(CNN)Egypt is pressing Britain to act after the death of an 18-year-old Egyptian student, who police say was assaulted in the city of Nottingham.
Mariam Moustafa was assaulted by a'' girl gang'' outside a shopping mall at 8 p.m. on February 20 and fell into a coma before dying of her injuries on Wednesday, according to Nottinghamshire Police.
Police said there was no information to suggest the attack was motivated by racial hate, but authorities will "continue to keep an open mind." A 17-year-old girl was arrested on suspicion of "assault occasioning grievous bodily harm" and has been released on bail.

Surely a lone helpless female being chased and savagely attacked by a gang of 10 females cannot be human behaviour, ?

I agree, it is indeed sad to hear of a good brave man losing his life because of the actions of someone whose own life was full of hatred.

WELL SAID

First point is yes, love is enough, enough to get us through our life...and second is True Love does not come to an end.............You have received some very wise advice on here from strangers who can understand your situation...do you seriously think others don't sometimes get bored by their partners, that has nothing to do with love. perhaps you should buy a joke book for your husband?..( sorry)...if you feel love for your son, then don't take his father away from him, a child needs both parents........you have love in your life.......you are lucky, ! God Bless

So, are you a better or a worse person or simply unchanged because of it?

The world is very austere everywhere, and I have no concept of new.

Little do I know that it’s the most carefree time of my life.

I constantly play football in the street and in the process kick my shoes to pieces without noticing a thing except for the huge roar of appreciation that greets the wonderful goals I score. 
This carefree time is occasionally filled with the excitement of riches beyond my wildest dreams.
One winter’s afternoon, as I play football with my brother, our grandad passes by and calls us over. My heart rejoices at the prospect of a penny or two coming my way, enabling a visit to Mrs Lingwood’s sweet shop, but grandad takes us into Brown’s Shoe Shop instead.

Wondering what could be going on, we follow him in, after all, I already have shoes, and Mrs Lingwood’s is just next door.
 
Five minutes later I emerge the proud owner of new boots. I can hardly believe it, new boots, I look at them with wonder,my new boots! I had no idea that boots could be so new. They are the blackest, shiniest, newest boots I have ever seen in my whole life, and they even smell new. I wonder how on earth they got to be so new! I abandon the game and take them home. I firmly trust that because my new boots are so new, there’s no reason whatsoever why they should not stay new, without any help from me However, with the football season in full swing, I could hardly have harboured a more forlorn hope, and all too soon my new boots lose their new look. But maybe in one sense my hope was not quite so forlorn, because even when they look old and shabby to others, to me they remain forever new .

............When young, I had no concept of poverty.


Most of my pals live in Step Lane, a narrow street of dwellings marked as unfit for human habitation and therefore due for demolition.

Donie is brilliant footballer , he hopes to play pro one day, he is one of my regular street football team mates.

Anyway, he has not been seen on the street for a week or two, so , late one damp and breezy winter afternoon I decide to call at his house for the first time to find out how he is. 
 
Though most of the dwellings at this upper end of the lane have already been abandoned and at least  
partly demolished, some are still intact and occupied by families or individuals waiting their turn to move out.

For us boys, using the shells of the demolished houses is great fun, we play many games that involve jumping from high walls and leaping across the gap from one side of the lane to the other; the area is perfect during sunny afternoons for war games and Cowboys and Indians. 

After dark however, the place does seem a bit desolate, with the solitary lamp light half way along, and so much rubble to step over.

As I approach the house I begin to wonder if I have the right address, it’s hard to believe than anyone could be still living here.
The familiar condemned notice shows on the wall right next to front door, the downstairs window is boarded up, and the upstairs uncurtained window shows no light.

The front door is shut so I look for a knocker but fail to find one, and I call out instead.
I’m  about to walk away when a voice calls from within. It’s my pal, and he says to push the door and come in.

I push against the door and it gives quite easily and makes a loud scraping noise. I look into the hallway but see nothing, the house is in total darkness, the only light source is from outside the house, from the nearby street lamp.

I stand there unsure what to do next. The voice again calls down from upstairs and says to come on up, my eyes will soon get used to the dark, push the door , it’s only a block of wood keeping it shut, then leave it slightly ajar so that I can find my way; and to watch my step, there’s a missing floorboard on the stairs.
After pushing the door halfway shut, I’m still engulfed in the darkness of the hallway, so I press my hand against the wall as I find my way carefully to the stairs, and then ,walking with extra care , to the top landing.


Then, after hearing my shaky voice asking for directions, Donie calls again, and I carefully follow the sound into the back room.

I stand there for a while as a voice says hello and tells me that he has a stone bruise and a cough so can’t play football for a few days.

My eyes struggle to become accustomed to the gloom, and I’m anxious about taking a step in any direction.
Then I notice a soft glow coming from the solitary uncurtained window, so I move to that side of the room.
I turn to see Donie, he is lost as the sole occupant of a very large bed, and he’s lying right in the middle of it with a blanket up to his chin. I can’t make out his pale face very well, but I know it’s him.

