miga

They've never stopped being the thing, even fashionable young people wear jeans and t shirts.... ETA: I have no flippin' idea what I'm talking about when it comes to fashion, so probably should have said "allegedly".

Hells Bells - AC/DC

My main worry about switching North for South was transport. It was a justified worry, but I've slowly become adjusted to the vagaries of overland rail. I suppose somewhere like ED, and definitely Forest Hill/Catford/Beckenham/Penge, feels more suburban than the zone equivalents up north. Which is all as it should be - the trade off is that it's greener, more suburban, more family oriented etc.

sorry - don't get what you meant stevie23b?

KidKruger, that was also my concern (how you can guarantee it's all gone "through").

I'm loath to make a recommendation until after the job is done well, I'll PM you the guy's name in the meantime. We've ended up bringing someone in to do it, although I initially wanted to just hire the sander from that place in Catford. I didn't trust my DIY skills to do the insulation though.

Cool, thanks stevie23b.

Howdie. So, we're getting someone to put some rockwool under our boards, then polish them up. He said that he won't need to lift all of them up, but only every other couple (if that makes sense), to slide the rockwool on battons he'll place underneath. Does that make sense?

The Bad Touch - Bloodhound Gang (Apologies for multi edits - broke rules first time)

Aye, scary stuff.

Ratty - are you being facetious or is that your real experience?

Otta Wrote: > That's why I said "if they could". Sure, they have their share of nutters.

This is ripped off from Gilbert Gottfried. A farmer walks into the bedroom, holding a sheep under his arm, to his wife's great surprise. "This is the pig I've been f.cking for 10 years", he says. "But darling that's not a pig that's a sheep", responds his wife. "I was talking to the sheep", says the farmer.

Corbyn is no Farage, and neither is the caricature they're made out to be.

Otta Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > You think the Tories are supportive of the welfare > state? > > I honestly believe a lot of them would scrap it > tomorrow if they could. We've gone over this stuff in some of the other threads, but my flippant answer would be not much less supportive than the other lot. The evidence for the Tories being rabidly anti-welfare types (in comparison to Labour, anyway) isn't there since they've been in government, when you look at e.g. pre-2010 election spending plans on both sides. There's also a pragmatic aspect - if they attack welfare too viciously they'll make themselves unelectable in 5 years. What they say and what they do diverges - both sides.

Jeremy Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > If only we had a third party who represent those > of us who support a market economy, but are > liberal minded, and supportive of a welfare state > and social justice... wouldn't that be nice... I'm not being funny - but I think at the moment this is the Tories.

But yes, what Louisa and Otta said, what's the point of Labour if it holds few Labour values. Whatever they were doing the last two elections clearly isn't working for them, and Corbyn taking the helm at least has ideological clarity.

Meanwhile, as the latest budget shows, the Tories continue to successfully take the middle; increasing basic wage and the populist/popular BTL restrictions. This is on top of already being pretty socially liberal (an issue with other nominally center right parties in e.g. the US or Australia). I'm not sure Labour can take back the middle even if they wanted to.

I don't think asking Germany for additional reparations was the wisest thing the Greeks did in the recent months. I'm probably preaching to the choir here, but there's a reason the Allies didn't attempt to extract the full amount owing from Germany after WWII, stemming from the terrible consequences of post-WWI reparations (which someone alluded to earlier in the thread). It's not just the Greeks that didn't get the full cost of the damage - the reparation payments throughout Europe were substantial, but not full, for pragmatic reasons. Having said that, if what Varoufakis said in interview to New Statesman is truthful - I can also understand why they'd want to point out (rather unsubtly) that debt forgiveness has been crucial to Germany's own post-WWII development path.

Blah Blah Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > It's a bit rich for any EU nation to be quibbling > over the cost of saving Greece. Who enabled > Europe's post war reconstruction? And how about > the UK in 1976? When we ourselves had to go to the > IMF. There are examples of comparatively much > getter loans being made with much more realistic > replayment terms and there's no reason why the > same can't be achieved with Greece. My understanding is that this (restructuring) is precisely what the Greeks have been asking for since the New Year. It's not a new idea, but now that the negotiating is done, the IMF (and others) have publicly said they think this is a good idea.

???? Wrote: > Interestingly the > rabid left has now joined the rabid right on > wanting us out - excitable, angry, screaming, 11 > year old trotskyite Owen Jones leading the charge, > bless him. He wrote much the same thing in 2011 (linked from the article you refer to, not too far in).

*Bob* Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Blah Blah Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > I disagree on Merkel bob. Merkel only has to > look > > to the history of her own country to know what > > happens when another country calls in loans. > The > > USA did it after the Wall Street crash forcing > the > > already delicate German economy to hand over a > > fifth of their gold and Reichsmarks. The > following > > depression led to the rise of an extremism we > all > > paid for in the end. I believe she is genuinely > > trying to save Greece from the abyss. > > True, but then Greece is unlikely to produce a > fascist regime with a large, highly mechanised > army capable of storming most of Europe! Although looking at the shape of Golden Dawn man, any Greek fascist regime will just need to wrap him in something sturdy and roll him down Europe's highways and byways, like a giant souvlaki of death.

Jeremy Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Anything ending in "ery", e.g. "The Butchery". Don't be so ornery....

Noticed a fair bit of roadworks on my bike trips this week - is it end of budget year for LAs or something?

I'm not sure that analogy works. When did Tsipras/Varoufakis call Germans "fascist bastards"? Are you talking about the discredited "flipping the finger" thing from a few months back? ETA: I just re-read about that story, and yes, he did give Germany the finger in a speech years before he became a minister/negotiator, within the context of a much longer talk.