I guess mention it to the police anyway, then if the farmer takes it further, you already have the upper hand in looking like you want the situation diffused.

I saw an interview with him and his wife back last year sometime I think. It seemed a very double edged interview in that they were saying 'Timberland is great' but it was also combined with an awful lot of 'how do you keep total control of a business you sold to another owner'. I am not surprised if they have quit, as the sulky rebellion was already in writing, so it was just a matter of time. Basic issue very much seemed to be wanting the money and the control – but you only get to pick one in this sort of situation I would think.

I think people fear feeling a little hungry, but its actually not as bad as people expect it to be.

If you like food, its actually much more enjoyable if you are properly hungry before you eat. It very easy to get into the habit of eating 'because its lunchtime/teatime' when you are not the least bit empty and thats when I find I put on weight.

What a sad sick man to be so desperate he needed to boost his ego and court publicity in such a way. I guess he was feeling unwanted by the public, and indeed, now he is unwanted by many of us.

Just background music in a shop. I liked her voice. It drives me mad that in this time of technology, even music shops dont run a display saying what is playing right now. Fighting your way through the queue to ask is often more time used up than can be spared. Shame as I think I would by more music if it was named on a display as I often hear stuff that sounds ok.

Sorry so little info. The background to the song might have been piano and it sounded like a love song. I just caught a snatch of it over all the people talking etc.

Thanks for trying folks.

Just background music in a shop. I liked her voice. It drives me mad that in this time of technology, even music shops dont run a display saying what is playing right now. Fighting your way through the queue to ask is often more time used up than can be spared. Shame as I think I would by more music if it was named on a display as I often hear stuff that sounds ok.

Sorry so little info. The background to the song might have been piano. I just caught a snatch of it over all the people talking etc.

Thanks for trying folks.

Maybe the speed / intensity of his interest has just plain scared her. It is quite possible she is trying to back off in a way she sees as kind and caring towards him.

Also working with someone you are or have dated can be a terrible experience when stuff goes wrong – she may have seen or experienced this before and is worried it may happen to them.

I suggests he talks to her and tries to find out if its really about work, or if its about other issues. This could be a painful discussion.

If she likes him enough, she too has the option of changing jobs. Or they could both work in the UK for a while or in some other country where they can both get work in a field of interest.

You have got to ask what the 'food enabler' has got out of helping this man get so ill. Clearly at that weight, he cant be nipping down the shops for food himself, so what is mentally wrong with the person who has done it on his behalf?

Rather a difficult position for Wiggle and similar, but I think I will hold back on any orders from companies that circumvent the post office. I wish to support the postal workers and I dont think strike breaking is very nice.

If you read Michael Hutchinsons 'The Hour' – a humerous look at his own attempt, you will see just how utterly petty, pendantic and unhelpful the UCI is.

Its an interesting book, worth a read.

Obrees own book is worth a shot too. A very brave man living a difficult life.

The signs this lot put up are dangerous in themselves. A year or so back, all along a busy local road there were multiple copies of a big yellow sign with a m/cycle and SMIDSY written on it. In tiny writing was a web address.

They looked like important official road signs – so everyone was driving down the road, slowing, peering at multiple examples of a sign that meant absolutly nothing to most of us, but which looked important so you did not like to ignore it. So you concentrated and peered harder to try and decipher its meaning, the word, to try to read the tiny web site.

Well, that solved the problem of not concentrating on traffic on the road didn't it!

Much more useful are the '12 accidents in 1 year here' signs, as they are fast to read and easy to comprehend. I cant help but wonder how many accididents the mindless design of the SMIDSY signs has actually caused.

Thats a handy set of instructions. I will give it a try.

In my favour, even the vet had a job to control the last one! I guess its practice, as well as overcoming fear of doing more damage.

Thanks to everyone who has been helpful re this subject.

Thanks for more medical info. Its not so much giving the pill to the pigeon, its the holding the pigeon while doing it, its not weak, just featherless. There is only one of me. I cant contain it and medicate it at the same time as my flatmate just flat out panics and gets in a worse state than the bird. I will try to find a bird sanctuary for it or see if I can get the liquid stuff this pm.

What sort of age range tends to join then? Interesting there are younger people as well as the older ones usually featured in interviews. Hats off to the older guys.

Oh and for those who think Union action never did anything to improve pay, conditions and security for the general working class – go read some history books of what life used to be like for the poor, before collective action.

I support the postal workers. They seem to be the only people who care about the service. The goverment is all for running it down. The standards of services have dropped enourmously in the last few years – hardly any collections, the sorting office shut down at weekends, post turning up in the middle of the afternoon and delivered by almost anybody, in private cars. The employees must be sick to death of how a once admirable service is being deliberatly run down. Trashed so that the public will not object when it is sold off to the politicians profit-greedy pals.

Thanks for the antibiotic advice and from the general support from caring people on here.

I know cats claws are bad news with infections for birds. I also knew a woman who had nine months of problems and eventually an op cos of being clawed by a cat.

