El Pibe

wot maxxi said

touch? miga, pedantry chickens home to roost :)

Otta, I hope that's like when a prime minister expresses 100% faith in his minister.....

Hoopers shut down. :(

anyway, doubtless loungebound soon.......

I may be quibbling over semantics here Louisa but a fact is "a thing that is known or proved to be true." Therefore a fact is verifiable, everything else is unverifiable, be it theory, conjecture, myth, legend or outright lie. That's not some human arrogance of universal understanding, just the natural human urge to classify and quantify. It's why we do have departments like the one Sue highlights, because science isn't some closed shop trying to limit human understanding; that's called religion ;)

It seems we might be genetically predisposed to a spiritual bent. Those myths we feel in our bones to be true helped cement tribal and pan tribal bonding, facilitating cooperation, trade, intermingling, communication. Also our brains are pass masters at fuzzy logic, taking in a paucity of information and filling in the gaps. We do it with facial recognition, conversing in noisy environments, reading, vision. Memory is not some reading off hard-drive but ever-shifting currents of mis-direction, self-deception, degrading the things that dont suit our sense of self, the universe, creating memories out of old photos, stories that are told and altered in the retelling. In short we're hard wired to exaggerate the minutiae for survival instinct, helping us to find hidden caches of grubs, avoid being eaten, bond with a mate. Given that our most hazardous hunting experience is likely to be the midday crush at Sainsbury's on Sunday, our fiercest predator Velocepido Pavementus, our tribal oral tradition consigned to Eastenders, then our marvellous brains are bound to come up with weird conclusions to the vagaries, the idiosyncracies, the brownian motion of existence, of the modern world; a cold spot here, an unnaccustomed shadow or unexpected noise there. So we fill in the gaps, we tell ourselves stories that satisfy our cravings, we lean to the mysterious over the banal. It's why armed police are called out to stuffed toys, why we still flock to the haunted houses (i know I love them), retell our modern myths that Bob Holness played the saxaphone on Baker Street. Shaman, I went through a patch of waking dreams/sleep paralysis about 15 years ago, shortly after a good friend had died, he sat at the end of my bed and talked to me about his death and after life, it was an incredibly vivid and profound experience that was both comforting and disturbing, hell, pretty terrifying, at the time. Other times my (still living) mum came and stroked my hair. I never told anyone about them, questioning my sanity, though they stopped soon after (i was properly burning the candle at both ends and was really stressed about my future at the time). I read about sleep paralysis a couple of years later with a great sense of relief, i reckon it probably accounts for most visitation type experiences. A fleeting one could easily explain a quick hallucination in a bathtub.

I was under the impression that wood was essentially carbon neutral. I reckon we could solve global warming by genetically engineering trees impervious to fungi once they fall. http://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/amazing-facts-about-carboniferous.html

Masters in Information Technology. Essentially a career conversion course.

oops, stoke win 2-1

Blackburn 1 Man C 1 Villa 2 Sheff Utd 1 Bolton 2 Blackpool 1 Everton 2 QPR 0 M'bro 1 Hull 2 Stoke21 Leic 1 WBA 1 Palace 0 Arsenal 2 Spurs 0 Notts For 1 W.Ham 1 Derby 0 Chelsea 1

Ha yes, coked up elvis! A mesmerising yet disturbing sight!!! Was that that day then? errr...I trust you don't mean me? I wasn't that young then.

very sensible advice I changed career *although that rather flatters my previous efforts* at 25 by doing a 1 year course, got a good job off the back of it. investment of about 12 grand has definitely beaten inflation.

oh my, 7 years ago!! We had to make do with wonkE-Cigarettes back then.

cripes, hello bagpuss, how's the sea air? :)

"and that was full on weird stuff,such as the name Theirry appearing from nowhere on a steamed up window" was my favourite, i often draw teddy bears for my little ones on the window when its steamed up. THen they dissappear....wwwoooOOOooo Then when it next steams up, the teddy bear is still there....spooooooky.

"It all seems to be about fancy continental lagers these days" Really? I think you may be thinking of the nineties. Although Peroni on draught does seem de rigeur these days. Lager sales plummeting, ale sales rocketing generally. The Dog had Harvey's on tap over christmas. And is it me or has the service improved, admittedly from a very very very low starting point.

It seems to me that regulation, and continued testing then would be the most desirable thing. From what I've read some of the alarmism comes from spot testing on some brands which found that a more dangerous compund than the usual propylene glycol had been used, but that even those from more reputable manufacturers there were still trace elements of harmful toxins found. But these were far fewer in number and amount (by several orders of magnitude) than tabacco cigarettes. I do think it's the aesthetics of it which lead to levels of emotion and polarisation around the debate, you just don't get from gum, though chewing gum, now that's a REALLY dirty habit ;) Well, I guess my advice would be, lets hope it helps in the short term but use it to wean yourself rather than a long term replacement. Plus, as we know from the Mail, everything kills you, I'm not about to give up booze just because I know its bad for me.

Well, I've managed 2 days, which is pretty good for me!

Uncanny foxy!

But it is true. I'd love to do it this month as feeling the burn (my age) a bit, but am squeezing in seeing x (event/person/place) for the last time most weekends over the next 6 weeks *wipes away a tear* so can't see it happening. Luckily I'm moving somewhere that people don't really associate alcohol with social occassions and environments..... :/

Bums, seems it's probably a good idea http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22129502.600-our-liver-vacation-is-a-dry-january-really-worth-it.html#.UsWSNJ6EAm8

Can't you get reconditioned old ones one that are converted to run on gas and so on?

They haven't but sounds cool. We can organise a couple of beds and sofas in the area for maybe seven or eight people. I realise it's a bit of a palarver for the N Herts folk, so apologies, but fancied the EDT rather than neutral territory near Kings X. Which is why we didn't hire the upstairs. ?1500 minimum spend, we might have done double that 10 years ago, but with kids to return to etc etc I thought we'd struggle to achieve close to that!! :/ We'll have a space set aside in the 'dining area' for up to 50 (may be a tad ambitious that, though we've a few coming from Ireland too!!)

Agree they look amazing, we were considering it for the house in Ireland, but the cons weighed agasint it. We were really agasint using oil and they are VERY expensive to run, a friend of mine had one and it cost a fortune, in the end they moved house!!!