The PM Glass Box.
The Glass Box is where the PM team meets in at 18.00 every weeknight to discuss the content of the programme.
We try to be honest with each other, but not hurtful, as we talk about what worked and what didn't...what met our expectations and what fell short.
This virtual glass box is where you're encouraged to take part in the same spirit. Tonight's editor Eloise Twisk will read your comments and may well add her own.
Listen to PM
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I'm starting to panic.
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invisibleatheist, don't panic - plan or worry or both. Most of the things I worry about never happen and lots of the things I plan for never materialise.
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IA (1): Here, have this beach towel. It's got the words DON'T PANIC written on it in nice, large friendly letters...
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Why are you using the BBC Royal Correspondent to report on the funeral of an officer? What is this telling us?
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Phew! Feeling better already.
We have our masks - real medical ones, not the pretend ones - and I have to do some panic buying at the weekend. Do I wear a mask and be the only one other shoppers are staring at, or do I wait to see if there are others, so I can blend in? Or perhaps deny swine flu exists? I'm sure there's a website proving it somewhere...
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"Helicopters"
Can PM beat the World record for the number of times the word "helicopters" is used in one radio programme?
It's currently held by their colleagues at the World at One and stands at thirty two. Go for it guys..!
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Why does the BBC have such an obsession with Swine flu when each year 3-4,000 deaths are attributed to "normal" influenza in the UK?
During epidemics, can be much higher, e.g. 30,000 excess deaths in 1989-90 with 89% of these being in people aged over 65 years. Do the BBC really want listeners to panic over a disease that is less lethal than "normal" influenza?
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4. Perhaps they don't have an Officer's Funerary Correspondent?
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78.
With posts coming and going like a rat up a drainpipe can I ask if you'd be so kind as to reconsider this:
A slack news day and everyone to the right of George Galloway listening to the nationalism feste on Radio 5 Live Extra (or watching it), so could PM slip in how many dead there are THIS year in Helmand.
Local people, whether fighting the Nato invaders or just hoping they'll go but dying like real heroes.
What does Nato think is the status of people captured by their forces?
Are we at war?
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Three helicopters so far, no, four, five, six, seven, eight/nine, ten... a clicker would help.
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9. ThinkerRetired
'What does Nato think is the status of people captured by their forces?'
Torturees?
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Just add eco to anything and it becomes unassailably ok. Don't talk about developments of estates of thousands of houses on greenfield sites, call them ecotowns and there's applause. Still, we need somewhere to house all the immigrants.
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It is not British to panic. I am, however, quietly bricking it.
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Is swine flu only in the UK? I ask since all we hear about is numbers of people in the UK, numbers of dead in the UK, precautions and plans for the UK. Is the rest of Europe experiencing similar rates? How about Asia, Australasia, Africa? After all pandemic means worldwide doesn't it?
I love listening to these government wonks struggling to explain away why ecotown homes are less eco than non ecotown homes.
Go for the jugular Eddie! He's in trouble, coup do grace coming up.
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My sister is a receptionist in a university clinic and has already dealt with spluttering flu sufferers despite the sign on the door requesting that they stay away and phone the doctor. She has been told by the management at the clinic that the policy, once vaccines are available, is to vaccinate front line staff which DOES NOT include the reception staff. Does this seem as cynical and penny-pinching to you as it does to me?
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Did I miss something? Did the Green Party get elected to government, and I somehow didn't notice?
We don't need 10 eco-towns. Or any eco-homes. Or 'carbon-neutral' homes.
I heard earlier, in the Material World, that 7,000 windmills were going to built in 10 years.
This is bananas. Complete, barking bananas.
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Does Wootton Basset have a Get Out of Afghanistan, NOW, group?
They would clearly be part of the solution, getting killed more part of the problem.
11 OK. So, Mr. Mair, how many prisoners have Nato taken in Helmand this year? Where are they?
Will the BBC smuggle in John Simpson and PM. Hugh, to see them?
