Thursday 3rd September 2015

utopiandreams · Post by **utopiandreams** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 12:15 pm

@Willow904

Tell me about it, Willow. Our kids had piano lessons including our daughter, not that she learned much but didn't want her feeling left out; she did enjoy them. It soon stopped after my wife's stroke though, too darned expensive especially for three. More's the pity my wife couldn't stand the noise afterwards so we had to move the piano into the garden workshop that I built while she was in hospital; it never was the same again possibly because it was never tuned mind.

Ironically she loved the loud music our lads used to play later on, lots of Trance and similar stuff. There were quite a few bemused faces at her funeral when Trance music kicked in, her choice although "Please Forgive Me" by David Gray was first.

@HindleA

I do hope you were joking about the Benny Hill music, sorry if I'm wrong. I know you're more than a little restless right now, but tomorrow should help. Best wishes.

Postscript: I forgot we had to moderate the music and make sure there was no untoward language. I must say it sounded good on the chapel's system... and of course all the after partiers were there and some more besides. I somehow doubt my funeral shall be so well attended. Mmm now what music should I choose. Perhaps I'd better record a twelve bar on an electric guitar; I want to see some tears damn it!

PorFavor · Post by **PorFavor** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 12:19 pm

utopiandreams wrote:
@HindleA

I do hope you were joking about the Benny Hill music, sorry if I'm wrong. I know you're more than a little restless right now, but tomorrow should help. Best wishes.

Oh, well. I rather hoped he was serious!

PorFavor · Post by **PorFavor** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 12:25 pm

David Cameron seems reluctant to perform a full U-turn in response to pressure from the likes of the Sun and the FT (see 11.14am), Lady Warsi (see 8.59am), Yvette Cooper (see 9.27am) and assorted Tory MPs, but it does look as though we may get some movement from him on this issue.

According to a Number 10 source, he feels his comments yesterday were slightly misinterpreted. (Politics Live, Guardian)

Oh, now I get it! God, I'm so (slightly) thick . . .

Edit

Above emphasis in quote is mine

Edit (again)

Or even - emphasis in above quote is mine

RogerOThornhill · Post by **RogerOThornhill** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 12:32 pm

PorFavor wrote:
David Cameron seems reluctant to perform a full U-turn in response to pressure from the likes of the Sun and the FT (see 11.14am), Lady Warsi (see 8.59am), Yvette Cooper (see 9.27am) and assorted Tory MPs, but it does look as though we may get some movement from him on this issue.

According to a Number 10 source, he feels his comments yesterday were slightly misinterpreted. (Politics Live, Guardian)
Oh, now I get it! God, I'm so (slightly) thick . . .

Edit

Above emphasis in quote is mine

Edit (again)

Or even - emphasis in above quote is mine

Funny that a PR man has so many of his comments "misinterpreted" isn't it? You would have thought that his background would make him choose his words carefully...

utopiandreams · Post by **utopiandreams** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 12:41 pm

@RogerOThornhill

Perhaps I can help him out, Roger, I have a few choice words for him.

TechnicalEphemera · Post by **TechnicalEphemera** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 12:51 pm

RogerOThornhill wrote:
PorFavor wrote:
David Cameron seems reluctant to perform a full U-turn in response to pressure from the likes of the Sun and the FT (see 11.14am), Lady Warsi (see 8.59am), Yvette Cooper (see 9.27am) and assorted Tory MPs, but it does look as though we may get some movement from him on this issue.

According to a Number 10 source, he feels his comments yesterday were slightly misinterpreted. (Politics Live, Guardian)
Oh, now I get it! God, I'm so (slightly) thick . . .

Edit

Above emphasis in quote is mine

Edit (again)

Or even - emphasis in above quote is mine
Funny that a PR man has so many of his comments "misinterpreted" isn't it? You would have thought that his background would make him choose his words carefully...

He is reported to have been a fairly crappy PR man.

TechnicalEphemera · Post by **TechnicalEphemera** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 12:53 pm

Not wishing to post another picture of Thatcher, but she had experience of office prior to becoming leader. Far more polished and sadly capable than Corbyn.

Ok she used that experience to steal milk from children - Hence Maggie Thatcher Milk Snatcher.

(I always hated the milk so that and the Falklands are the only things she did I agreed with).

frightful_oik · Post by **frightful_oik** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 1:02 pm

Petition passes 150k. Impressive.

ohsocynical · Post by **ohsocynical** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 1:02 pm

rebeccariots2 wrote:
Chris Bryant MP ‏@RhonddaBryant 18m18 minutes ago
Chris Bryant MP retweeted Giles Wilkes
It used to be Andy Coulson’s job to make up lines like that. Maybe he’ll be back, too.