I took the last cat attacked/infected bird to our local vet (a very caring/decent bloke) but with the best intentions in the world we had to scrap the antibiotics as I dont have enough handling skills to catch and control a relatively fit wild bird on my own. They are way stonger than they ever look, plus birds are very smooth and therefore slippery to hold, then give it pills, esp when it is in total panic. I grew up on a farm so I am not totally unskilled in handling things. With the last one we resorted to antibiotics in its drinking water, but had to give up on that too as it refused to drink then, and dehydration seemed a bigger problem. In the end we sat it out and waited to see if it lived or died. After several boughts of being off colour it was OK totally fine in the end and we were able to release it back into the wild.

I regret being limited to what I can do for it, but in proportion, if I had not picked it up it would have been tortured for several more hours and would be dead by now anyway. It least it has some hope this way, even if not much.

I dont mind what people say about 'its only a pigeon'. After all, why worry about any human death either? They are only individuals and there are millions of humans to replace them…

Some people are just cold and icy and its best to know who those are.

Quite a lot of bits of the bird look like that plate already.

Problem is housing such a big bird for such a possibly long time as its not fair to keep it in a smallish space (cage about 4x4x2 feet, though in a smaller one today while I wait so see how sick it is). I think I will try to find a bird rescue centre that might have 'runs' for the birds. I will have to wait a few days for it to calm down as its terrified if you go near it, though its already beginning to realise I am feeding it rather than hurting it. I have kept collared doves and town pigeons for a few weeks at a time, but its surprising how much smaller they are in comparison.

Smear tests don't stop you needing medical intervention – they just start the process. If you are lucky, you might not die, just loose large bits of yourself and spend a few months scared as hell and possibly sterile. 2 friends had positive smears, treatments, follow ups and the ongoing fear.

I would look into any health scares, its a good thing to do.

But the ultimate social/religious question is "will I risk my child dying a horrible death and the misery it causes her loved ones, because I want to keep control of her sex life".

Ton

"all i do at work is shout at him to do stuff.
i know i am being a cock, but i cant help it."

Realy? So who is in charge of your mouth and your mind then?
Thats the lamest excuse I have ever heard. Its the same excuse men use who beat thier wives. "she made me do it to her". Its the biggest load of self justification and abdication of personal responsibility you could come up with. Your family must be so disappointed in you.

Lets face it, you had a life in mind for your child all planned out in YOUR head (how often in the past have you asked him what his own hopes for the future are?). Now you are angry because he is not fitting in with the life you had chosen for him and which would have been convenient for you.

I suspect all your anger is about your decisions for other peoples lives being undermined. You are angry with the girlfriend and her family because you cannot force them to comply with your ideal world. You are punishing your son for them as well – as you CAN make his life hell, even if you cant control the girlfriend and her folks. So being cruel to him makes you feel more powerful and in control again.

Go look in the mirror and ask what kind of person you have become and what kind of excuses you are making for such appalling, unloving, unsupportive and utterly self interested behaviour.

You don't love your son, you are using that as an excuse for bad domineering behaviour on your part. This is not really about your son, its about your need to be in control and your panic when its clear you don't get to dictate to everyone around you.

People like you loose their kids in the end and rightly so. I was brought up by people like you, who just saw their kids as pawns using the excuse its 'love' rather than blatant bullying. I have not seen them in 10 years and I must say my life is way better than when I had to put up with such self centred egotistical people and I have no desire to ever see either of them again. They had a rubbish marriage and took out thier need to keep control of life on me.

I know this is a harsh mail but its meant well. Someone's got to be blunt because if you are very lucky, you might still have time to rethink your attitudes and save your family from yourself. IF you are lucky…

I hope he is not dead. Strange guy when interviewed, but seems full of good intentions and did loads for charity and suchlike.

Remember when calculating what you can afford that the interest rates are sure to go back up at some point.

My unhappy parents stayed togeather. Looking back I really wish they hadn't. I wish they had split when I was very young, as young children if given emotional support, expanations and security are able to cope.

I say I wish they split becasuse:

Later on when they had 'wasted' thier lives, my mother blamed my sister and I for 'forcing' her to stay with my dad. I think becasue she did not fully realise what a mistake it was to stay until her life was gone past. It was awful for my sister and I to be told it was all our fault. People get bitter and disappointed as time goes by, in ways they dont expect to when they first decide to 'stay for the kids'.

You get rubbish examples of how an effective relationship works. My own relationships have been poor and all have failed. I see other people who had happy co-operative and communicating parents haveing sucessfull relationships themselves in later life as they have a more effective role model.

Its miserable being the go-between for your parents and acting as the cushion between unhappy people.

Its awful if you see one parent as more downtrodden as its impossible not to want to try and protect and 'save' them from the more dominant one – so you are set up to be hostile to the dominant parent or end up dispising the weaker seeming one – and end up as the social worker to one or both of them.

In the end, one parent will probabally leave anyway, so there is not much gained except extra years of misery for the adults and kids and then its all ripped up anyway.

Ask them what they are looking for, as several people have noticed them searching. Do it in a friendly way and say if its magazines or suchlike, you and the neighbours will put them aside for them.

