I reckon we'd function pretty well without laws to regulate (and complicate) our lives… but then I'm a bit of a closet anarchist, so that's my bias

Fine with me, my bias is towards stabbing anarchists, decapitating their families and dipping my soldiers in the resultant holes. Can't wait for it to be legal!

So, who is paying for it, then?

The government and hence taxpayer.

Strangely they are in essence one and the same thing. Government being the duly elected body to represent the rest of us who are in the main taxpayers. Sadly the vast majority of posts on here do display a shameful misunderstanding of that principle.

surely somewhere in that mix I should've encountered one of these dastardly peado's that are apparently round every corner…

Clearly by that token no need for any laws of any sort to protect anyone from anything, as the majority of folk don't experience much in the way of crime of any description.

Bring back national service! Hang them!! Longer jail sentences!!!

We need to set an example and let these miscreants know that they can't get away with this sort of thing…… I blame the parents….. having children like this, if they'd just stop bonking none of this would happen!!

FFS get a grip. Kids do this sort of stuff, always have and probably always will. Its nothing, unless of course you are seriously suggesting that we should be considering excommunicating a 3 year old.

WHAT!

Hang up stripped cattle carcass, use high power water jet to blast all remaining tissue from the carcass, collect in sump, compress to remove water, add rusk and salt to bulk out and add a sense of taste to the grey flavourless mush prior to compressing into burger shape, cook, add all manner of flavour and texture enhancing items, such as a bun, mayonaise, dill pickle, tomato etc then sell for highly inflated price to any passing moron. Use profits to buy and eat decent food.

G – not what I said at all. You said there was no genetic difference and clearly there is

TJ : To quote you right back at yourself, "in the best tradition of STW you have taken what I said and totally distorted it in order to rubbish it." Below is in fact what I actually said. It is you sir who are distorting my words, not the other way around. I will however add, that I also do not agree that there is a simple genetic measure that can be used to define Scottishness either, but thats is not in fact what I said.

in fact it would be extremly difficult to seperate the Scots and English by any reasonably quantifiable measure.

How about we do that here and now. Someone try to establish what a Scot actually is, go on I dare you!

so I am afraid you are wrong – there are clear genetic marker and traits that allow the two to be separated.

Sorry about resurrecting this, but I've been away for a week, so I couldn't respond to this by TJ.

Please let me have the details of the extensive research in this area and I will by all means have a read. My suspicion is that what we are talking about here are comparisions between relatively closed island or wilderness based communities, as opposed to the greater Scottish Nation, as is spread out over the entire planet. I'm also pretty sure that if you go at the genetics of it you will find that there are as with all of us traces of pretty much every racial type there is pretty wildly spattered about in the Scottish gene pool.

However, what this once again does prove is that all this nationalistic nonsense is just so much tosh. We now have TJ talking about being able to determine someones race by their blood group, of which there are only 19 as far as I can find out, and how many races on the planet do we reckon there might be???? I suspect we'll be measuring noses and facial charactersitics next!

Face it TJ, there is no way in this day and age that it is possbile to seriously define or identify Scotish from English or Irish, other than todays post code.

I put it to you TJ, that when you've sobered up and read that again, you will agree that you were struggling there.

Its a fabrication man, there are no more distinct Scots in Scotland than there are Essex Girls in Essex. We are a polyglot of a vast amount of influences over millenia. The simple bottom line is that there is as strong an argument to reintroduce Latin or Norman French as there is Gaelic, and Scotland is no more one nation or one people than the rest of the UK.

Epicyclo stated as much himself with his infamous bullet in his own foot earlier.

One of the feepaying schools at a guess?

Nope it was just a normal Secondary Modern School in Ipswich, purportedly "one of the better ones".

The point I'm making is you should judge like with like. My world then was in general a much more violent place than it is today. Folks seem to think that Chavs and crime are some sort of new occurance. Let me tell you they are not! So when people go watteling on about kids being beaten for speaking a language (or to put it another way not confroming to the rules), this would have been the background to the way that they were treated. Actually not excessively harsh in that world.

As far as I'm concerned its great to promote Scottishness, but the reality is in fact some good distance from some vision of Rob Roy or Braveheart, in fact it would be extremly difficult to seperate the Scots and English by any reasonably quantifiable measure.

How about we do that here and now. Someone try to establish what a Scot actually is, go on I dare you! 8O

Presume the stats also factor in lower land and property prices, lower cost of living etc etc etc and do I presume that the culture so merrily lauded above of fried everything and alcohol abuse is also the fault of the English eh TJ??

My favourite school report was the one immediately after my mock exams, which read….. I hope this boy finds his exams as amusing as he does his lessons! ….