Giles Wilkes‏@Gilesyb
No10 apparently insists "Britain is at the forefront of responding to the asylum crisis".

Imagine it's your job to say that sort of thing

I wonder if they've given Shapps/Green whatever his name is a back room job making up porkies. It's just up his road.

HindleA · Post by **HindleA** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 1:04 pm

Much humour was to be had in our discussing the arrangements with her ,a viking ceremony was mentioned,more at the thought of her mum's and other's reaction,given their staunch Roman Catholicism.She refused,as I do,to believe a loving God would do this and it is to be strictly non religious.A celebration of her life.
In lieu of Benny Hill,I will play it in my head.

Burnham,Watson for me,no other preferences.

rebeccariots2 · Post by **rebeccariots2** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 1:09 pm

PorFavor wrote:
David Cameron seems reluctant to perform a full U-turn in response to pressure from the likes of the Sun and the FT (see 11.14am), Lady Warsi (see 8.59am), Yvette Cooper (see 9.27am) and assorted Tory MPs, but it does look as though we may get some movement from him on this issue.

According to a Number 10 source, he feels his comments yesterday were slightly misinterpreted. (Politics Live, Guardian)
Oh, now I get it! God, I'm so (slightly) thick . . .

Edit

Above emphasis in quote is mine

Edit (again)

Or even - emphasis in above quote is mine

'Slightly misinterpreted' - the man wouldn't even look at the camera when he said his piece yesterday. He knew exactly what he was saying and how ....

What a b......... he is. Yet again he's openly taking the public for fools .... just like when he refused to debate Ed Miliband and performed so many swerves and slides. We know what he said and what he meant. 'Swarms' Cameron ... 'swarms'.

rebeccariots2 · Post by **rebeccariots2** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 1:11 pm

As you can tell - I'm back from the morning job for a bit of lunch. And now fuming - absolutely fuming.

AnatolyKasparov · Post by **AnatolyKasparov** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 1:14 pm

Re the reported Burnham comment above, maybe he was annoyed at all the praise Cooper was getting when he had already said much the same thing?

Its only human (and that he very definitely is)

utopiandreams · Post by **utopiandreams** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 1:15 pm

SpinningHugo wrote:... Would it be helpful if I had a nice bold avatar so you could skip past me?

I'm wondering pretty much the same myself, SH. I never know when to stop. Did I tell you about the doctor and psychiatric nurse asking me what I was thinking? They really didn't want to know!

ohsocynical · Post by **ohsocynical** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 1:15 pm

frightful_oik wrote:Petition passes 150k. Impressive.

I just signed it, and it had reached over 152,000

rebeccariots2 · Post by **rebeccariots2** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 1:21 pm

Nick Sutton ‏@suttonnick 11m11 minutes ago
We've asked to intv a Minister from Home Office, DFID or FCO on Syrian refugees.
Just been told none available #wato

and note the use of the word 'refugees'.

Finally.

yahyah · Post by **yahyah** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 1:25 pm

rebeccariots2 wrote:
Nick Sutton ‏@suttonnick 11m11 minutes ago
We've asked to intv a Minister from Home Office, DFID or FCO on Syrian refugees.
Just been told none available #wato
and note the use of the word 'refugees'.

Finally.

That was one of the things I would have liked to see phrased differently in the petition,
it refers to 'refugee migrants' rather than just refugees.

LadyCentauria · Post by **LadyCentauria** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 1:26 pm

European Commissioner for Human Rights says he is deeply concerned about David Cameron's attitude on the plight of refugees. Sky News, just now.

On music tuition: I fully support proposals for all children having the opportunity to learn a musical instrument - but please let it not stop at just recorders and violins; and don't let it be a once in a lifetime chance either but an ongoing option. More than a few people I've taught as adults had been told, after a only a handful of group lessons on those instruments as pretty young children, that they had "no aptitude for music!" They'd come to me after a lifetime of believing that. Just about all humans have an aptitude for music - we just learn at different paces and in different ways.

ohsocynical · Post by **ohsocynical** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 1:26 pm

Willow904 wrote:
Lonewolfie wrote:
yahyah wrote:& I think we can firmly dispense with any notion that FTN is any way too pro-Corbyn.
Yesterday's posts show that.

Am not going to 'flounce' out at having to read through post after post picking apart his every utterance and telling us the world will end if he wins.

