SeanMacGabhann

isn't the flip side of all of this price arguing that if an employer can find someone who does the same job as you but a lot cheaper, they should just go with them ?

Louisa I was careful to say Sharia law "and such like" - ie, not the law itself but any eye-for-an-eye still punishment The reason I mention Chiswick is not to dispute the relative crime figures but to highlight the fact that in another thread about (much pettier but maybe no less significant) crime you told people to get over it as it was SE London not Chiswick... but in THIS case the empathy was much quicker to the fore

Mockney - I'm not as edumacated as you anglo-Iberian types but I don't think it's fair to bring politics into this - tea-pots and forklifts are the order of the day here Maybe I misread the original email.. maybe instead of a war museum he was at a restaurant and he felt that his chicken wasn't cut to the specific measurements as outlined in the Krok Brothers manual or something. Anyway - as for me looking for my cyber-mates to join in, the last post above was from Atila - someone who I have never met and usually disagree with on here - but who has got the point completely.

*sigh* The only person making assumptions here is you Alan The title of the thread is a song by a resident American with an American band - The anecdote in question occurred yesterday and is echoed almost hourly in the bars and hotels I have been in in Vietnam - to represent it as a minority view of Americans in Vietnam would be incorrect Far from being anecdotal and irrelevant, the story in question is the WHOLE. FREAKING. POINT. Lessons from the past have not been learned and are biting us in the ass today I will take the Pepsi challenge any day as to who has more American friends and you can ask them directly if they feel I am racist. Youcan ask them behind my back if you prefer. Racist I ain't. As soon as someone expressed a reluctance to go to America based on the thread I jumped in to remind them what a great place it is and how good the people can be The only racist I am aware of is the possibly the American in my initial post and possibly you after your deranged teapot analogy above - in no way could that be comparable to the war in Vietnam. Don't assume and don't misrepresent - it doesn't become you I wonder if anyone has reported this thread as racist.... I'll be showing it to my American friends in any case. I know who they agree with...

Alan if the Irish invaded the UK and after a long, protracted bloody war, the town of Exeter had a museum about the events which was less than praiseworthy of the Irish, only for an Irish tourist to remark on the cheek of the museum, AND if the Irish had gone on to effectively rule the planet THEN the comparison may have legs I have lived in this country as UK supermarkets have cleared shelves of Irish produce just because of another IRA bomb - not especially clever but maybe not racist either I would also deny that either definitions 5 or 9 apply to America - it is far more diverse than that When I say "afraid of Americans" it is obvious to anyone with reason I am not referring to a race of people - many American's (of the race you MEAN - ie white, prosperous and possibly conservative) are afraid of America and it's place in the world. Forget for a moment wether you think I am racist or not - tell me what you think of the even described in my initial post. Was the American in question spot on and the museum should have bigged up the American role in the War?

Agreed with everyone - great shop and lovely people and horrified to hear they had to undergo such a thing Then again, it's not Chiswick Louisa is it? I hope they catch the guilty and the guilty receives the appropriate sentence - ball-bag hanging and similar (such as hand chopping-off) can be left to Sharia law and suchlike

As with everyone (including DM) my thoughts go out - it's an awful thing to happen to anyone and the repercussions can be the worst part - hopefully a speedy recovery and maybe join the forum at the next drinks for a bit of humanity-faith-restoration therapy? PeckhamRose - As a long term reader of DulwichMum I'm aware that here posts are rarely "on-topic" but are often just the tonic for anything bad going on in life. It is satire after all and even if the victim in this particular case is still feeling shaky, it can be therapeutic to have some levity in even the grimmest of situations. And she will have seen more from the "grim" side of life than most of us, believe me If we are to censor or "advise" DM to amend her posts then we will be in a situation where any humour/satire will be as cutting as the that found in Saudi Arabia. Songs such as "Dear God" would be shelved lest they cause offence to recently attacked Christians (or somefink) (all that said I',m assuming you are aware that DM is satire by now? The fact that people might take here posts as seriously as say.. Louisa's is frightening)

So, seeing as how the song has taken on a new life since being used in T** W*** (with season 2 being the original version of the song) thought I'd post this Way down in the hole....

plus, Maximay, don't forget he had a girls name too! bignumber5: Don't be put off going to the US because of those guys - I mean, I know exactly where you are coming from but you will meet a totally different kind of person if you actually go to the US - particularly the blue states (how American.. red and blue mean one thing everywhere else in the world but for THEIR politics it has to be reversed!) It's a bit like people not visiting the UK because we vote people like Thatcher and Blair in plus all of those yobs in Spain - it maybe true but it hardly represents the whole picture (then again, Stewart Lee's routine about "not naturally curious people" is running through my mind - and making me chuckle as much as Dom's snatch of Green Berets)

snorky is spot on (and are you officially back now??) Anyway Brooklyn and New Jersey are places that I stayed on visits - New Jersey is fun from a Sopranos point of view but doesn't have much going for it. Brooklyn I found much more fun and remains the scene of the most epic breakfast I have ever ever had

many of them anyhow.. some of my best friends ARE Americans but... I get to a free internet terminal in rural(ish) Vietnam - somebody from upstate NY has left their email client logged in and is speaking to a friend about their visit to the DMZ where they learnt about the guerilla tactics This person felt the museum in question was "biased against the Americans". Not in an even-handed way - but in an indignant "how dare they!?" way BEFORE ANYONE POSTS I don't want this to be an American-bashing thread - the title is a ironic one and from a great song. But I am genuinely curious about such a mindset. Does anyone really think that John Wayne's Green Berets was a great film for example?? Or what kind of pro-American stance would one expect to find in a museum in mid-Vietnam?

