Huguenot

No, chicken. It was 'soil'. It's metaphor you see. She's talking about growing things, about cultivation. Most of us try and grow useful crops, but Charlotte's comparing prejudices to weeds. Not very useful, and sucks the life out of everything else. She doesn't stop there. She talks about weeds amongst stones. So she's implying that the environemnt for prejudices, the surroundings if you like, are totally sterile and unproductive. I'm not stalking you, you just keep turning up in areas that I find interesting. It's funny that those people who most oppress others are the first to squeal if they feel oppressed themselve?

I suspect she was a better speller than that. Either way, the good Charlotte Bronte also observed this: "Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education; they grow firm there, firm as weeds among stones." I suspect that your spelling and your opinion go hand in hand, both are loosely considered and poorly informed. Foor all your fervent admiration, I'm not sure that Charlotte would have been to keen on you ;-)

Well there you go again, old egg. I don't give a monkeys where you were born. I judge you entirely on the quality of your opinion. Unfortunately there is something of the toilet in it. However pious you may claim to be, I suspect that after your disrespect of his citizens God ain't going to be shaking your hand when you make your way upstairs ;-)

Godwin's Law takes something of a back seat when sofaRunner can so elegantly turn an argument about hospital charity into a spot of bashing the beeb. This one is worthy of the Daily Mail: "redirecting the lienence payers money to the NHS would solve a this nonsense" It's so cretinous it's spectacular. I can't even be bothered to respond intelligently. Cretinism, incidentally, is treatable on the NHS. Before sofaRunner's appearance on this forum it had largely been eradicated in the developed world.

Early muckster, verah verah early....

Like dogs in a wheel, birds in a cage, or squirrels in a chain, ambitious men still climb and climb, with great labor, and incessant anxiety, but never reach the top. (Robert Browning 1812-1889) It's a criticism Tarot, not a compliment ;-) Mr. Browning also observed that ignorance is not innocence, it's a sin. You would do well to ponder that before you judge the quality of a man on where he was born.

You buggers have got a whole night cuddling your pillows to look forward to :)

I'm already in tomorrow, 8.15 am and in the office!

LM I didn't mean to hurt, I really was saying it in a very light tone. I know it doesn't come across so well online.

Well katie1997, you can choose your level of engagement, but I strongly recommend doing it in front of the mirror with the thumb of your left hand in your mouth and the index finger of your right hand curling your hair as you ponder how pretty you are.

I am, by the way, laughing :D And I am very glad you took the photos, so long as it didn't make you late for your next appointment....

Oooooh katie1997, you're absolutely right, I should have realized that under your ditzy but yet patronizing disregard for other people's time there was a very serious girly concern for how you would be perceived. Emoticons self-evidently banned, so you'll just need to guess if I'm smiling or not.

It wasn't personal pookie, it was general. But really, if you are habitually late for your friends then quite simply you do not respect and value them. You don't. If you're late for everyone then you don't respect and value anyone. I'm not talking about time in a clock way, I'm talking about it in a keeping people waiting way.

And that just means 'I've been exposed for being completely self-centered and didn't get the answers I was hoping for, so now I'll try and make light of it' Just remember katie1997, it really is all about you. Really, you you you. ;-)

I don't think much of the girly joky Katy Perry thing either. It just means 'I'm girly joky Katy Perry and I'm completely self centered and I think I'm better than you'. People will probably think I'm being bossy. But really that means 'I'm completely self-centered and I'm going to try and deflect attention by criticizing you'. Either like and respect people or don't. But if you don't be prepared to ask yourself a really difficult question, do people like or respect you?

I'm afraid I'm totally with cc and quids. There's only one thing to do to be late, and that's to think that your time is more important than theirs. The rest of it is technicalities. The 'I don't mean to be' is utterly pointless. It's effectively 'I don't mean to be completely self-centered and think I'm more important than you, but I do, and I'm going to rub your nose in it'. The 'I honestly' bit just makes it even worse. It means 'I honestly honestly think I'm more important than you'. 'I will try much harder' isn't floating my boat either. Because you're talking about disguising your contempt for other people. There's no answer to being on time, this threads exists because somebody wants third party justification for being smug and selfish. Somebody wants a 'get out of jail free' card to wave around. There isn't one, you're just selfish.

