SeanMacGabhann

"ay! not fur nutin dc but.... " Clearly I wasn't comparing MP to TS - but teh picture I'm speaking of already had me labelled as a hit man

I saw plenty of cheesy 80s vinyl amongst some "classic" 60's and 70'stuff - CD's tend to be of the newer variety - but there really are only a few dozen at this point so hard to pin-point

oh great - now my boss wants to know just what the hell is so funny and I can't stop laughing.... Actually that pick of me and you outside the george on your flickr isn't so far off the mark

can't say as I'm bothered where he comes from but I will agree with madworld74 that I hope he stays Popped in on Monday to have a nose and he was most agreeable and very happy to talk about new bands etc - I think we should lock him and Mockney Piers in there and power Lordship Lane of the energy resulting from the conversation He wants the place not to be just a record shop but a "hang-out" which sounded so old-fashioned I nearly laughed but I actually really like the idea .There are however some issues.. Several days in and the stock, whilst very browsable, was limited. Vinyl is better catered for than CDs and makes it a lovely place to go but there was nothing I wanted to buy. Plenty that was good but I already had it, or didn't fancy the prices. I think it's an interesting first-stab, and a very personal effort which makes me very happy - but to survive I think he could do with some more feedback. I urge everyone to pop in and check it out, and make sure you chat with the owner John (I can imagine some people taking one look and dismissing the place, concept and execution in a blur of negativity - but it's a fragile thing so I'm nursing it)

thanks Strawbs (although I quite like the idea of being "made" ;-) ) * sips first coffee of the day and senses harmony descending once again *

Some good and interesting posts coming in here but many of them seem to go back to the original post when I believe things have moved on Surely by now, enough people have posted re-affirming cazzyr's right to setup or attend any group she wishes. And if some people can see why she was offended that's been expressed too But what's pertinent NOW is that after dying down for a couple of months, the OP came on and took a huge, offensive and deliberately malicious swipe - and that's ok is it? It might have been understandable back at the time but as I say several months have passed... several people have posted very eloquent and often personal posts but still people are talking as if the accusations are true and some of us need "educating" or am I going mad?

yep - agreed ???? - already held my hands up. But thanks for dropping by ;-)

indeed RosieH - and I agree that a good flounce is a beautiful thing (well, enjoyable anyway!) But to take the drinks as an example of what I'm talking about - every month when the next venue and date is announced,a number of people say someting like"can anyone come?"or "im thinking of coming but a bit nervous" The responses to those are the true indicator of how inclusive this forum is in my book. Of course many people don't want to come to drinks, but those that do are never met with anything but "would be good to see you - never met you before in my life but come along anyway"

hmm rather than respond to yet another "I got fined for parking where I shouldn't have" (but this time got off on a technicality) I just throught I would recast the whole argument from the view of public transport users very clumsily I admit... but I tried to squeeze in: Accusations of raising revenue at own expense? Check Cheating the system and resent paying the price? Check Laziness? Check But unlike parking, everyone just thought (quite rightly) I was being weird to complain about these things

but as a clique is defined by being "exclusive" I can't see how it applies to this forum - there are people who post too much (hello me) and people who post infrequently and there are many in between and many who never post but just read But "exclusive"? How can anything that started as 4 men and a dog and now have several thousand unique views every day be "Exclusive"? It's expansion can only be because of it's inclusiveness I would say. Many of seem to frequent other forums - any good examples of 1) cliquey or 2) more inclusive places I wonder?

My reaction to any argument is to usually try and rationalise- this often means I don't take into account other's emotions at the time. But then again some people seem to run on emotions so finding the right time to talk about things rationally can be difficult The reason I started this thread was because, in the course of various recent arguments, I had a look back at some people's posting history (you know the one - click on their name, view all posts by) to see what kind of person they are generally, whether I had argued with them before, whether we had shared views before etc (some people might call that OCD - I thought it was manners ;-) ) and I was surprised to see posts from early 07 from people I consider regulars who left in high dudgeon at some point

either I'm not getting other peoples sarcasm or people took my initial post at face value! (Brendan excluded)

oooh cdonline - I don't remember you threatening to do "one" I know the thread you did get upset in and agree it's better to express those concerns but I don't think you did a "Bellenden Belle" as we should now call it ;-)

dear God moos - hopefully the spelling of "teh" proved it was really me And hopefully everyone realises satire when they see it??

