Huguenot

I imagine it happens wherever white people live close to each other. They should set up a specialist police unit, called operation milky or some such, focused on white-on-white crime. I wouldn't have said it was rampant or ubiquitous, it just happens where we allow them to get together in one place, banging and shouting like some kind of tribal dance, they're still living in the dark ages. If they don't know how to be civilized we should send them home. Or take them off benefits until they've passed an exam. ;-)

I'm thinking of defending my family. On reviewing the recent data, I've discovered that white people are violent. I'm not saying anything against them, but I'm thinking we should put them out of the country. Some of them had brown hair, where do we put them? There was a blond one on the footage too, but they're the same. Any thoughts on the ones with spots? I saw someone with acne in Spain. We should put them there. There was one with a baseball hat. They wear those in America. They probably listen to music too. Neither music nor America are part of my culture. They should go home. Does anyone have crime data on crimes committed by people who have either white skin, brown (or blond) hair, acne, listen to music or have American hats? They all live together in things called families, DOWN THE ROAD FROM PEOPLE THEY WENT TO SCHOOL WITH. I'm not saying anything against them though. I just want to protect my family.

Are you implying that the NHS has lots of people on long-term sick leave?

We can all delete the content of our own posts - although the empty box and the "." remain as a ghostly reminder of opinions we regretted expressing... Just use the 'Edit Post' link and drop in a full stop. I should add that it ruins your reputation - Alan Dale did it once a year after he pushed buy-to-lets with a passion of a Camberwell candy man. As the credit crunch crumbled our dreams to dust he went back months 'editing' to give 'plausible' deniability that he'd promoted anything of the sort. It wasn't 'plausible' at all. Never recovered poor chap, attracted the attentions of *Bob*

I did, but it took 137 tweets. I suppose we could say "Research proves Twitter mostly bullshit or gossip, news element overplayed, not much commerce".

I'll send you a t-shirt HAL9000, post restante at LL's post office, if anyone's working ;-) Possibly DM, but I work in the industry so I take a great deal of interest in phenomena like Twitter. I've PM'd you the details. One of the packages that I advise companies to take advantage of 'scrapes' the major social networking properties for any mention of their brand name. Algorithms measure the context in terms of positive/negative, and highlight potential foul-ups to a human operator. They'll then gauge relative importance and decide whether or not to act on it. In your case the context was flagged, and the operator decided that a world famous media darling such as yourself was quite important in establishing good media communications. Hence Mulberry's actions didn't necessarily occur because they were reading your tweets, a computer was. Don't be sad. From a personal perspective Twitter is one more application doing the same thing. If I need to get hold of someone quickly an SMS text is more effective than a tweet, and the Facebook status on the Crackberry app keeps me up to date and in touch with people in a passive way. None of the three methods is better than a call if you want to have a chat. Big clunky fingers and Crackberry keyboards doesn't make a pleasurable encounter. I'm sure that your elegant fingers are much more dextrous. The other issue is whether your chosen application has critical mass amongst your friends and colleagues. For me Twitter doesn't. A recent study into Twitter that you can find here, revealed some tasty morsels: Content was broken down into six areas - News, Spam, Self-Promotion, Pointless Babble, Conversational and Pass-along value. Pointless Babble was comments that were usually inconsequential and non-sequitors. For example "I'm eating a sandwich". Pointless Babble formed 41% of all tweets, conversation 38% and self-promotion around 6%. News and Pass-along-value were 4% and 9% respectively. So it suggests you're partially right, but the vast majority of Tweets are just crap. FYI Research suggests the 'shelf-life' of a tweet is around an hour to an hour and a half (before it get's lost in the other activity of your followers), it also suggests 'click through rates' of around 1%-2% (these are the people for whom your tweet has had sufficient impact that it's influenced someone to do something.

Quite right Lulu, to be honest appearances can be deceiving. There's gales of laughter chez Huguenot, and it's already cost me a fiver with another forumite, because I thought HAL9000 would give up earlier. In fact I do respect HAL9000's point, I just think that in this issue as with others the fears are overplayed, heightening anxieties to the detriment of our general well being. I'll stop now regardless of whatever final insults are tossed my way ;-) HAL9000 would probably prefer to have the final say.

Excellent stuff, quite happy. Was that your last word then? ;-)

There you go annaj, you see he just can't stop calling me names! Was that your last word then HAL9000? ;-) *are they in the bedroom HAL9000?*

Was that it? Giggle. *they're talking about you HAL9000, because you're really important*

Was that it? Chortle. *they're listening*

Was that it? Chuckle. Or like your little poo problem do you need another little dribble? *whispers... they're after you....*

I think that the landscape is unnecessarily blurred by social concepts such as Twitter. As individuals we employ many coping strategies to edit our interface with the rest of the world into manageable chunks ? we zone out the chatter of fellow restaurant guests for example. We?d go nuts otherwise. It?s interesting that Twitter allowed us to eavesdrop on the thoughts of Mumbai residents in the recent tragic attacks there, but if we?re honest it was not particularly illuminating. This isn?t to suggest people won?t post on things like Twitter or their Facebook status, as everyone likes to talk about themselves: Twitter?s like a social event where everyone?s talking and no-one?s listening.

And now you've reverted to some sort of deviant sexual hierarchy as a measure of your self-coronation HAL9000? Intriguing. Is that how you see sex HAL9000, sort of sticking your privates in something as a subjugation? Do you do it to women? Do you teach them a lesson? Do you make them learn? Like an incontinent schoolboy you're running around the playground braying about a fictional victory, not because you actually won anything, but because you've pooed in your panties and you're embarrassed. Every hop you get that skidding feeling in your cheeks. If only it would go away. In the end you can't sort it out can you, because you can't bear what you've done. You can't accept you've messed yourself. I thought for some reason that you were in your forties HAL9000, can't remember why. However, there is something almost tragically autistic in your postings, and I apologise unreservedly if you do have this unfortunate disorder. Still aiming for the last word chap? ;-) Off you go...

