El Pibe

google are bringing out a version of the S4 as it goes with the bog standard android.

I wouldn't get upset by UncleBen, I'm not even convinced he's strictly speaking human. I suspect he may be some sort of self-aware composite of all the bile and misery ever spewed into the EDF. A technological expression of East Dulwich's collective, curtain-twitching consciousness; the miasmic intelligence of our hand-wringing hive mind, in a deus ex machina stylee.

My old S2 was unnoticeable, same can't be said of its successors.

Oh wait I get it

Is Martti Malmi some sort of new amusing internet meme? I'm not sure I get it, though doubtless it's hilarious.

I was hanging out at that age, but I reckon I'd think twice about allowing it in London. One of the reasons we're moving *wipes a tear*

"what should i look for?" I hate to be circular but I guess it depends on what you're looking for, what type of phone, what are your priorities, call quality, battery life, music, camera etc. Right now HTC One is getting the best reviews of the latest top end smart phones. I got the Galaxy S4 the other day which is very jolly nice too.

in short, crap, but slightly less crap than last year's crappier one. http://www.ukweatherforecast.co.uk/summer-2013-forecast/

Sylvester the Cat?

The Poacher in Withnail & I.

Fascinating story of the worlds most dangerous job, driving a bus in Guatemala City http://www.newrepublic.com/article/113293/900-bus-drivers-dead-guatemala-city-worlds-most-dangerous-job

I've seen Sers Jorah Mormont and Allister Thorne regularly in Sainsbo's, clearly a brisk trade in the grizzled old knights in these parts.

I finally got a bit of summer, weirdly enough on the Atlantic coast of west Ireland. It's a world turned upside down. Kids had coats on this morning :( Looking forward to my mum's 70th in Suffolk. Buying fresh produce from the fishermen and putting some shellfish and sea bream on the BBQ. Hopefully we'll have sun by then.

Dorian Gray?

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...and yet nobody has that influence, and 'the us will' is as hollow a threat as I've ever heard. The presence of mujahadin didn't stop Bosnia's war from being Bosnia's war and Bosnia's tragedy. This is in absolutely every respect Syria's war, 10,000 untrained fanatics/idealists (and Hezbollah) from across the umma won't change that, it's just another place for idiots to die in someone else's business. There won't be anyone to steer this mess away from its current situation until the warring parties are willing to come to the table or one side wins. You're obviously a Lebanon watcher, remind how long that took to peter out?

I can't wait, it's pretty unedifying the faces one pulls as you can see your train mere feet away, but unable to get there due to the sardine tin bottlenecks that are the current stairs and exits. Can't bloody wait frankly.

My old RE teacher was a landing craft pilot. He got seperated from the fleet and joined up with the Americans and went to Omaha. There he spent the day ferrying soldiers and wounded to and from the beaches often under withering fire, disembarking himself to help with the casualties. By the end of the day the commanding officer was so impressed with his contribution that he got the flag that was hoisted when the beach was taken and presented it to him. I only found this out after his death in his obituary; he was a quiet mild mannered chap who was ludicrously optimistic about the young generation when everyone else was telling us what a bunch of ingrates and thugs we were (to be fair that was a pretty accurate description of my school). His wife found the flag at the bottom of a souvenir drawer and gave it back. She was present at the unveiling ceremony at the US Naval museum in Virginia where it has pride of place.

God knows that Iran's power structures are a complicated beast, pretty obfuscated even to Iranians and Iran watchers, but that is ironic given that Iran's advice to Bashir was basically batten down the hatches and ride it out, it worked for them. But there was a decent peace plan put together by the UN, which wasn't discredited, and there were even moments of a glimmer of hope, but the shots had been fired by then and lines crossed. REally the Iran-US pivot is a red-herring, this is Syria's war and on Bashar's head be it.

I did ponder on what Turkey might have to fear from Iran, what with sharing border and stuff. This suggests that Turkey edges it http://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-comparison-detail.asp?form=form&country1=Turkey&country2=Iran&Submit=Compare+Countries In practice there's a huge gulf between a fully fledged NATO member maxed out with the latest technology and a conscript army with cold war 80s cast offs from Russia, as the Iraq invasion proved.

