26 October 2009

Daily Chat 26/10/09


The Treaty of Ripon was signed in 1640.  The Gunfight at the O.K. Corral was fought in 1881.  Norway became independent from Sweden in 1905.  The Australian government returned ownership of Uluru to the Pitjantjatjara in 1985 and the House of Lords voted to end the right of hereditary peers to vote.

Born today:  Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757), Mahalia Jackson (1911-1972), François Mitterand (1916-1996), Bob Hoskins (1942) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (1947).

It is Labour Day in New Zealand.

49 comments:

  1. GP01: Actually, I've been spitting at the very mention of the red-clad bastards since long before I fell in love with Bolton. The very first thing I learned about English football is that all right-thinking people hate them.

    The fact that Terry Hall is an obsessive Utd fan is something I struggle to understand and accept. I tell myself that for a little boy from Coventry, the choice was probably somewhat romantic and rebellious and that that's his excuse. I'd rather he kick puppies, frankly.

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  2. Montana - my hero, Andrew Eldritch, also a fan of Man U. Think he's just being contrary, meself...

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  3. BB - as you'll probably fall foul of the 'speak english damn you!' part of the talk policy once the mods have had their coffee, just wanted to say that
    De toute facon, je vois que c'est passe l'heure dodo pour toi. Ta maman te permet d'utiliser l'ordi si tard le soir?
    has quite made my morning...

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  4. I hate Man U too, but you must admit they have some good chants

    Agaisnt Blackburn (to the tune of the Addams Family)

    Your father is your brother
    Your sister is your mother
    They're fucking one another
    The Blackburn Family.

    Against Liverpool (to 'You are my Sunshine'

    You are a scouser,
    A thieving scouser,
    You're only happy, on giro day.
    When your dad's out stealing,
    Your mum's drug-dealing,
    But please don't take my hubcaps away

    Not as harsh as the Rangers v. Celtic chants which have less wit and more real hate, though a couple of years ago when a Celtic player was very ill, some Rangers fans displayed a banner wishing him well. Grown men wept.

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  5. ....blog community announcement....:

    Series: Ciffers - where are they now?

    Thought you might be interested in Phil Hall's (aka ishouldapologise [ISA]) new community blogging initiative. I see Dan Pearce is on board.

    Looks not dissimilar to the UT2 strand.

    ....blog community announcement ends....

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  6. Hi parallax! I think I'll bag 'Notorious Arse' as a name afore anyone else does.

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  7. Hi OldBagpuss - yes it sets itself up doesn't it? I've only just found it (although I know Phil has been toying with the idea for a while). It'll be interesting to see how it evolves - wordnerd7's a GU booksblog warrior from way back; Phil - as we know- is a contentious ALT and BLT Cif contributor (actually I think he wrote and asked Cif to delete his ISA profile a while ago in protest about ...ummm...can't remember - just general ciffness probably). The rest of the panel I don't recognise - oh apart from BaronCharlus who I know, and respect, from GU books and other poetry blogs.

    Anyway good to *hear* you again Edwin - I thought you were under an exclusive Heresiarch contract :)

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  8. Hi parallax - I've got it down to less than 10 blogs now - I wish Frank Fisher would post more. BookRide is now a favourite haunt, done by the great Nigel Burwood of Any Amount of Books - he has marvellous book-related links also but I am really cutting back!

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  9. Blog reading is the new book reading Edwin ;)

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  10. Phillippa - you seemed to have enjoyed the Hitler spoof the other day.

    Many of us here on UT were introduced to the Hitler youtubes by Swifty.

    The following link (found by Swifty way back) is considered by some as possibly the funniest of the genere. Hope the link works and you enjoy it

    Hitler/Jackson death

    There seems to be more than one Hitler/MJ death spoof but the one above is imho the best.

    I've bookmarked it - if I get a rare grey day here in Yorks I play it. It reduces me to near hysteria. It really is the best piece of silliness I've seen in years. It deserves to be shared widely.

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  11. Good that seems to work

    I'm off shopping for blutac in the hope I can keep this machine of mine working a bit longer.

    The problem is the dongle connection point is now so heavily warn that if I breath too hard it breaks the connection. I'm hoping to reduce the lateral movement by the use of blutac - heathrobinson deano strikes again...