For what its worth, my first day at that school was permeated by being mugged for my dinner money, my tie and school badge being removed with a cut throat razor, two of my first year peers having their legs broken during some bizarre initiation, and a fight in the playground that resulted in a 5th year boy having an eye gouged out. My first PE lesson involved a 6'10" rugby player kicking a rugby ball at 40 11 year old boys lined up across one end of the gym, and the deal was 10 press ups if you got hit and 20 if you moved. My first games afternoon was cancelled due to a pipe bomb being set off in an incinerator, and the whole school was locked in the school hall while the Police carried out interviews from the 5th year down. I was caned regularly throughout my whole time at that school for not having a school badge, whenever the headmaster saw me. (I refused to ask my parents to buy another after day 1.)

…….and do I blame the English??? Nope Thats how school was in those days.

We have "got over it"

Clearly not!

So lets consider this for a moment….. so we are talking about a Scottish headmaster in a Scottish school teaching the Scottish Curriculum, as decided upon by the Scottish Education Authority, under the auspices of the Scottish Educational System, which was then and has been for a very long time different to those in the rest of the UK, and somehow you have managed to turn that into racist oppression by the English??????

Get a grip FFS! Like I said the majority of the country (Scotland) are indifferent at best, and fiercely anti at worst. Most English couldn't give a damn either way, beyond stifling a snigger behind their hand at the stupidity of it all.

If you want it have it, but first you have to remember that there is no differential between Highland and Lowland Scots in law, and you have to convince the majority….. which I believe are lowlanders.

"We" are doing no such thing! You and folk who feel equally strongly on the subject are, but the vast majority are simply indifferent. So say for example given the choice of Gaelic becoming a compulsary subject on the Scottish curriculum and Dual languaging of road signs being introduced, or paying less tax. How do you think the majority would vote? I'm pretty confident of the answer to that one.

I was belted at school too for infringing the rules of the day, and I suspect that if you check you will find that speaking Gaelic was one of a very long list of things you could get belted for, same as there was a very long list at my school too. Thats how things were then, get over it, it wasn't any kind of racist slur, just a perception of how things were best done. (NB: Remember even then that would have been predominately Scottish teachers and the Scottish Curriculm has been different from the rest of the UK for at least a century if not longer.)

tankslapper – Member
G Doesn't do indifference [/quote]

I'm indifferent to you yer git! :wink:

The point is that to some of us it is a core and essential part of our culture.

And my point is that you have an absolute right to that. You don't however have a right to force it upon others in the way that Welsh did. Basically the argument is do you take indifference as a Yes or a No ?

tankslapper – Member
In Wales they speak Welsh it's how it is.

Not so, firstly less than 25% of the population actually can speak Welsh, secondly its very localised. For example, Tenby, virtually 100% English speakers, Pendine, not 13 miles away the other way around……

Anyway you're an arse…. you accused me of coming from Norfolk!! 8O

If I had a quid for every time I heard this crock:

I have personally experienced the change to Welsh thing on several occasions, however, its not much different to a pub going quite when a stranger walks in.

For a dying language, a lot of people are interested in it. Most of my family speak it.

Which in my book is great, and I would wholeheartedly support your right to that interest. However, my point is that this anecodtal evidence and the quantifyably unstunning "success" of Welsh where it has been a mandatory curriculum item for years does not support an argument for resigning the roads etc etc etc into bi-lingual or solely Gaelic.

G – a couple of points you miss. Reinvigorating gaelic is a very low priority in Scotland

Thats what I said wasn't it? Its a waste of time and money, because very few people have any interest in it.

– unlike in wales welsh is spoke widely.

Yep, where after years of huge amounts of investment, and the ongoing institutionalised disadvantage to its citizens, you have a situation where less than 25% of the population speak Welsh!

Regarding the EU, there we are largely in agreement, and again thats pretty much what I said wasn't it? Everyone else is looking beyond their borders, whilst we are busily becoming more insular? (Like enforcing a dead language that nobody else uses or is ever likely to use on our population!!)

Incidentally, the UK's policies towards it colonies were largely formulated and carried out by Normans and Germans. Down here in the south we still don't like them for that reason, however we have learned to live with it and genrally limit our ire to football matches and the like! Now who was it who started the EU??…… can't quite remember.

What does that mean? The bad stuff was a long time ago, get over it!

From a Scot living in England

What does "globalising" even mean in this context

What it means, is that whilst the rest of the world is opening up to the concept that there is stuff that goes on beyond their national borders, that "we" seem to be doing the opposite and becoming more insular instead. For example, the next thing that will crop up is Celtic language, which clearly is something of huge significance to the average modern Scot, given that the vast majority have done absolutely sod all about learning it, or for that matter campaigning for it to be taught in schools. So much like the Welsh, off we'll go into a nationalistic binge to reinvigorate what is essentially a dead language, instead of doing the sensible thing of equipping our nation for the global challenges that lie before it, where learning something like Spanish, French, Russian, Latin, German, Mandarin Chinese, in fact just about anything other than Celtic would be vastly more beneficial.

