Away yesterday so didn't open Mudcat. Back now. Oh, yes, old Woodieface. Does he really not see how unintelligent he comes over, having to reduce everything theoretical to the purely personal, just because he doesn't like what he erroneously perceives as extreme rightwing views, to which I am perfectly entitled on a free forum in a free society; and then expressing all his foolish resentments in such shallow cliché: "Horny-handed son of toil," I ask you!

As to my supposed "silver spoon": my upbringing was thoroughly bourgeois. My father was deputy editor of a small specialised newspaper; my mother the seventh of eight children of a Hoxton grocer. I was educated free at a grammar school, had my Cambridge fees & maintenance paid by Middlesex County Council; and did lots & lots of the sort of work he goes so proudly on about during the National Service I had to do in between ~~ cookhouse duties, coal shovelling, barrackroom floor scrubbing & polishing... Didn't even get my commission till succeeding mandatory three years Territorial service. Some 'silver-spoon'!

So be off with you Woodentop, with your jejune predictable class-resentments and chippy-shoulder, and learn to dispute with a bit of objectivity & courtesy. You are evidently a man of some education, & have no need for such fatuous posturing.

~M~