El Pibe

I stumbled upon Aeon when reading this article about dark matter. I flicked about to see if there was anything else interesting and found this wonderfully overwrought meditation on gothic literature. It reads like one of Ted Max's parodies, marvellous!

OMG am I turning into Huguenot (since his mahoosive flounce off the forum)?

"[people] do not want to talk about how food and class have merged into one" Not really, people have rightly dismissed the theory and want to move on. Food and class were as one when commoners were hung for snaring game. Food and class were as one when people starved to death as their smallholdings got blight whilst surrounded by fields laden with wheat for export. An increase in vendors of fresh food of provenance as opposed to frozen food of indeterminate origin isn't evidence of a paradigm shift in the suppression of the working classes, it's just, well, nice food. I'm just as inclined to get annoyed by 'old spot gammon and triple cooked frites' over 'ham and chips' but gammon really does come in varying quality, and I'm happy to pay ?6.50 rather than ?3 if it a)tastes nice and b)isn't packed full of phenylbutazone. What you're decrying is not the end of a certain class, for there are plenty of people of working class origin, hell might even still describe themselves as such, who are well able to tell the differnece between a turd, a polished turd and a pulled pork burrito. I think you've just got sympathy and empathy for the poor folk left behind who can't afford anything but the turd, but your frustration is manifesting itself entirely obliquely to the real issue. You're blaming the sneeze, not the cold.

yes, but it's an argument that fulfils a need, and far too many have been had ;-)

Is the real world the bit that drinks unpretentious coffee? Does that make Gareth Hunt the very epitome of humanity?

strawberry syrup with that sir?

Outlast looks like it's going to be good, see what an established studio can do with the concepts started by Amnesia and Slenderman. I quite like that the FPS is moving in a specifically non combat direction, it's most unsettling playing without recourse to a left mouse click.

This is fun, video of people shoved in a darkened room playing Outlast, some quality girly screams from the men!! http://uk.ign.com/videos/2013/04/23/how-scary-is-outlast

KIDS IN PUBS!!!!!!!

on the subject of cinema (god I'm bad at these)

talking of stars, here's a lovely diagramatic of all the planetary systems discovered by Kepler http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/science/space/keplers-tally-of-planets.html?_r=0

SJ, learn to embrace Louisa's ludicrous prejudices, and love the fact that no matter how much she may wind you up, it can't even come close to how much the mere existence of the bourgeoisie winds her up ;-P

I'm not sure it's hugely revealing of much. A public outpouring of relief is pretty natural after all, what this tells us is that repeating "YOU-ESS-EH" is a bit dull when compared to say, slapping statues with your shoe, but is marginally less embarassing than climbing a statue and doing that oy-oy saveloy fist pumping dance whilst chanting ENG-GER-LUND over and over. I think what it is revealing of is primarily a skewed sense of perspective and secondly a deep seated anxiety about ones place in and perception by the world, which is a bit odd for the most powerful country in the world and more usually seen in countries that have seen themselves wane, such as Britian, Spain and France. On that first point someone might have been forgiven for thinking that it was VX day at the end of world war 3 on seeing the footage, not that the police had captured a criminal who had murdered two people. I'm sure there are plenty of people, especially republicans and gun lobbiests who panicked when the perpetrators where described as white (quite literally) caucasians, now breathing a huge collective sigh of relief that it wasn't some 'prise my assault rifle out of my cold dead hands' type. It was rather telling that police were involved in a shootout the following day shooting a murderer who had killed 5, just another day at the office, and probably didn't even manage a roadblock leave alone martial law lockdown of a million people. Which kind of raises the second point, where does this topsy turvey risk assessment come from when cinema and high school massacres result in vehement defence that there's nothing you can do about it. I've a feeling that this cuts to the chase on two matters, firstly the dichotomy at the heart of American hegemony, that you can't be both powerful and loved, and secondly a deep seated unease that the USA might not be the preeminent world power for much longer. On top of this there is the problem that though at first glance it feels like the foreign 'other' has been defeated, actually these were peope who grew up in the USA, a country that has embraceed and been built upon and by immigration. A country that will soon no longer be majority white, may eventually no longer be majority anglo-saxon speaking, leave alone protestant. Ultimately maybe these celebrations were the lady dothing a protest too much, enjoying a brief glow of simple truths well aware that in reality there are harder questions to face up to, that the existential threat to the united states isn't from muslims or russians but facing up to the dark heart of culture wars, religious schism and immigration and that at some point they're going to have to make up their minds what sort of country they want to be.

I'd say Ellie's husband as only real all out good guy so far, even get's on with grumpy rozza, has to be top of the list. Too easy. It was all a bit paint by numbers, but well produced and acted enough to pass the time.

Is pretentious coffee the stuff made from beans, unlike the real stuff which looks a bit like brown sugar and comes in a jar?

I for one got all sniffy reading that and can't wait for the next meeting of the Comintern when street hawkers of the world (apart from those who serve the kulaks with the 'organic' burgers) lock arms and sing the international. Then ztraferjackiev will be produced, with his solid working class immigrant credentials, and confess that he poisoned the cockle and whelk stocks on our coastline and spread propaganda about eel shortages, then we can all have a good old fashioned ten minute hate around the ol' Joanna. Ooh I can't wait.

Again, can't quite work out if this is satire or not http://www.karlremarks.com/2013/04/obama-insists-reaction-to-boston-bombs.html

ooh, oysters!! I might skip on the sausage and mash, after today's burrito it might be frowned upon at the office if I manage two afternoons in a row barely able to keep my eyes open ;-)

I always thought the music signified that they'd run out of their product. I sense I was sold a pup all these years.

btw SJ, I owe you a burrito still. Maybe on a sunny friday soon?

Solar ovens http://www.williamgbecker.com/MakeSolarOven.html I saw this and thought of nette.

a million thanks to chillaxed, I can testify that Burrito Joe is very good, check it out KK!!! Of course I have to undergo the shame of being a fashion victim (even though Iosephus Panem was probably hawking food on that spot by Watling Street a good two millennia ago)

I'm on my way!

anything near st paul's? The choice around here is truly awful.

all those years of chips and curry sauce from the chip van outside of the pub, I didn't realise I was actually being a pretentious arse; always glad to be set straight by the better informed among us.