Alex

Never been able to understand the hype about him myself.

Parky, you've probably heard of Lone who did Galaxy Garden and has just released another album on R&S but I think his earlier effort Emerald Fantasy Tracks (from 2010) is class. It's got a bit of retro feel to it and manages to somehow sound a bit like Boards of Canada, early 808 State and Jupiter Jazz-era Underground Resistance all at the same time.

If you look at the Cold War and before, which is specifically what the blog I was on about talks about, they were kept busy by largely investigating what turned out to be little more than their own paranoid delusions. They managed to successfully convince their superiors of these delusions in some cases and when they were unable to do so, made the assumption that their superiors (in government and in the agency) were themselves working for the enemy. Their incompetence was demonstrated by a number of spies being discovered by accident or due to their own actions, but not by anything MI5 did (I mistakely cited MI6 earlier). It's also noteworthy that several of them released memoirs later which alluded to these superiors being probably Russian agents (after they were conveniently no longer alive and able to defend themselves) but didn't wax lyrical about how they cleverly manipulated spies rather than unveiling them (to the best of my knowledge), which they could've done without revealing names and too many details. Anyway, here's a link to the piece, if you're interested: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/BUGGER

I'm guessing it would be in their interests since it would justified their existence. And plenty of spies have been caught, it's just MI6 weren't directly responsible for that. I suspect there's a straightforward explanation, i.e. they're a bunch of incompetent ex-public school boys.

You still involved with Heaton Stannington, Gene?

I don't think there's anything unclear in what I've stated so far. You've made several claims and (beyond the incredibly obvious stuff, which didn't need pointing out anyway) you've been unable to back those claims up when asked to do so. You're now attempting to words in my mouth. If there's anything I've stated which you disagree with then by all means call me out on them and we can discuss that. And in answer to your question, 'no'. It's a daft question though, there's not a group of neighbouring countries / ethnic groups / tribes in the world that don't have a history of conflict. Until relatively recently though, the Arabs were the least of the Jews problems.

That question doesn't even make sense in relation to what I've already posted unless you think the 19th century refers to years starting in 19 rather than 18.

Thanks for clearing that up, Steve. I've learnt a lot.

Nah, he's still alive as far as I know. I was being serious about the ending though There's this other 'great' scene in it where a few of the blokes including Johnny turn up at his apartment in tuxedos. You think it's because someone (possibly Johnny and his girlfriend Lisa) are actually getting married (it's mentioned they're engaged throughout). They then go outside and play American football in the street wearing their tuxedos. And that's it i.e. no explanation as to why they're dressed like that and no subsequent mention of it. Like I was saying to Gemmill, you just can't fake that level of shit writing. It's almost an art. Apparently it was all based on a 600 page novel that Wiseau (the bloke behind it all wrote). Which is particularly funny since virtually nothing happens in the entire fucking movie.

You've ruined the ending for everyone now.

Here's a little nugget I heard recently about MI6. I'm not sure if it's true but I read about it on Adam Curtis' BBC blog (which is very interesting if you're a fucking massive dweeb and always seems well researched). He reckons that MI6 (bearing in mind it's their whole raison d'etre, or at least it was before the War on Terror © ) have never actually caught a spy by its own devices in its entire history Makes you wonder why we should trust anything they ever say about anything given that level of incompetence.

Awesome, isn't it? Tommy Wiseau (Johnny / the guy with the long hair) who also wrote/diercted/produced/financed the film has appeared in some other stuff since but he's acting ham on purpose in satires of bad movies and from the clips I've seen they're actually just bad films. The Room being done in such an earnest yet utterly execrable way is what makes it so bad it's good.

You're being very evasive here. You brought up Exodus in the context of the history of Jewish persecution by Arabs / Muslims. As if to say it was even going on in on a massive scale in Biblical times. I asked you to back that up with some evidence and you obviously can't do so.

Tbf Blair's / Brown's neo-liberal economic policies were in many ways a continuation of those of Thatcher before them. I commend them for having more on public services, which the Tories may not have done, but it was against the backdrop of a booming world economy which Britain benefitted. During that time they did very little to improve on a social housing crisis. Arguably their hands were tied by the events of the previous government but the same argument is then even more applicable to the current one given they have less money to work with. That's not to say I agree with many of their other policies.

I would imagine there's plenty on both sides unhappy with the actions of their leaders too. Plenty people in this country weren't exactly chuffed when Blair took us to war in Iraq. Millions marched against it but it's still viewed as the actions of this country by many foreigners who hate us as a result of it.

You said: "I know the Exodus story is just a fable from the bible, which is a story book itself, but this is story has some basis in historical happenings." My query was in direct relation to that so I don't see how I'm taking anything out of context. I'm genuinely interested in what you have to say about this as it's not a claim that I've seen put forward within mainstream history or archaeology and it's something I have a passing interest in (although by no means am I an academic in the field or anything like that). If you're going to make claims then it's fair enough to expect to be called out on them. Can you back up what you said or not?

Nothing I didn't already know but I'm still intrigued as to your claims about the historicity of Exodus.

Mentiond this to Two Joints recently but if anyone likes atrociously bad films then you should really check out The Room. Apparently it has a cult following (I can see why) in America and it gets shown from time to time in places like the Tyneside Cinema but I only recently heard about it. One of the 'stars' co-wrote a book about it which came out recently called The Disaster Artist. It's been referred to as 'The Citizen Kane of bad movies'. Here's a scene where Johnny has just been falsely accused of hitting his girlfriend: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQ4KzClb1C4 Another great one is this one where Mike tells Johnny about an incident where he broke into Johnny's apartment to have sex with his lass (Mike's that is): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHXkcZh_kqY The film has numerous subplots which are never developed and characters whose relationships to one another is never really explained.

I reckon Oswald acted alone.

Which 'historical happenings' are those btw? Also, it's a bit ironic mentioning the Holocaust (which was the most shameful espisode in a long history of Christian / European anti-semitism) in a post having a pop at Muslims for persecuting Jews, don't you think?

Yeah, you'll never get another role like that.

Napoleon Dynamite