NJS

Excellent. I thought the one of the mother showing the baby her dead husband in his coffin was incredibly wrong and upsetting.

4-5 inches lying in Chelmsford this morning - yesterday was my last day at work so fuck it.

Not sure it's backed up by facts but I always had an idea that one of the factors in the German and Japanese post WWII economic strength was that they didn't have to spend billions on defence.

Single - Magic Fly by Space - 1977 I think - electronic synth intrumental - not a genre I like any more but still okay for nostalgia purposes. Album - Black Sabbath - Vol 4 - off a lad at School - a great start.

Shit decision by the coppers - the Mackems might be in the Premier but our crowd will be bigger and Cardiff will be bringing 10 times as many fans as Wigan. If theres trouble on the Saturday in town because of Welsh lads staying up and not having the game it'll serve them right.

Colonial guilt that the extreme poverty that still exists is still our fault - it isn't.

Team curry/piss-up last night fortunately left before shots ensued - only human present today (just). Company do on Thursday in the office - free drink/food - I'm not going because everyone else are cunts.

This is obviously a completely "outside looking in" view but it seems to me that the US believes its own "ideals" too much - people think if you work hard enough you can become millionaires without realising that doing 2 or 3 minimum wage jobs isn't going to get you anywhere. I would suspect people that would benefit from some kind of socialism for want of a better word to try and adjust the economy are so invested in the entrepreneur myth that they reject it out of hand - they also know that if they lose their jobs they'd be fucked healthcare wise but still don't want reform as they fear help. Obviously at the other end of the scale there are people in the UK who are stupidly benefit dependent who actually could use an American style "get up and go" style kick up the arse.

That's the crux for me - I read that Darling was trying to shift the emphasis back to manufacturing etc away from finance. I would welcome that shift but the question is whether the horse has bolted - since Thatcher we've been told its Services or bust but as I said on that other thread, other countries still seem to have a better mix than us. I think Brown's mistake ( I don't really blame him for not regulating) was talking up the City as if it was the answer to everything in perpetuity. Fair enough the government did make a shit load out of them when times were "good" but I can't believe that there weren't people who knew how much quicksand it was all built on - whether of course anybody with the courage to speak up would have been listened to is another matter.

I'd echo the comments about how this was just like a lot of games this year but on this occasion we just did concede killer goals. Another thing that got me was that I remember when we got promoted under Keegan that when we did slip up on the odd occasion I remember biting like fuck at the relish that the opposing fans celebrated the result with. That phenomenon also occurred when he had a good team in the Premier and I noticed on Saturday that its back going by the reaction at Barnsley - though to be fair I think Blackpool was the same. In a way you could say its a "good" thing that people enjoy beating us - my only worry is that in the previous times we were actually good.

PP: Would I have to pay the deposit thing by next Thursday or would participation be an ongoing option?

District 9 Quite enjoyable - it's also nice to know there is actually someone in the world albeit fictional who swears more than me.

I think people like that say "as a christian" when they actually mean "as an honest, trusting, faithful human being". I obviously think you can be the latter without the former.

I'm usually the first to criticise religion but I think that's the wrong call here - a desire through love to be faithful has fuck all to do with Christianity. The problem is ignorance/education/culture - there's no reason why his wife's lack of desire couldn't be treated and failing all else why he couldn't be treated properly. Of course if he refused to wank because of religion that's his fault and the stupid twats in Rome.

Yeah - made me think of Dynamo Dresden for some reason

I still think he has a long way to go to match Kissinger (and probably a few others) in being the most inappropriate recipient.

It sounded like the old story - his tackling etc was good and contributed to the result but his distribution was shite. I've said before that I have no problem with him playing as long as he hands the ball off to someone else instead of trying to play - I think him being "forced" into that last year because the rest were shit was a huge factor. Smith does this quite well and the centre halves + jonas haven't been bad this year at moving the ball around when they've tried - it sounded last night as if they'd either been told to be more direct (probably because of some strange idea that Shola could cope) or it was just a bad day.

Haven't seen the action but this league is defined completely by this game - Shola looks like an asset.

Aye. Get them used to it early with kormas and the like, it's what my parents did. (Then "accidentally" order them a Curry Hell one day. ) My Mam couldn't stand the smell of curry so I never had one as a kid - I thought curry started and ended with the shite you get on chips in chip shops. Started going for curries with mates and the first few times I got a steak but then started dipping into theirs to see what I liked. Now I generally have a Jalfrezi or a Korai. I must admit to feeling jealous after hearing mates who lived near Ocean Rd in Shields as kids saying how they used to take pans down to the shops and get them filled for their teas for next to nowt.

The bonus tax starts at 25k - only senior traders and management get more than that at our place.

Am I right in my scanning of this thread that Parky believes there is a genetic compnonent involved in these cultural differences though? Classic Parky bollocks if this is what he is inferring. Plus race memory (Sorry Parky)

Recent cultural differences are fine and I do recognise them - "race memory" and Genetic tribalism is bullshit. Tell that to the Bosnians or the Albanians or the Kashmiri or the Irish or the....etc.. There is a thread of unrealism in this we're all Europeans bullshit we're not and never will be. People's stupidity does not make "facts". It should be beaten into every kid in the world that "race" is a nonsensical concept.

Where do people get this crazy notion that footballers from the 60's, 70's and 80's were not as fit as modern footballers, just because they didn't have the advantage of an electronic machine telling them what their ideal body fat mass was, doesn't mean they didn't pump as much iron as modern footballers. The Colin Bell I saw playing was a fit, lean, fast, and athletic footballer and any of the top clubs would break the bank to sign him if he was playing today. There are aspects of Sport Science which have brought improvements - nutritionally the old "Steak and chips" has been replaced by a Pasta/high carb approach which does make a differnece to stamina etc. Of course people like Bell as you've descibed him may have been "special" but as a whole/on average I'd bet that the modern footballer is fitter.

Recent cultural differences are fine and I do recognise them - "race memory" and Genetic tribalism is bullshit.

I think theres a difference between transplanting Colin Bell or whoever as he was into the modern game and chucking him in and having someone of the same talent with the modern fitness/lifestyle improvements - in that context I'd expect the talent to still shine.