Huguenot

Oh get off with this ridiculous immature proselytizing. This is a complete abdication of your responsiblities as an adult. It's a school. For children. If we mistake kids for adults we'd all be sat around eating chocolates and scribbling stick figures with big hands. Your own agenda is becoming clear here - it's probably well intended, but it's a clear inability to distinguish between maturity and the cocksure braggadocio of a teenager.

As an outsider looking in, there seems to be three groups to look at: Those living inside the CPZ - a reasonable (but not substantial) majority feel that ?125 is a reasonable fee to pay to ease parking congestion. Those just outside the CPZ - the majority claim ?125 is an outrageous fee (although they won't pay it), and claim there is no congestion problem but simultaneously say that the congrestion will get passed to them (somewhat contradictory then). Those who live more than a mile from the CPZ, but use the CPZ area for commuter and shopper parking - claim ?125 is an outrageous fee, claim there is no congestion problem, and use children, the handicapped, geriatrics or the commercial success of LL as justification for their convenience, and attack the council for carpetbagging and the government for both the Iraq war and the price of petrol. Ho hum.

DaveR, feller - for some sort of prattish reason, despite my clear reference to SJ's post, you insist that I was talking about something else. I quoted it, right? I've made it clear a number of times what I was referring to, you can tell from my response right? Let's analyse: It's the fact that I say :"I used to wear one at school, and I didn't go to school on a Sunday." Only to a bizarre moron could that be a response to "because of that inflation he was accused of "dishonouring the dead" It doesn't work does it? It would be a nonsensical answer? Right? However, it would work as an answer to : "he merely pointed out that it's only recently that wearing them outside Remembrance Sunday (when he himself wears one) has become ubiquitous." Now, even to your whacky interpretations "I used to wear one at school, and I didn't go to school on a Sunday." would make sense right? So really, taking into account your demonstrable intelligence, which one of those two statements do you think I was responding to? Or, you can carry on being a prat.

"There is a huge difference between a market governed by true market forces and a market that is an unregulated free-for-all." I thought that was Adam Smith's definition? Take the rest of the points though.

For DaveyR: SJ: "he merely pointed out that it's only recently that wearing them outside Remembrance Sunday (when he himself wears one) has become ubiquitous, and an inflation has set in. because of that inflation he was accused of "dishonouring the dead" which is pretty fatuous and an example of why some people bristle around the poppy" H: "Only 'recently' must mean at least 40 years, because I used to wear one at school, and I didn't go to school on a Sunday." So snuggle up old chap. I was as clear as clear can be - I even quoted SJ to make clear what I was talking about. Relax.

BB100, no I don't think that children call the shots. Nowhere else to go with that one. They don't have adult rights for good reason. Whether he is a squirt or not remains unresolved. DaveR, there's a good reason why you're not quoting me chap, because you know that I'm not doing any of the things you're accusing me of. Go for your life - I suspect you're still smarting about some previous disagreement, and you're now pursuing me over several threads for revenge. I care about schools and education, and about keeping well meaning, highly motivated but poorly informed gormless adults out of that environment. I respect that parents need to keep an eye on this as part of the social contract, but poppies to assembly don't merit the degree of interference being displayed here.

DaveR, go read it again mate, and you'll see that I said I didn't agree with it, but that it had become an issue with high social sensitivity that could be perceived in that way.

I'm not saying anything of the sort DaveR. This argument was about the actions of a schoolchild rejecting the commitment of a shcool to an act of group remembrance. The focus of this complaint hinged on the fact that he didn't like to be told what to do, and it was turning us into a nation of brainwashed drones. (An argument BB100 has just repeated and reinforced as the primary motivation behind this protest). Several other arguments were since dredged up - but they clearly weren't the most important ones initially. I felt that argument was trite, pertulant and unconvincing - and that it was part of his education to learn to make concesssions to a frankly unthreatening demonstration of shared empathy. Regardless of that the argument was misguided - the poppy is not a glorification of war, quite the opposite. Regarding a TV presenter I pointed out that as an employee of the broadcaster, he was not really in a psoition to make his own choices unless his employer granted him the option, and that he was wrong about poppys being worn outside Rememberance Sunday as a recent thing - my school doing it almost 40 years ago. I finally pointed out that if you deliberately snubbed an act of social respect as sensitive as this one it was likely that you were going to draw unwelcome attention from a particularly pugnacious and noisy minority - so it doesn't really do to be surprised by this. If you did this to 'make a point' then you simply brought it upon yourself. So I don't agree poppies should be compulsory, but if a school has made that choice it's within their remit, and not for some little oik to start strutting around talking about his 'rights'. He should grow up and learn to get along with other people.

