Domitianus

seanmlow Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Pk - > > Please don't use my comments as a way of > suggesting racism - very offensive and narrow > minded indeed. > > As I am sure anyone else on this thread can > understand, I was suggesting one keep their eyes > peeled for ANY groups looking suspicious - black, > white, yellow, green, blue, male or female! Blue? Blue was the victim, you fool!

Yo! Well done to the Monica! Go Monica, go Monica! Yo! Yo! Yo!

I am glad to see that someone else likes the Curry Cabin. Few times I have been I liked it very much but in conversation with other friends I have been the odd-one-out on that count. In terms of Chinese food, it's not really a restaurant and is quite basic, but the noodle-bar beside Le Chandelier does good, quick, cheap grub.

mightyroar Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Ah Ganapati, the quiet voice of reason. as ever. I > agree with you entirely. > > But Clairese22, Dom- perhaps we need a national > curfew? After the breeding licence has been > approved, and the children are born, then they > are micro chipped at birth, and if caught out in a > public space after 8pm then their parents are > publicly whipped? Reasonable and moderate policies in my view and already on the Manifesto of my newly-formed King Herod Childcare Foundation (motto: Infanticide - A Cure For The World's Ills) .............JUST JOKING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can fully understand Buzzard's frustration. I imagine Sunday may be the one day Buzzard gets the chance to relax in his garden and it is the one day of the week when his garden is subject to noise pollution - a grim and irritating irony. One of the things I really notice about London is the noise, particularly when I have been elsewhere and really had the chance to appreciate quiet and return to London afterwards. What I mean by this is that even when it is 'quiet' in London, it is still noisy - there is this constant, low-level ambient noise that raises stress levels to some degree. Having some peace and quiet is an absolute Godsend (no pun intended!) and I can appreciate Buzzard's intense frustration at having that polluted. Noise pollution is something that can only really be understood when it has been experienced. A number of years ago I lived two floors above a woman who was, quite literally, clinically insane and would make an unbelievable racket all night long. I would not have believed beforehand how much my life would have been affected by her behaviour but it was simply unendurable - and I was TWO SOUNDPROOFED CONCRETE FLOORS away from her. The girl in the flat between us had to spend time living at her mum's place.

"They ripped our letterbox off and maybe squeezed a (thin) arm or some device to open the door." On a very practical point, folks (let's get something out of a sad story) - deadlocks, deadlocks, deadlocks! If I have understood Polly's description of the method of entry correctly, this would not have been possible if there had been a good deadlock that could only be opened with a key. The problem with Yale-type snib-locks is the moment anyone gets a hand to them (through door, window, letterbox - whatever) they can open them. A deadlock can only be opened from either side of the door if someone has a key (or is good at picking locks - I accept that, but burglars tend to go for the easy option). This means that, even if a burglar gets in through a window, patio etc, they still can't use your front door to make off with your larger items. We have a nice locksmith on LL so maybe folk might think of reviewing their security. And, no, I have absolutely no connection with or commercial interest in Callow but simply wanted to point the needy in a local direction. Sad story, nonetheless, but I am sure Polly would be pleased to know that others have become safer as a result of her post.

I think both Ganapati and CWALD could perhaps take some comfort from my comment that I do not envisage or advocate the actual possibility of any sort of compulsory childbirth control being introduced into the UK. Also, they might notice the distinction between my sentiments and those of the extreme examples cited. China has a limit on the number of children a family can have for, I believe, population control and economic reasons - India, much they same. My vague sympathy with the original poster on the subject of 'licensing' breeding was not for such mercenary or statist reasons but was due to concern that there are clearly many children in our society who suffer terribly from unfit parents (which can be manifested in many ways - not merely physical violence or neglect) and our society seems powerless to do anything preventative about this as the only options are draconian and unrealistic ones like the one the original poster mentioned. I was attempting to encourage consideration and debate of this situation. My use of the term 'PC' may have been poor, I accept that, but what I meant by that is it is one of those situations when we see the consequences of two conflicting sets of 'rights' - the 'right' of people to have children without interference from others in that choice - and the 'right' of a child to expect that society demands minimal standards of care and competence from its parents. It is a difficult dilemma to resolve and I was merely pointing out that, beneath the rather extreme solution advocated by the original poster (and I did acknowledge that I suspected it was rather tongue in cheek), there is a serious debate. What do we do, as a society, when someone chooses to have children and we know that the children will suffer endlessly due to the ineptitude or worse of the parents? What does society do with a parent who has had two children already and had them taken into care due to abuse or neglect? Do we just sit on our hands and hope that things will be different third time round? Do we offer parenting skills classes and support that may well be spurned? Do we just take the child off the parents the moment it is born, creating more trauma and resentment all round? What do we do when someone makes a posting on a contentious issue of social/racial/gender politics? Do we entertain the possibility that they are attempting to make a serious point and engage with that? Do we dig into the post a little deeper to identify the point being made and then refute it rationally? Do we just assume the person is racist, misogynist, sexist and instantly attack their character and motives? Do we go to Le Chandelier for a nice, calming cup of tea?

