Stocky

WOW.  I AM SO PLEASED THAT I READ YOUR REPLY I HAD GOT MY SELF INTO A RIGHT TIZZ OVER CRIME.

I FEEL SO MUCH BETTER NOW

Sorry, but did I say I thought the figures were good?

I was just showing they were improving rather than getting worse as Mr. Helper had implied using figures from January 2003.

It's all relative, personally I don't believe the UK is a bad place, and it's certainly not as bleak as portrayed in many of the posts in this thread.

But look on the bright side, with all the slagging the UK's getting in this thread any would be bogus asylum seeker reading it will no doubt be looking at other options!

I blame the drugs for the previous post , where can I get some for this migraine?

After you with the paracetamol

it's SAFE here, and civilized.

The U.K. what a wonderful place.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

Gun crimes soar by 35%

Staff and agencies

Thursday January 9, 2003

etc. etc. etc......

Can we have some current figures please!

Longest period of falling crime for 106 years

Alan Travis, home affairs editor

Thursday July 22, 2004

The Guardian

The crime rate in England and Wales fell by a further 5% in the past year to produce the longest sustained drop since 1898, the Home Office reported today.

Overall crime has fallen by 39% since it peaked in 1995, with the rate of car crime and burglary halving in the past nine years, according to the latest British Crime Survey.

The risk of becoming a victim of crime has fallen from 40% in 1995 to 26% in the 12 months to March 2004, marking the lowest since the annual survey began in 1981.

Figures for offences recorded by the police also published today show a 1% rise in overall crime, including a 12% increase in violent crime, a category which includes sex offences and robberies. This set of crime figures shows that violence against the person has risen by 14%, accounting for 955,000 of the 1.1m violent offences recorded by police.

But Home Office statisticians insisted that much of the rise was due to the continuing impact of changes in recording practices and increased rates of reporting by the public. The police violent crime figures were inflated by rising rates of common assaults not involving injury.

The Home Office pointed to the findings of the "more reliable" crime survey, which asks a random sample of 40,000 people about their experiences of crime. It showed that violent crime levels were relatively stable over the past year.

The police figures include 853 murders, 190 fewer than the year before the 172 victims of the GP Harold Shipman inflated the figure.

Paul Wiles, director of Home Office research and statistics, said the figures did show that while domestic violence and "acquaintance violence" had dropped by 50% since 1995, incidents of "stranger violence" and muggings had dropped by only 5% over the same period. Nearly half the "stranger violence" incidents had involved alcohol, and it is this statistic that lies behind the government campaign on binge drinking, he said.

Results from first two weekends of the police forces' summer alcohol campaign published today show that half the pubs raided in special sting operations were found to be selling alcohol to under-18s.

Professor Wiles confirmed that the government's target announced last week, for cutting crime by 15% within the next three years, was based on the crime survey figures for 2002-03. The 5% drop in this year's figures from the survey, for 2003-04, indicates that the David Blunkett, the home secretary, has already met one-third of his target only 10 days after its announcement.

But Prof Wiles said: "We've got 5% of the 15%. Does that mean it's easy because we've got 5% in the bag? No it doesn't." He insisted that Mr Blunkett and Tony Blair had not seen today's figures before the new crime target was set.

Mark Oaten, the Liberal Democrats' spokesman, last night said the idea that the home secretary had not known of the British Crime Survey figures stretched belief. "The honest and decent thing is for him to take the latest set of figures as his starting point."

Mr Blunkett said he had not received the figures until two days after the 15% target had been announced.

Prof Wiles said the sustained drop in crime since 1995 was a unique change: "It is the longest period of falling crime that anybody can remember." Claims that antisocial behaviour and fear of crime were rising were urban myths, he said.

The British Crime Survey estimates that there were 11.7m crimes against adults in the past year and 5.9m crimes recorded by the police, a 1% increase on the previous year.

Special reports

Policing crime

Gun violence in Britain

Useful links

April 2004: Home Office figures on crime in England and Wales (pdf)

British crime survey in full (pdf)

Home Office

I used to drink Kloster, but it became so hard to find a bar that sold it, and then it was always far more expensive than Singha, that I eventually gave up.

I'm now a Singha man.

Oh my god LC, I've just seen your new Avatar, you nearly had my eye out!

Uhh.. calm down Stocky. It's all illusion.

Well it's a splendid illusion

Mate you have obviously never lived in Leytonstone . Pray tell where did you live as a youngster?

You're not wrong! It certainly wasn't Leytonstone.

Leytonstone is more like ... (it won't let me have all the emoticons so see original post)

Actually that is the Daily Mail's version of my part of the world, but the reality really is

True

Surprised to see there're more British/Irish than Aussie/Kiwi 

Oh my god LC, I've just seen your new Avatar, you nearly had my eye out!

Mate you have obviously never lived in Leytonstone . Pray tell where did you live as a youngster?

You're not wrong! It certainly wasn't Leytonstone.

Have you tried Ritalin?

They won't prescribe Ritalin in the UK. N.I.C.E. says there are more questions than answers.

So no.

I'm sorry, I'm truly sorry, but try as hard as I can, I do not recognise the country depicted in much of this thread.

I work abroad, but own a home in the UK and rent a property in Thailand, and I do take my allowed 90 days in the UK each year.

