nashoi

The bacteria on a steak is on the outside of the meat, cook it and you kill the bacteria. Mince the steak first and you spread the bacteria throughout the meat. Failure to cook the burger throuroughly and you risk e coli, salmonella etc. The reasoning is different but they're both health risks.

I'm curious as to whether the people advocating eating rare burgers would eat rare chicken?

I second the advice about taking a cushion, the ones they sell in there are a silly price.

"How can we find a way that allows and recognises the individual's individuality without having to break up a larger community in doing so." Isn't the answer to the above just modern human rights thinking? In recent years I've heard Tatchell say he has stopped calling himself a gay rights activist, instead he now prefers human rights activist. Protect the universal rights of the individual and all else flows from there. The reason this doesn't detract from the communal or social good is because of the intrinsic responsibilities. As for identity, people are increasingly free to chose, so presumably it will become even more diverse in the future. Rowan Williams also said: "Identity isn't just something sealed off and finished with - it's always work in progress. Once we start saying this is my identity and that's it then I think we are in danger of really fragmenting the society we belong to."

12 months working in a bar in Calais and then signing on, that really is living the dream. Steveo have you ever considered a career in motivational speaking? I think the american talk show circuit beckons.

I think there should be FOI request to find out if Andrew Lansley appeared in Footloose

Biggles sausages on Marylebone Lane, I'm quite partial to his Marylebone pork.

Not quite the same thing Artful Dogger. The London Eye (now the EDF Energy London Eye btw) was an entirely new, privately funded tourist attraction, they can call it what they like. The tube map is one of the great iconic symbols of London, I think we've allowed someone to buy a part of that image really rather cheaply.

I admit to being a bit gormless at times but I'm surprised even I have managed to remain entirely unaware of this until driving past it today. The official name is the Emirates Air Line, it looks like an 8 man bubble from a ski resort running from the Excel to the O2, over 200ft up and costing about ?60mn. In exchange for about half the cost, Emirates get to name the line, both the stations and get their logo on the tube map. Apart from the fact the name they've chosen is bloody awful, is the corporate naming of public infrastructure something we can now expect? Will anyone actually use this? emirates-air-line-london-cable-car-across-the-thames Muttering cyclists

Isn't the point of the Mansion Tax to raise revenue, whereas putting CGT on PPRs is about controlling house price inflation. The more successful it was the less revenue it would raise, so not an alternative at all.

Not always his greatest fan, but this episode had me chortling. Stewart Lee - London

Not always his greatest fan but this episode had me chortling Stewart Lee - London

In a bid to out do all those snowboarding/mountain bike helmet cam videos on Youtube, Nasa strapped a camera to the booster on a space shuttle. Volume turned up the result is really quite eerie.

Could be the big new cop show. RosieH Forensic Grammarian.

StraferJack Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > And yet the Australian system costs about 9% of > GDP versus more and choose from > More complex systems > > Not a selling point to me According to the OECD, in 2009 Australians spent an average of $3445 adjusted for ppp, equivalent to 8.7% of GDP. UK spent $3487, 9.8% of GDP. France spent $3978, 11.8% of GDP. USA spent $7960, 17.8% of GDP. The French are usually reckoned to have the best health service in the world, why don't we copy them? Why do people always bring up the USA whose health service is both hideously expensive and leaves a huge number of people without cover? Eta noone has a private healthcare system, the majority of funding is always by the taxpayer, it's a question of degree and how it's organised.

Just in case Olympic mascot reigns in New World Order

Re El Pibe's last post and strange requests from publishers. Having bought a couple of Richard Wiseman's books, I'm now on his mailing list. Last year he published a book in the UK called, Paranormality: Why we see what isn't there. The blurb on the back starts with the sentence: "Professor Richard Wiseman is clear about one thing: paranormal phenomena don't exist." Then there's the following endorsement: "People are emotionally drawn to the supernatural. They actively want weird, spooky things to be true...Wiseman shows us a higher joy as he deftly skewers the paranormal charlatans, blows away the psychic fog and lets in the light of reason." Richard Dawkins A fairly clear stance you would think. Imagine his surprise then when the only offers he got from major US publishers were on condition he re-wrote the book to suggest ghosts were real and psychic powers actually existed. He ended up having to self publish on Amazon.

Is our sense of humour really something to be proud of? It usually just means taking the piss out of people and along with drunken rage the only emotion we're traditionally allowed to express in public. Admittedly it's not as cringe inducing as "We're a nation of animal lovers".

The Creative Foundation down in Folkestone might be worth contacting if you're going further afield.

It's interesting that people are asking this question more and more. When Jeremy Paxman wrote a book about English identity 10 or so years ago, he claimed in the intro that he had found there were dozens of books written about Irish identity a few less about the Scottish and a few less again about the Welsh, however he'd come across none at all about the English, presumably no-one had ever felt the need. Maybe a culture doesn't need to define itself until it feels threatened, that's a new feeling in these parts, so now we have 20,000 people trying to chase cheese down a hill because they don't know what else to do. Anyone making the mistake of attending the Leeds Castle open air concert in the summer will see another 15,000 people bobbing up and down, proms style, waiving their Union Jacks at the start of that well known celebration of all things British, Tchaikovsky's 1812 overture.

Personally I'm not in favour of an elected second chamber, but MM can you explain what an "evolved constitution" is, if it isn't one that keeps modernising?

This might be of interest Radio 4 - Do Schools Make A Difference? To summarise, yes, but not much.

Try googling 3 acorns camberwell, another local eco house and consultancy.

I think you're the perfect candidate to set up East Dulwich's first Cat Cafe

HAL9000 Have you read the links I posted on another recent thread http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?27,831644,832019#msg-832019 A huge amount of money has been made in recent decades by psychologists selling IQ and psychometric tests to corporate HR depts. Personally, I agree with Huguenot, as long as you maintain the clear distinction between race and ethnicity.