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  12. deano - my day was going fairly badly, drowning under a sea of bureacucracy and admin - I am now snickering like a fool. thank you, that was genius...

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  13. I wish Frank Fisher would post more.

    Me too, but no one will pay me!

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  14. Frank

    where have you been? we all miss you.

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  15. Parallax
    Thanks for the heads-up !

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  16. FF
    Nothing too horendous I hope.

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  17. Swine flu++

    I'm okay, just knocked me for six. But thanks

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  18. Hi Frank, glad you're feeling better!

    Philippa/BB - which thread?

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  19. Frank

    Sorry to hear you've had the piggy pox - was it awful? Hope you're over it now. I'm just waiting to be felled by it but my age group (old gits) don't seem to be so vulnerable to it.

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  20. thauma
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/25/bnp-richard-barnbrook
    Unfortunately, in modding the worst of the mentalists (bergen-belsen 'not a part of the holocaust' apparently) there are a lot of brilliant rebuttals being offed as well.

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  21. It was okay - just a v.bad flu (intense fever, exhaustion, head aches, body aches, cough etc but with stomach upset too which is a little novelty of SF) with a follow up lung infection (which seems to be very common), and I'm asthmatic which is why I'm still struggling.

    Now two and a half weeks in and still feel whacked out. If you're offered the jab, I'd take it...

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  23. Frank - I would have the jab but have heard this squalene stuff they put in it is a tad dodgy to say the least and is also implicated in Gulf War Syndrome. I've also heard that a lot of medics aren't getting the jab either.

    Difficult to know the truth of it as there are so many competing views.

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  24. Not too well up on the squalene thing, sheff, but one name in your link caught my eye - Anders Bruun Laursen who is associated with global research who seem be popping up on Cif links regularly these days. They appear to be a NWO troofer type thing.

    btw, Laursen wrote an open letter to Anders Fogh Rasmussen a few years back in which one of his questions was:

    Why is our 1000-year-old identity, religion and culture to be removed and replaced by islam?
    Right now the foreign ministerial 'Danish Center of Culture and Development' (DCCD) is undermining by means of school textbook revisions, manipulations of journalism and journalists, media, managing arts, comprehensive exchange programs, thus dismantling our religion and culture, which are called 'stereotypes and prejudices'.

    Not sure that I'd be happy to take medical advice from him (although he is a doctor). I'd be more inclined to go with Frank.

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  25. scherf

    Thats the problem with something like this - not being clear about what's actually going on and who has what agenda.

    Very glad I didn't have morning sickness back in the 60's so I didn't need thalidomide - always been a bit suspicious of pills and jabs since then and resisted them unless absolutely necessary..

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  26. Sheff / Scherf - indeed - when there are two battlelines drawn, between those in principle opposed to vaccination (MMR etc) and those opposed to the first group, questions from the confused majority in the middle get co-opted, and lots of the available information seems tainted by association.

    Re: thalidomide - in the 70s, when my mum was trying to get prgnant, she was given some 'anti-miscarriage' drug, although it turned out that it was supposed to be taken before, rather than after, becoming pregnant. If she hadn't gone to see another doctor when on holiday, she'd have kept taking it and yours truly probably wouldn't be here. She was in fact advised to have a termination, but came over all contrary all of a sudden. Perhaps my lingering antipathy towards medication comes from this...with you on the suspicion, sheff.

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  27. In my opinion, drugs should be taken for recreational purposes only. Certainly never prophylactically.

    Philippa - thanks for the link; looks like all the good stuff had been deleted by the time I got there.

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  28. Evening all.

    I was a tad drunk when I was posting in french last night, but I did enjoy laying into that silly french Lepenniste woman.

    For those who don't speaka da lingo, what Pip posted above was:

    "I can see it is past your beddy byes now, though. Does your mummy always let you play on the computer this late?"

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  29. thauma

    Thats where the contradictions in my assertions show up. Although suspicious of drug therapies as in the piggy flu jab, I gleefully downed recreational pharmaceuticals in my youth - not having a clue about their provenance.

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  30. BB - heh heh. Am just feeling quite proud I didn't need to get the dictionary out to understand it. Which swiftly wore off having had then to mime hanging a picture and make squeaky noises in the arts and crafts shop before I could persuade them to sell me cuphooks...

