Rioting spreading through London & to other English cities.

I know comparing Britain with Egypt is nuts because I have been told so by A2K members,
but still it is nice to know that I am not the only one. Here is more

The Chinese are saying this to make political capital,
you're saying it because you're a ******* idiot.

i have no desire to watch the video,
i do what i feel is right depending on the situation,

[

izzythepush wrote:

but I thought that even you would not be so crass
as to insult the memory of three dead men.

Chamberlain, Churchill and Hitler ????

Goodness, its been a while since we 've heard from Rebecca.

I hope that she is still OK.

Aww, David, thanks for your concern. I'm fine.

I went to visit a friend in Basingstoke which can be a little bit of a rough, old town, but made it there and back safe and sound.
According to my friend, who could be considered fairly poor, and at one point was homeless and indigent, there was a small attempt at rioting at the Toys R Us in Popley (which is a section of Basingstoke) but nothing came of it.
I asked him what he thinks about the whole thing and he called it an 'opportunistic greed-fest'.

We had some long discussions about it, and when I tried to talk about benefit cuts and dissatisfaction and lack of jobs for young people, he said that from what he observes in the circles in which he travels - which are decidedly NOT middle class and posh (except for me - ha, ha, that's a joke - I'm middle class but NOT posh) a lot of the people he runs into wouldn't do the jobs if there were jobs to do - so there are his two cents.
And I tend to believe him - he's an insider- right there getting the inside scoop from the 'unwashed masses' (as he called them).

In other words, they say stuff to him that they would never say to an outsider like me -American, educated, liberal-minded do-gooder that I am seen to be.

While I was there, went to a pub on a housing estate where there's this little tiny Thai lady who makes Thai meals for £4.00, and you can play pool.

There was this guy we played pool with there, and he'd ridden his bike there but had had a little too much to drink. We didn't want him riding his bike home drunk, so as we'd parked my car in a friend's yard and walked the rest of the way and this guy couldn't even walk far enough to get back to my car for me to drive him home (I hadn't been drinking), I said, 'Wait here - I'll go get the car and come back and pick you up and we'll drive you home', but I got lost on my way to the car because I went out the front entrance of the pub, forgetting that we'd walked in through the back garden and I ended up on a different street in a stange town
So I'm walking through a housing estate at 12:30 am and this young man in a hoodie walks by and I think, 'Oh ****...should I ask, or should I just put my head down and try to make it home alive and intact,' but I decided not to keep wandering in the wilderness and asked, 'Can you tell me how to get to Eastfield Avenue?' and the guy walks me there...nice and polite as can be.
But when I get back, I see the drunk guy taking off on his bike, having grown tired of waiting for me to get back. Anyway, my friend had gotten his number and called him last night and long and short of it, he fell off his bike, hit his head and lay there unconscious until four in the morning when he woke up to find himself okay and alive, but his bike gone.

And I think it was spendius who said that people followed morals and the law out of fear.
I disagree because to my mind morals are not about fear - they're what an individual believes
is an acceptable standard of behavior for him or herself.

One last thing - I'm not going to go back and find it, but you said that you were glad you never had any 'weeping, naked men on your conscience.'
That was my laugh of the day - I think you should make that your signature- except that honestly - given what you did for a living - you very well could have a few weeping, naked men on your conscience- ha, ha, ha - get it?
But then a lot of women (and gay men) probably do too - when you come right down to it.
Enjoy your Sunday.

well there you go, i grasped the concept without wasting my time watching it, glad you're happy

All lawyers may not be subhuman scum, but you definitely are.

well there you go,
i grasped the concept without wasting my time watching it,
glad you're happy

It was a pathetic and wonderful and at the same time a despicable spectacle. Pathetic that human beings should be condemned to spend the greater part of their lives amid such surroundings, because it must be remembered that most of their time was spent on some job or other. When 'The Cave' was finished they would go to some similar 'job', if they were lucky enough to find one. Wonderful, because although they knew that they did more than their fair share of the great work of producing the necessaries and comforts of life, they did not think they were entitled to a fair share of the good things they helped to create! And despicable, because although they saw their children condemned to the same level of degradation, hard labour and privation, yet they refused to help to bring about a better state of affairs. Most of them thought that what had been good enough for themselves was good enough for their children.

Quote:

I am quite aware of who I am superior to, and also quite aware of who I am inferior to.

In what respects?

Foofie wrote:

My Pygmalion reference is not racist. I am just poking fun at the British pomposity in that their class system should supposedly be taught to everyone.

It is racist and dated, as is your assertion that we think the class system should be taught to everyone. Most of us want to get rid of it.

You seem to be constructing your own system in your head anyway, without any help from us. We don't need any 'pro-bono wisdom' from someone whose view of England seems as accurate as Dick Van Dyke's accent.

I wish you Americans would not post so much overnight.

And, can anyone think of a thread which has been improved by the participation of OmSigDavid?

Didn't think so.

Did u SEE the presentation video ????
It is not at all likely that McTag did, either.

Americans post so much overnight (unless this was British understatement humor?) since Americans live in a free society, and have no qualms to present their thoughts, in my opinion.

[Foofie retires to the bathroom medicine cabinet mirror, and starts reciting, "How now brown cow" in the best British accent that can be mustered.]

shows how ignorant you are, and why your opinion is worthless.

And what thoughts some of them are. From some of your posts Foof you're in the bottom class at being somebody worth talking to in the pub. Concerning aesthetic taste you seem to be entirely devoid of it.

Quote:

Americans post so much overnight (unless this was British understatement humor?) since Americans live in a free society, and have no qualms to present their thoughts, in my opinion.

I think it's also because the east standard time in the USA is five hours behind the UK, central is 6 hours behind, mountain 7 hours and pacific 8 hours behind - so when UK'ers are all going to bed - say midnight - it's only 7 oclock in the evening in New York and all down the eastern seaboard and you all can do the rest of the math as to what time it is in the other US time zones.

I don't know if I was included in that Americans posting overnight thing but even though I'm American, I don't post overnight. I just wake up very early in the morning here in England, so it might seem as if I've been up all night posting sometimes, when in fact, I haven't.

But I read an interesting article/op-ed piece in the Times today. I'll see if I can find it online so I won't have to type the whole thing out. Basically what she said is, 'We've given the kids the run of the schools and homes so why is anyone surprised when they take the run of the streets?'

I didn't agree with everything she said, but I thought a lot of it was valid and interesting.