david_carnell

Ahhh flow-er.....I geddit now. Mr McG has given me the answer to E(13) and I'm equally impressed and confused. :-S That smiley is rarely used but I feel now appropriate.

mockney piers Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > That's one of the classics Simon, like HIJKLMNO > (5) > A wonderful clue though, tis true. Thanks for the lessons, Piers. I'd never have got the PORT answer. But I see how it's done. I think I've got this one though. Is it a play on words? H - to - O or H20? WATER? And I've noooo idea what E(13) is.

Pi as in pious? Humph, I've never been any good at cyptic. And I'm rather envious of people who are.

Why stop at pepper-spray? Why not arm the man-on-the-street with hand-guns that can be concealed. That would be an effective anti-crime deterrent. I mean they do it the USA and their gun crime rates are almost zero. Oh. No. Wait.....

I think my wider point referred to hearts and minds, Steve. Are you trying to be obtuse? If you rampaging through towns/villages in armour clad tanks or APVs or even a Land Rover what happens is you fail to engage with the local populace. Through them you can gain valuable HUMINT and build bonds with the communities we are meant to be helping. Hide behind 6-inch steel plate, talk to no-one and shoot anything that moves and you'll soon find the local population turns against you. And then things are a whole lot worse than they were before....

Keef, you seem to have struck a nerve. If you buy the berets and combat trousers I'm all for forming a "guardian angel" style mob and go after the little twerp. Maybe Target Arms are having a clear out and we could go a-hunting!

Sorry Quids, I stand corrected. Your Huguenot blood probably explains your free-market associations, Protestant work-ethic and vast consumption of stella! Not sure if they were big gamblers though.

Bloody Foreigners - The Story of Immigration to Britain by Robert Winder Fascinating read that starts in pre-Roman times and higlights each major wave of immigration up to the modern day. I'm up to the hard-working Huguenots at present. The had a pretty nasty time of things under the Catholic Church in France so fled over here bringing much trade and skills with them. And we needed it after the Black Death had wiped a third off our population. Great stuff.

Indeed they are young Piers. Sunday afternoon. Oh, if you want crackig modern espionage thrillers check out an author called Charles Cumming. Excellent stuff. I can lend you nearly all of them if you want.

Villagers tend to object to tanks driving through their market squares.

PAYE or NI contributions, it matters not. It is not some sort of personal savings whereby if you don't use your particular allocation you get a refund. Constantly we hear the cry of money being wasted in the NHS by back-room admin staff (see an earlier thread in the Drawing Room) and yet their time is spent on processes just like this one. You have made the decision to finance your own healthcare despite perfectly adequte free care being available. The fact you are being charged a nominal sum for someone to trawl through archives and copy all your documents seems pretty small time.

Early reports did seem to suggest "East Dulwich Road, Peckham" (which is where Tesco Metro and Locale are) but the fire is actually much further north in Peckham-proper. From the PA: Around 150 people have been evacuated from their homes in Peckham after a huge blaze at a building site spread to several blocks of flats. More than 125 firefighters were tackling the blaze in Carisbrooke Gardens. One resident spoke of flames shooting 20ft high from the three and four-storey blocks as residents, including mothers with babies, sheltered on the street. One casualty was treated at hospital for smoke inhalation, with their condition not reported to be life threatening. A total of 25 fire pumps were at the scene, along with police officers and 20 ambulance crews on stand-by. A spokesman for London Fire Brigade said the building site first caught light, with gas cylinders possibly involved, and the fire spread "very rapidly". The Metropolitan Police said the fire spread to "several" blocks of flats and other properties in Sumner Road and Rosemary Road. The evacuated people were moved to emergency accommodation provided by the local authority. Pictures of the blaze showed flames bursting from the top floors of a four-storey building. It comes nearly five months after six people died when a fire ripped through a block of flats in nearby Camberwell.

Sutton (or Slutton to the locals) Charlton Southgate Willsden

I think we need someone who vaguely looks like they might pass the entrance exam - and that rules Cotton out. How about a red-head? Now the Penry-Jones has gone the team is one ginger short. Gillian Anderson anyone? How much does she charge these days now X-Files work is hard to come by?

But the banks have won. Bugger.

Decathlon at Surrey Quays?

I believe it refers to the interior decor of the BoHo Bar. It's orange and brown colour scheme most closely resembling that of a jaffa cake. And after a visit from the EDF it's floor will be as sticky as that orange layer too. 5imon - join the club.

I have heard rumours of a child named Shackleton in the ED environs. Secretly, I'm quite impressed.

When Mr Kalashnikov (of AK47 fame) was shown an early example of the SA80 assault rifle that the British squaddie currently uses he stared long and hard at it before quietly remarking, "...you must have very clever soldiers...". All army kit needs to be "squaddie-proof" - if it will break they'll break it. K.I.S.S - Keep It Simple, Stupid. Some army, somewhere will always have a better piece of kit than us. The Austrians have better guns, the Russians have better winter clothing, the Yanks have better body armour etc etc. And the soldiers and officers of the British Army have been buying their own bits of kit for as long as the army has been in existence.

Voted album of the decade this week (and not without good reason): The Strokes -

Harry Connick Jr in Memphis Belle every time.

Piers, do I detect a tongue in that cheek?

Well, firstly, we were joking (hence the smiley to convey subtlety) as Piers knows. But if you really need a reason, then unintelligible gumpf can hurt your eyes as much as your brain when trying to read it. Look up TonyLondonSuburbs in the archives for Evidence A. It's just good etiquette, no?

Piers, for gawds sake man, you're turning into TLS - proof read before posting or get a full-sized keyboard! ;-)