I am sorry that I feel obliged to temporarily divert this thread from social comment towards something more personal.Ms Hammond seems to revel in dominating this Forum and posting her comments with a degree of aggressive invective and often coarse language that few others do.This of course she is entitled to do until the PutneySW15 editors stop her.Thus, she tells me -"@HawkesF O"This does not concern me for I believe it reveals more of her than my or anyone else's comments could do.But I do want to refute her unsubstantiated claim she makes in response to Ms Grant for chiding her over her use of language.She says in reply to Ms Grant - "Lucille, it's unnecessary for Hawkes to keep making snide remarks. He's been sniping ever since he moaned about his granddaughter not being offered a place at PHS and he insinuated parents paid for places. I pointed out that places were offered on educational merit only and he didn't like to hear the truth. He's festered ever since".This is the same claim she made in October 2018 arising as I recall from my posting that I found it wrong that while my granddaughter was attending a state Primary school, very much scarce of funds during the period of austerity, Putney High School was rich enough, even as a charity, to open a Boat House along the famous Putney embankment.I may well have implied that parents needed to be able to pay fees for their girls to attend PHS.She corrected me with this comment - "You implied that the girls who sat the 11+ Exam at PHS were offered a place based on parental wealth, effectively buying their child a place. I told you that was simply not true, the girls were offered a place solely dependent on merit, i.e. their 11+ results. Therefore, the reason that your relative was not offered a place was obviously because she didn't perform as well in the Exam as other girls did". I took this to mean that if a girl does well enough in the 11+ they would be given a place at the school without their parents having to pay any fees, or at least if they could not afford to do so.But what I did take exception to, though with a wry smile on my face, was her claim that I was peeved because my granddaughter had failed the exam and was therefore not offered a place.In fact at the time, my granddaughter, who I had not brought into the argument specifically, was aged 6 !! It was because she brought my family into this discussion as well as her perverse claim about my motives (as well as some of the language she used in that discussion) that I reported her to the Forum moderators.I do not know what action they took, but I will not bother to do so again as Ms Hammond seems incorrigible when using the Forum.Now back to the original theme of this thread.Yes, it was disgusting to see the actions of this man who apparently claimed he was in London, with a large group of likeminded 'patriots', (football supporters) "to protect our statues".Unfortunately, in court he could not name one statue he was trying to protect, though as he consumed 16 pints of beer in 12 hours one can understand why.On men's urinatory habits, my views are very much that they should never be exhibited in public and that 'real' drinkers never get themselves into such a state of inebriation that they need to.
John Hawkes ● 2124d