Is this halfway house allocated under section 117 of the mental health act?
If so, this will be the NHS/social services doing the bare minimum requirement under the law for aftercare.
If his condition is such that independence is not an option, he needs to be assessed by the local authority for the allocation of a personal budget, which will at least allow a bit of choice.
If he hasn’t already got one, get him an independent advocate.

It’s OK folks, the universe is safe, normal STW service has been resumed :lol:

If this policy doesn’t prove to people where Tory loyalties lie then nothing will…

I love this thread, it starts with some wealthy people complaining that they pay too much tax and then morphs into some wealthy people telling us how we would all be screwed if they didn’t pay their taxes.
You can’t be Scrooge and Jesus at the same time folks…

Maybe i should ask for a massive pay rise on the basis that I would then be a net tax contributor, which, not only being better for everyone else, would also make me bloody Jesus…

Mashiehood, I’m not arguing that the rich don’t contribute singnifantly more to the pot, of course they do, I’m arguing with the belief among the rich that people on low pay are a great tax burden. During my time earning minimum wage I was no greater a burden on the taxpayer than someone earning £100k. During my working life I will contribute enough NI to cover my state pension, it is not a gift from the tax paying rich…

The minimum wage is low pay, no doubt. People on it are supported in terms of pensions, NHS and welfare by higher earners.

Hang on, the state pension is linked to contrubutions through national insurance (and everybody who works for long enough gets one). I worked a minimum wage job for years and received no welfare (either from the government or the rich). Also, last time I checked, the NHS was there for all of us, not just the working poor…
Forgive me if I’m misquoting, but this makes me quite uncomfortable. If you are talented or lucky enough to be earning £100k plus a year then bloody good luck to you, you’ve clearly done well and no one should begrudge you your salary. Also, I get that tax is a pain in the backside, but it is fundamentally untrue that the tax paying rich support people on lower pay.

Minimum wage is a pittance, and I know plenty of people who work unbelievably hard for it…I’m sure some of them think the people earning vast amounts more than them don’t do vast amounts more work than them…
Everyone kind of resents the people who earn more than them, it’s just that people who earn £100k plus don’t have to worry about how they’re going to pay their gas bill…
And yes, for most of us, £100k is a bloody massive wage

Though I agree that tax anomalies are annoying, just look at it as a motivator to get a promotion/earn more money to get out of the 60% zone. :wink:

Wow, capitalism is essentially cyclical, who’d have thought… :roll:
Even the article is at pains to point out that a lot of the wealth recovery is down to pensioners being better off, hardly the cornerstone of a bright economic future…

My politics degree (graduated 2004) was easier than my politics A level.
Our module on Karl Marx used only “The Communist Manifesto” as source material :roll:

Sorry, forgot to answer the question…
I work in public services, so no, not by a long shot.

Recessions in the post war era work top down. The first hit are the richest, who can usually bully the nearest government into helping them out. By the time the business leaders are getting hit, the government is working day and night to prop up as many failing businesses as it can. Then the middle classes get hit when house prices start to slide, so the government puts out policies aimed at maintaining the housing market and inflating land (and rent) prices. Not many people helped by the government up to this point will ever need a food bank, yet the government is happy to take from the most vulnerable to look after them.
So when people start losing their jobs and need to fall back on welfare, the government cuts it. When people try to get an education instead of sitting on their arse, the government force them into massive debt.
Recessions are just numbers on the news to a lot of people who were poor before it, are poorer now and will continue to get poorer, growth or not.

Dazh,
Though it is true that a lot of people have appropriated certain aspects of mindfulness and Buddhist practice to fulfil somewhat materialistic needs, it doesn’t mean that everyone who practices mindfulness is a “trustifarian”.
I am, however, totally aware that everything I have said on this thread could easily be read as a bunch of hippy crap.

Living mindfully does not exclude you from planning about the future, it just allows you to be at peace with your environment, allowing you to plan from a mindset untroubled by stress. This is the essence of mindfulness and meditation, it is about focusing your mind on what is right in front of you, be it your breathing during meditation or any aspect of your environment, so that you can be peaceful and calm when making decisions.
The things we stress about are projected by our minds, they are rarely real. Focus your mind on what is real and the stress will dissolve.

Meditating for 10 minutes a day is fine, and will benefit anyone who does so.
Living mindfully means simply existing in the present, not worrying about the past or future but seeing the beauty in the present around you. Meditating is, for me, just one part of maintaining mindfulness, which helps me to try to approach challenges without fear and to be at peace with the world around me.

This all sounds really pretentious, but it isn’t, it’s just a way of living.

