London Riots

DDT you said 'If you dont think Burglary is a crime against the person, try having a burglar in your house whilst you are asleep in bed , see how you feel after'

Let`s be accurate, I said 'physical assault' as the crime against the person that may need confinement. I did not say burglary was not a crime against the person

and yes, I have been burgled and know, only too well, how it feels.

If you lock someone away, they can`t compensate you for your losses, which is what I suggested.

I reiterate, why lock someone up, at great expense, if they are of no danger of committing a physical assault ?

 

It's god's fault, seemingly....but we knew that already.....

PREDOMINATELY ATHEIST COUNTRIES HAVE LOWEST CRIME RATE, REPORTS SUGGESTS

http://www.humaniststudies.org/enews/index.html?id=219&article=7

 

We seem to be getting a bit off-track here, but in the interests of balance here is another viewpoint :-

http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/threat.html

regards

Catfoot

 

But Rosherville with repect, we cannot just let these scum that burgle and steal from your bedroom whilst you are asleep in bed get away with it.

I have several patients who's wives cannot stay in the house alone,that cannot sleep are on anti depressants , and in some cases have to move house because of these scum.

If they are behind bars thay cannot do it again.

And yes it costs But so does anything worth having

No one values what they get for free ( ask those who work in the NHS:wacko

Cheers
D

 

Well thats....

Yeah, fair shout.

 

DTT you said 'with repect, we cannot just let these scum that burgle and steal from your bedroom whilst you are asleep in bed get away with it'

Of course we can`t, but presumably you don`t intend to lock them up forever, so they will get out.

While they`re inside there`s no compensation from them, we need a system where they work off their damage. if you can convince 'our leaders' to bring back flogging, cut off hands etc, I`m all for it. If not, then they must work until the damage is paid off !

ps. with what i`ve got under my bed, no burglar would 'get away with it' !

 

?

 

I keep an enucleator under my bed !

 

Ye Gods! That's not a nice piece of equipment!!

 

'Ye Gods! That's not a nice piece of equipment!! '


No Podiatric Surgeon should be without one !

 

Sorry Del not with you, I understand this is what happens..

As an Australian of 57 years I have put up with that myself many a time, mainly from the ex-British, if you'd lived in Australia you would be familiar with the term "whinging pom"....please note this does not include all ex-British immigrants but enough to bring a new term into our vocabulary; I have known many beautiful ex-Brits

..and what might that be? forcing it onto????

Jeez Del

 

Hmmm,
Must have big HD's down your way ....

CF

 

come again?

 

Yeah that one lost me as well

Cheers
D

 

To require Rosherville's Mighty enucleator!

 

All whinging poms whinge in English I take it ??

Unlike here where we have so many languages and shops now all shop sinage is in Arabic, Schools, more children are unable to speak any english and are never taught by their parents so we the tax payer have to have all school books available in their own language and interpreters that cost millions.

Come and have a visit Mark to Croydon ( or whats left of it) see if you can hear another English voice, go on the trams /Trains / Buses = same thing.

As unplesant as this subject is to some Until we address the benifits system and immigration in this country I fear what has started now is unstopable.

And before anyone shouts racist at me , I inlcude the single mums with 7 kids by different fathers that have never worked and live off benefits and the workshy on 60 fags and 6 tins of beer a day all on benefits and the rest of the spongers that live here.

It is no longer an option to ignore it.

Cheers
D

 

Ahh got it now

D

 

There's an excellent article in today's Glasgow Herald by Iain Macwhirter, the Rector of Edinburgh University on the riots....

 

Rosherville said

and posted a picture of a billhook.

So I said "you must have big HD's (heloma durum) down your way"

Well, they must be big if it takes a billhook to get them out?

Ah well, I thought it was witty. Everyone else can please themselves....

regards

Catfoot

PS On a very serious note I have just heard on Sky News that a 14 year-old boy has been stabbed to death in a North London Park. No more news than that at the moment. Where will it all end, I wonder?

 

That`s no billhook !

 

Glad to hear I like Bill seems a guy I would have a beer with one day chew the fat on issues from Podiatry to Cricket and anything in the middle.





Sorry

 

Reciprocated Mike

The billhook was a medieval weapon used by the English armies of the time and much more effective than the French poleaxe.

The other definition is of a lady of negotiable affection who having made contact in a bar........... good taste forbids further description.

All the best

Bill

 

Apologies all,
It is not a billhook it is a Longshoreman's hook, see,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longshoreman's_hook

regards

Catfoot

 

Ah the Billhook. A much under-rated weapon.

