frierntastic

All, A good friend of mine had her motorbike stolen from outside 225 Friern Road today. The motorbike was chained (so impossible to drive away), and was taken sometime after midday. She is really upset and I'm really keen to see if anyone saw anything suspicious on Friern Road today. The bike was locked, so it would probably have taken quite a few guys to lift the bike onto the back of a truck, or into the back of a van. Did anyone see people acting suspiciously with a white motorbike on Friern Road this afternoon? I'll post the make as soon as I know it.... Please help - my friend is devastated.

Hear, Hear James Barber.

DJKQ is the first person in the world to accuse the Obama administration of neo-conservatism! You heard it here first! Seems that Obama is a Muslim/neo-con/immigrant all at once! Poor guy must be mighty confused. Go and speak to Donald Trump DJKQ - perhaps you can both wear tin-foil hats to protect you from the governments mind-probes.....

well said ????

Ah, yes. The conspiracy theorists. Jumpinjackflash, DJKQ, you are, of course, talking bollocks. If the US had killed him years ago, why didn't George W claim it? Why didn't Obama claim it just before mid-terms? Why can people like you never accept the world as it is? Rather than the oppressive machine you think it is. Have either of you ever worked in government? Do you know how incompetent it is? Have you ever wondered how, when every political story is leaked weeks before it is officially announced, they could somehow keep the secret that Osama was killed years ago. I know it's kind of cool to be all anti-establishment, and to assume that 'the man' is keeping us all down etc etc, but for God's sake please also switch on your brains, removed just an ounce of ignorance and look at the facts at hand. PS check out Obama's destruction of Donald Trump at the White House correspondents dinner for how conspiracy theorists deserve to be treated.

Harry, on the other hand, has probably done all that and much more...!

Well, Bob, that may be a police matter.... But seriously - 'inequality' is a word that's increasingly thrown about not to describe differences in opportunity, but differences in achievement. I think some confuse equality (and fairness) with everyone achieving the same,rather than everyone being presented with the same opportunities. Education is free, employers cannot discriminate and, whilst connections and networking will always help, I'm not sure that society is anywhere near as unequal as some would say.

'monarchy is symbolic of everything that is wrong with inequality and subjegation in a society' Really, DJKQ? Who has the Queen been subjugating recently?

Not Cameron's finest hour, sure, but it does seem like the Labour party love nothing more than to be offended by something.

I had a problem with noise this weekend - a young guy a few doors down had a party on Saturday night (not a huge problem) but it was just so damn loud! I phoned the noise team, who said they would be there within 45 mins; an hour later noone had called so I called back - it would take a couple more hours for them to arrive (so, by about 4am) so I just cancelled the complaint. I know from past experience in Clapham that noise can have an awful effect on your life, and that, because they have already chosen to act in a highly antisocial manner, many noisy neighbours won't care if you try to reason with them. My advice is to complain to the council whenever it happens, don't be afraid to escalate it to the appropriate noise officer (rather than just the nigh team) and, if necessary, get in touch with your councillor. If you've never been affected by this, it can be really difficult to understand just how disruptive it is - Manda has my utmost sympathy.

We went there a fortnight or so ago and thought it was excellent: the food was great and the price was actually quite reasonable - 30 quid for two starters, two mains a side dish and two drinks. A huge improvement on the place that was there before and, whilst I don't question zebbedee's experience of Rocca, I would ask EDFers to go and make their own minds up.

Loz, That really is an awful example! Whether you believe in FPTP or AV, the point of an election is to represent (as best as possible) the public's will. In your example above, the Omega's, with 35% of the vote, clearly represent the most significant slice of public will. You cannot debate FPTP and AV by turning parties into goodies and baddies!

Food left on buses. Usually fried chicken but today a half eaten muffin, sat all alone on a seat. In fact, any litter on a bus drives me SPARE - why don't people just take it with them?

untamed, Firstly, well done on having the get-up-and-go to start your own business - there are a lot of people who don't have that quality. I'm with the earlier commentators who said you need to put it into sentence case; take a look at your competitors websites, very few use all caps, and the best of them certainly do not. Caps just always seems to SHOUT at me. And spelling is just so important - people (quite rightly in my view) judge companies by the quality of their advertising literature and assume that the service is of the same standard. If I see a crappy website, I won't contract the company because they appear to have low standards - simple as that. Anyhoo, best of luck.

For me the core of this argument is that firefighters continue to put their own self-interest before that of the public. As Huguenot says, we can make a 15% increase in FF time - so let's do it! It's about time the FF realised that when it comes to public service, the clue is in the title.