mockney piers

For starters I'd love someone to define what britishness (an invented concept anyway largely aimed at getting all those troublesome scots to bugger off and make the far flung parts of the empire function) or indeed Englishness actually is. And whatever it might have been 30 years ago, it has changed beyond all recognition as part of an organic process that has nothing to do with whatever goes on at those mythical multicultural altars, but with a massively changing world. By all means grumble away while flicking absent mindedly at your inflated pigs bladder and smooshing the warm beer froth off of your beard, but it's essentially a luddite response harking for some bygone golden age that never existed. I wouldn't worry, it's human nature, there's plenty of writings of Romans grumbling that things ain't what it used to be (which after 500AD is actually very true). And this is in spite of the best efforts of the writers of Midsomer Murders. Plus we might 'mean' Easter, but as this is one of the least religious countries on the planet, most people 'mean' a weekend to get away or sit in a pub. I'm all for calling it 'pissup' weekend frankly.

I've been to all three, generally with my wednesday and norwich supporting mates, and the standard of footie tends to be pretty dire (one particular doozy of a game between CP and Norwich, both sets of fans ironically Ol?d every pass that actually found a player, regardless of team. We didn't manage many Ol?s that afternoon. If I'm going to pay money for bad footie I'm much happier to spend 6 quid to watch the Hamlets, plus you actually get to enjoy a beer with the match. In fact though the standard of footie is obviously much better in the prem I pretty much refuse to pay a ton to watch it (for me and the missus). These days I just manage the odd cup game at Upton Park.

Indeed. The hammers might have been guilty of a lack of any ambition in the second half, but were only really at fault for the last goal. The rest were two world class Rooney moments and an iffy penalty. Of course having seen FF this morning, Vidic should have had three yellows, but ain't footie full of those ifs and buts.

Btw arrived at pub seconds after the 2-0 lead, and informed a friend of mine, who has reservations about my partaking in anything 'ammeresque, about the good news. I quote you his text to me 'it was all going fine until you started watching you fucking jinx!!!!!!!'

frankly embarrassing, all too predictable but sadly the correct result. How very very very west ham. At least it wasn't against wimbledon this time.

playing better in all fairness and decent shout that vidic shouldn't be on the pitch. In edt if you fancy second half quids.

This short article on the lunatic (tragicomic?) fringe of the protesters made me chuckle http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/03/28/london_burning "A giant black banner hanging down from one of the plinths in the square read: "Tahrir. Tunisia. Trafalgar." There were no water hoses in sight, no police dogs mauling young children, no mukhabarat transporting protesters to torture chambers."

*blushes* You see, suddenly some good banter strikes up and that pang hits again. Totally agree about facebook though. I too have had great mileage from here, met lots of nice people* and bump into lots of you from time to time, always great, but I think it's time to move on, managed longer here than anywhere else previously. And once again hats off to admin for making it all happen. *And if any of ye ever fancy a pint, quids, Mr Ben, *bob* ... snip ... lots of you ... moos, brendan, snorky (go on you know you want to) et al, my proverbial door is always open to that one!!

Easy to spot but no less a PITA, they sucked they joy out of it for me (especially on the moderation front); like constantly having to tell off a naughty child, but without any of the childish charm obviously. Is it an addiction? Maaaaaybe. I'd put it in the habit bracket rather than addiction, though obviously there is some overlap in the definitions. I'm finding it hard to stop looking even though the reason I'm trying to stop is that there's very little of interest or entertainment anymore. But those gaps in the day when you're having a cup of tea or just need to defocus brain from data and code are still there. The BBC news is a bit dull (you can skate through the lot in about 5 minutes). Social networks are blocked. I've google reader and about 60 feeds on it, but the politics ones are the only viable one. Computer gaming, comics, music etc tend to get frowned upon if they appear on your screen. Cricket World cup helps at the moment. But it's the conversational element that pulls you in and there's so little actual discourse anymore and I think that's what's driven most away. I'll get a pang if I see quids, brendan or honaloochie posting, but they're the only one's left bravely plugging away, at least for the older posters, and perhaps most of them (ok, us) just can't be arsed to engage with new ones, especially when much of it is stuff we've seen go through the mill at least 20 times already, and the rest are frankly rather dull as much as the humour has drained away too. It has become a curtain twitching, crime reporting local forum in the true sense, gone are the days when it was a small cozy place of like minded peeps, it was no coincidence it was called the lounge. It might as well be called 'ask stupid questions that you'd be better off googling' now. As for deactivations, I think Ladymuck's just having a massive huff, Narnia maybe finally just got bored. I also think the football thread has a bigger negative impact than any other for those who partook, and I'm sure did for keef in the end. Aaaaaanyway, no flounce or deactivation from me and almost certainly no 10k, just a quiet adieu ... unless of course it isn't.

