Fareast

It has to be someone who represents the UK as it is today.........Ken Dodd ? Latest winner of the ' Big Brother ' contest ? Mickey Mouse ?

It 's not just the immigration services that are failing in the UK. There 's been a tendency for a long time to make everything over-complicated [ to try to please everybody ? ]. At the same time we are only half-educating most of our students. The result is a terrible mismatch and the near chaos it causes.

As a smoker, I admit that smoking does have its health hazards. Well, it 's pretty obvious that obesity does too-----heart attacks, diabetes......etc And as for drinking alcohol ! That 's alleged to be a factor in a lot of crime, public and domestic violence......and of course health. Many of our major cities are almost no-go areas on a Friday & Saturday nights as mobs of drunks lurch around, committing [ at the very least ! ] anti-social behaviour. Yet, every hour, every day, all the time, the t.v. for example is filled with drooling adverts, urging us all to stuff more and more down our throats. In every film, drama and soap opera, the actors are seen boozing and guzzling to their heart 's content. When are the Health Fanatics going to act ? If all the outcry against smoking has reduced smoking, surely a similar ban on most foods and all alcohol would be a good thing ?. By 2025, if the Health & Safety police get their way, we could all be simply popping vitamin pills and be hitched up to plain water drips. Jolly Good Health and Mind How You Go !

If they kicked out all the fatties from the U.K. the place would look deserted. In addition, our little island might rise up a fair bit from the sea bed and cause some kind of climatic disaster.......or it might well tilt if they weren 't careful how many they expelled at any one time. Anyway, Hail to the Glorious Olympics, the Gateway to UK Health !!

There was also a Somali-run cafe on Button Lane in the late 1950 's [ I think the same family had a similar one on Matilda Street at about that time too ]. We used to call in one or the other quite regularly, especially on the way home from the fair on Granville Road. Not many places open after 10.30 p.m. in Sheffield in those days !

When I was a young [ and naive ] kid in the 1950 's and things in the UK were looking bright, I had this idea that a light, elevated tramway / railway system would be great for Sheffield. I imagined small 4 or 6 seater carriages, numerous and operating rather like the Docklands Railway does. I didn 't think too much about the technical problems involved but one doesn' t, I suppose, aged about 10 or 11.....? Technology was moving forward quickly though, so I suppose if they had decided to go for overhead transport, engineers would have solved the problems, en route, so to speak ! Even in some Third-World countries, overhead systems are used quite extensively -----Kuala Lumpur, for example. Overhead transport is not a 100 % solution to our congestion problems-----but certainly something worth thinking about ; unless it 's too late, of course !

So, I 'm out of a job again ! After retirement, I decided to go in for internet lap-dancing. Although I 'm male, medium-ugly and overweight, I was doing quite well. [ There are some very strange people using the internet ]. Now, I 'll have to see if some magazine will employ me...........or maybe even a lap-dancing club ? There MUST be something out there in these tough economic times ?

Melthebell : It was the way he used to go on about ' boo-its ' and ' coits ' that drove me potty. Then, when her on the other side always referred to me as " Hey, thee, youth ", well, that was the giddy limit. Apart from that, they could both out-sup me and called me a ' Dee-da loser '. Disgraceful !

I used to have one o ' them foreigners living next door to me, years ago. I used to shout abuse after him and shove nasty notes through his letter box. [ That had no effect. He couldn 't read ]. Yes, I hated people from Barnsley. What made it worse is that he married my neighbour on the other side, a girl from Chesterfield. I felt hemmed in, geographically and socially. I was so desperate, I moved to Rotherham where I have been happy ever since.

The whole case is symptomatic of life in much of Britain today i.e. years and years of soft, pathetic ' punishments ' given out to vicious, mindless, infantile thugs ; years and years of pandering to all aspects of ' youf ' [ especially the fact that no-one under the age of about 18 must EVER suffer in any way whatsoever----whatever their crimes ]. This has led to attacks and misery for countless decent people, going about their daily lives. There are ways we could tackle this problem which has been festering for years........but, in reality, I don 't think there 's a cat in hell' s chance that we will. The ' Do Gooders ' and Hand-Wringers are too firmly established and it will take a social earthquake [ at least ! ] before there 's the slightest chance of a change in our judicial system.