The first three battles of the hundred years war were dominated by the Longbow. However the use of bowman as light infantry has been largely ignored by popular historians. Most bowmen were armed with a close quarter weapon. Mallets, long knives and, of course, Billhooks. At the most well known battle, Azincort, the arrowstorm probably did not account for as many casualties directly as we sometimes believe. The French were, by this time, switched on enought to know that a mounted charge against 5000 odd longbows was a bad Idea and were thus obligated to advance on foot, in full heavy plate armour, through a quagmire. Modern tests show that even bodkin point arrows would only have pierced plate armour at very close range, but they forced the french to fight in a manner not of their choosing.

The French, who were mainly interested in ransoms, attacked the center of the English line where the nobles and "men at arms" (less than a thousand) were grouped. They ignored the bowman (on the flanks) as a fighting force up close. But in thick and heavy mud a couple of lightly armed and fresh bowmen armed with Billhooks were more than a match for an exhausted and heavily encumbered french knight with no peripheral vision due to the helmet he had to wear to avoid taking an arrow in the eye. A knight in full armour, if tripped or knocked over in a foot of soft mud, was as good as dead.

And of course toward the end of the battle, when the arrows were spent and the English were exhausted and still heavily outnumbered by the as yet unengaged french rearguard, Henry ordered the french prisoners Killed. The Nobles refused the order because prisoners were ransom in the bank so it was the bowman who carried it out. This so unnerved the french that the rearguard, which would almost certainly have overwhelmed the English had they attacked, withdrew. So in the final analysis it was the close quarter weapons of the bowman, like the billhook, which won the battle.

That and horrifically poor leadership of the french of course.

So the Billhook, in combination with the longbow, gave the english a fighting unit which was cheap, flexible and almost as dangerous up close as at 300 yards.

I now return you to your regularly programmed viewing. To make it relevant, SHOULD MODERN POLICE BE ARMED WITH BILLHOOKS?

 

When you are outnumbered twenty to one and your opponents are armed with guns knives , machetes and the like a billhook or any other hand to hand weapon in useless.

I know what your up to Isaacs your trying to market the longbows you make !!!!

I'm not in favour of general arming of the police, BUT during the riots in Croydon I understand a large gunshop was looted and cleared out in a neighboring borough by black youths ( according to cctv).

I fear if that is part of the gang cultures work, Cameron pledging to "take on the gangs" there will be a lot more fatalities in the police so there may not be an alternative??

Cheers
D

 

I am SO busted.

Not made a bow for a while actually. In summer its more fun to be outdoors shooting them.

Considering my bedroom window overlooks the street and that my aim is really rather good these days its probably as well for my liberty that there were no riots in allington.

I can hit a (stationary) person sized target at 80 yards more often than not...

 

Anyone see these horrible scenes from the Isle of Wight?

Prison is too good for some people!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYahXBbk2b8

 

A pleasure to agree in part and take issue in part.

Bodkin points were not tempered steel unlike some war arrows but were incredibly effective in penetrating the joints between the armour plates, particularly where the joints were protected by chain mail. However, only the French nobles could afford 'modern' steel armour and even bodkin points could penetrate the wrought iron of the less well off.

You're the only person I have read (other than moi) (1) who appreciated that the lousy peripheral vision of a war helm had the effect that you describe. In part it was the brilliant tactics of Henry's experienced commanders throwing out the archers in 'harrow' formation which allowed the attacks from the flanks which decimated the huge French force.

According to most authorities (Hibbert, Barker,Lloyd) and eye witnesses, none of the English or Burgundians irrespective of rank would cut the throats of the French. Henry had to order the Welsh to do it and they were happy to comply. It would be nice to think that the English and Burgundians were gentlemen whilst it is quite clear that some things never change and the Welsh were not. Sadly, you are probably correct, our noble forebears were thinking more of ransoms than the niceties - the rules of war being quite clear that the murder of captured prisoners was entirely justifiable under circumstances of threat.

Henry stated that anyone who captured a French prisoner was entitled to use his coat of arms - hence Shakespeare's brilliant paraphrasing of the Agincourt speech (unless you're French like Isaacs when it's Azincourt):

"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers
For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother
be he never so base, this day shall gentle his condition;
and there are gentlemen in England now abed
shall feel themselves accursed they were not here
and hold their manhoods cheap, whilse any speaks
that fought with us, on St.Crispin's Day."

