@Shobboleth 😆

As an armchair sociologist I find Mod very interesting.

I used to hang out on the fringes of the Leicester Mod scene and found it to be a very curious social phenomeneon where everyone was desperate to prove that someone else wasn't as 'Mod' as they were by striving to find an unwritten rule book that defined their subculture.

It's like everyone was trying to take it back to be more authentic than it was at the time. As a pervading social movement I can't find much evidence for it's duration, I supose it might be a bit like the Blur V Oasis period of the mid-ninties might be perceived in twenty years time?
Did many bands at the time define themselves as Mod? – Was it a bit like Grunge in this respect?

Discus
1500 words, on my desk by Wednesday morning, that'll be all class.

before storming off at some perceived slight

Maybe someone threw some eyebrow tweezers at her (MMRRROAW!)

Or some kids approach/trail walking shoes you can get Eurohikes for v little at sports direct or decathlon

IME, You can only last so long in sales, I was a cocky young thing in sales & marketing for a good few years making good cash and full of myslef, then I became a dead weight scarred to go to work as my targets went higher and my productivity dropped. Got really unhappy.

Now I'm in the public sector where I feel I really make a difference.

+1 Junkyard.

I played the field a fair bit as a younger man (early twenties) and had a panchent for the older lady (late twenties early thirties) as they knew what they wanted and usualy went like trains, but anyway I digress…

I would quite often be confronted by the old Bio-clock whereupon I would just be honest and say I was just enjoying the fun we were having and wanted to enjoy the moment without anything else as I was under no impression that we were anything other than just using each other.

They'd usually understand, get a bit tearful sometimes and try to seduce me with promises of financial security if I sired them a sprog- one sold her house and moved from Darlington to Leicester to try and get me to settle down with her!!! But I was always honest as I didn't want them to think I was after anything else other than a bit of a fling.

I knew I was a cad and was always honest about this from the start, they just usualy kidded themselves they were going to be the one to change me.

Catharsis over.

Great news mate, I'm very happy for you.

we've just found out there's a baby on the way so we're frantically selling stuff on ebay and hoping that one of us gets a better job sooner rather than later. This gives me hope.

I got a job as a glass collector at a night club in my first year at uni'. By the third year I was the assistant manager.

I hated uni though I felt being a student robbed me of a legitimate identity and I preffered working for a living. I rarely went for the second year, but did make the effort in the third.

However I've since then done an OU degree and discovered what a proper uni essay should look like and what proper actual study is so I would say that it is possible to do both as long as you are disciplined enough to work really hard and it also depends on how what grade you're looking for. If you're intending to just learn some stuff and maybe get a 2:2 at the end then go for it. If you want a first then that's a full time commitment in itself.

I've never seen the point of the cinema. Especially in a date type secenario, no talking, can't look at each other, sitting next to each other in silence for hours at a time. I've got years of married life ahead of me for that!!

£5/£6/£7/£8 a head to watch a big telly wedged into a seat, no elbow room and a sticky carpet and some dick talking through it or dropping popcorn down your neck.

Do me a favour…

I have always maintained that the cinema is the one thing that you do if there is abouluotley positivly NOTHING else worth doing.
I'd rather be outside or doing something more positive, riding my bike perhpas to take an example entirly at random.

Been there mate, a few years ago in the private sector I made the mistake of emailing my line manager calling into question our companies ability to cover me if I went off sick (I was genuinly concerned and trying to be helpful) and ended up on a disciplinary charges as his manager viewed it as an attack on his ability to manage and an attempt to discredit the company.

It's cheaper than group therapy.

Nah I'm in charge of the city wide business crime unit- Police, council, trading standards, ASBO teams.. the lot. 😀

If it happens to a business, be it fraud, criminal damage, theft break in etc than it lands on my desk to sort. I was even on radio five the other day!

I'm a Retail Crime Coordinator

sounds like I'm a petty crime kingpin when it's quite the opposite.

Have to be careful not to end up with a lengthy rant suffice to say:-
My Dad was adopted after being left in a Salv' Army hostel in the East end,in the early fifties.
From what I can gather he didn't have a good childhood as my granddparents had no idea about parenting and there were little checks made on adpotive parents back then.