Once again, our nation reels under the hammer blows of red hot, mind-blowing temperatures. In some parts of the country, the mercury has climbed to over 25 c !! The elderly are being advised by officials, how to stay cool and alive during this unprecedented heatwave. Although many of our OAP 's are in their 70 's and 80 's, they have completely forgotten what they should NOT do.' No, Mrs. Woman, you should not go jogging in a thick pullover in the middle of the day '. ' No Mr. Blogs, you should not sit in the sun and sup umpteen pints of best bitter '. Teenagers are diving into well-known dangerous ponds and drowning ; motorists are getting stuck in melting tarmac ; railway lines are buckling and causing confounded delays ; even our toddlers are in danger of getting stung by irate wasps or bitten by bad-tempered dogs. The government MUST intervene ! Everyone should be sent home if the temperature in the workplace rises above 22 c. [ or falls below 18 c ]. Everyone over 65 should stay indoors and fan themselves with old newspapers whilst drinking gallons of water. We faced crises like this in 1940.........and overcame them. Our great nation CAN do it again............DON 'T PANIC [ or picnic, for that matter ].

Yes, Alchresearch, I thought there was something wrong with the statistics too. Very confusing ! .....................but just about par for the course in this slapdash day and age ! Anyway, that aside, it would be very interesting if we could see the knife-crime figure for, say, 1950, 1960 and 1970. I asked a similar question as re-the firearms statistics, recently discussed. As a teenager in Sheffield in the '50 's & 60 's, I seem to remember that knife and gun usage was a very rare event and that was broadly true, nationally, I think. These days, it seems to be commonplace........and shrugged off by many ! Another recent report suggests that the police, nationwide, are so overwhelmed by pretty serious crime that they only investigate about half of them ! Our prisons are bursting, despite most cons getting released after serving only half their ' headline ' sentence. What an utter mess this country is becoming.........but the ' ostriches ' will whine that " there 's always been crime ". Well, yes, but just not on this scale !

Why can 't the Council or the Government provide a free, cold drink delivery service for the poor souls and little mites who are on the streets in their millions, in this terrible heatwave ? Alternatively, we could open up the City Hall when the temperature gets above 65 f. and look after these people with free food, free drinks, music, community singing and suitable, indoor games. A handout of shorts, swimming costumes, sun-hats and nice t-shirts wouldn 't go amiss either. Oh, and I forgot to mention, Mrs. Thatcher and the Bankers are responsible for the Homelessness which has driven thousands in every town and city onto the streets.

A great reporter ; one of television 's legends and sad to see him go. When one sees the egotistical clowns who are now paid to prance about, introducing or commentating on various t.v. travel programmes......etc....etc.....one can see what ' dumbing down ' really means ! Another 2 greats in the same style as Alan Whicker, relaxed, understated and informative, were, in my view, A,J. P. Taylor and Alan Bullock. Both, simply stood in front of the camera and, without any histrionics, simply mesmerised an audience. Very sad to see such talent disappearing.........RIP.......to them all.

Still, I 'd rather be just robbed [ by a bank manager ......or anyone ? ] than beaten up [ or shot ] AND robbed.

I agree in general with the O.P. To a great extent I think the pursuit of possessions is a subjective matter. However ! Maybe we can judge the matter by the apparent effect it has on people ? Many people seem to rush around all the time, earning and spending pots of money, never relax, on edge, always looking angry, no time for the things they buy [ ! ]........etc.......etc.... Others seem relaxed, pleasant, have time for family and friends and look as if they 're enjoying life. These always seem to be the type who don 't give a hoot for the latest car or the ' in ' things on our ' happy, little Jerusalem '. When they 're all ready to 'pass on ', I wonder how many from each group will be able to look back on their lives and say, honestly, " Well, I really enjoyed that . " ?

