Richard ~~ I should be exempt from abuse as a matter of courtesy ~ an attribute in which those of the left seem lamentably deficient. I can't follow your reasoning at all - do you really believe that anyone who differs from you politically should be subject to the kind of obloquy & insult so unhappily current in these parts?

I do not believe, if I actually met you or Owen or Jim or Steve as fellow guests on a social occasion and we found ourselves in some such disagreement on various issues as we do on this forum, that such terms would be exchanged as are common on here: out of respect to our hosts, if for no other reason. I fear it does Mudcat little credit that such usages are common herein. I admit I have been known to resort to such myself, in something of a Cet animal est très méchant reaction; such is induced by the predominant ambience: which just goes to reinforce my point.

"Civil words, Bill," Fagin requested of Bill Sikes. They were a pair of villains. But he was right that once.

So civil words, please. Less about 'tossers' & 'twats' and straitjackets, eh?

~M~

~M~