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Post by aquacultured on Feb 12, 2018 1:44:55 GMT 1
Typical of everyone's MO who wants to illustrate a point, is it not? Including yours? There's nothing objectionable about Islam because your son became one, wasn't it? Oh, and just in case there's still anyone in any doubt about your superior first-hand knowledge, you're making certain of it by starting to read the Koran? How's that coming along, by the way? Found the bit where Mohammed chops the woman's children in half (trying to outdo Solomon in his wisdom, see) because she shouted out he was a violent nutter and should jog on? Channel 4 News, that famously impartial and objective arbiter of truth and justice, argued the case that councils in Britain were all in "a funding crisis" by interviewing the attendees of a "Craft Class" doomed to imminent closure - or maybe, this being, naturally enough, a Labour authority, it was a "Kraft Klass". The vital state-sponsored crafting of corn dollies or glittered greetings cards was, it was reported, threatened by the heartless Tories savagely pursuing their ideological policy of "Austerity", making local "vulnerable" people suffer accordingly. What am I to do now, bemoaned one predictably obese middle-aged woman - I'll just be stuck in me flat all week long if they shut this place down. The reporter, you may be surprised to learn, had the forebearance to not respond with a subtle suggestion that she throw her glitter in a bin and get a job, or make some mates in a manner that did not require taxpayer extortion. It was not clarified whether the Kraft Klass participants were Lesbians, I'm afraid, or, as far as could be discerned without detailed spectroscopic analysis, whether they were black. Well, it's a punt, but a fairly confident one: every councillor in the country has a generous expense account. Certainly they all receive a wage, (since the 60s or early 70s, I believe), though this would once have deeply shocked people. It's not a caricature - it's the truth. I could probably dig out the news report laying out these facts and photocopy it if you insist - but you know it's the truth, I think. If you never claimed expenses, hats off to you, though myself I think that's a far more dubious claim. So the quarter million plus a year expenses bill for the IOW is an anomaly, is it, no doubt because it's an unusually small authority lurking offshore out of anyone's oversight? It's nationally renowned for being a rotten borough plagued with corruption, to be sure, but that's largely because they're so inept at covering it up, not because it doesn't happen elsewhere. Well, ditto to you, Mister Pooter. I've covered three councils in my life as a journalist, two counties and one city, and my dad was a chief officer for nearly thirty years, so I think I acquired a pretty thorough knowledge of how they operate. More thorough than yours, I'd wager. But tell us - what did you actually do during those ten years? You claim - absurdly, if you must insist on trading insults - that you "had no subsistence". You were paid though - by your ratepayers. Unless you were an extraordinarily precocious eight-year old, like Annie, in a ginger wig? How did you earn all that money you trousered in a decade of attending a meeting or two a month, sticking up your hand when you were told to? SINCE I FORMATTED MY REPLY, MR SONDE HAS CHANGED HIS POST. NOT A BIG DEAL, EXCEPT FOR NERDS. You - There's nothing objectionable about Islam because your son became one, wasn't it? Oh, and just in case there's still anyone in any doubt about your superior first-hand knowledge, you're making certain of it by starting to read the Koran?
Me- This shows several things, none of which are in your favour, I hope you agree. First, you don’t read (even what you’ve written) or remember things properly. That’s a general point, reflected also below (and many times above) – but in this case, my son didn’t become an Islam. He seemed normal the last time I saw him. Second, I did start to read the Koran, years ago, not recently, but have expressed bafflement (mainly because it’s written in Arabic), and defied any non-Arabic reader to understand it properly. (I think you must’ve been talking to MR, who’s a bit confused, not least about my 11+ results and when I was Prime Minister.) Third, I’ve also said many times Islam is about the last religion I’d espouse if I were religious. So, where do you get this stuff from? You: I've covered three councils in my life as a journalist, two counties and one city, and my dad was a chief officer for nearly thirty years, so I think I acquired a pretty thorough knowledge of how they operate. More thorough than yours, I'd wager. But tell us - what did you actually do during those ten years? You claim - absurdly, if you must insist on trading insults - that you "had no subsistence". You were paid though - by your ratepayers. Unless you were an extraordinarily precocious eight-year old, like Annie, in a ginger wig? How did you earn all that money you trousered in a decade of attending a meeting or two a month, sticking up your hand when you were told to?