I have noticed that every time I try and board a bus in the area, I am asked to provide "cash" or show an oyster card. You would think that an oyster card is something they can issue free or for a one off charge but np - they want you to put your hard-earned cash "onto" the card as well! Surely this is just a cash-making excercise and is designed to penalise people?? Worse - I managed to get on a bus recently without paying (teh driver was looking the other way) and these fascists came on and fined me ?20!!! Is that fair price for a bus journey????? I was only going one stop after all

ha - excellent BB! How endearlingly precocious... extra marks for self-quotation as well

Baby groups of any demorgraphic can be boring IME scruffy-mummy! As for what the original poster was saying I don't believe anyone has a problem with it. I keep taking my chill pill and then someone says I had a problem with the original post - and I don't. The problem I have is with the aggressive (calling people "ignorant" and "wankers" follow up remarks - none of which have been retracted btw) Asfor the genuinely ignorant remarks you quoted in a parent meeting - the less of that sort of thing the better- but a case could be made that if ignorant hetties like that are left unchallenged by the (bored) gat parents present then the prejudice is likely to remain for far longer? I don't believe teh onus should be on gat people to "go" to heterosexual anythings -events should be events.if anything is self-promoted as a "heterosexual" evening then by all means let's gang up on it! Finally (before my next chill pill)I would love to know the names of the posters you think would benefit from going to more gay events. My suspicion is that most of the names mentioned will have several gay friends, seen several gay films, own several gay albums, been to pride (or similar) several times. And that pretty much any notion (bar one or two silly posts) that this mega-thread has been sustained by ignorance of gay issues is a misinterpratation of events now -that rainbow drinks thread that never got around to setting a date - how about we focus on that and then maybe we can see how chilled everyone actually is

maybe so MelbourneG - but why would that be? And am I right in assuming the few you are thinking are included in ratty's list? Ratty - that was chucklesome

Lot's of people have, in the lifetime of this forum, declared: "right that's it - I've had enough of you lot with your intellectual/liberal/mysoginistic/ridiculous/etc etc ways" And whilst I'm sure many of them keep their promise, many people do seem to still be here. Why make so public a declaration and why come back? I'm not complaining about anyone coming back just curious what drives the thinking

But is this really what people want - every thread a "ghetto" where people who don't share the interest in the title are never welcome? Personally I love it when people come in to (say) the geeks gaming forum or the football forum and say "I just don't get it - what is the attraction??". I don't think "well if you have no interest why are you even here?" If it really is what people want then I can't see much point and any reference to "community" becomes moot

I hear you STB - that's why I said I thought it could be misconstrued - but I belive the intent to have been good. That said MM, I haven't seen much in the way of you grasping just how little that amount of cash is MM said: The ?100 answer you got was the total a couple was allowed as a maximum benefit - before anything else let's take ?30 away from that if they need to travel (that's 2 weekly bus passes - can't afford full travelcard) Another ?30 away for electricity/gas/water - v conservative estimate I think ?10-20 for council tax Whatever else for clothes, general maintenance of house etc How much does that leave for food? None of this negates the desire for good food/restaurants or any of the things in life that do cost money and make life worth living - but it should reemphasise and rebut arguments about scrounging welfare populace. Not that anyone on here HAS made any such comment but one only has to read the Mail/Telegraph/Sun for, oooh - 10 syllables before stumbling across the general gist. Ditto liberal/leftie middle class types have a tendency to say they have it hard as well.... mmm mmm All very bleedin' heart of me I know but did anyone who knows me expect anything less? (and yes I am aware there are unemployed people who play the system and get much more than that - they are fewer in number than one would think and possess enough determination and cunning to suggest that companies should be beating a path to THEIR door)

