Huggers

best ever Zippo show, really funny clowns, loved the gauchos, the motorbike finale was amazing- and really was the only motorbike bit- this was Zippo not Archaos!

has anyone else had terrible problems with Parentpay today? hours of logging in, website crashing, logging in and making payment, website crashing before its cleared. No contact number. No contact email.Looks like my son isnt going to get any lunch today. Ive been attempting since 8am. this morning.

ah Martin I once auditioned for you as a clown when you were a small circus probably in the late eightees /early ninetees. I remember you gasping at my 'acrobatic display' possibly not in wonder. How wistfully I sit in your audiences now with thoughts of what might have been as opposed to now being a stand-up comic housewife and mother in Peckham!

e dealer do you mean big round fenced flower bed with path around leading into park from the common land area...that bit def allows dogs. otherwise i am most confused.

I thought the only bit that was absolutely no dogs was the picnic area. Which is the floral garden? Sexby gardens they are allowed on lead and across the japanese gardens. I think I have missed the floral gardens altogether!

hi I didnt meet my husband till my late thirties, had my first baby at 40, conceived naturally and delivered vaginally, then had my son very quickly afterwards via mother nature and vaginal delivery at 41. My husbands 7 years younger than me. It wasnt a question of me putting off motherhood, it just happened that way. and I was more relaxed as a person anyway. They are teenagers now so it seems to have gone OK! One of my bestest friends is about to have first baby at 46- again a spontaneous act of nature involving a new relationship and a complete surprise. You never know.

Mallymoo, that was a Pull The Other One audience I assume- known for its integrity, honesty and yet individuality!

I know who you mean Nancysmum, and he has got very forgetful of late. A lot of dogs will chase cats, jack russells in particular, with chase instinct, and that is one of the reasons they need to be on the lead in the street- they could knock over a cyclist, cause a crash, anything, in pursuit of a cat. My own dog when on lead, cannot bear onlead dogs, and gets very stressed encountering these two dogs, though is fine with them in park. This was obviously a horrible and traumatic event for the OP as well as for the poor cat, and while I think this man must control his dogs on the street, I do not think - if he is the one we know- he is a deliberatley cruel man, he loves his dogs -but possibly has the beginnings of a touch of dementia.

I was there and I can tell you Beyonce was wonderful. She read the crowd, she was a show woman and she understood why she had been booked unlike McCartney a few years ago who thought it was OK to do new material. Beyonce opened with her two greatest hits, a courageous start showing she had a full pack of aces. We knew we were in for something - unlike the long dreary set of others when you know its gonna be one hour 25 minutes before you have a mass euphoric singalong. Beyonce made a lot of fans that night, she committed to the speficic environment, she was in the moment, she was genuinely touched by the adoration of the huge crowd, she worked hard. And I knew nothing of Beyonce before except the two singles. Glastonbury evolves every year. The music stages are just one part of it, and the main ones will reflect the taste of the day, which may be middle of the road. Elsewhere you will find eclectic wierd things all over the place. It's the only festival that treats its festival goers as grown ups who are allowed to have fires, cook with sharp inplements, be responsible for themselves. Worrying about the weather is like going to the men's finals at wimbledon and being disappointed there isnt a Brit playing. You're there arent you! Sorry didnt read the whole of this thread, so hope not repeating what others have said.

Mrs TP the paintings prob all the same size because he consistently used same size canvas to work on.

he visited us too -he was very polite and as soon as I said I wasnt interested he thanked me and left.

Cuppatea, currently our cleaner is a woman yes and has been with us 10 years. Why would it be more likely to be a woman? Possibly because its self employed work that can be fitted around the cleaners own childrens' school day. So I'm not sure that your 'i bet your cleaner is a woman' is an assumption that I am discriminating against men or that only women take the job. If a woman is paid a proper wage for her job - and it's not a situation where a man would be paid more- I see no conflict with feminism. Or are you assuming cleaning is only womans work? In fact thinking as cleaning as something you cannot outsource without creating a social unfairness is the very opposite of what it is. In reality you are passing more money into the economy. I get paid something for my self employed work, which I have time to do because I have a cleaner, and I pass some of that wage to someone else to do the thing that otherwise I would do for free, which would mean I would earn less and the money I earnt would not pass to anyone. When I did my economics A level I remember a teacher saying a huge irritation to the economy was the d.i.y enthusiast who caused an cash flow cul de sac by not passing on part of their wage to carpenters, etc. Though you could argue it is passed to B&q- which is why we are a nation of shop keepers. You'll find that a more regulated cleaning day demanded by care homes for instance, will often be worked by men. Sometimes people work as cleaners while they are studying or it can be just a work stage in someone's life. My sister was a cleaning lady for a couple of years- she is a brilliant re-inventor of roles and described herself as a 'gentleman's help'. That was not a feminist definition of herself at all. On the other hand she could charge loads of dosh for doing a cleaners job.

