*Bob*

Cate. How many people contributing to this thread? Most of them parents. Most of them non-smokers (including me, virtually). Leaving aside your general smoking-related warnings (the nuts and bolts of which everyone I'm sure mostly agrees with and have been well aware of for twenty years.. thanks though..) - leaving that aside - with regards to your specific chastisement of Keef and his discreet smoking.. you're (literally) on your own. That ought to tell you something.

What's this? Cigarettes are bad for you? Good God - someone should, I dunno, take some steps to inform the populace.

From Keef's fag around the corner outside a pub to foetal abnormalities on American Indian reservations. Yes.. I see what you mean. Think on't, Keef.

Keef, you should be ashamed of yourself. People like you shouldn't be allowed to have children. They should be at taken - once reaching masturbatory age - held down, and have their knackers smashed between two half-enders.

Brendan - I can save you the trip into the FR. You can buy one and fit it yourself but you may need to have the seat belt professionally shortened for it to fit properly. Be sure to get a seat with a removable fabric cover so you can easily wash it when it starts to smell of smoke too much.

cate Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Good for you. Do you smoke? Occasionally.. assuming I can get 100ft clear of any child, out of line of sight and the prevailing winds are right.

I keep our child in an air filtered glass box, lest a stray whiff of smoke might catch the breeze, curl up his nostril and kill him dead in an instant.

Cate - you should nip round and show Keef and his Missus where else they're going wrong, parenting-wise. I'm sure they'd appreciate it.

no comment

I think the other thread would benefit from at least a handful of tit jokes. So to speak.

brum Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- Before then, > females would attract males by simply sticking > their bottoms in the air. You mean this isn't the way it's still done? Well it worked for me.

Quids, you do know it's your parts which are supposed to go through the hole, right?

In fact absolutely anything to do with babies, from start to finish, is nothing short of freaky.. if you think about it in any detail. Especially the sex part. Indeed, Mrs *Bob*'s insistence on a 'glory holes only' policy did take a little getting used to.

Creepy is a strong word to use, but it's there to get a reaction. Wasn't there some other newspaper article written not so long back by a mother who found her children 'boring'? Cue outraged mothers foaming at the mouth, falling over themselves to declare every gurgle, faecal ejection and withering scream to fill them with nothing but unmitigated joy. Anyway, it might not be creepy, and it may be the most natural thing in the world, but that doesn't stop it from being 'a bit weird'. Milk is weird. Nature is weird. And when you're watching Eastenders whilst a double expressing contraption huffs, puffs and bubbles away, clamped to a set of nipples just to your left, it's even weirder.

When my Mum and her friends had babies, the done thing was to formula feed at get back to work asap. It was all about empowerment and a woman's right to choose. These days, the best thing is to breastfeed for as long as possible and give up work. It's all about empowerment and a woman's right to choose. I'm still unsure as to who's really doing the choosing, either then or now.

Breasts.. Beer.. I think I can see the next logical evolutionary step.

I remember going to (what would become) my first girlfriend's house to collect her for our first date, to be invited in by her father, though a doorway to the left and.. *click*.. the door was shut behind me. All I could see were books, a leather-topped desk and a big scary Dad Face. 'The talk' was thus issued. Still copped a feel on the way home though.. round the back of the church. How d'ya like them apples, Dad?

Finding true love, north of the border..

(Full of) Shite Club

No way - I'm relying on this thread to see me through Monday.

I agree 100% (*keeps looking at this thread*)

No children on there then? Good stuff.. Looks like we can all live in peace and harmony after all.

I've been past the place four hundred times and have never seen any more than two people using 'the equipment' at once - for any serious purpose other than 'as a laugh to kill two minutes'. If you put a load of shiny metal moving parts within ten paces from a skateboard park and toddler's playground, you're kind-of asking for it. There are also several busy roads and a pond for drowning in which parents must negotiate on their way to and from the park. I guess they feel they can make their own decisions as to whether lifting their children briefly onto a tractionless treadmill constitutes any sort of meaningful risk, in the grand scheme of life. There are logs in Peckham Rye which are more dangerous, if used unsupervised. I expect if there was a queue of tracksuited keep-fit enthusiasts doing star-jumps and jogging up and down on the spot to keep warm, patiently waiting for a machine to become free, there wouldn't be any parents and children using them as a momentary distraction en route to the ice cream shop. Only there aren't.

Brendan Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- I left > booking a restaurant for after the football in my > sister?s hands yesterday so of course she booked > it for 7:30. Any problems getting a table?

HAL9000 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- I am sure that he > is a really nice guy in real life Alas, from what I have heard, this is not the case. He has an eye patch and a thin, cruel nose. He also smells strongly of cabbage leaves which are 'on the turn' - and the tone of his speech can only be described as akin to that of a constipated parrot.