Interesting reply mightyroar - have to confess I overlooked that original post (as I tend to when anyone OD's on text speak when they are using a proper keyboard) And the person who has posted that message quoted has, i believe, been the subject of some pretty robust arguments against themselves in some other threads For what it's worth I see where you are coming from and wouldn't agree with the sentiments epressed in that quote - although I do NOT think (and I could well be wrong on this so I'm prepared to hold my hands up) that the unsubtle, badly expressed intentions related to sexuality or gender per se (I believe the poster of that comment is female) - my take on it was that the differences referred to are about the cut and thrust of a public forum and not being quite so defensive. But I can totally see how something else could be read into it. And unless the poster comes back on and says either way I guess I'll never know. I would also re-iterate that of the dozens of posts it is in a minority of - barely 1 or 2 But once again - re-reading the thread from the beginning, the first punch thrown was when cazzy called someone (and a frequent-poster, enlightened someone at that) "ignorant". read every post from the beginning to that retort and tell me where the belligerence came from. If one or two posts were inexpertly (or even malevolently) posted amongst the many dozens I still think most people were upset at the pugnacious attitude shown rather than anything else I stand by what I said earlier - I would like the real cazzyr to post. Obviously stung by the original thread she is obviously still reading the forum months later. There must be some inkling that the whole world isn't out to get her. i'd like to heard about the bazillion other threads and what her contributions to those might be. I genuinely think that all of this has nothing to do with any form of sexism or prejudice but is all down to public-forum etiquette and mores - it happens all the time in other forums (forae?) . there are some prominent posters here who equally came in all guns blazing and faced a settled community going "scuse me what's with the attitude" - most of them realised it was a case of misunderstanding and readjusted.

t'would be lovely to see you there cdonline - and cazzyr - they aren't organised as hetty-only nights to get a teeny bit serious for a mo (you can skip to the ****** bit a few paragraphs down if you don't want serious) making a case doesn't involve OCD - anybody who needs to prove any point needs evidence to back up a claim - otherwise anyone can call anyone anything and not have to do anything to back it up. The accusations of mysoginy, homophobia and bullying levelled at the majority here are not minor and those accused could be pursued legally if true I absolutely agree with the statement that setting up a gay and lesbian parenting group should be totally a non-issue. But the reason I think it became one in this particular thread (and it's an only my opinion but I'm going to try and expand on it - by doing so I'm not trying to have a go at cazzyr or anyone else) is that the wording in the initial post appeared more "us" and "them" than is usual. Almost certainly not deliberately or meant for anything other than clarity but the final phrase "There's loads on for hetero parents but v little for the gays in the village! " suggests there is a big hetero group organising exclusive evenings - when the truth is existing groups are probably mixed. So it was to be expected (I reckon) that people would at least query the "Why so exclusive?" stance based on that sentence alone. Those initial promptings elicited an over-defensive response and things went on from there - but I still see little or no homophobia - and certainly nothing that compares with calling an entire group wankers. In my book, someone who does that does need to explain themselves - even if they have a very good point to make, stooping to that level just ostracizes everyone ******* There are plenty of regular gay and female contributors on here - if this environment was hostile to them I figure we would hear more about it Oh dang - I put that last bit in the non-serious section - tch Back to the drinks - doesn't have to be the monthly drinks - there are many evenings where plenty of forumites (gay and straight) hook up - book evenings, curry evenings, open-mic evenings yadda yadda. No one has to bother meeting but it would at least prove it's not populated by "wan****" First drink is on me if I see ye out and about

[cont] to make the point further, there was also a thread about gay/lesbian friendly bars which a) included a contribution from cazzyr and b) a contribution from me amongst others and didn't generate into mud-slinging and which produced several recommendations - can be found here: http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?5,46046,page=1 So I do find accusations of the sort being made particularly..irksome I have no idea how cazzyr is or what she is like - she could be the nicest person alive but all I have to go on is an overly-defensive post followed by being called mysoginistic, homophobic wanker - Personally I would love to hear from the nice cazzyr! It's a bank holiday Monday, back to work tomorrow, it's bucketing down rain so the more sunshine we generate here the better

cdonline - I am genuinely interested in opinions such as yours (and indeed cazzyr's) if they are backed up Where is all this misogyny and homophobia - can we have quotes? Can we have context as well. Like annaj I have re-read the 5 pages and fail to see either. But with several female and gay friends I need to be told where this stuff is coming from so I don't put a foot in it. It;s a serious accusation. (on a less serioud note, it may scupper my chance at the badger&mikese22 friend auditions!) The original post was quite - as you put it "normal" but it was also pretty exclusive and people were only prodding as to the whys and wherefores. To compare with rob's request above, he explained his reasons Again, to accuse someone of homophobia, misogyny, and now bullying without any backup is pretty lame. the thread is still all there - anyone can read it and judge it's contents but you can't just label 5 pages of opinion as such - examples please! cdonline - You've been on here a while - you know many of the posters - do you really think bullying is de rigeur? And if not commonplace then why would we pick on someone we don't know? Your second ever post on here was about Gay drinks at the rye - I was part of that thread - and I didn't see any homophobia then Genuinely baffled