Are we a self-reinforcing bubble?

[Beef Oven!]

If it helps - if I'm alone in a room with a tea cosy: yes, I do.

Don't diss tea-cosies, they really work. Make all the difference. If they didn't work, we'd be slaves to tea bags.

[cloughie]

If it helps - if I'm alone in a room with a tea cosy: yes, I do.

Steady on ferney you'll be upsetting a chunk of the population who are football supporters or tea cosy users, or like me, both. I'm wondering what were/are the circumstances under which you are alone in a room.... Never mind in the scale of this it is unimportant!

[jean]

But I don't think that calling someone a 'gadfly' is necessarily insulting them (though I'll concede my use of 'soi-disant' might have been slightly provocative).

Provocative? Rather a misuse of soi-disant, surely; it properly accuses someone of making boasts that aren't justified by the facts.

[french frank]

Provocative? Rather a misuse of soi-disant, surely; it properly accuses someone of making boasts that aren't justified by the facts.

The forum at its most characteristic? - starts with the exchange of invective and ends with a pedant stepping to criticise misuse of the Eng. Lang (and quite correctly, in this case, in my view).

[Conchis]

From wiki:

Gadfly:
a person who annoys or criticizes others in order to provoke them into action.
"always a gadfly, he attacked intellectual orthodoxies"

Surely, by that definition, the Leader of the Opposition to a sitting government could be defined as a gadfly?

[DracoM]

Look, can we PLEASE stop this adolescent exchange?
It is not in the spirit or practice of this Forum at all.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Let's try and keep it civil, avoid personal comments

Well, that worked, then

Perhaps this bout of self-reinforcement is a good point to suggest that the OP has been as fully answered as it is likely to be, and, therefore, might be a good point to close the Thread? On the whole, the Forum does enable individuals to communicate ideas and information about things that matter to them that they cannot otherwise share in their non-cyber lives. But, of course, there will be clashes of personality which - because the sorts of things we discuss on the Forum are of intense personal concern to us, AND because we have to imagine/impose a tone of voice on what we read - frequently leads to equally "personal" exchanges which would probably not occur if we were actually talking face-to-face with the individual who'd upset us?

I'm not sure what my role is here: the "new Headmaster", or Jerry Springer?

[antongould]

...............

I'm not sure what my role is here: the "new Headmaster", or Jerry Springer?

The voice of reason dear boy .... I would not be sad to see the end of the thread .......

[DracoM]

[cloughie]

The voice of reason dear boy .... I would not be sad to see the end of the thread .......

To see the thread dead, no more, may it meet its maker.

[Barbirollians]

To see the thread dead, no more, may it meet its maker.

Yes perhaps the time to pop the bubble has come .

[teamsaint]

There are just quite a lot of things that are best unspoken.

[Quarky]

I've just read the account of the Welby interview (the BBC story seemed mainly concerned to deny the charges against them and hit back, rather than to report the whole subtance!).

Are we a 'self-reinforcing bubble'? I'm not sure how that would apply: we have created a community, of sorts, though it isn't always like-minded. I wonder sometimes how far some people are self censors - not contradicting the majority line, but I'd have said that in general … people say what they think Which is how it should be.

Many thanks ff.

You have given me the strength to express my support for the new schedule,and Katie Derham in particular!

[MrGongGong]

There are just quite a lot of things that are best unspoken.

Football, for one

[gradus]

Football, for one

Aurora Orchestra concerts for another.