Renton

In homage to Trainspotting, tonight is the first night of the Mouth of the Tyne festival. And it happens to be Leith and Hibees favourite sons, the Proclaimers. And in true Yorkshire spirit (see how things are coming together here?), am I fuck paying the £38 a ticket for entry to the Priory. So I'm sitting outside at the Gib, having a rare pint, listening to this cacophony for free! Ahh fuck it's started to rain.

I don't use either of those but I think this is supposed to advert free for at least a year. Twitter is canny bad for adverts since Musk took over anyway.

Twitter's finished. Zuckerberg = 1 cunt Musk = 10 Zuckerbergs

Coffee!? It's t'disgrace t'int'it? Yorkshire tea duck. 👍

Davie, Matty, Second Prize, Alison, Kelly, all removed or amalgamated in the film. Which was necessary, but the book is so much richer. Welsh's description of alcoholism via Second Prize is astonishingly accurate imo, not touched in the films. The other thing about the book is just the shear volume of memorable quotes and philosophy, communicated usually directly or indirectly through Renton, but also characters like Sick Boy and Begbie. And the internal monologues, with Sickboy "thinking" like Sean Connery, Spud seeing everyone as a cat. Or the way Renton's thoughts in the book so closely match his drug status - whether high, in acute withdrawal, stable, or in shock/pissed (e.g. Billy's funeral). And of course the superb use of phonetic language. Barry.

I know this has been done before but I fucking love this book so much. Essentially a collection of short stories, which never even explicitly state who the narrator is (most are first person). Like a jig saw, you need to put the pieces together which introduces a Universe of characters so vivid you feel like you're part of it, especially if you know Edinburgh, a plot arc which is more than the sum of its parts. Takes at least two reads but well worth it. Best thing was though I could just pick up the book, read a chapter at random, and still laugh at Spud, cringe at Begibie, or cry at Tommy's cruel decent. Like many a classic music band, Welsh produced his masterpiece early on and whilst he also wrote many other worthy novels, none hit these heights again, and eventually he delved in self parody. But I'll always fondly remember Trainspotting - the book, the film, and the stage play. Renton literally became a part of me. Cheers Irvine.

Naaah, it was massively derivative of his previous work and he hasn't had a new idea in half a decade. Hence the ratings for the series are plumetting. Series 1 through 4 were superb, peaking in S3 imo. I liked Bandersnatch too. Series 5 to 6, very much sub par.

Just,

Was that taken on the Coast road?

Really? I love BM, but think the last series was very poor, with only the one about the password being worthy of BM status. I've watched the first 3 of this series. FIrst episode was okay, inception like plot which made no sense if you thought about it, but was at least funny. Second one was okay but not BM at all, more like Hammer House of Horror. The last one I watched, with Jessie from Breaking Bad, was the worst one I had seen so far. Explored themes the series has covered multiple times but even less technologically plausible than previous epsiodes. Shit special effects and production values. But worst, and unforgivably, utterly predictable plot which was obvious 20 minutes in. The next episode I haven't watched, but gets a record low IMDB rating. Think Black Mirror should retire personally, clearly out of new ideas.

@Monkeys Fist is a 5 to 8. All over the place, like the shit on his buttered arse.

That's a new thing. Do you think they had access to showers with flexible hoses when they were roaming the deserts as nomads with their camels? Any old bit of palm leaf had to do.

I'm sure Iwas "taught" as a kid you should never shake hand with the hand you wipe your arse with. Also this is common practice in some arabic countries where they sometimes lacked our sanitation levels. I'll have to ask out Saudi overlords. It's quite possible you lot might have to change.

So this is getting more complicated than I originally thought.. I would like you all to categorise yourself please. Me, I'm a beacon of rightousness and therefore a 2. Is any filthy animal going to admit to being an 5?

See this is weird. I'm right handed but wipe with my left. Surely everybody does?

Just vote whoever is most likely to oust the incumbent tory cunt, perfectly logical and ethical strategy.

A heads up here, if anyone was wondering what happened to the quiff. He's on a video that's gone viral. https://twitter.com/THINGEO/status/1675611977769467905?s=20 Urghh, you'll have tofollow the link instead, fuck you Musk.

It's not fashionable but its hard not to agree with this. Diversity officers and the like, paid a lot too.

In my naive days I thought HR departments were there to help you. Oh how I laugh about that now. They're out to fucking screw you, and the bigger the organisation, the worse they are. During my last year at the NHS, I had an internal job interview for promotion, was given in advance the list of interviewers. But then a high ranking member of the HR was also in attendance, unnanounced, so I hadn't done any homework. I fucking hate HR and their endless fucking LGTBQIA+ days etc, and honestly just binned every e-mail from them without reading them. So I performed well on all the questions about my job, but was fucked by the questions from this HR rep, I hadn't heard of a single initiative she was blabbing on about. The irony was, they had this thing in place called "Flourish", which was supposed to allow employees to fulfill their full potential, and it was this question (I'd never heard of it) that floored me and prevented my promotion. A few weeks later I was off, good riddance, it was definitely a blessing in disguise. Anyhow, I feel your pain, best of luck mate.

PL having a fucking mare here. Turning to LM in his old age.

It's true. We have a huge issue with wealth inequality in this country. This is several years old, it is even worse now. Other facts. This year Slovenia is overtaking us on GDP per capita. The poorest 20% of people in Poland are better off than the poorest 20% in the UK. Poland will overtake us on GDP per capita by 2030, possibly earlier. Romania will overtake us in 2040. By that stage, we will be the poorest country in Western Europe by some margin. London will still be rich though (well, some of London anyway).

You said they got a compulsory purchase order but didn't move? Didn't you get an education in your Scottish Borders hovel? Think Patterson, think.

Yelling "Out the fucking way Wiggins!"

I just see white squares on here.