Marmora Man

It's not so much leaving SE London as leaving the proximity to one of the best cities in the world - London. Theatres with plays on for more than a week at a time, experimental theatre, classic theatre with classic actors, the National Theatre, restaurants of almost infinite variety, films to see when they're released not several weeks later, Sunday shopping in Oxford Street, the Army & Navy Club, the ability to source unusual ingredients for unusual recipes, Trafalgar Square, the view of the Liberal Club roofs from St James' park, the gaslit alleyways off Maiden's Lane, 24 hours shopping, watching London's New Year's fireworks from our roof, Borough Market, the Tube, London buses, Angels & Gyspsies, lunch at The Bishop, bread from East Dulwich Deli, veg from Pretty Traditional, Greenwich Maritime Museum, Imperial War Museum and all the other museums, the London skyline seen from ED, William Rose, Postman's Park, The Cheese Block, SMBS, Peckham Rye, watching London go by from the top left hand seat of a double decker bus, the coffee shop in Soho where I've bought coffee for nearly 40 years. There's more I know and I could go on. Mr & Mrs MM are planning to leave for the West Country later this year - the real west, beyond the Tamar where the maps are marked "here be dragons". I know we'll want to come back to London regularly to get a fix of all / some of the above.

Alternatively try this formula: The Tree Aging Formula Take a diameter measurement (or circumference measurement) using a tape measure at Breast Height or 4.5 feet above stump level. If you are using circumference, you will need to make this calculation to determine the tree diameter: Diameter = Circumference divided by 3.14 (pi) Then calculate the age of the tree by multiplying the tree's diameter by its growth factor: Diameter X Growth Factor = Approximate Tree Age. Growth Factors by Tree Species Red Oak Species - 4.0 Growth Factor White Oak Species - 5.0 Growth Factor Pin Oak Species - 3.0 Growth Factor

I second Penguin68's post. I too felt that that OP and subsequent messages of support were tending to encourage undue suspicion of strangers. This is to the detriment of true community spirit and potentially discourages individuals from coming to the aid or support of others - particularly vulnerable others, in case their motives are questioned.

Gamer - that misleading, erroneous and scurrilous blog has already been aired in an earlier thread about the NHS and rejected by all but the most naive.

Everything has a cost - the accidental death of a horse in a circumstances unrelated to the actual filming (the horse was returning to its stable with its stable lad) seems to me to be an unfortunate, sad and perhaps distressing event but not a reason to cancel a highly regarded and critically lauded show.

Undisputedtruth Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I want to know how much money Marmora Man will make once the NHS bill goes through. ;-) I don't know if that was meant as a "tiongue in cheek" comment but I confirm that I have no financial interest in the outcome of the bill. I have a professional interest and desire to see the NHS improve and become more efficient and effective.

HBO have decided to cancel filming future episodes of Dustin Hoffman's series "Luck" due to a third death of a horse. See BBC Report for info. Is this a proportionate response to the third accidental death?

StraferJack Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Is the road we are starting on. Opening up to > competition. No? No - it is not the road the bill is embarking on. This "privatisation" cry is a red herring. Nowhere in the Bill is there even a hint of a suggestion that patients will have to pay for NHS services. In the USA everyone needs to medical insurance or be eligible for Medicare / Medicaid. In UK privat, charitable and social enterprise organisations can compete to deliver care to NHS patients in return for the NHS tariff price (which has an inbuilt deflator to encourage efficiency).

Competition is exactly what is required. Offer lots of organisations the option of winning major, fixed price, contracts for provision of healthcare devices. Set, as part of the contract, outcome quality measures. Result - organisations designing systems and processes to optimise the quality of care and outcomes against a fixed price. At present the NHS mindset doesn't, generally, work this way and is too schlerotic to make effective change quickly - competition will stimulate change.

Dear LL, You're rather out of touch if you truly a genuine regular reader of EDF. This subject has been debated here already and your union inspired "cut n paste" is simply scaremongering and incorrect. My position - posted elsewhere I know from personal experience that the NHS is a massive bureaucratic and sclerotic, inefficient organisation that is barely fir for purpose today - let alone for the future and inevitable increased demand. If you strip out much of the rhetoric the essence of the reforms are just three: a. Get rid of a layer of management - a good thing. b. Replace manager led Primary Care Trusts with clinically led Care Commissioning Groups - a good thing c. Make it easier for non state run organisations to provide care - free at the point of delivery - at NHS tariff rates. Another good thing as it will encourage change and competition (NOT for clarity commercial competition necessarily but competition to do better and provide the best, competition to innovate). Innovation is desperately needed in the NHS, identifying how to achieve more with less. How to provide the care in the most appropriate and least costly setting. The current NHS management structures are biased toward maintaining large white elephant hospitals, hospitals which are beloved of the public who would, ideally, have one on every street corner. However, they are not the best place to provide much of the care that our ageing population needs - but while most clinicians in hospitals can see the changes that are required the self perpetuating managerial class that run the PCTs and Hospital Trusts have been incredibly slow to initiate change. Again from personal experience of working in a Healthcare Charity I have seen a contract for care removed from the charity and passed to the local Trust because - and I quote "If we didn't support the Trust it would have to lay off staff and might become bankrupt". Yet the charity was providing care with no elective waiting time whatsoever, had no MRSA or other hospital acquired infections, a lower return to theatre, a lower revision rate and higher quality KPIs in every area.

Erect a guillotine at the end of the street, wear a red cap and sit knitting beside a larger wicker basket full of heads - see if anyone comments or joins you.

