lorries, to what is an industrial production line that has to be kept moving at any cost. The stories from America are just truly horrific. I don't know if similar things happen in the UK but I don't want to risk buying meat produced like that any more than I would ever buy eggs produced by battery hens. The human meat conversation above gives me a good analogy for promoting ethical meat production. Imagine if we farmed humans in sheds with no daylight, crammed in to capacity, rolling in their own excrement, some of them dying along the way as a result (so that farm workers daily had to check for and remove the dead ones) - before transporting them crushed in lorries to an industrialised killing factory. Some no doubt would have died on the journey, some would be so cold that their skin would freeze to the sides of the truck (there would be no time given to defrost by the factory workers, use your imagination there). Any that were too frightened to run down the funnels to the production line would be beaten until they did so........I think we get the picture......and it's not so removed from something that did happen once. Yet we think it's ok to do that to animals. Something that was also pointed out in this documentary is that cows that are grass fed don't run risk of carrying e-coli. And that the risks of disease/ contamination in food are increased by the factory farming and killing processes used by the big meat producers. Those processes of course are what give us cheap fast food and chicken. But you have to ask yourself, if people really knew what goes on to produce that food, would they eat it? Edited to add a thank you to maxxi too! Lot's of great ideas there for my Christmas feast :)

Thanks DC for the link. Yes it is some of the abbatoir practises that upset me. I'll stop short of saying how but no animal should be dieing from a heart attack because of it's treatment before it even gets to the 'killing floor'. The processes are one thing but the extra cruelty heaped on some animals by abbatoir workers is heinous. I've always tried to buy ethically reared meat/ fish and dairy products although I don't eat that much meat anyway tbh.

I'd like to find a butcher locally that sells not just organic meat and grass fed beef but also ethically slaughtered too. After seeing a doc called 'Food inc' I am less than one step away from becoming veggie.

There's a difference between kids that are being s bit mischievious/ bending the rules etc Janine and kids being intimidating and deliberately rude. If it had been me I would have probably followed KK's example, taken the ball off them and kicked it into outer space. If I'd had a one year old child with me though I would have done exactly as the OP did and walked away, putting the safety of the child first. If these kids repeatedly play there and are rude/challenging to people then that can be something the ASB unit can look into.

I thought last weeks show was great and last night's equally as good. Can't decide if it's because the acts are better, or the panel, or both. For me the biggest talent is Misha Bryan, but Janet Devlin is good too. The suprise for me is Rythmix - they are getting better and better and at last....a UK girl band where everyone can actually sing! Think NuVibe will go tonight.

I think to compare blue bins to graffitti and litter in New York is a poor analogy (although the 'broken windows' theory has a lot of merit to it). I think the real impact is no more than the bins look a little prominent and out of place. Good urban design is about blending things in the right way, and that includes the design of bins. Perhaps Southwark can be a bit more considerate of that when making decisions on the colours of anything in future. The issue of how many bins (and size) though I think is a good one. It never ceases to amaze me how much packaging, waste and recycling I get through. That is perhaps something that should be explored to perhaps get us all to cut down on how much we put in our bins. And also, a family is going to need larger bins than a single person. Perhaps (although I suspect it would cost too much to facilitate) there could be different sizes of bin available according to need (and that might help the landscape a little.

I got 17 too and some were definitely lucky guesses. My question is why would any immigrant need to know some of this stuff anyway!

What I meant HBoab was she was right to make sure she didn't make herself intentionally homeless, if she wants to keep her elegibility for key worker property status. Obviously the morality of it is a different issue.

Basically you have a 'key worker' as the tenant and she can't make herself intentionally homeless if she's to remain eligible for the key worker subsidy on a property purchse. She is absolutely right to stay but not great for you. You'll just have to go through the legal process (which will help her too) and it'll take as long as it takes I'm afraid.

I also recently helped a tenant bring a landlord to court and the letting agency they used after the landlord behaved illegally with regards to late payment of rent, including harassment of the guarantor. At the end of the day, if you rent property, as with any business, there is a risk that you won't get paid sometimes.

If I had been your tenant KK and you'd done that to me I would have had you before the court so fast you'd have regretted your actions and been very out of pocket as well. There are laws in place to protect both tenants and landlords and for good reason. Having said that it never ceases to amaze me just how little regard some landlords have for the rights of tenants and the law. What the OP doesn't say is if the six month contract is due to or has expired. If stll within the shorthold tenancy then there's not a lot you can do but an offer of compensation to the tenant if they mutually agree to end the tenancy might be worth a try and is not illegal. Beyond the initial tenancy Clare's advice is right. I wonder what the thinking was in renting out a property that was for sale to a new tenant?

I'll be honest and say I don't really know what to make of it all. I have no desire to see an innocent person incarcerated anymore than to see a guilty peron walk free. And I think, because of media hype etc that is perhaps how many people feel. I just don't know if she is guilty or not. Of course we must remember that a man is serving a long sentence for the murder so it's not true to say that no-one has been convicted. On the other Matthew Wright question of whether one would do her.....she's not my type I'm afraid :P

I have a friend that works at sainburries and Sam is doing fine I'm told.....which I think is the news we all want to hear (tu)

No bank or financial institution will ever ask you via email to click a link to log in. It is a well known scam and if you hover your mouse over the sender you will see the real email of the sender, and it will never be the bank that claims to send it. Delete all such emails immediately or do as I do, and reply to the email, telling the thieving scumbags what I think of them :)).