mightyroar Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I agree that 'licensed to breed' comment is sooo > offensive I cant believe it's still on here. Or is > that some kind of (failing) attempt at humour? > Did you read what you had read before you posted > it? Well, people do have to be thoroughly investigated and assessed before being allowed to adopt, don't they? And people who are found to have neglected or absued animals can be banned for life from keeping animals again. Do children not deserve the same protection? I would assume that the originator of the phrase "licensed to breed" was, somewhat tongue in cheek, making what I think is the valid point that some parents seem to be so utterly inept and deficient in basic parenting skills that the observer could legitimately express concern over their fitness to be parents and their children's welfare. Of course there is no way any sort of licensing for parenthood could actually be introduced but when you see the damage done to some kids by their parents it is a thought that I am sure has crossed many people's minds. I used to know a middle-aged lady who had been awarded an OBE for her lifetime of work at Save The Children and she told me that she had often had very similar thoughts. I guess, however, that part of our society's PC manifesto is that people have the inalienable right to have children no matter how unfit for the task they might be.

Fair play to Maurice for having the guts to point out an elephant in the room (whether he is correct or not, I am not sure, as I have not conducted extensive research into noise levels in different churches). I think it rather sad and a reflection on the almost Macarthyite, PC intimidation that typifies our modern society that anyone who mentions differences between the cultures or practices of different racial groups is automatically branded "racist". It is a knee-jerk response by people who seem to want to prove that they are more PC than the next person but ultimately it actually stifles debate and the ability to actually point out and investigate certain facts (or what people believe to be facts and which cannot be proven or disproven unless we have the guts to state, analyse and debate them). I think the point that Maurice is making is that certain churches and certain evangelical denominations tend to attract congregations that are predominantly from a certain racial group, eg. Afro-Caribbean. The style of worship of some of these congregations tends often to be more effusive and downright loud than other, dare I say it (I dare!), white Anglo-Saxon congregations that are more staid or sedate in their worship. I take Maurice's comments to be a caution that if people complain about those places of worship that tend to be loudest they may well be complaining predominantly about Afro-Caribbean congregations. In the PC social tyranny that we live under he is warning that anyone making such a complaint may well face allegations of racism by those who make their living from detecting discrimination where none exists and who are too cowardly to actually do their jobs in case someone else plays the race card which, as we all know, is kind of a trump card whether there is any evidence to support such racism allegations or not. I think it a pathetic indictment of our society that, from what Maurice says, our councils are paralysed into inaction by those dangling the Damoclean sword that if they actually carry out their noise-abatement responsibilities someone will come along and accuse them of racism. Well done, Maurice, for having the guts to point these things out. Of course it doesn't make you racist. Funny, though, that no-one would raise a word of protest if we made the observation that American tourists tend to be quite loud and over-enthusiastic (indeed we even had a thread on this very subject on this very forum) or stated that the English tend to be more reserved and less overtly emotional than other nationalities, or that the Irish are known for liking a drop or two, or that the French have an appreciation for food and good living. I suggest it is a form of inverse-racism that we can observe and state certain cultural/national traits about other nationalities or populations but have to run scared and tread on eggshells of noting certain traits or characteristics of predominantly Afro-Caribbean religious denominations in South London.

It really isn't the kids to be honest - it is the way their parents often (and of course there are exceptions - you may well be one) seem to have no respect for others and view the whole of ED as being an extended playground or nursery. In my experience, having lived in a number of parts of the UK, I have never experienced such a concentrated attitude anywhere but in ED and it is quite amazing. Personally, I very much enjoy having children around, provided that parents recognise that I am there as well and am also entitled to a bit of consideration. It is this that seems to be sadly lacking. If you are a non-parent in the vicinity of many of these people you are treated almost as some sort of domestic help who is expected to assist or at least put up with things without complaint. That is what annoys me. There is surely a middle way that all can be comfortable with but at the moment I don't think we are anywhere near it. I sympathise with your experience of being made to feel unwelcome and I suspect that you may be unfairly paying the price for the type of behaviour I have mentioned that other parents allow to happen and that traders in the area may now fear is typical of all parents with kids. Consequently it should surely be in your interests as well as mine and others to encourage other parents to be more responsible itn public so that everyone isn't tarred with the same brush? Previous postings from me have pointed out that it can be delightful to be in a bar or restaurant with children who are well supervised and controlled but it just seems so difficult to find examples of that in ED.

