Huguenot

The UK welcomes immigration because of the benefits it brings. Proponents of 'closed door' policies usually have either unusually limited access to information, or a limited ability to processs it. We don't welcome immigration because we're trying to help anyone else out, we do it because we're helping ourselves and for many reasons. Here's a few: Economically immigrants often do the work that locals won't, they do it at lower cost, and consequently deliver greater profits for companies, lower costs to consumers and greater tax revenues to the state. Estimates from the Home Office calculate that immigrants pay ?2.5 billion more in taxes than they receive in benefits. That's free cash to pay your parents' pensions, your healthcare, and your childrens education. 'Immigration' is a two way process, where similar rights are granted to UK citizens who wish to live abroad. This strengthens the trade relations of the home country, increasing the exchange of goods and services and often providing access to vital resources that cannot be obtained on home soil. The cultural diversity offered by immigration drives creativity and innovation, creating economic growth. Socially cultural diversity delivers greater social variety from restaurants to the arts, enhancing the quality of life for local residents. In the medium term, immigration provides the UK with a younger workforce. The ratio of retired people to workers is expected to dramatically increase in the coming decades that would result to significant changes in the Security System (i.e. pensions & benefits). Immigrants, with their children and younger relatives, will bring in more young workforce that can slow down the increase of this very important ratio. At a vital level, immigrants usually arrive because of employment preference. This means that they offer skills that are scarce in the country. This will bring about various advantages. For example, if the supply of native neurologists is low, influx of more neurologist immigrants will significantly help the health care industry. Britain welcomes immigration because the benefits far outweight the disadvantages. In short, we welcome immigration because better informed people are making better decisions than bigots on the future welfare and success of the United Kingdom.

Come on pookie, it's just a setback, that's all.

Lol Just watching Malcolm Tucker on The Thick of It. He draws a distinction between 'moron' and 'tosser' and the application of energy that possibly may have some relevance :)) Neither of which do I apply, BTW, to anyone in this conversation. Just made me chuckle.

Isn't it just up to the publican? If there's a big market for child-unfriendly pubs won't some publican make a million? Why not let the market decide?

I'm not disagreeing with you Townleygreen. I hope my string of 'If's communicated that :) Being a charity doesn't mean everyone has to agree with it, nor that everyone has to make sacrifices to support it, nor that it absolves them of social responsibility. I'm just observing that if a local resident doesn't believe that the wants and needs of this particular charity override their wants and needs as a local resident, that they are quite within their rights to challenge it. Greenpeace may be a charity, and so may the Church of Nimpty Nompty of the Latter Day Ego who pay the Def Rev $5m salary a year. It's entirely reasonable that some residents don't feel that it gives either organisation the right to block their roads. I'm not picking a fight with you, and if the balance of belief of local residents is that they're perfectly happy with current arrangements or not, then you should take the case up with them.

Well I think you have to talk to whoever is responsible. If the school is a profit making venture who make greater profit by providing transport for their customers, then they need to carry the cost of providing this service. As a profit making company they're not fundamentally different to a football club, and nobody would blink if we asked a club to provide appropriate facilities for their supporters buses. If it's a state school then there's a greater obligation upon the general public to make accommodation, as we are effectively shareholders and would carry the expense of parking facilities as much as carry the expense of blocked roads. We'd have to think how our money was spent more wisely. But if it's private, then it's a business. We probably shouldn't let emotional confusion over the word 'school' to muddle our thinking.

The iPad's an incredibly pleasant (and portable) reading experience. Being in the business as you know, I used to say that the printed word isn't under threat until tech media could deliver on the three 'B's - Bed, Bog & Bath. With a laptop that's utterly unworkable. However, apps like Vanity Fair are, incredible as it may seem, a better experience on an iPad than the magazine itself. I find the magazine too dense and cluttered. I have hundreds of books on it, that I can now read in taxis, or in bed without keeping Bumbalina awake. The technological achievement of the screen means that t'interweb is as close to an inspiring medium as possible on the iPad in a way that it isn't on a laptop. Finally, the infrastructure means that finally, thank the heavens, there is a plausible and practical way of paying for quality journalism online. If this hadn't been resolved it would be the end of quality journalism. So for me, the iPad is the ultimate technological achievement. It's just a shame that Apple are such difficult chaps that they block every quality piece of software that competititors bring out - like flash for example.

My latest Vaio's made out of carbon fibre and it's lighter than a butterfly. Sometimes it just doesn't fancy doing any work. Never had a problem with the proprietary software though, never noticed. I tend to find other people using Macs a bit like seeing someone wearing a Chanel neckscarf. Their move into the mainstream has left them just on the cusp of turning naff. I love my iPad though, even though nothing that is 'standard' works easily on it. Trying to put a pdf on it is like pulling teeth. Neither is it small and handy once you've put a protective case on it.

