Blobs

citizen142 said:

Could anyone tell me what the hell are all those white blobs on the
roads. First ride of the year and went to Ponty for a ten mile ride
and all you can eat Chinese meal (yummy yummy) (Pontypridd - Tom Jones
land) and the whole of Taff Street is covered with white blobs. What
the hell are they? Cant be pigeon droppings surely?Cycled up to Lidls
to do my shop today and sure enough they are everywhere. What the hell
are they?

Chewing gum, which is very difficult to remove. Some environmental type
groups have been talking about putting extra tax on the stuff, it is
just amazing that taxation brown has not caught on yet.

Martin.

Martin Dann said the following on 16/01/2007 01:02:

Quoted message said:

Chewing gum, which is very difficult to remove. Some environmental type
groups have been talking about putting extra tax on the stuff, it is
just amazing that taxation brown has not caught on yet.

I think chewing gum should simply be made illegal, as it seems to end up
everywhere and costs us a fortune to remove. It serves no useful
purpose, and someone who is permanently masticating whilst talking to
you is extremely off-putting. Same with cigarettes, but there's too
much revenue at stake there!

I suppose the human rights brigade would be up in arms though...

--
Paul Boyd
http://www.paul-boyd.co.uk/

Paul Boyd said:

Martin Dann said the following on 16/01/2007 01:02:

Quoted message said:

Chewing gum, which is very difficult to remove. Some environmental
type groups have been talking about putting extra tax on the stuff, it
is just amazing that taxation brown has not caught on yet.

I think chewing gum should simply be made illegal, as it seems to end up
everywhere and costs us a fortune to remove. It serves no useful
purpose, and someone who is permanently masticating whilst talking to
you is extremely off-putting. Same with cigarettes, but there's too
much revenue at stake there!

I suppose the human rights brigade would be up in arms though...

I will defend to the death your right to express such views, however
nauseous, ludicrous, ill-thought out and contrary to mine ;-)

--
Brian G
www.wetwo.co.uk

Paul Boyd usenet.dont.work@plusnet said:

Martin Dann said the following on 16/01/2007 01:02:

Quoted message said:

Chewing gum, which is very difficult to remove. Some environmental
type groups have been talking about putting extra tax on the stuff,
it is just amazing that taxation brown has not caught on yet.

I think chewing gum should simply be made illegal, as it seems to end
up everywhere and costs us a fortune to remove. It serves no useful
purpose, and someone who is permanently masticating whilst talking to
you is extremely off-putting. Same with cigarettes, but there's too
much revenue at stake there!

I suppose the human rights brigade would be up in arms though...

No need. Just educate people to swallow it instead of spitting it out.

--

Geoff

Martin Dann said:

citizen142 said:

Could anyone tell me what the hell are all those white blobs on the
roads. First ride of the year and went to Ponty for a ten mile ride
and all you can eat Chinese meal (yummy yummy) (Pontypridd - Tom Jones
land) and the whole of Taff Street is covered with white blobs. What
the hell are they? Cant be pigeon droppings surely?Cycled up to Lidls
to do my shop today and sure enough they are everywhere. What the hell
are they?

Chewing gum, which is very difficult to remove. Some environmental type
groups have been talking about putting extra tax on the stuff, it is
just amazing that taxation brown has not caught on yet.

Should we support taxes which are purported to target anti-social
behaviour but which do not actually discriminate between anti-social and
considerate behaviour? That tax would hit equally hard the legitimate
chewing gum user who always disposed of his gum carefully.

--
Matt B

citizen142 said:

Could anyone tell me what the hell are all those white blobs on the
roads.

Chewing gum. Brother works for the council (he drives one of those
"gutter hoover lorry" things) he did a stint on chewing gum removal he
had a pressure washer type device to clean off the chewing gum it was
only partially successful very slow and horrendously expensive.

--
www.cheesesoup.myby.co.uk

GeoffC said:

No need. Just educate people to swallow it instead of spitting it out.

Or educate them into putting it in bins (there is instructions on every
stick about how to wrap it) instead of swallowing it (they may believe
all the tales their Granny told them).

--
www.cheesesoup.myby.co.uk

Paul Boyd said:

Martin Dann said the following on 16/01/2007 01:02:

Quoted message said:

Chewing gum, which is very difficult to remove. Some environmental
type groups have been talking about putting extra tax on the stuff, it
is just amazing that taxation brown has not caught on yet.

I think chewing gum should simply be made illegal, as it seems to end up
everywhere and costs us a fortune to remove.

Should it be illegal for everyone do you think, or just for the
anti-social minority who leave the mess.

