El Pibe

Funnily enough I think this is actually the opposite to Iraq. Intervention is something I'm sure CAmeron would love to have done, but was aware that it would be impossible without US buy in. When that finally happens he loses his nerve, goes to parliament, and the Iraq hangover truly kicks in. Ah well. Maybe he can spend his new found lesiure time trying to persuade Turkey to send in the troops or something.

A sophisticated polygamist of noble birth, he inhabits an old pile and is partial to a drop of red.

"One way or another doesn't every club try to buy success" nope.

because for a couple of days it threatened to at least try to stay on topic about how the forum is used in the Real World. As it offtopicated by becomin totally self-obsessed about posters past and present, Admin lost patience, and Bingo!!

Cool, yeah read the book for A'Level, about the only text I enjoyed. okey doke, quick ponder.

It's like a classic djkq vs sue touched you last game. Makes me all sniffy with nostalgia

Oscar schindler, Schindlers Ark by Thomas Keneally (Aussie, booker?) played by Liam Neeson (irishman) in Schindlers List, swept the oscars if i recall.

all a bit random but "You got: Central Line! You could do with being a little less intense, though that?s part of your charm. Best in small doses, but reliable nonetheless." How can I be intense, I chose the sloth!?!

wot otta said

Sadly we can't really help, we'll either be enjoying our last london christmas or we'll have rented it out, in fact we may be gone in a month....*starts to shake uncontrollably* If we're still here would love to meet up though!!

In fact absolutely key to Middle East stability are a functioning Egypt, a normalised Iran, and an Iraq that sorts itself out. *If* that can happen then the very militaristic stances of Saudi and Israel really lose their justification. There's no reason why this can't happen but it needs policies of constructive engagement by Iran, the US, EU, Russia and China. Then meaningful peace negotiations by Israel and the Palestinians. So no problem then :-/ This without taking into account the rather self-defeating trends in Islam itself. But you can't blame them, secular modernism failed the Arab world so profoundly. Funnily enough it was most successful in the Persian world where it was the US that saw fit to spell its doom. WHoops!!!!

Noooooooo

Oh i see. A couple of points. point 1 of the game was "You think of a character from literature, a song or a film." so I wasn't trying to think of a real person And I thought 'Hearn' as opposed to 'Herne' was a clue, so was thinking of boxing movies (barry hearn) and such like. Oh well, next...

Oh jesus MM, I read the James Kelman book years ago. That doesn't simply qualify, that beats every other book mentioned into a pulp just by flttering an eyelid!!!!!!

Though weirldy it's the most positive book he's written

Yeah, I reread it last year and actually struggled a bit even though its a book I love. The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy defintely qualifies.

rather enjoyed this little gem "A Government source is quoted by The Times as saying: "No 10 and the Foreign Office think Miliband is a f****** c*** and a copper-bottomed s***."

Agreed, though it is a bit duller in fairness.

I'm not joking, Peppa Pig in French/Spanish is excellent. The situations are obvious and its spoken extremely clearly, whilst keeping the grammar as simple as possible. I watch it with my son, ostesibly to help teach him, but it really helps keep my ear alert sa after a couple of years of not going to Spain it can easily take a week for me to stop saying 'm?s despacio por favor' all the time.

Wow!!! I guess Sheridan needs to eat his words :-D

There was no ganging up, there was no cooperation involved. He treated everyone equally high handedly whilst being self righteous and pompous. Lots of people saying "seriously, stop being car crashingly embarrassing to read" is not ganging up or bullying.

Fair enough. Hezbollah's stock was high across the muslim world after their resistance in the war of 2006. I do believe they've squandered some of that by staying so loyal to assad, certainly hamas distanced themselves, but they may yet prove to be on the right side of history (depressingly). And certainly they've been of some military use in key areas on the Lebanese border, but they are very much preipheral in this. I actually don't think Syria would do a Saddam (1991 gulf war style) by diverting attention to Israel, that would very much backfire, but as you say, its a tinderbox and as uncleglen says, there are wider sweeping shifts in the Muslim world going on too. Where it goes is really anyone's guess; I just continue to hold naive hope that the brink can be stepped back from, although I'm pretty sure we're not really at a brink. Maybe pull back from tipping point into the abyss rather than a brink as it's clearly way down the slope.

Iran wants the regime very much to hunker down and see it through, lebanon is of utterly no significance at all I think your definion is somewhat narrow and coloured by the cold war, I guess you're thinking Iran, [nasser's] Egypt, Guatemala etc but actually they came about as a result of a fear of loss of American support that bolstered their power base rather than any issues with nationalisation per se. Historically coups are done by parts of the army in a position to do so (think majors and colonels, generals less so because they usually have vested interest in the current establishment) out of a combination of self interest and an idea of 'what's best for the state' which may very well include a combination of carrot and stick by external influences. They may well be driven by political philosophy, or more likely antoganism to the established philosophy or more realistically fears of what philosphy may become established, think the nationalist coup in Spain in '36 fearing communism/anarchism or even Egypt's recent coup fearing moves to fundamental islamism. In terms of Syria I don't think it would take much to persuade those in direct control of divisions well placed to do, that th regime is extremely bad for the country and the potential rewards of taking over are worth taking. I mean the country is edging towards a permanent division and the economy is utterly fucked even if parts of Damascus and the middle classes reamin otherwise unscarred by war. It would probably involve a leap of faith that moving the locus of Syrian spheres toward turkey/US away from IRan/Russia, and that may be a leap too far. Though thinkikng about it I wonder if it would actually be a solution that Russia might encourage, if getting rid of an intransigent figurehead but keeping the establishment staus quo might solve the problems at a stroke whilst being acceptable to them too.

oooh nice. Though he was a nice kid really wasn't he.

Maximillian from the Black Hole?