Huguenot

RosieH will have a field day on this one, but in the spirit of Germaine Greer... wasn't the teenage 'girls are more mature than boys' just the manifestation of a gender discrimination death wish? I've met (surprising as this may seem) both boys and girls of teenage years, and they both seem equally stupid, but girls do parade menstruation as some sort of badge of adult responsibility. The only thing that adult men did to teenage girls was enslave, belittle and subordinate them, yet the girls were drawn to this like flies to shit. Similar aged boys offer these flappers equality in every corner, but this is considered by girls to be an unattractive quality. Yet 10 years later the girls will righteously complain that everything they wished for as a little girl, what they demanded from their fantasies, is unacceptable when played out in the real world. So who really is 'immature' here, transparent and meddlesome boys, or the girls who instill in their peers the lifelong perception that all they crave for a fulfilling existence is to play the simpering fool to a brighter wit?

I spent so much time in the cupboard that I actually developed romantic fantasy scenarios about what me and Joanna Hufton would do if we were both in there together. They mostly involved me being cool.

Very unique

I think the majority of us dated within our school year. There was the odd pretty girl who would be popular with older boys, but they were the exceptions not the norm. Those girls that dated older than themselves did so out of aspiration, amidst rumblings that girls were more mature than boys. They dated usually only one or max two years above them - not 30 year olds. We were all suspicious of the guys who dated younger than themselves.

As an SME, employment is mainly about risk. SME's are relatively inflexible when it comes to manpower - big companies retain high value long term contracts at established margins. They can staff for the good and the bad times, and accommodate standard deviation in terms of staff performance. An SME can't. Typically that means staffing for the 'worst' economics and turning away business when the going is good. More flexibility and less risk in the labour pool means an average increase in paid hours, and on a national level that means economic growth. That's what the Tories are banking on. From an experiential level, I've largely grown up in a liberal socially motivated environment. The number of dismissals that I've seen from employer abuse are vastly outweighed by the number of employees I've seen abusing the system. I don't know exactly what 'rights' the Tories suggest dismissing, but I hope they're not fundamental ones, but more those that allow SME's flexibility to meet market opportunity.

No, he's right - the server is running slow. Noticed it the other day. Very unusual. I'd want to talk with the hosting company.

I think we'll find that insurance companies have various offers for various scenarios, and it doesn't blow anyone's mind that the cheapest deals are where the risk is least. We all make compromises when we step outside the door very morning, the existence of trees and the marginal impact that has upon risk are surely a tiny price to pay compare with the alternative of living in an urban concrete wasteland. Insurance companies refusing to insure houses with trees in less than 10m is clearly an unusual issue, since to the best of my knowledge it's the first time it's been raised on here. That trees have seeds... Is that REALLY a reason to cut down trees?

Yes please :) The RHS site pretty much asserts that the fear of trees in proximity to buildings far exceeds the actual threat, but it seems to be dependent upon the tree in question. London Plane is popular because it has a very compact root system and tall trunks, but it would be good to know what the choice was this time. I just don't buy civilservant's assumption that this was a random act of planting - these projects are done to death by experts in city trees. It's also worth noticing that civilservant's complaints about the pollarding are ill founded. Different strategies for pollarding are used dependent upon the chosen outcome - spring pollarding is used to stimulate new growth or food stock. Pollarding at other times of year is designed to restrict growth or alter the structure.

Perhaps two photos? One of a leaf next to a ruler or summat, and one of the whole tree?

Hardly wrath. ;-) gentle ribbing perhaps.

That's a sad story, I sincerely hope you find a way of working through with it. It seems the isolation is a bit of a killer - how about local social organised sports that don't entail pay for stuff? Running or soccer and so on. On a practical note, I'm suprised that the mortage advisor has been unable to help you find a solution to this. If you're holding back on food to pay the motgage you're borderline default - and it's not in the providers interest to let this happen. Moving outside London to a secure job should entail downsizing your morgage commitments and/or decreasing the LTV ratio - something your current provider should be very interested in given the inherent risk in your current situation. You shouldn't need a credit check - this is a transfer of your existing mortgage to a new property. I may want to take someone else's advice in this if I were you?