Quoted message said:

It serves no useful purpose,

I wouldn't know, but I'm guessing it's no less useful than many other
thousands of items available from our shops. We could create a league
table of usefulness of products, and make all those below a certain
threshold illegal ;-)

Quoted message said:

and someone who is permanently masticating whilst talking to
you is extremely off-putting.

Extremely rude, in fact.

Quoted message said:

Same with cigarettes, but there's too
much revenue at stake there!

It's a slippery slope really.

Quoted message said:

I suppose the human rights brigade would be up in arms though...

Let's hope they are there to defend the law abiding cyclists when the
options are being considered for how to deal with their anti-social
brethren!

--
Matt B

Matt B 'matt.bourke'@nospam.london.com said:

Should we support taxes which are purported to target anti-social
behaviour but which do not actually discriminate between anti-social and
considerate behaviour? That tax would hit equally hard the legitimate
chewing gum user who always disposed of his gum carefully.

I know!

We could have a system of cameras, that detect people breaking the
law, and photograph them. Obviously, a simple, straight-forward law
like this, with a precisely defined criterion, will be very easy to
police and enforce by automated means. If anyone is detected and
photographed breaking the law, we could simply send them a fine demand
through the post.

No-one could possibly object to that.
The law-breakers get fined.
The innocent pay nothing.

I suggest we use the first part of the camera revenue to pay
installation costs, and any excess could be spent on creating new
camera sites. With any luck, they could be used to raise revenue.
If it's really successful, it might even be possible to reduce the
taxation burden on those people who manage to comply with the law.

regards, Ian SMith
--
|\ /| no .sig
|o o|
|/ \|

Ian Smith said:

Matt B 'matt.bourke'@nospam.london.com said:

Should we support taxes which are purported to target anti-social
behaviour but which do not actually discriminate between anti-social and
considerate behaviour? That tax would hit equally hard the legitimate
chewing gum user who always disposed of his gum carefully.

I know!

We could have a system of cameras, that detect people breaking the
law, and photograph them.

Brilliant!

Quoted message said:

Obviously, a simple, straight-forward law
like this, with a precisely defined criterion, will be very easy to
police and enforce by automated means.

Brilliant! Should eliminate chewing gum spitters forever!

Quoted message said:

If anyone is detected and
photographed breaking the law, we could simply send them a fine demand
through the post.

Yes, or allow them to go on a course about the evils of chewing gum
spitting!

Quoted message said:

No-one could possibly object to that.

No - what could be the possible drawbacks with such a brilliantly
researched and foolproof scheme?

Quoted message said:

The law-breakers get fined.
The innocent pay nothing.

Ah, hang-on though, spitting cameras can only detect the spitting
action. They cannot differentiate between anti-social spitting onto the
ground or considerate spitting into bins. Never mind - we can tweak the
law so that spitting, whether for the good or for the bad - is illegal.
Good, we can we can proclaim that no more anti-social spitting will
ever occur.

Quoted message said:

I suggest we use the first part of the camera revenue to pay
installation costs, and any excess could be spent on creating new
camera sites. With any luck, they could be used to raise revenue.

Ah, that's clinched it then. Let's start putting them up immediately.
We can prove their effectiveness if we select the first sites as those
where there was an uncharacteristically high incidence of spitting last
year - that should ensure convincing statistics next year. If we also
ensure that figures for adjacent streets aren't collected we can assert
that there is no increased incidence of spitting there either.

Job done! We can sack all the police community officers and anti-social
behaviour wardens too!

Quoted message said:

If it's really successful, it might even be possible to reduce the
taxation burden on those people who manage to comply with the law.

Second thoughts though, let's not bother with that bit.

;-)

--
Matt B

Martin Dann said:

citizen142 said:

Could anyone tell me what the hell are all those white blobs on the
roads. First ride of the year and went to Ponty for a ten mile ride
and all you can eat Chinese meal (yummy yummy) (Pontypridd - Tom
Jones land) and the whole of Taff Street is covered with white
blobs. What the hell are they? Cant be pigeon droppings
surely?Cycled up to Lidls to do my shop today and sure enough they
are everywhere. What the hell are they?

Chewing gum, which is very difficult to remove. Some environmental
type groups have been talking about putting extra tax on the stuff,
it is just amazing that taxation brown has not caught on yet.

Ireland's introducing one, following its success in introducing a carrier
bag tax.

I imagine it doesn't have any manufacturers of either to put up a protest
about it, though.

A

Ambrose Nankivell said:

Martin Dann wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Chewing gum, which is very difficult to remove. Some environmental
type groups have been talking about putting extra tax on the stuff,
it is just amazing that taxation brown has not caught on yet.

Ireland's introducing one, following its success in introducing a carrier
bag tax.

I imagine it doesn't have any manufacturers of either to put up a protest
about it, though.