I believe in old fashioned feminist ideals of wages for housework and so feel no guilt in paying a proffessional to do it for me. As long as that person is paid a proper and not exploitative wage.

Bawdynan the feedback I am getting from east end school assistant head is that it is anything but distasteful and our good outgrown school shirts and trousers would really help desperate families at school changeover time. These families cannot wait for govenment changes and are not consoled by our political anger on their behalf. they need stuff now. I think crocs are irrelevent and that's why I am focusing on school clothes. I'm not talking about dumping our old stuff on the poor but a general recycling school clothes and shoes exchange. This thread has already been picked up by a woman in the west midlands who was googling the subject after the programme and she has been in contact re this idea. Womens institute may be a good conduit for channelling such an exchange as they are already doing something re the oppressive economic burden on children of fashion To put it bluntly, we have lots of stuff and others dont. IF your child has three pairs of trousers they will be less worn out by the time he has grown out of them than the trousers of a child who has one pair. Also womens institute, which already has established networks, may be a good conduit through which to operate this.

I tell chuggers I don't have a bank account as I beleive they are the work of Satan. I find they evaporate rather quickly after that.

Candalasina and David Carnell have both mentioned local need in Southwark and Lewisham. Do you have any contacts you can ask about how best to get this stuff to families? We could just do a local collection, make some calls to schools and drive it over. It could be a start.

hi , I have been contacted by a lady in the midlands who found the edf by googling about the programme as she too wants to do somethingand she is looking into stuff her end. In contact also with a primary assistant head in East End who is looking into how we could coordinate something. She tells me when children in Tower Hamlets go into secondary education in can cause a huge financial crisis and some of these children are desperate for second hand stuf Looking into ways of targeting this- the charity shops in poor areas is quite a good idea, but we all like a bargain and it's not necessarily going to reach the people who needit most. also thinking very much of bundling according to size, age and gender

shoes are hugely expensive and with boys specially, the thing they can grow out of in weeks! therefore the item most recyclable I think. If you think how long our adult shoes last when our feet have stopped growing- and yet a childs shoe can last as little as three months before outgrown. THerefore only fulfilling perhaps a third of its potential wearability.

thanks BB100, I'll start cleaning and replacing laces straight away.

great ideas everyone! very encouraged. My children are at secondary school so trousers grown out of in seconds- also because they can afford to have more than one pair they are in much better condition when grown out of and can be recycled. Good suggestions donating those particular items to charity shops out of the area- poorer bit of Southwark/east end. Ive emailed sally army too to see whether they do clothes distribution. Great Brixton link , thanks!

i rest my case.

that's interesting and a way of recycling stuff to people at minimal cost to them- as long as they have computer and I may give that a go, with minimal postage. Do you fix a price? or is that how the bidding goes? Although there are needs for many different things, I am only thinking uniform and shoes. Because these are not personalised items, they are neutral. They are not hand me downs chosen by other children/parents but could become a shared resource. Uniforms all start smart and don't stay that way...so how would anyone else know it is a hand me down? the wearer could have worn it out a bit himself!It's when things are incongruous that you can tell- dated clothes, wrong gender etc. Also a simple idea can expand if it works, but other clothes, toys etc are not based on targeting a very specific need that is not dependent on taste.

yes there may be stigma attached to second hand clothes, but some of these children were in rags, boys wearing girls shirts etc. The children shown on telly last night seemed to have no such reservations. Goodliz, point taken, just wanted to describe to people who didnt see programme how these kids seem to hang onto their values despite their conditions.

just want to add that 'turning to crime' wasnt the thing that struck me as the greatest threat to these funny, articulate, unself pitying kids who were more worried for the burdens on their parents than on themselves and who expressed need, but not greed - but the waste of their potential in the wasteland they were struggling in.

I think doing it through schools might be good idea. But would the stuff go to the right children. In our primary school you can already give your old uniform to the school, and I think anyone could ask for it regardless of need. It was just a good way of recycling. re charity shops- even at three quid a throw, that is still too much for these families. Yes donate to charity shops if you want or some of the time. But I would directly like to send my perfectly smart outgrown uniform sets to those families in areas of economic devestation like the gorbals. David carnell, did you see it? the day to day abject misery was something to behold and these are communities surrounded by the same thing. Do you remember the brown paper parcels we used to make up for the refugees. No, you are too young. Labelled with gender and age. I can't remember who the packages went to, but then they went to distribution centres. The thing is, those families depicted did not have access to charity shops and they did not look like they would turn down second hand stuff. that stuff was just not circulating in such an impoverished community. Yes of course Lewisham and Hackney need the stuff in charity shops, but by the very nature of those localities means there is stuff available. the uniform thing was the biggest obvious social divide thing identifying children at school. It was a source of shame. These children had ripped and undersized clothes. It affected the way they saw themselves and how others saw them. Of course their other problems were huge, but this would be a tiny step to helping out. I am going to ask the Salvation army if they do anything like this. The main thing I am thinking is of all the extra stuff that London must have compared with these other communities.