Huguenot

Let's put it this way Steve. You've probably invited people over to your house for dinner. You may not have known everyone, there might have been associated girlfriends or boyfriends, or simply hangers-on. They might even, at your invitation, used the loo. It would take considerable daftness to assume that as a consequence you had an open door policy to people you didn't know coming in your house, raiding your fridge and using your shitter. That's what you've done there. It's called reductio ad absurdum. You've taken a perfectly reasonable swing door policy that works as well for Brits who want to retire in Spain as it does for French people who want to work in coffee shops, and constrcuted a ridiculous scenario where soap dodgers are coming in their millions to steal from your wallet. Pack it in, it's boring.

Ye gods NN, do you know what hubris means? How it can be used in sentences? You can't be 'drunk on hubris' until after the fact. Had the Birmingham chem trails actually been a terrorist attack and we'd been left looking silly, then we could suffer hubris. Before the fall, it's simply arrogance. Of which, when faced with mental conspiracy theories, mea culpa.

No costs in my game - just investments ;-)

Well yes, it could just be a feasibility study. But like anyone, the residents of ED would prefer to get in on the discussion before the decision is made - and it wiil go in favour of at least some of them - but certainly not all ;-)

x-post

I think you misundestand irony UDT. The stem is 'pedant' - a contraction of pedagogue (one who leads children; later to mean 'teacher'). Thus 'pedantic' meaning 'like a pedant' or 'pedantry' meaning 'the domain of the pedant' So 'pedanticness' doesn't work as it means 'the fundamentals of the things that are like a pedant': in other words pedantry. Saying 'lots of people use it so it must be right' is facile. That's like saying 'definate' is correct. It's not.

My understanding is that anyone who obstructs the public highway (with green bins for example) is committing an offfence under section 137 of the Highways Act 1980 or section 28 of the Town Police Clauses Act 1847. However, the application of these laws is also subject to 'reasonable use' - for example loading and unloading etc. that is established by magistrates. So the use of green bins to 'own a parking space' would have to be tested in this context. I suspect that there would have to be a sustained and recorded series of offences, along with a demonstrable impact upon the neighborhood for a case like this to even reach a magistrate, and even then you'd be hard pushed to prove it was unreasonable given the history and regularity of public parking infractions. The best way to establish an 'unreasonable' obstruction of the public highway may be if this action were proved unreasonable because it lead to a public order offence.... ;-) Regarding the various garages, carwashes and estate agents that make use of on-street parking, I think this would need to be tested under a separate offence - the use of the public highway for commercial storage. I think there'd be a much better chance of success in a case like this, but even so the decision regarding parking would also be weighed up against the needs of the community for local services and commerce. In addition, most councils view licensed and taxed vehicles (even if parked up for commercial purposes) as 'reasonable' users of the highway, meaning that if you did decide to test the law you'd need a pretty strong case to win it. Feeling pissed off wouldn't be enough. So I think you'd probably lose that one too. Best way is to use social pressure to change the antisocial behaviour of these twonks.

...and NN delivers yet more of these weird robotic non-sequiturs. It's couched as a question, but delivered with bathos and inappropriate punctuation. They don't quite work - they're not quite part of a dialogue. They don't seem to relate to the rest of the thread. It's like NN's responses are generated from keyword prompts. I guess they're intended as biting wit, but they feel so wooden - hollow almost.

I've had the same Sony LED 46 incher downstairs for 5 years, and it's only just playing up - which is quite unusual given that bloody Sony things usually only last 2 years. Upstairs the 32 inch Sony HD LED is also still going strong after 12 years. That was when they were so excited about HDMI they put the logo on the front of the telly. They're both HD and I really do struggle to tell the difference between them and new TVs in the picture quality assessment under usual viewing conditions. I've got a mate with a huge Samsung with 3D and all the Smart TV jobbies and he doesn't use any of them. The applications are dull to anyone with the attention span of an adult, and it feels stupid sitting in your front room with 3D specs on - even for the footie.

I see what you're saying KK, but I don't think it feels trivial to languagelounger. I think the problem is that languagelounger's organisation has grow to the scale that it can no longer be accommodated by a bulletin board like the EDF. I think really s/he needs to look at a simple website solution with basic CRM (emailing) facilities. For free emailing and event bookings try eventbrite? The event could be linked to the ll postings. That way the EDF could be used to just to post 'news and events' and not to try and administrate languagelounger's groups.

I told you UDT was in with government Alan, you need to be careful what you say. He's something of an expert - used to run one alongside his Premiership team ;-)

I think that's called displacement ;-) Not sure you need a PHD to see what's right in front of you? What you were trying to do was vindicate breadbin's lunatic claim that vapour trails are a terrorist attack on Birmingham by juxtaposing it with the science of cloud seeding. In doing so you hoped that the terrorist attack claim would somehow seem more plausible, and that you could jack up the fear level of the general population. That's what moves you from being a harmless nut into a rather more vindictive position.

Psychologists would describe that aggressive response, where you once again failed to answer the question, as 'masking'. The idea being that if you respond with sufficient aggression you will deter the enquirer from exposing your weakness. So that's probably a clear indicator that you don't really know why you posted about cloud seeding?

Are you trying to be cryptic to appear mystically wise, or because you don't actually know why you did it? Are you suggesting that there actually was a terrorist attack by cloud on Birmingham that, cunningly disguised as water vapour, tragically failed to kill anyone or get the front page headlines?

What on earth are alsmith and neilson99 talking about?

I'm a bit confused as to why he left a bag in his car twice, when it's clearly proving attractive to thieves.

To return to the original thread... NN, in response to breadbin's suggestions that there was a terrorist attack on Birmingham, you posted something about cloud seeding. What was the connection?

I don't really understand the timeout problem either. It's intriguing.

I'm a bit confused by the use of hyphens. It's clear that some people are using them as 'minuses', but not everyone it seems.

Extraordinary - breadbin, do you actually believe this stuff? Really? Honestly? Putting the bravado to one side etc.?

Oh dear.

Ah, had to make do with taking the mudguards off my raleigh shopper.

Just came across these - I had all of them at one point! http://www.thepopulation.com/images/post/normal/p_62.jpg http://www.thepopulation.com/images/post/62/p62-1.jpg http://www.thepopulation.com/images/post/62/p62-2.jpg

Sorry - here's the artists impression...

Here you go... Not much change really.