I had me one of them too - every day I thank someone that I had that mentor - I learnt a lot. Mind you he's a godawful mess now.... so we share that as well And your beautiful woman is doing ok by you so far

a) because you have us down as men of taste and distinction b) because you're right

Think I mentioned it elsewhere a while back but George Orwell exhorting the working man to not forget his roots but to continue to improve his mind has always stuck with me oh and " If the man comes, make ready for the man"

Having spent a fair amount time in NY both for work and pleasure the thought of staying anywhere near Time Square is horrific I barely ever go north of 14th when I'm there now - Tribeca is my home from home, with excursions into Bleeker St and Lower East Side (although what they have done with the Port at the bottom of the island is nigh-on criminal) Don't tell Mockney, but there is a bar in Tribeca where I'm convinced the barmaid is Neko Case (shhhhh) She even remembers what I drink when I go in I miss the old owner of the Tribeca Tavern - Sal. Legend... I once spent 2 hours listening to him talk to me about Stand up comedy and Judas Priest. Then again, he thought they were different things

"oh, indeeed" I know of at least one forumite who is wont to call people "good poh-lice" me, I have taken to receiving any bad news in a Stringer-like fashion -a deep inward sigh, some thought and then this-is-how-it's-gonna-be And I don't mean ironically - I ACTUALLY believe I'm being that measured As I've now broken my out-of-the-country-so-not-posting duck on a main thread can I also say I was HORRIFIED when I read Keef say he he couldn't watch the 2nd disc of series 2 - if I'm not mistaken that's the very disc where somebody very major does something bad to someone we care a lot about from series 1 - and he calls it like it ain't no thing!!!! I mean... sheeeee-it.

Louisa As one of the few people who stands up for (and speaks for) the settled working class community in ED - are you sure they all share the same values? Might they not actually be quite a varied lot and don't need a spokesperson? I tell thee, if anyone professed to speak for the Irish ex-pat community in ED I'd be on to them before you could say "Se?n says NOOOOOO"

it's the combination of prudishness and filth that you possess that does it for me DM...

Last time I checked (8pm on a Sunday evening) most of the pubs on LL were full of non-smokers My brother runs a pub as well and he too echoes the sentiment that the smoking ban has had an effect. When I ask him if business was also down the year BEFORE the smoking-ban he reluctantly fesses up that this was so.. so even without the ban, business would most likely be down in these places If (more) pubs had grasped the smoking nettle a lot sooner a lot of them wouldn't be in the predicament they are in (a similar argument applies to the music business and digital media but that's for another day) If the ban was repealed tomorrow, some pubs would see a minor uplift - but the trend would remain downwards. Any landlord or landlady relying on the post-war formula of running a pub is going the way of the dodo - and that has nowt to do with the smoking ban

Jenni you will be just fine and dandy. Welcome to the area and hope you will be along to the next forum drink up i also note you have only been here 5 mins and witnessed a spat between louisa and. . Well almost anyone! Although in this case peckham rose i dont think louisa went that far. . aaanyway. .

Good to know more people coming along. . I look forward to it already

Any chance of a link for something to substantiate this? anyone think april is a bit soon for many businesses to sort out this room? kel is correct to say all businesses had to choice to declare themselves one way or another before the ban. The reason legislation is required is that smokers like company as well as nicotine so to keep groups happy most places allowed smoking. Its much easier for a smoker to pop out for a fag than it is for a non smoker to. . . Oh wait they dont smoke so all their mates are in another pub the initial posting carries the sub text that we are all keen for the legislation to be repealed. We aint

Rubbish film but I loved Judge Hershey in the original strip CWALD - how can I EVER look at you in the same way again?? (mind you, I've said that before...)

touch? ratty... well.. up to a point. It's just, to my mind, the high horse position appears to be the declaration of something as dangerous, when it's just a logical outcome. AND unlikely to be construed as dangerous if it were to apply in other areas. Unless we lived in those other areas Why d'you suppose a journalist was in the area at lunchtime? Random journalistic curiosity? Or at the behest of a particularly persistent phone call from a concerned local? Look - I'm not disagreeing with anyone else on this thread - an area has become more dangerous because of an increase in traffic. But the default position of "something has to be done" usually contains a subtext of "by someone else" The solutions are: curb traffic generally (which will affect most residents of the road in question in ways they don't like) Drive more carefully (but then EVERYONE is a careful driver themselves.. it's other people...) Stop non locals parking there (y'aint from around here are you boy?) Will someone have an accident at this spot as a result of the current situation? Very possible - but it's a tiny, tiny, tiny meaningless blip in the statistics of car-related deaths every year - so... you know.... most people can live with that. Right? (and no - it can't be dealt with "one locality at a time" -if it could most people couldn't easily travel to other parts of the country without some other local bod saying - you can't park THERE! etc)

OK - so today doesn't mean anything in terms of trophies - but I'll put it down as a good day at the office. If someone said Chelsea would drop points but Man U would get a predictable win I would have taken it - but for them both to drop two points?? Get in Everton were robbed mind you... And I feel sorry for Spurs with that last minute equaliser - still a creditable result - it's how we got a point against them after all West Ham? The big teams yes bit the Wigans no???