According to Quentin Letts [ Daily Mail ], Bercow is probably on the edge of a nervous breakdown. His behaviour as Speaker gets more bizarre by the day. He 's very unpopular nowadays with most M.P. s------so, perhaps the Prime Minister 's Pantomime is all a plot to drive Bercow totally bonkers ? [ Some M.P. s are, apparently even missing that old lout, ' Gorbals ' Mick, the Glasgow Growler. Things MUST be pretty bad if that 's true ! ].

The Fifties & Sixties were a great time to be young in Sheffield------at least compared to today ! There 's no point in trying to compare material things we have today with what we had then [ " Oh, Grandad, how did you manage without mobile phones ? " .........etc.....etc.....] People don 't compare themselves with the future [ How can we ? It 's an unknown factor ! ] but they DO compare themselves with the past. In the Fifties & Sixties, the horrors of the second World War were beginning to fade. Materially, everything was getting better and better------more cars, more t.v 's, more foreign holidays..........etc.....etc...Universities were expanding and socially people were more liberated [ easier divorce, gay rights ]. Even if everything wasn 't perfect [ It never is ! ] we felt that we were moving forward, steadily and confidently. There was very little unemployment, in fact there was a shortage of labour in many industries. No wonder we generally felt quite happy as many posters have accurately pointed out. What went wrong then ? Well, this is not the place to go into all that. All that we can hope, is that by some miracle, something like those 2 decades will return. Some hope !

I think Andy Murray should be exiled to somewhere like Rockall for at least 30 years------so that we don 't have our media swamped by 'news' from Wimbledon, repeated ad nauseum until we feel like throwing ourselves under a tennis ball. The BBC in particular seem to go completely gaga about sport-----hour after hour, day after day, week after week of mind-numbing sport. They even had the cheek to say that the nation would be watching the Wimbledon Men 's Final ! Well, a few thousand were actually at Wimbledon and I suppose a few million Couch Idlers watched it too but millions more were perhaps actually DOING something ?? On top of all that Andy Murray must be the most charmless champion of any sport, ever ! He makes Gordon Brown look like Max Miller.

Has anyone got the comparable statistics, say, for the years 1950, 1960 and 1970 ? If [ as I think ] there has been a considerable increase, I wonder why that is ? I remember a case of two men threatening people with a gun, round about 1960, in Sheffield and it caused a bit of a sensation. These days it would barely get a mention !

In answer to the O.P. 's question :- if anything, they should reduce their pay by £ 20, 000--ditto with the greedy BBC ' high ' flyers, the greedy bankers.......et al.....This country is sinking into a culture of avarice and incompetence. Rule Britannia !.............and God Help Us

Yes, Sheffield is still rather like pre-1990 Berlin with a South, West / North, East divide. Apart from what other posters have said, there 's also the fact that the U.K. 's largest coalfield was just to the north of Sheffield, whilst the Peak District National Park is to the south west. As a kid, I lived my first 8 years in the north east of Sheffield and then we moved to the Hunter 's Bar area. Even as a kid, I could see the new lot were ' posher ' but less friendly and there was less ' community ' spirit. Sheffield 's changed so much since the '50 's all this might well be out of date.........but I do think there 's still a divide, albeit for different reasons ?

Years ago, I had some left-wing friends and we all used to talk about how wicked and corrupt Capitalist Societies are. I got a bit carried away and went off to N. Korea for a week 's holiday, to sample a pure system of government. I now have my own business, a Rolls Royce and I love grinding down the poor-----as long as there 's a few bob in it, of course !

It 's all part of the general decline of culture in the UK and the big increase in childishness, stupidity and infantile behaviour. For another sick-making experience flick through some tv channels, day or night ; a visitor from out-of-space would think they had landed on Planet Googoo Kindergarden..........or a Cosmic Poor Taste contest.

Yes, I remember it but I 'm a bit mixed up with the names [ old age ! ]. I remember there used to be all night screenings at the old News Theatre cinema in Fitzalan Square and also, for a time at that cinema in the Wicker, renamed Studio 7. [ saw Emmanuelle there ]. You 're quite correct about the audience ! How some of them [ us ! ] managed to climb up the entrance steps is still a bit of a mystery