"Any group of workers [...] in my own biased opinion, deserve respect and support." Why? You don't care about the arguments, or the realities? I'm sure there are worthy strikers, but it's facile to suggest that they all deserve respect and support. Those who 'struck' (striked?) two years ago in the LU fiasco over whether they had 'kettles' or 'urns' were patently deserving of neither respect nor support.

No hard feelings at all HAL9000. I don't think you've earned the spurs to challenge my "logic" and certainly don't feel you've been a "worthy" adversary. I'm neither so presumptive nor so patronising. I think you're a willy. I probably shouldn't say so, so I retract. ;-) [see what I did there? Just like you HAL9000 with your 'I don't want to offend" speech that's followed up with a string of copied and pasted insults. I didn't mean to suggest you're a willy. I mean, I'm sure you're not a willy. However, I'll graciously stand back and 'fess up, because I'm not so dishonest] The case is simply this. You described corruption as rampant, and when challenged you upgraded to ubiquitous. You have offered no evidence for either claim. I think a fairer summary of your innuendo and Fisking (which was not a debate incidentally, more a second rate rebuttal) is this... "I had a bit of a run in a few years back with an 'institution'. It may well be that I did something wrong, but I had good reason to challenge them. When I lost, rather than accepting it at face value I preferred to imagine they were corrupt. Over the years that was the story I told and my conviction stems from repetition of this tale rather than evidence. "Adjusting that tale now would involve personal sacrifices I don't want to make, so instead I escalate. I extrapolate from my personal experiences to the larger picture and now see corruption in everything that happens. "So that's what I do. I make vapid generalisations. When challenged I either pretend my knowledge is secret or play word games, because that way I'm not exposed. I can pretend that my case is proven because I've 'rebutted' those who challenge. I call them muddled or stupid, or anal-retentive because in an absence of empirical evidence that's all I'm left with. "I can't back off. I accuse other people of the failings I see in myself. I escalate, always escalate..." "...and then with an Alan Partridge crinkled rictus, I try to pretend that I was in control of the conversation all along." I'm teasing you now HAL9000, because although you claim the debate is at an end, you always like to have the last word don't you? [sorry about the willy thing again. Bit like your diarrhea comment wasn't it? I've repeated it again, about you being a willy I mean, but whilst pretending it was apology. About you being a willy.]

I'm not sure Immaterial old chum, but I'm thinking that the psychoanalysis you kindly offer is a little offtopication on this thread. I'm sorry you struggled to get the point. To repeat... you held up the Italian workers for admiration, I suggested they deserved no such pedestal. Your Italian example was presumably to demonstrate that in Italy they deliver on the promise... "Workers in struggle; whether greedy, over-paid train drivers, Trotskyist teachers, back-ward looking C20th Posties, sacked Vestas turbine workers, comrades at Visteon (Ford)all deserve public support and respect, not the opprobrium generated by the bosses press." I don't have any problem supporting anyone who has a reasonable case to make. The only one in your list that currently has a reasonable case is the Vestas workers, but my anxiety with those chaps is that they seem to think the government should bail them out. I guess that would fit in nicely with the totalitarian state you propose?

Lol! Are you so bereft of wit HAL9000, that you've resorted to copying and pasting the names you called me earlier? Surely a gent of your insight could do better than that? ;-) Anal retention is but a pipe-dream for such a frantic bowel as my own. If ubiquity is now a matter of context, then shall I take that well-crafted oxymoron as a retreat on your part?

It puts an 'already read' flag on all posts regardless of whether you've read them or not. This means that they won't be highlighted in the BB window by a red 'new' tag unless they been posted after this point. It doesn't delete anything. Sometimes it's a benefit because too many 'unread' messages can apparently slow down the system (and hence your own customer experience).

No mate, that's silly again. Echelon has the capacity to collect and sort data traffic, flagging areas for concern. Nevertheless you seem to be conflating technology with the act. Do you propose putting everyone's eyes out because they could be watching you? Does literacy prove that someone is libellous? If you can't tell the difference between Echelon and the comprehensive surveillance and related violence that exists elsewhere then you simply have no sense of perspective or proportion. QED my point about hyperbole is made.

Well it would depend on what you consider to be corruption HAL9000. My original posting was about hyperbole. I'd consider surveillance and interference in the private lives of individuals by either other businesses, or institutions of a one party government, in a totalitarian state, for reasons unknown to be corrupt practice. If you don't think that's corrupt, then you won't think it's relevant. It clearly doesn't happen to the same degree in the UK as it happens elsewhere, but if you've already used up 'rampant' and 'ubiquitous' on low level activity in the UK, what are you going to use when it really happens?

Canning, I'd be interested to see this data that compares the NHS so favourably with elsewhere in the world?

You held up the Italian workers for admiration, I suggested they deserved no such pedestal. You made a snide generalisation about forum users with no basis in fact: "I suspect that the majority of the Forumites in this room would be aghast at such 'un-democratic' attacks on property rights and such a scandalous, cavalier attitude towards industrial relations, in defense of workers' rights and against job losses." I gave you back what you dished out, and like Sir Alan Sugar, you don't like it. The Royal Mail strike is not about 'workers rights' unless you regard employing people to do things that don't need to be done is a 'right'. It is in fact old-fashioned totalitarianism and state interference. In that case your allusion to Italy came full circle as it became apparent the this totalitarian approach is still celebrated in the country that brought us Mussolini.

You're not going to say anything racist are you Tony?

Absolutely, and whilst one can't blame the BBs for the concept, we could blame them for running up the credit card and then jumping ship.