Are they tied up in those leg hampers the gaolers were/are so keen on at Guantanamo Bay?
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A children's lawyer, no wonder he saw nothing wrong. He's part of the children's rights lobby... but dinner lasies???? That must have been a joke, right?
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Come on PM, can't you spare a moment to ask or even attempt to find out yourselves how many Afghans have been killed by coalition forces since we turned up in Afghanistan? Wouldn't it help to put our losses into perspective and isn't that your job?
Perhaps at least an attempt to divide these numbers into civilians and fighters would also be helpful. And I think most of us would also appreciate some information on what proportion of these fighters are Afghans and which are not.
Now I admit I'm a bit of a sceptic, but surely PM appreciates that this glaring omission in the information being provided by the BBC on this matter is starting to suggest an agenda other than providing a broad range of objective information on this crucial issue.
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Swine Flu, Swine flu, come again no more...(Stephen Collins Foster-ish)
Please guys can we hear no more about this non-event? It is boring, useless and it is not in the public interest to keep promoting this utter non-issue to panic level.
No one in their right mind would go to the GP with a flu infection. My GP says explicitly "don't come to the surgery if you think you have swine flu." He justifies this by saying that we must not transmit the disease to the infirm; pretty sane I think.
Could we have a much more interesting disease that strikes down hack journalists and politicians with 90% mortality?
Regards
Jock
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I'm a musician. I play the saxophone - and have regularly, though not frequently, gone into schools either alone or with other musicians to perform in front of kids of all ages. I'm not usually paid for doing this. My own first ever experience of seeing a 'live' saxophone was as an 8 or 9 year old in a primary school when a group of musicians came in and played one afternoon. I already knew that i loved the sound of the sax, and wanted to play. Seeing one in the flesh confirmed this and remains one of my most vivid childhood memories.
I've yet to see any statistics that prove that requiring CRB checks and other such bureaucratic measures have made any difference to the number of children who are abused each year. Are there any? I believe that the culture it creates, is actually more likely to reduce the sort of 'normal' vigilance that people would exercise because they think that because someone has passed one of these largely meaningless tests, they are somehow now 'approved'.
Perhaps creating a vast slew of separate databases where we all need to keep our info up to date is a back door way of getting us to start pleading with the government to create one central identity database!
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Who else apart from writers is going to have to be checked out (and pay £67 for the privilege)? People who happen to live near a school? Train drivers in case a child gets on the train? Shop assistants in case a child comes into their shop...postmen (they might go to a house where a child is living)...people who might walk down a street at the same time as a child... the jobsworths trying to make authors register and declare their non-paedophilia go too far. As usual.
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Vetting authors before they go into schools and talk to children?
Bananas! Barking, babbling, burbling, brain-bending bananas!!
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Invisibleatheist (14) It's only in London and the West Mids if the media emphasis is anything to go by! We've just received a set of assumptions for our area based on some work done in Australia which is actually quite interesting (well, I thought it was!) I've been troubled all day by the sodium content of the Lemsip and soluble co-codamol from yesterday's glass box - you get more than the RDA from the medicine alone!
I can understand the rationale behind checks for anyone who works in schools but I do find it harder to understand for those who will be in a group situation and supervised by a member of staff. This is how I understood author/illustrator visits to run. By extension this requirement should also extend to politicians who use schools for photo opportunities.
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And will parents who go into school to listen to reading or help with games also have to pay to be vetted? What about visiting theatre companies, like bigbuzzard's musicians ? What about the local minister/priest/imam going in to conduct services?
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Just a thought:
These ecotowns could all have, right at their centre, one of Brown's Nuclear Power (BNP) stations. They're clean and green right? What better place to position them, no opposition from communities since there will be no pre-existing community. They could thus provide clean green energy to power the clean green ecotown. What a perfect solution. Wonder if the government have thought of this, kill two birds with one stone... if they also built an arms factory nearby, the depleted uranium could be turned into shells and bullets, ready for supplying the armed forces. Quite circular and carbon friendly.