Because not posting can be hard, sometimes you've got to force cold turkey. Doh!!!!

Did you order in English or Spanish?

aaaanyway. Well done Stoke. Not a humdinger of a tie, and perhaps one we could (but not necessarily should) have won. Still, I've a soft spot for the Potters having lived there for a while, so good luck. Btw, is it a truism of football that Parker is the best palyer on the field even when the team he plays for isnt very good?

Cripes. Accidentally caught a couple of minutes of the big question. Orange order priest says "people asking how can a can a loving caring god allow [the tsunami] are just being irrelevant. If these people hadn't been overpopulating land by definition dangerous on a fault line...blah blah" Am utterly gobsmacked.

Is England out to shred the nerves of a nation. Why can't they just either win or lose properly goddamit!!

that he's a snotty self-important little twerp?

touch?

A few salient points packed in there Nashoi. Yes we need to make sure that we lead by example. That was why Al Yamamah was such a low point and single handedly dropped us about 5 places in the corruption index from which we have yet to recover perception wise. The likes of Berlusconi hanging on to immunity from prosecution also tarnishes the image of European justice. It is early days for supranational justice, and whilst I agree the ICC has been slow and seemingly toothless, we have had the judicial tribunals into crimes in Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda with some success, and of course we have a very successful expression of supranational justice, it's called the EU. Only recently it has forced Hungary to rollbakc legislation designed to curb the freedoms of the press. We lead the world in Europe and step by step we'll hopefully bring the world into line. But as you say, there are countries yet to sign or ratify the treaty. When Russia's way of dealing with internal issues is to send FSB murder squads or shell Grozny killing 50,000 (mostly ethnic Russian) inhabitants, we can hardly be surprised. But baby steps.... Back on topic, an interesting point about Benghazi having sent more volunteers to Iraq than any other city, so perhaps the erbels aren't to keen on UK/US intervention (it also adds some weight to Jeremy's point...not that we're in Iraq anymore)

Not sure there's much of a debate to be had. Superinjunctions are being massively abused and legal reform is needed (and i think in the pipeline) and Fred Goodwin is a massive banker.

I'm guessing belen, perry et al are bots? How's Turing working for you there belen?

Apologies returned. Unnecessarily snappy and sensitive from me. I do support transnational justice, but I'm not naive enough to think that currently it doesn't dance to a whole host of agendas, and we have nothing like a punitive world for crimes against humanity. But baby steps.......

Plus Fukuyama!?!? Could you be more patronising? Did you see what I said there about the ghoulish cynicism and resultant suffering that liberal democracy tolerates or engenders or were you too wrapped up in thinking you were clever?

Cheers for the grandmother eggs lesson there nashoi. Back to the covert operations then, a bit like, errrrr the Croats. (do you see what I was saying there now?) Plus the court works for wherever you go, same reason why certain generals won't come fo treatment to London anymore. Hence why Libyan planes have been nipping off to Belarus recently. All those hundreds of millions will buy a nice dacha I'm sure.

Tbh Jeremy I agree with you. As I said, every decision has repercussions and basically every decision will be wrong to some extent. I have read 'Britain's unfinest hour', and also having spent time in bosnia, it haunts me. Also as a child of the Spanish civil war, betrayed by liberal democracy, my gut tells me to help those who want to overthrow dictatorship.

"where a woman might settle for ..." Really? As an IT permy type (with some contract experience) in various industries, public and private, the women I meet in contracting/consultancy are generally pushier than the men. Missus Mockers for starters scares the bejeezus out of those she works with!!

I've been thinking about getting into patio laying, would anyone be interested in joining me on a course?