david_carnell

News from Katrina: *shot of white people* "Here are some folks hunting for food - the American spirit" *shot of some black people* "Look at those looters going into shops!"

I'll have another crack. Cheers, Declan.

NOTW sack Ian Edmundson. Another police force open investigations. Meanwhile Murdoch presses the govt for further control over the news agenda in Britain. It'll be a disgrace of the highest order if that goes ahead.

I think the issue is equally the constant bumping of one thread to highlight new posts on said blog. Thin end of wedge and all that.

Whilst driving a child's tricycle I presume, Moos? http://www.modernseniors.com/Toys/RadioFlyer/tricycle-j.jpg Dangerous things those.

Political betting now. William Hill are offering 7/2 on a general election this year. My sources say this is a decent punt as Cameron looks to go to the country in May-July, smashing the LibDems and defeating an unready and cash-poor Miliband. This should be closer to 7/4 imo.

Uh-huh. Ok. Carry on.

I always had you down as a silk topper man, Hona?

Tarot Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The clock was a local landmark,I do hope it will > return. > The removal of the clock looks ominous to me,has > it beeen sold on somewhere. > We know this goverment has an agenda for the > libraries,but does that include Knocking them down > and building these > sqaut little houses on them. > Every available space in East Dulwich is being > built on,it will soon resemble China towns with no > spaces at all. > We know they want to remove tenants from > Westminster and boroughs like that,and the > Elephant development,so are we > going to be flooded by those people. > It might be a exagerated but the clock may be the > tip of the iceberg. Ummm....WTF? You're equating the removal of a clock from a library, for which reason you have no idea (cleaning per chance?), with East Dulwich being "flooded" by "those people". I don't even know where to begin with such insanity. Please tell me you are either about to be committed or on a deliberate wind up?

nail on head Narnia

Heh - very true Keef. This is the best past life ever though:

I love it. You all pile in taking the proverbial on this thread.....but with bending car keys, disappearing bikes, parallel universes and healing hands on the "Supernatural" thread it's all quiet. Troops! Atten-shun! Get out and spread the sceptical message.

Oh heaven forbid anyone should be told anything they are doing might be wrong. Those mothers feeding their kids nothing but supernoodles night after night or the obese chap buying yet another tub of haagen daaz before checking into a&e with heart problems - let's just let them be. They're probably too busy, or time poor as current nomenclature has it, to make well informed choices about healthy, value-for-money food. Nanny-state gone mad I tell thee.

karter Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Me wonders if DC has more willpower that 99% of > the population and left Sainsbos last night > without buying all the extra crap. Or was it just > popeye food for dini dins. > Despite your slightly creepy, stalker-like tendencies (and this isn't the first time you've done this to close friends of mine) I've never said that I never use supermarkets. I know the inherent hypocrisy involved but I'll agree that on occasion there is no where else locally to purchase certain items at certain times. In fact, if you bother to read my comments a few pages back I recommended that local shops stayed open late one night per week for just that reason. But with friends for dinner, and meringues to buy (along with some other bobbins on my list) I had little choice. If that makes a hypocrite, so be it. It doesn't make any of my arguments less valid. The meringues were junk btw. Only one type were on offer. I'd have much rather have bought from Frog On the Green, the Cheeseblock, the EDD or Lucas bakery but by the time I'd finished work, none were still open. Room for improvement perhaps. But it reaffirmed my belief that they all offer a superior product for not much more in the way of pennies. Perhaps if supermarkets encroached on your business, you'd be more concerned.

I would suggest that by buying cheap cuts of meat at William Rose, unavailable at supermarkets (unless Sainsbury's have recently started selling offal, beef skirt or breast of lamb) and then having a relationship with their local butcher thus obtaining freebies like chicken carcasses or beef bones enabling one to make cheap soups, stocks etc you can save a darn sight more than you think. You know, if these people that we are hypothetically talking about were that poor they wouldn't be in any supermarket. They'd be shopping on Rye Lane buying broiler chickens for ?1.50. But they don't because, well, it's a bit smelly and dirty, and they're socially aspirational. It's not "let them eat cake"....it's take your blinkers off, look around you at the good value and better quality produce you can buy locally and spot bleating about it all being because supermarkets offer good value when they blatantly don't. And I'd rather someone who did PR for a major supermarket chain didn't accuse me of being pathologically anti-supermarket. It's a cheap jibe.