Incidentally, I would be entitled to dual nationality, as indeed would the vast majority of the inhabitants of both countries.

I still hear no reason why an independent Scotland could is not viable as an independent country when there are many small counties on the periphery of Europe that manage quite well.

No reason at all, but whether things would move for the better or to the worse is a much broader point. In respect of the viability of incomes and so forth, the SNP argument is based on taking in pretty much all revenues that may apply, regardless of whether they will in fact, and choosing which shares of mutally incurred debts and other ongoing obligations that they will take into account.

Personally, the sooner we get past all this nationalistic jingosim the better IMHO. While the rest of the world is globalising we're going the other way. Brilliant strategy and obviously we are right and everyone else is wrong?

What next? Independance for Millwall?

South of the border…. North of the Border…. face it people we're all one homogenous steaming pile of humanity, like it or not. Well except for the tankslappers of this world, and thats because they run all newcomers off…. In fact thinking about it I'm surprised they've not all mutated over there what with all the interbreeding and all.

Deep fried Chewits = PMSL for some considerable time. :lol:

TandemJeremy – Member
G – sorry old chap – its the truth – total moneys spent v total revenue – scotland is a net contributor to the UK budget. Its westminster who have fiddled the figures

Like I said selective stats, basically choosing which bits to add in and which to leave out. Wish I could balance my books like that. Not that it matters of course, as it is merely tilting at windmills, as obviously it'll never get tested in reality.

TandemJeremy – Member
Scotlands funding – – self funding infact supports England as all the figures show. An independent Scotland would be richer and England impoverished

I'm not going to redo the argument its been had before on this forum, but that is utter tosh, and entirely selective, selecting the revenue to include in and the costs to leave out, as you well know TJ.

Obviously letting a guy with terminal cancer go home to die with his family doesn't Gel with locking up lots of light brown people without trial eH?

I mean who the **** are they to preach to us about right and wrong ???

Que US marines running up very chilly Scottish beaches and getting their arses royally kicked !

FREEDOM !! N'all that…

http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/o2-not-being-very-helpful-any-thoughts

Nothing new here then?

Count Zero: Apart from the poor design issues, and presumably duff software, and the fact that as their customer I DON'T want internet access on my phone and very specifically and concisely headed that up when I bought it, nothing really. For me its bit like being sold a Volvo when one of my specific criteria was that I don't want a car that has its lights permanently on.

The simple fact is if they supplied it and it is faulty my recourse is with them and not sony. They have to deal with it and then take it up with Sony.

The skip full of honey is attractive although not altogether practical.

Any more thoughts…..

Incidentally my daughters Sony (a totally different model) also does similar things. so even in this 11 post thread that'll be 4 Sony phones with remarkably similar issues. sounds like a software issue to me.

cp: They are very happy to replace it, thats not an issue. Its just that all through the life of the contract the deal is that they replace with a 2nd hand allegedly refurbished version of the phone with the generic fault.

No real point contacting Sony, as the phone was not supplied by them. If anyone needs to speak to them it'll be O2, which I would guess they already have, and this would be the agreed response to the problem unless I'm very much mistaken

cp : Its an 18 month contract, and thats when I got this handset. At that time I did a replacement, because my previous handset expired when my lardy arse bounced on it in a fairly hefty off. However, its only recently that the problem has got so bad as to render the phone unusable. Took me a long time to figure out that it was the phone and not me accidentally turning it off etc etc.

I've already had a conversation regarding trading standards etc, and they seem completely unconcerned by that.

In answer to the buy the contract out point, its exactly what it would cost me as I'm proceeding now using an old handset.

What is particularly intersting is when I took this contract the sales guy absolutely insisted that I have free internet access, that despite the fact that I didn't want it. Now I know why. Its becuase the phone keeps putting you online, and if I were getting billed for it I would really kick off.

Anyone else watch the series on where our cheap food comes from?

There is another thread on this forum about our troops in Afghanistan and the rise of Islamic extremism.

We have too much, others have too little. Unavoidable result = Conflict

Because we have too much and thus have too much to lose to willingly risk our lives, they ultimately will win. Basic rise and fall of Empire stuff. Pretty much inevitable due to the inherent selfishness of the human condition.

