malumbu

Esther Mcvey in another life

I was excited to see that Toyah was standing. Well it wont be a mystery, or boring, and she will hopefully turn things inside out and upside down. She'd have my vote, if I was a member. And I'm only two degrees of separation away from her too.

It's illegal, Not as if many of us haven't done it, but most would probably show a bit more discretion and courtesy. Old Bill, starting off with the community plod, so as to handle it sensitively (ie mate don't do it here).

Searching on passive income streams all lead none passive advice ie investing. Get on a time machine and go back to 2008 pee-recession when interest rates of 6% were common with inflation less than a third of that. If you had a million to invest then you could return ?60k gross, and after reinvesting some of it to account for that and healthy 40k gross. Not sure where you get the time machine from. Otherwise peer to peer lending which has its pros and cons.

Cremate it. If you have a garden you will have things to burn. Make sure dry and a warm stillish day so the flames go straight up and you don't get the garden bonfire police onto you (my neighbour would burn damp grass cuttings, that covered the whole area in acrid smoke). Conditions today fine. Thanks for the distraction from my task list.

Cool. I spent some time with them last year, half training, half learning how they worked. Good stuff.

Oooh that was exciting, and left field as not in the list. Dun, ta very much PR.

After the debacle at FHGP today I'm going to book on line in future. Go to the main ED page not this one if you want to discuss today's chaos. But I have to choose a provider. Not sure why there can't be one, avoiding me making some effort to find the best one out of the list below. Why do we have to outsource everything? I can just stick a pin into the list, or perhaps others have views and experience. What a first world problem eh? For your info providers are: Evergreen Life, Co-op Health, myGP, digi.me, Echo, AT Tech, Pharmacy2U Ltd G4S, Serco, Castlebeck and Interserve (only joking on the last four)

Light touch, and there will be evidence that fraud is low. But they have spoken about asking for ID in future.

Chaotic today but I do have a lot of time for the doctors there. It is useful to put feedback up on NHS choices. I'm registering for patient access but they have a list of providers. Anyone any experience (these are the online companies that you can register through).

What's Osbourne and Little? Why does it need special skills? I grew up in a 'wallpaper' house and learned how to install it through my parents. I remember doing Anaglypta in more recent years (half the wall to the dado rail, luverly) and it was so easy to put up. Tell me more about O & L. Whilst I am trying to be helpful, and not mean as some of my other neighbours, is this potentially one of the most pretentious threads on this site (and the bar is very high). White in SE23 will bring you back down to ground.

Great Franny Lee interview today. Do you feel sorry for Watford? "No"

I think that there is assumption that the New Worlds (dreadful colonial connotations) will be more progressive than the UK, which I don't think is necessarily true. Despite everything going on the UK is still generally a tolerant and liberal country, more so that many of our European neighbours. Then there is separating opinion vs fact, and many of my views are based on the latter. But fact for example is that there is far greater social mobility in the UK than the US, yet the latter prides itself on being an equal society rather than more ofteb being condemned to staying where you are in terms of class depending on the family you were born into. I was rather stunned when I visited NZ when many of the first generation Brits who then ran the guest houses, B&Bs, would start off by talking about their 'black' problem (the programme of redressing the injustices against the maori people). Hopefully those ignorance racists have not died out. And my Oz family - racist, homophobic, and maybe representative of small town/commuter belt Australia, and many similarites with my Tamworth in-laws. Anyway gross generalisations. More woried about having Johnson as our 'leader' (and Farage pulling the strings).

Watford nil but de football

I predict a riot. On field scoring not outside the stadium.

Australia is not exactly a progressive country. Environmental credentials quite shocking. More worried about what is happening across Europe. Do prove me wrong about Australia! Maybe a reflection on rather a conservative population.

Go to Whites in Honor Oak (a) they will point you to cheaper alternatives (b) they will recommend someone who can do this (in F&B or some equally good, but less expensive product). Speak to them nicely and they will give you a discount http://www.whitestradepaints.co.uk/

I think I pointed that out with the self deprecatory remark about metropolitan elite. But as you move to the outer boroughs there are socio-economic differences which are pretty obvious just from the political views. Don't feel there is any harm in poking fun at that, in the same way that others retaliate with jokes about snowflakes. I had to stop myself humming the dueling banjos from Deliverance as that is probably a stereotype too far. As Seabag and I have both witnessed, in kids football, some of the teams from these areas(sadly influenced by parents) were the worst, certainly in giving grief to officials, many of whom were parents volunteering to do the role. It is probably the same parents that the Grauniad reported on (talking of metropolitan elite)- the very opposite of the parents that I am talking about, ie the journo was someone who knew sweet FA on football but wanted to opine on it in any case.

I think that was my loudest chuckle since I've been on this forum. I wont go into too much detail (eg a ruck in the car park after one match) as I'll give too much personal details away. And they weren't always bad, and sometimes it would be a one off. Also I can get accused of 'being a metropolitan elite' and "that's why we 'voted to leave the EU" (yes even Brexit came into it). Our kids used to call it the "Bromley haircut". I'll PM you a few stories as similar nice to get off the chest. To add balance anecdotes of playing even more street wise kids than ours (ie further into London) - "I'll come tooled up" "I'll shank you" "I'll .... your mother (or your mother is a whore")) - on the pitch abuse not off it. Back to the edge of SE London and North Kent, Eltham, Bexleyheath, Orpington.... don't miss them.

