mockney piers

Fox news, Ann Coulter, Creation museums, American 'Football', Forrest Gump, Obesity, Scientology Jazz, Rock'n'roll, The Sopranos, The Simpsons, Henry James, Hunter S Thompson, Orson Wells thinking about it, space travel and creation museums might not be imports.

I always thought that Caprice has enriched the culture of our fair isle like nothing else.

Blimey, not the Police, unless it's a passing siren. Batman? ;)

Stereolab? Yeah, we heard you the first time MW.

Don't worry Jah, I'm fine * packs away electrically heated scarecrow mockney, mmm seat nice and warm * right, I'm off to find somewhere quieter, enjoy the stones!

Just want to say a big thanks to Incitatus. Finally tracked down Feist's The Reminder. Lovely album. Cheers again. Ooh, and stumbled upon (friends of Jeff Mangum) Elf Power's new one..v v nice.

I was pretty certain from the start that it was a p*ss take, though possibly an unwise one considering. I'm definitely not ruling out mischievous bored teen son/daughter though.

*hmm, been a while, this is much better than that other room, it was giving me a headache* *lets see, arnica? phosphorus? belladonna? aaaaaah, gin!!!*

This thread is simply called the enemies of reason. People lose their faculties of reason by equating the concepts of ancient and eastern with wisdom and spirituality. I was merely trying to point out that that's bollocks. If you want to keep this 'debate' as an endless cycle of one side saying: "You have no evidence whatsoever for alternative therapies doing anything other than making people feel good about themselves (not intrinsically a bad thing)" and the other side saying either: "I don't need evidence, it works" or "You ignorant people, you know nothing" then you're welcome to do so. It was getting a bit tiresome that's all. Funny how one side doesn't get personal, enjoy it.

Sorry if I come across as patronising. It's just with my historian's hat on for a moment I'm amazed that 2 words seem to have a weird ability to make people think in weird ways. Ancient, Eastern. From a historical context there's nothing romantic about ancient times, and thank your lucky stars you didn't live then, either in the east, the west, the fertile crescent, north africa or south america. Then Eastern. If you think the ancient west was bad, you should try the east. China made roman brutality look positively amateur, and India wasn't alot better. And as for the celts or any other pagansof the time, they didn't have some huge love in, painting each other blue and communing with the spirit world; it was a hard hard hard life, and if you were lucky enough not to be massacred by a passing celt with a bad attitude, or goth or roman, or hun or alan or vandal...blah...etc...then your life expectancy was about 30 years. Many of us would already be goners, without the chance to be having this debate. And you know why we're living so long don't you.....

Is that like the ancient eastern wisdom of the Fists of Righteous Harmony. Protected by magic armour and supported by legions of the spirit soldiers they attempted to oust the West in a huge rebellion at the turn of the last century? You have to feel for them*, humiliated by barbarians, seeing their people hooked on opium, but luckily the imperial powers' ignorant dependence on scientific devices like the machine gun and the breech loading rifle could not stand in the way of ancestral spirits, kung fu and the Chi that would give them superhuman and supernatural powers. Doh!! *actually not that much, they may have lost 10,000 people to futile attacks on well defended forts, but they also massacred 35,000 fellow chinese who had converted to christianity on their way there. Very spiritual!

Just remembered this crazy and sometimes beautifulYugoslavian cartoon I saw many years ago set to the music of Erik Satie. Quite cool and no idea why it's just popped into my head Satiemania

I think the two most important points he made were about our perceptions of risk, how hugely overinflated they are, and that's mostly thanks to a sensationalist press (not to mention gov't who uses fear for its own ends), but also down to how much safer the world is. And how these have contributed to a collective madness of non-specific anxiety that seems to be overwhelming our modern society. If quack cures help people to address this then that's fine if it helps, but it becomes something of a dependency (and not a cheap one at that). Western medicine doesn't have anything to offer here, but the ridiculous number of people down the doctors' surgery demanding a pill for this or that is just another symptom. This is a debate about the fabric of society and how we interact, and how we cope with anxiety, and how we interpret risk. It's not about science versus alternative therapy. I know I too suffer from this, i have real problems with flying; everytime another plane misses the runway or explodes it makes things worse, even though i know that there are millions of passenger miles being flown every hour of every day and the risks to myself are tiny (though obviously catastrophic if it all goes wrong). I think the point he was trying to make was that it's all very well going to weird therapy to cope, but once it starts undermining peoples trust and or even belief in western medicine this can have damaging consequences, such as the first measles death in years.

