Sheaf Saint

OK he has edited his post, but now you need to edit yours.

OK, How much of a tvv@t do I feel right now!? I finally found the option to turn it off - deep within the setup menu on my TV. I have no idea how it got turned on in the first place (my girlfriend can't even open the media player on my Xbox without asking me how - every time!) and I honestly thought it was something that was being added by some TV stations now as part of some equality law or something, as it was only occurring every now and again on certain programs. Let the laughing at Bexy commence - I'l start. HAHAHAHAHAH!!!!

Clearly I am. I've looked through all the menus in my TV and can't work out how to turn them off. I thought it was something the TV channels were doing by default now. D'oh!

There's no option to turn them off is there?

Is it just me that thinks these have gone a bit too far now? I understand they are included for people with impaired vision, but it begs the question why somebody would want to watch a TV when they can't actually see what's going on anyway. I only noticed them slightly at first, over factual programs and such. But I was watching a repeat of Red Dwarf on Dave the other day and so many moments of it were completely ruined with the inclusion of some bland presenter talking over it because the element of comedic pauses was completely lost. Then I flick over tonight to see that Terminator Salvation is on Film 4, but have to turn it off after 5 minutes because the audio description is doing my head in so much it's totally ruining the movie experience.

This sounds all too familiar to me. I was made redundant about 4 years ago, 1 week before the global banking crisis, and the uncertainty surrounding that meant nobody was recruiting at that time. One job I was going for I never heard back from and found out from the agent that they had decided to withdraw the vacancy, and shortly after that pretty much all vacancies in my industry just dried up completely. The Job Centre were completely useless. First I had to have a telephone interview where they asked me loads and loads of questions that were often repeated with different wording and appeared to be designed to catch me out if I was making a false claim. When I did go in to speak to someone it became obvious that they treat every claimant with the same level of suspicion. I talked with the adviser about my experience/qualifications etc... and listed everything I had already done to try and get a job including jobs I had already applied for. I clearly knew a hell of a lot better than him how to search for jobs in my industry but that didn't stop him from belittling me and making ridiculous suggestions. He went on the job search screen while I was sitting with him and found a vacancy from a company in Rotherham who were so vague in describing what the job involved that it could only have been door-to-door vacuum cleaner selling, which I told him straight I was not prepared to do because having experienced that kind of industry when I was 16-17 I know full well they get you out on the streets and only pay you if you sell anything before getting rid of you. After 3 months I was told I had to attend a group session at the central JC in Sheffield where I was lumped together with a group of layabouts and career-claimants and given a pointless lecture on how to search for jobs in the local paper, write application letters etc... it was the most patronising waste of time you could ever imagine. The whole experience of being unemployed and claiming JSA was infuriating. It wasn't like I couldn't be arsed to work - I hated being unemployed and was ready to accept any kind of work (within reason) to start earning some money again. I ended up doing a 6-month contract in a call centre, I was that desperate to work, but the attitudes among the JC staff were usually very patronising and often nothing short of insulting. I sincerely hope I never find myself in a similar situation again.

I'll never view this forum in the same way again now that dune has been banned. I mean that quite literally - I can read any thread I like now,without having to scroll past multiple entries of "This post is hidden because dune is on your ignore list"

Well I wasn't in favour of the Jubilee as I'm not a royalist, and I've never been afraid to admit I'm not exactly the most patriotic of British citizens, but the Olympics is the Olympics and politics doesn't, or shouldn't come into it. It's a global celebration of sport, and the way that the British public has warmed to so many of the competitors from outside of the UK kind of piddles all over Morrisey's comparison to Nazi Germany. He's nothing but a musical has-been who craves a bit of attention and deliberately courts controversy in a desperate attempt to remain relevant.

Tick tock........ http://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/generic?iso=20120810T00&p0=1329&msg=TOAST+TIME

Focus?

The thing that sticks out most to me in that article is the comment from Poundland.... This is just a very cleverly worded soundbite aimed at making the public believe they are doing this for the benefit of the UK's unemployed and the wider economy, rather than just wanting some cheap labour. I used to work in retail management many years ago for a national chain, and the only way that I could possibly maintain the required level of staff cover while keeping within my wage budget was if I had a 16-17 year-old on the old YTS scheme where they worked full-time while doing a NVQ (Not Very Qualified) certificate and being paid the same amount as they would receive if they were on the dole. This was the same across all of our stores. Essentially we would keep them for a year, or however long it took them to complete their NVQ, and then tell them that there wasn't a full-time position available and let them go, only to replace them with another willing trainee on the same terms. I'm pretty certain this was standard practise among most of the major retail chains, and this was in the mid-late 90s during the boom years. Given the current climate and the finer margins that retailers are working to as they try to remain competitive while keeping their financial heads above water, I have absolutely no doubt that they are using this government initiative to obtain some free labour, with no intention of offering permanent roles to the people that are sent to them by the Job Centre.

I thought Jonathan Edwards was very good while watching the athletics yesterday.

I don't care what people think of him or his Scottishness... he deserved to win that and if he plays like that he can beat Federer to gold as well. Good on him.

Yeah but watching his match against Del Potro earlier he looks very beatable. Lots of unforced errors.

Tragic case this, but I'm glad that justice has been served. I would have expected a lesser sentence for the mother though seeing as she didn't actually kill Shafilea herself and also confessed during the trial. Have to agree with Pap though, about the misplaced priorities. Could any of us even entertain the thought of murdering our own children just because they don't share our beliefs about some ancient work of fiction? I realise that devotion to a theistic religion requires the complete absence of all rational thought anyway, but to this extreme? It's really sad. I have a close friend who comes from a Muslim family, and her father refused to even look her in the eye for years after she told him that she didn't believe in Allah and rejected the strict Islamic tradition that he tried to impose on her. I just can't comprehend that thinking myself.