Why plant urban trees... http://www.treesforcities.org/about-us/information-resources/benefits-of-urban-trees/

KidKruger it intrigues me too - perhaps you could ask them? Or you could create an entire backstory using civilservant's imagination? There could be several very good reasons to plant trees that I can think of as a starter: They are replacing previous trees and the council wanted to retain a consistent ecosystem The rising water table was creating a threat to houses and it needed to be reduced through trees The ground needed stabilising Tree planting was part of an initiative to create a healthier environment and special deep rooted trees were chosen The road was being driven unsafely and the council wanted to introduce natural disincentives to speed Not saying any of these are true, but I am highlighting that given we don't know much about how or why they got there, civilservant's fairy tale is simply that. What kind of trees are they btw?

Spam

What kind of tree is this civilservant?

Well I thought we'd found an answer? Signatures are fine when harmlessly used to sign off on your own post. They are not fine when they contain links that are used to boost search engine rankings for commercial posts. Where the exact line is drawn seems to be fairly flexible, and entirely up to the hard working team of mods. It seems to be fairly clear that if you include commercial links in a signature you're very likely to get called on it, if you contain commercial messages without links in it you'll probably get called on it, and if it's just a boringly repetitive joke you've got a 50:50 chance of getting unwelcome attention. For the rest of signatures, those slightly lame repetitious aphorisms, they only seem to ruin your reputation. Either way, the fault will get flagged without relentless reporting from forum users.

To be fair, I don't think courts or employers are the only ones who 'like' evidence. If we ever reach a point where justice could be exacted for crimes for which there was no evidence, it's pretty safe to say that none of us would want to be a part of it. Burbage molested me yesterday, 7 years in jail please...

Kellogg's. Like the back of a Coco Pops packet.

There's not really sufficient information to start a unilateral attack on the council over this... What kind of trees were they? is there any other localised source of subsidence? Were there trees there previously? Is there any evidence of roots below the wall? Does the tree cover provide any other positive outcomes? Do the trees provide any stabilising effects on soil movements? Etc. etc. etc. I accept civilservant's generally cynical attitude, but there's no evidence here that there's any problem with council horticulturalists, since we have no idea of whether they were consulted, what conclusions they arrived at or why?

Gidget, just as a note - you don't need to report ANY signature links at all - Admin has a tool that will tell him if people are abusing the website faster than you can.

Signatures are a particular piece of content that is repeated below every post you make. For many people they're a sign off or personal statement. However, a signature can also contain a link to a website, and this is abused by website marketers (spammers) to give the impression that lots of people are linking to their website because the content is interesting or relevant. Typically it isn't - it's just selling something. The problem is that if a forum like this repeats a link to a rubbish sales website because of some idiot signature, search engines will make the assumption that it's because it's a badly moderated website where the owner doesn't care. So Admin just says no signatures because he doesn't want a load of rubbish links, and he doesn't want search engines to think that all the people writing on this website are just trying to sell rubbish. It's a win for everyone. So no signatures, and no rubbish links.

Eh what?

*giggles*

Lads mags are still big news elsewhere in the world, the UK has moved on a bit thank God. It's also worth bearing in mind that 'light entertainment' television in most other places in the world is truly shocking. So Top Gear's slick brand of 'real people' is marvellous in comparison. Annette, the Top Gear merchandise and so on was owned by a separate independent production house owned by Clarkson and Gilman (the producer), but it's since been sold back to the BBC, so strictly speaking the BBC own it all again now. However, it's still a useful vehicle to sidestep the scandal the BBC suffers over presenter salaries. So although Clarkson received only ?350k from the BBC last year, he actually took over ?3m from Top Gear ;)