*Bob*

reggie Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I never understood how giving away someone else's > stuff made you a hero. Come now, Reggie. Don't think about the 99.6% of general thieving that's going on there - think about the 0.4% of legitimate usage. What about them?

Here's a nice one of Sean and his missus. One for the album.

In my (somewhat limited, admittedly) experience, women are often delighted and charmed by the unexpected grabbing of a breast. Usually the left. If you don't get a result - try the other one.

Go for it, Morris! By this time next week - with luck - you'll have one more severed head in the fridge.

It's like having a central heating repair outfit - who only work in summer. Good thinking, Southwark.

And I was waiting for a couple of well-known posters to pop-up, bang on time - and demand confirmation that the woman was black - assuming that Emser was being too PC to say. As it is, the fact that the woman is white confirms Northlonder's perfectly reasonable point. Thread hijacking or not - if you can't make that point here, when it's evident, when can you make it?! Is it so difficult - for people to try and understand the implication of 'black' always being mentioned as a crime topline descriptive, but not so 'white'?! Take a few minutes and think it through!

Does anyone know: is 'underpinning' a specific area of insurance trouble - by which I mean, not comparable to, say, having had a subsidence claim but it only resulting in (relatively) minor repairs? Are are you ripe for the picking if there's any mention of subsidence whatsoever?

Looks like someone's been put 'on hide'..

Some typically obtuse posts from you over the weekend UDT. I don't remember anyone suggesting to date that Iceland 'spends as much' as M&S on marketing. Selecting random facts always was your strong point.. as ever, it's the interpretation that's always a problem - especially for someone with your particular condition. I suggest (if you want to take part in this sort of discussion) less time sitting around in flares listening to soul music, more time in the real world - if you know where it is. So - to business. Iceland is (virtually) all uk-based with frozen food accounting for most of its business. M&S sells food, clothing and homewares and around 1/3 of its stores aren't even in the uk. Are the two comparable like-for-like? Iceland employs somewhere over 20k people. M&S nearly 4 times the amount. Are the two comparable like-for like? M&S turnover is around 4x the turnover of Iceland. So the question is: how does Iceland's marketing spend both scale-up and stack-up against the (relative) areas of M&S's spend? Because unless you can grasp this, you might as well be comparing a wasp and a tennis racket. Iceland does not, as you imagine, lean back in the safe knowledge that its products 'sell themselves', or that people wander in there just because of the nice big red sign. It spends many millions of pounds on getting people to their store. Going back a few years they were spending around 15m at luring people in there. And I'm sure even you can agree, 15m is 'quite a lot' of money. Its successful campaigns (such as the Kerry K one, before she got ditched for beaking chang) made a huge difference to the fortunes of the chain.

Is Iceland now deemed to be fulfilling some kind of valuable public service, like a library - or a GP? I thought it was a private company who (despite a few token boxes of fresh on the way in) makes most its millions selling well-marketed but low-quality convenience food to a country with an ever-expanding population of morbidly obese people on low incomes. We're not exactly living in Knightsbridge yet. There are loads of places within spitting distance of Iceland where you can buy and make better food for less money and with minimal effort. As somebody put so aptly several pages ago, Iceland is no friend to the poor. No more so than, say, Lambert & Butler - or White Lightning. At least there's some genuine enjoyment to be had from the latter two. If it were a Lidl, I'd agree.. but Iceland?.. It's just so dismally British.

Posted at 4.29am? Good grief.

Sorry UDT. Humour - my mistake. I don't know the figures - someone here probably does. But - let's take TV - forget about whether the adverts are posh-looking or not, the real money goes on buying the advertising slots. And Iceland is consistently one of the most 'remembered' brands at key sales time like Crimbo etc. Which means they spend a lot of money on getting a lot of people to see their adverts a lot of times. M&S too, of course. Indeed, both work very hard at attracting their target customer base: people who can't be arsed to cook properly, the only difference between the two being that one has more cash to spend than the other. Two sides of a very similar coin.

the-e-dealer Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Do you ever say anything useful nob ? You're right - I should spend my time better. What do you suggest? Spending my days getting my knickers in a knot about the council - and boring everyone to tears by pestering the local councillor over deeply trivial matters at every opportunity. Your contribution is solid gold - I could learn a thing or two.

Undisputedtruth Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I hardly watch tv, Bob. How big is Iceland's > advertising budget? Kerry Katona don't come cheap, UDT.

Undisputedtruth Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I have more respect for Iceland shoppers than M&S > as they're not influenced by huge advertising > budgets. Are you talking about Iceland, the frozen food chain giant with the huge primetime television campaigns?

I hear ya. There were some old folks on your street. Gotcha. There's the science.

Jeremy Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > You really think it makes a difference what they > write? I don't. No.. but you reckon you'd be put-off dealing with them because of it. And come on.. feeling dirty is an inescapable part of buying or selling a house!

Come on, Jeremy. The evidence is right there. There was a guy next door who was 70 - and also some other people who were 70. Which part of "there were some people on my street who were around 70 so everyone else in ED must have been 70' do you not understand?

So you two wouldn't sell through this agent, even if you had the type of property that they had the best track record in selling - because of the blurb? Or pass on TheHouseOfYourDreams? - for the same reason? You're nuthin' but a lotta talk an' a badge.

Ted, most of these kind of houses came with a skip in the kitchen when they were originally built. Then, as skips in the kitchen fell out of fashion, they were - sadly - removed. These days owners are more sympathetic to period features, so many are having the skips put back in. If they can afford it!!

If only! I'm still stuck in my bedsit - I can only dream of such a palace.

The amusingly ludicrous descriptions are W&S's trademark, are they not? It must have become an office in-joke by now, surely. They do have (way) more than their fair share of the nicer gaffs around the area though, so someone must like them.

Excellent publicity. I like those new(ish) sorts of townhouses. They've got a good feel inside. And they've done a nice job with it inside. Particularly styled, but nice nonetheless. So - scorners - sod off! Or let's see a picture of your house. Put your money where your mouth is, style gurus.

Has to be Wooster & Stock.. ?

But what happens when a man is tired of Oxted? What then?