From an environmental point of view, yes it was. The rampant industrialisation since then has devastated countless regions that are just completely ignored by the authorities. Why do you think they have been so economically successful over the last 30 years? It's because they don't have anything like the kind of environmental regulations that other countries have. That's why so many western corporations have moved their production there, because on top of the constant supply of cheap labour with virtually no human rights, factories in rural areas are basically allowed to discharge whatever the hell they like into the rivers with no legal comeback.

Europcar fro me. Made and paid for a reservation to collect at Angouleme station in France for our holiday a couple of years ago. We arrived at the scheduled time only to find they had cancelled the reservation without notice, meaning we had to pay for extra accommodation in Angouleme until they could sort out a car for the following morning. They admitted that the cancellation was their fault and acknowledged that they should have contacted me, but trying to get a response from their complaints team so I could claim back the costs incurred as a result was an absolute nightmare. After initially registering the complaint I was told it would take up to two weeks for a response. The response I got was a pathetic fob off with some nonsense about not actually confirming the reservation in the first place, despite the acknowledgement from one of their staff about their error being at the bottom of the same email chain. So I called them up to inform them that under no circumstances was I willing to accept this, only to be told that as they had closed off the complaint case following the initial response, I had to wait another two weeks before getting a further response, and nobody would even give me the time of day over the phone. I did eventually get a reimbursement and a token amount as a 'goodwill' gesture after I emailed them to advise I had logged a complaint with their regulatory body, but if I hadn't they would blatantly have done everything they could to get out of making the payment. Absolutely hopeless company to deal with, but then I guess it's now obvious why their quote was the cheapest.

You only need to look at what has become of China since 1978 to see a prime example. The policy of economic growth at whatever cost has caused environmental destruction in huge areas of the country. Acid rain, unrecoverable pollution of lakes and rivers, desertification in areas that have been over-farmed and turned into wasteland; these are just some of the known effects, and there may be many more to come that we don't yet understand. And while many millions have seen their wealth improve as a result, there are countless millions of people in rural areas who are paying the price for it. It is the demand in the western world for cheap products that has driven this situation - every time you buy something "Made in China" you are in a very small way partly responsible for the continuation of it. It just cannot continue like this. Something has to give. It's all very well you placing supreme faith in the ingenuity of mankind to invent solutions and work more efficiently in the long run, but mankind has a rapacious greed for material goods which can't just be switched off. People will always want more and more 'stuff' and believe they have an entitlement to it, and nobody likes being told "Sorry, you can't have it." Sadly, I think it will take some kind of cataclysmic event to trigger the change in attitude that will be required to overcome this, but until that time the population will keep growing, more and more agricultural land will be required to feed everyone, the wealthy and affluent will continue to want un-necessary material goods just for the sake of it or to satisfy their own vanity, and we will keep on draining the natural resources of the planet at an unsustainable rate.

That's not actually what I said. I was referring to the arrogant belief (that would seem to have stemmed from the Old Testament, but let's not go there) that we humans are in some way special and that this planet was created solely for our benefit, allowing for us to harvest whatever resources we care to without any fear of consequence. That kind of thinking will eventually spell the downfall of civilised society IMO. I'm not sure on what criteria you are basing your assertion that the current times are the best for mankind. Life is certainly much more convenient in this age thanks to the huge advances in technology over the last half-century, but is that really a good thing or has it just made our species more lazy? I sincerely hope your belief that 2052 and 3012 will be better for all turns out to be correct, but it's fair to say they won't be if we continue on the unsustainable path that we are currently on. It has been calculated that if all 7 billion people on this planet were to live the same lifestyle as the average westerner, we would need the resources of 3.5 Earths. We've only got this one, therefore we need to learn to manage its resources far more efficiently than we currently do. This will require drastic behavioural changes that our society is not ready for, as most people are hopelessly addicted to the excesses of consumerism and will not easily give them up.

It is this very attitude that has got us to where we are currently and will ultimately be our undoing. We are the only species on this planet intelligent enough to be aware of how we affect our environment, yet we still carry on destroying it for our short term greed rather than preserving it for the long-term benefits. So as Hamilton Saint asks, what about when deforestation means the eviction of indigenous human groups? Is the western demand for cheap beef, wood and other products more important than the living environment of the tribespeople who depend on the natural resources for subsistence? I challenge you to read articles such as this one and then tell us that deforestation is OK. Species loss is always, always a bad thing. In any ecosystem, the loss of a single species, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, will have a lasting affect on all of the organisms in that system. The world is currently undergoing the largest mass extinction since the dinosaurs disappeared, and by far the single biggest cause of that is the destruction of habitat as a result of human activity.

Oh don't get me started on adverts Badger. The worst one for me is those painkillers like Nurofen etc... Their adverts claim "No other painkiller works faster" - while that's technically true, no others work any slower either because the active ingredient in a £3 box of Nurofen is exactly the same as in a 31p packet from Asda. The difference is the shiny, eye-catching packaging and the flashy, expensive marketing campaign. Never ceases to amaze me how many people are fooled by it and insist the branded product is better/more effective.

Ireland, I believe. That's always been the Irish pronunciation of it as far as I am aware.

Yeah saw this today. Blackburn must be absolutely gutted. £3m for a prem striker in the hope he will get the goals to get them back up, and straight-away injured in pre-season meaning he misses the first half of the season at least.

Fonte is as good a choice as any I guess. It's always been my belief that the captain should be either CB or CM so no complaints from me.

Very impressed with Clyne so far