My Mum comes from the most southern and repressed family I've ever come accross (she thinks Gay people are a myth, deppressed people just need to pull their socks up, people with tattos are obviously suicidal…etc).

End result, my Dad just ignored me for the majority of my life when it transpired I was (at the time) crap at sport so we had nothing in common. Mum never aproved of anything I ever did and didn't listen to a single thing I told her- had no idea what degree I did at uni for example.

I see them twice a year for friendly chat with two elderly middle class people I hardly know – spent a day painting my sisters bedroom with my Dad a few months ago, eight hours in a ten by eight room and three words said the whole time.

My wife destroys everything she owns, but the otterbox has managed to keep the iphone in good nick.

Fine but do expect to be standing on the pavement while people ignore you completely

I love this mental image, like some kind of market survey type with a clipboard and a mic whilst everyone just rushes past them.

Spot on Simon. You could have a job working for me.

@Sam42,

If the grapes are in your trolley and you pay for them then it's fine, if you get to the till and conceal the empty bunch and claim they never existed or just helped yourself to fruit like it was a buffet whilst wandering around then no it's theft.

A certain amount of disctretion and common judgement comes into it. I'm sure you'd agree that there is a difference between a tired toddler being given jafa cake from a packet already in Mum's trolley and you or I shotgunning a bottle of vintage clarret then legging it.

@2tyred- nah, can't say where it was, suffice to say he had a taste for quality.

Fair enough Ropey,

A few weeks ago it was one of my fellow Scout leaders Stag weekend. We hired a barn in the peaks.
We were each given a postcard with a set of words on it some relevant to the stag and some not.
Each time during the hike we were on we got him to say one of the words he had to then pick a card from a sellection of prizes and forefeits that had to be performed during the hike.

First person to get all their words said got a bottle of whiskey.

The stag ended up walking twenty miles wearing a woman's sun hat -that got fed to a sheep by 'mistake', with a big pink ballon hanging off his back pack with various shots of nasty alchohol inside him.

fairly mild but good fun all the same.

+1 Zippy,
Isn't all this huniliation stuff really a bit passe?

sorry to wizz on your campfire but…

It seems like a fairly quiet intimate affair with only three of you, so he seems a quiet kind of guy with nice interests why risk damaging that friendship on the eve of his wedding.

If he's about to set off on a new life with a wife it won't take much for him to find the reason to drop his old mates especialy if their contribution to such a big event is to marr it by behaving like c0cks.

The modern administrative taxation system.

Yep as above just put it in try tying the straps together to avoid them flailing about and the clips cracking.

Screw in head set- shouldn't be a problem.

Best place to go to is the old style bike shops in high streets of small towns that sell shopper bikes and ATBs they usualy have lots of bits for bikes of this age.

Getting rust off silver of chromed componenets- try a good scrub with some fine wire wool and some rust stripper- B&Q is a good place to look or if you have a local antiques shop ask if they know a restorer who could give you some tips. On the ones I've done its usaully been polished metal so the rust does shift after a while. Juts make sure it is fine wire wool unless the rsut is really heavy in which case try some good wquality wet/dry abbrasive paper at first to get it down a bit.

I can therefore catgorically tell you that Sam42 is wrong regarding his definition of theft as defined under the theft act of 1968 and PACE 1984. It is the lazy erronious definition that most retailers rely on though so it's not his fault.

You can be accused of theft whilst still in the premesis.
theft act 1968 means that you have a series of points to prove, leaving the store is not a necesity of proving theft.

Re consumables, if you have evidence- witnesses etc it still counts. I nicked a guy last week who'd downed a bottle of vodka and two cans of lager in a store.

But whilst we're on it 'Grandads' alleged crimewould have been fraud and obtaining funds through deception (ie a fraudulant refund) not shop theft anyway.

I train retail staff and store guards on behalf of the Police and have been on national radio and in the printed media dealing with these sorts of issues.

I can therefore catgorically tell you that Sam42 is wrong regarding his definition of theft as defined under the theft act of 1968 and PACE 1984. It is the lazy erronious definition that most retailers rely on though so it's not his fault.

However I would also comment that the manager in question appears to have been ill/untrained and possibly promoted above his level of competance. When I have to deal with these sorts of issues the first port of call is always head office with a friendly call asking for the area/regional operations manager. They will be your best bet.

emails in the profile if you want profesional advice.

