El Pibe

and because I'm just generally pedantic, and just to set out my stall.... 20. The Black Keys - i dunno 19. TV On The Radio - boring 18. Sleigh Bells - i like, girls, noise, pop, why not? 17. Fun. - i dunno 16. MGMT - its ok 15. Death Cab For Cutie - nice friendly music 14. Wavves - boring 13. The Decemberists - witty, lyrically excellent, musically excellent, fun 12. Pomplamoose - i dunno 11. Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros - i dunno 10. White Rabbits - i dunno 9. Beach House - i dunno 8. The Airborne Toxic Event - i dunno 7. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - i dunno 6. Beirut - like i said, one good album, i challenge anyone not to like Postacrds From Italy 5. Grizzly Bear - yeah but no but 4. Bright Eyes - i never forgave him for that gig over a decade a go, have not listened to a song since 3. Arcade Fire - Funeral is indeed one of the best albums of the past 20 years 2. tUnE-yArDs - i dunno 1. Bon Iver - nice but unremarkable, folk for people who do folk ironically, but very pleasant for all that.

easy to hate, miga, what do you love?

"It doesn't really matter who your manager is at the moment, I reckon I'd stand a good chance of winning the SPL with Celtic right now." I just said to a celtic colleague that they could hire a squirrel frankly.

bad editing, did i mention the hangover?

titch juicy. Excellent post, agree on almost everything, well except grizzly bear, good but country mile from best band. I hated the audience at bright eyes not the band; actually mr oberst had a distinct lack of self knowing irony that i had attributed to him. My mistake, not his admittedly. I might even give waaves another chance on the back of that. (first album committed the crime of being boring, noise doesn't cover the lack of a good tune). But how can an NMH gig be dissappointing?!?! We were literaly never expecting to ever see them again, but they came back, job done. ..and did a solid set. If your friend mentions the word acoustics then just hit him from me.

but yes, there is apoint in there about the scruitiny ukip recieve, but as i said, if you have no policies except a vague xenophobia, it's hardly surprising. I have often occasionally wondered how Diane Abbot has managed to avoid being kicked out of new new labour, but she was almost the quintissential new labour MP!!

if you put diane abbot in chrome, the first option is diane abbott racist

They did, as the encore, it's just you'd left by then you silly sausage.

find a host, find some forum software, load it up, hand out postcards at the local fair, persuade local reprobates to waste time at work! This one uses this: http://www.phorum.org/

aahhh. Diane Abbot she is a bit of an idiot to be fair. Though paraphrasing to make a point is rather underhand loz you should know better than that. i did wonder at "Black African nurses would be unsuitable at certain hospitals as they might have never seen a white person before." as it actually made no sense. And white people certainlly have played divide and rule, it was called imperialism, something the brits did rather well for a bit there.

well, work paid for my flights to go see a band, so who am i to say no?! I am finding n more proper beer in Ireland, I may have to drive an hour to go get it, but it's making inroads!!

"That's typical of UKIP's hate language" I'm guessing that these are direct quotes attributed to ukip supporters/candidates?

i have a hateful hangover in case you can't tell........

and where the hell is neutral milk hotel on that list, if you're going to try to be cool by trying to shoot down people who are better than you then at least go for bigger targets. Shall we start another thread about how shit the beatles were again?

wow, angry men, I don't really see how arcade fire suck the life out of music though i can see how some critics suck the life out of life. To be fair most of them predate the current interpretation of 'hipster' some might be better described as emo i guess. Of course when critics go wild it's prefectly sensible to reappraise. I like Sleigh Bells, but they were never as good as some critics suggested. I always thought they were more like the Bangles than Babes in Toyland, but then I always thought the Bangles were hideously underrated and had a great ear for pop. The Decemberists are quite simply wonderful though what they have to do with hipsters other than some of them may or may not like them, is anyones guess. But my favourite live act. Beirut, good first album, but ultimately just a poor man's Neutral Milk Hotel...who by the way were brilliant last night!! I did go to a bright eyes gig and had to leave after half an hour as i wanted to gun down the audience with a machine gun. Waaves are awful though.

oh god, i feel a fisk coming on.... >>I'm an immigrant me too, twice over >>I am fed up with the the amount of money we have to contribute to Europe - approx a net ?55 Million every day! really, genuinely fed up or just repeating trite phrases from a daily mail article? we pay three times that on our interest payments alone, at least that 55 million ends up doing something. I've been to places like Sarajevo where European money makes a difference, I've seen how European investment has transformed Spain and Ireland and the new emerging markets of eastern europe, from backward agrarian economies to dynamic (if occassionally troubled) 21st century countries who are now expanded markets for british goods. >>I also dislike the way that the European Court can over-rule the decisions of our courts. To be fair they're far more disposed to overturn stupid arbitrary rulings by the executive than the courts, and are often ignored any way. in fact the government often ignores rulings by our own courts, see passim over the chagos islanders for starters. Remember for every 50 articles about 'its political correctness gone maaaad' there are ususally only one or two follow ups hidden on p94 that acknowledge that in fact it was all bollocks. So please tell me which rulings have specifically annoyed you. >>I am fed up with the electorate being taken for mugs by the main stream political parties and how the politicians of all persuasions are out to feather their own nests. On the rare occasion when one is caught fiddling, they get put in purdah for a year or so and then they get back on to the gravy train again. well, as loz has pointed out, im not sure how ukip are different in this respect, but it's a democracy, just make sure you use your vote to good effect. >>Some of our friends who dont like UKIP will vote for some fringe party or spoil their ballot papers. Most are motivated by the need to give the established career political charlatans a reality check. none of the above will give them a reality check, voting for ukip is more like an unreality check

eeh gads man, this is the EDF (the nice one...most of the time) no thread is ever 'sewn up', we've yet to bring cycling into it ;)