Just hope to see those so angry or dismissive about him proved wrong.
But when so many Labour members and supporters will be out to shred him from the first, helping the Tories do so, their gloom and doom scenario will likely occur.
That'll be followed by a lot of 'I told you so' mutterings from those who will have moved heaven and earth to ensure his leadership was a disaster.
If that were to play out the Labour party will probably lose the two members in my household.

Hugo's link to the petition shows that there are things we agree on though, so maybe that's where to focus.
Evenaftermorninoon all....

Thank you for this....I'm starting to find that coming in here and writing something is getting increasingly difficult - I'm starting to feel that if I don't agree with certain posters (on Northern Ireland/Falklands Conflict, for example) I'm going to be castigated as a 'stupid useless unthinker'....and my view may or may not coincide with Corbyn....but I can like/support someone and not necessarily agree with everything they say....please see Burnham....who I am very happy to have as the leader of Labour/the opposition....it's just that, in my view as an outsider, pieces like this are a 'breath of fresh air' as one of the respondees' put it....

Jeremy Corbyn: My radical plan for the arts will make Britain happier
Labour leadership frontrunner Jeremy Corbyn says he will invest in the arts, protect the BBC and ensure every child can learn a musical instrument

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... ppier.html

....and in the Telegraph, no less - when I took the poll, the result was 63% in agreement....my prediction would be that I'm going to be told that this is a completely absolutely unworkable and fantasist policy.....

....and, I found this (long read) talking about Peoples QE etc....I live in Hope (just north of Peterborough) that I am not now going to be responded to with 'just wrong' style posts - I would (genuinely) be interested to know what the 'bad' is with regard to this?

PQE is sound economics but is not in the QE family

http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=31626

...and whilst I'm about it, another question....I sense a great deal of hostility from within Labour (and Labour members) towards Diane Abbot, and while I have deep reservations about anyone taking the shilling to share airtime with Portaloo and Brillohead, I can also see some positives - at the risk of being shouted at, what did she do that was so bad?
Every child being able to learn a musical instrument is similar to what Tristram Hunt has said about children from all backgrounds being able to access after school clubs and activities. There is much of value that is denied children from poorer backgrounds because of cost.

And finding teachers for those after school clubs.
Mr Ohso won forty quid on the lottery a couple of years ago, so we put some money to it to buy our youngest granddaughter a cat gut string guitar as they were starting up lessons after school. They had one teacher for two months, then another for a month and then none. The guitar sits in a corner growing dust.

Same with her senior school. They mainly run the after school clubs for three months at a time and then it's dropped and something else introduced

yahyah · Post by **yahyah** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 1:31 pm

ohsocynical wrote:
Willow904 wrote:
Lonewolfie wrote: Evenaftermorninoon all....

Thank you for this....I'm starting to find that coming in here and writing something is getting increasingly difficult - I'm starting to feel that if I don't agree with certain posters (on Northern Ireland/Falklands Conflict, for example) I'm going to be castigated as a 'stupid useless unthinker'....and my view may or may not coincide with Corbyn....but I can like/support someone and not necessarily agree with everything they say....please see Burnham....who I am very happy to have as the leader of Labour/the opposition....it's just that, in my view as an outsider, pieces like this are a 'breath of fresh air' as one of the respondees' put it....

Jeremy Corbyn: My radical plan for the arts will make Britain happier
Labour leadership frontrunner Jeremy Corbyn says he will invest in the arts, protect the BBC and ensure every child can learn a musical instrument

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... ppier.html

....and in the Telegraph, no less - when I took the poll, the result was 63% in agreement....my prediction would be that I'm going to be told that this is a completely absolutely unworkable and fantasist policy.....

....and, I found this (long read) talking about Peoples QE etc....I live in Hope (just north of Peterborough) that I am not now going to be responded to with 'just wrong' style posts - I would (genuinely) be interested to know what the 'bad' is with regard to this?

PQE is sound economics but is not in the QE family

http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=31626

...and whilst I'm about it, another question....I sense a great deal of hostility from within Labour (and Labour members) towards Diane Abbot, and while I have deep reservations about anyone taking the shilling to share airtime with Portaloo and Brillohead, I can also see some positives - at the risk of being shouted at, what did she do that was so bad?
Every child being able to learn a musical instrument is similar to what Tristram Hunt has said about children from all backgrounds being able to access after school clubs and activities. There is much of value that is denied children from poorer backgrounds because of cost.
And finding teachers for those after school clubs.
Mr Ohso won forty quid on the lottery a couple of years ago, so we put some money to it to buy our youngest granddaughter a cat gut string guitar as they were starting up lessons after school. They had one teacher for two months, then another for a month and then none. The guitar sits in a corner growing dust.

