2011 Census
14 December 2012, 04:14 PM
#123
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Two stories that illustrate London in the last 25 years
I was born in central London, and grew up, lived, partied, had children in west London for the first 40 years of my life (and London was and still is the greatest city on earth)
What an amazing time I had
Anyway, during my teens and early 20,s we used to go to firework displays, put on in the private gardens of Ladbroke Grove (we all knew/had parents that lived on Elgin Crescent/Clarendon Road/Kensington Park Road etc) and all the (old English) families that had houses backing onto the gardens would do a little private soiree with a communal shindig in the gardens (fireworks / bonfire etc)
It was a local tradition on an important national day – but one evening, in 1986, as the massive bonfire was lit and jacket potatoes where handed out - someone started to make a speech, he wittered on about things, but the basic thrust was that we should all be very grateful, this did not come cheap, next year they would be looking to charge (and now to this day you have to pay)
But the really funny thing was he was an American (the first tranche of the foreign invasion that has seen every single family house in the area bought by American bankers, not surprisingly as they sell for a minmum of 4 million quid now)
can you imagine an englishman making the same speech in America, on a July 4th celebration - no thought not
Roll forward 25 years and I was on a bus on the Marylebone Road, as I stood on the crowded bus all I could hear was foreign languages and foreign looking people (East African East European etc)
I looked over and saw an old west Indian gentleman sitting down and thought “fvck me you and I are the only indigenous Londoners on this bus” – and then it occurred to me that all the Eastern Europeans are cleaning and working as nannies for the American I saw at Fireworks night all those years ago
But I am still a proud Londoner, love diversity – the greatest city on earth (apart from Tooting and Balham they are **** holes)
and if you idiots in scunthorpe still have time old familly traditions that you honour and celebrate (with a chip butty "n" gravy), you should'nt just be afraid of the EE, when the bankers move in you really are fvcked, it will cost a fortune and you will have to suffer gazpacho and guacamole dip <smiley face>
I was born in central London, and grew up, lived, partied, had children in west London for the first 40 years of my life (and London was and still is the greatest city on earth)
What an amazing time I had
Anyway, during my teens and early 20,s we used to go to firework displays, put on in the private gardens of Ladbroke Grove (we all knew/had parents that lived on Elgin Crescent/Clarendon Road/Kensington Park Road etc) and all the (old English) families that had houses backing onto the gardens would do a little private soiree with a communal shindig in the gardens (fireworks / bonfire etc)
It was a local tradition on an important national day – but one evening, in 1986, as the massive bonfire was lit and jacket potatoes where handed out - someone started to make a speech, he wittered on about things, but the basic thrust was that we should all be very grateful, this did not come cheap, next year they would be looking to charge (and now to this day you have to pay)
But the really funny thing was he was an American (the first tranche of the foreign invasion that has seen every single family house in the area bought by American bankers, not surprisingly as they sell for a minmum of 4 million quid now)
can you imagine an englishman making the same speech in America, on a July 4th celebration - no thought not
Roll forward 25 years and I was on a bus on the Marylebone Road, as I stood on the crowded bus all I could hear was foreign languages and foreign looking people (East African East European etc)
I looked over and saw an old west Indian gentleman sitting down and thought “fvck me you and I are the only indigenous Londoners on this bus” – and then it occurred to me that all the Eastern Europeans are cleaning and working as nannies for the American I saw at Fireworks night all those years ago
But I am still a proud Londoner, love diversity – the greatest city on earth (apart from Tooting and Balham they are **** holes)
and if you idiots in scunthorpe still have time old familly traditions that you honour and celebrate (with a chip butty "n" gravy), you should'nt just be afraid of the EE, when the bankers move in you really are fvcked, it will cost a fortune and you will have to suffer gazpacho and guacamole dip <smiley face>
<enter rolleyes/some other ******* smily here>
Andy
14 December 2012, 04:37 PM
#125
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Well I enjoyed it regardless of everything everybody else disliked it for. 
Telboy, didn't your English teacher ever tell you 'never' to begin a sentence with the word and?
Or am I somehow taking this into my head?
Telboy, didn't your English teacher ever tell you 'never' to begin a sentence with the word and?
Or am I somehow taking this into my head?
14 December 2012, 04:38 PM
#126
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It was bankers for dramatic affect,
(but to be fair very few professions can afford to live there, other than bankers and the meedja)
And I am sure scunthorpe is lovely
(but to be fair very few professions can afford to live there, other than bankers and the meedja)
And I am sure scunthorpe is lovely
14 December 2012, 05:01 PM
#128
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I,ll have posters from Tooting complaining next
But that is genuinely a toilet
Edit - better put a smiley :-)
But seriously it is
But that is genuinely a toilet
Edit - better put a smiley :-)
But seriously it is
Last edited by hodgy0_2; 14 December 2012 at 05:02 PM.
14 December 2012, 05:04 PM
#130
14 December 2012, 05:41 PM
#131
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Had an American banker customer Peter, I repaired sails for/sailed with out of Brighton marina. He sailed back to States though, this was mid nineties tho and he was in Hampstead, or least he was
14 December 2012, 06:31 PM
#134
But it doesn't have no-go areas. There is no area I wouldn't walk through on my own.
Last year I worked for the census. I teamed up with a woman, more for companionship really, and we shared our areas.
Ours were the worst three areas in town, two HUGE maninly white council estates and the bedsit/flats area filled with Eastern Europeans.
We had NO actual problems.