Heh :) Don't worry, a looooong way away!! Your buttonhole will remain unnmolested, said the actress..etc..

well indeed, you only have to look at the no campaign for scotland to see that. Quite literally the worst campaign of all time. Taking a fairly secure position, when all they need to do was basically say 'oh but we've all had such good times together' and keep schtum, and turn that into a rather likely looking win for the yes camp by bullying. Again there's something of the 'we'll sort it all out in the morning' about the scottish nationalists, and I find Salmond genuinely awful. But I guess that's for anoher thread.

it's not really media hype is it. It is true that on balance more media appears intent on exposing Farage, which is fairly fruitless, he's not odious, he's just a classic little ENglander with whose views on business, government and welfare would probably be far removed from those he's tryng to court. The policies aren't odious either because he's done the sensible thing of not having any. And yet we see the people it attracts, time after time 'oddballs' who are either dismissed figuratively or literally because of the opinions they spout. And the campaign has also appealed to rather a nasty narrative "they are after you and yours" that whilst not necessarily out and out racist has repurcussions that we all know how it will be interpreted by many. Which is why the quibbling about it being all about the EU, and having Indian poster girls (who quit due to the racist slant the party has taken) is just that, pedantic quibbling masking that deeper truth. That's the odiousness people refer to, and heaven help us if they ever get real power. But the risks are too great to allow this crappy, gut fear, pull of the political conversation to actually get Britain out of the EU. As I said, real independence is a pipe dream anyway, and frankly westmisnster, bruxelles, both feel disengaged and remote from me, but at least with both it serves as a great check/balance mechanism on some of the baser instincts demonstrated by our last coule of westminster governments. If people genuinely think there is something wrong with the power balance between national and supra national and of the direction the EU is moving, and of course there is a case for that, then I'd vote for a party that want to negotiate within the framework and move it in a new direction. Leaving with a 'we'll sort it all out in the morning' seems self-defeating and hugely dangerous to me.

Seems we erred on the side of caution on the buying frenzy when neutral milk hotel went on sale. Buggers then added two more dates, so we have 3 tix going spare for tonight's gig at the Roundhouse if anyone is interested.

absolutely, he deserves to go somewhere and I hope they appreciate his marvellous talent. Poor sod, Kenilworth Road eh.

It's a classic knee jerk for bad times though isn't it. Once everything is looking economically rosier people tend to stop caring as much, and you only get BNP/UKIP/English Democrats (bwwah hah hah hah) making headway at the localised sharp end of economic/immigration upheaval. Perhaps the major parties have the not unreasonable attitude that it's just a storm you have to weather every now and then.

And there you have the kip thing in microcosm. They are addressing real concerns, they are capable of saying quite reasonable and sensible things, but they undermine it all with hyperbole, distraction, half truths and total idiots saying massively racist things. The above post is for the most part very reasonable and addresses real concerns, but the singular use of libtard gets it filed under 'poster is a moron'. Whoops. The problem with the current political class is that it's a post Blair situation, whereby the intent of the politician is everything, even if the means are disingenuous. They are sceptical about being able to sell a message about the advantages of immigration, the problems of demographics and pensions and the fact that in or out of the EU we'll have to jump to its financial tune and abide by its laws if we want to sell to it (setting aside for a moment the ukip having your pie in the sky and eating it of leaving the eu and remaining in EFTA). So they just try to ignore the voters to large degree, patronise them. Despite the accusations of libtard, the liberal party is the only one honestly setting out its stall and telling truths to the electorate, and has been trounced by populist soundbites, and appeals to fear (see also electoral reform referendum), so can we blame the two main parties for simply trying to ignore the problem and making minor concessions to this ugly undercurrent in order to keep ukip at bay. Are they shit scared? No. Protest votes in European elections are easy but people know a clown when they see one and they will be marginal come general election. Are they concerned enough that they are losing the faith of core voters? Absolutely. Are they afraid that not appeasing this will mean another hung parliament. For sure. But as SJ hints at, we Ey flippant about the emerging nationalist movements at our own risk. We can see in Ukraine how easily lies are latched on to how rhetoric can galvanise and how ugly a force nationalism is. As someone pointed out recently, fascism is often vaguely comical, and never says 'out project involves violence, militias, an end to rule of law'. It says 'we will restore your pride, we will give you back your jobs, we will make things safe for us' and that's the messGe I'm hearing, no wonder that Indian member resigned and said 'I'm feel like them in your rhetoric chasing power'. Ukip have been seduced by the very power they accuse others of abusing. I genuinely think an abstention is a valid protest vote (though that can certainly be a dangerous tack) but for gods sake don't vote for ukip as a protest!!!!

i do find it a bit weird the insistence that a party name has to be gaelic, given the inability of the vast majority to speak more than about three words. If there was a cultural imposition that x in the UK had to be done in old saxon for political show, I'd find that probably a bit disturbing. Not sure why noone finds it so here*. *mostly because they don't care for the most part, but then apathy in the face of political malaise is hardly unique to the republic!