Same with her senior school. They mainly run the after school clubs for three months at a time and then it's dropped and something else introduced

Is it literally cat gut, or is that just a name for plastic strings ?

LadyCentauria · Post by **LadyCentauria** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 1:34 pm

yahyah wrote:,,,

Is it literally cat gut, or is that just a name for plastic strings ?

No, and most likely never was:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catgut

RogerOThornhill · Post by **RogerOThornhill** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 1:40 pm

re music tuition - I spoke to a very old friend a few months ago at our school where he comes in as a peripatetic violin teacher and he said that the local music service are really struggling due to lack of funding.

I asked him about the 'music hubs' which the government had as one of their great initiatives i.e. we have to do something even though nothing actually needs doing; and he said "nobody knows exactly what they are or what they're supposed to do" which surprised me not at all.

I forget which one but one music service closed down completely as they had no funding to run it.

ohsocynical · Post by **ohsocynical** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 1:55 pm

MORE than a third of women working part-time in Bracknell earn less than the living wage new figures reveal.
However the towns are by no means the region's worst.

TUC Regional Secretary Megan Dobney said: "Working part-time shouldn’t mean poverty pay, but for lots of women in the South East that is the reality.

"The Living Wage was created to provide workers with a basic standard of living. However, many part-time women in our region earn well below £7.85 an hour and now face being hit by the Chancellor’s cuts to tax credits which will wipe out any gains from his new minimum wage premium.

The highest percentage in the south-east is in Folkestone and Hythe where more than 57 per cent earn less than the living wage, another of the highest was Woking where the figure stands at 56 per cent.

http://www.bracknellnews.co.uk/news/136 ... ving_wage/

LadyCentauria · Post by **LadyCentauria** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 1:55 pm

RogerOThornhill wrote:re music tuition - I spoke to a very old friend a few months ago at our school where he comes in as a peripatetic violin teacher and he said that the local music service are really struggling due to lack of funding.

I asked him about the 'music hubs' which the government had as one of their great initiatives i.e. we have to do something even though nothing actually needs doing; and he said "nobody knows exactly what they are or what they're supposed to do" which surprised me not at all.

I forget which one but one music service closed down completely as they had no funding to run it.

More than one - Milton Keynes and Cornwall both closed theirs down:
http://www.theguardian.com/education/20 ... nt-tuition

ohsocynical · Post by **ohsocynical** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 1:57 pm

LadyCentauria wrote:
yahyah wrote:,,,

Is it literally cat gut, or is that just a name for plastic strings ?
No, and most likely never was:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catgut

The strings are plastic, but for some reason the old name stuck. Not sure what they were originally made of. Some sort of animal by product though.

ohsocynical · Post by **ohsocynical** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 1:58 pm

And 'cat gut' is easier on the fingers for beginners...

utopiandreams · Post by **utopiandreams** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 2:00 pm

ohsocynical wrote:... They had one teacher for two months, then another for a month and then none. The guitar sits in a corner growing dust.

Same with her senior school. They mainly run the after school clubs for three months at a time and then it's dropped and something else introduced

Ah but, ohso, you're surely missing a trick or two. Why on earth didn't you get them Play in a Day by Bert Weedon? Maybe that explains it, I'm all fingers and thumbs.

Edit: replace "I really can't play" with "I'm all fingers and thumbs"- thought I'd done so earlier but was having connection problems.

yahyah · Post by **yahyah** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 2:01 pm

@Stephen.

Have voted.
Some may say for electoral oblivion and the splitting of the party.

I see my choice as a chance to start afresh, while looking to some ideas from the past and updating them. Would also like to see some new faces, or some faces of older people who haven't thrust themselves forward in the past, getting a chance in the shadow cabinet.

PorFavor · Post by **PorFavor** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 2:01 pm

Found this, if it's of any help -

Catgut is a type of cord[1] that is prepared from the natural fibre found in the walls of animal intestines.[2] Usually sheep or goat intestines are used, but it is occasionally made from the intestines of cattle,[3] hogs, horses, mules, or donkeys.[citation needed] Despite its name, no cat intestines are used in catgut.

Etymology

The word catgut may have been an abbreviation of the word "cattlegut". Alternatively, it may have derived by folk etymology from kitgut or kitstring—the word kit, meaning fiddle, having at some point been confused with the word kit for a young cat. (Wikipedia)

yahyah · Post by **yahyah** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 2:03 pm

Just relieved that no Tibbles were used.

PorFavor · Post by **PorFavor** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 2:04 pm

yahyah wrote:Just relieved that no Tibbles were used.

Yes. If they had been, I'd never play the violin again . . .

