jamster

Of course if you do go, give a big donation :)

I didn't suggest that they do not welcome visitors who want to learn more about the great work they do. In my opinion, though, to treat it like a petting zoo is to do a disservice to the people who are volunteering their time to rehome the cats and dogs.

I wouldn't have considered Battersea as a tourist attraction. All the animals in there need homes, not visitors. If your son loves cats and dogs why not adopt one? Good advice for the Children's Zoo instead.

On O2 you can get the "Tu Go" app for your phone. It will divert calls via your Wifi.

Why should 'He' come before 'She'?! All the men in this thread still miss the point.

If you are bored of pedants, why are you on an internet forum? In fact, are you even allowed here. I thought the internet was exclusively reserved for people who don't have anything better to do than pedantry.

Thanks. It feels like we should put it to a show of hands. "This house believes..." ;-)

I agree. LB's posts show an extreme amount of confirmation bias towards issues that are (very reasonably) important issues to her. The trouble is that this particular matter is a poor or unworthy example of those issues.

Affording dignity to the dead == a moral standard. I don't see the inverse correlation between her dignity and his celebrity, myself.

This thread has some valid issues being raised (domestic violence, cult of celebrity, gutter press etc.). What is wrong for me is that the poorly articulated arguments of the OP appear to jump to conclusions that these issues ate all directly applicable here. In particular I think it is insulting to the victim to conclude that this is a posterchild case of sexism or evidence of declining moral standards of society before we even have all of the facts. To do so seems to suggest that (if found guilty) Pistorious' individual guilt is partially mitigated by collective guilt. Why don't we give the legal system a chance to establish what happened. Then, in the fullness of time, we can have a proper criminological debate. The tabloids will be tabloids. The alternative is a censored press.

Otta Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I've had a few Sunday beers and have no idea about > anything serious. Liked!

legalbeagle Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > To go back and answer earlier question, I've > already answered why my "alternative" headline > referenced disability a page or so back. Apologies I missed that. > "Reeva Steenkamp shot dead by disabled boyfriend > who is now charged with her murder". > > Why haven't we read that headline? > > Because celebrity is more important than anything. > Because even in death, a bright talented woman > cannot be accorded equal status to her boyfriend > if he's famous... The extent to which we are happy > to peer at his fall from grace, and not care at all > how she is devalued, plastered across front pages > in a bikini, is shocking. When I read this, I thought that this thread was about you finding the coverage of this alleged crime degrading to Ms Steenkamp. Oscar Pistorius is a well known sportsman. His celebrity is secondary to that, and at this point in time his involvement in this matter is still unexplained. To subjugate to him to being the "disabled boyfriend" is equally degrading. If we take your point to be that the media should not propagate discriminatory or degrading perspectives in a sensational way simply to get a salacious headline, I think this is reasonable comment. To be honest I found it hard to take your point as so, because of the implication that you only care about this going one way (men devaluing women) based on your own use of sensationalism: "**Unsurprisingly** all the men...". Nevertheless, I'm very happy to be corrected that your real concern is about the cult of celebrity. > Disabled mentioned to draw attention to how we > use facts, and what their relevance is to what > we are reporting. For example, why is it > reported in headlines that she is a model? To answer your point specifically, her being a model is relevant here as it is biographical of the victim. Google "stockbroker murdered", "doctor murdered", "factory worker murdered" ... etc... and you will find plenty of equivalent examples. At best it is formulaic, rather than inappropriate, reporting. > The extent to which we are happy to peer at his > fall from grace, and not care at all how she is > devalued, plastered across front pages in a bikini, > is shocking. The fact is that she **was** a model and as a result the newspapers have a large library of photos of her, photos that she presumably got paid to be in, and so they don't have to resort to stealing a blurry photo from Facebook. There is a question about whether this is dignified (which to my mind is a separate question as to whether it is debasing or denigratory). But your point is about our interest in Pistorius' celebrity, right? > Because celebrity is more important than anything. > Because even in death, a bright talented woman cannot > be accorded equal status to her boyfriend if he's > famous. Is this a story about running fast or about > murder? ... > I don't think there is more value in telling > us about a murder just because someone famous > did it. I think we just want to read it > because we are obsessed with what celebs do. The NY Times has an interesting take on this: "[The matter...] stunned a nation that had elevated Mr. Pistorius as an emblem of the ability to overcome acute adversity and a symbol of South Africa?s ability to achieve on the world stage. ... Even in an era that has seen idolized sports heroes fall from grace at a rapid clip, from the doping of Mark McGwire and Lance Armstrong to the philandering of Tiger Woods, Mr. Pistorius?s arrest stood out for the severity of the charges, the unique hardships he had overcome and the outsize triumphs he had won, not just against other disabled athletes but against able-bodied ones as well." (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/15/sports/oscar-pistorius-shooting-south-africa.html?_r=0) So perhaps that is why his disability is relevant and why the matter has been reported in this way. Nothing to do with the cult of celebrity? Thought provoking stuff - thanks for starting the thread.

>> "Reeva Steenkamp shot dead by disabled boyfriend who is now charged with her murder". Why is his disability relevant to the alleged crime?

Carry a bottle of water ... one dousing and he won't come back. Although it's obviously totally harmless to them, they hate it and quickly get the message.

Plusnet is a subsidiary of BT and use BT kit; might be worth checking if anyone in the area on BT is having trouble.

If you are getting poor speeds via Virgin Media Cable (as opposed to the ADSL variant) then make sure you call Virgin Media out to get them to take a look at it. If it is a problem with the line into your house then they can fix that pretty quickly. It usually involved moving you up the priority in the street cabinet (well, almost: they move you to a position in the cabinet that will benefit from higher signal strength so the effects of attenuation are reduced). If it is a problem at their network level (the UBR, where all the local connections are aggregated) - i.e. because they've sold too many connections in your area - then they will never usually admit to that. This is characterised by very poor speeds at peak times. It is just a waiting game to see when they improve it. All consumer broadband is sold contended, or another way to put it - all consumer broadband is oversold. There are various points along the network where efficiencies can be made by relying on the principle that not all users will use their connection at the same time. Some are worse than others and of course the big consumer players - Virgin Media, BT, Talk Talk - who compete on price - are incentivised to run their networks as close to the invisible line between acceptable and poor performance as they can. This goes for various 'traffic management' technologies employed too. On a macro level, most network providers will keep an eye on network loads and make adjustments and add capacity over time to deal with problem spots. Unfortunately, few providers will give any insight into their plans and you can be left waiting. You are best to vote with your feet and move to another provider if good quality broadband is important to your work or life.

e-dealer - I saw people wearing Southwark Council jackets on the morning of the accident surveying the scene. There was also a police photographer in attendance.

A bit strong to claim that the musicians at Big Chill are amateur, just because you haven't heard of them, Jeremy.