eastender wrote:

In article . com,
" wrote:


which make leaving my homeafter nightfall a rare and dangerous experiece (and I live in one of
the better streets in Fulham!),

Are you really scared? Has anything ever happened to you?

Yes, I am scared even to open my curtain sufficiently for the roaming
thugs to see who is watching them, lest they come back and throw a
brick or worse later on. My computer is right next to my 1st-floor
window, and if I do open the curtains to see the latest thug urinating
or having sex on the bonnet of my car, or just behaving in the
thuggish, loutish way that passes for "normal youthful high spirits in
21st Century Britain) I switch off my lights first.

Of course "something" has happened to me.

I have had my car vandalised on 4 separate occasions - ranging from
mere coin/key scratches to a horde of youths who decided it would be
fun to run down the whole lengh of the road jumping from car bonnet to
car boot and so forth. This cost me almost £1,000 to repair alone.

I have had flowers ripped from my front garden.

No fewer than 3 trees planted outside or opposite my house, having
campaigned for years to get the local authority to do it (even offering
to pay personally) have either been ripped out or snapped in half.

I had a scarf calmly taken off my neck as I was standing at the bus
stop at the head of my road by a young hooded hoodlum, while his
friends stood by and watched (a rare occasion for me to be standing at
a bus stop to go out in the evening).

Countless individuals have urinated against my front garden wall or
car.

Countless items of rubbish have been thrown into my front garden.

A railing has been ripped out from my front fence so that it can be
used as a sword against another thug.

I have had graffiti sprayed on my front fence.

Both of my neighbours have been burgled (it's never happened to me,
yet, because I have aged parents living here and the house is NEVER
empty).

Someone clearly being chased after a drug deal (or similar) had gone
wrong ran into a neighbour's house whilst she was unloading her car and
her back was turned to the front door, only for her to be confronted by
him when she went indoors: I could hear the shouts from inside my front
room and I went to help her throw him out - I don't think he quite knew
what hit him!

So, yes, I am genuinely scared (42-year-old, reasonably fit and
well-built male) and rarely set foot outside my front door after dark.
If I do, e.g. to put out the rubbish, I check from inside my house up
and down the road to see whether one of the marauding hooded bike gangs
is on the prowl, or one of the drug-users from the neighbouring
side-street's "social housing" is about to throw a disused needle in my
direction, or if one of the cannabis-smoking juvenile groups is passing
by ready to shout abuse for the mere offence of being a civilised human
being not of their ilk.



In fact, Singapore simply reflects our own culture at the time of its
independence, and I am frankly, a little tired of the seemingly racist
view that their society is any less valid than 21st Century Britain.

This is nonsense. At no time in the 20th century have we had a largely
one party state or state controlled media, except for necessary war
precautions. You do realise that Singapore tries to control Internet
access - still want to live there?


I couldn't care less about a theoretical "one party" state. We have
already surrendered 75% (with the rest soon to follow) to Brussels,
with no control over the European Commission whatsoever. What is the
big difference between Brown/Blair and Cameron anyway that gives me a
real choice of an alternative?

I don't much care for the media we have - a largely biased state-funded
B.B.C. and a myopic money-grabbing gutter press. They're as bad as each
other and I regard both with equal contempt.

As for Internet access - just what type of site does the Singapore
Government try to restrict? What I am allowed to see without being
prosecuted or threat of it is already increasing by the day in the U.K.
I have no doubt that the U.K. will follow equally draconian
politically-correct censorship rules when the technology allows (it's a
small step from saying a public performer ought not to belong to a
particular political party to saying that the same party ought not to
have access to "public" media such as the Internet).

E.

Marc.