mockney piers

Definitely treading closer to that territory rather than woke on a whale heart. Yet to give it a really good crack (aah, must rip it for work tomorrow) but sounds pretty good so far

The new bill callahan, jolly good it is too.

I went to uni with Kofi's son, the oil for food scandal one. Though I didn't know who Kofi was a the time, made the connection years later when he appeared on the news.

fine fine, needs a new name then, and if by fleeting you mean another 50 years, then yeeesss...perhaps. Global trends and realpolitik suggest an auturchical clash in the far east sometime in the next 50 years. I'm hoping we've moved beyond turning each other into meat as a means to an end, but not so sure humanity has got there yet.

Apologies quids, we did get a mini salty ice cream thingy thing on about our 18th course at about 1 in the morning, and so far we're all looking food poisoning free. At mucho moola I can see why cynics would try and get a freebie, but I, and my wife, and our friends, had a genuinely good time...just something of a one off. Hope you don't mind.

fair point jeremy, and no idea, we've had long enough to get over empire shurely.

of course it's imperialism, just dressed up a bit differently for public consumption. People like to think we're nice, but we're basically imperialist states, we just use different tools and call it different names.

lol, SimonM in predicting West Ham defeat shocker :) As for the "stand up if you hate.." I thought all clubs did that. I've regularly sung "..if you hate Woking" though in reality i really don't have an opinion either way about the place.

sadly not, though once the place emptied they surreptitiously left us lots of the leftover tasting menu wine, which was nice, though a bit bad on the head this morning

ta daaaa !

. *edited cos just can't be fucking arsed* --new improved charade playing mockney -- - edited at 8:09

Huguenot, how utterly mean spirited of you, I can only assume AD was being tongue in cheek. It may be worth noting that our armed forces are under staffed and recruitment is at rock bottom, so if anything offering a stake in this society that the Nepalese, Fijians et al that this country is increasingly dependent on and are fighting for, may just be sensible pragmatic incentive. This was such a political miscalculation by this government who had little to gain but so much political capital to lose. Just goes to highlight their general levels of incompetence really.

Thing is these days both are nebulous organisations and it's genuinely difficult to tease them apart, just look at the roles TB has these days. Both are pretty much at the mercy of the other and it's fascinating to read early modern history in that light, but it's always the man with the gun who has the final say, and as someone pointed out the other day, Russia defaulted on its debt and it didn't actually end up doing all that much harm in the long term did it.

How very odd. I find myself vaguely aligned with AFN. Never thought I'd see the day, but nice to see you sounding and writing like a rational human being too ;-) I would disagree with you in that GLobalism is actually driven by Imperialism, not Capitalism. Governments have all the power, the banks and corporations are tolerated only as long as their goals continue to coincide with governments'. Hence why globalism has been pushed through on national agendas by governments. Should this relationship break down watch how the legislative and particularly the executive demonstrate who has the real power. I fear you may have been reading too much Philip Bobbit; interesting though he is I think he's utterly wrong, the nation state has some legs in it yet. Ooh, and not sure about this erosion of borders. Globalism does try to get rid of barriers to trade, but it's rather one sided and basically just a more sophisticated version of the old 'open door' policy, the US's first bash at imperialism in China. Borders for people haven't really disappeared anywhere else, you try going to the US or Russia if you think this the case, it really ain't that easy. The one place we've seen it go is within Europe and I'd say that it was primarily driven by idealism, though I'm not naive enough to believe that movement of capital wasn't a big driver, I don't for a second connect it with globalism as it has actually cost the rich a fortune to the benefit of the poor, ask the Portuguese, Greek, Spanish or Irish.

Charming. Feeling the love and accused of drunkenness (not an uncommon coincidence with me mind you)

LOL!!

Hats off to Mike. Top post. Rise above it all, life's too short. I do love how people's misanthropic tendencies really only reflect their personal failings, not society's. Get out from under your bridge, breath the air, admire a flower, have a pint in the bishop, even the palmerston (but ntv) and kiss a baby in a bugaboo. Life's ok really....smile, but limit smilies to one :)

just home, sorry i missed you all. trust it was a good night and steve laid on a good'un as he is generally wont to do. I am much much poorer for tonight, but in many ways much richer...especially the pureeed black pudding.

Sorry, CDOs caused swine flu now on top of everything else? Weird.

12 episodes. no 8 is a classic though. That drinking session!!

All I need to know is how many guinneses is a compulsory brightener, and how many a post pub chaser? ...Mr chairman?

Congratulations to the EDT. Best neighbourhood pub in London. Marvellous!!!!!

2 sugars please

Huzzah and tippetty top top that man, mines a large G&T!!

I'm hoping penis as a substitute doesn't stick.....hm may rephrase that