Voltage Optimisation is a sound principle, but it risks being one of those things that charlatans capitalise on to rip off consumers. The principle is this - electrical equipment in the UK is rated at 230v. This is the official UK supply rating, and it accommodates variations in supply when demand is high. This rating is lower than the UK 'average' supply voltage of 240v. The difference between the 240v supply delivered, and the 230v supply that the equipment requires can mean that the equipment burns 10% more energy to work, whilst delivering no improvement in performance. More importantly it can mean that the lifetime of the equipment is dramatically reduced - a bulb rated for 230v and supplied with 240v will effectively halve its lifetime. So there's massive advantage if the supply can be tidied up to 230v. The National Grid cannot achieve this, so the best way to do it is locally. The problem is that if the optimiser is badly designed it may use up all the energy it's supposed to be saving you. Hence you effectively achieve nothing. Given the debacle over 'broadband' services, I've no doubt there will be people out there who sell 'optimisers' that do nothing of the sort. Hence if we want to push optimisers, education and standards are key.

If we go back up the thread we'll see that KCH completely comply with data protection laws, and we'll also see the provenance of the mailing list. Everyone has the option to opt-out - in fact this letter was even better, as it was an opportunity to opt-in. People seem to be levelling charges against KCH that are simply not true.

I should add as an illustration that in Singapore retired parents are allowed to sue their children if they don't pay them a proportion of their salary every month. How do you like them apples?

To be fair, Singapore's a completely different kettle of fish to the UK. Someone once made the calculation that if London was a nation state then every resident would be loaded and no-one would have to pay income tax. There's a very strong cultural focus on families in Singapore, and it's often that houses will be occupied by several generations within a family, which provides a far more effective saftey net than a benefits system. Granny doesn't need fuel cost subsidies, because in Singapore there's zero chance that Granny's home alone. There is no benefits system equivalent to the UK. The welfare system here is based on the Central Provident Fund, which is effectively a compulsory savings plan to which you and your employer pay contributions. There are very tight restrictions on what this can be spent on, but it can be used for example as a down payment on social housing at preferential loan rates. This means that Singapore neatly sidesteps the disincentive to work created by the UK system - it's actually your money, and if you spend it, it's gone. 90% of residential buildings here are effectively equivalent to council housing, so that's gone some way to manage the disastrous impact of the housing price boom that trashing the UK welfare system. Either way, the Singapore government's approach to welfare is clear: "The Government will subsidize investments like education and infrastructure, it will not subsidize consumption expenditure. To do so is to undermine the traditional values of thrift, personal responsibility and the will to achieve, and to weaken our economy," The interesting adjunct to this is that the role of the family in supporting those in need of welfare actually extends to your friends too ;-) People wouldn't be so rude about welfare provision if it was coming directly from their mates!

It'd be great to see some shots of the new place. Us from the diaspora only get to experience these delightful local assets through photo galleries :-)

Of course you're entitled to your view, and I'm entitled to mine. Disagreeing with you doesn't mean I'm trying to shut you up. Throughout your musings on this situation you've characterised KCH using terms such as 'cunning', 'underhand', 'devious', 'disingenuous' and 'illegal'. My view is that your use of these terms is malicious, vindicitive and ludicrously wide of the mark. Even your previous post didn't seem to make much sense. You said it 'spelt out very clearly in the first few lines is that it is about giving to Kings charitable funds', but then you called it 'disingenuous'. You can't be both clear and disingenuous at the same time. If it was disingenuous the meaning wouldn't be clear. So for me, you're just lining up attacks regardless of their basis in truth. The only possible outcome of attacks such as these is a worse hospital. Either you don't know this, in which case you won't mind me pointing it out, or you do know it and don't care, in which case you'll forgive me for clearing this up?

I don't really understand arguments that run 'You can't demonise benefit recipients because....'. It starts from the fallacious premise that benefits recipients are demonised. I'm sure the gutter press fire the occasional broadside, but responding to them is not a reasonable basis for government strategy. I think the best place to start is that nobody has a fundamental 'right' to anything at all. Benefits don't come from government, they come from other people as a tax upon their hard work. The motivation for this isn't black and white - for some it's an act of charity, for others it's a contribution to social stability. Either way, taxpayers have a right to be assured that their charity is being spent wisely, and that the recipients are deserving. This isn't the same thing as 'demonising benefit recipients' and benefit recipients should be more polite when addressing the concerns of the people who put food on their table.

My gaze may have wandered across him with ill-disguised contempt. He was the kind of bloke that would keep yelling at you through the toilet door when you were trying to have a relaxing poop because he thought his needs were more important than yours.

I do really enjoy watching Top Gear though, not because I 'like' or 'admire' Clarkson, I like the premise of the programme. It appeals to me at a really base level, the rebellious little schoolboy inside who gets off on seeing how many burgers he can fit in his mouth, or bullying the goofy kid.