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 2:09 pm

Lonewolfie wrote:
yahyah wrote:& I think we can firmly dispense with any notion that FTN is any way too pro-Corbyn.
Yesterday's posts show that.

Am not going to 'flounce' out at having to read through post after post picking apart his every utterance and telling us the world will end if he wins.

Just hope to see those so angry or dismissive about him proved wrong.
But when so many Labour members and supporters will be out to shred him from the first, helping the Tories do so, their gloom and doom scenario will likely occur.
That'll be followed by a lot of 'I told you so' mutterings from those who will have moved heaven and earth to ensure his leadership was a disaster.
If that were to play out the Labour party will probably lose the two members in my household.

Hugo's link to the petition shows that there are things we agree on though, so maybe that's where to focus.
Evenaftermorninoon all....

Thank you for this....I'm starting to find that coming in here and writing something is getting increasingly difficult - I'm starting to feel that if I don't agree with certain posters (on Northern Ireland/Falklands Conflict, for example) I'm going to be castigated as a 'stupid useless unthinker'....and my view may or may not coincide with Corbyn....but I can like/support someone and not necessarily agree with everything they say....please see Burnham....who I am very happy to have as the leader of Labour/the opposition....it's just that, in my view as an outsider, pieces like this are a 'breath of fresh air' as one of the respondees' put it....

Jeremy Corbyn: My radical plan for the arts will make Britain happier
Labour leadership frontrunner Jeremy Corbyn says he will invest in the arts, protect the BBC and ensure every child can learn a musical instrument

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... ppier.html

....and in the Telegraph, no less - when I took the poll, the result was 63% in agreement....my prediction would be that I'm going to be told that this is a completely absolutely unworkable and fantasist policy.....

....and, I found this (long read) talking about Peoples QE etc....I live in Hope (just north of Peterborough) that I am not now going to be responded to with 'just wrong' style posts - I would (genuinely) be interested to know what the 'bad' is with regard to this?

PQE is sound economics but is not in the QE family

http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=31626

...and whilst I'm about it, another question....I sense a great deal of hostility from within Labour (and Labour members) towards Diane Abbot, and while I have deep reservations about anyone taking the shilling to share airtime with Portaloo and Brillohead, I can also see some positives - at the risk of being shouted at, what did she do that was so bad?

I don't know what Diane Abbot did that was so bad, Lonewolfie, good question though.
I'm a Labour party member.
The next Labour party leader has my support.

yahyah · Post by **yahyah** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 2:10 pm

Bert Weedon, now there's a name from the past.
Wally Whyton, Muriel Young, Pussy cat Willum, Ollie Beak, am regressing back to a young 'un.

Maybe we should scrap politics and turn into a nostalgia site.
There'd be less bad feeling.

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 2:14 pm

LadyCentauria wrote:European Commissioner for Human Rights says he is deeply concerned about David Cameron's attitude on the plight of refugees. Sky News, just now.

On music tuition: I fully support proposals for all children having the opportunity to learn a musical instrument - but please let it not stop at just recorders and violins; and don't let it be a once in a lifetime chance either but an ongoing option. More than a few people I've taught as adults had been told, after a only a handful of group lessons on those instruments as pretty young children, that they had "no aptitude for music!" They'd come to me after a lifetime of believing that. Just about all humans have an aptitude for music - we just learn at different paces and in different ways.

Cow bell, me, I was the only one who could keep time
Also hand bells - I learned to read music by playing it and watching the writing match the sound.
I stopped before I was eighteen and I can't read music now.

PorFavor · Post by **PorFavor** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 2:19 pm

Does anyone here remember "Twizzle"? I do but, looking at the dates, it must have made an enormous impression upon me that I remember it. Now, "Sarah and Hoppity" (slightly later) I can understand remembering.

Bring back Tufty and the "Felix" Cat Club!

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 2:20 pm

yahyah wrote:Bert Weedon, now there's a name from the past.
Wally Whyton, Muriel Young, Pussy cat Willum, Ollie Beak, am regressing back to a young 'un.

Maybe we should scrap politics and turn into a nostalgia site.
There'd be less bad feeling.

I love your political choices, yahyah.
Please excuse me if I've written something insensitive.
I didn't mean to.

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 2:25 pm

rebeccariots2 wrote:
PorFavor wrote:
David Cameron seems reluctant to perform a full U-turn in response to pressure from the likes of the Sun and the FT (see 11.14am), Lady Warsi (see 8.59am), Yvette Cooper (see 9.27am) and assorted Tory MPs, but it does look as though we may get some movement from him on this issue.

According to a Number 10 source, he feels his comments yesterday were slightly misinterpreted. (Politics Live, Guardian)
Oh, now I get it! God, I'm so (slightly) thick . . .

