louisiana

Perhaps a more interesting line of debate would centre on why we have allowed the UK planning system to push the countryside into becoming a playground for the rich, and pushing more and more of the rural poor into urban environments (and consequently in need of council housing). There's reams of evidence that smallholdings in the UK have much higher productivity per acre/hectare than large industrial-style land holdings, and they are generally more sustainable too (less reliance on petroleum and gas products such as fertilizers), and yet it's almost impossible to create a smallholding legally in the UK (barring Scotland) these days. (Well, since around 1947) I could hardly believe it when I saw a planning policy guideline specifically discuss 'Country House' (yes, with those caps) as just about the only form of rural residence that would be permitted/encouraged outside of urban-attached housing estates. Not sure if that one is still in force (I'm just about to check). Can such a policy be in line with the ethos of a Labour government? In some areas of the country, more than 65% of house sales are now to second home owners who often have few plans to engage much with the local land and community. We are turning our much-vaunted countryside into a sterile and dying environment, populated by wealthy people who contribute little to the locality, and driving out the very people who we might be relying on in the future to produce our food etc. Rant over.

Tony.London Suburbs Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > louisiana Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > 55, going on 5.5 > > loiuisiana what a pleasure it is to "engage" with > you. > > Thus far, your only contribution is a petty, > pathetic, small-minded insult to me. > > Now have you been adversely affected in any way by > the lack of Social Housing over, say, the last 40 > years or so? My parents were homeless as immigrants in the late 1950s, while my mother was pregnant. They didn't receive any council housing, but found a place in the private sector (a cold attic room in Leicester in someone else's house, followed by a cold room in Hornsey with nothing but floorboards - I remember it well). As a child I also spent some years living in a dark space about the size of a large cupboard, next to the kitchen larder, in an old people's home. As a 17-year-old, I lived in a tent, not by choice, while I was trying to finish my A levels. Thankfully it was not in the winter. My mother (post-divorce) was made homeless when the job she was doing, which came with accommodation (nothing fancy) was suddenly abolished and she was made redundant. She ended up staying with a friend for a while. I was also homeless for a time then (and a fairly poor student), so a tough time. I have also, as an adult, ended up in the position where the hospital I was in would not release me to my 'accommodation' post-operation (attacked by a dog, nearly lost my leg) because it was completely unsuitable for someone recovering from major surgery and serious bacterial wound infections (I was having daily intramuscular antibiotic injections and had to have a salt water bath every day, but there was no bath, for example). I've never been offered council housing, but then I've never asked for it. I've always regarded it as a last resort. I'd also point out that things can be more difficult for immigrants because (a) they don't have the kind of family network that other people can often call on and (b) they can face discrimination in the private sector. Tony, I also wonder whether you'd have preferred to have paid the costs of the education and health of immigrants when they were 0-18 (expensive, paid for by another country), and whether you've thought about who is going to pay for your pension.

55, going on 5.5

...gangs of clowns with knives smoking rolled up palm tree leaves

Just because you are poor/live in a crap part of town/on a crap housing estate, doesn't mean that what you deserve is a bundle of badly put-together council propaganda. I really do object to this approach. It's patronising and condescending.

And we also of course pay for the Council to carry them all away again in the recycling. Work creation scheme.

Enough to pay for a couple of fire escapes down 11-storey tower bocks?

Keef Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > You talk like all cyclists are in accidents > because people set out to run them off the road > and kill them. What about those people who just > don't see a cyclist weaving in and out of traffic, > and can't brake in time? Keef, I don't know how much time you've spend on a bike, if any, but when you see a white van man accelerating from zero to sixty coming off a roundabout towards the back end of your other half on a dual carriageway - and white van man is doing his paperwork/yakking on his phone etc etc, and there's two inches to spare between life and death, and you think he's a gonner... (your other half, that is) and there's no other traffic in sight.... It's not about cyclists weaving. It's about drivers paying attention. About drivers doing what the law requires them to do. When you read proceedings following yet another cyclist death that say the driver says he was doing his paperwork when he was moving and turning (and then he killed the cyclist), it's enough to make you weep. There are too many cyclists who are incredibly experienced and behaving very sensibly getting killed. I see people using their mobiles in their cars every day, all the time. This is illegal. The consequence is they are not paying attention, and they are liable to kill someone, or severely injure. However, these offences are so common that the police could never cope, hence nothing happens until the next person gets killed/maimed. The car, the cab, whatever, is not the place to multitask.