It looks friendly, they know they have been seen by lots of people. If they are doing something harmless they should be happy to say so.

I would start worrying about the dull people you are hanging around with – it they are this staid now, how dull and repressive are the going to be in another 10 years?

A work collegue of mind was asked some time back to plug an electrical cable into a socket which was fixed to the underside of a fairly average table. She was horrified. "They cant expect me to go bending and crawling around under a desk. I am past that sort of thing at my age." She was so affronted at thier lack of consideration for her age and dignity and conserned she might at sone point be asked to plug something in again, she actually started looking for other jobs.

She had just turned 40 that year.

Is that the sort of person you and your friends/family want to be?

Have fun while you can.

Money and fame buy freedom and 'friends'.
Polanski is scum.
One of the papers has published a transcript of what he said to the child at the time. I dont know how anyone thinks that kind of approach to a kid is ever ok or forgiveable.

Yes, I do need a bigger social group – tried to widen my horizons in the last year or 18 months by going to more events and suchlike and have intead gained no ongoing new friends and 3 older ones have drifted off 🙁

As I said, not exactly a social catch myself 🙂

I dont suppose it does have to be either, but I had to call the thread something. I find her puzzling, as she can look lovely at times, but also occasinally like an exhumed vampire as she seems so deathly white. I dont either like or dislike her, I just wondered how other people view her, as she is unusual in her style by todays general standard.

It must be hard to try to maintain that level of fantasy and perfection all the time.

I think I read somewhere that they have a legal requirement to give you a copy of the evidence if you request it. If they have lost it, I dont see how they can legally follow through. Thats if I have remembered correctly. There used to be guidence sites on the internet about speed camera fines or give the citizens advice beaureu a ring.

LittleBunny has a very good point of view.

Well, I will assert tonight and tell the chap its all a bit much and he needs to look elsewhere!

Hora, what a kind offer, but your advice on here seems very adequate 🙂

No, not a cyclist. I guess he is lonely and so am I, so I cant critisim him for feeling alone and wanting to change it. But I am used to spending lots of time on my own and the thought of suddenly having no space at all and being overwhelmed by enthusiasm… it scares me I guess. I dont see I could (or want!) to fulfil that kind of hope/expectation. He sounds a nice enough bloke – just way too overwhelming. I am not great at romantic encounters myself, so I am not condemming him – I just think it is not what I want. Its already too big a deal.

The previous person who asked me out raised a lot of similar fears in me as he dated anyone at all – internet, personal columns, blind dates all one after the other in a frantic rush – it seemed so indiscrimante that it felt very impersonal that he was interested in me. It was the same sort of 'I want someone with me all the time' feel to it. Maybe they mistake me for the same type, which I am not.

I dont think he was giving instructions, just chatting about his past. We were introduced in an odd sort of way so have only spoken by phone. No matter anyway, as I find this way too over the top. I am not going to date him.

Oh and I knew someone in thier 50's who learned to drive and passed first time! Took me 3 goes and I was in my 20's.

Lerning to drive for some is a fun experience. Personnaly I totally utterly hated it and so did one of my closest friends. Even after passing my test I would worry for hours before taking the car out. All I can say is, despite the huge level of fear/stress involved (which causes you to get tense and make mistakes) it does get better the more you drive. Try to feel a sense of achievement each time you take a lesson or a drive as it is a big personal achievement when you find it stressful and hard to do. Each time you try, it is one less time before it all becomes 'normal' and stress free. You can do this and it will get better.

Well, I appreciate the guy was upfront about his hopes/expectations as thats more useful than not being clear and I dont really think people should have to hide thier past (I would rather know), but I feel better from reading these answers that its not just me who thinks he is a bit overwhelming.

"What I don't want is the gut wrenching feeling of rejection"

But you were happy to give that to her!

No marriage, no commitment, not even prepared to listen to her over the period she has been telling you something is very very wrong. If you get back together with her are you going to go on ignoring things she hopes for or that matter to her, because what you want is important and her needs aren't? Is the problem not loosing her, but having a bruised ego and a need to be the most important person and she just undermined that by leaving you behind?

You are even questioning how to chase after her – if you really loved her you would be off your bum and doing it, not looking for people to side with you on here. I think she has made a wise choice – if you cant be bothered about her future now, how much attention will you be giving her in 5 years time? How much effort will you bother to make with any kids? No wonder she no longer trusts you as you seem to love yourself way more you do anyone else.

All the best if it works out and she comes back as I like people to be happy, but I think it sounds like she made a wise decision.

Have a look for the thread on here approx 2 weeks ago – exactly the same 'won't switch on' problem.

Screw up your health now and you may pay for it all throught your 20's and indeed the rest of your life. Whats so important now, that you want to risk all future sporting activities? Is 1 miserable month so very long in comparision to possible problems/restrictions forever?

Go to a sports physio (local gym or sports centre might advise)or ask the doc for a second opinion, but remember these people are trying to help you, not hold you back.

Thanks for all the suggestions so far folks, I will give them all consideration as they are all very constructive. I might skip the dildo though!