El Pibe

As club captain of the CPTCC Southwark usually send me a booking form in the spring. I'll keep an eye out. La Piba's cousin Tom has been keen to play a game since moving here four years ago, and I keep promising.....

An I'm sure blind boy will be well up for it too. If we can just get Matt to actually show up to something then we're almost half way there. Any chance we can get Dems and his fast ball down from oop north for a day? Brendan?

and proof positive that malumbu isn't UDT, as UDT had no idea what I was talking about when I used that Kenneth Williams quote!

classically west hamesqe, early promise in the cup run whilst being shit in the league. Except in the real world where we'll bomb out of that too in the replay.....frickin van frickin percy.

I'm sure we could manage to do that again D_C

Brillliant, I need some ugg boots in a matador stylee.

Whilst I tend to agree that the libyan and syrian revolutions are a sort of pulsating sine wave of cooperation and disorganisation between shifting groups and interests, the same can't be said of Mao. Within ten years he took a rag tag force of men, honed his skills fighting the japanese, perfected them crushing the nationalists and turned it into a huge force fighting grand strategy campaigns in Korea against the best equipped battle hardened force in the world. Nothing exposes shortfalls in preparation, organisation tactics and strategy in this world more brutally than military conflict and I can't equate that achievement with the chaos theory of disparate groups of self interested parties. I suspect the truth in Syria lies somewhere in the middle, a coalition of interests and strategy that is hard to maintian in the face of centrigugal interests.

My lungs of phlegm are draining, my pleurisy is easing; I might try this prediction thing again without the cloudy head I've 'enjoyed' the whole bloody christmas break. Brighton 1 V Newcastle 1 Bolton 0 V Sunderland 2 Crawley 1 V Reading 4 Crystal Palace 1 V Stoke 1 Luton 2 V Wolves 1 Macclesfield 0 V Cardiff 1 Peterborough 0 V Norwich 3 Swansea 2 V Arsenal 1 Mansfield 2 V Liverpool 5 Cheltenham 0 V Everton 2

Paul[a]K, longstanding troll, don't keep feeding it please.

If we're talking drama rather than light entertainment then la Piba and I are enjoying secret state.

More that our world is too complex to fool yourself into thinking one can be a paragon of virtue doing no harm in the world, so what's the point in getting snotty about it to those who's concerns about what defines harm may be less stringent, bandying about terms like, disgusting, rank hypocrisy and so on. Life's too fecking short.

Wot bng said.

I use iA Writer, it makes the software keyboard bearable. If only one could install swiftkey on an apple device!

Spy is enjoyable.

Malumbu, series two wasting vest like in its holes. It's basically Spooks, from a fairly solid premise it just rapidly became very very very silly. Enjoyable hokum however.

I'm going to have to start predicting again. Sorry had a fever for 7 days now!!!! Worst ... christmas .... ever !!!!!!!!

I actually tried to do scores but had temperature above 102 and was predicting west ham wins in my delirium, so I just gave up. Might try again as I'm down to 101, thanks a bunch Santa!!!! Grrrr.

I have to say, I'm not really buying the jungian archetypes thing. I mean I get the rituals, and the symbolism, the atavistic yearning, the accoutrements, I just don't buy that explanation. If I was doing it for that I'd just feel it was so contrived and I'd feel silly. If I was doing it all because its kind of sexy and empowering and that cute one from the round table turns up on Wednesdays then I reckon I might be up for it. Go on, it's the sealed knot with black candles and broomsticks isn't it ;-)

very much enjoying Dishonored on PC (though out for the usual consoles), its half price on steam though. It has something of the Bioshock about it, a healthy dash of half life but owes its greatrest debt to the Thief series. Good looking, sneaky and absurdly violent should you feel the need to dispense with all that sneaking around, it makes for a satisfying game with some nice humourous details dotted around the steampunk aesthetic, check out the 'vi*gra' advert for Mr Smithwick's Elixir (or somesuch).

I'm bored of saying atheism is not a belief system, but it isn't. It's not a recipe for life, it has no dogma or irrational rule based on collections of ancient hearsay. Neither does it deny a god, it's simply the decision to live your life as you see fit free of the supernatural. Atheism isn't about saying you're right, it's about saying you don't give a flying toss about all the competing supernatural belief systems claiming they're right. I actually have sympathy for paganism more so than the monotheistic religions, after all the sun and the moon really do influence our world, the sun and the soil really are the givers of life. Of course we've insulated ourselves from all of this so a rediscovery of paganism is the inevitable, understandable, angst ridden result of the supermarket, the light bulb and central heating. To say modern paganism is based upon ancient practices is no more profound than saying Gladiator is based on ancient history. Actual detail is pretty scant and interpreted from mosaics, statues and archeological detritus, we really have no clue as to form and content. Much that is written down is the roman equivalent of the daily mail or mills and boon. I mean take this Wikipedia snippet on Dianic Wicca "It was founded by Zsuzsanna Budapest in the United States in the 1970s and is notable for its focus on the worship of the Goddess (usually Artemis/Diana), and on feminism." Do you reckon the content of their ritual say more about the actual dianic rites or about Californian new age spirituality as an aspect of rapid social change.....you decide.

Good call jah.

As I've said, libertarianism is about freedom to behave as libertarians would like everyone too. There's no sense of irony because they see as other behaviour as an aberration from the norm, therefore allowing it is the opposite of liberal behaviour it's specifically enabling perversion therefore against the freedom of those who wish to live free from aberration. Funny really. I consider myself a common or garden liberal, live and let live i say.

Wicca is purely a post modern thing, a reinterpretation of the past based upon modern concerns and frustrations. It's about as genuine as jedi, but then spirituality is very personal so go for it I say, but don't try and claim its something it isn't.

Sod your intellectual rubbish fabricio, world war z by max Brooks answers all questions.

There were murmurings, leaving it a bit late now mind.