Huguenot

Only musicians who have chosen to give away their stuff for free, not by musicians who want to get paid for their work and have the opportunity stolen from them by freeloaders and parasites.

DJKQ in oversensitive shocker... I was merely addressing your points. Please feel free to ignore me, water and duck's back etc. It's tiring walking over eggshells anywhere near you, I'd be pleased for the relief. Sorry RosieH, I didn't think I put words in your mouth, I said I can see you feel the system let you down. I don't have to quote you precisely to explain where I got that from? I agree with most of the points made, I don't think that any of them justify piracy - which is not generally used to describe home duplication for personal use, but for redistribution. 'Anti-suit' and 'great marketing' are not arguments used by home users, but by pirates.

Almost Kingy, but at worst you're doing it on bittorrent because you think as a consequence you'll get more music back - that's breach of copyright and consipracy to defraud for material gain...

There is a significant overlap between those defending piracy on this thread and those attacking production houses for failing to pay extras on an accompanying thread... It seems to be okay not to pay artists when it suits them. Perhaps DJKQ should explain to these unpaid TV extras that they should be doing it for nothing because it's a good marketing tool for them, and people who watch them work for free watch a third more television (although not necessarily them)? Edited because forgot to ;-)

"those who download illegally on average spend one third more buying CDs" One third more than what...? "piracy has let [..] the former monopolies over artists by the big music publishing companies have been broken" It's not piracy that did this, but the ability of artists to promote themselves over media that has vast reach with a low entry cost. If they thought the result was going to be piracy they'd only promote it if they were a charity. I can understand RosieH's view that the system has let her down, but the vast majority of piracy is simply the acquisition of vast libraries of entertainment with no intention of paying the artists or the people that supported them. I continue to be disgusted by those who try to repackage this as a 'war on suits' or liberation for musicians. The only thing musicians are being liberated from is adequate recompense for their talent or their labour. People may well argue that this is a good marketing technique, however, that does not give the thieves the right to impose this technique on artists by stealing and fencing their work. It is the artists' right to choose how they will promote themselves. There is a gentle irony that the community that's most likely to be indulging in piracy are 'right-on' socialists who feel that the honest labourer is NOT being properly rewarded. Hypocrites? Huh, even lefties are robber-barons at heart it seems?

Really the most practical option for cheap 'mobile' costs is that they buy a local sim card. The massive cost will be carried by the recipient as a UK roaming fee. If they buy a local sim the charge to them for receiving the call will be zero, and you'll only pay the cheapest international rate that's available.

Do you have a better idea DJKQ?

If they're in a hotel with a laptop will Skype work?

It would be good to see some peer review before putting much faith into that machine.

I don't understand the claw hammer thing? Regardless of indignation, when you buy a CD you do just that. Unless there is explicit permission to reproduce on other systems you have no legal right to. People tend to think they've bought the music, which they haven't - most people wouldn't assume they've bought a public entertainment license after all! It may well be ridiculous, but this doesn't give anyone the right to break those laws. The correct way to address this is through lobbying and legislation. Louisiana may only use her music for personal consumption on different devices, but the vast majority of unprotected music is duplicated for illegal distribution. The artists, the actors and their support teams and investors don't get the rewards to which they bre entitled. It's simply stealing. The result will be a poorer experience for all.

If you use it so infrequently that you didn't notice I'd advise that you sell it or scrap it, and use the carpool. www.streetcar.co.uk

Did you know that David Icke wrote thirteen books? To be that prolific he certainly must know what he's talking about. Come on rubsley, show us your inner lizard ;-) I intend to write a book shortly, and trust your faith in my opinion will become much more robust!

How on earth do you guys know how good Best was? I can believe that some of you are just about old enough, but by crikey the trains up to Manchester must have been jammed all the way from East Dulwich every Saturday... ;-) I would have watched him on telly, but in '75 ours only worked for about 30 mins a day and never on Saturday afternoons when we all had to go down the mines.

