hellosailor

HAL that's true - maybe it'd actually be cheaper to ask all the club members if they wouldn't mind finding that money than possibly outlaying more on organising a fundraiser? Maybe that makes the best finanical sense, it can be costly setting up events that are meant to make money! Stew, if you do organise a fundraiser, car boot sale etc at the club to try and re-coup the loss, post the details on here and I'm sure people will pop along to support you. Good luck with it.

Sue, just for once, why don't you ask yourself the question 'is my comment making the world a slightly nicer place or a slightly meaner place' before you post.

Last Night I was sitting having a quiet drink with my other half and flatmate outside a pub on LL and the conversation turned to teenage gang culture and also to what my other half (a teacher at a london school) observed as a trickle down effect amongst his own pupils. It was not a loud or drunk discussion, just a quiet, sober chat, and my other half was talking with some sadness about the rivalry that has led to violence between, for instance, gangs of somali and west indian teenagers and the effect it has in school. We also chatted about how when we were teenagers, it felt like the worst that could happen if your mates got caught up in a fight was that someone would get their head kicked in, and how nowadays the surge in knife crime has really raised the stakes for teenagers, of all races, on the streets. From out of nowhere, and some time after this discussion had finished, a woman who was leaving the table next to us spat the words 'Racist c*nts' at us as she left. It was so weird that you could almost say it was funny, but I was really rattled by it. Are we living in such a politically correct bubble that even the discussion of issues that concern different races mean we are open to being shouted at for being racist? I kept turning our discussion over in my head to think if there had been any sentence she could have overheard and construed as racist or perjorative but I just can't think that there was. Our conversation was not only about 'black on black' violence, but about white and asian gangs in the area in which my boyfriend teaches, but it felt like by even daring to suggest that, for instance, gang culture is a negative thing, we were branded racists.

There's no question he is an absolute dyed in the wool freak. Leave before you end up under his floorboards..

seperated at birth

On the squatters thread which had a nostalgic nod at the colin the cat flap fitter thread at one point.. Cate Wrote: however if there were two Colins and one was good then the good one should not be slammed by the bad one's flap.

Though this week someone has started a thread in the wanted section asking for advice on buying a 'dong' which of course is dong 2 (d?ng, d ng). n. Vulgar Slang. A penis. [Origin unknown.] dong [dɒŋ] ... there may have been some confusion.

Brendan Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > What is a dongle please? A dongle is 'a small piece of hardware that connects to a laptop or desktop computer.' (wikipedia definition)

I suspect the current inhabitees are more dongles and taste the difference buffalo mozarella than murals and incense

ImpetuousVrouw Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Simple solution, ban cars in cities. eh?

Zoo have explained it as 'a regrettable production error.' The error presumably being hiring someone in the first place who referred to extra terrestrials, in his recent last gasp of a vehicle 'Danny Dyer on UFOs,' as 'that cheeky mob in the sky.' He has started unwittingly pastiching himself.

oops, just saw you had attached a pic and yes, he's a parrot! he is lovely!

There was a thread on here recently with people saying they'd seen a cockatiel on the loose (a pet not one of the green parakeets that have bred and live in the wild in london now) and someone posted saying... 'There is a note on a tree about 2 lost cockatiels and for the life of me I cant remember where it is .Am racking my brains to remember.Got a feeling its on the SE15 side of Peckham Rye near Strakers Road which leads to the car park on the Rye.' is it definitely a parrot not a cockatiel? if it's a cockatiel then the owners are obviously looking, but unless someone knows where the 'missing poster' is then how can you re-unite them? how big is he? I'm trying to imagine him grooming your shoulder! :) maybe he can talk and will reveal details of his owners in conversation!

Yes come on GGT! I've no doubt that you're still following this thread! if there is no truth whatsoever in JamesF's claims that some of you are still at school, that you all have homes to go to and most of you sleep in those homes several nights a week, that it's effectively more of an Enid Blyton secret 7 style boy's den you've created there, and that you all regularly pop home to do washing and eat at mum and dad's while taking it in turns to sleep in the 'squat', indeed that one of you lives in the same house as him, then you surely might want to refute those claims?