Edit

Above emphasis in quote is mine

Edit (again)

Or even - emphasis in above quote is mine
'Slightly misinterpreted' - the man wouldn't even look at the camera when he said his piece yesterday. He knew exactly what he was saying and how ....
What a b......... he is. Yet again he's openly taking the public for fools .... just like when he refused to debate Ed Miliband and performed so many swerves and slides. We know what he said and what he meant. 'Swarms' Cameron ... 'swarms'.

I know.
How dare you, Cameron?

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 2:29 pm

HindleA wrote:Much humour was to be had in our discussing the arrangements with her ,a viking ceremony was mentioned,more at the thought of her mum's and other's reaction,given their staunch Roman Catholicism.She refused,as I do,to believe a loving God would do this and it is to be strictly non religious.A celebration of her life.
In lieu of Benny Hill,I will play it in my head.

Burnham,Watson for me,no other preferences.

I've mentioned before I'm probably some kind of pagan person.
Perfect description of god, HindleA
Flaming Viking Send-Offs after picnics with current government
I mentioned that in a post yesterday too.

LadyCentauria · Post by **LadyCentauria** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 2:29 pm

ohsocynical wrote:
LadyCentauria wrote:
yahyah wrote:,,,

Is it literally cat gut, or is that just a name for plastic strings ?
No, and most likely never was:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catgut
The strings are plastic, but for some reason the old name stuck. Not sure what they were originally made of. Some sort of animal by product though.

They were (and still are, in some places) made from guts but generally the guts of herbivores and are certainly easier on the fingers than metal strings - certainly until the callouses build up. There are lots of ideas as to where the name cat-gut came from - some think a derivation of 'cattle-gut', some think it comes from the word 'kit' for a fiddle then got muddled up with kit (as in kitten) being misheard as cat. My father said it was because a badly played violin sounds like a strangled cat...

Classical and Spanish guitars tend to have nylon (synthetics/polymers, not exactly nylon though that name's stuck, too) strings, these days, and some violinists and other strings players prefer them too. Gut strings are harder to find in Europe and the West, these days, as they're not as easily or cheaply mass-produced as steel or synthetics.

Oh, you might have misunderstood me. Yes, some people refer to modern synthetic strings as gut or cat-gut, transferring the name across or just not knowing that gut is rarely used anymore, but most people in the UK would call them 'nylon'.

ohsocynical · Post by **ohsocynical** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 2:30 pm

We asked David Cameron if Britain can do more to help refugees like Aylan Kurdi. His answer? 'We're doing enough'

Osborne said. "And of course Britain has always been a home to real asylum seekers, genuine refugees. We have taken 5,000 people from the Syrian conflict, we will go on taking people and keep it under review.
"Britain has been playing a leading role and it will continue to do so."

Mealy mouthed. I detest mealy mouthed.

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 2:35 pm

AnatolyKasparov wrote:Cooper made a *very* good speech on the refugee crisis, but strangely enough it doesn't make me better disposed towards her. It actually makes me even more narked that for so long her campaign was so wretchedly cynical - saying next to nothing of substance and this hoping to squeeze through on transfers

My ballot paper has just been posted, so (dons tin hat)

Leader: 1 AB 2 LK (!) 3 YC

Deputy: 1 SC 2 CF 3 TW

So why, after all I have said about her these last few months, did I put Liz second? Because I think she is a better politician and person than her almost comically maladroit campaign has made her appear, and the last few weeks (with all hope gone) has shown that. She has also - let's not brush this under the carpet - recieved some horrific abuse, often crudely and nastily misogynyist, and taken it in her stride with dignity and good humour.

As for not preferencing Jezza - he has much going for him and if he does win I will of course fully support him. But at the end of the day I don't think he either thought he could win at the outset, or indeed wanted to. In his aim then - broadening the debate and reminding party grandees that the Labour mainstream could no longer be ignored - he has succeeded brilliantly. Ever the optimist as Hugo likes to tell me, the surge in activism he has produced is IMO an unequivocally good thing.

Re the deputy leadership, Watson has said some very sensible stuff recently about how the party needs to go after next month - especially if you know who *does* win - and so has gone up in my estimation in the campaign much as Ed Balls did back in 2010. But it has to be Stella

I love your post, thank you, AK.

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 2:39 pm

ohsocynical wrote:
We asked David Cameron if Britain can do more to help refugees like Aylan Kurdi. His answer? 'We're doing enough'

Osborne said. "And of course Britain has always been a home to real asylum seekers, genuine refugees. We have taken 5,000 people from the Syrian conflict, we will go on taking people and keep it under review.
"Britain has been playing a leading role and it will continue to do so."
Mealy mouthed. I detest mealy mouthed.

