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.

DJKQ, Huguenot, Why do you think your statistics play any part in this issue? Surely instead of data, facts and actual proof that the FF are talking nonsense you could just have bleated on about 'da management' and uttered a few anecdotes? Perhaps you could have frequently blurred the reason for your position, and hoped that no one would notice your desperate self-interest, selfishness and fear tactics. Awful use of cold, hard reasoning to win an argument. You should be ashamed of yourselves. :))

It's incredible that the FF think the best way to deal with a Coalition - but Tory led - government is this kind of blackmail. You may have got away with it under the last government, but this one won't stand for it. And DJKQ is absolutely right, the halcyon days of the public sector are over; if FF and their unions had any sense whatsoever they would be trying to win public support, offer a change in working practices to reduce the amount of redundancies and, frankly, behave like grown-ups. The NHS, Police etc all manage it - perhaps their recruits are driven more by the idea of public service, rather than what they can get from the system. As for striking on 5 Nov, I hope that, if anyone is injured, or property lost through lack of fire cover, that they sue.

The firefighters greta pleasure at putting their own working conditions before public safety is appalling. I am sick to death of this union bragging about how much disruption their strikes will cause; are you really happy that millions of people's lives will be less protected so you can keep your archaic working practices? I, like most others, grew up respecting firemen. But this vindictive, pathetic, dangerous display of self-absorbed selfishness is utterly abominable. How dare you play with lives over your own working conditions? If, and maybe when, someone gets injured or killed on November 5, will FF justify it by pointing at their contracts and muttering about 188s? Will that make it alright?

Moflo, Your glee in announcing that the Assetco crews could not cope is distasteful at best, sickening at worst. Striking firefighters put public lives at risk and is totally irresponsible. Thank God the police, army and NHS are not so self-interested. F

"Scabs as in unqualified firefighters are trying to break strike!" Or, fireman providing life-saving service because 'real' firefighters put their own interests before the public's? Friern

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I certainly agree that we should stop selling council houses - absolute madness as far as I can tell. I think we will have to agree to disagree on - to take my example of the MP - whether people who can afford to live elsewhere should do. That MP could lose his job, but then so could everyone, and I don't think that 'just in case' is a strong argument for someone who could afford to rent privately not making room for one of the 1.8million.

There is an article in one of today's papers about an MP who lives in a council flat (honestly, I am not just mixing two really provocative stories!) - I think he illustrates my point pretty well: If there is a waiting list of >1 million people, isn't is reasonable that a guy who earns around 70k pa be asked to find accommodation in the private sector? In order to make room for needier cases? Whilst I accept the point that we run the risk of creating ghettos (and no one would want that), it cannot be right that rich (and if you ear 70k you are, in my book at least, quite rich) stay in subsidised accommodation. In my view, DJKQ, your comparison on public and private sector... 'So if you rent a house with a salary of say 37K (with a rent you can afford)...and then suddenly get a Job that pays ?60k...you also should be forced to move to somewhere with a higher rent...' ...is false - council houses should be a safety net, not a way of life. The idea of passing on a council house seems to me to be as crazy as passing on jobseekers' allowance or housing benefit. My view: everyone who needs a council house should get one, but in order to allow that, everyone who does not need one should get out and make room for more deserving cases.

Damn. Just when I thought this board had become readable, DJKQ starts spouting nonsense again. The following are DJKQ quotes: Coucil (sic) housing is NOT subsidised. For a one bedroomed flat it is ?986. The average one bedroomed council flat is around ?360 per month. The only benefit a council tenant has is the lower rent. If, as DJKQ suggests, we need more social housing, then Cameron's proposal to remove people who can afford private housing is a sensible one! I think both DJKQ and Brendan would feel very differently if they were on a waiting list and saw wasted space in council properties... Surely, if there is a family on a waiting list and a single person in a 3 bedroom house that individual should leave, be given smaller accommodation and allow the family to move in? Surely we should be using relatively scarce council resources in the most effective way possible? Surely to god we should look at the issue and think before deciding we hate it because a rich man came up with it?!! Surely we should, just for a few seconds, put aside the huge prejudices we have and judge the man on his policies rather than his lineage? If we can put aside our visceral hate for a man who, as far as I can tell, is just trying to make the best use of council properties we might see that, whether you like it or not, we can do better than we are now and he has the balls to make it happen. And then there is the usual misuse of statistics...

I like to discuss important issues as much as the next person but am constantly put off by the lack of thought displayed by some contributors on here, e.g: Brendan I've decided not to get into online conversations with right-wing arseholes who are unable or unwilling to see past their own self-serving prejudices....seeking consensus that their own antisocial points of view...... From now on I?ll leave it for face-to-face discussions where at least I can just punch people.... Also, check out the left-wing fanaticism demonstrated by DJKQ. This is a person who ranted about how the ConDems were about to reduce housing benefit to ?400, complained that no-one could live on that and had to be told that it was actually ?400 a week. Sometimes it's good to read more than the Daily Mirror's headline. This forum would be a far more interesting place if people left their prejudices out of it, thought about what they were posting and got rid of the huge chips on their shoulders. Cue boring, predictable barrage of bile from DJKQ and Brendan "you're a fascist etc etc"