Ha! all it took was a quiet tete-a-tete between the chairman of
Wrigleys and the Minister for that one to get quietly dropped.

Brendan
--
Brendan Halpin, Department of Sociology, University of Limerick, Ireland
Tel: w +353-61-213147 f +353-61-202569 h +353-61-338562; Room F2-025 x 3147
[email hidden] http://www.ul.ie/sociology/brendan.halpin.html

"Martin Dann" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

citizen142 said:

Could anyone tell me what the hell are all those white blobs on the
roads. First ride of the year and went to Ponty for a ten mile ride and
all you can eat Chinese meal (yummy yummy) (Pontypridd - Tom Jones land)
and the whole of Taff Street is covered with white blobs. What the hell
are they? Cant be pigeon droppings surely?Cycled up to Lidls to do my
shop today and sure enough they are everywhere. What the hell are they?

Chewing gum, which is very difficult to remove. Some environmental type
groups have been talking about putting extra tax on the stuff, it is just
amazing that taxation brown has not caught on yet.

BAD IDEA
If gum costs more because it includes a contribution towards paying for the
cost of removing said gum; then anyone who chews gum will feel justified in
spitting their gum wherever they damn well please , because they have
already paid for the cost of cleaning up.
Result, more gum on pavements and white vans of tax-free wrigley's crossing
from Calais.

Fortunately it only seems to affect some areas, in Liverpool it seems to be
mostly outside Central station and the bottom of Bold Street.

Our local shopping centre has little wall bins at the entrance, rather
worryingly labelled, "Please use this bin to recycle your chewing gum"; the
more you think about it, the more you wish you hadn't.

GeoffC said:

Paul Boyd usenet.dont.work@plusnet said:

Martin Dann said the following on 16/01/2007 01:02:

Quoted message said:

Chewing gum, which is very difficult to remove. Some environmental
type groups have been talking about putting extra tax on the stuff,
it is just amazing that taxation brown has not caught on yet.

I think chewing gum should simply be made illegal, as it seems to end
up everywhere and costs us a fortune to remove. It serves no useful
purpose, and someone who is permanently masticating whilst talking to
you is extremely off-putting. Same with cigarettes, but there's too
much revenue at stake there!

I suppose the human rights brigade would be up in arms though...

No need. Just educate people to swallow it instead of spitting it out.

But it wraps round your heart and then you die.

GeoffC said:

Quoted message said:

I think chewing gum should simply be made illegal,

No need. Just educate people to swallow it instead of spitting it out.

Bbbbb..but... my Mum always told me if I did that it would tangle up my
insides and I'd die.

John B

soup said:

citizen142 said:

Could anyone tell me what the hell are all those white blobs on the
roads.

Chewing gum. Brother works for the council (he drives one of those
"gutter hoover lorry" things) he did a stint on chewing gum removal he
had a pressure washer type device to clean off the chewing gum it was
only partially successful very slow and horrendously expensive.

We were sat in Figueres ( Spain) bus station last year. One of the employees
had a customised long handled chewing gum scraper. It took him a good 20
mins per paving slab to scrape each one clean. Must be like painting the
Forth Bridge.

Jan

On 16/01/2007 16:21, OG said,

Quoted message said:

Our local shopping centre has little wall bins at the entrance, rather
worryingly labelled, "Please use this bin to recycle your chewing gum"; the
more you think about it, the more you wish you hadn't.

The mind boggles! Next time you buy some inner tubes, check what
they're made of /very/ carefully :-)

--
Paul Boyd
http://www.paul-boyd.co.uk/

Quoted message said:

Paul Boyd said:

It serves no useful purpose,

Does chewing gum help?
Chewing gum makes your mouth produce more saliva, which helps to cancel out
the acid in your mouth after eating or drinking. It has been proven that
using sugar-free chewing gum after meals can prevent tooth decay. However,
it is important to use only sugar-free gum, as ordinary chewing gum contains
sugar and therefore may damage your teeth.
Back to top

http://www.dentalhealth.org.uk/faqs/leafletdetail.php?LeafletID=14

pk

"p.k." <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Paul Boyd said:

It serves no useful purpose,

Does chewing gum help?
Chewing gum makes your mouth produce more saliva, which helps to cancel
out the acid in your mouth after eating or drinking. It has been proven
that using sugar-free chewing gum after meals can prevent tooth decay.
However, it is important to use only sugar-free gum, as ordinary chewing
gum contains sugar and therefore may damage your teeth.
Back to top

http://www.dentalhealth.org.uk/faqs/leafletdetail.php?LeafletID=14

A clever marketing ploy to justfy the disgusting habit and to sustain
sales......

What's wrong with a healthier reduced sugar diet and regular tooth brushing?