'...of course Britain has always been a home to real asylum seekers, genuine refugees...'
So transparently remorseless dividing, dividing, name-calling, qualifiers, dividing until all of the good things are the property of a few Tories

Willow904 · Post by **Willow904** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 2:40 pm

ohsocynical wrote:
We asked David Cameron if Britain can do more to help refugees like Aylan Kurdi. His answer? 'We're doing enough'

Osborne said. "And of course Britain has always been a home to real asylum seekers, genuine refugees. We have taken 5,000 people from the Syrian conflict, we will go on taking people and keep it under review.
"Britain has been playing a leading role and it will continue to do so."
Mealy mouthed. I detest mealy mouthed.

Osborne's numbers don't match the number quoted in the Independent. I googled it because 5,000 sounded very high:

Of the 4 million Syrians who have fled their country since the war began, including hundreds of thousands who have poured into Europe, the number who have been resettled in Britain could fit on a single London Underground train — with plenty of seats to spare.
Just 216 Syrian refugees have qualified for the government’s official relocation program, according to data released last week. (Tube trains seat about 300.) British Prime Minister David Cameron has reassured his anxious public that the total number won’t rise above 1,000.

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 2:41 pm

So Osborne is really just lying again.

LadyCentauria · Post by **LadyCentauria** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 2:42 pm

PorFavor wrote:Does anyone here remember "Twizzle"? I do but, looking at the dates, it must have made an enormous impression upon me that I remember it. Now, "Sarah and Hoppity" (slightly later) I can understand remembering.

Bring back Tufty and the "Felix" Cat Club!

No no no no no no!!! Twizzle freaked me out and as for Sarah and... eurgh! They were horribly spooky. Gave me nightmares and gave my younger siblings a way to reduce their big brave elder to a quivering wreck, stuffing my fingers in my ears and running crying from the room!
Bring back Tufty, Muffin the Mule, Tales of the Riverbank, (what was it that Spotty the Dog was in?) Pogle's Wood, Noggin the Nog, the original Magic Roundabout, and all such good things and ban the very mention of those other ones

frightful_oik · Post by **frightful_oik** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 2:46 pm

citizenJA wrote:
Lonewolfie wrote:
yahyah wrote:& I think we can firmly dispense with any notion that FTN is any way too pro-Corbyn.
Yesterday's posts show that.

Am not going to 'flounce' out at having to read through post after post picking apart his every utterance and telling us the world will end if he wins.

Just hope to see those so angry or dismissive about him proved wrong.
But when so many Labour members and supporters will be out to shred him from the first, helping the Tories do so, their gloom and doom scenario will likely occur.
That'll be followed by a lot of 'I told you so' mutterings from those who will have moved heaven and earth to ensure his leadership was a disaster.
If that were to play out the Labour party will probably lose the two members in my household.

Hugo's link to the petition shows that there are things we agree on though, so maybe that's where to focus.
Evenaftermorninoon all....

Thank you for this....I'm starting to find that coming in here and writing something is getting increasingly difficult - I'm starting to feel that if I don't agree with certain posters (on Northern Ireland/Falklands Conflict, for example) I'm going to be castigated as a 'stupid useless unthinker'....and my view may or may not coincide with Corbyn....but I can like/support someone and not necessarily agree with everything they say....please see Burnham....who I am very happy to have as the leader of Labour/the opposition....it's just that, in my view as an outsider, pieces like this are a 'breath of fresh air' as one of the respondees' put it....

Jeremy Corbyn: My radical plan for the arts will make Britain happier
Labour leadership frontrunner Jeremy Corbyn says he will invest in the arts, protect the BBC and ensure every child can learn a musical instrument

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... ppier.html

....and in the Telegraph, no less - when I took the poll, the result was 63% in agreement....my prediction would be that I'm going to be told that this is a completely absolutely unworkable and fantasist policy.....

....and, I found this (long read) talking about Peoples QE etc....I live in Hope (just north of Peterborough) that I am not now going to be responded to with 'just wrong' style posts - I would (genuinely) be interested to know what the 'bad' is with regard to this?

PQE is sound economics but is not in the QE family

http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=31626

...and whilst I'm about it, another question....I sense a great deal of hostility from within Labour (and Labour members) towards Diane Abbot, and while I have deep reservations about anyone taking the shilling to share airtime with Portaloo and Brillohead, I can also see some positives - at the risk of being shouted at, what did she do that was so bad?
I don't know what Diane Abbot did that was so bad, Lonewolfie, good question though.
I'm a Labour party member.
The next Labour party leader has my support.

