BrandNewGuy

According to DHFC on Twitter, the ref's changed his mind and the game is off.

Vinyl - Jean Genie - David Bowie CD - This Note's For You - Neil Young Download (album) - National Ransom - Elvis Costello

No problem, just remove the bird and you have the cross of St Alban - the original Mercian flag. Or St Ivel Gold on the slant...

As a proud son of Mercia, I insist that the flag of the Kingdom of Mercia be included too http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/57/Mercia_flag.png

On a related issue, the problem with complaining about the lack of Wesh representation in the Union Flag is that there wasn't a Welsh flag until relatively recently. The cross of St David is in all likelihood a 20th-century invention (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Saint_David) and the "traditional" dragon flag in its current form is also 20th-century (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Wales)... Which is not to say that there isn't an argument for incorporating a Welsh element, but it contradicts the idea that there was some sort of imperialist English conspiracy to exclude a Welsh element. A united Wales as we currently understand it simply didn't exist before its annexation.

Jessie Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Or 1984 as orwell's book is called Or Nineteen Eighty-Four as it's called... I'll get me pedant's coat...

The exhortation to "man up"

Ocado just delivered - as usual, nothing missing and no substitutes.

Ours is still in the cellar - 17 years after we moved in...

But with allotments, you kick people off who neglect their plot. And if Southwark PCT (as is/was) want a health benefit to the land use, allotments are excellent - good exercise, fresh food, and a sense of achievement and community etc.

I'm always tickled by the euphemistic phrase "affordable housing". Do you mean "cheap housing"? Because all housing is affordable to someone. If we assume you mean cheap housing, then Southwark PCT is unlilkely to see as good a return as it would get for... er... non-cheap housing. So wouldn't that be robbing health service Peter to pay social housing Paul?

That's as may be but, as I suggested, just telling someone that you're vegetarian is often enough to provoke questions about leather shoes, milk, inhaling insects etc. Bizarre and, to be old-fashioned for a moment, rude.

Why is being a vegetarian "high profile"?

I can honestly say that a vanishingly small percentage of vegetarians I know are like that. Yet in my experience most vegetarians have to tolerate the "Well why are you wearing leather shoes?" haranguings from time to time. As I said before, it's baffling.

Most people (who don't necessarily profess an '-ism') love their children and believe children should be nurtured and protected. However most people also buy products which directly or indirectly exploit child labour and misery. Many people give to Third World charities to help the poor have access to clean drinking water, however we are so profligate that we used treated and cleaned drinking water to flush our toilets. Many or most people have savings, insurance policies, shares or pensions that directly invest in activities and businesses with which they'd profoundly disagree... I could go on, but I wouldn't call any of the above people "rank hypocrites" and I see them as little different from the "ethical vegetarians" taking a pounding for not being Jains. The world is complex, values clash, black and white is always grey, information is messy and awkward, and intentions are elusive. We can only be grateful that people try to do good - or at least try to do no harm.

"Rank hypocrites"? Nice... Why do people get so het up about vegetarians? It mystifies me.

Thread of the Year - surely the (now deleted) shenanigans at The V***

That raises the depressing possibility that the purpose of many people's employment is not to be unemployed - a sure sign of a long-term economy with deeply serious problems. I remember the thread on here about Southwark street cleaners and someone suggested that we shouldn't clear up rubbish from the streets ourselves if it were bad, as that might put the street cleaners out of work.

Insisting that vegetarians must be "pure" is both weirdly aggressive and pointless. By the same token, Christians (of whom I'm not one) are against sin but don't claim to be sinless. That doesn't make them hypocrites, it makes them human.

We have enough parking in East Dulwich. There, I said it. It may be frustrating, it may be annoying, but we have enough. I don't see cars double-parked in Lordship Lane or dumped on Denmark Hill... Ergo, we have enough. And if you think people who live near The Plough, say, somehow deserve to have a car park so that they can drive to the station, I'd seriously question the public benefit.

But Canada Water's not proximate to areas with large residential commuting populations, whereas East Dulwich is.

No, it would quickly attract those from outside the area who see an opportunity to use a Zone 2 station with plenty of parking. Build it and they will come...

A car park will simply attract more people (local or otherwise) to drive to the station who currently don't. An increase in traffic and no change to local parking pressures.

Not a nightingale - they're a summer visitor and, alas, don't visit London. It'll be a robin, I suspect. Along with blackbirds, male robins begin to sing through the night now that the days are getting longer. The robin's song is higher pitched, but both are very tuneful this time of year. Here's a robin singing (hit the audio button): http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/r/robin/index.aspx And here's a blackbird: http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/b/blackbird/index.aspx

C'mon, who really imagined there'd be many tickets left after the librarians snaffled their own... ?