Why are you still making a fool of yourself? I didn't trouser any money, went to a dozen or more meetings a month, and did much other work in my wards, and was not a member of any party or faction. How deluded, or biased, are you?
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Post by mrsonde on Feb 12, 2018 2:16:17 GMT 1
No idea what you're moaning about, as usual. Look, Aqua, do you want me to explain to you, yet again - the third time I think - how to format your posts? Huh? Tell us then, belatedly, what you imtended by your argument? Sigh. This is your first?! Give up. You're claiming now your son did not convert to Islam? Really? You're claiming now you tried to read the Koran in the original Arabic? Really? So - that would mean over a billion muslims do not understand their reliGion properly? And you know this how? BecAUse that sounds awfully ethNocentric, to put it politely, to me. At least the Marchesa has actually read the Koran. I'm glad you made that vital point. It really helps focus us in on the issue in question. Who knows? maybe I'm in the same apparently drug-induced wonderland you seem to inhabit? Is that cat really looking like he knows what you're thinking? Do you really want to drown the greedy useless bastard? Who knows? It's the drugs. You didn't get paid? What are you, in your eighties? Yeah. Yeah. An independent? I know how the system works. I repeat - what did you actually do to earn all that money you trousered?
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Post by aquacultured on Feb 12, 2018 2:26:43 GMT 1
OK, you're drugged or drunk. Kiss-kiss.
If I trousered any money, some other bastard's got it.
Broaden your mind, and work it out.
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Post by aquacultured on Feb 12, 2018 2:28:43 GMT 1
(The bastard is you.)
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Post by mrsonde on Feb 12, 2018 2:41:50 GMT 1
OK, you're drugged or drunk. Kiss-kiss. Hmmm...drunkish. Nothing out of the ordinary; nothing that would make me not stand by whatever, etc. ten years of a councillor's wage, at least, even if we swallow the claim youdidn't indulge in the expenses. I work out that you're a fairly typical councillor. Half of them are there to butter the wheels of their business - they're builders, or landlords, and they want to be in control of the levers of a council's real power. The other half people like you, I surmise - are people who sort of vaguely want to do good but mainly want a position of at least nominal authority they can broadcast at dinner parties - the charity world is full of them. It;s a doddle for such people to get elected; it's a reasonable gig - not much work, a reasonable monetary return, an easily placatable conscience.
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Post by mrsonde on Feb 12, 2018 2:44:06 GMT 1
Embrace it. People like me are the substitute for the conscience you should have had but somehow lost along the way.
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Post by jean on Feb 12, 2018 17:40:57 GMT 1
It's surprising, isn't it, that Nick knows exactly what anyone who's paid from taxpayers' money does or doesn't do to justify the money they receive.
And yet, when asked to give some account of the goods and/or services he provides, so that we may have some idea of whether those who pay his wages are getting anything like value for their money, he is strangely silent.
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Post by aquacultured on Feb 13, 2018 14:45:21 GMT 1
mrsonde’s cynicism seems to be reaching new heights. Unfortunately, it’s based on prejudice and misinformation.
He says ’every councillor in the country has a generous expense account. Certainly they all receive a wage’. He seems not to’ve heard of parish and town councils. I was a member of two town councils (not at the same time). In the first council, they had a policy of not paying their councillors. In the second, they did pay a token allowance, tho some members didn’t claim it. After tax, it worked out at £4 a week, much less than the outgoings it was nominally supposed to cover. As I’ve said, it was rare for members to claim any expenses.
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Post by aquacultured on Feb 14, 2018 0:49:42 GMT 1
I missed this first time. But is your dad bigger than my dad?
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Post by mrsonde on Feb 16, 2018 19:08:54 GMT 1
It's surprising, isn't it, that Nick knows exactly what anyone who's paid from taxpayers' money does or doesn't do to justify the money they receive. No I don't, and more to the point, neither does anyone else. That's why I keep asking him, and, always, reply there is none. You, we know, supplied the nationally vital resource of people who can vaguely speak Latin, without which the country would grind to a sputtering halt. Fisrtly, I've been totally open about what I've done in my life - no secret or silence about it whatsoever. Second, as anyone would know who has bothered to pay attention, I haven't received a wage since the 80s. I've started and earned my money from five or six businesses since then. Following that endeavour I no longer need to earn anything, I owe nobody a penny, and my needs are met by ongoing returns from that creative effort. Provided without the slightest extortion of anyone, without costing the taxpayer a penny, and returning to the Exhequer many times more than any amount that I've ever had to inadvertently extracted. This is called earning your living; more pertinently, it's also in reality earning yours, and Aqua's, and the millions of others who have had the great privilege of being "public servants". This is the reality that is always in national peril of being forgotten, or ignored, and why I bother in the first place pointing it out.