Of course it's not in the same league but both jobs have a requirement to stop people who may be violent (and many fathers do many jobs where they may die or be seriously injured - look at the death rates in the construction industry for example). Sam's job is to stop shoplifters (amongst other things). When he does that he has no way of knowing if the thief will attack, or is armed, but his job requires him to stop the thief all the same if he can. Otherwise why would he be employed as a security guard? Where I do agree with you though is in this. If Sainsburrys are only willing to spend money on one security guard then they shouldn't require that guard to use force to stop a thief. Like you say, two stolen tv's are hardly going to bring Sainburrys to it's knees, and most thieves will have a go at one guard, but might give in when faced with two.

Pretty much every 'friends of' organisation opposes big events in their parks James.....if the council listened to all of them there would be no large events. Like I said, any budget always includes the cost of the the clean up afterwards and with good planning measures can be taken to prevent most problems.

From what I understand Rosie the event was a theatrical carnival of light and not exclusively a fireworks display - so preumably the title reflected the content/ theme of the carnival and seems perfectly reasonable to me.

We send young fathers to war Sue. Sam was doing his job and unfortunately like the Police and armed forces, it's a job that requires interaction with people who may be violent. The only question for me here is whether there were any other security guards on duty. I frequently only see one on duty at Sainsburrys and that may be the real issue here, where other staff members are (whilst presumably not being trained as such) expected to help that one security guard. I sincerely hope that Sam isn't too badly injured and recovers soon.

That's exactly where James got things so wrong this time...events funding is a borough wide scheme but he treated it like it was a local funding issue...that somehow the money would still be spent locally if it was cancelled! And he didn't exactly say 'no comment' when the wider press came calling to give him the opportunity to play career politician and knock Labour, and then wonders why the Labour controlled council won't be listening to any of his ideas on events funding anytime soon. Of course money can always be spent on something else....half of the all the money spent by councils might be better spent in other departments....but for me that's a pointless discussion to have now. The time to argue the toss on what money is allocated where is when the council sets it's budget at the beginning of it's fiscal year. The fact is that there is 78k or whatever available for larger events and it's now not going to be spent in Dulwich.

So rather than force lorries to park outside or use smaller vehicles, large events were cancelled altogether in Dulwich Park? How do you think other sites manage James? They use well planned stategies for restoring the site afterwards...which of course cost money and require detailed planning by people who know what they are doing (hence the use of employed professionals). You know as well as I do that most of those applying for CC funding are volunteers within voluntary organisations. The events being planned are small scale and local comminuty events. That is a far leap from organising a borough wide large event so yes, I do think it is ridicuous to suggest that CC applicants would in the main be able to (and quite frankly have the time to) organise a borough wide event (whilst also taking away jobs from those already employed to oversee and organise those events). And even following the line of your other argument that changing the structue would enable CCs and local people to have more of a say on large events expenditure doesn't cut the mustard either when considering how few resients of Southwark actually attend CC meetings or get involved at any level in local government. It would still be a case of the few deciding for the majority and given the main demographics of those that do get involved in CCs (generally british white middle-class) not a few that would be in any way representative of the borough either. CCs are in many ways the least effective means of guaging what those living in the borough want. And as for the press James...are you really so niaive? Of course they pluck things out and then misrepresent - but ultimately it reflects back on you. On your blog, you used the story and made more of it than necessary to score politcal points, and it backfired. Just as on this forum you regularly use opportunities to politicise things before being equally shot down by various forumites. What most people want from a councillor is someone that will sort out local issues (and you seem to do that well). But on the flip side you sometimes take a line without actually asking what local people think, because it's what YOU think and then try to tell the rest of us how awful the Labour Council is as a result. As you have seen from this thread, quite a few of us had no problem with a title 'The Colour Thief' and would like to have attended the event. But you decided it was bonkers without taking on board any of the views of any local people it would seem.....and your subsequent activism saw the event cancelled, to be replaced by errr...nothing.

Dulwich park already does host some large events though James so who knows what you are on about? I thought your opposition to 'The Colour Thief' was because you had an issue with a non Bonfire night event happening over Bonfire weekend and because of the cost. Now you want to add that it's the large event that you disapprove of...epecially at night!!!!! (errr good job various other parks and heaths have no fear of nightime events or else there would be no fireworks anywhere eh?) Beginning to suspect you are a bit of a nimby James and yes I agree with others...your behaviour over this hasn't reflected well on you I'm afraid. Are you really suprised that the council aren't telling you what they have planned after the press nonsense you created? And now Dulwich is getting nothing - well done! You of all people know that funding is allocated via departments. If you have an issue with funding for any event under it's departmental allocation then you must oppose funding for ALL events - but then it seems what you really are moaning about is that that CC funding isn't high enough for your liking whilst the seperate events funding is too high. Correct me if I am wrong but that system of funding was in place during the previous Lib Dem council. All that has changed is that the Labour council have cut the level of funding available to large events. CC and events funding are designed to fund completely different things with different scales and remits. It's completely ridiculous to suggest that borough wide events could be funded by CCs clubbing funds together. You obviously have no idea of what is involved in large scale event planning, and why it requires people in specialist employment to manage that - jobs it seems that you'd like to see go.

I really like the Irish girl though (Janet) and think Kelly got her choices right. I have no idea what planet Louis is on as usual. I think the girls are the group to beat and I actually think the groups might turn out to be quite good this year as well. Just happy to see most people can sing tbh.....think that's an achievement in itself compared to previous years.

Could it be this ladies cat? Lost cat