LadyDeliah

When I cycle to and from work, I love smelling all the flowers in bloom in Dulwich. There are some lovely gardens around here. My own garden has fruit bushes that are heavy with young raspberries, black & red currants, gooseberries and grapes. It's exciting to see how many are growing. Looks like there will be a bumper crop this year.

Mmm, that sounds nice. I love how green this area is. I took my dog to Dulwich woods the other day for the first time in ages and it was alive with the chirupping of birds. It really lifts the spirits.

After all the miserable and depressing threads on here recently, I just wanted to remind everyone what lovely weather we have had this spring and how nice it is to have all the trees and flowers looking so lovely in the area. I scattered some wild flower seeds last year in my garden and have some lovely and unusual flowers blooming now, so everytime I look out of my kitchen window, I'm full of the joys of spring 

I think Car-jacking refers to stealing the car. Did they try to steal the car after grabbing their bags? Sounds scary whatever happened though.

Guilt is aa very negative emotion and people who suffer feelings of guilt can over-compensate to try to get rid of the unpleasant feelings associated with guilt. That is what I feel the reinvetion of the gollywog is partly about. I am white and I don't feel guilty about the European slave trade as I did not participate in it, but I am aware of the suffering caused by it, both then and now and why certain flippant over-compensatory actions by white Europeans/Americans can cause offence.

Yes Daniel is very good and won a silver medal in the Commonwealth Taekwondo Championships in India earlier this year. Check out his website for more info: http://www.walterstaekwondo.com/

Thanks binary_star, your links were informative.

If a thing is worth saying, it's worth saying twice!

The European slave trade took slavery to a totally different level than slavery had ever been before. Millions of healthy young men and women, the living future of African countries, were herded into slave ships and packed in like pieces of meat. A third of this human cargo usually died before the floating dungeons made it to the Americas. Once in the Americas the survivors were further brutalised to stop them from rebelling and this lasted hundreds of years. It also, coincidently powered Europes financial domination of the world at the expense of the African countries whose healthy population of men and women were massively depleted. The winners in the slave trade then are still the winners today and the losers then continue to be the disadvantaged today. How can you not see that selling something that represents this disgusting part of our past under the noses of the decendants of our forfather's victims, no matter how you try to neutralise it, will cause offence? These issues are not just part of our combined histories, the effects of the slave trade and also colonisation are still very much in evidence today.

Just using extreme examples to illustrate a point really, even I'd be pushed to say that Thatcher was as bad as my revolting little list.

I really don't understand why people are given more respect when they are closer to death. Obviously no-one normal would wish harm on someone else, but the fact that she is old and ill does not necesarily negate the things she did when she was in power and wielded it without remorse. Some people on here say that it's somehow un-human to not care now that she is old and sick, but would they express the same sympathy for other despised people such as Mugabe, Hitler (if he was still alive), a prolific peodophile, etc? I find it strange that people who say that others are not allowed to continue to hate Mrs Thatcher now because of her age and infirmity did not express similar sentiments when Osama Bin Laden was killed the other day and others were g;leeful about his death. I am not an advocate for OBL, but why the difference if it's just because Mrs Thatcher is a human being? OBL was also a human being.

Ok here is a little experiment for anyone who still thinks that gollywog is not offensive. Go to Peckham Rye on Saturday at about 4pm and at the top of your lungs shout the following: 1. "gollywog" 2. "gollywog" 3. "gollywog" and see if you can get to 10 without having your head caved in.

Reg Smeeton Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > This thread has turned into yet another race > discussion (zzzzz), nothing to do with East > Dulwich gossip, can it go to the lounge where it > belongs. What do you expect when ED stall holders sell rascist symbols at a kids fair? It's not likely to go off into the benefits or otherwise of M&S now, is it?

Penguin68, yes all of those things are appalling and the perpetrators of those atrocities should be vilified and shamed, but that does not detract from the horrors done in the name of our forefathers. We have no right to make light of the offence felt by the descendants of the victims of our past atrocities in the name of irony or some other excuse used for picking at old scabs, just because we are bored with feeling guilty about it don't want to look at the current advantage we have over the decendants of the victims.

*Bob* I appologise for branding everyone with the same brush and for my sweeping generalisation but this issue is close to my heart and close to the heart of some of my family members who have been subjected to overt and covert racism. I will add as an aside, though that generalisations are made on here constantly re Daily Mail readers, Guardian readers, bull breed owning chavs, yummy mummies etc but will admit that this is a lazy way to describe the beliefs of a group of people. I am sure there must be plenty of White middle/privileged class people who are entirely inoffensive.

They were seen as pets. Docile, subjegated versions of the more scary field slave. How is that not offensive? And in regards your italicisation of my mass murder etc comments above, are you trying to infer that these things were not part of tge international slave trade that shames our collective European history?

Why would the victors choose to own a pet version of themselves?

I'm totally stunned that anyone would think that selling a doll with connotations of mass murder, ethnic cleansing and brutally, barbaric slavery could think this is ok when the decendants if those acts of genocide are living amongst you. I am depressed by the whining, justification given by the White middle/privileged class as they again stick their size 10's into the victims of oppression from their comfortable life positions in the name of irony. You make me sick.

My pit is friendly, here stroke him, he won't bite.

I did not say I hate her. I said many people do. Where you as supportive of the family of Osama Bin Laden when the papers glorified his death? Do you feel the same way for the deaths of all humans or is some human life more valuable in your mind than others?

No it benefited the South. The North of the UK was devastated.

Punk!

I must admit that I found PR's comment funny. It was obvious that she laid it out as a joke because she starts off sympathetic and ends with a twist. Thatcher is hated by millions after what she did to the working class/North. There are bound to be many jokes about her death, especially from people who felt harmed by her governance, so I suggest anyone who is likely to feel offended, get a thick skin. The jokes are likely to be coming thick and fast. That's just life. Many people have waited a long time to see her get her comeuppance.

Depressingly, I agree with you MP.

Yes, Yes, YeeeeeSSSSSSS!