Off Topic Other Stuff (anything you want to share)

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I am not so sure the media are blaming the debt for Thames Water on dividends exactly. The question they are asking is how the Company managed to come up with the level of dividend paid given the debt accrued. That goes hand in hand with the bonus scheme for the CEO and cohorts when they managed to lose so much rather than run a successful business. I am assuming, never having been in business, that reward is for success rather than failure. They could argue of course that they have taken the precedent for not spending profits in the right way from central Government. Example being, and there are plenty, that Road Tax isn't spent on roads given the state of most of them.

Just to clarify for you also notdistant that if you had ever had to go into a darkened Messdeck to give an early morning wake up call to the next bunch on watch then you would not doubt the probability of Squires being slaughtered as real. Trust me waking some people up is a high risk operation and best done with a long stick if possible.
 
Privately own.... Water, Gas, Electric and Railways have been screwing the customer for years....huge profits suddenly happened for those who the Government favoured when they sold off these companies.....We complained how they where run before they became privatised.....but this takes the biscuit beyond belief.

It is just staggering the debt that Thames Water have accumulated...how badly run can they be.... maybe the shareholders owe us a penny or two.

State ownership is better than making shareholders rich at our expense,
 
You’ve got to forget emotive words like “huge”. It’s a huge business so dividends will be huge too.

One number only has meaning in relation to another number.

The question is, what was the regulator doing in relation to the flows of cash and the net effect on the stability of the business. Cash flows in from customers less cash costs out, demands for cash for investment projects, outwards to shareholders as dividends and inwards from lenders.

Looking the other way it would seem….
 
Last Friday Mrs Plym and I went to the celebration of the life of a long time friend who had passed away at nearly 101 yrs of age.

Reasonably spectacular living such a long life.....BUT.....even more spectacular was the fact that sitting in the front row with the family was her sprightly twin sister.....no zimmer frame...in fact no walking stick either......gadding about afterwards at the reception talking to everyone and having her share of cream cakes.
 
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Once again I'm bemused how well-known employers get dragged into quagmires created by their employees in their spare time.

Why is the BBC responsible if one of its employees engages in criminal activities unrelated to the BBC's operations? Surely the correct process is for the matter to be reported to the police, in this case by the girl's parents, for the BBC, who had nothing to do with it, to suspend the accused during the investigation and to dismiss him if he's found guilty. It's not for the BBC or any other employer to meddle in criminal matters or to infringe a worker's employment rights until such time as he is found guilty.

Am I being cynical in thinking there's more in it financially for the Sun newspaper, the parents and the "victim" by going for a public body in this way? If there is corporate crime here, I'm highly suspicious it's the operators of the OnlyFans website or something like it that that facilitated the introduction and the transactions that made this unpleasant and illegal episode possible.

To compare this with something closer to home, although thankfully still 40 miles away, when Exeter City's Jevani Brown was accused of physically assaulting a woman, the club suspended him and issued a "no comment" statement. When he pleaded guilty, they dispensed with his services. That's the way it's supposed to work.
 
I think the problem for the BBC is that the presenter in question was allowed to be on air after the report to them of what was going on.

Most reports are about a teenage person....no mention of which sex notDistant....unless you've heard differently.

I'm also suspicious of the mothers intentions.....I think she smells big money in this.
 
I suppose the only issue is being in a position to influence so therefore has a duty to at least suspend the person involved. I don't see why any employer however should play judge and jury whatever the situation. There is one fault with this trickle story telling. There is already an assumption that whoever this is is guilty. I say assumption by most people that is rather than all. It's the way it's done. There should be no mention in any news outlet of any half story or for that matter full story unless a person says I'm guilty or a jury comes out with that verdict. It's the old no smoke without fire thing and a person's reputation can be completely fecked even if not guilty.

I think also that your last sentence plymborn is a wee bit presumptious as well. You have no idea even who this woman is or what her motives are. It will become clear no doubt and there could be a money gain motive but like people being presumed guilty of a crime before a case is even heard it's tantamount to the same thing to suggest she has pound signs in her eyes.
 
In either case it started when the person concerned was 17, which makes it illegal. This is slightly odd as the age of consent is 16, but it is so apparently,

If the parents were concerned that their child was being taken advantage of and was using the money earned to buy drugs, then they should have approached the police, not the BBC.

Let’s not forget that thousands of young women (and perhaps men) are selling risqué pictures of themselves via the OnlyFans website in just this way. That’s their business model. Thee are many more thousands of men (and perhaps women) buying them. It’s sordid but not unusual. I should of course stress I have no personal experience but there have been numerous stories in the respectable press about, for example, young female university students paying their way through university in this manner as an alternative to working in a shop or bar. Nothing’s been done to stop it and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the tabloids had taken advertising from the site. There is a lot of hypocrisy here.
 