The only people who actually mucked us about were the EE immigrants.
Me: "So you've now had the form and been shown how to fill it in. The law says you MUST do so. Will you fill it in for me and I'll collect it in the next two or three days?"
EE immigrant young lady: "Eeef I have time...." airily waves cig at me, and closes door.
In her country, 30 years ago, she'd have gone to prison for NOT doing it....
Meanwhile, over on the council estates, we were asked in and helped folk who hadn't been able to do it. NO-ONE messed us about, and in the whole three areas we only got TWO straight refusals and they weren't British folk who refused.
I apologise if I have upset people with my descriptions of London. I'm going on my own experiences of the centre and the areas around Southwark, Bermondsea, Brixton etc.
I have an aunt who lives in the old part of Southwark.
I'm sure there ARE really nice areas..........
14 December 2012, 06:46 PM
#135
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Not up here there isn't.
We've just recently been told to expect to wait four to five years to see the green shoots up here.
London doesn't generate wealth, it sucks wealth from the rest of us.
Money is spent there instead of sharing it out.
Investment is made there instead of sharing it out.
And THEN they have the temerity to moan about overcrowded transport and lack of water...not that most of them wash, judging by the smell on the tube.
We've just recently been told to expect to wait four to five years to see the green shoots up here.London doesn't generate wealth, it sucks wealth from the rest of us.
Money is spent there instead of sharing it out.
Investment is made there instead of sharing it out.
And THEN they have the temerity to moan about overcrowded transport and lack of water...not that most of them wash, judging by the smell on the tube.
Oh, I wouldn't say that.......
But it doesn't have no-go areas. There is no area I wouldn't walk through on my own.
Last year I worked for the census. I teamed up with a woman, more for companionship really, and we shared our areas.
Ours were the worst three areas in town, two HUGE maninly white council estates and the bedsit/flats area filled with Eastern Europeans.
We had NO actual problems.
The only people who actually mucked us about were the EE immigrants.
Me: "So you've now had the form and been shown how to fill it in. The law says you MUST do so. Will you fill it in for me and I'll collect it in the next two or three days?"
EE immigrant young lady: "Eeef I have time...." airily waves cig at me, and closes door.
In her country, 30 years ago, she'd have gone to prison for NOT doing it....
Meanwhile, over on the council estates, we were asked in and helped folk who hadn't been able to do it. NO-ONE messed us about, and in the whole three areas we only got TWO straight refusals and they weren't British folk who refused.
I apologise if I have upset people with my descriptions of London. I'm going on my own experiences of the centre and the areas around Southwark, Bermondsea, Brixton etc.
I have an aunt who lives in the old part of Southwark.
I'm sure there ARE really nice areas..........
But it doesn't have no-go areas. There is no area I wouldn't walk through on my own.
Last year I worked for the census. I teamed up with a woman, more for companionship really, and we shared our areas.
Ours were the worst three areas in town, two HUGE maninly white council estates and the bedsit/flats area filled with Eastern Europeans.
We had NO actual problems.
The only people who actually mucked us about were the EE immigrants.
Me: "So you've now had the form and been shown how to fill it in. The law says you MUST do so. Will you fill it in for me and I'll collect it in the next two or three days?"
EE immigrant young lady: "Eeef I have time...." airily waves cig at me, and closes door.
In her country, 30 years ago, she'd have gone to prison for NOT doing it....
Meanwhile, over on the council estates, we were asked in and helped folk who hadn't been able to do it. NO-ONE messed us about, and in the whole three areas we only got TWO straight refusals and they weren't British folk who refused.
I apologise if I have upset people with my descriptions of London. I'm going on my own experiences of the centre and the areas around Southwark, Bermondsea, Brixton etc.
I have an aunt who lives in the old part of Southwark.
I'm sure there ARE really nice areas..........
And the only hassle/aggression I ever came across was from scousers
I am sure there are decent ones, it is just that I havn't met any yet
14 December 2012, 06:57 PM
#137
The point is that people on the whole are NOT always lovely.
Take the French: as a NATION, I'd not trust them as far as I could chuck France.
But there are few French people I don't like.
Similarly, the Eastern Europeans are actually most of them decent people.
It's not THEIR fault they are here, nor mine.
But I'd still like to see them all go home.
NOT because I dislike them, but because I have seen, second hand, the damage to our own young.......
Take the French: as a NATION, I'd not trust them as far as I could chuck France.
But there are few French people I don't like.
Similarly, the Eastern Europeans are actually most of them decent people.
It's not THEIR fault they are here, nor mine.
But I'd still like to see them all go home.
NOT because I dislike them, but because I have seen, second hand, the damage to our own young.......
14 December 2012, 08:30 PM
#138
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Only the ones at primary school where they assumed that at a young age you wouldn't be able to include a subject, object and verb into such a sentence. Have you not progressed past that stage?
14 December 2012, 08:35 PM
#140
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14 December 2012, 09:06 PM
#144
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15 December 2012, 12:01 PM
#149
The info in the census forms helps government and local government to make decisions about far-ranging things from number of school places required, to number of police, from number of hospital beds to number of old-folks' homes, from where to site shops to how many interpreters we are likely to need in schools etc etc.
And the PERSONAL info? Sealed for 100 years. Can't be opened without an order from the High Court, and, afaik, one has never been given.
Your great great grandchildren would then be able to find you in 2111....except that YOURS won't.
15 December 2012, 01:03 PM
#150
Okay so can you provide me with a link to this information so what I heard maybe untrue?