El Pibe

I do believe I just heard Phillip Hammond saying "bigging up" on Andrew Marr. Surely the correct term is "embiggening".

I find repeated smacking on the bottom is the best approach.

Yeah, I spotted the greed and avarice thing after posting. I thought abut it and there's just enough nuance to be able to justify my claiming that they're different, but frankly it was a bit of a fuck up on my part.

Shopkeeper > Mr Ben (no offence MrBen) Clangers > Soup Dragon Roobarb > Custard Harold Meeker > Timothy Claypole > McWitch Tucker > Gripper (hmm, am I slipping into the 80s with that one?) showing my age.....

I think the clueoOOoo is in the name ;-)

And Cinzano ads bob! 70s greatest decade musically, well, last century anyhoo. Such an incredibly rich texture of talent. The Wombles, Mud, Gary Glitter, David Soul, John & Yoko, Shawaddywaddy, the list is literally endless.

500th of Flodden Field next year ;-) I too hope a no vote is cast, we're definitely greater than the sum of our parts. I'd disagree with MM on the NI point, I reckon Irish union is an inevitability, albeit one a political generation (and end of Irish recession) away.

It's on Sky Sports 2 so shouldn't be that hard. TRy Hooper's, Jamie's usually pretty amenable as they have 3 independent screens. http://www.hoopersbar.co.uk/contact.html

yeah, that made me chuckle too. He fell victim to the classic capitalist ruse, getting a vested interest in maintaing the status quo ;-)

I completely agree that given the lack of any other idea, state intervention to tinker and protect both capital and labour is the only way. The amount which it does or doesn't intefere in either or where it sits on a sliding scale between the two is of course the defining attribute of politics over the last 75 odd years. I don't think Marx envisaged state control as a path to Nirvana, I think that lacking any better ideas he just though it preferable to uncontrolled capitalism. In terms of actual deaths it's probably even-stevens between either choice. We're doing the best we can I guess as we blunder through the imperfections of stoicism, greed, fear, avarice, moralism, immorality, contempt, despair and aspiration that defines the human condition in the modern world.

yep, she's definitely thinking man's crumpet (could I be any more patronising). I do feel Marx is probably closest to it in the long term. Capitalism will lumber from crisis to crisis until a better way is found at which point history will look back on it with an unkind eye as maybe a brutally necessary step on a way to a more enlightened path, much the way we do the first century or so of industrialisation. Today's capitalism is harsh but the unregulated markets of a more laissez faire capitalism were directly responsible for millions of deaths in Ireland and India. Today capitalisms rampant scion, globalism, still maintains slavery, indentured labour or terrible working conditins throughout the world as we outsource our production to places without all that irritating rights and regulation nonsense, with the accompanying expense. I can't imagine what that system is, but at the core of it will be energy. If scientific progress can give us limitless supplies of cheap energy we'll have solved most of our issues at a stroke. Oil wars? Gone. Water wars? Gone. Food production and supply issues? Gone. If we can get to: Money, gone; then it's game over for capitalism. Not a bad start. Now, how's that cold fusion getting on...another century or so?

Yeah, hate all of the above. I find "invoice payer" often helps to keep people focused on what they're doing there.

I was being playful, it works better as a description of the phenomenon, after all the adjective is plenoastic, but yes you are correct sir.

As a blanket rule that doesn't really work, Eric Gill shagged his dog for instance, if it was good enough for him ;-) I get your point though 'something done well is good' is something of a superfluity in itself. Plenoasty is a modern day scourge, a bit of discipline in writing these days would be most welcome. I had to precis a 10 page document by Accenture to help my wife prepare for an interview a couple of days ago and I only found 4 salient points, the rest was just waffle.

That's not superfluous, it's downright disingenuous. Downright is though.

It's more that I get incredibly bored at work and conjure up shiny pebbles to get distracted by rather than my being pathologically boring. That's what I tell myself....which is ironic really......

Hand Cooked Crisps is simliar in that respect. Another work musing on that one (gosh I'm entertaing D_C) revealed that someone occassionally wanders past the gigantic vats of oil stirring them, every other stage is done on a conveyor belt/by machines.

I'm guessing fresh must have some legal definition in the sandwich retailing world. If they were mass produced I'm guessing fresh would not be permitted so something like 'Gloucester Old Spot and Cornichon Sandwich' would be used (ham & pickle obviously!!)

brilliant, captures the time perfectly

In all fairness you can build homes off the peg, but I guess an architect must have been invlolved at some point. 'Bespoke' would be more appropriate. I think it might be a way of saying poncey and bloody expensive, or ultimately 'LOOK AT MEEEE!!'

Whilst I'm with you on superfluity ed_pete, much fruit is picked green, stuffed in a chiller on a ship and then bombarded with ethylene to ripen it just before it hits the market. Some fruits do only ripen on the tree, so in that case it would be unnecessary. I mused to a colleague whether fruit that ripened on my desk was really just rotten fruit, started investigating ripening and was very soon lost as I last did chemistry a looooong time ago. http://www.chemistry-blog.com/2011/10/12/fruit-ripening-how-does-it-work/

Now you tell me ;) I was young and naive and had been waiting at that roundabout for a very long time, what can I say. My hitchiking advice, if someone in Exeter says 'I can take you as far as the Gloucester junction' say no!!!

Worker the bottom bit concerned you, I was politely pointing you to where I had already clarified any possible misundersstanding, the first bit was for edcam who as you can see above is still accusing me of exactly that.

Otta spot on re Brosnan. Casino Royale was a great reboot to the franchise, but the follow up was pretty dire. If you're going to do gritty then keep it real, if you're going to do a bond villain then high camp and ludicrous plan for world domination. Blackmailing a couple of bolivian farmers for water from some construction site prefabs didn't really cut it in either direction.

Don't rise to it civilservant, Champ is a known troll.