Paul Brownjohn @Paulos_the_fog@social.cleverlibre.org

@KimSJ

Agreed I believe we need to change the responsibility of those directing Ltds and PLCs to include direct responsibility for employees, for the environment and for the consequences of their company's actions on society in general.

I would also include in those changes, the notion that the directors of limited liability companies be personally liable without limit for major incidents of pollution or other damage to the public or to employees; a risk that shall be uninsurable!

I have just moved back to my homeland, the UK, after 26 years living overseas.

The other night, I fancied a beer at about 21h30 so I wandered up to the local Wetherspoons in my new home (which to my horror is arguably by far the best pub in Winchester) only to find a mob of people on the pavement outside. The bouncer on the door told me that this 'mob' was the queue to get in. There was a queue 25 or 30 metres long to get into the pub!

I have never queued to get into a boozer so I wandered off down to the high street and thought instead I'd get a bite to eat. There I happened upon 5 Guys burger joint. Ah, must be better than the McDonalds's that is close by so I ordered myself a burger and chips - bloody hell - it was £19 for an overwhelmingly mediocre burger and not very impressive chips - they were full of chips that had clearly been in there for very much longer than it takes to cook a chip - for £19 f*****g quid!

That is the first and will be the absolute last time I patronise '5 Guys? that's for sure!

McDonald's actually would have tasted better!!!

The pubs in Winchester are mostly empty, probably because they charge so much for a pint that no one can afford to drink in them!

Welcome back "qoto"!

@Alice
Ha! Just wait until you graduate to speech recognition software, then you'll really have something to comply about!

@DrALJONES

I am utterly horrified that this fiasco has been allowed to happen under a Labour government. I would vote against Labour because of just this one issue.

@RickiTarr

The level of touch that is acceptable and/or usual varies an awful lot from country to country and also from generation to generation.

When I was working in French speaking Belgium, I worked in an open plan office with perhaps 30 people in it. On arriving in the morning, it was obligatory for politeness sake to go round the room and give the women a kiss on each cheek and shake hands with all the men. The same applied when I worked in France. however, the number of kisses varies in France - in Orléans and that region generally, the tradition is four kisses whereas in eastern France and in Belgium, it is two.

That was not the case at all when I worked in Flemish speaking Belgium nor when I worked in the Netherlands. There it's no kisses and no handshakes!

When I returned to the UK after living in France for several years, people were slightly repulsed by the my touchy-feely ways and I had to revert to full British physical coldness to make myself socially acceptable again!

@QasimRashid

You cant dooo that its in the constitooooshun!

@EarlDGray

From what I have heard so far, some guys had an argument that got a bit out of hand (a bit???) and they started blazing away at each other. How so many other people got themselves killed or injured is a mystery to me but if that really is what happened, one thing is obvious, if they had not had access to firearms, there might be a few black eyes and maybe a few missing teeth but there would not be the mayhem we have actually seen.

Someone asked "Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?"
Nate White, an articulate and witty writer from England, wrote this magnificent response:
"A few things spring to mind.
Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem.
For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace - all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed.
So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.
Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing - not once, ever.
I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility - for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman.
But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is - his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.
Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers.
And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults - he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.
There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface.
Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront.
Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul.
And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist.
Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that.
He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat.
He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.
And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully.
That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead.
There are unspoken rules to this stuff - the Queensberry rules of basic decency - and he breaks them all. He punches downwards - which a gentleman should, would, could never do - and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless - and he kicks them when they are down.
So the fact that a significant minority - perhaps a third - of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think 'Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:
* Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are.
* You don't need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.
This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss.
After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum.
God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid.
He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart.
In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws - he would make a Trump.
And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clump-fuls of hair and scream in anguish:
'My God… what… have… I… created?
If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set."