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

And Kent is meant to be one of the hot-spots for Romany Gypsies but they, at least, are classed as true travellers, even if they now travel in more modern comfort.

However when does a Gypsy become a traveller, become a Didicoy (a self-styled Gypsy with no Roma blood, and portrayed as the 'thieving' Gypsy of history)?

MMF

""But as someone who does live off the state, for a long time, and have often had people point their fingers and make ill-informed judgements about me, my entitlements, and what I contribute to society, I just don't think that judging people as a class is useful.""

how acctive in the "black economy" are you??

do you do casual work laying drive ways while on the dole??

>>how long do you have to be stationary to lose your traveller status???

Do you mean that if they live in houses they're not longer an ethnic group? How does that work?


>>are these people actually creating self imposed ghettos

There's this great doco by Kevin McCloud of Grand Designs fame, where he goes into the world's biggest slum (near Mumbai). He wants to go and look at it because it's getting alot of attention from architects and town planners for having something that's been largely lost in the UK - urban community. He contends that this self-developed city has better community than most other places. People are happy, they have full employment. The sanitation is appalling, and the people living there say they'd like that to change, but they don't want their buildings. streets etc to change, they actually like it that way.

There is no council consent, the buildings have been built as needed by the people that need them. The ones on the outskirts are shacks and tarps, but the further in you go the buildings are actually remarkable (McCloud loves them architecturally).

I'm also reminded of the Block in Sydney, which is a suburb of Australian Aborigines who live in slums. From the outside it looks really bad to 'normal' people and is often condemned, but those people have their own communities and ways of doing things. Maybe they just value other things than bright shiney houses.

I think with the ITs, they obviously have their own culture, and their own values, which I don't see much understanding of in this thread.

If they get shut down and moved on, what will happen to them? They will go and live in regular suburbs, but split up. How will that work for them or for existing residents? Will it decrease crime?

It would make much more sense to engage with the community on its own terms and find ways that work for both them and the wider society. But the wider society may have to give up somethings as well.


It looks like there are two main problems:

1. the ITs have built buildings without consent. That may or may not be a safety issue. It's a legal issue though.

2. They've built in a place that is designated to not be built on. How many developers have built in places where it would have been better to not build? (I can think of MANY examples here in NZ, and I'm sure it's true in the UK too). Is it better to work within the letter of the law, even if it is wrong? Or is it better to find solutions that take into account things like culture and the environment?

""However when does a Gypsy become a traveller, become a Didicoy (a self-styled Gypsy with no Roma blood, and portrayed as the 'thieving' Gypsy of history)?""

there are large comunities of roma or gypsies in eastern europe/ the balkans who are all live in real houses yet retain their ethnic identity as gypsy!!!???

I'm not on the dole Taff, I'm on disability. So no, I don't do casual paid work, I'm not physically able to.

As a woman I don't count my worth in how much I can earn or by being in paid employment. I carry my weight in lots of other ways.

Most people I know on the dole pick up cash jobs at times. They have to, because the dole is set at a rate deliberately to not be liveable on.

i supose if travellers left the sites clean and tidy when they left, just like they were when they arrived, there would be a lot lees ammunition for thier enemies to use against them!!!

if you have worked hard and invested a lot of money into a property, hopeing to recoup some of it at some date in the future, you would not welcome an illegal scrapyard opening just down the road devaluing your investment and rendering your property, un-sellable, would you??

Which part of Irish Travellers applies to these people? They certianly aren't 'Travelling' nor are they travelling in Ireland. Why? I thought Ireland was a great place to live in. And if these 'Travellers' human rights are being overlooked would they not be better by going to Ireland?


Just a thought!!

PS When I build a house without Planning Permission, and the Council come to knock it down wonder where Redgrave and her fellow travellers will be? Drinking Champagne in Chelsea no doubt. But of course I pay my taxes so can be ignored!

>if you have worked hard and invested a lot of money into a property, hopeing to recoup some of it at some date in the future, you would not welcome an illegal scrapyard opening just down the road devaluing your investment and rendering your property, un-sellable, would you??
<

You'd get on like a house on fire with my dad Taff.

Human societies over hundreds of thousands of years have been of many different types.

But it appears the pathetic little type we have in modern Britain these days can't accomodate these people. I find that shameful.

I'd like to be part of a self confident country that was big enough to handle issues like this with a sense of, 'this is a special case here for these people..and we take the risk of allowing them to live according to different laws from the rest. We do this as a proudly liberal society with a long tradition of tolerance of difference'.

What do we have? Miniman Cameron talking big about dealing with them. That man is an utter embarassment.

