Actually, I was thinking, "as if by magic - the shopkeeper appeared"

But know I have what you said!!

I have a trashed knee because a stage diver thought he would be cool, unfortunalty for me he was a 20 stone fat bloater
So the less of that sort of thing the better...

Politicians are very good at dealing with symptoms rather than cures. For the obvious reason that is much simpler. The problem is it doesn't cure the disease and is bad law with unintended consequences generally badly administered leading to more symptom handling law. I saw a figure not to long ago about the average number of new laws passed in the last ten years and it was frightening. Something in the order of a 1000 a year. Which means of course most of them are ignored and/or badly administered and at that rate it is a certain bet some, most realistically, are badly written too.

We've lost the balance of people taking responsibility for their actions. That's actually written into Health and Safety law but there is little sign of that in how it is applied and courts handle cases. But actually very right.

The other day there was a thing on the BBC, can't remember if it was radio or web site, about what to do if confronted in a field by cows with your dog. They completely missed out the obvious sane response which was what the hell are you doing in a field with cows and calves in the first place?! The Scottish Access Code again states an onus on responsible behavior. I have very real doubts that will actually be upheld though it is sane and proper. Partly as people will whine about what responsible behavior is. Ignorance didn't used to be an excuse though and strictly speaking isn't with the law in particular.

Richard.

Exactly.

I saw that news article as well and it wound the hell out of me. Firstly if you're stupid enough to go anywhere near a half tonne animal that has offspring with it then it serves you right for being so stupid and if you're not trampled into the ground the farmer should be allowed to beat the crap out of you with a big stick.

Secondly, the 'news reporter', or general [LIFTED] in this case, was asking for advice and the farmer said that if the cows were coming towards you let go of the dog and get out of there, afterall the dog has four legs you only have two.

The reporter then tried to make an issue where there wasn't one about this being "new advice" because we've always been told to keep dogs on a lead. Jeez, how thick could she be? This wasn't new or different advice, of course keep your dog on a lead but if you have a field of cows running towards you sod the dog and try and save your own sodding life.

The more things are banned, the more we are asking to be treated by children. Governments are there to govern large scale actions, we have a duty to govern our own and accept the consequences of our own actions.

* sighs, grumbles, points stick in general direction of imbeciles *

You might think that avoiding, and/or running away from cows is common sense, but not everyone knows cows. I have been a walker for years and was only sensible enough to avoid bulls. One day, I walked through a field of cows with my Border Collie on a lead, minding my own business and nowhere near a cow. As far as I can recollect, there were no calves either.

The cows started to get up and make their way towards me, not quickly, but en mass. I was concerned, and I ran to the exit of the field (at a dignified trot, not in an Olympic or escape-from-an-axe-murder manner). Imagine that I could not run. It would not have occurred to me that they were anything other than curious and I should know that you generally don't let dogs off leads on farmers' land. I could have been headline news and I wouldn't have known why.

I know that in this day and age, there are few people who have never seen farm animals, but if you think that everyone has enough sense to avoid cows with calves when out walking, then you are wrong. FFS, they don't even have enough sense to kit themselves up for walking in snow and ice. I've just read an article in Readers' Digest about the two walkers who fell on Snowdon this winter and were lucky to survive (three fell the same week and didn't). It turns out that they had been to the summit many times, but had NO business being there on that day and had no crampons or ice axe.

Mountain rescue services and other agencies keep trying to drum into these people that the mountains need to be treated with respect and you think that people are going to be naturally wary of a cow?

I charge people to breathe air.

Yes well who are the type of people who come up with "cunning plans"






It is very difficult in such times as ours for politicians to operate they are under siege by the savage media. I don't pity the hazel blearses of the politics world and I don't pity the charles clarkes.

However I look at it this way politicians fall by three reasons:

corruption
incompetence
luck

home office:
david blunket, great at his job in the home office however corrupt
charles clarke, uselessly incompetent

When the media finds something to latch onto they take to it like a leech and they have sucked the lifeblood out of politics. look at the yound politicians coming through milibland twins, nick clegg and the other denziens of nameless faceless nitwits. We wonder why things aren't done properly is they are fighting a short term battle with the media. slowly condensing politicians into bland, reactionary, middle of the road easy path taking twerps you will see litter the seats of the commons in greater numbers come june 2010.

The politicians are to blame to the extent of not doing it the hard way, however the root of the problem lies somewhere more illusive.

Who runs this country in reality? I know it is rare for it to be one of the 646 members of parliament or 746 lords.