I'm not sure that you're barking up the right tree here BB. There have been literally thousands of changes to postcode boundaries in London over the last century, and none of them of any consequence. So far as I understand, postcodes are defined according to the practical administration of postal delivery. They have no relation to government administration or feudal legacy apart from a loose connection with place names (WR is Worcester, but East Duwlich is SE London for example). As a consequence they change every time a new set of postal addresses is generated - for example by a housing development or an industrial estate. Loosely they're segmented according to areas with linked access (neighborhoods) and equal postal workload. Around 15 houses will have the same postcode, and this is because it's estimated that within a 15 house area there will be sufficient local knowledge to resolve identity/delivery issues. The correlation between ED electoral ward and SE22 postal district is only about 60% Even electoral wards are supposed to be more about equal administrative units rather than historical legacy. Mind you, they're all bummed up because of political chicanery. Likewise bundles of government administrative areas such as Primary Care Trusts are bundled up into 'Output Areas' and 'Super Output Areas' Either way, you can't learn anything about history from any of them. (I only know this because it's a great spectator sport)

Allowances are now reduced and income tax has been increased to 50% for high earners.

Best had his last good game at the age of 27 in early '74 by all accounts, I'm quite impressed that anyone on this thread can remember him play. I struggle to remember anything other than anecdotes from before my 20th year, so that would put the glory boy hyperbolists at 56 years old plus. Subsequently he was paid by clubs such as Jewish Guild and Brisbane Lions. He wasn't famous for getting out of bed. I saw him on telly, and he looked cool with his step-overs etc. Very much like Christian Ronaldo but with a heavier ball. When he didn't have the ball he looked more like a sulky Berbatov, refusing to get back and help his midfield. In that sense I don't think Best deserves comparison with either Rooney as a striker, or Beckham who wasn't. George Best, most overrated man in football, but evidently ahead of his time.

The butler did it.

Not bold at all, quite right. I was surprsied the other day by RosieH's insistence that referring to someone as a lady doctor demonstrated prejudice. It's in the eye of the beholder I guess. It's only reasonble for us all to anticipate every situation judged on past experience, so every decision we make is by definition prejudiced. On a case by case basis we need to address whether the benefit of addressing it outweights the cost incurred. It's a judgement call. In this case we have one of tens of thousand annual teenage runaways in a low-threat situation. To start pushing the race hatred button and driving rifts through society, to undermine the confidence of the police, our social services and even our members of parliament was a reaction so extraordinarily out of proportion that we needed a bit of balance appled.

Ah... ;-) Your cultural references passed me by.

Could be, the other thing is that the lack of gender tags means that posters will be responded to entirely on the quality of their contribution rather than pre-existing prejudices?

If "the billions who seek some deeper level of meaning to life through the spiritual realm" want to avoid being judged, then they should avoid standing in judgement on others claiming they're better than everyone else and that they need to free their mind? It's one of the manifestations of 'spiritualists' that they dish out pompous claptrap and then wage war on heretics. I also doubt your 'billions' figure. My experience of religion around the world is that the vast numbers of adherents affiliate themselves with religion for social, political and recreational reasons, not to find meaning.

I see discrimination every day. I just don't see it in everything. I also recognise that seeing it in everything is displaying a prejudice and discrimination every bit as bad as the ones that I despise.

It's interesting reading your observations about personal growth rubsely, I think you are suffering a disassociation between the way you perceive yourself and the way you come across. Your boasting about your metaphysical achievements brings to mind a rather pasty youth touting a supercilious sneer, posing and reposing, one hand on jutted hip the other sweeping your chest with the fingertips, demanding that disinterested passers-by admire your coat of many colours...

It seems to be a running theme that those who consider themselves spiritually 'enlightened' think non-religious people need to free their minds. Conversely, to me those of a spiritualist/religious bent seem the least liberated people I've encountered. Their minds are cluttered and confused. Unwilling or unable to accept the simplest explanations in case it makes them feel insignificant, they crave meaning in everything like autistic numerologists seeking connections for the number 23. Like angst-ridden teenage goths they distance themselves from the frightening simplicity of human existence, and elevate themselves to an ethereal musical plane whose validity is defined by the limited population rather than the quality of the environment. Their need for ambiguity prevents them exploring the joys of everyday existence with even a minimal sense of curiosity, their vanity and self-obsession leads them to slowly retreat from the real world enthralled with the fizzing and buzzing of their consciousness. Finally, like Narcissus, they drown in the glory of their own reflection. The spiritualists may well consider themselves liberated, but the reality is that they're social amputees.

;-)