StraferJack

Sniping attacking Mutual sniping for years but the anti leveson (govt have no business telling us what to do!!!) mail quickly replaced by Pro government (newspapers shouldn't judge what government deems important!) mail Mail is increasingly looking genuinely unhinged to me, even by its standards

to be honest, if it's not behind a paywall, I just assume that the commentators on any article for any paper constitutes a smallish percentage of that paper's readership Obviously you can tell from the tone, vocab and content when it is a stereotypical reader of said paper - but mostly it's just the same online nutterdom that has (largely) done for this place * edited to had a meek "100" claim*

Storms on social media. Absolutely nailed http://www.buzzfeed.com/tomphillips/the-29-stages-of-a-twitterstorm

say what you will about the Guardian and the Mail but it's quite the ding dong they are having at the moment

Snigger

new Tindersticks LP streaming at Quietus http://thequietus.com/articles/13529-tindersticks-across-six-leap-years-album-stream

national teams - who should play for them? this is pretty much how I feel (from Arseblog): Wilshere has been talking about internationals and how national sides should only choose players from that particular country: The only people who should play for England are English people. If you live in England for five years it doesn?t make you English. If I went to Spain and lived there for five years I am not going to play for Spain. Yes, but if you?ve got parents who come from a different country and you?re born in England then you have something of a choice to make. Or if you?ve lived in England from a young age. Or if you?ve got English parents and you?re born abroad. Or if you fake your own death in one country and buy an English passport from a dodgy site on the deep web and assume the identity of an Englishman and turn out to be good at football and Roy Hodgson needs you. It?s complicated, in fairness. As an Irishman, I can talk about how we revolutionised international football in the Jack Charlton era. Of course there were many players of Irish descent in the UK. Emigration from this country was a fact of life, and I myself, personally, was born in London to Irish parents and could have been forced with that most difficult of choices had I not been a) more interested in beer and girls as a teenager and b) not quite as good as Alan Kernaghan. Yet we, and by we I mean Charlton, took it to extraordinary levels. Players who had Irish parents were one thing, but we had the grandparent thing going on. Then possibly the great-grandparent. Then it was anyone who might once have read Flann O?Brien, enjoyed the stylings of Gilbert O?Sullivan or listened to Terry Wogan in the morning. In fact, it went so far that Tony Cascarino?s Irish ?qualifications? were entirely fictionalised (I think it was Samuel Beckett?s last contribution to Irish life), and the toothless would-be striker admitted to it in his autobiography (in which he probably also talked about wanking and other dressing room japes). Did it really matter to anyone? Not at all. These men were embraced, they were green to the core, although it probably helped that the nation enjoyed its most successful spell at international level under Charlton. Ok, so the football was horrendous, but it didn?t really make that much difference when you were playing Italy in the quarter-finals of the World Cup and everyone single person in the country was out on the piss. Even the pioneers. Anyway, my point is, who really cares? The world is hardly defined by boundaries any more. We?re a jumble of races, creeds and colours in almost every country, and international football is just a gigantic scam to ensure that FIFA remains rich and can host decadent parties at which corpulent, piggish executives can quaff wine and gobble expensive food served on the backs of orphans whose parents have died building stadiums in the desert because an oil rich nation has bought the rights to host the World Cup when there?s simply no good reason to hold the tournament there in the slightest. Other than to make the rich people richer, of course. Which is exactly what will happen because the players and the fans, the ones who actually make football what it is, are just an afterthought. They?re way down the list after sponsors, corporate shills, advertisers, TV companies, sports gear manufacturers, event managers, and assorted hangers-on to all of those people. I mean, I get where Jack is coming from to an extent, but international football isn?t really about representing your country any more. There?s no core of morality to the game at this level. You can pick a racist over the brother of the man the racist abused and people will accept that because they think it gives them a better chance of winning. So let?s not jump on any high horses about nationality, especially as England have exploited the ?rules?, such as they are, down the years.

uncleglen - I suspect the razor wire would impact more than burglars. don't you? pretending that people are upset about hurting burglars is a distraction

"Very worrying indeed at the fact that there has been a increase in local burglarys recently." based on what?

"No wonder London was voted the worst place to live- didn't surprise me" in what - "Crap Towns Return"? Let's not question that source then...

"Driving to beckenham for a bit of convenience" Too funny

Would echo MP's view of Tandoori Nights I've been going there for 12 years and last few visits have been significantly worse than previously. Lukewarm bhajis, dull sauces with lack of heat regardless of what's ordered.

Has jaflong gone downhill then James? Not sure I would trust a curry from a fried chicken shop either. Actually, having tried the fried chicken there I wouldn't trust them with that either

... 666

can't wait anymore...

I quite like David McWilliams www.davidmcwilliams.ie/

"If cars are (allegedly) travelling that fast, Cora, how would changing the speed limit help?" I'm guessing that of the "speeders", a large number are % offenders - ie they like to travel just above the limit - "that's not really speeding" So the speed of any such impact would be above a new limit but still significantly reduced

Shrug. Sigh

what, they "belong" to the Number 8 do they? ;-)

The 12 people you find in website comment sections, by @flashboy. Each and every one a total arse. http://t.co/k7utgjiq3S

Paddies?

"That's a average of 2.88 books per day since birth. " What is that average based on? The 70,000 figure? That's personal items* in his archive, not books (from stage costumes, designs, artworks, to tour notes from the 60s etc etc)

" hey you probably don't even live locally or use the train much." Man I get royally ticked off when someone who has been a regular poster on this forum for years, is clearly a local, clearly uses trains daily is just dismissed by some one-note blowhard because they are too lazy and tone-deaf to bother engaging properly

I'm 99.9% sure El Pibe knew he would get a rise, so to not dissapoint him the book habit is well entrenched - of the 1970s for example Bowie says: "I took along four library trunks full of books. At least 400 books. All the books I owned. I didn't have a house then. I drove Eric (his bodyguard) crazy. He had to haul all those books around." This was around the time he wrote and produced Low and "Heroes" albums for himself and the music for The Idiot and Lust for Life labums for Iggy Pop Within a 12 month period Album every 10 years... pfft

all that effort wasted Jeremy...