This thread all boils down to a desire to "tax the rich". Understandable envy but very poor economics. The top 1% of UK earners contribute close to 25% of all HMRC income tax take, the top 5% (roughly all those earning more than ?60,000 pa) contribute 40%. So the "rich" are already shouldering a fair share of the tax burden - perhaps even more than a fair share. Why pile more on them? What might they do - for those with patience to read it the Adam Smith Institute Paper might, perhaps, be enlightening.

Found it. "Corporal Cuckoo" by Gerald Kersh - a short story in one of an annual series of Sci Fi collections under the Star banner. Have managed to download a copy to Kindle app but not, yet, found a hard copy. Thanks everyone - particularly Nashoi

Over do speed control, greenery and traffic calming measures could further exacerbate the Colyton / Scutari / Marmora morning / afternoon rat run through residential roads. I believe the plans should also include a chicane or some other measure(s) on Scutari to discourage this.

It's stealing - no argument, and it's wrong. Taking flowers from a display bed planted up by council gardeners in Peckham Rye Park would be wrong - they're council funded for everyone to enjoy in public and not in private. Taking flowers from a display bed planted up by council gardeners on a roundabout would be wrong - they're council funded for everyone to enjoy etc. Taking flowers from the window boxes planted up by council gardeners would be wrong - they're council funded for everyone to enjoy etc. Taking flowers from a display of daffodils on Piermont Green planted up by council gardeners is wrong - they're council funded for everyone to enjoy etc. Growing your own flowers and cutting them is fine. Buying them from a florists is fine.

Again your logic is fuzzy. Earnings: Taxed Capital Gains: Taxed Gift: Unless minimal (I think the threshold is about ?7k for family - less for non family) taxed Lottery: Untaxed - but its a 1 in 14 million chance of winning so very few in this bracket.

SC - you miss a major point. The majority of non inherited assets are purchased from taxable income. To then tax a notional value of the asset to to make a double tax. For example - a top earner, liable to the 50% tax rate, buys a property for ?5m cash. He has earnt this money in the previous year - a conbination of salary & bonus. To have ?5m "cash in hand" he will have had to pay ?5m in income tax. You are proposing to then tax the ?5m asset at some figure (to be decided) every year thereafter - efectively increasing his tax to something in excess of 50% on the original ?10m. However, if he had spent the ?5m on a yacht, a damn great blingy diamond for his wife or mistress - no tax is incurred. It's a silly idea. A new Council Tax band could work - but that's a very different proposition to your wealth tax.

So, Simply put, SC you want the State to forcibly dispose of an individual's private asset(s) in order to secure your ambition of "fairness". Seems to me to be a pretty unfair proposition.

I'm a happily married man who loves his wife. It works for me and for my wife. It has added value to our life together. I believe marriage should be encouraged - why on earth would I object to any other two people (gay / straight or otherswise) enjoying that same pleasure and fulfilment?

I'm struggling to remember / find the name of a book I read years ago. Probably generically a sic fi book (I'm talking about late 60s / early 70s) in which the "hero" / protagonist was a military man back in Middle Ages (or possibly Dark Age - pre 1066 with Vikings etc) - wounded, he was treated with honey &, I think, cobwebs which somehow made him almost immortal and he then became a warrior in every major conflict that followed, up to and including D Day. Nicholas Monsaratt wrote something similar "The Master Mariner" but that was entirely sea based - this was more army warfare orientated. Does it ring any bells with anyone - or can anyone give me a lead?

PeckhamRose Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > MarmoraMan, apart from never being able to get up > early enough on a Sunday to do that sort of stuff, > may I ask where you park the car? I find it hard > enough to park a bike in that area! Queensborough Road - just off the Hackney Road opposite a pub called "The Marksman" and a road called Horatio Road - for some reason there's a Nelson theme going on in the area. You do need to be there early - say by 08.00, which means leaving ED at about 7.30. However, the area does great breakfasts - Brick Lane "real" beigels, or more locally more ordinary bagels with choices of fillings. We usually opt for a quick first purchase of heavy stuff, take back to car - breakfast in Spanish cafe (chorizo, scrambled egg and patatas braves today) with the paper and then a final run past all the stalls. Highly recommended - it has changed character since we first went in 2003, now far more fashionable and chi chi with Lordship Lane style twee shops selling stuff you don't really need - but still good for competitively priced plants and cut flowers.

I drove back from Columbia St market this morning - laden with garden plants, past the Tower of London and across Tower Bridge. I was reminded of my youth when my father would take me, and my sister, to watch the escapologist perform in the square outside the Tower. Wrapped in chains, passers by and the audience would be asked to try the strength of the chain and the padlocks and the complexity of the chain parcel he had wrapped himself in - then, within 2 minutes, he would "do a Houdini" and escape. Anyone else old enough to remember this?

We're off to Columbia St market tomorrow to start re-stocking the garden with shrubs, flowers, herbs for Spring. Highly recommended - tho' parking can nowadays be a pain. Arrive early, have a bagel & coffee for breakfast with the papers - collect stuff and depart for an afternoon's planting. There is an excellent Spanish cafe with chorizo sardines there too - with excellent espressos but, sadly no chocolate & churros.

Illybilly - there are a number of MPs that have served in the Armed Forces and others who are Territorial Army or other reservists. Your criticism of MPs for not being in the Armed Forces is illogical - they've chosen a job - a situation that generally which precludes holding down another job.

Dust