We’ve got a 7 year old staffy with this problem. At first we thought surgery was the only option but the vet recommended we try physio first. It has been a massive success and she is pretty much able to walk normally most of the time now, although she will never go for a long run again…
Also, metacam works wonders for the pain.

Sorry Derek, how is a vigilante state sponsored?

So what about all the CCTV that has helped catch rapists and murderers (as well as thousands of traffic offenders)? With the amount of near misses and close passes I see every day going unpunished, a bit of extra camera evidence might just start making poor drivers try a little harder not to drive poorly…

Is it any wonder people are “going vigilante” as you put it…

For a bit of balance

Chill out Derek.

:lol: at lemonysam

The Green Party’s entire argument rests on the understanding that major sacrifices will need to be made now to safeguard our future. This policy is largely in keeping with that wider goal. People have become too used to political parties trying to be all things to all people. The Greens are, well, green. If you don’t agree with their policies, no worries, but I think it would be insane for them to pursue large scale reductions in greenhouse emissions except with regard to motorbikes, because we like motorbikes…

In my experience (working with teenage girls groomed into prostitution), the word slag/whore/slut is an intolerable insult used to describe the victim of unspeakable crimes. The word pimp, on the other hand, has very different connotations (pimp my ride etc.).
Anyone who fails to see the ingrained sexism in this is an idiot.
The act of prostitution is fine, it’s the business which stinks.
To answer the OP’s question, if the hypothetical fella likes her, go for it.

Got mine on my stock 80mm stem on my longitude and they feel fine, although the longitude is bloody long…

Derek,

I’ll put it to you again…
Have you spoken to your neighbours face to face, or do you think airing all of this on a mountain bike forum will make it all go away?

If it was me having my private life plastered all over a public forum I would not be best pleased.

Just saying like…

Derek,

Are you going to actually have a conversation with your neighbours about your increasing issues with their life choices or are you going to continue to post passive aggressive threads about it on a mountain biking forum?

Either call social services or offer to babysit.

Shampoo and condtioner daily, trim the tache once a week and give my sideburns a no.4 with the clippers once a month to keep my ears keen. The rest does as it likes.
Have recently taken to shaving my head for the full daddies sauce look…
This image perfectly captures the joy of having nobody left to impress…and also demonstrates why a bit of sideburn trimming is sometimes necessary.

YoKaiser, motos are excellent on the 35mm rims, masses of volume, roll really well on the tarmac too. Not running tubeless at the minute, generally putting about 20-25psi in them for the commute, which gives a nice balance of cushioning and speed (and they are really very fast tyres).

Bought this to cover commuting (current set-up), light touring and bike packing. Didn’t like the bars that came with it, so went for the Jones loops, which are a revelation. For the money I doubt you will find better.
There are mounts everywhere, horizontal dropouts for versatility, clearance for 3″ tyres front and back. It rides beautifully and is surprisingly quick unloaded.
It’s a lot more capable than I am…

Don’t know why I watch this stuff, making me proper angry :evil:

Genuinely insane that you can do that and pretty much get away with it…

So I’ve had it a couple of months now, mostly set up like this for commuting/light touring. Took it round Cannock (dog and monkey) in its stock set-up, soon found the limit of my skills on it :oops: but someone with actual bike handling skills would have no trouble on it.
The Jones bars are awesome, makes it feel a bit less long in the TT.
Will probably go 3″ and 1×10 later in the summer, once I’ve scratched the touring itch…

#EDIT# Yes, my garden is a bomb-site…

Or endtroducing by DJ Shadow, for very similar reasons to Lateralus

Lateralus by Tool

Half of the tracks make little sense on their own, but together add up to the perfect album

Sorry Cougar, got so wound up by the Autism stuff I totally forgot to add how thoroughly ridiculous it is that homeopathy not only exists in our society, but that it is debated in parliament and public money spent on it. :evil:

I’m increasingly tired of people proposing “cures” for autism. It’s not an illness, it’s a state of being. What do people expect, a bit of super diluted elf piss is going to turn someone with profound autism, who has made little social developmental progress since being a toddler, into a person with fully developed social and learning skills…
There is more that needs curing in the people that propose this sort of nonsense than anyone who has autism.

Bought the bike fully built, still using the stem that came on it, which I think is 80mm.

Got a Jones loop on mine, very comfortable, helps it feel a little less long in the top tube.

I sold mine in a similar situation, regretted it ever since…
I have driven a fair few cars since, but none have given me anything like the joy of driving my mini.

I think the lowest point in my life was my hilarious use of the Auschwitz card. Everyone laughed like fools for about 2 minutes, then fell silent and properly ashamed, weird moment…weird game.