It’s cold, dark and depressing here, and there’s an odour of damp. I can’t imagine how he can stay alone in such a place. We chat about football and I tell him it’s ok to be injured and he’ll play twice as well when he returns, but my thoughts are focussed not on football but on getting out of this place. But I can’t just walk out so soon.

I turn to look out of the window to see where the light is coming from. I see the back window of a house in the next street.

It looks like the kitchen window, and it has a half length net curtain on it, so it’s possible to see someone sitting at a table. The table is covered with a red and white checked table cloth, and there’s a plate and cup and saucer in front of the sitter.

Feeling much relieved to be still in some kind of contact with the outside world, I tell Donie he has posh neighbours who have electric light, and he laughs and says he has never looked out of that window, but hold on and he will come and have a look. He hobbles to the window and we stand there and gaze into the kitchen of that house.

It looks like tea time down there, and my gloom forgotten I gaze fascinated as a meal , we think it might be sausages and chips, is placed before the sitting man and he begins to use the knife and fork. I ask whose house we’re looking at, and Donie says it must be the back kitchen of the shop around the corner in Cattle Lane. ‘Don’t forget to get back if someone looks up here’, I say, but he laughs, ‘No chance of that, everyone thinks this house is empty, so they won’t know we’re watching them’.

As we watch, the man finally gets up and walks away from the table, to be soon replaced by someone else.
After a few minutes, another plate of food is placed on the table, and the new diner begins to eat, all of which makes us hungry as we watch. We think this might be black pudding, mash,and more sausages, but it’s just a guess as we can’t see the table very well. As we watch we marvel at the idea of someone actually waiting for someone else to finish before going to the table, he wouldn’t be foolish
enouugh to try that in Step Lane! laughs Donie, ‘cos he’d end up getting nothing.

Except for at the movies, we have never before seen such calm and ordered, knife and fork behaviour when faced with such lovely grub, and wonder if the place is some kind of cafe or restaurant.
My eyes are used to the semi darkness, so when we I finally turn to look into the room, I can just make out some very old faded wallpaper with dark stains, a table and chair,and a pile of clothes on the floor. The place doesn’t seem so bad now, but I’m glad it’s time to go, so I say bye to my pal, knowing that I shall not be coming back to this place. He says watch your step on the stairs, and as I leave the room, the darkness suddenly closes in on me again for a moment. But as I reach the stairs, I find a welcome glimmer of llumination from the street lamp beyond the open door.

Having something to aim for, I quicken my step, reach the front  
door, pull the door closed after me as instructed, shout a cheerio into the darkness, and am relieved to turn for home.
Donie did not return to the street.
-----------------------------------------------
 
 

=============
 

School on Monday mornings is particularly hard to bear.
I try to make Sunday night last forever by simply staying awake .
But I can never manage it , and before I know it, it's morning, and time to get up.

The gloom of a dark and dreary wet and windy Atlantic Monday morning is impossible to shake off.

I am unable to eat breakfast.

There’s a nostalgia for the joys of the weekend , now so far away.  

On winter mornings, when sleet replaces the rain, the classroom is sometimes so cold that one’s breath can be seen when speaking. Seated in my favourite place, the very back row of desks in the large room, as close to the door as I can get, I detect no warmth whatsoever from the solitary coal fire at the front of the room, which is in any case monopolised by the teacher.

I sit there wishing lunch time would  come, so I can run home to some nourishment, and get the circulation going in my feet.
 
Occasionally the teacher talks about having an ambition in life, and counsels against the sail away strategy, warning that everyone cries real tears when seeing their own homeland disappear below the horizon. Sitting in such conditions does not inspire in me any ambition but to catch that boat to London at the earliest opportunity, and I do not expect to shed any tears .

Anyway, ambition could seem to be a strange concept to one whose glory days have already come and gone.
 
Though Shandon Street is busy, it too has seen better days, but one shop in particular is rather empty these days; apparently the pub that is our home is not quite as vibrant as it once was. One of many pubs within a stone’s throw, we appear to have fallen completely out of favour with our former regulars. It’s a long time since we’ve had anything like a busy day, perhaps too many pubs chasing too few drinkers with hard cash means that the busy pubs are the ones that offer extras like drinks on credit, serious gambling, and of course, after hours drinking.
Having a young family to support, Dad finally gives up trying to make a living from the pub, and takes a job outside as a long distance lorry driver. 
 
We still get the odd customer or two, mainly long standing and interesting old regulars who come in from time to time, perhaps out of a sense of duty, and in quiet  
moments talk to us kids about life in India serving in the British Army, and the terrible heat, and about how it’s possible there to throw a raw egg into the air and find it comes down fried.WOW!