I was just thinking the same thing! - it wouldn't surprise me if it turned out that the GGT and JamesF were using us as the foundation of their A-level politics coursework. Their tutor at Dulwich College is probably doling out A*s all round as we speak :))

Nope. who can tell if JamesF is telling the truth or not. His description of the GGT certainly seems to tally with the self-absorbed philosophy A-level student tone of the GGT but that could be a coincidence.

I agree genwilliams, that I don't know these boys personally and therefore admittedly don't know, as you say, whether or not they have the option of staying with parents. I would however find it really quite a coincidence if every single one of a group of seven mates of pre-university age (the GGT state that they are college age and haven't been to uni 'yet') have all been simultaneously told they are no longer welcome at home by their parents. Perhaps it is partly their petulant tone when they refer to not being able to pay 'stupid rent charges in london' that adds fuel to my personal guess that they are not likely to be a group of underprivileged or genuinely 'homeless' people who can see no other option but to forcibly take someone else's home. I note they say they are at college and have not been to university 'yet' - does this fit with the suggestion that they are a disadvantaged, underprivileged, homeless group? Who can say. I'm not sure how many of the homeless people sleeping rough on the embankment are planning on paying to go to uni anytime soon.

Actually Meld several of us family members put all our savings together to put a deposit down on the flat I mentioned in the other thread, in order to rent it out to generate an income, 100% of which pays for carers for my mother as she is too ill to wash, dress or cook for herself, and we couldn't afford to pay for her to have the level of care she needed without selling the home we grew up in and spending the savings we had tried to put aside in our early 20s. not an easy feat considering that we were in our mid twenties at the time and none of us have ever earned more than 18k a year. I only hope the flat has gone up 90k, as my mother is not yet 60 and will need increasing care for the rest of her life. So I'm not on the ladder either - I spent the money I could have put towards 'getting on the ladder' on paying for care for my mother because having worked hard all her life the 'system'which you confidently assert is 'working great for me' does not see fit to look after her. Still find it 'funny'? edited to add just read over your other posts on this thread including the sophisticated response to helena handbasket, 'why not wind your neck in and climb back into your box?' and now wish I hadn't taken 2 minutes out of my life to reply to your last 'contribution'.

ImpetuousVrouw Wrote: > > if people are homeless > and rich property owners have more homes than they > need or can be bothered to look after then I think > it's perfectly acceptable for homeless people to > satisfy their fundamental human need for shelter > by squatting the empty property. define homeless? A bunch of students with laptops and internet access does not scream 'homeless' at me. Not many homeless people are enrolled at college and spend their free time chatting in forums on the internet. Not wanting to work your arse off like most people in order to pay rent or to stay at your mums because it's like, waaaaay cooler maan to break into someone else's house does not equal homeless. do we really think that if the GGT weren't squatting in this house they would be sleeping rough? With their laptops tucked into their sleeping bags? And who said the owner 'can't be bothered to look after his property?' - they have only just bought it and are most likely assembling a crew/waiting for paperwork to be signed off to start renovating it! If you went abroad for a few weeks holiday and when you got back 7 students had broken in and decided your home was now theirs, would you think, 'fair play, I wasn't really looking after the place!'

I'm mystified. I bought my flat in East D 4 years ago and have just had it valued by 3 different estate agents, all of whom valued it above what I bought it for, which surprised me as I assumed it would have gone down or at the very best retained the value I paid. The highest valuation was 90 grand above what I paid 4 years ago - are they simply making it up to encourage me to put it on the market?

Domitianus Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Bottom line is, as far as I am concerned, if I own > something (a house or anything) it is entirely up > to me to decide what I do with it. If I want to > leave it empty - so be it. That is my right. > > If I chose to leave my car parked in my driveway > for a considerable period of time without using > it, would someone else be entitled to come along, > use it, drive around in it and treat it as there > own and justify the fact on the grounds that they > had replaced the brake-pads, topped up the oil and > generally avoided crashing it? Of course not. > > Absolutely agree.

firstchoicegary Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > yeah i am Validated! At last!

firstchoicegary Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > phil collins firstchoicegary are you seconding my suggestion of phil collins?? :))

jenny1840 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Thank god you squatted it this year, otherwise you > would have found it far more difficult to live > there. Yeah, cos the rightful owners will be living there

*Bob* Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I'm sure Keef would be more than happy with that > allocation. :))