louisiana

It's probably downed tools in sympathy with the Plough bus stop (north bound) which has similarly been out of action since July.

Yes W**f, but which is worse, Wetherspoon or Harvester?

Keef, they can believe in fish fingers for all I care. Nothing to do with me. What I do care about about is people hammering on my door and *bothering me* without any kind of invitation while I am working hard earning a crust. Repeatedly. The god botherers far outnumber any other type of cold callers (more than 10 to 1). There is a TPS to stop such people phoning me, and similar services to stop such people writing to me and faxing me, by law. But far more bothersome are the people on my property, without invitation. No joke when they jam their finger in the bell hard - very loud - for a full 60 seconds, insisting that you answer it. I need to concentrate hard to do my work, and always have very tight deadlines that are difficult to meet, involving long and tiring hours. Dealing with these kinds of people basically throws my concentration and workflow for a considerable period of time.

From the ticket sales - ticket sales! so ppl have to pay for this stuff! - it seems that apathy reigns.

Well said, Katie. We have a 'high street' that caters for most tastes, and we are lucky to have the range of shops, restaurants etc. we have. Perhaps we only argue about it because we care about it so much!

Thankfully we have not reached the hoity-toity heights of the middle class housewives of the major cities of northern Spain, who feel it necessary to dress up in fur coat (no, it never went out of fashion there) and gold jewellery to buy their fish in the morning.

If it's fashion, it's not uncool. And if it's uncool, it's not fashion. No?

A locked thread in the family room? I'm stunned. I always thought families were full of such nice people :-S

MM, I think the crap bread issue is a wider problem, not just among hotels. It's difficult to even find a restaurant that cares about the bread it provides. In my books, a restaurant that doesn't take bread seriously is not worth taking seriously.

The only hotel chains I trust for food are the small ones: Malmaison and Hotel du Vin. Mal does excellent breakfasts.

DJKillaQueen Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > But an opinion requires fact if it is to then be > acted upon you would think......yet even > government often shapes policy based on > 'impression' or 'opinion' rather than fact. Is it > just something we as humans can't seem to stop > ourselves from doing. The last government pontificated a lot about 'evidence-based policy', but it never seemed to like the evidence.

I don't think opinions can be wrong. 'I think the Pope should be shot' is an opinion and is as valid as any other opinion. I think the problem lies with (a) an inability to distinguish fact from fantasy, and fact from opinion, and (b) a complete absence of logic, both of which are subsets of a complete lack of general education.

Could I shorten that one to: 'people who make a voluble public display of their ignorance'? On the 'averages' one, it's clear that quite a few people have no grasp of basic school-level stats.

"The Pope is a little gay" - Radio 4 I think they were referring to the shiny red Gucci shoes.

I can absolutely recommend chocolate hobnobs. In fact I've eaten half the packet. :)

I'm right behind the NSS and the BHA but I can't be bothered to protest. So apathy rules :)

No, this is another brand entirely, not a high street name/brand. They use it to make up any F&B colour. Little Greene have some good colours - that's the other colour card I'm using.

Thanks Dita. Yes, they are fab, aren't they? I particularly like the fact they do Farrow & Ball colours in a cheaper version. Saving me a fortune. :) And as you say, the chaps in there are pretty helpful.

Does anyone know what the opening hours are for H White/Whites in Brockley Rise in Forest Hill - paints and decorating. Their website is next to useless and has no opening hours, and obviously I can't call them when they are not open.

DJKillaQueen Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The best one had to be the window cleaner > pretending to be a happy customer recommending his > company. The OP had the username of said > company...remember that one? > > Of course as window cleaners go, he wasn't a pathc > on Katie's gardening services! My fave was the one (last month) who (it turned out) sold their story to the News of the World and ate nothing but Bounty bars, selling childcare. I think most people missed it as it was all happening in the About this forum section. But while Admin challenged with all the facts at his fingertips and let the whole thing run (several days), it was a hoot.

I think Narnia is referring to 1st time posters who are recommending something... that often ends up being connected to the poster. Yes, first-time poster recommending anything should be taken with a pinch of salt. In any case, if they've never posted on EDF before, how are you to judge whether their recommendations are worth anything at all? They could be the type of people who - God forbid - sell their story to the News of the World and eat nothing but Bounty bars. B)

showboat Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Why is it that people really object to a large > compsny like Wetherspoons coming to the area? > > I've been in the hospitality industry for 11 years > now - and currently work for Fullers - so I have a > lot of sympathy with those small independants who > get squeezed hard by the big boys. This is a > fickle and capricious business where, as someone > once said, you can do everything right and stiil > fail. Wetherspoons have been around since 1984, > and on the stock market since 1992. Has it occured > to it's enemies that it might actually be > providing a service that quite a lot of folk seem > to want? > > I don't defend Wetherspoons on the ground of cost. > I defend it because it's still in business. People > have this rose-tinted view of what a local pub > should be - but actually it's a massive amount of > work. Just ask Scott from the Bishop, I'm sure > he'll tell you. Wetherspoons - let me say again - > is STILL IN BUSINESS, when many others aren't. And > small tenants can blame the pubcos all they want, > but they knew what they were getting into. The > price of the beer from the brewery is rarely the > sole reason that a place fails. Too often vanity > on the owners part, or a misjudgement of the local > market is a more central flaw. I can point to one pub in this area that was shut down without notice to anyone owing to factors that had nothing to do with the pub or its management at all. Thankfully, the other parties saw sense after a few days, and it's now open again. And another pub, not in this area, where a developer had swung conversion into flats with the local planning authority. During the property boom, there was no way not to make more money out of development of a property in this way than running any kind of business, pub or otherwise (a different story now maybe?). So examples of how decisions about the future of a pub may *sometimes* have not much to do with the pub and how it is run. It is not always a straightforward story. The pubs situation is not helped by the 'everyone thinks they can run a pub' factor, so lots of eedjuts sign away their lives to pubco's on loopy contracts, and then find themselves facing ludicrous charges under an enforced monopoly (or even lose the pub when the pubco finds they are buying in beer from non-pubco firm at two-thirds of the price). > > I may not have made my points very well - it's > late and I need to sleep! I don't tend to drink in > Wetherspoons myself, because I feel they lack > atmosphere. But many others do go there. Are they > ALL wrong? They are not wrong at all. But they are helping to prop up a system which is severely dysfunctional. There are some lovely pubs, but for me the lovliest tend to have strange governance, such as being owned by a local community trust that appoints the managers etc. There are also not-good independently-owned pubs. But there are in my experience no lovely pubs run/owned by the large firms.

blackmamba Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Here you go: > http://www.aaanimalcontrol.com/Professional-Trappe > r/gallery/rat001.jpg Rats in the rafters! Nice!

Wouldn't you have to be quite accurate with a pea shooter?

Shrieking women. If there's anything liable to make me go out and buy a shotgun, it's shrieking women. You know, the ones that shriek and scream for 3-4-5-6 hours when drunk, shriek for four days 24/7 in the tent next to yours etc. Have they got a birth defect or defective gene or summat?