silverfox

Methinks you haven't thought through the implications. The acid test will come when a gay couple demand to be married in a mosque.

Lots of views on this one from opposing camps. Let's have a yes or no vote to decide the issue. Which camp (no pun intended) will be out of touch? Why not include 16 year olds in the referendum?

Not all Catholics and CofE families are poor and live on state benefits shock What a load of nonsense that article was. Talk about the misuse of statistics to suit a purpose.

Sounds like the pub is a lot less stressful

If my daughter gets into Alleyns it will be the best school in Britain etc. If she doesn't it'll be a crap school and I'll be so glad I never sent her there to mix with those eczema-afflicted middle class spoilt brats etc.

The Minkey Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > LL Co Op hardly qualifes as 'community run' - lol > - where did you get that idea from? > > If a People's Supermarket type venture were to > start up, it would soon close down if it were run > ineptly. Article in The Times today: "A Big Society project, visited by David Cameron on the day he told the nation that the policy was his mission, is at risk of ?imminent closure?. The People?s Supermarket, a food co-operative in which residents take it in turn to work voluntarily, has been told it has until tomorrow to pay off debts owed to Camden Council. The Times can reveal that bailiffs have already visited community members who run the supermarket, which was the focus of a Channel 4 series last year. Kate Bull, its CEO, said the group were in ?grave danger? of not meeting tomorrow?s financial obligations and that closure could be ?imminent?..." http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/politics/article3335198.ece (Subscription required)

But surely an ED Tattoo Emporium to the stars wouldn't do average tattoos?

It's not strange if you think about it. Much has been made on this thread how artistic tattoos can be. Yet I cannot think of any other artistic endeavour (in the drawing, painting sense) that is valueless like tattoos.

"...Good tattoo work is like art...it shouldn't lose it's value or it's beauty for that person." The problem is it doesn't have any value, in a monetary sense. Even if you've been inked by the Banksy equivalent of the tattoo world, unless a Market develops where you can sell your skin with the tattoo on it the only person making money is the tattooist. I can however see a potential Market for pets with artistic tattoos because you can always stuff them when they go to the great tattoo parlour in the sky and sell them at auction.

Dickens in 140 characters?

BLOVIATE As in: "...Interestingly, though, Carr?s* book never mentions the fact that the internet material itself, the very ideas that we are skimming, are mostly puerile crap and bloviating nonsense..." blo?vi?ate verb blo?vi?at?ed, blo?vi?at?ing, blo?vi?ates Definition of Bloviate intransitive verb : to speak or write verbosely and windily/to discourse at length in a pompous or boastful manner/ to speak loudly, verbosely, and at great length, without saying much ? blo?vi?a?tion \ˌbl?-v?-ˈ?-shən\ noun Origin of BLOVIATE US Slang Mock-Latinate formation, from blow. First Known Use: circa 1879 Cited by Kevin Maher in The Times today (The internet will produce nothing less than a new generation of surface-skimming morons - Times2) (*The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains. Nicholas Carr 2011)

Thank you the-e-dealer. Unfortunately you didn't make my Christmas card list this year but you've now gone to the top of the list for next year.

The case may have been decided within a legal framework but there are no precedents here to follow. Rooney physically assaults (kicks) a player and gets a three match ban (reduced to two on appeal). Suarez has admitted to calling Evra "little black man" (Negrito) and gets an eight match ban and a ?40,000 fine. In short, he upset Evra's feelings. Should Evra man-up? I suspect this decision is to make an example and also to show Fifa this is the way we deal with it here. However, has this got more to do with our guilt over our shameful racialist past rather than what went on on the field?

That's better UDT, look what half-an-hour's research can achieve

I was expecting this type of silly, ill-informed, knee-jerk response, hence my qualification about the time of my post. I suppose Undisputedtruth, you're now going to pretend that prior to your post at 01.46AM GMT you have read the FA's judgement thorougly and have concluded Suarez is a rascist. May I ask then, your views on Liverpool's retort that Evra himself should be charged given his testimony (which of course you will not have a clue about).

When I was young and somebody called me names and upset me my mother used to say: "Sticks and stones may hurt your bones but names will never hurt you" Where have we gone wrong? Also, given the commercial considerations, Manchester United must be thinking this is good for us. Have we opened the floodgates to getting people 'sent off' for PC reasons? (Please note the time of this post because I suspect this decision will be analysed to death)