I knew an Irish hussy in ED. I don't think the-e-dealer would have come across her, wasn't very observant I heard.

Replacing the turbohead can be ?80 or more I heard.

I'm always bound by what I say before DaveR, and if I change my mind I try and let people know. There is nothing inconsistent about my argument - children are not adults, school is not a recreation ground and respect and empathy for others are important lessons to learn. If you are unable to make these distinctions then you might be struggling with the argument, but it's pretty clear really. Regarding the FIFA ruling, they probably could have overlooked it - but whether it was a political statement or charitable advertising (I guess it had to be one or the other in a legal sense) it still broke the agreement. They could probably have got away with black armbands.

I did hear the the i-phone 4S battery issues were due to be sorted as soon as they'd cleared the current backlog of lemons :'( But I guess that might not be you Annette? I'm sure you got lucky or something. *sighs*

The march is organised by the "National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts" who favour "radical direct action" (that mostly means violent protest, so we shall see). It's funded by the RMT. So you can thank Bob Crow and his thugs for those tents.

Sorry my mistake - the poppy non-wearers are being targeted by the same mobs who see fit to level abuse at other perceived minorities. That's the Brits for you, once they get going they can't stop.

Matching tents... http://www.channel4.com/media/images/Channel4/c4-news/2011/NOV/09/tents_trafalgar_screengrabk.jpg I guess they could all have free university education like the 70s if they reduced the number of students from the current 2,000,000 to the 1,000,000 there were in the 70s. So which half of them are going to go home and get a job?

I've heard they had a few problems with the Miele 5211, but probably nothing to worry about.

You know there's a restaurant called Hisar?

There's one leaving in the next 24 hours for ?558. Just leave the house now - don't pick up anything, and don't tell anyone where you're going. It's for their own good. Behind the blue box next to the wall I've put a reversible orange pac-a-mac. Put this on and walk to the corner playing pocket billiards with your right hand. When you get there whistle the first four bars of La Marseillaise twice, somone will meet you there.

What, you didn't know there was a branch in East Dulwich too?

Oh, that one's easy peasy. The democratisation, pervasiveness and anonymity of interweb communications have liberated the silent majority to explore the most unpleasant of human emotional barf as if it were acceptable social behaviour. The thing about populist hate movements such as those mobilised against the bankers, is that they don't stop once they get going - first the bankers, then the immigrants, and now the poppy non-wearers*. It's a foolish person who looses the bonds of polite society restraining the British psyche. It gets ugly. *Sorry for the confusion I meant non-wearers.

:)) If you read back, you'll find the small statured Austrian dauber was being couched alongside Tony Blackburn. That would probably be a pointer to a bit of satire...

I agree with FIFA regarding this issue (it's against the rules that are clearly communicated to all). re FIFA are corrupt, what's new? I'm not in a froth about poppies. I don't think poppies should be compulsory, although I am scornful of people who don't wear them 'to make a point'. I do however believe that schools should have the freedom to declare their position on certain issues, and not have presumptuous teenage twots thinking that they can do what they like regsrdless - aided and abetted by foolish adults making grandiose claims about brainwashed drones. More so when it's a sensitive issue about respect and empathy for the sacrifice of others.

I doubt that! Adam Smith's free market invisible hand - that results in the selfish actions of an individual driving the general good - is dependent upon the assumption that an individual can and will act in his own best interests. However, it's not part of human nature to act so independently. Humans act irrationally, are poorly informed with limited analytical capacity, and tend toward mob behaviour based on emotion rather the 'supply and demand' economics. The housing disaster was empowered by bezerk humans engorging themselves in in an unregulated market. That's the free market for you.

I think to be a libel it has to be untrue. I would enjoy watching Netanyahu trying to argue that, and I encourage you wholeheartedly to persuade him to attempt it! :))

It's clear that for TE44 it's also more important that nephew indulges his teenage whims than he learns cooperation, respect and empathy. I love that little militant streak as well - 'make sure you get it in writing'. Are you going to sue them now? Ha ha. *crosses eyes* Did you also push burgers through the fence, campaign to ban sports day, take them out of school because exams were stressful, fly them to Spain during term time and instruct them that teachers had no right to tell them what to do? If this nation suffers in the future it won't be down to hardworking, dedicated and well trained teachers trying to instil a sense of responsibility and application in school - it'll be down to halfwitted parents using their kids as a proxy for some sort of gormless anti-authority ideology.