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  31. Good point about recreational purposes, thauma. FWIW, the only non-recreational drugs I've taken in about the last 15 years (and that includes aspirin) was a corporate-paid flu-shot one winter. And it worked - no flu all winter and people loved my second head. Twice as handsome they said! (And four times as stupid!)
    How does that work?

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  32. Scherfig - I've always suspected you were a doubly handsome bloke.

    I've never had a 'flu shot and haven't had the 'flu since I was a kiddie. My theory is never, ever take antibiotics unless you will die without them, and get out in the cold during the winter.

    Made the mistake of taking antibiotics a few months ago following surgery and now I have some nasty stomach problems.

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  33. OMG have a confession to make. Apart from one spliff have been straight all my life, apart from getting really mega drunk three times -

    Now i have to swallow six different prescription drugs every day I suppose it serves me right really!

    Its not that I'm against it as such just never fancied it for me. Enjoyed many a happy hour enjoying the delicious nonsense talked by pot heads though! LOL!

    There is probably some sinister psychological reason for this. ;-)

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  34. Oh and I did smole (30-ish a day at one point!) Daft addiction that not much fun as I remember!

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  35. Anne - possibly it explains why you tend to make more sense than some of us.

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  36. sigh - if I could go back and change one thing in my confused and random life, it would be the smoking. Oh, if I'd never started...

    I'd be about €1,800 a year better off, apart from anything else. Over £2k if I was still in the UK.

    pah.

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  37. Anne, I'm assuming that you didn't apply for the 'pot critic' job in the USA? Anyway, as I already said in another place, I heard that Anna Shapiro got that gig. That could make her ATL articles even more bizarre, and yours will seem even more sensible in comparison. Marxism for the liberal chatterati will win!

    And just for fun, here's Dave Allen on smoking:

    giving up the filthy habit

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  38. Ah, scherf the Zaphod Beeblebrox of the UT.

    ""I am so amazingly cool you could keep a side of meat in me for a month. I am so hip I have difficulty seeing over my pelvis."

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  39. I'm afraid I retain my recreational drug virginity. If I had it to do all over again, I probably would have at least shared the massive spliff that the cute guy standing next to me at that Psychedelic Furs concert at the Odéon St. Denis in 1984 kept offering me.

    I don't take legal drugs any more than I absolutely have to, either. Never had a flu shot.

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  41. Deano - I fucking love smoking and drinking. I've just had a liver test and it's come back as, quote, "stunningly normal", so I think that's licence to carry on as per.

    I'd rather live a short, decadent life than a long boring one.

    On your salt cravings and suchlike: salt is a very necessary part of the mammalian diet, so perhaps your cravings are down to your not having enough of it (unlike most of us!).

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  42. Thauma - Good on young miss.

    I removed my post because it seemed an unfair comment to make especially to those of you who still have the daily grind of earning a living.

    Even I couldn't indulge myself like I do these days when I had to earn a living and support a family.

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  43. thauma
    I'd rather live a short, decadent life than a long boring one.

    Right on the money thauma - this is what I'm aiming for too. Given all the smoking and drinking I've done over the years must already be well past my sell by date, so every day's a bonus.

    I had a chest xray last year - I think the doctor was a bit miffed at my lungs relatively healthy state, given my history of smoking.

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  44. Can I live a long decadent life please? Ta.

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  45. thauma - I love a drink. Worryingly so. I love a glass of red of an evening (or two) or a brandy. I should be really careful with the ME/CFS and I have given up the sugar, caffeine and diary but cannot give up my wine. YOu have to have some bloody fun but do worry how much i seem to 'need' it. If I have gone two or three days get major cravings and cave in.

    Deano - we need salt and if you crave it maybe it means you need it?

    Just watching a most interesing prog on Warren Buffet. The worlds richest man has just said that most rich people are not as clever as they think they are and that they would not have done as well in Bangladesh or some other country without advanced nations social structures. He also said the richest should support a tax system that supports those that drew the shortest straw! Interesting.

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  46. Thauma PCC -

    Salt is of course very important. The phrase "worth his salt" had literal meaning in Roman times when legionnaires received part of their pay in salt.

    AS I guess you will know most us have far too much these days. Over-salting is a major factor in high blood pressure.

    I kinda see myself as an old elephant who walks hundreds of miles every few months to gorge on salt in traditionally secret caves off the beaten track...

    It's probably the gorging on booze in the other months in between which leads to the low salt......

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