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Zoz,<br> Know what you mean about Toffee Crisps, they’re a favourite of mine too, as well as Double Deckers (and Boost). <br>Perhaps if you were to invest some of your income in Shell, Esso, BP, Nestle, Ladbroke, RTZ, HSBC and Cadbury shares, you could afford to scoff sweets ’til your hearts content from the dividends they’d cough up.:smiley:
Zoz, this is a great topic; thanks for starting it. I’ve enjoyed reading the answers it has prompted and will definitely buy some of the titles mentioned. (I’m off into town tomorrow and will try and find a Lawrence Block book recommended by Tooting for starters.)
For what it’s worth, the most enjoyable book I’ve read in the last twelvemonth has been Chinese Cinderella by Adeline Yen Mah. I originally bought this book for my 11 year-old daughter (an avid reader). She loved it and so did I. It’s an autobiography covering the author’s childhood in China at the time of the Japanese invasion and her later years with an evil stepmother. Inspiring and at times heart-wrenching; only 230-odd pages, but each one a gem.
Good luck with the romance Kotki… but be warned, this could lead to:-<br>a) engagement<br>b) marriage<br>c) mortgage<br>d) children<br>and then…<br>e) voting Conservative :yikes:
I’ve travelled that route myself.<br>p.s. Are her family minted?
Any on here have any strong views on global warming?<br>A part of me suspects that the scare stories we are constantly fed is just alarmist hyperbole pushed by interested parties to ensure their funding continues.<br>Is that too cynical?<br>Wasn’t there some Scandinavian bod who recently had a best-seller published poo-pooing the alarmists?<br>Is time running out to try a polar-bear burger?
An interesting thread and one which makes it a pleasure to spend 10 mins or so in front of the pc.<br>Similar to a thread some months ago contending that, as far as betting was concerned, history was largely bunkum; this equates to "trends" in this thread.<br> To me, very few historical facts are pertinent: the draw yes, but things like SP of winners and age of winners, largely no.<br> History though is complete and utter b*******cks when it comes to soccer and I’m always amazed when otherwise intelligent pundits state that team B are up against it because they’ve never won away at team A’s ground in so many years.<br> Some years ago, when I bet more than I do now on the horses, I spent an absolute age analysing statistics gleaned from the RP 10-year flat results CD on the following themes, trying to get an extra "edge".<br> a) Top jockeys riding at their minimum weight for stables to which they weren’t retained.<br> b) Record of top jockeys when travelling to night meetings where their retainer or main sources of rides didn’t have runners.<br> c) Level of improvement shown by a stables horses when wearing blinkers for the first time.<br> It must have cost me a small fortune on the cost of the printer ink & paper used!<br> As far as the blinkers were concerned, two stables seemed to bring about a larger average improvement than most, but even then you’d have made a level stake loss in supporting them.<br> Only one jockey got near to a level stake profit for the night rides analysis (oddly enough, this was the same jockey who came out top for the minimum weight analysis). But, even then, there was a level stake loss.<br> In the end I concluded that there was nothing to be gained that merited such time-consuming research and anyway, had I analysed a different set of 10 year results, the names would have been different.<br> Anyone else tried a similar slightly off-centre way of tracking things?
Ian is right in thinking that football is an area where the exchanges have a distinct edge over bookies, furthermore, there’s seldom any liquidity problem (at least not on the televised games). (Monday night div1 game Tranmere v Bristol City – approx £1.5m matched so far).<br>What’s more, unlike with the horses, you can have confidence in the integrity of the sport (and those who bet on it) and there is less likelihood of false manipulation of prices by the really big players. <br>Maybe the day will come when so many smallish racing punters will have had enough of feeling they’re on a hiding to nothing that liquidity (on all bar the big races) will be worse than it is now. Just like fishermen have overfished cod to the point of exhaustion, the big betfair manipulators/bots may end up with nothing left to catch in their nets.
So, would it be too simplistic to put the pro and anti fox hunting forum members into one of the following categories? :-
PRO FOX HUNTING: Types 1:<br>  Evil, bloodthirsty upper-class b*****ds. Probably  heavily subsidised landowners / farmers. They enjoy seeing wild animals killed. They also delighted in the demise of the coal, steel, ship-building and motorbike industries. They are intolerant of anyone who disagrees with their opinion on anything, especially fox hunting.
PRO FOX HUNTING: Types 2:<br> An eclectic mix of toffs, rural folk and townies who are horse, dog, fox and countryside lovers. They have weighed up the pros and cons of foxhunting without listening to the rabid rantings of either side and have concluded fox hunting is acceptable.
ANTI FOX HUNTING: Types 1<br> Chip shouldered, lefty, bearded vegetarian townies. Probably social-workers. Lefty class envy makes them certain that Arthur Scargill played no part whatsoever in the demise of the coal industry and that unions have never been so stupid or short-sighted or unable to handle power as to hasten their own demise. Margaret Thatcher is the cause of all this countries current ills. Intolerant of anyone who disagrees with their opinion on anything, especially fox hunting.
ANTI FOX HUNTING: Types 2:<br>An eclectic mix of toffs, rural folk and townies who are horse, dog, fox and countryside lovers. They have weighed up the pros and cons of foxhunting without listening to the rabid rantings of either side and have concluded fox hunting is unacceptable
(Edited by insomniac at 4:41 pm on Sep. 20, 2004)<br>
(Edited by insomniac at 4:45 pm on Sep. 20, 2004)
Ian, you state "…and living in a democracy means tailoring our behaviour to fit in with what’s acceptable to the majority. "<br> Are the majority of people in this country in favour of the death penalty -especially for child or police killers or terrorists ?<br> In the early 1940’s, were the majority of Germans (admittedly it wasn’t a "democracy then) in favour of Hitler’s regime and the laws against jews?<br> The "majority" can sometimes make mistakes too.<br>Having said that, you’re right in this instance; the law should be obeyed.