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Frank Davis 23, I used to know a Frank Davis. He played the bones. But usually in the pub, not in schools. He is also dead.
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Having made about 25 billion in London alone, market makers had a cautious day, today. They only nipped us for a cool 4 billion today with a rise of 15 or so, here.
There's always a quiet day after an engorging coup like yesterday.
'Must be careful. Don't want to kill the Goose that lays the Golden Eggs. It'll take weeks to get the FTSE back to 6,000 (a 30 per cent increase) and full throttle. If we called those sorts of numbers overnight, the mugs would think we were just printing money. They'd tax it away or requisition it and go and spend it on hospitals and schools and other nonsense'
Watch NY. Sometimes after Europe closes they have a little dollar boom all of their own. It's usually even dodger than the standard rip - off. Europeans can't always be trusted as capitalists, you see.
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Researchers at Ohio State University? I thought they only played football (American) there.
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A plug for the The Chambers? Lol An ear plugs more like.
About two years ago there was a telly version of what barristers did Eddie. I was awaiting an end to something then too! So hearing that "puff" on QC R Us(a) I booked an appointment with my bathroom to wash my hair on that night.
Us and them I mean the book authors I heard from via the Media and PM are fairly high profile.
Famous or at least well known authors objecting to that Child Protection Register - £60 odd to be checked for suitability.
I get why they authors - object but then I think of the wide range of people who become authors.
Some with allegedly formerly less than pristine in their behaviour, some with "form" and actually writing about their various falls from grace.
With have had a few fly in from overseas to advise our young ones too.
So authors are there to be different classes of authors?
If so I see being an author is in danger of being a mask. So how you exclude anyone no matter how affronted I have no idea.
I saw the other story today about children and schools as more worthy of my attention. And more worthy of careful consideration on how each case is treated.
The suggestion on the number of malicious and patently false accusations against teachers by children at said teachers schools. The very fact of an accusation is enough at the moment. A whole process starts and anyone accused appears to my non The Chambers eye as being seen as guilty allegedly until they have their defence heard. Mud sticking. Tongues wagging. We humans are not very nice are we - and I mean "WE"!
And yes each claim by children must be treated with deadly seriousness but discussing the Dreyfus Affair elsewhere some more thought and investigation should be done with if possible some discetion before that process starts.
Given our dire media normally mode of instantaneous "judgement" on everything - allegedly - I mean.
No authors. Pay up or forgoe future school visits. You and your egos will not be much missed I suspect.
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7. mysteriousDrMike
You were mysterious for a long time.
It's not just the BBC, all the media are at it, it's the way it happens now, the media only trade in sensation, preferably of the doom and gloom variety, and this is a gift; they can spead panic by saying don't panic. Then hold their nads up and say 'wot us?' innocently. An industry which feeds on extremes, if there was anything more interesting happening, you wouldn't hear a mention. If a tsunami happened tomorrow...
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Robin Lustig's Full Monty Jacket...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/8148259.stm
The Slideshow.. Worth a few minutes of anyone's time...
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Gordon Brown just said, "I am shoe-ur..." What is 'shoe-ur'?
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So you've just landed on the moon and, being the good ole boy from Texas that you are, you unpack and load your assault rifle. You fire the entire mag horizontally. How much farther or shorter will the bullets travel compared with being fired on flat ground on earth.
Answer tomorrow.
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Interesting, LBG, particularly when he said, at the end, 'This leather jacket would save me from being shot' (or words to that effect), yet it didn't save him from the rapier wit of Secret Agent Mair ;o)
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normanmugabe(35)
I know! If you stick around you'll find you've emptied the entire mag up your own Texan jaxi.
Do I get a prize?
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There have been far too many deaths of UK troops (and other people too, but let's concentrate on the Brits) in Afghanistan this past week. So from how many funeral services will the BBC report? Or just from an officer's funeral? Don't enlisted men from a working class background count?