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Post by mrsonde on Feb 16, 2018 19:20:29 GMT 1
mrsonde’s cynicism seems to be reaching new heights. Unfortunately, it’s based on prejudice and misinformation. Predictably, you call it cynicism. I suppose if you'd worked all your life to pay for my living I might have to resort to doing the same, but I think I would feel obligated to give some solid account of what it was I actually did to warrant such an imbalanced relationship. Just to ease my own conscience and sense of self-esteem, if a sense of privilege and humble gratitude is asking too much of "servants". Nice try, Batman. With one bound he was free? Sell it to the peasants, m'lord. Shame I wasn't talking about town councils, or knitting circles. If you were, you should have made that clear, Mr.Pooter. You were a "civil servant", weren't you, and not a postman or gas board trench-digger? If you were just a humble postie, or you packed wardrobes for the state-owned Pickfords' national removal service, I do apologise for any perceived criticism.
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Post by mrsonde on Feb 16, 2018 19:26:28 GMT 1
I missed this first time. But is your dad bigger than my dad? My dad;s dead, you cynical heartless uncaring bastard. Dead! Happy now?
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Post by aquacultured on Feb 17, 2018 0:13:21 GMT 1
mrsonde’s cynicism seems to be reaching new heights. Unfortunately, it’s based on prejudice and misinformation. Predictably, you call it cynicism. I suppose if you'd worked all your life to pay for my living I might have to resort to doing the same, but I think I would feel obligated to give some solid account of what it was I actually did to warrant such an imbalanced relationship. Just to ease my own conscience and sense of self-esteem, if a sense of privilege and humble gratitude is asking too much of "servants". Nice try, Batman. With one bound he was free? Sell it to the peasants, m'lord. Shame I wasn't talking about town councils, or knitting circles. If you were, you should have made that clear, Mr.Pooter. You were a "civil servant", weren't you, and not a postman or gas board trench-digger? If you were just a humble postie, or you packed wardrobes for the state-owned Pickfords' national removal service, I do apologise for any perceived criticism. Idiotic, even desperate, as anyone can see.
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Post by jean on Feb 17, 2018 9:47:44 GMT 1
It's surprising, isn't it, that Nick knows exactly what anyone who's paid from taxpayers' money does or doesn't do to justify the money they receive. No I don't, and more to the point, neither does anyone else. In that case, you have no evidence for your continued assertion that none of it is of any use at all. And you know that I did this (minus the speaking, of course) while being paid from the pocket of the taxpayer. What you apparently don't know is that there is very little Latin taught in state schools. Most state schools don't teach it at all. However, private schools, from prestigious institutions such as Eton* and Harrow to the private establishment patronised by the local builder or taxi driver with handfuls of cash, make the provision of Latin an important selling point. * Every boy studies Latin for at least one year; many choose to study Greek as well. Both may be continued to GCSE...So there are two separate points here. One is whether Latin is worth learning at all. You think not. But those who opt to pay for their children's education to the tune of thousands of pounds clearly think it is. The other is that the subject may be taught well or badly. You have no means of knowing how good a job any particular Latin teacher in the public or the private sector makes of it.
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Post by jean on Feb 17, 2018 9:56:16 GMT 1
And yet, when asked to give some account of the goods and/or services he provides, so that we may have some idea of whether those who pay his wages are getting anything like value for their money, he is strangely silent. Fisrtly, I've been totally open about what I've done in my life - no secret or silence about it whatsoever. Where have you done this? Certainly not on this messageboard!Yes, you've told us that. The financial advisers who recently siphoned off steel workers' pension pots could say the same. Yes, but what do these businesses actually do?We know rather less about their activity than you know about how people employed in the public sector spend their time.
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