I'm having trouble parsing your thinking, but you seem to be saying that the fault in Syria lies with those asking for a say in choosing who governs and Bashar is justified in shooting them? Bit harsh if you ask me. I don't see anything impetuous or shortsighted, and I don't think it was naive either. Those who bravely took to the streets did it in the full knowledge that the likely result would be secret police, torture and suffering. Maybe some brutal repression, but hopefully they'd achieve a shake up of tired, entrenched, corrupt and ineffective regimes screwing over their people. European democracies took three hundred years to blossom with hundreds of thousands killed for the dream, seems churlish to condemn those facing the same dangers for the same dream as we enjoy the dividends. I think few thought it would come to full western liberal democracy, many didn't even want it but a salfist 'isalmic' democracy, whatever the hell that is; fewer still thought they'd ever have the means to fight a war for it, but the genie is most definitely out of the bottle. As for war with Iran, well if Qatar are any more blatant about it they could certainly suffer blowback, mined harbours etc, but I really don't think the West has anything to fear from Iran if it intervenes. It would of course probably unite everyone in blowing them up Iraq style, which is why everyone has wisely avoided getting involved. And of course the rebels are now looking an unsightly option in terms of what it may usher in, but we've kind of boxed ourselves into a corner on that one with the demands for regime change. If Bashar could be persuaded to step down then there is room for manoeuvre, but not the way things are. Ironically it's the old Iraq invasion, democracy rhetoric that has forced the US's hand to back the goals of the Spring, which actually goes counter to it's interests in the middle east, though as a long term goal, if successful it would certainly go some way to bolstering them. What we currently have is precisely the shit pile fugazi they've spent 60 years trying to avoid!! I've said before that I think Bosnia is better comparison than Lebanon. Like that conflict arms embargoes only serve to strengthen the oppressor. Certain interventions could achieve western aims if that aim is to force bashar to step down and bring about power sharing government. This will involve planes and bombs and getting an effective third party involved, be it an Iraq pliant to these goals - unlikely, a Turkey posturing as regional peacemaker (as Syria did in Lebanon)- possible, or perhaps a well armed and trained Kurdish force with some promise of independence - long shot. But of course not every Syrian Army soldier is a force for evil (I'm pretty sure the Alawite militias inflicting vicous civilian massacres are), neither are they even majority shia, this conflict isn't yet a fully sectarian one (though there are places where it is). They have pretty legitimate fears about what the fall of a sectarian state that promotes Syrian unity could mean. anyway, I ramble.

I do get where you're coming from in general, but I think you might be a tad unfair on the lad. a 16 year old kid says he wants to stay with the team he's supported since he was a boy, somehting he really still was. Big club come in, who wouldn't say no? THen he sees players who aren't as good as him earning tens of thousands a week a significant percentage more than him for doing the same job. Who among us hasn't had their nose put out of joint on a similar discovery in one's own work place or discovering a friend earns more than you for the same job. Every normal person would seek a new job,and on finding this out an employer who values your contribution will negotiate higher pay. This isn't shafting anyone, its absolutely normal practice in the normal world. Football is no longer jumpers for goalposts, it's a business with professional workers. I think you seek too high a standard of it's practictioners.

If you're hoping to avoid mercenaries in favour of dedicated club players in your football team, I fear you'll only be able to field a pub team full of Arsenal fans. Arsene's a sharp fella, if the wage demands are too high, he'll say no.

Stacey-Lyn's clue could do with being a bit more oblique, I'm going for The Witch in the 'Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe'.

Indeed I can finally see the sykes-picot maps finally being redrawn, defacto (as per Iraqi kurdistan say) if not in reality, along sectarian lines across much of the region. There are now many volunteers from Iraq (leave alone Hezbollah) fighting _against_ the rebels in Syria, somewhat undermining Bashars complaints about foreign fighters, and if they manage to defeat the rebels or at least get them to the peace table with a reduced sunni syria (a la Dayton) then they could be emboldened to do likewise in Jordan and even Saudi Arabia. The Sunnis have powerful backers too, in the shape of Qatar and the evangelical wahabiists of the SAudi kingdom, who seem to have a similar vision but obviously with a traditional sunni block in the ascendancy. I'm not sure what to make of your talk of warning, SL. What were you expecting 'the west' to do from 2008, in terms of a shiite bloc the damage was done in 2003 and the subsequent mishandling of the 'peace'. The horse had long bolted that stable by 2008. Do you mean that its the natural result of self-determination, ie the Arab Spring? In which case what could the west do, drop thousand pound bombs on Tunisian protesters and Tahrir Square?