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notDistantGreen said:
In either case it started when the person concerned was 17, which makes it illegal. This is slightly odd as the age of consent is 16, but it is so apparently,

If the parents were concerned that their child was being taken advantage of and was using the money earned to buy drugs, then they should have approached the police, not the BBC.

Let’s not forget that thousands of young women (and perhaps men) are selling risqué pictures of themselves via the OnlyFans website in just this way. That’s their business model. Thee are many more thousands of men (and perhaps women) buying them. It’s sordid but not unusual. I should of course stress I have no personal experience but there have been numerous stories in the respectable press about, for example, young female university students paying their way through university in this manner as an alternative to working in a shop or bar. Nothing’s been done to stop it and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the tabloids had taken advertising from the site. There is a lot of hypocrisy here.
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There's no hypocrisy here.

It is illegal to produce or posses indecent images of someone under the age of 18. That's the law.

However, this does seem to be hypothetical. According to the lawyer nothing of the sort has happened. It's either been one big lie or they've been paid off.
 
Quite correct it is illegal although I must confess to believing if asked what the age of consent would be I would have said confidently 16. Clearly I would have been wrong but not out of any belief it should be 16 but out of just plain not having thought about it at anytime in the past to find out. I think the hypocracy bit is perhaps more that there are, whether we like it or not, plenty who sell their pictures online to pay for something they want. There does seem to be plenty of sites out there that allow this or rather are a platform for it. It isn't closed down and not a lot is said until somebody famous in the celeb field turns up. Newspapers quiver with excitement at the thought. If there is no celebrity involved then they couldn't give a monkeys. I was listening to the Radio today and a male presenter who was somewhat steamed up that he had to answer questions over the weekend because online warriors had named him as person X. He clearly wasn't suspended so it clearly wasn't him. This does demonstrate how easily though it can ruin peoples reputation even if they had no involvement in something from the start. As I said above the "no smoke without fire" syndrome.

There are two things I would like to see happen here. The first is that the Sun newspaper gets sued by loads for loads and goes out of business. The second is that somebody who can pulls the plug on the sites that allow these things in the first place. I'm not very techno wise but I can see that the WWW is probably one of the greatest inventions man has come up with. What a pity though that man always manages to tarnish it with **** like this and it is used for all the wrong reasons.
 
And of course the Sun is renowned for its topless beauties on page 3. An expert being interviewed on the BBC yesterday mentioned that in the past, some of those had been younger than 18 but was quickly shut down by the presenter. Clearly the BBC wants to be fair to the Sun whereas the Sun will do anything for a salacious headline.
 
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Plymborn said:
I think the problem for the BBC is that the presenter in question was allowed to be on air after the report to them of what was going on.

Most reports are about a teenage person....no mention of which sex notDistant....unless you've heard differently.

I'm also suspicious of the mothers intentions.....I think she smells big money in this.
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was he reading the News Plym :emoticon-0136-giggl
 
So now we know the name of the guilty party except it turns out that the Police can't find anything to prosecute in the story. Once again the Press have outed somebody with slightly veiled allegations of illegal activity wrongly. Hands up those who were not of the opinion that the deed was done to an underage person because of what was being said. I find the whole thing seedy and distasteful but that doesn't make it illegal. What in this story is in the public interest? It isn't in the interests of the young person selling the photos or in the interests of the person buying them. If this was Joe Bloggs from nowhere in particular it wouldn't even have gotten a mention in his local rag let alone a national paper. The story in this is to ruin a personality at any cost only because they are a personality and not because he bought dirty photos. I feel very sorry for Edwards family in this as it is bound to have a lasting effect on all of them.
 
Its a sad state all round for him and his family, yes he done wrong but nothing illegal its been said . the press are the ones making this worse. i had a whats app while i was away from someone saying it was him i took no notice as i have no interest in this or reading any papers .. i dont buy them or read them.
The family are suffering .. both families will suffer ..
 
It just typifies the standard of journalism these days and especially in this country. I have to say though that it is also typical of a lot of the population who seem to thrive on salacious stories about Celebs. Like you Joe I don't read papers anymore and I definately wouldn't buy one. Sadly though this kind of news sells and there are still plenty of people who feed off the crap they publish. If the public didn't buy it then the papers wouldn't bother to print it I guess. You just need to ask though how long before the next person tops themselves over something like this.
 
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