Woodburners are very efficient in a small house. My son has them in his Norfolk cottage. I've never quite got the hang of them myself, and always wait for someone else to light them.

A Rayburn must be nice 

We have ours on for a couple of hours in the morning, couple in the evening. Bit more now that the days are getting colder, but never at night. And that's with both a young baby and a chronic lung disease sufferer in the house (two separate people). Always have done. My excuse is that it's extremely expensive and environmentally destructive, especially when jumpers are freely available.

Sorry, Milly, but I don't understand the 24/7 approach to household heating, and it's one of those things that sets me off on a GOR. 

That's what I hear that quite a few people are doing, going without, rather than to being cold.

Well the annoying thing is that it's unlikely to do Brand and Ross's careers any real harm either, in fact it'll most likely fuel it.  Even if they get fired from the BBC they'll be popping up again on some other channel - I doubt E4 for instance will hold it against them.  You've only got to look at Russell Brand's track record to see how 'damaging' this sort of stunt has been so far.    Ross might suffer a bit more as he's been more mainstream, but he'd seemed to have been the main protagonist in this particular incident so he deserves what he gets.  It's like listening to a bunch of adolescent boys out-dare each other.

Now, now, t_i_n.  She's not a stripper, she's a burlesque artist - which, as I understand it, means she demands to be taken more seriously for not delivering the goods!  All good post-modern stuff.



A reasonable hope, but, as I said earlier, not one I can share because I don't think the stuff Ross delivers is worth a sausage, so the actual amount is immaterial.  I think there might well be a generational thing here (I'm not the only one who's worried about turning into D of TW over this!); I began to notice about 15 years ago that a generation of adults was failing to grow out of the juvenile habit of seeing mere ridicule as wit.  I don't mean the pricking of pomposity (which, imo, is valid in any free society) but merely mocking someone for the sake of it.  Older celebrities like Ross (and, to a lesser extent,  Baddiel, Skinner etc) latched on to this with the result that JR is now a grotesque spectacle - an overgrown adolescent paid large amounts of money to insulate him from any need to mature.  I'm afraid I'm willing to take the risk of being identified with Tunbridge Wells's finest by saying that if the suspension/sacking of these two spreads the message that mockery is not, in itself, big or clever then that can only be a good thing.

I will distance myself from D of TW by adding that there is another element of this business I find quite disturbing.  It's not particularly surprising that this has blown up a long time after the event - after all, most of the people who are most upset just don't listen to Radio 2 and had to wait to be informed of the uses to which their licence money was being put.  And a large part of the audience didn't find the piece offensive - which is also not surprising for the reason suggested above.  What I find a bit sinister is that all the people who did complain at the time protested that Ross said 'he ****ed your granddaughter'*. In other words, they were more concerned that a word wasn't bleeped out than that an innocent person was being savagely ridiculed. 

*hmm...seems we can't even post it here without being 'bleeped' !

Do you really think the teasing on Buzzcocks is like bullying, pw?  I think it's a world apart from Brand/Ross's recent activities, and Simon Amstel is surely about as laddish as Stephen Fry, if rather meaner?    It's close-to-the-bone teasing sometimes, but it's mostly done in fairly good humour I think..  Plus the guests know exactly what to expect when they participate (or at least they should do!)

The only segment that used to make me feel uncomfortable was the line-up where they had to identify someone who hadn't been in the limelight for quite a while, but that seems to have been recently ditched.  Perhaps they ran out of willing volunteers...

It's not a programme that is among my preferred watching by any means, but I have seen it occasionally (my daughter watches it) and yes, I think some of what I have seen is text-book bullying - not just from Amstell but on occasions where all the panellists join in the "mobbing" of a contestant - and the fact that the celebrity guests obviously know what they're letting themselves in for doesn't mitigate the fact that the behaviour on the show legitimises what in almost any normal situation would be completely unacceptable behaviour.  And it is far from alone in doing that.

I noticed that the NUT thinks so too ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/mar/25/schools.uk11