Well the first would be the school I guess, and the second the coach company. I don't know whether private schools have an exception on ensuring that the local infrastructure is fit for purpose? It would be a fun case to pursue as a class action. Maybe you could get a local lawyer to do it pro bono, on the grounds that it would raise their profile locally, and they might have further more profitable ventures off the back of it chasing estate agency cars.

If they are a profit making venture you'd have thought it was possible to make a case against the use of the public highway for trading purposes. If the coaches are there early because there's nowhere else to put them, then they're also effectively using the road for commercial storage...

Do you get your choice of tabloid, or do they choose for you based on your selection?

Funnily enough, I feel less strongly about kiddie poo and wee than I do about plastic bags. I was walking down LL one afternoon and a gang of yoofs targeted the grocer opposite the Bishop. After chucking a load of fruit on the pavement they struttted of down the street with the roll of plastic bags. They pulled them off one at a time and threw them on the floor in one fluid motion. They continued to do it until they were out of sight. It makes me want to handcuff their wrists to their ankles and leave them in a cold tiled room with an angry baboon. Kiddies in China don't wear nappies, they wear cute little crotchless trousers and poo and wee in the gutter on demand. I thought it was quite cute. They don't discard tissues either, they just stagger off in that small child way.

I found the plastic erasers to be the most effective. http://cdn.dickblick.com/items/215/00/21500-0000-2ww-m.jpg Teutonic efficiency. You could probably play the Ring Cycle in the background.

Your wish, etc.

Damn cross posting thing.

Well, it's an American rock band that gained popularity in the late 1960s and early 1970s with a number of successful singles drawn from various albums. The group consisted of lead vocalist, lead guitarist, and primary songwriter John Fogerty, his brother and rhythm guitarist Tom Fogerty, bassist Stu Cook, and drummer Doug Clifford. Their musical style encompassed rock and roll and swamp rock genres. Despite their San Francisco Bay Area origins, they are sometimes also cited as southern rock stylists. CCR's music is still a staple of American and worldwide radio airplay and often figures in various media. The band has sold 26 million albums in the United States alone. CCR was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993. Apparently.

And don't go 'making it up to him'. He needs to know that if he's naive, he goes hungry. ;-)

Believe it or not, traffic light management is a highly mathematical exercise and generally very tightly linked with activity at adjacent traffic lights. If lights are frequently going red, it's more likely because the traffic is so tightly packed that the system has realised you wouldn't be going anywhere if the lights were green. Hence it might as well prioritise other pedestrian traffic. The only advice I would offer a councillor would be to ensure that these lights are 'in the system' and not governed by the subjective views of those that encounter them ;-)

Never heard a better layman's review that tog_in_sox (who is clearly not a layman). Apple's currently winning the market in the same way as Google did - by pretending to be a niche clever product whilst taking huge market share. I was Apple from the off - an LC630 before it became a Performa in '94. I turned to PC out of practical issues in around 2000. Apple's are largely flash marketing, in the same way that a Stella is reassuringly expensive. Most PCs were corporate, and FDs don't spend extra cash to look trendy. However, lots of suppliers are making the consumer adjustment. I use Sony Vaios. Very good looking but flip out at the slightest tickle. Much like my various Powerbooks - the predecessor to iBooks - and various MacBooks. I use them because all my clients give me admiring looks ;-)

Probably being a bit daft, and clearly foreign so my view is worthless, but why does a school have coaches parked outside again?

I genuinely think it's the best thing could have happened to him. Life is about all the other b@stards. Don't give him any ideas, just say 'well, you're not at home anymore' give him a big clap on the back, buy him a pint and have a laugh. If he's teary stamp on his foot. Whatever you do, don't try and give him any solutions, those are his to find.

Is anyone else thinking it was the handcuffs?

Ladym, you are no stranger to me, I'm hoping still to see you in November? So long as I don't get lamped in the airport...

Yay! Thanks for photo :) You make an old man very happy! x

Well it is a thread about religion, protest and apathy Magpie, so it's supposed to be about all these things. I totally agree that in the last 100 years the CoE has been a benign institution, and the Catholic religion has not. The irony is that this CoE compassionate phase also coincides with the rise of religious expression through softie stuff like kum by yar and tambourines. In contrast the Catholic church has retained the bombast, shock & awe and power hierarchy, and has simultaneously maintained the cruelty which sees millions of dying of AIDs and paedophiles being bussed around the country to commit their vile crimes on a new generation of children. I remain absolutely convinced that there is a cause and effect relationship between the two elements.