Blimey, monkeyman seems to have gone all political. Ian Brown - Illegal Attacks

I actually thought he was really enjoying himself in this one. He seemed to quite like and admire the practitioners' time and care they put into their work (well, maybe not the loon at the start giving him extra DNA helices with a bewitching twitch of her shoulder), especially the homoeopathic doctor, and for the most part he also seemed to quite enjoy the experiences. They were just nonsense that's all. Nothing some caring hands, some kind words a nice bath and a good massage can't deliver. So many go on about our reliance on the pills of western medicine, but seem prepared to swallow anything else, be it homoepathic or simply metaphorical snake oil, without so much as a raised eyebrow. Why swallow anything at all? My aching muscles after the cricket? Hot bath. Headache? Glass of water. Glandular fever? Bed rest...lots and lots of bed rest. Should I get anything more serious (touch wood, there but for the grace of fsm), given a choice between Cromwell's piss, or a glowing crystal pointed at my chakra, or antibiotics, or chemo or whatever may be appropriate, I know which I'll be choosing (though i might go for one of them there indian head massages too).

Tevez who? And that wonderful young lad, Dyer, loves a roast of a sunday apparently, loves his mum too. I certainly hope the two statements aren't too closely related, but from what you hear, nothing would surprise me. Yes great signings, great ;)

Hurrah. And no controversy whatsoever, no sirree, that Bellamy, he's a lovely lad, loves his mum you know, wouldn't hurt a fly, level head on those strange shoulders of his, yes sir.

That's fantastic. Anyway, back on topic. Is Dawkins going to debunk that nonsense about global warming. Those irrational scaremongers have been at it for too long. Even the most cursory examination must reveal that this year's rubbish summer must be down to the increased piracy in the south china seas. Come on professor, sock it to those enemies of reason tonight!!

Charlie Brooker will always always always be a hero to me, if only for... http://www.tvgohome.com/

Baddam-tishhh :-D

Well. Not as bas as I was expecting. We managed to get nine together against their full complement. Thanks again to Ive Met Jimmy and PeckhamBoy for coming through with stuff and lifts. Nice one to Jason, Keef and especially Fear&Boozing for well, for getting out of bed on the latter. And of course thanks to Tom, Leon and pals for providing sporting opposition and extra fielding duties to make up our numbers. It was a grey day, but the rain pretty much held off and we got a 30 overs match completed. The press boys opted to bat first and gave us a total of 170 to win, with Fear's caught and bowled a nice end to the innings. We started brightly with Jason clearly preferring boundaries to all that running malarkey, but after his wicket went we suffered something of a middle order collapse. Peckham Boy and I've Met Jimmy put together a good last man partnership but it wasn't quite enough. I think we fell a little under 40 short of the runs needed. Back to the CPT for drinks and a grand day out all round. The SLP boys seem keen to make it a regular fixture so plenty of warning next year so you can book that saturday afternoon off.

LuvPeckham. I assume you meant Barney the Purple Dinosaur. How was he?

Spot on lozzyloz. Monica, we'll just have to agree to disagree, sorry to hear we're no longer pals though. Ooh go on, let's put it all behind us..hug?

Judging by the number of times people keep pointing out that he's a younger, more handsome version of me, I'd have to go with BarryRoad, not that he's an actor or anything.

Lovely, if you can't beat them... Inspiral Carpets - Here she comes in the fall