We have been canvassing opinion from the most common discussion threads on a leading SM website (which I'm not naming in case someone on it has a tantrum) and have would like to answer them all as follows:

Yes, all SMers do have psychological problems, the best tops are Capricorns and the best bottoms are Pisceans, The Scene didn't really exist until someone invented munches, being into SM is genetic - you're born with it, and SMers are the same as swingers, and Pro-Dommes are worthy of all the contumely available.  Doing SM if you're over 35 basically means you want to prey upon young women (who obviously never prey on anyone themselves), and single men really are badly treated by the rest of us.  Just because we're kinky doesn't mean in any way that we have any reason to be tolerant of other people, even other kinky people whose kinks are a little bit different to our own, and obviously people that play both top and bottom roles are only playing at it and not therefore to be taken seriously by people that don't.

In case any of the less-prescient members of that site are reading this, the previous paragraph was intended as satire (a sort of a joke; look it up on Wikipedia).

Lark in the Park has closed; without it we now have to find another cheap venue sitting about 100, with a kitchen if we want to do Burns Night; all suggestions are welcome. 

Telford and Wrekin Council have introduced a stop and question policy for anybody found walking without at least one child in Telford Town park (Metro 10^th September). Anyone who does not answer satisfactorily is likely to be thrown out of the park and reported to the police as a suspected paedophile. In the wise words of a council spokesman ‘We do reserve the right to ask people what they are doing in the park. Otherwise it's a free-for-all where they can come and do what they want.'   We had no idea that people were using our public spaces to  come and do what they wanted and are profoundly grateful to Telford and Wrekin council for alerting us to this serious danger.

Regarding Anita's school we've had the following update: People are booking, teachers are preparing lessons. Web site is updated and a Yahoo group has been set up.  School mag is being done. Ties are ordered. Lots of people are asking if they can wear their own uniform and being told NO.  The bratting and build up is starting. The music and movement will be interesting with the new GYM Mistress...

One idea that seems to have caught on big style this year is this ‘Oh, I can't be bothered with playing fair any more; I'm going to grass my rival to the press/local authority/police - that'll get him/her out of the way, and I get the money'.  This has happened to Max Mosley and his four friends, to Lady Pandora, to the Camden Munch, and now to Westgate School.  What the hell is this about?  Who the hell put it about that this is acceptable behaviour?  You don't do it in the school playground, you don't do it in prison, you don't do it in Occupied Belgium (yes, I've been watching Secret Army),and you don't even do it at work - at least not where I work -and by God you do not do it on The Scene.

How many words do we have for this, children?  Let's see... informer, rat, earwig,  snitch, collaborator, outformer, bag-o-wire, canary, informant, plant, sneak, source, stoolie, stool pigeon, tattletale, tipster, mole, snout, grass, spy, squealer, copper's nark, peacher, tergiversator, whistle-blower, betrayer, back-shooter, or more simply, dirty, cheating, vile, low-down, scum-sucking, traitor.  And yeah, The Scene is a society, in spite of some people that like to think it isn't, and if found out any of the above (defined as those that betray their own kind) will be named and cast out of it.