It's piffle. Comes up every few years. You get a higher fine for dropping litter in Westminster than leaving your car idling. I've worked there for years and never seen an enforcement officer do either. This is the same Westminster that will not ban vehicles from Oxford Street as they don't want to offend their core voter. This forum is interesting when there is proper debate rather than "oh yes I agree with you, how awful". There needs to be more fundamental change and I've told you the sort of things you can do. This forum and thread is not going to end up in a critical mass. I've also shared my frustrations and that all I've ever got by tapping on windscreens is abuse. My favourite being the police who seem to have no interest at all whilst they eat their sarnies - I've got the video. So from time to time I complain to the IPCC, or today with the ambulances running outside Kings, to the hospital. Gove is just doing all he can to make a mark as the next PM. Sociopath - whilst the media target Graying as he is the soft target. It's not just parents - again an easy target particularly due to the school run, but most motorists. Back to my fundamental change. Anyway here's an article on 20mph zones - quite an interesting read (not sure if I agree with all of it) http://content.tfl.gov.uk/speed-emissions-and-health.pdf Shame this work doesn't get more publicity - a failing of GLA/TfL and boroughs to do more publcising their actions and the reasons/benefits. Oh and credit Camden for traffic free zones around schools http://www.camdennewjournal.co.uk/article/ban-on-rush-hour-through-traffic-at-primary-schools.

Save your energy and look for battles that you can win. Believe me I've tried for years on this one. It is not practically enforceable and whilst turning off you engine is a no brainer, there are clearly an enormous amount of drivers with no brains. Write to your MP, lobby the political parties to have some hard interventions on drivers, increasing fuel duty, road user charging. No longer should we drive what we want, how we want, where we want and when we want. There are some small victories out there. The ULEZ is a bit of a sledgehammer, there are many other things that can be done on a national, regional and local basis. And start with your own actions!

Depends on the quality of the course so I will reserve judgement. And I assume that this is mini golf not crazy golf. Even though this thread has driven some people crazy.

Yo, my first woodpecker of the year, and for the first time someone pointed out the swifts high overhead. I'm very excited but need to go the Lidl as they are eating the bird food at a great rate (not the swifts or course). Foxes also seem to like it when it falls to the ground. Fox ate some bred and then shat on it. I thought they normally marked territory by spraying not pooing. Squigy.

I've hit a few cars. Rarely though. An open palmed slap on the boot/tailgate to show my displeasure when they drive head to tail over the traffic lights and block the pedestrian's right of way when the lights change. I tried other tactics in the past, yelling or trying to remind drivers not to do this would usually end in conflict. The slap does no damage, gives them a bit of a jolt, and generally does not end in verbal abuse. Anyway, most of us road users get on irrespective of whatever means of transport so always wonder why some feel that this is the opportunity to have a pop at cyclists. The first para was just to get a few of you anti cyclists going. I did some research a few years ago based on the ksi (killed and seriously injured) published by DfT. Cyclists causing injury to pedestrians is pretty rare and the data does not say who is at fault, or how/where it happened eg pavement, road, running red lights etc. All of my near misses have been pedestrians crossing without looking (worsened in recent years by phones, texting, music etc). Of course we cycling heroes adapt by watching out and anticipating, as we have to similarly do for metal boxes (often where the drivers are similarly distracted). The stats also show that pedestrians are far more likely to be hurt by drivers mounting the pavement. So I worry that pedestrians may be hurt by cyclists as they are avoiding the pavement due to the risk of a car mounting it.

Wow ? what have I caused here in provoking this level of debate and strong feelings? Perhaps I can close it down with a few concluding comments. Firstly the original questions were (a) was he being racist (I suspect not) and (b) should he have been sacked (I think a suspension was harsh enough). Legitimate views range from yes/yes to no/no, which is the whole point of argument and debate. But some reactionary posts (almost diametrically opposed to the Daily Mail in terms of the ranting), probably knowing very little about the matter, led me to ask if there had been a sense of humour failure (it could be seen as funny, I suppose) and what is wrong with mocking the royal family? Then there is a question on BBC hypocrisy as there have been other occasions (Lord Sugar anyone?) where action has not been taken including football pundits making inappropriate comments about women?s football (usually with an apology afterwards). The next issue for debate was if he didn?t mean to offend, and isn?t racist, is he still guilty for not being more aware (although I still struggle to see why all references to primates can be inferred to as racist) and therefore continuing to propagate the white male perspective on life (?she was asking for it m?lud, the way she was dressed?). Or someone who is so obsessed by self publicity he was blind to the wider impact and deserved what he got? After then there is my ignorance confusing the two Duchess?s and even referring to them as princesses. Off with my head. I tried to bring in a question about KM?s ethnic identity. I don?t care about her ethnicity but ethnic identity is an interesting subject, retaining and celebrating one?s culture, influencing/melding with other cultures and the like. Could they have included an African American name? None of my bloody business of course, but that would have been a statement. Then there is a good question about how society?s norms change, generally a good thing and I?ll be first to put my hand up to apologise for jokes made in the past that were not intended to be offensive but clearly would be seen that way now. Although pleased to see that Seth McFarlane still pushes the boundaries ? we need to be truly offended to realise what is right and wrong. Thinking of the norms and the BBC, have a look at some of the old episodes of Black Adder, The New Statesmen and the like and they can slip into casual homophobia, yet this was the cutting edge of the new age of cutting edge right on comedy. As for Alexi Sayle and calling himself a FB, well how sizest is that? And finally some of you decided that you would give your views on me. Bit naughty and I am sure pretty inaccurate, but thanks to those who argued in my favour. Overall it?s been very exciting. Thanks DB for inadvertently provoking such deep thoughts and one of the best threads for ages (and well done Malumbu). PS thanks for pointing me to the Billy Bragg twitter feed.