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Wonder if Gordon Brown and who ever is the Education minister will have to pay their £64 before they (ab)use children by using them for a photo and TV presentation of a new (or revived) policy. Do they get written permission from parents before the children are shown?
PB
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Joseph is the winner.
The prize is on its way. Just as soon as the pixies at the bottom of my garden have finished wrapping it.
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I am in the process of setting up a writers' group. We have had to state a lower age limit just because of the issue of being not working) with children. The group is self supporting/funding -- so money for checks is out of the question. We are seriously in danger of creating a society in which children fear adults, and adults fear to be with children. All very sad.
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Ref 34. David_McNickle
"Gordon Brown just said, "I am shoe-ur..." What is 'shoe-ur'?"
That's a little technique used by politicians to confirm their regional identity. Like Bush's "noocla weapons." I changed my holiday plans one year when Dubya said, "America will hunt down these tourists."
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This is another manifestation of this governments obsession with tick box just in case mentality which in effect is totally ineffective whilst at the same time being bureaucratic, expensive & a general encumbrance to all concerned.
An individual with a serious criminal history can download a form from the internet, change their name by deed poll, then when a CRB check is carried out et voila no record. The same for drivers licence & passport applications. ID cards anyone???
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Ref 38. Peterout:
"There have been far too many deaths of UK troops (and other people too, but let's concentrate on the Brits) in Afghanistan this past week"
Like today for example:
"US Air Force bombing missions have killed and injured civilians in southern Kandahar province. Residents said up to six people were killed and 16 wounded in the air attack. Medical sources say the death toll could rise as some of those injured are in a serious condition.
In a separate incident, two people were killed and four wounded in the Miawand district of Afghanistan when US helicopters fired missiles. Television footage showed a number of the wounded, including children, being treated at a hospital in Kandahar.
A US military spokesman in Kabul said they were targetting suspected Taliban hideouts in the region."
----------------
I believe it's called 'winning hearts and minds.'
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Re-post of #44. Clearly some people don't like the truth.
Ref 38. Peterout
"There have been far too many deaths of UK troops (and other people too, but let's concentrate on the Brits) in Afghanistan this past week."
Like today for example:
US Air Force killed and injured dozens of civilians in southern Kandahar province. Residents in Shah Wali Kot said up to six people were killed and 16 wounded. Medical sources said the death toll could rise as some of those injured were in serious condition.
In a separate incident, another two people were killed and four others were wounded in Miawand district when US helicopters fired missiles. Television footage showed a number of the wounded, including children, being treated at a hospital in Kandahar.
------------------
I believe its called 'winning hearts and minds.'
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A Criminal Records Bureau check is just that - a check on whether the named person has a criminal record. It cannot therefore protect against a first time offender, one who has not yet been caught in wrong doing or someone concealing their real identity.
There should be no substitute for care, vigilance and common sense by those who are in charge of children. Relying on a piece of paper rather than sound judgment is passing the buck to a process. Processes do not judge they just ensure boxes have been ticked and a ticked box does not of itself protect children.
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All this fuss about the authors refusing to read in schools. I think that they're absolutely right.
Did anyone hear the e-mail being read out (Today programme this morning ?) where someone wrote in to say that they'd been turned away from a Youth Hostel because it had children staying there? Well THAT's unusual for a Youth Hostel! Fancy kids staying in somewhere intended primarily (but not exclusively) for youths. So I assume that the organisation will now act to bar all adults from all of their premises, just on the off-chance that an adult might happen to meet a child. Including those travelling with their own children, just in case they meet someone else's nippers by accident.
What next? Can't go into the bookshop because it has a childrens section? Can't go into the Chemists because it sells baby food? A fifty yard sanitised no-adult area around Mothercare? Barbed wire around Toys 'r' us? Are adults to be barred from every place where there might be children present as a pre-emptive anti-paedophile precaution? Are the young people of the UK so threatened by every adult that we are to be barred from their presence?