Re Diane Abbot. My objection is that, although I believe her heart to be in the right place, she falls apart under scrutiny and cannot marshall her arguments. And yet, she seems to get more outings as Labour spokesperson than anyone else. E.g. QT, AQ, TW. I would have difficulty marshalling my arguments under pressure too; but I'm not the one taking all the polical gigs. I believe she sent her kid to a fee-paying school as well although he said that was down to him. We need better spokespeople for the left getting more airtime.

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 2:50 pm

ONS - Deaths related to drug poisoning in England and Wales, 2014 registrations
03 September 2015

- There were 3,346 drug poisoning deaths registered in England and Wales in 2014, the highest since comparable records began in 1993.

- Of these, 2,248 (or 67%) were drug misuse deaths involving illegal drugs.

- The mortality rate from drug misuse was the highest ever recorded at 39.9 deaths per million population.

- Males were over 2.5 times more likely to die from drug misuse than females (58.0 and 21.9 deaths per million population for males and females respectively).

- Deaths involving heroin and/or morphine increased by almost two-thirds between 2012 and 2014, from 579 to 952 deaths.

- Deaths involving cocaine increased sharply to 247 in 2014 – up from 169 deaths in 2013.

- People aged 40 to 49 had the highest mortality rate from drug misuse (88.4 deaths per million population); followed by people aged 30 to 39 (87.9 deaths per million).

- In England there was a 17% rise in the drug misuse mortality rate in 2014, to 39.7 per million population, while in Wales the rate fell by 16% to 39.0 deaths per million, the lowest since 2006.

- Within England, the North East had the highest mortality rate from drug misuse in 2014 for the second year running (69.3 deaths per million population), while London had the lowest (25.4 deaths per million).

- All figures presented in this bulletin are based on deaths registered in a particular calendar year. Out of the 3,346 drug-related deaths registered in 2014, half (1,682) occurred in years before 2014.

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/subnation ... ain-points" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Willow904 · Post by **Willow904** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 2:50 pm

citizenJA wrote:So Osborne is really just lying again.

No, he's being extremely disingenuous. 216 is the number of Syrian refugees we have accepted to be relocated and settled in the Uk. 5,000 is the number since 2011 which have managed to reach the UK and claim asylum since 2011, despite Cameron's best efforts to halt them at Calais. The following clears it up.
https://fullfact.org/factcheck/immigrat ... gees-45984" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

PorFavor · Post by **PorFavor** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 2:50 pm

LadyCentauria wrote:
PorFavor wrote:Does anyone here remember "Twizzle"? I do but, looking at the dates, it must have made an enormous impression upon me that I remember it. Now, "Sarah and Hoppity" (slightly later) I can understand remembering.

Bring back Tufty and the "Felix" Cat Club!
No no no no no no!!! Twizzle freaked me out and as for Sarah and... eurgh! They were horribly spooky. Gave me nightmares and gave my younger siblings a way to reduce their big brave elder to a quivering wreck, stuffing my fingers in my ears and running crying from the room!
Bring back Tufty, Muffin the Mule, Tales of the Riverbank, (what was it that Spotty the Dog was in?) Pogle's Wood, Noggin the Nog, the original Magic Roundabout, and all such good things and ban the very mention of those other ones

Ah! Perhaps fear is why I remember "Twizzle".

Oh, and the biggest spotty dog in the world was in "The Woodentops". As were Sam and Mrs Scrubbitt (sp?), if memory serves. The Scrubbitts were the "help".

ohsocynical · Post by **ohsocynical** » Thu 03 Sep, 2015 2:55 pm

LadyCentauria wrote:
PorFavor wrote:Does anyone here remember "Twizzle"? I do but, looking at the dates, it must have made an enormous impression upon me that I remember it. Now, "Sarah and Hoppity" (slightly later) I can understand remembering.

Bring back Tufty and the "Felix" Cat Club!
No no no no no no!!! Twizzle freaked me out and as for Sarah and... eurgh! They were horribly spooky. Gave me nightmares and gave my younger siblings a way to reduce their big brave elder to a quivering wreck, stuffing my fingers in my ears and running crying from the room!
Bring back Tufty, Muffin the Mule, Tales of the Riverbank, (what was it that Spotty the Dog was in?) Pogle's Wood, Noggin the Nog, the original Magic Roundabout, and all such good things and ban the very mention of those other ones

Spot the dog was part of the Woodentop family. A couple of years ago, my 49 year old son managed to find a DVD of the Woodentops. You should have seen his face