El Pibe, I take your point about the potential problem of food scarcity in the coming years and that the lessons of the Great Depression of the '30s is that protectionism is not the way to go. I also recognise the distinction between the EU and the Euro but understand why people are starting to use the terms interchangeably. And the reason for this is that the logic of the Merkozy proposal for greater political and fiscal integration to shore up the Eurozone and prevent further contagion is itself blurring the EU/Euro distinction. If we go back to basics, and I'm allowed to simplify the workings of the EU with a bit of help from Wikipedia, we can state it thus: The EU operates through a hybrid system of supranational independent institutions and intergovernmentally made decisions negotiated by the member states. By acceding to the treaties the 27 members of the EU have pooled their sovereignty in exchange for representation in the institutions. The EU operates solely within those competencies conferred on it upon the treaties and according to the principle of subsidiarity (which dictates that action by the EU should only be taken where an objective cannot be sufficiently achieved by the member states alone). The first problem with the recent Merkozy summit was that to permit some of these institiutions to oversee the fiscal and budgetary policies of the 17 Eurozone members required amendment of existing treaties by all 27 members of the EU. Such a proposal throws the principle of pooled sovereingty out of the window in that a country that can no longer set its own spending plans is no longer sovereign (in my opinion), but more of a satellite state, quasi-colonial. As such, the danger is the particular EU institutions become more powerful that the individual states. The second problem is that the attempt to shore up the rules for the 17 Eurozone members is calling the concept of subsidiarity into question. So, in my opinion David Cameron was correct to refuse to endorse the proposals. The matter was an ill-thought out panic measure which failed to address the immediate problem of the Euro which is that possibly as much as ?3 Trillion has to be found and put aside to rescue the Eurozone countries and meet future debt obligations. It was a recipe for institutionalised austerity for decades to come with no provisions for economic growth. Now, whether this leaves Britain isolated to our detriment or not I'm not sure. However it does not stop us from trading with the EU as before. Nothing has changed from a trading point of view. We are still full members of the EU. If we are now isolated, in my opinion it is a price worth paying for refusing to hand fiscal/budgetary control to others. There is an non-democratic wind blowing through the EU at the moment brought on by panic attempts to rescue the Euro and we already have two member states with non-elected technocrats running the show. There's a bit of a whiff of totalitarianism in these panic measures if people pause for thought and consider the ramifications.

Oooops, thought this was a Tracey Emin uni-brow type thread

Maybe the Leveson inquiry is taming The Sun. The first edition has gone with 'Noyer the Annoyer'

French bank chief urges Britain credit downgrade France stoked cross-Channel tensions today when its central bank chief suggested Britain should suffer a credit downgrade. As yet another EU summit was called for early next year, amid fears that the freshly drawn up fiscal compact could unravel, Christian Noyer, governor of the Banque de France, said ratings agencies should target London ahead of Paris. Britain had more debt and higher inflation and bank lending was ?collapsing?, said Mr Noyer. His comments come after President Sarkozy branded David Cameron an ?obstinate kid? for his stance at last week?s Brussels summit, reflecting continuing bad blood between the capitals over the ailing eurozone... (The Times) Cue 'Hoppit you frogs' and 'Up yours Noyer' headlines in tomorrow's Sun

Peter Brookes cartoon, The Times Saturday December 10

Britain isn't being "disruptive in their hour of need" The Eurozone's need is to solve the debt crisis, to cover Greece's debts before contagion becomes systemic. The Eurozone has until the summer to raise nearly ?1 trillion to meet bond obligations and it's not clear where this money is going to come from. All these are needs. The new treaty isn't a need. It is a desire by Germany to mitigate future pressure on itself to pay off others' debts. The more Germany controls the fiscal policy of other countries the less it will have to pay out. This is quite understandable from Germany's view point. I'm not sure it will be so easily accepted by those countries who have lost the right to determine their own fiscal policy for the next 30 to 50 years and the austerity being imposed on them by 'foreign' forces. William Hague has it right ...a burning building with no exits

Buy flatmate a slinky for Xmas and a couple of hot water bottles (should that be slanket above?)

Gentlemen, gentlemen. This is the drawing room - where you don smoking jackets and spar using your wits, play devil's advocate - not challemge each other to a duel at dawn. To change tack - I agree a referendum is not certain. Also, what would that referendum be? It's unlikely to be a stay in Europe/Pull out of Europe referendum. More likely a should we sign the new treaty/not sign the new treaty poll. Cameron is already coming under pressure. And the real pressure will come if one or more of the other 27 members decide to hold a referendum. I understand Ireland's not happy with the proposal regarding a uniform corporate tax. It's the only thing helping Ireland claw its way out of its difficulties and helping its growth at the moment.

"...I've got ten quid saying that any new Euro currency treaty won't ask the opinion of the UK, as it shouldn't..." I've got no problem with that. Europe can do whatever it wishes as long as none of the Directives or laws it enacts apply to Britain/UK unless we agree to adopt them. For example, if the Eurozone decides to grab a share of Bank prifits we should say it does not apply to the City. In fact, if Europe says it wants, say, a 10% levy on Banking profits we should say we'll only charge 5%. Wait and see how many banks flee to London to escape the Eurozone tyranny.