""PS When I build a house without Planning Permission, and the Council come to knock it down ""

the council tell YOU to knock it down, and it costs you!!!!

if the council knock it down, it costs you MORE!!!!

i will now use my crystal ball!!!!!

when this debarcle finally come to an end and "the soon to be travellers again of irish desscent" have lost and the bulldozers are ready to roll(arthur dent style), the residents wont be demolishing thier handy work, it will be a moonlight flit and the next morn! there will be a former traveller site that needs demolishing and cleaning up, and no one for miles to whom the bill can be presented and it will all be at the tax payers expence in the end!!!

then a few years latter a new traveller family will rock up with the deeds for said field, having bought it from a man in the pub ocupy said private land and it will all start again

"I&#39;d like to be part of a self confident country that was big enough to handle issues like this with a sense of, &#39;this is a special case here for these people..and we take the risk of allowing them to live according to different laws from the rest. We do this as a proudly liberal society with a long tradition of tolerance of difference&#39;."


Can you pay my taxes for me? After I want different rules where I don&#39;t pay taxes, drive on the other side of the road, and steal from which ever shop I like. After all this is your liberal view isn&#39;t it?

This thread really is just too depressing as an example of the narrow stereotypical thinking of blandness of the status quo. Even if people think that way you'd think there's be a bit playfulness of devil's advocate?

I'm off.

And then all the British colonies will start coming home and claiming rights because the natives have kicked us out

>>
if you have worked hard and invested a lot of money into a property, hopeing to recoup some of it at some date in the future, you would not welcome an illegal scrapyard opening just down the road devaluing your investment and rendering your property, un-sellable, would you??
<<

I think the modern property market is immoral. Many people I know can no longer afford to buy a house precisely because other people have needed to make money off property sales. This is in NZ, where we've traditionally had a very high rate of home-ownership and in the past that was affordable. But the modern idea that a house is an asset more than a home has changed things completely, so no I don't have much sympathy for people who think that how the house down the road looks impacts on their house value.

I also think that if the ITs want a piece of the pie, good on them (not really, but I think they're not being any more greedy than anyone else).

Bert, can you please do us a favour? Go to this URL and use that as the starting point for h2g2:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/

Once there you can change the look by going into 'preferences'.

The access you are using currently http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2 is broken and all the apostrophes in your posts look like , &#3 9; to the rest of us.

It will make it much easier to read your posts if you change

Couldn't make much sense of your post Bert...not helped by all the Barlesque shrapnel as well.

But I'm sure you're making good points within the context of your world view.

But defo time to take a break from the tedium of this thread for me.

>>I also think that if the ITs want a piece of the pie, good on them (not really, but I think they're not being any more greedy than anyone else).<<

That is so unfair, because they are buying land at a knock-down price, as a consortium, that no individual could afford, and then building on it, again at a knock-down price, and then expecting to be given special status, when there is no way a local could afford to buy a property , and then expect to be accepted into the local environment with open arms.

Wouldn't you be upset?

No. Probably not. Unfortunately.

I'll go back to hugging spiders and feeding wasps.

MMF

""And then all the British colonies will start coming home and claiming rights because the natives have kicked us out ""

thats all right then!!!!

we can do the same, so there are homes and jobs for you back here when you get back

the natives from all those former colonies who have settled here might not be happy, but whats good for the goose

>>
That is so unfair, because they are buying land at a knock-down price, as a consortium, that no individual could afford, and then building on it, again at a knock-down price, and then expecting to be given special status, when there is no way a local could afford to buy a property , and then expect to be accepted into the local environment with open arms.
<<

MMF, all I'm saying is that there are people already who have those kind of tactics but they're sanctioned.

Is it unfair for ITs to do this? Yes. Is if unfair for other property speculators to have made homeowning out of the reach of so many people? Yes. I just happen to think the latter is the worser evil.

Taff, I'd be going back to the Highlands thankfully. I still have rellies there so they might not mind too much

if they will have you????

they are devolved now!!!

they might see the people who left as british, and only welcome back people who left since devolution as they were scotish, not british

they are a bit millitant up there now, everyone can have a free uni course....apart from the english!!!!

My people were never British, they were Scots. I can't ever recall any family stories where people talked about going back to Britain.

There's a city in the South Island of NZ called Dunedin (the Edinburgh of the South). One of the main streets is Cumberland St. There's a group of radicals in Dunedin who campaign to get the name changed to Culloden St, and one year on the anniversary of Culloden they snuck out and changed all the street signs to Culloden.

I don't think the militant Scots would have any trouble taking us back on that score