Cormack,<br> You may well be right in how foxhunting is perceived in years to come. How will they view the ready sanction of abortion nowadays?<br> Not too many foetus escape the kill I’d imagine. Perhaps in the future this disparity in morals will be more of an eye opener than our tolerance of fox hunting.
Humphrey.<br> You state that a positive of a ban on fox hunting will be that some foxes die less painfully: I don’t think that that is so. Gangrene, starvation, hypothermia, road kill, snares, gassing – surely can’t be considered an improvement?<br>All wild foxes die painful deaths (as do all wild animals) that is nature. No fox will die of old age because of this law.<br> There is a myth that shooting foxes is somehow "clean" and swift. Occasssionally this may be so, but, if you use a high velocity rifle you would need to be a marksman in order to ensure that your first shot went through an organ that ensured rapid death (say, the brain). Miss this and the likelihood is that the fox will limp away to endure a slow, tortuous death: not something fox lovers want is it? Use a shotgun and, although you’re more likely to hit a vital organ, as the body is "peppered" most of the shot will get caught near or just under the surface of its skin, a foxes coat is dense, its skin thick, and pelletts will lodge in its skin to eventually go gangrenous ensuring a slow, wretched death. Snares and gassing have major disadvantages too.
Clivex<br> You state that farming is the only industry we subsidise. Don’t want to go too far off the subject here, but that just isn’t so. Railways, and the car industry (British Leyland) spring immediately to mind as industries that have received dollops of public cash. But I feel this aspect is going off at a tangent.
Well said Karly F. There is much truth in what you say.<br> I used to work shifts with  an ordinary guy, son of a postman, who was a huntsman. When I first met him, I used to argue in favour of banning hunting with hounds. Fortunately I was open-minded enough (despite my age) to listen to his arguments for fox hunting. I began to realise how little I knew about the reality of hunting and the flaws in alternative methods of pest control. Eventually, he won me over to his point of view and made me realise how much my instinctive anti fox-hunting stance was borne of ignorance and the automatic adoption of perceived working class/labour opinion. I see my old short-sighted anti-fox hunting stance mirrored in the outpourings of Banks, Prescott, Kaufmann and co. and I am embarrassed to recall how I voiced opinions as bigoted as theirs.<br>
(Edited by insomniac at 3:01 pm on Sep. 16, 2004)
Let me repeat, as I said earlier, I don’t hunt and don’t want to. I Just think that this legislation has as much to do with poking the toffs as with loving animals.<br>Whatever Thatcher’s motives for curbing union powers, on balance the end result was (imo at least) justified.<br> A ban on fox-hunting will not stop foxes dying cruelly – (nature is cruel) so this law won’t make foxes live happier, longer and healthier lives. So why introduce it?<br>The only answer I can think of is bigoted class driven spite; a shameful reason to curb a minority recreation.<br> Some may disagree that that was the motive for the law: we’ll have to disagree then.<br> Not one fox will end up dying of old age in its sleep by stopping hunting with hounds. <br>Most books I’ve read on the subject (recommend Running with the Fox by David McDonald) list the main causes of death to foxes as (not in any particular order):-<br>Hypothermia, starvation, blood poisoning and traffic death. Hunting only accounted for a few percent. <br>So why legislate if it won’t bring about any improvement in the life of the creature?<br>Anyway, for those animal loving MP’s who banned this, will they now ban halal and kosher slaughtering?<br>Will they ban abortion?<br>Are they hypocrites?<br>What is this doing on a racing forum?
Ian,<br> Just out of curiosity, did you think the unions WERE too powerful prior to Maggie making them more "democratic" ?
The law is the law and as such should be obeyed. Can’t argue with that.<br>That doesn’t mean though that all laws passed by a democratically elected body are good laws. Many on here obviously thought some of the laws passed by Thatcher’s government were bad too <br> Rightly or wrongly, those laws (Thatcher’s relating to Trade Unions) were passed not out of spite to Unions but to improve the lot for Union members, industry and the Country as a whole – something history has shown it achieved. (Ever worked in a factory where if you voted against the Shop Stewards recommendation you found your locker had been broken into or your car damaged? I worked in such a factory prior to Thatcher, and I can tell you most workers WANTED union powers curbed).<br> This anti fox-hunting law will not be passed because of any noble caring for the welfare of the fox (although obviously some MP’s genuinely have this belief) but because a spiteful group want to get one over on the "upper class". (I believe it’s a misconception that fox hunting is predominately upper-class anyway.)<br> Is that a basis for passing laws?<br>I used to be an enthusiastic unionist and card carrying Labour member. The labour party meetings in my ward were full of ordinary people in most respects, yet when the subject of fox hunting ever arose, they went in to a foaming fit and were unable to consider the subject rationally. Their attitude was one simply of hating it because they hated the people they percieved did it. Just like Tony Banks, Kauffman, Prescott et al.<br> Another problem those who support hunting have is that too many urban people have a "care-bear", "disneyfied attitude towards animals, believing they’re all cuddly-wuddly little darlings. Perhaps if we’d all had to wring a few chickens necks as children there wouldn’t be such overblown horror at a dog killing a fox – quite a natural event surely?<br>Perhaps this caring, government which has taken this "brave" step to protect little foxy-woxy, might now like to consider protecting unborn babies by severely tightening abortion laws? But then again, perhaps too many "working class" have abortions for them to consider doing so!
