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

A history teacher of mine used to regularly call us tw@s. Imagine my surprise when, several years later, I discovered that tw@ is a euphemism for the kipper cave!

You could have knocked me down with a fluffer.

Kipper cave.

Or Tuna Tunnel if you prefer. Salmon Chute, pilchard passage...

>>They can smoke as much as they like in Westminster<<

Actually, they're only allowed to smoke in a few designated areas. Since Westminster is a royal palace, they don't technically have to have the smoking ban at all, but they do in almost all of both houses. Smoking has been mostly banned in the commons since Feb 2005.

BEG

They can smoke n a bar. We can't. Irrespective of anyone's views of the smoking ban, such hypocrisy is wrong.

>>
I was speculating as to whether or not the @ version of a common low grade swear word that refers to female genitalia would need a "t" on the end as people have been saying in this thread, given that @ means "at".
<<

Brilliant That's my nomination for most obtuse yikesing of the year, given that Fanny and I both had our posts left alone. I reckon it's 'cos you're a bloke FB

btw, even though technically you are correct about tw@, I still think in common typed parlance 'tw@t reads better.

And of course you could hardly yikes someone called Fanny for using the word tw@t

Funnily enough, Buckingham Palace is covered by the ban because it's open to the public. So the Queen can't smoke in her home

Funny how MPs like to pass laws, then exempt themselves. Pension grabs, smoking, Freedom of Information, libel... I'm sure there are more.

One of them just demanded an apology from the American Ambassador. How dare US Customs delay him for forty minutes !!

They're also pushing for another above-inflation pay rise.

If it's "Good to be King", it's obviously even better to be an MP.

The above inflation pay rise for MPs is, to say the least, a bit of a sore point for those of us that are doing their dirty work and implementing their policies.

Ignorant bunch of fools.

Having said that, I've read no corroboration that they're after an above inflation pay rise.

"MPs face a battle with Gordon Brown to secure an above-inflation pay increase when the official recommendations on parliamentary salaries are published this month.
Some want their salaries raised to about £100,000, arguing that MPs have fallen far behind equivalent professions."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article2806717.ece

God damn what a bunch of tw@s.....

Seriously though be it MPs or boardroom executives letting people set their own pay rises breeds corruption and erodes public confidence...

My post is back but with "*s" rather than "Ws"

The problem we face is that often the 'overpaid' are often RELATIVELY not overpaid... i.e. relative to other people doing similar jobs... Take the Post Office chairman and vice pres...

Unfortunately, while it seems unfair from down here, my wages probably look unfair to someone grafting away for 50 hours a week on minimum wage.

To correct it would involve completely upending the system, making those who work longer hours or harder the better paid, those who do dangerous jobs, involving heavy wear and tear on their bodies (I dont know a mechanic who doesnt have a sore back) get huge bonuses and those who sit in offices organising them and wrestling with numbers etc get minimum wage... And our economy would fail. For better or for worse, that wont happen in my lifetime i suspect. So rather than simply getting outraged at something that appears ridiculously out of scale, youy HAVE to get a perspective and understand why they aren't being any more outrageous than other over-paid high exec types. It's a whole other world, up there in the clouds and right or wrong, it IS, and unlike racism and other discriminations and social problems, I cant see this one changing.

I'm still utterly confuzled about that post of FBs that disappeared and then reappears with the Ws asterisked out

Most definitely the most surreal yikesing event of all time.

By the way I'm no longer a tw@t, but now eff all?

Have just been up the road again to the shop, and they've just installed a giant awning outside the pub on the street to protect the smokers from the rain. There were a few standing around and not drunk as far as I could tell. I teased them about the awning and they said it had absolutely nothing to do with the smoking thing. I laughed. Sure!

The smoking ban & patio heaters: save the bar staff, kill the world.

Patio heaters?

Okay, have just once again passed the pub, and there is now a friendly and cheerful group of puffers standing under the awning that's just been installed. Its cool and drizzly. but the smokers are now under cover. The impression I get is that the pub has cared for them, presumably they do to. Yes they are still outcasts, but now cared for and not just a despised underclass group of people open to the elements.

Psychology is a funny thing. Time will tell if this pleasant state of affairs for all concerned continues.