The Banter Thread / Banter Topic / Sean Bean

[Spatial]

And don't give me that "God wants man to have freewilly"

Too late

[Ady]

Can someone please explain this one to me.

I don't know about your town centre, but where I live, we have five, yes five coffee shops. In the centre part of town you have a Costas and a Starbucks (opening soon), mere yards down the road from that is a Nero's and if you turn left of Nero's and walk down the road for 5 mins, you reach ANOTHER Costa's. A bit further on, you come across a smaller independent coffee house that's just opened up recently.

Now, what baffles me the most about all this is the fact that there are NO proper sized supermarkets in town at all (there's a small Sainsbury's, a little Somerfields and a Tesco Express, but they're glorified corner shops) which means that if you want to do shopping, you have to go to one of the big supermarkets on the outskirts of town.

So... if you want to drink coffee, you're spoilt for choice, but if you want to buy food... sorry, mate tough sh*t, not in this town centre.

Aren't we supposed to be in the middle of a recession? How the hell is it that FIVE coffee shops (two of which are of the same chain) are able to co-exist mere minutes from each other in a busy town centre yet there isn't a single decent sized supermarket?

[Dirty Sanchez]

Cost of 1 cup of coffee = 5 pence, price = ?2.80.

or they are fronts for drug laundering, small denomination purchases, usually cash.

[Paulos G]

While I was in the US for a few months last year I got right into drinking coffee at home. When we got back to the UK we bought a coffe machine. Today I added a spoonful of drinking chocolate to the ground coffee and the result was yummy creamy chocolatey coffee goodness!

[EDDIE M0NS00N]

I hate coffee. I only used to drink it when I was in my teens because everyone else was doing it, but I hated the taste tbh.
These days the smell reminds me of cigarette smoke & it turns my stomach. Everytime is see or smell it I think of liquid fag ash being drunk. Yuk!!

[dataDave]

Coffee was nice for me, I used to love coffee and a spliff shortly after breakfast on weekends.

Now I'm a fitness freak I've quit caffeine totally and won't even drink coke anymore. I need to if I want my sleeping regulated, any excess coffee or sugar and I'm up all night thinking about pointless crap.

As both Ady and Dirty touched on... we're supposed to be in the middle of a recession with unemployment everywhere yet f**kers are still finding the brass to blow £3 on a cup of coffee, it's a joke.

[Kieran76]

I had to go to court today. This was my first ever visit to court and I was a witness, to my own road traffic accident! The whole experience was strange, I had to swear to tell the truth and stay stood up all the time I was in the stand.
However, I left the court really angry as the man who caused my broken arm by opening his van door onto me as I cycled past, just stood there and lied. He tried to claim I drove into his wing mirror and that he got out after I had fallen off and played the part of the good samaritan! I really don't understand how someone could just stand there and make up such stuff. I didn't stay until the end but i hope they didn't believe him over me.

[Spatial]

At least in court you usually get a fair chance to say your bit and be cross examined by your own barrister / solicitor. Even worse than that is being dragged in to a public flogging exercise which is nothing more than a pound of flesh for the public. And not being able to really say anything because one person is directing all the questioning (and they've got a massive agenda to rubbish you no matter what you say). And you don't get the chance to be cross examination properly to get your point / side across.

I've had that. It was as much fun as having your balls repeatedly stamped on.

Hard to believe in this day and age that a persons human rights count for **** when it comes to the governments idea of `justice`.

God bless this ****ed up ****hole of a country.

[fuse]

450 job cuts at my place today. Looks like I've survived but things are far from rosy considering a lot of roles I interact with (and every other team in my department) are at risk. Not having a good day :/

[112]

Can someone please explain this one to me.

I don't know about your town centre, but where I live, we have five, yes five coffee shops. In the centre part of town you have a Costas and a Starbucks (opening soon), mere yards down the road from that is a Nero's and if you turn left of Nero's and walk down the road for 5 mins, you reach ANOTHER Costa's. A bit further on, you come across a smaller independent coffee house that's just opened up recently.

Now, what baffles me the most about all this is the fact that there are NO proper sized supermarkets in town at all (there's a small Sainsbury's, a little Somerfields and a Tesco Express, but they're glorified corner shops) which means that if you want to do shopping, you have to go to one of the big supermarkets on the outskirts of town.

So... if you want to drink coffee, you're spoilt for choice, but if you want to buy food... sorry, mate tough sh*t, not in this town centre.

Aren't we supposed to be in the middle of a recession? How the hell is it that FIVE coffee shops (two of which are of the same chain) are able to co-exist mere minutes from each other in a busy town centre yet there isn't a single decent sized supermarket?

Ady might have something to do with rent and cost of land in the town centre......... The reason why they can build massive sheds on the outskirts of towns for stuff liek asda, tesco etc is because land value there is cheaper and by being on the outskirts you attract folks from outside of town also.........

In answer to your question its all about money........... On a logistical side of things you could relate it to traffic. I mean if they build a mahoosive shed, say asda for example, how are they gonna get enough parking spaces for all the peeps coming into the town centre? multi storey car parks? They could but that would cost way too much for a lot of shoppers - also alot of councils are looking to move away from adding to the density of inner city/town areas. Well they could excavate and make all kinds of underground networks, but that could cost more than the store or town might be worth. So as a result they stick to small metro like places which are usually inside old buildings of shopping units where they are most probably rented space.

Well thats my thoughts anyways............

Oh and as for coffee shops well, they are money spinners because they cater for everyone at all times - there isn't a wrong time to have coffee these days.......... and people use those places for all kinds of things - meetings, breaks, dates, hanging out, surfing the net, picking up girls, etc............

112

[112]

out of curiosity, what is the difference between a barister, lawyer and a solicitor? Can't one person do it all?

or is that like saying a dentist, general practitioner and surgeon are all the same thing?

112

[ItsThere]

out of curiosity, what is the difference between a barister, lawyer and a solicitor? Can't one person do it all?

or is that like saying a dentist, general practitioner and surgeon are all the same thing?

112

Solicitors work behind desk preparing documents, bundles, advising clients at the pre trial / court stage.

Barristers only operate as an advocate in court - they have the rights of audience to speak to the judge.

In answer to your question you can be both but you need to do both sets of qualifications (the skills you need are actually vastly different) and as a solicitor training to be a barrister you tend not to have the higher rights of audience.

What that means is that you can only act before judges of a certain level (I think it is Crown Court / civil equivalent) and therefore there isn't really the big money in it.

Some people think it is an archaic system but it clearly has its merits.

Solicitors are familiar with every aspects of a clients case and run the day to day show. A Barrister needs to act and speak with clarity in Court - they are given less but more pertinent information to work from and formulate an argument with.

Plus as I said earlier, the skillset is different. Barristers learn how to illucidate answers without using leading questions (as you are not allowed to in cross examination) and solicitors learn how draft and negotiate commercial documents. Barristers are more concerned with intellectual arguments over points of law (huge generalisation) and solicitors are more concerned with commercial reality (on a day to day basis).

[ItsThere]

out of curiosity, what is the difference between a barister, lawyer and a solicitor? Can't one person do it all?

or is that like saying a dentist, general practitioner and surgeon are all the same thing?

112

Oh and a lawyer is just an American word for a solicitor.

[112]

Thanks Itsthere! Makes so much more sense now! Stupid american lingo compliating things..........

I feel more intelligent now

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[Kongster]

Don't be too hard on yourself - American English rules the waves