Bollocks! Thought it was a thread about Rudeboy being caught with a new alter ego……

What a bunch of middle england type suburban dwelling deviant tossers

<tries not to burst out laughing………>

Too late

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Its an internet forum : General idea is to share info and get info on the core subject matter, (in this case MTB), and find ways to liven up an otherwise dull and boring day at the "office". Throwing out a hook and reeling in a big old trout is in fact one of those things that brighten up the day……

……. do you honestly believe that any of these closet creature killers really would do what they are claiming ? I bet you think they are real people too?? Its virtual willy waggling…. nothing more

convert : Its a virtual world, not to be taken seriously, in much the same way as you weren't no one else should be either. I'm sure you're a good bloke and all. Don't lose any sleep over it, especially due to anything I've said, it is uniformly worthless frankly! :wink:

you'd have to shoot me first

And interestingly in many countries including Afghanistan that would be a distinct possibility in the cirumstances. As the man said you have the freedom to muppetise wherever and whenever you please.

I don't pretend to understand the full scope of the issues that we are up against, nor the logic behind them, and I'm guessing that we won't know the full 9 yards for at least 50 years if ever. One thing however that I am totally certain of, is that the purpose of the Taleban tactics is to undermine the morale and the will to fight of not only the soldiers on the ground, but the public back home. Seems to me reading the above that they are having much more success on the home front than with the Squaddies on the front line.

Interesting enough I was listening to an article on Radio 5 Live this morning in respect of a wounded scot who was opening the new rehab unit in Edinburgh. He pretty much verbatim said what I said as to the squaddies doing their job, thats what they've been trained for and so forth. When pushed about the overall politics and rights and wrongs he responded with "thats way above my pay scale". Good line and sums it up pretty well. Suspect the same is true for a lot of the contributors to this thread…… including me incidentally.

simonfbarnes – Member

and devalues their efforts.

that was done long ago when they were deployed to an illdefined and impossible task

And that Simon may well contribute to why we get a change of government at the next election. However, I'm prepared to bet you a substantial sum of money that insufficient voters want to change that sufficiently to put a liberal government in power, so presuming one of the other two major parties gets in, what does that tell you about the will of the majority and the fact that we are in there, given that it would be the second time running that the British people have voted for the war?

Spose we've got to take the one Gold Star off our football shirts because that might annoy the germans too???

Incidentally has it occurred to anyone, that the people of Germany might also have respect for what Jesse Owens accomplished, especially given that it was clearly a burr under the saddle of a discredited leader, whose regime and politics they themselves have constitutionally rejected, and as stated above has left them with a sense of shame. Furthermore, where does this all end, do we re write history and delete the bits that people might be uncomfortable with? And again, has it occurred to anyone, that American Athletics may just also be ashamed of the fact that Jesse Owens was not treated well in his own country, and that this first serious return to the site of his greatest success might just be their chance to redress that injustice, by paying him respect.

FFS if the Germans are upset its up to them to express it, if the Yanks feel the need to celebrate the fella thats up to them. Why does it have to be so flaming negative??

How many people G, would expect fully understood that they would be supporting a foreign government which would introduce wife-starving laws … eh ?

I thought the idea was to help the Afghan people towards self determination and democracy, or does that only apply if they happen to do everything we want??

the ill-informed, or mis-informed, based decision of the UK population".

So following on from the above, it would appear that democracy apparently only applies to well educated people whose opinions coincide with yours in this country also eh??

Drac – Member
…………… I reckon we should put their families in a room with G so he can explain his flippant comment

Oh really, so crap like this on the interent undermining the cause that the sons are dying for apparently makes them feel its all worthwhile then? I think you may well find that one of the things that boils the piss of the military is stuff exactly like the above, which erodes and saps morale, and devalues their efforts. Furthermore, I think you will find your average squaddie doesn't concern himself overly with the politics of what they are doing, more a case of doing what they have trained for and looking out for their buddies. So I say again, they are doing what it says on the job description, which incidentally includes not questioning legally issued orders.

Personally, I think the whole idea of military intervention is outmoded and an anathema, however, just like I never jeer or boo at my footbal team, I won't be undermining or belittling our armed forces.

Comrade Tony had a conversation with his invisible friend Jesus, who told Tony that he wanted a war.

Interesting how comrade Tony and the Labour Government managed to get re-elected with pretty much the same majority 4 years after deciding to get involved, and the only mainstream UK political party to oppose that involvement didn't. I think that might be called the democratic decision of the UK population, don't you?

What he didn't get the connection either ?

Jon Taylor – Member
WC – Winston Churchill
Romeo y Julieta – Cuban (short/Churchill) Cigar

Thanks Jon, Sorry didn't make myself clear, I knew that. Just didn't get the connection with what a pre war games and a pre war athlete had to do with the UK's wartime leader and his trademark fag.

Just pointing out that if the Yanks feel so patronising to us, they might like to consider the implications of making money out of the war, yet we're the people that don't have to pay for health care at the point of delivery.

Maybe our lot should have turned up with WC on their shoulders, and a Romeo y Julieta stuck behind their ear?

Completely lost please elaborate.