========== But usually the bar echoes to the loud tick tock of the clock in the bar, counting down the endless minutes till closing time. I will try to stay awake until Dad comes home from work, the light hurts my eyes now,I long for bed, for sleep, just to sleep, my eyes won’t stay open, but the light must stay on, my eyes sometimes close for a moment; but suddenly I’m awake and the light hurts my eyes again.
Sometimes Mam tells us old nursery rhymes that make me feel even more sleepy: ‘ Go to bed , says Sleepy, wait a while, says Slow, put the kettle on, says Greedy , and we’ll eat before we go’ But I don’t like that rhyme very much, I don’t want tea now, just bed, just sleep, I must sleep.
==
When I do manage to stay awake, I  
find that one of Mam’s stories is sad; about a little boy who is scared of spiders, and when he finds one in his room, he runs away from it in terror. Then his mam explains to him that there’s no need at all to be afraid, because the poor little spider is more scared of him than he is of it. So, the next time the boy sees the tiny black creature, he walks towards it, instead of running away, and sure enough , it’s the spider who now turns and runs away from him. So, from then on the little boy is very brave, and plays a game with the spider, sometimes pretending not to have seen it, and then suddenly walking towards it , making it run away. Soon he becomes so used to seeing the spider, and to playing his little game, that he decides to name the spider Sally.
Then one day he goes to his room and sees Sally in her usual place, so he ignores her for a while, and then turns and walks quickly towards her as he says: ‘Ok Sally, off you go!

But for the first time, Sally does not move, no matter what the boy says, and after standing there for some minutes, he begins to cry.
 
21 

Wow, No one outside France speaks that impossible language, so you still know enough to get a B here in England !

Well, you are not alone. before the Angles invaded from Germany, no one in the British Isles spoke English ops Angleish) :)

Thanks to the BBC, I worry constantly about everything, what else can I do ? :)

Thanks to the BBC, I worry constantly about everything, what else can I do ? :)

I experienced real church singing, instead of just hymns, for the first time on Sunday when I called in to a service run by the local Ivorian community in a tiny French language church in London, and was simply blown away by the wonderfully musical sound of live human voices singing as one....the sheer energy and passion of the singing made my hair stand on end......church was never like this when I was young and sat at the back and dozed off as the boring sermon rambled on and on........wow I left that church feeling totally energised and twenty years younger!

:)

As someone who hogged the open mic and got many requests but just went on singing anyway :) and then just stopped singing, and am now starting to sing again, I hardly feel qualified to offer advice to someone who obviously can sing, but one thing I have learned is this......people love to hear someone carry a tune.......my neighbour downstairs is more than slightly crazy and no Maria Callas, yet when I hear I her sing I know all is well.......:)

This is what I miss: It's a true account on breaking up making up. ============================================

Martin went slowly home, not really wanting to get there, tried in vain to watch TV , and then went to bed.

It was the worst night of his life.

A sleepless night, the sort he'd heard talked about, and heard sung about, but had never before experienced.

He finally understood what it meant to be 'crazy' about someone.

She had taken over his soul, there was no escape.

Nothing he could do would stop his mind racing along ,full of her face and her smiles and her words and her lips...full of what 'might have been', with 'if only', full of anger and longing, with shame,jealousy and total despair.

Trying to get to sleep was hopeless, he just became more tired and angry and sick of life and knew that he'd be unable to face work in the morning.

He gave up, got up from the bed and sat in the darkness, watching the night time shunting of freight trains in the brightly lit Paddington marshalling yards. It was a comfort to know that life was still going on, even in the midst of his turmoil .

Sure that he could not exist without her, his mortality gradually became a huge comfort to him.

He turned in the chair in an effort make himself more comfortable.

Suddenly his bedside alarm went off.

He rose wearily from the chair, feeling full of aches and pains , but happy that the night had finally passed.
================================
Why on earth would I miss such an experience?

So many truly inspirational replies all of which I can relate to !

Yes I used to sing all the time too, when driving cycling walking but somehow over the years, though I gained some wrinkles and even a pound or two, I seem to have totally lost the singing habit :(

But surely if I want my daughter to take my advice about singing , then I must practise what I preach, lose my inhibitions and start singing again.

So today I made her laugh out loud by singing my morning greetings to her over the phone !

Thanks so much for that, it's true that we sing for ourselves, my daughter can't hit a note, but I know that singing would help her through a tough time....

Children learn to sing before they talk,'' When you sing, your brain releases serotonin, your happy chemical, so singing makes us feel good
Singing also increases blood flow and lung capacity
Some studies suggest that singing can increase levels of immunoglobin A which helps to strengthen your immune system and reduces risk of infection
When combined with movement or dance, singing can improves fitness and help to combat obesity
Singing can help to improve posture''.

So, do you still sing?

WOW !Such a thought provoking question, ''being myself'..or ''doing it my way'' can mean doing whatever comes naturally at the time, acting without restraint..and too bad if others get hurt, of course dictators do this all the time ...but surely cililisation means that we have to conform to standards of behaviour so that everything doesnt come to a grinding halt....I think it goes to the heart of being self aware and above all being responsible for my actions....good or bad, ....the fact that humans have bigger brains than other apes means that we can have empathy with other beings , human and animal.......so , obviously I'm just a man, imperfect, but willing to improve, so my 'best self' is a kind man who means no harm to anyone on the planet, who lives for the happiness of his family, and NEVER cheats on his wife, even it was a long time ago.......:)...