A friend of mine went on business to China and asked his hotel reception to arrange a massage for him in his room. He genuinely wanted a straightforward massage to help him relax after a long flight. Said masseuse came to his room and proceeded to try to pull his boxer shorts off and grab his bits! He sent her packing! The following day he told his Chinese hosts what had happened and asked them to find him a genuine, therapeutic massage. They did so and, to his amusement, he discovered that the clinic was situated in a building that had once been a brothel!!! What a topsy-turvy world we live in, eh?

Ganapati Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > These threads always depress me a little. Having > lived on the continent, where children always seem > to be welcome, or at least present, whenever and > wherever, I wonder if this attitude says something > about the British as a people. I remember going to > Barcelona on holiday and drooling over the menu at > some posh restaurant. We didn't dare go in as we > had our baby with us. But the maitre d' saw us and > when he asked us if we wanted to come in, we said > oh no, it's too small ((we had our pram) and our > baby is too loud, he swept us inside, moved > furniture around, and generally bent over backward > for us. And the waiter even took our baby off our > hands and asked if he could show her to the > kitchen staff. None of the other patrons seemed to > give a fig--even those whose tables were moved a > bit to accomodate us. I can't believe this thread got this far without me having noticed (or originated) it. Nice to see that there seem to be some who agree with my general feelings, however. I just wish some of them had expressed them during previous threads when I was taking considerable abuse on this same subject. What "depresses me" - a lot, is the extreme reactions that seem to be elicited when someone asks for some consideration to be displayed to those who do not wish to have to effectively baby-sit or endure the ungoverned behaviour of other peoples' children when in public. The reaction to such requests is often to accuse the person expressing the opinion of being a child-hater, which is a ridiculously fundamentalist position to take. ie. "if you don't want other peoples' unsupervised children to be swarming around you when you are trying to relax and enjoy yourself a little, you must hate children." Bo**ocks! What it comes down to, in my opinion, is a simple matter of consideration and respect for others and that is what absolutely enrages me about this whole subject and what other people don't seem to get. When someone allows their child to run around, scream, bang cutlery on the table, crawl under my chair, bang into me etc; or expects me to automatically step off the pavement to let a bunch of pram-pushers walk three abreast down a street etc etc, all without the slightest gesture of appreciation or apology to the frustration and inconvenience that I am caused - they are effectively saying to me "I have absolutely no consideration for your welfare, rights or comfort and expect my whim and convenience to be considered more valuable than yours". Such an attitude, communicated regularly and consistently, cannot help but irritate the people on the receiving end. A modicum of acknowledgment or consideration for others from those who seem to consider them and their children to be the centre of the universe would, I am sure, be reciprocated by people like myself a hundred times over. Unfortunately, in my experience and that of other friends I know, such consideration is as rare as hen's teeth in ED. THAT is why people like me get p****d off - it is nothing to do with "hating children" or anything of the sort. You can only spend so long in a community being treated like some lower form of life (sometimes reminiscent of the caste system) before you lose your temper and push back a bit. I guess the reason this subject keeps coming up is because the same behaviour by selfish parents and their kids keeps being repeated!

mockney piers Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Jet Set Willy, playable version (don't worry > SFW)... > http://www.mjwilson.demon.co.uk/jsw.html > > "Give me the boy and I will give you the man" and > they say the church isn't based on indoctrination > huh? > Mind you, so was teh scouts. > > Did anyone see Ian Hislop's docu about > Baden-Powell and the scouting movement? It was > surprisingly interesting. > He initially envisioned scouting as a way to > prepare a supposedly sickly urban generation for > the disciplines and riguors of war, having been a > very successful soldier himself (yeah, I know > where, sorry Brendan). > But on witnessing the horrors of the trenches he > became very much the pacifist and rejinked the > whole emphasis of the movement to promote > communication and understanding across national > lines to promote peace. World War One had a way of making people re-think things. I believe that Rudyard Kipling, the great poet of Empire, lost his son in the trenches and radically reviewed his view on the glory of war. Lines he subsequently wrote were along the lines of: "If they ask us why we died, tell them that our father's lied."