A doorman once said to me

"No-one expects a fire extinguisher swung at head height"

Can't argue with that.

Since reading about this[/url]I've been tempted to try and make my own for £0.
If it's good enough for Ray Mears…

You get sued when you over react by grabbing a child not when you can give good account of reasonable force and that you acted within the law.

I train security guards and retail staff about this.

The Liddle staff were def' in the wrong, the fine is a bit of an over reaction, but if the IP had a good brief then he's done his job well.

Basically you only lay a finger on someone if they touch you first like for like and as for the fact that it was a child wel that is just barmy on the part of Liddle

If this happened in my area I'd have quiet word with the area manager regarding staff competancy.

snapped two USE alien seatposts, I declined the warranty offer of a third one.

I've got those panniers, they've done me proud for five years so far.

I used to get ones there and on my back from rucksack rub. I second the needle and a dab of TCP option.

Hurts like crazy but as said the releif is amazing. Mrs PM does the ones I can't reach for me.

If that's not love I don't know what is. 😀

I have dissapeared off the radar several times during my life, once for three years. All I got was a polite but rather befudled letter saying "erm who are you and where have you been" when I got a temp job one christmas after surfacing.
I just said I'd been travelling (not entirley true, but I had been moving around a lot) and heard no more about it.
A year ago I got a letter saying my NI contributions were 19p short so I sent them stamp and told them to keep the change.
I've signed on several times (once for a year) and I cliamed working tax credits for three years too.
I really can't see your mate having a problem if he can support himself then perhaps it's the sensible option as opposed to costing the already cripled state cash it doesn't have. If he doesn't have any money and needs to sign on then do so as that's what it's for, it's not a mandatory handout for anyone who isn't working, it's to support those with no access to funds with which to support themsleves. I think both Benthan and Keynes would support me on this one depsite being 150 years apart in their social policy making.

FFS!
I keep and race Alaskan Malamutes, 8 stone of furry wolf dog when fully grown.

I did 15 miles last week over countless stiles and my dog has just learnt to either crawl under, leap over, crawl round and under the nearby fence or on one occasion carefully place paw in front of paw and climb over after me over the top.

I've read some winging post in my time but this really takes the huntly and palmers.
" my dog can't get over a style so I want the world changed to suit me".

Crikey what's next, I couldn't take my bear into Boots to get my prescription? 😡

Three hours into my job in plain clothes crime detection and my curly side parting, high cheek bones and black rain coat have earnt me five Holmes comparisons so far.

To be honest I've been called worse 🙂

With two massive sled dogs with huge claws, MTB bramble incidents and regular hikes with the dogs and the Scouts through thorns and braken I'm allways coverd in cuts and scratches.

I love it as it shows I actually get out and do something with my weekend.

At 31 I doubt anyone would think I was self harming it does occasionally get the odd comment at work but only of the "what have you done (by accident)?" type not "do you wnat someone to talk to" and I've recently noticed I'm imune to nettle stings now too. Winner

My idea:-
Jane gets hammerd on hen night, has a threesome with a pair of builders and Adam gets sent an Mpeg of the night in question on his superfast BT broadband nine months later a baby comes out with chinese eyes and afro.

Wife's idea classified under several acts.

Yes my wife felt somewhat short changed that there wasn't a box for 'other' ideas.

To be honest her idea made my blood run cold especially as she is pregnant and supposed to be full of baby loviness.

Never wear black to a wedding.

As for business/work black is too negative and has the potential to make you look pasty and can be hot, it also very noticable if it dis-colours and fades.

Did I also notice someone on here recomend tan shoes with a black suit 😆

You want advice on suits etc and you come to STW? I mean really! A forum for keyboard warriors who wear missmatched sports kit to get sweaty in. If you really want advice try this or here[/url]

BillMC, I don't hink you can compare split second photos of a state of armed urgency where Police surrounded an armed man who had already killed and wounded several people with the film of an overzelous spooked riot officer.

I'm sure a few snaps of troops in combat might show them shouting and running and possibly not maintining the rigid disciline of the parade ground too.

However I am no apologist for the Ian Thomlinson case.