h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I wonder why you say 'they' and not 'we' SWL? Or do you see yourself as so separate from our proud liberal democratic British traditon

Your little racist diatribe against Scots politicians seems designed to put a wedge between Scottish & "British" people. Given the number of anti-Scots "jokes" you throw in my direction, it is clear that you see a difference.

Besides which, I didn't vote in the last couple of elections as the choices were Labour, Labour, Labour, Socialist, SNP, & Lib-Dem. All a shower of parasites.

No I'm not anti Scots SWL, I value our minority UK peoples. but I'm anti narrow minded, right wing backward looking people trying to take the majority of the rest of us into a cultural cul de sac.

You missed out "like you"

I love the way this sort of thing always descends into backbiting farce. No matter how much you disagree with SWL, you can't launch into personal attacks on his views, because in honesty that really makes you as bad as you make him out to be.

Novo

"Translations in court are essential, in Hospital waiting rooms they're important, in Jobcentres they're irrelevant. Try getting help in a Jobcentre if you're dyslexic. The advice given to dyslexics is to get a friend to help them. Why is it outlandish to expect the same of people who don't know the language?"

Surely the logical conclusion here is that there should be more support for dyslexics, not that there should be less support for those whose first language is not English?

"Minority rights exist only with the consent of the majority. It may take decades of persuasion and argument, but the majority have to at least not be discomfited by minority rights. Witness gay rights. It took a long, long time to get where we are today."

Now I think you're at cross purposes with everyone else on this. YOu're using the term 'rights' in a narrow legal sense - rights are just whatever rights the state gives. FB, myself, and others are using rights in a richer sense - that of human rights that are independent of what the state says, and are a moral claim about what it means to be human and have your human dignity respected. So I have basic human rights whether the state acknowledges those rights or not.

We have very few actual "rights". We just have things that we don't get prosecuted for.

And re: the translations, is it really necessary to have 22 versions of leaflets to help people stop smoking?

>Would you be offended if you found out you'd unwittingly been eating halal meat?<

Not really. I'm not aware you can catch 'Islam' from it's food any more than I catch 'animal cruelty' from the products of our own, so superior slaughtering systems. On a side note, I have a plan to pitch a series of programmes to channel 4 in which self-regarding foodies such as HF-W, JO, Rick Stein and the like are dumped on a sink estate in Salford with a family of six and told to try and cook ethically for that family on their budget.

>Why have I never had *jewish food* at school?<

Interesting question and one I don't know the answer to.

At what percentage level of the population should religions/cultures be seen as significant enough to warrant individual/spacial treatmentin the curriculum or school canteen?

Depends. Quite small I suspect, providing it can be done on bugetary terms that make sense.

>Do you consider an occasional diversion fron your normal diet to be bending over backwards to accomodate other peoples faiths and cultures?<

Naughty, naughty Blicky.

>is it really necessary to have 22 versions of leaflets to help people stop smoking<

Well, inasmuch that immigrants from Eastern Europe and Asia are more likley to be smokers due to the marketing of Philip Morris and his mates, the answer may well be yes.

I'm also curious as to why it seems that we should regard the French as 'better' than us because they fail to provide a service that we do?

As to the Kosher food question - I think the earlier poster who's name escapes me has it - the amount of procedure to be followed in Koher food's prep makes it impractical to offer at a non-Jewish school.

As far as I'm aware, Halal meat is just that - once it's dead you prep the same way as anyone else would.

Whereas the Kosher rules for seperate utensils affect what actually goes on it the kitchen, and your average school canteen just isn't set up for that (some people would say the average school canteen isn't actually set up for the preperation of food, full stop, but I'm not that cruel ).

I also have a sneaking suspicion that the number of Jews requiring 'strict' kosher food outside of those areas which are heavily 'orthodox' is pretty minimal. I work with a huge number of Jewish baristers and the like and whilst mosty of them adhere to not eating Pig, I'm aware of very very few who require 'kosher' meals.

By the sheer size of my school (3,500 kids in commuter belt Essex), I must have known Jewish kids, but I wasn't aware of them having special dietary requirements. Thinking about it, I wasn't aware of them at all.

It'd be packed lunches time, I would've thought. If, as you say, they were actually that strict.

"On a side note, I have a plan to pitch a series of programmes to channel 4 in which self-regarding foodies such as HF-W, JO, Rick Stein and the like are dumped on a sink estate in Salford with a family of six and told to try and cook ethically for that family on their budget."

While you're at it, could you please insist that they do so while working full time at some soul-sucking McJob? I get a little tired of HF-W banging on when we've just watched him spending a day fishing, or wandering around a forest.

Oh yeah, they'd have to do the full monty - either being the single parent and looking after the family or doing some mind-numbingly tedious job like shelf stacking.

I mean, I don't disagree with what they are trying to do per se, but it gets a little much sometimes.

I think if someone genuinely pitched that idea to them they'd do it. Part of the appeal of the JO programme on school dinners was that he had to do it all on a tiny budget.

Actually I'd exclude JO and effin' Ramsay because they don't preach about how marvelous all this highly expensive locally produced stuff is. But Stein and HF-W fair get on my wick, for all the fact that I agree with them.

Not as much as the gurning Thunderbird puppet that is Heston Blumenthal, mind, but that's a different matter. Nine hours to cook bolognese!

Hey I quite agree Blues. Now don't laugh I actually did the bolognase thing he suggested the other evening. Ate it at around midnight and it was nothing special. I thought tthe worst one was the roast chicken. In and out the salted water and into freezing water with ice cubes ad nauseam. But I have to admit I enjoy his programmes, and he's quite a cutie. Now don't get me onto Nigella though, I find myself screaming at her silly giggliness!!!!

Nigella is food porn by a stepford wife.

The fried chicken works, I'm assured but it's hardly rocket science as SLG has seen it done in pubs years ago.

I am also assured by those who know that the 'texas turkey' is a tradition in parts of the lone star state, as is the yearly burning down of houses as deep frozen turkeys hit the boiling oil with inevitable explosive results...