Harry I hope you reconsider…I’ve not been here long but I’ve been reading responses long before I moved here 18 plus months ago…and ever since…I only just recently plucked up the courage to join and participate in discussions…we are 7 billion souls (although I even question the validity of how many nowadays) and prior to joining I have always in-joyed yours and every ones responses…(plus you obviously love dogs…and that’s always a love point as far as I’m concerned…) x 
Surely if you shoot from the hip you must expect others to do likewise.
Is it a sheriff’s badge? You are obviously proud of it.
It is complicated, isn’t it, having a conversation in writing; there is no way of gauging tone or intention and it is consequently easy for misunderstandings to arise.
If we were all to assume the best about each other’s motives and intentions, and perhaps not take things personally, when reading posts, it might lead to fewer spats and take the sting out of some of our replies.
There’s another thing I sometimes do myself ( probably not often enough) which is to step away from the keyboard while I think about how to answer something. Sometimes it is better to say nothing.
It is easy to come over as disagreeable or loopy or both if writing in the heat of the moment.
Come the re-Love-U-tion I hope they do disappear…disparu sans trace…and unfettered unlimited access to our true value switched on.,…In the meantime I don’t know of this building you mention…do you know what it is…??? Intrigued…
I can’t imagine going to a supermarket and checking every item I put in the trolley to see where it’s come from or who’s produced it. It’s all very well living this way at home but how do you get on when you’re out at a restaurant or cafe? Do you not feel you’re punishing yourself?
As for the building, it’s the main synagogue.
I wondered about that because the Jewish centre in the German town I lived in had 24 hour police protection.
it’s sad that anywhere has to have 24 hour police protection…
I’d always presumed it was historical in Germany.
Things changed fairly recently in Germany. When I was a student there, pre-reunification, there weren’t guards on synagogues.
The one in my town was the only one I ever saw. It just happened to be in the street I parked in when visiting the town centre. I can’t imagine a more boring shift for the police officers in their van.
I suppose it’s become second nature…My hit list of brands to boycott look just the same in Super U as they do in the U.K. despite being in French…so I just walk past them…In the fresh produce the only fruit I noticed so far from Israel was mangos so that was a simple case of not putting in a mango in my trolley…I’ve yet to eat out a restaurant so I’ve not had that dilemma yet…x
We do choose to buy the clementines from Corsica… available around Christmas… partly because we love Corsica and then because they taste so delicious… fresh or made into marmalade.
We made a mistake the other week… not nearly so tasty…and when I looked, they were from Spain… very disappointing.
My friend in Cape Town’s water came back on…she loaded her washing machine for the first time in weeks and the water went off again mid cycle…they have been surviving on water donations from locals who have boreholes…
Yep that must count as one of the most boring jobs ever…I’ve been holding out a little hope since trumps executive order freezing the assets of human rights abusers…have to say I’m having a few raised eyebrow moments at the latest air strikes…! https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-blocking-property-persons-involved-serious-human-rights-abuse-corruption/
Spot on Paul, the Only people making money in the UK are parasitic agencies who use and abuse everyone from nurses to truck drivers. Employment is unobtainable if like me you’re over 60. So called job centres just post agency positions, if indeed they are jobs at all, the capitalist system has gone stunningly awry, with little hope of remedy. Exploitation is rife, no the norm. We are no more than drones/worker bees, ants.
Drones/ Worker Bees? You wouldn’t think so Brian - not if some of the comments on here are anything to go by. There has always been lazy and unemployable people - even when social security hadn’t even been thought of. Despite that, as you say, capitalism seems to have gone full circle and returned to the days of throwing a few crumbs of “work” to the lumpen proletariat…who should be thankful of it. The situation now will get worse unfortunately. Zero hours contracts, no pensions, ridiculous house prices, blah blah blah… lucky for the few (like me - enjoying their final salary pension) who can feel some degree of security. What gets my goat are those who look down from their cosseted life style, and accuse ALL the unemployed of being “lazy brits”…they should try it for a while and see how they manage…
I wouldn’t know how justified that is, but emloyment agencies are state regulated so if that is the case, maybe the government should look at the regulations. Well, if the UK had a government…
The only reason for “government” to exist is to manage our infrastructure…that’s it really but somewhere along the line the “leaders” turned into dictatorial megalomaniacs…furiously writing down rules and regulations on bits of paper and waving their bits of paper around as if it’s “law”…it’s not “law”…it’s fiction…Our birth certificates are bonds individually worth millions to each of us…we are traded on the stock market like cattle and collectively used as collateral for further “government” borrowing…none of which actually serves us in any meaningful way and in actual fact is a crime against not just each one of us individually but a crime against humanity…steps off soapbox as it really infuriates me how the people…the young the old the disabled the homeless the discarded…,every single one of us are in actual fact the original source of all “economic” value…
Wow, after reading that I think I want to go back to bed but I can’t as the treadmill is calling.