NJS

Of course - I just find it daft that given that they then try and apply a bit of science as in the shroud - either take it at face value or don't. It's much like the creation - don't try and apply God to evolution = it doesn't fit.

I see Keith Harris has surfaced again - involved in a bid to buy Man Utd. I still think the bloke's a con man.

It's interesting how a bit of faith can make you want to believe - I remember the Turin Shroud being in the news when I was about 10 (and still believed) and someone saying the image could have been produced by a micro-second burst of radiation caused by him being reanimated - I remember thinking "that makes sense". You also get some matter of fact bollocks associated with them which you are expected to accept so easily - I remember being told how 3 crosses were found and they knew one was Christ's so they identified the right one by laying some cripple on them until of course one of them healed him. A good example of something where you'd expect more people to go "hang on...." but they don't.

Radiometric dating for something metal is not accurate enough for something as young as that to be able to say "first or second century" - wishful thinking bollocks.

According to your interpretation of them you were right. However they were not giants among men who cared about the club. They were utter, utter cunts whose only intention from day one was to screw you, me and everyone out of as much money as possible. The football was just an incidental bonus. I'm fucking sick of you talking about them in glowing terms - they were and are absolute fucking scum. And by the way that does not mean I think McKeag, Westwood or Ashley are any better - you just cannot get into your head that we've been screwed by them all.

Gallacher - McGhee didn't score till Hull. Sorry to be a pedant - I just have a good memory for good times

Gary McAllister tbh, Campbell was class too. Aitken was rated as the best player in Scotland by many for a long time, he was finished when he came here though or so it seemed, I don't think you should be finished at 30 however. See Liverpool they always seemed to get lucky with Scots in the late 70s and 80s, they got Hansen, Gillespie and Dalglish, while we got Robertson, Sweeney and Roy The Bear as he was known. Funny that seeing as Rangers refer to themselves as the bears too. another young scot we got at that time was John Gallacher who looked like he was going to be a player before his injuries. I have a vague memory of going to Reading and John gallagher scoring an own goal from the halfway line. Mind in this memory I have Gullit playing or on the bench FA cup last minute equaliser - the back pass was intercepted I think - won some bloke a couple of million on the pools - we won the replay 4-0 Gullit played in a pre-season friendly there.

I know its sad but I've always considered the "sly" walk back to the station/car among home fans when we've beaten their team and hearing the moans to be one of the best things about being a football fan.

I first read of the religious element to the conflict in Hitchens' God is not great and thought he was probably oversimplifying it for effect - much like even I know that Northern Ireland isn't as simple as Catholic Versus Protestant - but the more I read about, the more I think that angle is fair.

I read his auto-biography/scrapbook thing a few years ago - an excellent read. RIP

4bn -> 40bn in 6 years?

One of my great "hopes" is that the more intelligent animals like Dolphins (which includes Orcas), Chimps, Elephants etc turn out to be a lot more intelligent than we think now - even approaching our level but just not being as nasty.

That was his follow-up to his original which did like.

Comaprisons for the UK to anyone else in Europe apart from France and Germany are completley pointless imo.

Morality aside, you have to say that is fucking brilliant.

I think they have changed - a lot of work has gone into species preservation and "enrichment" as they describe it which is worthwhile and I'd rather see animals in places like Longleat than in the old "cages" type of zoos. Having said that the "sea world" concept seems fundamentally wrong - despite the education angle - sea creatures like whales need somplete freedom imo.

I'll do a line by line later but Christ didn't exist and British soldeirs have only ever served the interests of the rich for starters.

I always knew that conditions for animals in circuses were shit but thought zoos in general were "better" but I think what really turned me off was going to one about 25 years ago with my niece who was 5 or 6 at the time - it took the innocent questions like "why does that lion look so sad" to really wake me up. In fact I think she was so upset that we left early. Places like Monkey World are a bit different but these places where animals are used for "entertainment" are fucking immoral imo.

I'm struggling to set the resolution. It should be 1920 x 1080 but it seems my graphics card won't support that. Which graphics card should i buy? I don't play any games, I just use the PC for Itunes, internet and email but i would like to edit HD video (.mt2s) in Sony Vegas. The monitor has an HDMI input to so I guess an HDMI out on the graphics card is called for too. You can get a decent silent MSI one for about £35 MSI N210

Best analogy ever.

I said that I had zero sympathy with that Yank who was eaten by his pet tiger a couple of months ago and this is similar for me. I know zoos/sea worlds have improved a bit in the last few years and I can see a case for them at some level but it still feels wrong and these incidents seem almost like "justice".

Norways doing pretty well. "After World War II, Norway experienced rapid economic growth, with the first two decades due to the Norwegian shipping and merchant marine and domestic industrialization, and from the early 1970s, a result of exploiting large oil and natural gas deposits that had been discovered in the North Sea and the Norwegian Sea. Today, Norway ranks as the wealthiest country in the world in monetary value, with the largest capital reserve per capita of any nation. In August 2009 the nation's sovereign wealth fund announced that it owned approximately 1% of all the stocks in the world, presumably referring to publicly traded stocks. Norway is the world’s seventh largest oil exporter and the petroleum industry accounts for around a quarter of its GDP. Following the ongoing financial crisis of 2007–2010, bankers have deemed the Norwegian krone to be one of the most solid currencies in the world." (source: wiki) That's because they didn't have a government who wasted the North Sea bonanza on giving money away to the rich. They also didn't abandon manufacturing in favour of a service based economy. thats right NJS, all of which happened after we joined the 'great european experiment'. No - post May 1979 - I'm sure you know the significance of that date.

Norways doing pretty well. "After World War II, Norway experienced rapid economic growth, with the first two decades due to the Norwegian shipping and merchant marine and domestic industrialization, and from the early 1970s, a result of exploiting large oil and natural gas deposits that had been discovered in the North Sea and the Norwegian Sea. Today, Norway ranks as the wealthiest country in the world in monetary value, with the largest capital reserve per capita of any nation. In August 2009 the nation's sovereign wealth fund announced that it owned approximately 1% of all the stocks in the world, presumably referring to publicly traded stocks. Norway is the world’s seventh largest oil exporter and the petroleum industry accounts for around a quarter of its GDP. Following the ongoing financial crisis of 2007–2010, bankers have deemed the Norwegian krone to be one of the most solid currencies in the world." (source: wiki) That's because they didn't have a government who wasted the North Sea bonanza on giving money away to the rich. They also didn't abandon manufacturing in favour of a service based economy.

I do but I nornally dress reasonably smartly anyway without going overboard and yes my bosses do care about what I do not what I wear. The fact is nobody would have even commented on Foot's coat if The Sun hadn't gone with "look at this tramp in his donkey jacket" - I'll bet you don't remember the coat - just the "Scandal" that accompanied it. I'll bet I could find photos of Churchill wearing similar coats but he was a "statesman" so nobody ever had a go.

Typical old generation crap - a man can do anything as long as he wears a nice tie - I'd rather care about what he says and does. The Queen should just be shot along with the rest of her family - I don't care what she wears to be honest.