Meenzer

Aye. When I'm picking out tunes rather than reading music I basically play the piano like an average busker plays guitar, left hand constantly playing simple fifths unless otherwise required. It makes it easier to pick out chord progressions but lord knows there's no real talent involved.

Huh? The rump UK excluding Scotland will be the legal successor of "UK including Scotland".

Couldn't find the courtroom so sat in Wimpy with a Bender in a Bun judging passers-by.

Unfortunately there's more than enough floating voters in this country who'll think "oo, funny man with silly hair!" and not consider for a moment what he actually stands for.

You'd certainly have to hit the breadstick croutons pretty hard.

Poor old H from Steps. Couldn't stand the misplaced abuse so he topped himself.

I Just Called To Order Duck Pizza

Signed, Sealed, Delivered, Put Away In The Cupboard After Two Weeks

Part-Time Blubber

Back in the day I used to babysit this kid from up the street. He'd have been 6 or 7 at the time and had recently started learning the piano, he'd got as far as playing some basic tunes two-handed at this stage. A classmate said that he'd started learning guitar so my lad's mam thought he'd invite him over so they could play together a bit and see what each other could do. Turns out that after six months or so, the other kid had only managed to learn how to strum the guitar and bang the frame in 4/4 rhythm. No fingering, no chords, just an open strum... BANG. strum... BANG. strum.... BANG. strum.... BANG. Anyway for some reason I'm reminded of this anecdote.

I should have added, no room for it either (Lahndan innit). Have to admit I'm getting visions of Arnold Rimmer and his Hammond organ nights now, although I suppose the involvement of the ship's robots would be more of a Gemmill thing.

Boris: Greed and inequality good, Margaret Thatcher International Airport even better. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/nov/27/boris-johnson-thatcher-greed-good Your next Conservative Prime Minister, there. Good luck everybody.

I miss bashing out a tune or two. Might have to dig out the old keyboard from under the stairs, it's an ancient Yamaha job but since genetics suggest I'm at least another 25 years away from inheriting what was my Swedish gran's piano, certain compromises need to be made.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/robinedds/its-thanksgiving-so-we-asked-some-brits-to-label-the-us-stat http://www.buzzfeed.com/summeranne/americans-try-to-place-european-countries-on-a-map?bffb

Right. You have to be doing this deliberately.

And in "importance of giving your translator clear instructions" news:

And further to the linguistic nerdery above: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25103362

Because otherwise the thread title would be "Actors you think have being underrated".

There's a reason Nonce Top Trumps isn't a best-selling toy this Christmas

Sometimes all three.

I'm not - just massively hypocritical.

I instinctively recoil from the whole thing too, but then when I was 6 we bought a VIC-20 computer which was basically the tablet of its day (.....hey, give me some leeway here), so it's not like "technology for kids" wasn't a core part of my upbringing - it very much was. It just feels weird because the technology is actually good these days.