Keef Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > You talk like all cyclists are in accidents > because people set out to run them off the road > and kill them. What about those people who just > don't see a cyclist weaving in and out of traffic, > and can't brake in time? I've never weaved, I must say. I follow the cycling road position recommendations from cycling standards, and weaving isn't part of them, in any way. But I have had my bike dragged under a large vehicle turning left into a petrol station (the bike totally died; luckily I didn't; the driver got away with it as he was US army so not subject to UK laws) and I have been in seven A&E departments across London over the decades owing to various loony motorists (e.g. being hit up the backside while stationery, by a taxi driver on Park Lane, while all traffic ahead of him was stationery). > > It's attitudes like the ones just shared by lenk > and louisiana (and normally 2 such pleasant > posters) that cause such rows. I hope you get > spotted breaking someone's property, and nicked > for it one day, that will serve you right frankly. If someone breaks my hand and sends me to St Mary's A&E in total agony (for various hours of x-rays etc and consequent loss of work etc.), then I reserve the right to break the wing mirror which broke my hand. As my encounter at the petrol station (described above) served to show, motorists will often argue they are above the law (in that case, 'UK law doesn't apply to us'). So Until the law supports me (which it is increasingly inclined to do), I reserve the right to teach people who try to kill me a lesson.

lenk Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The main difference is if you are in a car you are > using a deadly weapon. Cars kill other people. > Bikes do not kill other people. > > Any legislation should be weighted in favour of > the cyclist. > > Cyclists - if someone cuts you up, punching their > side window fairly hard usually wakes them up. It > might mean you get chased about a mile through > Southwark by an irate Australian as happened to me > once, but it was quite fun in retrospect. My tactic is if they have almost killed me (yes, most cyclists have had near-death experiences, and some have had many) and their wing mirror is in my face it gets broken off. This might mean you get chased by some crazed motorist through the Vauxhall one way system, as has happened to me, but in retrospect... If someone tries to kill me there is a price (albeit a small one in the case of a mirror). And if you want to argue with that, I'd raise the issue of how your wing mirror has a lower value than my and many others lives. Of course, this assumes you have mirrors at all (see below) I note with interest that motorised vehicle drivers who have killed cyclists (and there have been a fair few in London so far this year) are increasingly being arrested for 'dangerous driving' rather than 'careless driving'. The difference between the two is prison. I welcome this trend. And I understand that Stephen Ferguson's killer (Dog Kennel Hill) was driving a vehicle with broken mirror(s) (broken in a crash the week before, according to the press reports).

PeterW Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > As a side note, in Copenhagen or the Hague, > Morag's cycling family would be much less > exceptional. You certainly wouldn't get passers-by > yelling abuse. Indeed, and in Munich also, where you'll see dozens of cyclists sailing through city centre junctions for every car. And in Shanghai too, where there may be clusters of twenty, fifty or more cyclists between cars, and family members are often carried on the rear of a bike. In such places there's rarely any lycra on display and the old-fashioned sit-up-and-beg is the standard style of bike. Cycling is for everyone and everyone behaves accordingly.

We had a bird fly into the back door and knock himself out. Looked like a gonner, but after a couple of minutes he was lying on his side shaking, then fifteen minutes later he was moving around a little near the wall of the house, and finally he took off. Carp may also see off any frogs BTW.

I think I've mentioned these on here before, in W and N London. Thinking about doing it myself what with the new kitchen n all. Three tables seating 4, 4, 6, so 14 in total. Two starters, two mains, two puds? Or a single set menu? Byo wine.