And this in the very same week that the news has been trailing a campaign to get more men to sign up as teachers, give schoolkids good male role models, especially Primary school teachers. It's risible. Given the fact that if you're a bloke and you want to be a teacher the first assumption is now going to be that you're a closet paedo, (and also that the pay is a joke for the rubbish that you have to put up with), why in God's name would any sane man sign up?
This is just grotesque. You're guilty now until you pay 64 quid to prove your innocence, a total reversal of the central principle of Justice. Of course, if you don't want to stump up then you must have something to hide......
WR.
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I thought the piece on alleged 'child abduction' was totally one sided.
The item seemed to ignore completely the reasons that so many women choose to take their children abroad and focussed primarily on attempting to portray these women as evil, manipulative, law breaking Eves who put their own yearning for an all over sun tan and a pina colada before the welfare of their own children.
Many women are fleeing violent, abusive and threatening situations and are not aware of the laws relating to the children for whom they have care. Many of these women are simply Mothers trying to protect their children and move them to a safe place.
The fact that so many women are fleeing abroad should tell us something about our own laws and attitudes towards domestic violence.
A little balance is called for... And please Radio 4 don't just push this issue to the 10am weekday slot. Lots of women listen to the radio while they are cooking the tea as well!
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I've just finished listening to Alexei Sayle. He was SO GOOD. Get him on, please!
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(19) Come on PM! Yes we did that very item, in response to a request from a listener, in recent days.
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50
Yeah, you interviewed a bloke from Oxford who thought it couldn't be done but thought that no one would tell him lies because the truth would eventually come out.
Nice voice, though.
Why not make a few points about openness and honesty and transparency and grill a Foreign Secretary and a General or two.
Is it true the fewer helicopters we have the fewer civilians we kill?
PS I'm glad you are onymous, like DMcN, the late great chris ghoti and Mittfh. So unlike TR.
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TR 49, Sayle used to write a good column about cars (sort of) in The Indy.
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MS 007 48, Ooooo, another multi-tasking woman. I cook the tea as well in our house, and listen to the radio while doing it.
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RSM 42, I thought Bush said, "nuke-u-lar". I though the Australian cricket players were tourists.
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Po 38, Put you peter in or they won't let you talk to kids in schools.
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David (53): I don't think that was the main point of her comment, do you? I guess we all have to 'walk a mile' in other people's shoes to understand what may lie behind some of the comments on the Blog, and I suspect Ms007 has good reason for feeling under threat.
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BS 56, I don't trust anybody with 007 in their name.
Read it again. That was the point I got. Very femininistical.
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David, I agree - 007 is very suspect (though I'd make an exception for Timothy Dalton).
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ThinkerRetired @ 51, reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
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David 53- I had already made the 'multi-tasking woman' joke. You don't get points for repeating other people's jokes.
And, it has to be said, my delivery was so much better. You must think so too otherwise you wouldn't be resorting to slating a username.
So go ahead, walk a mile in my shoes- provided you don't make any prejudgements about feminists not wearing FM shoes. x
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Chris (59)
"Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated".
You mean...you have died but it has just been sexed up??
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fJd @ 61, what I actually did was drive to Finland and back, but the word "Finnish" was used, and well, the misunderstanding was inevitable really.
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Eddie, in immigration interviews you never ask the question I want answered - Who is paying the legal costs of suspects particularly foreign nationals ? Could it be the poor old British taxpayer via legal aid ?
And how much is all this legal stuff court costs, etc costing us ? I'm sure I'm not the only one who's concerned.
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MS 007 60, Like most feminist jokes, it wasn't obvious or funny. I had a pair of green and white Dunlop trainers that I bought in a charity shop which I was told were for women. Very nice they were. Walked more than a mile in them too. Probably minced a bit, though.
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BS 58, I preferred Barry Nelson.
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DMcN @ 64, why was the charity shop for women? :-)
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