I've always considered the ethnic diversity of the UK as something to celebrate not deride, having been born and raised in a cosmopolitan environment I've always had friends of Asian and African descent. Indeed Britain has always been an ethnically diverse nation; most of those who call themselves 'English' are German or Scandinavian settlers themselves. Britain is a country that I will always think of as home.

My parents brought me up with an open mind, I judge people by their words and deeds not by their origins, colour or creed. Sadly many who have posted on this thread were less fortunate than myself.

Xenophobia is a poison, these are embittered people who look at hard working Indians or Pakistanis running the local corner shop with envy. These are the people who would never work 7-11, day in day out, they want the same rewards without the effort. Little Englanders harking back to an era of Empire, still touted by the Daily Mail and it's ilk, where proud English people had nothing to fear but Hitler and rickets.

This is white trash, and sadly it's coming your way Thailand!

Did anyone get past question 15?  I nodded off somewhere around there and want to know of it's worth going back up the thread?

Sorry I failed to keep you entertained. Perhaps questions like "name three BJ bars in Bangkok" or "name 3 short-time hotels equipped with gynaecological chairs" would have been more up your alley.

Oooooh!

Sorry for pissing on your parade, but I did suddenly lose the will to live around question 15, honest

why the skin of a Thai is softer?

Because she is young?

TH

Nail on the head!

In Thailand I suspect you get to touch much that you wouldn't at home!

but can any of you explain why the skin of a Thai is softer?

I am not sure about that.

The girls I knew in Europe had silky soft skin.

As soft and even probably softer than Thai girls.

But it was quite some time ago.

I was younger.

And so they were,...

And as BC alluded if you remember back to your youth, I doubt if the memory of your first love will conjure up stubbly rhino hide legs!

My memories certainly don't

Did anyone get past question 15? I nodded off somewhere around there and want to know of it's worth going back up the thread?

I am a little curious as to how much the beer effects you while in Thailand. And for most of you that live in thailand do you get use to the weather so that the beer would effect you the same as in your home country.

As for me I visit LOS for @ 3 weeks per year. I know the beer is stronger here than in the U.S.  but it seems to me that I drink like a fish when I am here and do not get nearly as drunk as I would at home. I think I probably sweat it out as fast as I consume it. So when I retire here will I be able to drink like a fish all the time or will I become climatized after a while and become as drunk as normally would.

this will be useful info for me for my retirement years. I might have to start a slush fund now to pay for my beers when I retire. That is if the fish mode does not go away. 

I drink like a fish home and away!

Maybe you should try meeting up with the SAGA holidays tour , they rock (backwards and forwards)

and dribble

Never lend what can't afford to lose.

"I know I'm stupid"

Love is the wisdom of the fool and the fooly of the wise. Samuel Johnson.

Congratulations, Stocky,...

Perchance the folly of the wise?

Does it really matter,...?

Of course not

"I know I'm stupid"

Love is the wisdom of the fool and the fooly of the wise. Samuel Johnson.

Congratulations, Stocky,...

Perchance the folly of the wise?

These days there is only one, and after seven years we seem to be doing OK. 

If you can't have what you love, you must love what you have,...

What I have is what I wanted, and what I have is what I love

When I've made a faux par and I tell her "I know I'm stupid" with my pronunciation of 'know' a bad approximation of the Thai word for stupid.

What is a faux pas, Stocky?

"I know I'm stupid"

Don't tell them, Stocky.

I'm afraid they will take advantage of you,...

These days there is only one, and after seven years we seem to be doing OK.

Marry someone a lot younger than you and have lots of children !!

I'm still working on the children

Maybe you should start working on the wife,...

When I've made a faux par and I tell her "I know I'm stupid" with my pronunciation of 'know' a bad approximation of the Thai word for stupid.

What is a faux pas, Stocky?

"I know I'm stupid"

I realise that most of you guys are just taking the pi*s.

But Thailand/Thais have never come up with an invention of any merit (and if your talking of Tom Yum yer just talking sh*t)

There is/has never been a Thai who could even comprehend the thinking of people like Rutherford, Whittle, Stevenson, Bell, Erickson, Marconi, Michaelangelo, the list is endless.

With all due respect to the thinkers of the realm "they just don't / can't cut it with anyone of any note.

AND they never will until they teach people how to think of how to find the answers rather than show them the formula's and how to find the answers. (2+2 = 4 but why)

Who gives a rat's arse. Relax, life is too short

When I've made a faux pas and I tell her "I know I'm stupid" with my pronunciation of 'know' a bad approximation of the Thai word for stupid.

Don't know that you would call it inventing something but a couple of months ago I saw a setup on thai television which looked to me like an attachment for your air conditioner which used the waste heat from the heat exchanger to heat water. I thought that was a good innovation.

That has been going on for a long time in developed countrys,but usually ran thru a cooling tower to reuse to cool the condensing coils,,but the HEAT PUMP heats whole houses and is the same principle.

Recycled tires are nothing new,they are used in asphalt for road surfaces and a lot of things., but the steel belted tires are hard to recycle.

In Tanzania and Ghana you could buy flip-flops, slip-slops, thongs - call them what you wish, made from old tyres. The most highly prized where those made from steel belted radials because they were near impervious to thorns.