El Pibe

Trails Evolution. My oh my it's good. Anyone who has HD simply has to go for it. The skill games a better, the tracks are very creative, I'm sure we'll all be trying for he one puma ship, but genuine multiplayer has been introduced too. All told, bloody marvellous.

If they were ten years old chances are they were WORM (ie they can only be written to once) type CDs rather than write protected, which has probably saved your proverbial photographic bacon. It is weird that your system can't see anything though. I have a portable drive you're more than welcome to borrow in case it's the hardware

snopes not sure, but the feel is it's unlikely. It did of course originate in the states and has been tailored for a UK board/email rcipient, whatever. It does highly smack of a skit or at least a conversation someone wished they'd had with their bank. http://www.snopes.com/business/bank/deadcard.asp

could snappy snaps not transfer them to a memory card/usb stick for you?

Two interesting articles from Foreign Policy Magazine, one about how how facebook is being used, the other worrying about how internationalising the conflict is taking the initiative away from the Syrians seeking reform. Both suggest very cautiously that the soul of the revolution may yet be one of peaceful resistance. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/04/18/any_given_friday?page=full http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/04/17/who_broke_syria?page=full

Personally I say hats off to Reading, they deserve it. I'm also happy to see Southampton go up as I've a few saints friends and long held a soft spot for them. We didn't do enough and I'll be amazed if we win the play offs. I don't mind being in the championship, the relentless over hyping in the Premiership I find rather annoying truth be told. But I do worry about our finances the longer we stay down. doc, ok long ball is a bit harsh, but we have only played like west ham in flashes, maxxi is closer when he talks of confused tactics. It has generally not been a great season. Perhaps the fans wouldn't have been as harsh if the players had played football better ;-)

I don't get it, you wont buy the reports and accounts of journalists who actually travel to the area and research by talking to people on the ground, but you're willing to swallow crap like this wholesale from some embittered loon sitting on and talking out of his his arse in Boston. http://israelmatzav.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/russia-massing-troops-on-irans-northern.html As for ludicrously poorly reasoned and speculative toss like this http://www.williambowles.info/ini/ini-0365.html, seriously?!?!

I'm with you on BFS, but I've been a West Ham fan all my life and I've never met a fan who thinks the second tier is beneath us given how much time we've spent there. Crap football is beneath us, not where we play it. Losing, and hence relegation, comes with the West Ham territory, long balls don't (or shouldn't).

It's funny that I'm downcast that the Irons have consigned themselves to play-offs, that considering the old adage about it being the form team amd rarely the number 3 team who goes up, is a sad thing, yet jolly excited that Stevenage are within a whisker of making it to the play offs. Come on the nidge! And mucho luck to the pink and bloos!!

I guess I was as cynical about the ceasefire as most of us, but fingers crossed that there are very fragile signs that there may be reasons for optimism. The regime must surely realise now that all the violence has served is to entrench and widen opposition to it given the fresh wave of protest. Given that it understands that brutal suppression has failed it must surely conclude that there are two options open. 1)Entrench with far more brutality and crush opposition once and for all 2)Move towards democracy, a path that will likely eventually result in a trip to a court of some description unless a clean slate and or immunity deal is done as seen in other conflict zones (N Ireland, Guatemala, even Spain post Franco) Sadly 1 could be the more likely option and will surely result in full scale civil war. The reason I'm optimistic is that a largely conscript Sunni army has been kept in barracks away from the murder of civilians for rather obvious reasons, and from what I've read there are only a couple of loyal divisions that can be depended upon, and these have been stretched to their limits already, meaning a wider more brutal suppression is actually beyond the regime's ability, and hopefully they know this. If (and that's all a very big speculative if) this is a given, then negotiation is surely the only realistic option available, and with a bit of luck the Assad's are buttering up what few allies they still have for a nice retirement dacha on the Black Sea somewhere!

Of course I should add the usual mocking comments about how I know the most authentic place London, it's a tiny place with a magic door available only to the initiated, but I wouldn't dream of sharing it with anyone on here lest they disagree with my opinion in case sudden popularity led to them putting an extension of the M25 through the middle of it.

I ate at a weird place in Macau where the menus were only in chinese characters, so we pointed randomly, and some of the food frankly scared me. English Chinese restaurants may not be the most authentic cuisine in the world, but at least you have some semblance of an idea what's coming, of what it is once it has arrived and nothing is still moving!!

Insisting on no padlocks to the lifeboats is just 'elf an safety gone maaaad I tell ya.

yeah. "Dejele Frank, No merece la pena" perhaps?

Strictly speaking that should be "Corre Codo". Much nicer than "Jog On" a phrase used by people who love the authenticity of a good Danny Dyer film.

