*Bob*

Here's the thing: for every teenage parent someone knows who is making the best of the (often difficult) circumstances they find themselves in (for whatever reason), dealing with it and getting on in life, everybody knows that somewhere, there are another ten good-for-nothing spongers taking-up space. Take one strand of my own family. On-and-off invalidity benefit (yeah, right) for the best part of 40 years now. It worked-out so well (I joke, of course) that they (the parents) have now passed on their valuable life lessons to their children - neither of whom have worked more than one year in fifteen and themselves now have four children between them. That's three generations housed by the council and paid for by others (eg those 'selfish middle class 30-40-somethings' like myself and many others following this thread).

Keef Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > However, Mrs Keef often comes home from work at a > primary amazed at how lots of the kids always have > flash new gear, and the parents are all weel > dressed, and driving flash cars, but obviously not > working... Dealers, maybe?

Nero Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I asked the man at the garden centre a few weeks > ago whether he was selling up, and he said no. Gosh, I wonder what made him change his mind so quickly? Or was he just lying?

ChavWivaLawDegree Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I just hate the asumption that teenagers doing > what nature intended and procreating is always > seen as something negative to be pitied and looked > down on. Neither is it something to be celebrated. As Kalamity says, it should be a social responsibility to support, but getting preggers when you're a teenager is hardly a reason for dancing in the streets, is it?! At least in the majority of cases.

Polarising nonsense, as usual with these kinds of topics. Does anyone really think the best time to have children is either: a) when you're 16? or b) when you're 45? Of course not.

ChavWivaLawDegree Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Yes, re-nationalise it! Yeah.. and bring back hanging.

figgins Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > "The inquiry is at 10am on Tuesday 29 January > 2008" > Well, that's convenient. Should ensure that > ninety per cent of the people who would like to > go, don't. Someone has (correctly) come to the conclusion that, irritated as some people may be by Nero, they're probably not irritated enough to sacrifice half a day's holiday to fight the cause.

Perth mourns

Of course, 90% of television programming in them days was so dire that it was a welcome relief when the adverts came on.

Frisco Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Everyone on the EDF has their own style *Bob*, and > it wouldn't do if everyone in ED displayed the > same lame auto-generated sense of humour. Affirmative, Frisco-9

barrymarshall Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I usually hate TV advertising and will change > channels when they come on, so I don't remember > many. However, this one, with the lines from Moby > Dick, is a classic. Indeed.. (*trivia alert*) a commercial directed by one of the few ad directors who have gone on to make a half-decent feature film - Sexy Beast. They're all wannabee film directors at heart..

On the ball as ever, Ted.. you've gotta love Snopes. The non-999 number is a good idea though.

Frisco Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I really never understand the 'err' compulsion > when posting, Give it a go! It's one of those little things you can just chuck-in to help your postings read less like they've been auto-generated by a machine. So.. this taxi..?

Sounds like a fun night, Frisco. Best put the white gloves in to soak in readiness for your next inspection.

It's such a big issue to Southwark that they've had to take the drastic steps of..er.. making no real effort to either tell people about it or do anything to solve the 'problem'. Apart from 'identifying five sites' (ie eco-friendly supermarkets which 95% of will people drive to) - well done Southwark!

Or I'll burn it at the bottom of the garden - with the polystyrene I've been saving-up. That'll teach 'em.

I know! I'll move back to Wandsworth (or the various other boroughs) where 'the boffins' have managed to come-up with a solution to this terribly perplexing conundrum, allowing everyone to pop their recycling in the same sack without the world coming to an end.

Perhaps if enough people put enough TetraPaks into their recycling so that enough paper is spoiled and can't be sold-on by Southwark council, Southwark council will manage to get their thumbs out of their collective asses and find a way to allow Tetra Paks to be put into their recycling without it spoiling the paper.. like other councils seem to have already managed to do.

Tetra or otherwise, just shove the lot in the blue box and forget about it.

If I'd have known the calculators would be coming out I'd have spent a little longer refining the formula.

mightyroar Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- I would imagine 3 year old > twins spend a lot of time considering the world to > be unfair and expressing this to their parents! Just wait 'till they grow up and find-out that the world really is unfair.

I was only joking about The Social. I'm assuming you do still want to remain on speaking terms with your neighbours? Well, we haven't got to 3 yet, but we sure do have a noisy baby. A 'night-owl talker', which means he often wakes-up during the night and just bats around happily in his cot, burbling, shouting and making merry - which must be nice for the folks on the other side of the wall. I'm guessing that at some point in the not-too-distant future we'll be explaining that it's not ok to just be as noisy as you want whenever you want. But he's too young to understand at the moment. Is 3 too old to be doing the same?

So this issue basically is that it's a pain in the arse for you, as a neighbour?

Keef Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > How do you define class, is it simply if you earn > more than ?25k you're middle class, and less than > that you're working? I believe there's a simple mathematical rule you can use, Keef: Divide the amount of money you've spent on your car by the amount of money you've spent on the maintenance of your house and then multiply by the width of your television. Anything less than 250 and you're middle class.

Call the social? Ok.. maybe not just yet. When you say 'screaming', do you mean actual shrill screaming, or just general shouting and hullabaloo?