grabot

So, market forces are a transcendent expression of natural law? Pushing us towards a perfectly functioning Utopia. Sainsbury's executive decision makers are infallible as market forces dictate their decisions. All things are justifiable if driven by market forces?

India, which on the whole relies more on family run shops, of course, has no road traffic accidents!

An old lady suffering from minor head injuries in Torbay is hardly a cause for panic: "The woman, who suffered minor head injuries, was a passenger in one of the vehicles and was taken to Torbay Hospital." The Australian research is irrelevant as it is sourced from Australia; a very different place. Having spent much of my teenage years watching Neighbours and Home and Away, I am something of an expert on Australia. Misadventures are part of an Australian's day-to-day experience, hence high accident rates.

It's the route I take to Craven Cottage. It works pretty well as only one form of transport is involved. It's easy to say: ten minutes on this train, 10 minutes on that bus, aggregate it up and treat that as the total. That ignores time: getting to train stations, waiting for buses and trains, getting between buses and trains etc. I remember a house builder in the area suggesting that a trip from East Dulwich to Greenwich takes 20 minutes. Fine with the aid of teleportation and perfectly synchronised transport. Anyway, whatever you do, do not assume that you can get from ED to Parson's Green in 40 minutes on the day of a strike. You may be very lucky, but it would be a risk. Victoria is traditionally where camera crews converge on strike days to film people's desperation to get on buses. Equally, however strikes can be complete non-events with largely functioning public transport and a slightly lower number of people using it.

Probably your best bet is to get the 37 bus to Putney and then walk the rest of the way. If you can, to be on the absolute safe side, allow a couple of hours for the journey and get a coffee in Putney if you are early.

I bought two halves of bitter shandy at the Vale. It cost me ?5. I queried it, but the bar maid assured me that the price was correct. At those prices I can't really afford to go there and haven't been back.

A little known fact about librarians is that they evolved from badgers.

They all wait patiently in the "that Adventure place" for the second coming of John Wayne Gacy and HH Holmes; the archetypal clown and property developer.

Clowns and estate agents tend to be pretty jolly. Superficially at least... Perhaps librarians would benefit from wearing extremely large shoes and pin stripe suits to achieve peek jollity.

They smile at me too.

I think that people tend to idealise Australia a little too. I am sure that it is fun when you are young free and single and are happy to spend most of your income on a centrally located flat. But, the reality that I hear, from a number of Australian friends is: long working hours, 60 hours weeks are not atypical; unbearable heat in summer and expensive property, life in Sydney invariably seems to require a one hour bus commute from a souless suburb, if you want a reasonably sized house. You could of course move to somewhere like Perth, which is cheaper, but an Australian friend has just moved back from there after finding if utterly tedious. My wish for this current economic crisis would be for people to learn to enjoy what they have instead of constantly seeking something else. I feel privileged to live in East Dulwich, and if prices come down and make that privilige available to others, that is a good thing in my book.

EdOldie Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Had a look at that chart and its very puzzling. First there?s a stealth phase, then the awareness phase followed by the mania phase and finally the blow off phase. What does it all mean? Imagine a thirsty and relatively individualistic herd. A few smell water and sneak off to have a drink. They let a few of their mates know and awareness grows. Eventually word spreads to the entire herd and they stampede towards the now diminishing water supply. In the adrenal fuelled panic any sign of water raises hopes disproportionately. Eventually, exhausted, the herd surrender.

Looks like a bull trap to me.

The references to the White Lady remind me of the Santeria story of Osun Osun It has a happy ending...

Richard Yates is fashionable at the moment with the hype around Revolutionary Road. The novel is very good, I do not know anyone who has not appreaciated his work.

Barrage balloons would be pretty effective.

The first plane on Sunday morning was 4am and it was a particularly noisy beast; I did look at my clock and I was in a slightly bad mood for the rest of the day. Still, previously no postings since the end of September, so, we've had quite a long break. I have been angry about the governments blatant disregard for hard working Londoners in the past, the lies and broken promises about nighttime flights. But, I have learnt to accept it as an inevitable force, like gravity. No point in trying to do anything about it. They don't care about us.

I am inclined to agree that crime is becoming increasingly problematic in London. I wonder whether the police feel as though they have good leadership. It may be a false analogy, but in the footballing world, a change of leadership can turn a seemingly hopeless situation around: look at Fulham.

Cassius Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > My mum liked Princess Diana.............. The Queen is pretty cool. She has dorgis, a daschund-corgi cross. How cool is that. I believe that she is allowed to eat swans, a good thing I say, I find them quite frightening.

Elves actually. The little gits are ruining my life.

Gosh, this is getting very confusing. So, fearing a breed of dog is analogous to racism? The dog fearer is in that case a terrible person. Shame on you all. To parallel this absurd false syllogism and extend my earlier metaphor I have a question: I am not afraid of moggy cats, but I am afraid of tigers. Am I bad person? I love the way that people automatically work their way through Schopenhauer's "38 ways to win an argument" without necessarily being aware of it. Looks like this debate is over as we have hit number 38.

To wade back into the dog debate. I have always been curious about the owners of bull terriers. Perhaps they can be lovely dogs, but there are many breeds that can be lovely: Shitzus, Bichons etc. The difference with these dogs is that when they freak out they are unlikely to cause any serious harm. Why would someone take the risk of buying a bull terrier when they could buy a relatively harmless dog? In a given set of circumstances I would have thought that any animal has the potential to attack. Tigers can be lovely, and moggies can be vicious, but I know which one I would rather have in the house with my young daughter. I guess that I am missing the point somewhere. I would love to know what the point is.

I agree with Bob and I am afraid my colleagues, many of whom have previously worked in fraud prevention. Responding appropriately is tricky though. Unfortunately, many of modern life's financial conveniences also represent vulnerabilities. The best advice seems to be to use a credit card, rather than a debit card where possible; apparently the burden is on the credit card company to prove blame rather than the cardholder.

I appreciate that for trivialities the search function is great. But, postings often ramble off into "witticism" or political commentary. My general rule is that as postings grow they become less relevant. In this case I would say that a fresh posting is justified to provide emphasis. In fact, I have just hit this posting with a big fat non-sequitur myself. Sorry about that guys. I am in a bad mood because of the attempted fraud on my card. My colleagues advise me not to use debit cards, not to have internet banking and to always use cash; what use is that?

I had the same experience today. What is the relevance of the search function? This is a serious matter and if it is brought to individual's attention multiple times, I would consider that to be a very good thing. My transactions on the account in question have been quite limited in recent weeks. I generally use my card in supermarkets, cash for smaller transactions in independent shops.