EDOldie Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I think it is the exact argument. It's no good > saying something belongs to you if it suits you > rather than it being a just and fair ownership. > That is theft. Ah, I hadn't realised we'd moved on to the Middle East and oil... Or the issue of ownership of 90% of the British - or at least English and Scottish - countryside. Has nobody yet mentioned nine tenths of the law and the 'p' word?

Woodwarde is indeed a lovely road, but if I were you I'd invest my hard-earned dosh in just a few acres of land, with house of course. Preferably with at least 0.4 hectares (one acre) of woodland, but if not you can plant your own short-rotation coppice (fast-growing willow, poplar) to generate space/water heating as well as to provide heat for cooking. A masonry stove (popular in Scandinavia and Finland) would be hyper-efficient and should do all of this nicely. Install all the good insulation you can. All this will save you no end of grief when the shit shortly hits the fan regarding energy (currently on hold owing to worldwide recession). Alternatively, if you are more community-minded, join with some others and do the same on a larger scale. Your children will thank you for it. You could, of course, grow your veggies - and indeed keep your chickens - in Court Lane or Woodwarde, but otherwise things might be little grim a decade or two from now.

All mouth and trousers?

Bart, the natives on EDF are generally friendly, and the moderation is light touch. I'm a member of other forums where the complete lack of moderation has almost led to forum self destruction as a few individuals attempted to conduct virtual WW3 and many others left in despair.

Dear Marmora Man, meat is hung while people are hanged. Or do you think ED residents are a bunch of piggies? :) (Removes pedant's cap and leaps into slurry pit.)

Brendan, I only use the term 'import' in the sense that these teams are from other countries and pass through passport control. I did not mean to indicate lines of authority or financial responsibility. Indeed they are foreign funded. Not all Roman, though most of the sites do include quite a number of later Roman additions, such as the Roman theatre at Pinara. But the older Lycian stuff is far more interesting. As you say, not that useful to Turkish nation building.

Elgin wasn't the only one. Much of the interesting Lycian remains around SW Turkey were also taken by Brit 'explorers'. However, the Turks have so many ancient remains that they import foreign dig teams year in, year out, and still can't even dig up what's there, let alone find a place for it all in museums. On a visit to Xanthos last month we found much neglect.

Or up this end... A welcome addition to the neighbourhood. Even better if they could persuade TfL to install an LCD display for buses on their way. We could then leap out of the door as the bus sailed across the junction.

So that wouldn't be Love Vigilantes, eh, Horsebox? :-S

I feel your pain LGWD. Over the years I've bought a) HP multi-function printers (copy, print, scan...). Being able to copy something without running down to the shops or library is often handy. I have found HP printers reliable on the whole (lasting several years). But if you buy the cheapest of the cheap, you shouldn't be surprised if they fail, as component quality will be minimal. Most recently I've bought laser not inkjet: they are generally cheaper to run and the B&W ones are much cheaper to buy than was the case a few years ago. You can get unbranded cartridges/toner from places like Viking if you have a common printer. b) portable printers, such as the old Canon Bubblejets. Useful if you have a laptop and are mobile rather than office based, but they tend to be more problematic than bigger desktop printers. c) other printers e.g. Epson inkjet. I found them mostly too noisy and unreliable. Before you buy a printer, check how widely available the cartridge or toner is. Get yourself a printer with a cartridge/toner that everybody sells, including the main office supplies firms. Then put in one or two orders a year for both paper and cartridge/toner, and you'll get free delivery as well as a half-decent price.

barty Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > If newspaper astrology columns are, in your mind, > all there is to astrology, you are mistaken. > Anyone can write those with very little astrology > knowledge. You don't say.

Sunlover00 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Geez lousiana, think that's fairly harsh to break > down someone's post and analyse to an inch of it's > life. You are right. Does anyone really care? No. That is the point. I mean, it's > obviously got right up your nose but Louisa was > having a rant so misuse of words probably wasn't > at the forefront of her mind. Louisa was having a pointless rant. I had one too. That is all. Geez as I type this > I'm feeling rather paranoid that I screw up but > I've always been a bit rebellious so > ............skjhakdissufdsjfjccn ;-)