*Bob*

No With the added advantage of not sounding like a 'The Apprentice' wannabe.

Gosh, you're right. The English language really is quite limited when you think about, isn't it?

Watching him on C4 news last night, talking of making decisions 'in the round' and 'getting on the pitch'.. let's hope he can leave this sort of nauseous vocab at the political door when he leaves.

The Glastonbury Scally is of course a cliche, but like many cliches it arises out of common occurrence. I've been to that festival many times, not paying for several years - and on every occasion of not paying save one was escorted into the festival by a cheerful man from 'the northwest'. The only other year, it was a Mancunian, who made a joke about him 'not being a Scally'. The last year I went (as I handed my fiver for my dodgy wriststamp) I asked the bloke how come it was (nearly) always dudes from the NW - and he said his 'crews', with the collusion of the people on the gate naturally, had been 'doing the entrance' for nearly a decade. This has nothing to do with people from the NW being thieves and robbers per se (which would of course be daft) but everything to do with a group of connected people who just happened to be from the NW in control of the various ongoing unpoliced nefarious practices at the festival.

Read it? That's 'him' in it.

Doesn't supporting your own family, not being reliant on others - even taking a financial hit to bring be a stay-at-home-parent (if you can afford that luxury) - feel good? The only way that 'the benefits issue' is ever going to improve is for people who never had that feeling (perhaps don't know it even exists) to be encouraged to get it. Not for people who don't *need* more money to be given it out of some twisted concept of fairness!

Noted.. And I wouldn't entirely disagree. In some cases though.. Reap / Sow

Some general truth of course in that ????, but - to labour the specific point - the allowance in question is there to make it easier for you to get out to work, not to make it easier for you 'not' have to get out to work! Personally - (speaking as a dreaded middle claarse incomer) our household has lost-out in various ways on account of these changes and previous ones, but I won't be bleating about it on Talk Radio, the local internet forum, or in a national newspaper, because - basically - we're still fine and (comparatively) have a pretty cushy life - whilst some people listening and reading can't afford to heat their homes. It would just seem an ill-judged and tasteless thing to do - and I think that's why many are 'firing away'.

"We are the middle-class mummy clich?. We are the distilled version of the smug mothers on Mumsnet. You may laugh at us, with our play date "business cards" ("Isobel, 3, free Mondays"). But, as the Deputy Prime Minister found out last week, you cross us at your peril." Err... VOMIT

Imagine how many disintegrating bathrooms, kitchens and everything else are packed into all the crumbling, disintegrating, often neglected victorian houses within, say, a single square mile of your front door? Expect constant building work somewhere near you. No need to be a dick about it though. Getting your kitchen finished three days earlier is not more important than *not* pissing-off everyone within earshot for weeks on end. Start at a reasonable time. Finish at a reasonable time. Sometimes people park their own cars further away so the builders can get their stuff right outside their house and therefore just mess-up that bit of street rather than the bit outside someone else's house.

I would have stopped them myself but would have felt like double standards - they were the ones I paid ?5 to get me in on the sly.

The usual tell-tale signs: colourful mad-made fibres caught on the zips near where the tents have been slashed etc

Great idea for a show - and piss-cheap to make. All dependent on the quality of the participants though - there are some duffers in this first selection of 'viewers'.

And I thought you were about to mention the obvious - 'Gogglebox' A surefire winner for C4

The fact is no-one likes having money taken away from them, whether you're at the bottom of the heap - or further up. Some people near the bottom definitely need a mighty kick up the backside. Some people nearer the top should try and remember that life might have dealt them a better hand and afforded them greater opportunities.

Reading with the first I went to, also in 1990 I think. It was sh1t - but then I didn't know any better.

Great to see the Mail are continuing with their campaign about a society with a growing sense of entitlement.

Didn't your mother tell you not to talk to strange robots, GG?

I've seen a few chalk-ringed turds on other streets too. ... will The Phantom Turd-Chalker come forth and reveal themselves?

It's not 'an excuse' that's required - it's 'an opportunity'.

Rolo Tomasi Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > EoTR. Too tame.. It's important to go to a safe place where unseemly behaviour - filthy behaviour, even - a positively encouraged. SGP is always a safe bet.

What's the report on EoTR then? Quite fancy a foreign festival in theory, but there's that bit after the festival's over when you know you only a limited time to get home safely - before your body fails.

Why would a poor attempt at sarcasm cause offence?

Where do you get a 2-bed terrace for ?250k again? Is access via a magic wardrobe of some sort?

Will Quaint & Belle have a stall there this year?