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Post by malxscfc on Oct 8, 2007 8:19:56 GMT
My favourite "American Lawsuit" true story is probably still this one: Woman is in supermarket, going along minding her own business with a trolley [no doubt chock-full with donuts etc] and trips over a child in the aisle. She sues, saying that there should have been a crèche facility in the store where children can be.. err... stored [and not abducted? ] This would make SOME sense, though I don't know where that would leave small shops, such as convenience stores... ANYWAY. Want to hear the really good bit? It was her OWN child she tripped over.
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Post by malxscfc on Oct 8, 2007 8:41:50 GMT
You probably COULD if you got skin cancer, which I find rather sad as in those days they probably didn't know so much about skin cancer and your parents probably still thought sunshine was healthy. Don't try and tell me the McCanns didn't know about abduction. Sunshine WAS healthy in the early 70s. If you bought a 'sun' product, it was sun OIL. Instead of having a protection factor (e.g. Factor 10 means 10 times less exposure) it would have a totally opposite multiple - in those days, Factor 4 meant it would get you burned 4 times faster. No really! Mostly it was light olive oil with a cheap perfume. In light of the tone of this thread, I'm being deliberately flippant about suing the folks of course. But at which point do parents become culpable or negligent? My Brother lived in Argentina for a few years with his wife and 2 kids. It was the safest and happiest place for kids - the most child-friendly society in the world. Fact. Yet a little girl at their school was abducted at gunpoint at home due to her Daddy's job. So were they being irresponsible leaving the children at home with the maid? Shouldn't they have employed an ex-SAS Trooper instead? Where does it end? In Health and Safety, they assess situations by drawing a grid with probability on one axis, and potential consequence on the other. [The probability of being hit by meteorite is extremely low, but the consequence would be fatal. Conversely, the chance of cutting yourself while shaving is high, but the damage minimal.] In this system, I'd say the McCanns thought the probability of Maddy being abducted was almost meteorite-low. This is the type of error which we're all guilty of when on holiday, and our guard is down. (Every summer the papers run stories of genuine lunacy where holidays are involved: www.childalert.co.uk/absolutenm/templates/newstemplate.asp?articleid=135&zoneid=1 ) Conclusion? Ban all holidays!
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Post by ambersalamander on Oct 8, 2007 17:23:25 GMT
I can't agree with that I'm afraid Malx.
Leaving a child at home with a responsible adult is FAR less likely to result in her abduction (and if the perpetrator hadn't had a gun it probably wouldn't happen) than leaving her sleeping in a strange building alone but for a pair of toddlers.
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Post by amberaleman on Oct 8, 2007 21:17:01 GMT
I'm still waiting for someone to explain how Kate McCann could have bumped off Pavarotti.
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Post by ambersalamander on Oct 9, 2007 21:55:24 GMT
She obviously gave him too much Calpol.
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Post by malxscfc on Oct 10, 2007 15:48:46 GMT
I'm still waiting for someone to explain how Kate McCann could have bumped off Pavarotti. Wouldn't surprise me. La Donna e Mobile, after all....
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Post by ojiveojive on Oct 11, 2007 11:49:24 GMT
I'm still waiting for someone to explain how Kate McCann could have bumped off Pavarotti. Wouldn't surprise me. La Donna e Mobile, after all.... Which translates as: The woman and (a piece of?) furniture or The woman is (a piece of?) furniture. Non capisco.
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Post by malxscfc on Oct 15, 2007 17:41:28 GMT
Wouldn't surprise me. La Donna e Mobile, after all.... Which translates as: The woman and (a piece of?) furniture or The woman is (a piece of?) furniture. Non capisco. "Mobile" means fickle. The phrase is a jolly old broad-brush generalisation saying that womankind is fickle and changeable. It's an amusing snapshot of 19th century His-Story, really. Operas are quite dramatic and confrontational, with each party deliberately holding an extreme view early on until, little by little, they learn a bit more about the other, and all is forgiven in a big sing-song in the final Scene. Much like Postal Strikes, really....
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Post by ambersalamander on Oct 15, 2007 18:53:05 GMT
I wish I were more fickle sometimes. I'm the most stubborn woman on earth!
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Post by malxscfc on Oct 15, 2007 20:22:54 GMT
I wish I were more fickle sometimes. I'm the most stubborn woman on earth! On that single characteristic I think Delia Smith might give you a run-in...
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Post by ojiveojive on Oct 15, 2007 22:51:41 GMT
Queried this with my italian teacher, who is italian, and she said she'd never heard of 'mobile' meaning anything other than furniture. Now, if you'd have said "La donna ed incostante" or "La donna e capricciosa", I might have understood
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Post by malxscfc on Oct 16, 2007 8:47:12 GMT
Queried this with my italian teacher, who is italian, and she said she'd never heard of 'mobile' meaning anything other than furniture. Now, if you'd have said "La donna ed incostante" or "La donna e capricciosa", I might have understood You/she may be right. Though possibly the word has (capriciously) altered in meaning over the last 150 years or so. English words like nice, terrible and gay are such examples of this. I got the English "movable" from one translator: www.tranexp.com, but 'fickle' certainly doesn't produce "mobile".
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Post by ambersalamander on Oct 17, 2007 17:47:47 GMT
It certainly makes more sense though!
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Post by malxscfc on Oct 17, 2007 19:14:06 GMT
It certainly makes more sense though! "It" being what, precisely? The woman?
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Post by ambersalamander on Oct 17, 2007 19:28:09 GMT
Women never make sense
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