Oh come on Keef - even you can't believe that. The reason supermarkets even do those offers is to get people through the door because they know that once there they won't be able to help themselves and walk away with not just the 2-for-1 offer but a trolley full of other crap they never needed in the first place that is often over priced. If you genuinely go to Sainsbos and only walk out with just the stuff on offer you've got more willpower than 99% of the population. Ever wondered why the wine in supermarkets is suddenly reduced? Because for the preceding 3 months it was massively overpriced. So now, even though it's been "reduced" by 50% there is still a massive profit to be made. It's not placed at the back of the store for no reason either....it's so you have to walk through the rest of the store, eyeing all the lovely produce on offer first. Same with bread, another loss leader. Whole studies have been conducted into shopper-supermarket psychology. And this is before we look at the effect price wars have on our farmers and suppliers who are forced into bankruptcy by the price demands placed on them by supermarkets who have the buying power to demand what they want. Have you never considered why farmers have a ever growing suicide rate? They can't make ends meet. Why? Because of incessant consumer demand for cheaper and cheaper produce orchestrated by supermarkets and their phoney "price-wars". No one wins.

And on cue, the sun appears from behind the clouds in central London. Blair before the Chilcott inquiry, Balls preparing to savage Osborne across the dispatch box and Coulson resigns. Happy days.

Lot's of supernatural activity, parallel universes and an obsession with disappearing children. Why would anyone think you mad, Sue?

Is he taking a note out of Hargreaves' book?

A good performance from the men in white last night but over 180 mins the quality and class of the Arsenal team reaped dividends. They were simply too good for too long to be contained. Nasri is a defenders worst nightmare. Arshavin is Wenger's worst nightmare. Shocking. Leeds missed Becchio badly. We might just about survive if we went up this season. Maybe.

I haven't said that a codified written constitution would help. I merely asserted that I think those three things are central tenets to the idea of British-ness. I'm others can add more. Your comments regarding breast-milk, fairness and Eton are attempting to portray something else entirely that I'm not entirely convinced by.

Try East Sussex in the towns and villages in and around Lewes. It's pretty traditional drinking thatway and you might find what you're after but it's a BIG ask within 1 hour of London.

I'm aware of the written elements of our constitution. But if you want British people to have the same respect for it that Americans do, you're going to have to do better than asking them to quote the Magna Carta! Or the 1689 Bill of Rights. Or EU statutes. Because they are all part of it. When I said we didn't have a written constitution I was referring to the lack of a single, comprehensible, accessible document that one could, say, borrow from a library. One can't loan the Magna Carta last time I checked.

You're not the only one Jah. I think at Elland Road we stand a real chance. The crowd will be close to capacity and very intimidating. The only downside is we look likely to miss Luciano 'The new Messi' Becchio, our leading scorer this season, which is a big loss. But I'd rather have him fit for the rest of the season and I can post in here more often when we go up. Arsenal will need to show more bite than they did in the first game or against Ipswich.

I would say the following are an inconclusive list of central tenets to being British: Belief in equality indistinct from race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, age Belief in the rule of law Belief in democracy But frankly it's a nigh on impossible task to tie down something much more tangible. We don't have a constitution like our cousins across the pond; we do not pledge allegiance to a flag and our colonial history and reputation as a haven for those in need has meant we have a mix of cultures probably greater than any other nation on earth. Alternatively it could be: Driving in a German car to an Irish pub for a Belgian beer, then travelling home, grabbing an Indian curry or a Turkish kebab on the way, to sit on Swedish furniture and watch American shows on a Japanese TV