Halo Stickman

There’s quite a good range of restaurants in Oxford Street. I had an excellent full English breakfast in the White Star one morning; I suppose they do evening meals as well. Also some chaps my brother-in-law does business with took us on a corporate day lunch to the Grand Café just off Oxford Street, where we also had a good meal before going on to St Mary’s – again, not sure if they do evening meals, I’m afraid.

Perhaps it’s worth reflecting that immigration is nothing new to this country. Below is a link to an extract from Frederick Engels’ The Condition of the Working Class in England, written in 1845. It contains a colourful description by Thomas Carlyle of the immigrants of those days. It’s interesting the difference nearly 170 years of integration has made, allied, of course, to the advancement of civilisation. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/condition-working-class/ch06.htm

Arsenal away

The second most sickening thing about this – second to the actual abuse itself – is the way the authorities made some of these young girls feel that they (the girls) were to blame for what was happening to them.

Not yet. The pull-string on the battered platitude-talking dolly has worn thin.

Very happy with Forster so far

DUMMIES

BREAKING NEWS … Police investigating allegations of dodgy Irish fella selling fake dummies in London

When I first saw this last night I thought that Long had accidentally stubbed the ball with his ‘standing foot’, but having watched it again a few times I’m convinced that he did this deliberately. I think part of what threw me at first was that most times a player sells a dummy before playing the ball, whereas, this time, Long did it in reverse order.

Those hands look familiar

Talking of Alex Song, whatever happened with that investigation into alleged match fixing at the World Cup? http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/28102841

Here you are Whitey, pour this on your cornflakes

............Sergio Aguerro................................Dejan Lovren

Having also been there, I agree with all of that Wadesmith. I don’t think it could have got any worse for Matt Coles, what with the dropped catch and being out for a duck, on top of his woeful bowling – I’m not surprised he chose to walk off to the far dressing rooms rather than back to join his team mates, although I’m not sure it was the best thing for him to do. Incidentally, I had my binoculars on him through the window; it appeared his bat went flying once he got inside. Things haven’t really been working out for him of late; looks like he’s feeling the pressure. I don’t think D/L did us any favours, but I am a little concerned that some of our older players are starting to show signs of inconsistency, whilst the progress of some of our younger players seems to have stalled somewhat. It’s frustrating because, as they proved in the quarterfinals, on their day, Hants are more than capable of beating anyone. But, like you say, it’s hard to criticise considering all that they’ve achieved these past several years. Let’s hope they do the business in the remaining 4 day games. Getting back to Div 1 must have been the number one priority at the start of the season.

BREAKING NEWS....Artur Boruc signs new St Mary's contract

One of these and some red and white paint should do the trick.

The area of Devon in which I presently live has seen a large influx of newcomers over the last 30 years or so, mainly from the Midlands and northern UK. As an example of what you are saying, most of these people make efforts to integrate into the local community, but it’s not easy because, for instance, in the town in which I live there is a saying that you’re not accepted as a local until you have at least two generations of your family buried in the town’s graveyard. When these newcomers give reasons as to why they moved to the area they cite the usual stuff like wanting to be near to the sea or that they had previously enjoyed holidays here, but often they also go on to say something like “and the thing is, where we used to live has changed so much, do you know what, on our street we were the only …” Usually they stop themselves at this point, but we all know what they were going to say. So, integration in one respect, but not on the other. “It’s human nature to integrate.” I truly wish this was the case, but I fear that on many levels it isn’t. The overwhelming majority of us will place the interests of a close family member ahead of those of an extended family member; likewise, we’ll place the interests of the latter ahead of those of a stranger. This is a natural instinct and very few people would argue that there’s anything wrong with this. Furthermore, there are sound and well documented genetic reasons for this kinship bias, which we don’t need to go into here. But, many people – by no means all, but many – will place the interests of their fellow countrymen, or the interests of their fellow religious, political, ethnic, cultural, race and species group, ahead of the interests of any other group. The reasons for this group bias are varied and complex and are often unsound. Again, we don’t need to go into them, but we have to acknowledge that group bias exists, and that it can manifest itself as prejudice, intolerance, hatred and hostility. Yes, there are plenty of examples throughout history of people successfully integrating, but there are also plenty of examples where seemingly successful integration has unravelled the moment stressors such as famine, financial hardship, conflict, war or sudden removal of suppressing leadership has occurred. And, Colinjb has already made a very good point about integration, assimilation and annihilation. But Polaroid Saint, having said all this, I do agree with you that integration is the only way forward; indeed, for the sake of world peace, there’s probably a good argument for dismantling all political, religious, national and other divides, so that all seven billion of us can live in one big integrated harmonious melting pot. But, sadly, looking at Ukraine, Gaza, Syria, Iraq et al, anyone that thinks there’s a chance of that happening soon – or, indeed, ever – has probably spent too long integrating with the fairies. Besides, which one of us would want to integrate with that bunch of skates down the road ffs.

Calls for Iran to join West in fight against Islamic State http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/iran-supports-iraq-kurds-battling-militants-1042731315

Godfrey the goalkeeper was a small chap, only 5’ 9” apparently. I can’t imagine there are many keepers of that height in top-flight football these days

Completed it for you.

Better those than Political Excitement and Novel Reading – although, to be fair, they are similar I suppose.

Crikey, that list contains one or two of my favourite pastimes

Score by error.