mockney piers Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > We were forced to swear an allegiance to the Queen > and a disney animated Wolf every meeting (or > whatever they were called), but I don't recall any > God bothering, perhaps I've blocked out the > trauma. > > My neckerchief was a lovely claret colour and I > had a green woggle. I should have been made a > sixer but some new kid joined who was a month > older than me and instantly got the promotion that > should have been mine... MINE I TELL YOU!!!! > That's when I learned that life ain't fair and > there's definitely no God, a useful lesson for a 9 > year old which has never been forgotten. I share your trauma. I was a Seconder for ages and when I was passed over to be a Sixer (again!) my mum enquired politely as to why this was. Turned out they had my DOB entered incorrectly in their records and thought I was younger than I was. Did they put things right when they realised their mistake? Did they f**k? Oh well, at least I learnt how to fold a Union Jack flag correctly, sing 'Ging Gang Gooly' and since our pack leader was a very sexy lady called Frances, she inspired some of my earliest and fondest fantasies of her adjusting my woggle intimately. Btw, I still daily promise to myself in the mirror to do my best, do my duty to God and to the Queen, do a good deed every day and keep the cub scout law! Omigod, that is scary. Was it Socrates who said "Give me the boy and I will give you the man"?

snorky Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > EDOldie Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > Thay are hypocrites, I used to play in a rock > band > > and we hired a church hall to practice in, and > > they threw us out for being too loud. Brendan, > > they do have achohol in Churches you know. > > Especially on a Sunday. > > It was probabaly the biting the heads of chickens > and flinging entrails around the hall that they > objected to Yes. It wasn't extreme enough! If you had engaged in a bit of crucifixion, genocide and child cruelty as per the Bible they'd probably have made you an Elder.

snorky Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Set up you drum kit outside and let rip with a > cozy powell style solo, ensuring the tempo is > wildly different to what is being regurgitated > inside the church - laugh at the chaos caused . Nice idea but not sure if this would work as there seems often to be no consistent tempo TO interrupt INSIDE the church!

Why not borrow one of those cars with the preposterously, embarrassing (except to the knobs who actually drive around in them thinking they are dead cool) loud and bassy sound systems - you know the ones that vibrate shop windows as they go past? Park it outside said Church (even better - in the car park) with the doors and windows open and volume at maximum. Play, let's see....a little bit of Black Sabbath?....Iron Maiden's Number of the Beast....a medley of Alice Cooper...and wait and see the reaction. If congregation objects then agree to turn your stereo off as soon as they cut down the volume of their infernal warbling. Nothing like direct action! I quite agree that it is unacceptable for people to be subjected to noise pollution, and loud church services that disturb neighbours are just as polluting as anything else (especially if one finds the message contained in the worship offensive and irksome). We are meant to live in a pluralist society so why should one group, ie. the God Squad, be allowed to breach the peace when the rest of us wouldn't be allowed to?

I understand someone had the chicken phal and their colon ignited!

