Django Reinhardt

Even the latter would be more than a stretch since the recently re-released The Name of this Band is Talking Heads is a far better live document in my opinion.

He actually said they make him smile. I think that might be viewed as marginally less offensive.

Yes that was a little naughty but I couldn't resist when you seemed to have your dander up, all indignant and righteous. Justifiably so I might add if you thought I was genuine. I might have kept it up if the game hadn't have been pending. Kept it a little more credible. Might have been fun.

Yes. Yes I am. I believe there should only be one team to qualify from all the so called minnow continents put together. Say the champions of Australasia would play of with their equivalents in Asia, Africa and let's say North and Central America. That way we could fill the World Cup with decent teams from the big footballing continents such as Europe and South America. Fair representation be damned I want to see teams full of players I can recognise from watching the Premier League on Sky Sports. I mean imagine if England didn't qualify? The whole World Cup would be a joke. Now excuse me I'm missing the mighty Brazil's summary dispatching of some minnow or other. Chelsea player isn't even playing for them, what's the point?

So what might I ask would be wrong with simply saying no when offered the dubious distinction?

There is an argument that those with astronomical numbers of caps for minnows such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt shouldn't really count alongside the more established footballing countries. Of course that thought could just be a product of my rather confused mind.

Futureheads - News & Tributes I really think these boys could be heading for greatness. Fairly fresh on the back of their much lauded debut comes a different but ultimately just as satisfying follow up. It's not as tight and in your face but arguably has even better tunes. Thursday is almost Beach Boysesque in it's creamy smoothness. I just love it. Those looking for a straightforward follow up to their spikey eponymous debut should give it a second and third listen however as it's not that immediate. Give yourself a chance to fall in love with it.

Scarface (1932) Amazing how modern and real this still seems, Paul Muni gives a masterful performance in the lead as the ill educated yet strangely charismatic bully boy. Being on a bit of a gangster kick I watched this on the back of Cagney's Public Enemy and I was struck by how different the two were despite being made only a year apart (Public Enemy coming out in '31). While Cagney's Public Enemy is a tough kid who likes to act big, Muni's Scarface is a nastier character altogether, nastier and more charming at the same time. I hightly recommend this to anyone who wants to see where cinema's obsession with gangsters really hit its stride. The damning indictment of gangsters at the start is laughable when you see how sympathetically they're portrayed. I like to think it was a knowing irony on the part of the great Howard Hawks. George Raft plays his best friend and right hand man and spot Boris Karloff as a rival boss.

Velvet Underground Live 1969 It's been a long while since I listened to this, I just caught the headers on usenet and a spark seemed to hit my brain. I remember listening to these tracks through a drug haze a few years back and wondering if they were really this amazing or whether my disposition toward them were more as a result of them coming through heavily drugged brain-ears. Of course a mixture of both, nothing ever sounds quite like it does through the haze but these sound incredibly vivid despite the slightly muffled production. Really the eight minute guitar workout of What Goes On has to be heard to be believed as intense as it is enjoyable. These songs sound both tight and loose at the same time like a chugging runaway train of guitars on a bouncy track rhythm section. Really I felt the same way revisiting the Band of Gypsies live album, actually come to think of it also Les Bains Douches. Perhaps after all this time I've finally exorcised my prejudice against live albums, or against a select few anyway. Maybe they're not just sloppy versions of their studio incarnates. Not all of them at least.

Kairo Undeniably creepy and depressing at times this was still largely rather dull and insisted on hammering home it's rather trite message though long before the end I'd ceased looking for any meaning beyond the rather fuzzy alienated life we life in this modern world of 56k modems and shapely black stains. It seemed rather pleased with itself though, oh yes it thought itself exceedingly clever right up to the point where it took on some kind of suicide holocaust with explosions and bodies as charred cinders. It had sadly lost me a good hour before then since there appeared to be little more than the idea that we all sit in our little rooms in front of our computers, alone and disconnected. Just like ghosts. I did like the parts with the ghosts though, in the taped up rooms and that one in the arcade that twisted and turned horribly. So then some good creepy ghosts and some ploddingly rubbish morality tale about the evils of the internet (though I prefer to think of it more as a symbol of modern life). Ringu with some rubbish fluff tacked on if you will. Seemed to really drag as well, I was amazed it was less than a couple hours long. I'd have guessed at least five.

There's nothing hypocritical about being for free speech, but not liking what someone says; Zathras has however forced the hand of a mod to remove someone's freedom of speech, so that's interesting. 109043[/snapback] Yes I think this is true but I go on (in a later post) to qualify that statement. What I mean to say is best surmised in how can you wish to die for freedom of speech and then want to censor somebody else. I think this is hypocritical. You most likely missed that. Not that I want to be seen propping up the bar long after last orders has been called. I suppose it's possible to support the right to free speech but not necessarily how that right is used but I think there is an element of hypocrisy about this. Or at least bad faith. I don't know perhaps this concept is too deep for my tiny paddles.

Mags it's not the asking for removal that is hypocritical, it is rather the saying you believe in freedom and then asking for censorship that is. Really changing the circumstances doesn't affect the issue. My issue anyway. But as I've said I'm in support of Zathras in his asking for the avatar to be be changed. If only because I believe the avatar has been chosen for shock value only and as such has achieved it's effect and can now be changed in the best interest of all concerned. I believe the avatar has been chosen conciously or unconciously to provoke this sort or reaction and is thus obviously detestable. However, we can't force every detestable idea however stupidly arrived at under the carpet or else internet forums would be a barren wasteland. I leave it ultimately to the conscience of the avatar holder.

I think you should. It's a foolish avatar and it's offended Zathras enough for him to post this thread. Perhaps you should explain what other than the pure controversy factor inspired you to choose such a set of images as your avatar. What is it saying to you? Why do you want yourself identified with it?

You really don't see any hypocrisy there? Perhaps I'm losing my powers of reason here but as much as we all respect your loss how can you wish to die for freedom of speech and then want to cenosr somebody else. If you don't see the inherent hypocrisy here either you or I are one goal short of a Boumsong defensive display.

No I don't wish to stir up controversy. Only to point out how foolish the first statement was made to look by the last. It's such a common rouse of course, I'm not racist but these towel heads are all whatever, or I'm a liberal free thinking guy but Hitler had some great ideas to eradicate unemployment. It wasn't the claim that I had an issue with it was simply the jarring contradiction of statements. No offense Zathras, I'm sure several of your close family died in those horrendous pictures we all saw.