It is notable that at a time that the French considered that any form of foot soldier was contemptible, the English (and Welsh) archers were paid six pence a day in 1415. This should be compared to the pay of twelve pence a day to the private soldier in the British army of the first world war, 500 years later.

(1) Submission to University of Nottingham Dept. History (unpublished)
"The Social History of the Longbow"

Bill

 

Yes, in the USA but here in the UK it`s a Docker`s Hook.

It`s easier to use at night, when disturbed, than a longbow.

Clinical Note: approach a verruca with a Docker`s Hook, the patient will run, the verruca will fall out within 3 days. I`ve yet to seek HPC approval but then I`ve 'established usage'.

 

Nice one Bill LMFAO

Cheers
D

 

Always a delight to speak to an educated man Bill.

Well, of course there is debate....

A very interesting study here...

http://www.currentmiddleages.org/artsci/docs/Champ_Bane_Archery-Testing.pdf

You'll find it most edifying.

But for me, its a question of the numbers. There were, in the first infantry battle, in the region of 5000 men. Wearing 50-60 lbs of armour apiece and in rough ground they had to cover 300yards under fire. Estimates suggest that the English could loose in the region of 1000 arrows per SECOND. Lets be very generous and say they were able to walk at 3 MPH that puts them under fire for something like 4 minutes.

In other words, the English basically had their way with them for a loooooong time. Had the arrows been as effective at penetrating armour as all that, they would never even have reached the English lines! Even if you are conservative with the sums, everyone would have been struck at least a few times!

Worth remembering as well that most of the arrows they carried would have been broadheads.

 

Hi Rob

Thanks for that. I had read it and referred to it in my paper. I must admit to being relatively unimpressed, although I would not decry his methodology. (By the way, I wouldn't trust the BBC anyway, but especially not when he claims that they are Channel4!!!).

My main concern is that he was using a 75lb draw bow. Now my own poor weak untutored arms can draw 75lb whereas fortunately, we do have 138 longbows from 1545 preserved in the Mary Rose. These varied in length from 6'1" to 6'11". Initial tests revealed that the draw weights (the power necessary to draw the bow) ranged from 115 lb to an amazing 202 lb. and these archers were considered rather weak and pathetic by comparison to their 'strong shooting' forefathers who could 'clap a Frenchman's breeches to his bum, whilst another would sink a shaft into his vitals.' No-one has yet tested a 180 - 202 lb bow carrying either a tempered steel or an untempered bodkin point against the two different kinds of armour. It is clear from the accounts of the battle that the front ranks were made up of the richest French nobles, who would have the best armour, and they were indeed bowled over by the archers. If they had been ineffective then they wouldn't have bothered with the bows in the first place.

Got to go now (cricket's on), but the best account of AGincourt in my view is Agincourt by Juliet Barker which follows contemporaneous sources fairly closely.

Cheers

Bill

PS happy to receive any other stuff on medieval Europe and archery

 

Bill & Robert

Time to stop this near incestuous conversation.

Own up, all this talk of bodkins and broadheads is Hollywood fantasy. Like the Moon landing, it was all made up in studios to tittilate the gullable.

I have it, on good authority, that the world did not originate much before 1750. We are just ignorant players in a play, being moved around like pawns; directed by the great and good.

With world economic downturn there will soon be a total adjustment of our lives, our new world will be like the mythical stone age; the fearsome dinosaurs in reality being in the form of HPCs, there`s no escape ! Pass me my Thorazine...........

 

The last time you lot had too many in your prison system you exported them to Australia.

Sorry there are currenlty no vacancies

 

Well, I suppose that the Aussies are having the last laugh because it's now the skilled and educated Pommies who are emigrating to Oz.

At least it means that the quality of your cricket and rugby will improve!

Cheers

Bill

 

I'm gagging Bill, gagging! Like we've sent our best to you for the last 60 years!

 

Didnt know you had any Bill

 

Catfoot

http://latestnews.virginmedia.com/news/uk/2011/08/20/teenager_charged_over_stab_death

Note the age of the attacker

This is all part of the root problem in London, apparently the boy was stabbed because he had crossed into another gangs territory= postcode punishment:butcher:

Cheers
D

 

There's just a few of us left! :sinking:

 

All,
Just to stir the pot a bit more .........

I saw on Sky news last night previously unreleased footage of the riots, that shows a person discharging a handgun into a line of unarmed police and also shooting at a police helicopter. There were two sections of film, one from on the ground and the other from the police helicopter itself.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-14601228

That puts a bit of a different context on it, doesn't it?

regards

Catfoot.