Latest from Bloomberg citing Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley: Gordon Brown is thinking about calling an early election. Among the reasons to believe he should do so is the vulnerability of the UK to a housing meltdown similar to that in the US. Since the run on Northern Rock was merely an indirect consequence of US turmoil, what would happen if a crisis were home-grown? Nobody knows. However confident he is about the UK economy, the prime minister might be wise not to wait to find out. Why might the UK go the way of the US? The answer is that it has very similar vulnerabilities: house prices are high by any standards; in the second quarter of 2007, household saving was only 3.1 per cent of disposable income; as house prices have soared, so has residential investment, which has reached 10 per cent of disposable income, up from just 5.5 per cent six years ago; and the overall household financial deficit is, in consequence, at the record level of 7 per cent of disposable income. Indeed, in several respects, the UK looks more exposed to a housing-induced correction than the US: between the first quarter of 1996 and its peak 10 years later, the Case-Shiller index of US house prices rose by 127 per cent in real terms, while the FT's price index for the UK had risen by 144 per cent by the second quarter of this year; according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the US price-to-rent ratio for housing was 36 per cent above its long-run average in 2006, while the UK's was 66 per cent higher; UK mortgage debt was 126 per cent of gross domestic product at the end of last year, against 104 per cent in the US; total UK household debt was 164 per cent of GDP at the end of 2006, against 140 per cent in the US; and, not least, the UK's ratio of household debt to GDP jumped by 50 percentage points between 2000 and 2006, while the US ratio rose by just 37 points over the same period. If US households are sinking in debt, UK households seem to be drowning in it. All this strongly suggests the possibility of house price weakness and a sharp reduction in the household financial deficit. While corporate balance sheets are strong, business investment would surely weaken if household consumption did. This would seem a recipe for a slowdown, possibly even a recession. In the context of a weak housing market, lower interest rates would work more through the exchange rate and improvements in net exports than through borrowing. The impact of such easing would be modest and, more important, slow to arrive. Moreover, the state of the public sector finances would not permit much fiscal expansion provided the government stuck to its (self-imposed) rules for a balanced current budget over the cycle and net public debt at below 40 per cent of GDP. For the UK, then, very much depends on the sustainability of current soaring house prices and the consequences of any correction. Recent analyses from Goldman Sachs and David Miles of Morgan Stanley throw interesting light on these questions. The low real and nominal interest rates of recent years do justify higher prices of housing. But, argues Mr Miles, expectations of further price rises seems to explain a bigger part of the rise in UK prices than of US prices: to put it bluntly, the UK bubble is even bigger. Moreover, adds Goldman Sachs, if it is the overall balance between demand and supply, rather than lower interest rates, that is supposed to explain the exceptionally big jump in UK prices, the rise in rents and in house prices should be similar: scarcity should increase rents and house prices equally. Yet, in fact, net rental yields have almost halved over the past decade. Goldman Sachs concludes that house prices must fall by a good 20 per cent for the historic relationship between rental yields and real interest rates to be restored. A sustained period of real house price falls is perfectly conceivable. That has happened in Germany and Japan over the past decade, or more. With low inflation, that would mean falling nominal prices and so much negative equity. The impact could be far worse than in the early 1990s, when high inflation generated much of the real fall in house prices. Nobody knows what such a correction would do to household spending. In theory, it might do nothing, since higher house prices do not - contrary to idiotic popular wisdom - make society as a whole a jot better off. But the negative impact on spending by the heavily indebted is likely to be both bigger and more immediate than the positive impact on those who find housing cheaper. Moreover, there is little doubt that weaker house prices would lower investment in housebuilding. The combined impact is likely to be strongly negative: another Anglo-Saxon spending-and-debt machine would then bite the dust. Is such an outcome certain? No. But it seems likely. Will it be soon? Nobody knows, since the timing of corrections is uncertain. What would happen to the UK economy during a lengthy period of stagnant, or even falling, real prices of housing is an intriguing academic question. For the incumbent politician, however, it is a nightmare, to be avoided at all costs. Mr Brown may not have all the time he wants. An election now might at least postpone his day of reckoning.

I was in Target Arms the other day (have you seen the nice new paint job on the frontage), checking out the selection of gas-masks for my fetish club when the chap behind the counter gestured me over (stop it!!!) and said that he had a Russian T34 tank in the garage. It had cast a track apparently but if I was willing to take it as seen he would throw in a restored flintlock and Roundhead helmet for nowt. Anyone got a Haynes manual for a T34?

On a serious note (if possible), any opinions as to why people run screaming to the hills when someone wants to protect their furnishings by excluding feeding children but no-one bats an eyelid when pubs or eateries ban people wearing working clothes?

If you think I hate kids Ganapati, then you are plain WRONG! And since you were the one who referred to the incident with the child then I think others have the right to do the same. Unless of course you wish to make up a new set of "rules" for the EDF in which people are only allowed to discuss what you allow them to.

Ganapati Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > That's got to hurt. Well, who knows, they kind of > have a captive audience around here. Anyway, maybe > after this they won't be so quick to turf out > customers that don't follow their "rules." Yes, quite so. Imagine actually having "rules" designed to safeguard the premises, furnishings and the comfort of other patrons! Whatever next? I have to say, in light of this view that anyone should be allowed anywhere, to behave however they wish, that we should initiate a campaign against those premises that still bar people from entering if they are wearing boots or work clothing. After all, why should we tolerate local establishments that discriminate against honest, hardworking labouring folk????

mockney piers Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Which porsche? > How about this one? > > > Dangerous streets these days, much safer than a > boxster. Am I right in thinking that that is a Panzer Ferdinand from WW2 (built on a Tiger chassis)? It is indeed interesting to note that many of our contemporary vehicle builders were heavily involved in arms production in WW2. I think of Porche, Skoda and MAN.

Tell us more about these new positions, Rose. I am sure we are all gagging to hear >:D