Huguenot/Rosie's interpretations on balance seem rather more plausible that a sexual predator with a clipboard fetish. It is weird that because there was an Ian Huntley we treat all unknown men as paedophiles and throw up our barriers accordingly, because you know, it has happened so it could happen. Yet the chances of it actually happening are statistically significantly lower than, say the chances of them crashing in an aeorplane on our holiday, even though we know it could happen because we've seen it on the news. I realise there's a more emotive element to the bogey man over dumb luck but when we do let it affect us and they we we interact with our neighbours and peers, surely we owe it to ourselves and our children to scrutinise ourselves and our behavoiurs a little more. Or it really is just me and I'm a bit weird? *ets - x posted with rosie, cheers babes ;) *

A couple of days after 9/11 an American friend of mine said he was despairing of the country he was soon to return to. He'd just got off the phone to his mum. She'd been recently interviewing people to rent out the downstairs apartment she owned. There had been a couple of young muslim men wanting to rent it. She didn't really like the cut of their jib, being a bit different like, so politely declined them citing that young men like them would make too much noise. "Oh no, not us, we're hard working medical students who study hard and quietly pray" She mumbled further baseless excuses and saw them politely on their way. Then two weeks later 9/11 happened and she reflects on all this piety and phoned up the police to describe their behaviour as suspicious. The bit that truly galled my friend was that instead of humouring or rebuffing her, they agreed with her that that was suspicious and duly went off to feel their collars! I can't help but feel, when reading every tired thread on this forum about how anyone who doesn't immediately tick every box of what a good east dulite should act/look like is worthy of a sharpened pitchfork, that our society has somehow eneded up a little fucked-up. Our instincts to interpret our surroundings and spot danger are seriously badly wired, and I'm pretty sure have been rendered so by years of dramatic news reports which skew our view of the world and our ability to interpet it. Much as this forum has been a part of my life I do think it's partly responsible. Far from helping to create community it ends up sowing fear and mistrust; too much credence is lent to every half-baked rumour, every second hand anecdote. God knows there are enough real problems our kids have to face, peer pressure to resist, bad crowds to avoid, without seeing a paedophile in every street photographer, market researcher and care in the community chap who is just a bit different to you with less refined social skills.

Come on navajas, you'll have to do better than that.

"What nefarious practises do you think this man with a clipboard is up to exactly? Does he get his sexual jollies through asking people multiple choice questions? String him up." Post of the week. Truly I despair of the world we're creating. No wonder our children are the most cossetted and afraid in Europe (according to the NSPCC who may well have just been trying to scare you into donations with some clever marketing (doubtless performed by men with clipboards)). I'm beginning to think a designer tin-foil hat shop on Lordship Lane could be a goldmine!

I wouldn't worry, i think he delights in being obtuse and offending. If you click the semi-colon just after 'posted by' and before his name on any of his posts it puts him on ignore, then you never need be offended again :)

Right on sister, first up against the wall come the ʁƏvolution!! ;-) It really was a long time ago and probably not worth getting all class war hot under the collar about. It is in any case rather a trite truism to point out that the poor died in greater numbers, but it wasn't some conspiracy. Poor immigrants had to go through Ellis Island because they were a)immigrants and b)far more likely to be carrying communicable diseases, lice, mangy pets and spoilt meat etc, hence the partitioning of the ship. The rich folk would have had their papers and health documents in order, but would have, at any rate, been more likley to be tourists rather than migrants anyway. It's the same reason it takes you half an hour to get through JFK airport, with your tourist visa and prebooked hotel and it takes Pyotr Probotkin from Moldova with nothing sorted out, the best part of a day (if he's not turned back). As it happen I seem to share the name of some dodgy Colombian carel type and inevitably spend a couple of hours being grilled if I travel on my Spanish passport :(

Trial has started. He sends shivers down the spine doesn't he. One thing, is it just me or does every photo of him look like he's had his face badly photoshopped on to a different head?

"if class hadn't been such an issue" I was reading that it was much less to do with class and much more to do with standards of health and safety. Third class passengers were lower down in the hull, and many simply couldn't find their way out as exits weren't signposted or many of the doors were still locked (as dictated by US immigration law to ensure no sneaky avoiding Ellis Island). Also many refused to abandon their possessions. First class passengers were above decks and right next to lifeboats.

...and razors goes on ignore, now I simply don't have to care which language he tiresomely bleats on in. It's funny* how it's always those who most want to impose their will on the world who complain most loudly about their own sense of entitlement. *by which I obviously mean predictable and depressing.

The fact is that the forum is shaped by users in the community. If there are spanish who want to speak Spanish that's their prerogative. Ain't nothing in the rules about 'only in English' If you want up front I'm happy to say in English that you are being petty and rather ridiculous. You can scream help help I'm being oppressed all you want, but bottom line is it really doesn't matter what you say as its irrelevant. Unless your negativity has served to discourage our welcome Spanish speaking guest from partaking of the forum due to the lack of welcome. To them I can only implore them to ignore Razors, assure them that we're a much nicer bunch than that on here, and of course to say ?Bienvenidos! to one and all.