29 November 2009

Daily Chat 29/11/09


More than 700 Colorado Territory militiamen attacked a village of Arapaho and Cheyenne, killing 133 people, including 105 women and children in 1864.  The incident is known as the Sand Creek Massacre.  The Meiji Constitution, establishing a constitutional monarchy in Japan, went into effect in 1890.  King Tutankhamen's tomb was opened to the public in 1922.  And in 1972, Atari unleashed Pong on an unsuspecting world.

Born today:  Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848), C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), Madeleine L'Engle (1918-2007), Jacques Chirac (1932), John Mayall (1933), Kasey Keller (1969) and Ryan Giggs (1973).

It is Liberation Day in Albania.

111 comments:

  1. martillo, Mr. Scorpio had this message for you late last night:

    Anyway, where's martillo? I want to get some pre-match goading in before our favourite game of the year kicks off at Camp Nou tomorrow...

    No pasaran! Y venceremos!

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  2. Thanks, Montana, I saw it, occasional lurker that I am.

    Goad away, Hank. I'm already resigned to the worst, especially since it looks as if Messi will be playing. I toyed briefly with the idea of visiting the Workers' Monument to Socialism, Freedom and Peace tonight, but the rumour that they're giving away tickets proved to be false. 200 Euros was the best offer from among my students! Even our small local cinema has sold out. So it looks like one of the few bars where merengues are allowed for mrs martillo and I.

    On the other hand, it is the clasico and if West Ham can try and fail to give away a 5 goal lead, anything can happen.

    ¡Cara al sol!...

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  3. Morning all

    Montana - excellent job on your thread. Unfortunately it was bound to attract just the sort of "America Right or Wrong" nutters that you were talking about, but that doesn't detract fromt he fact that the vast majority of the posters think it is a good article. Well done.

    Meanwhile, I am spitting feathers about the Barbara Ellen article. I cannot begin to describe just how angry I am about it. Wasn't she the one saying the other weak that people looking at child porn on the internet were just lazy paedophiles, or some such nonsense?

    Grrrrrrrrr!

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  4. Oh yeah, and no pasaran as well. :o)

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  5. BB - God, have just read the BE piece.
    "Do we seriously think that a female teacher sleeping with a male pupil is on a par with a male teacher sleeping with a girl pupil? I don't."
    Well, thank christ you're not a judge then.
    "she has effectively been punished exactly the same as a man"
    And this is a bad thing?
    The saddest thing is that the boy involved "has been mocked by peers". And she seems happy to go along with that.

    The worst kind of glib, thoughtless, personal anecdotal, self-centred trash, with absolutely no attempt at balance or even seriousness.

    There's a time and a place for fey and wannabe winsome observations, and that's talking about pets and table decorations in the life and style section. WTF she's doing on a 'comment' site, I don't know.

    [and relax]

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  6. Morning all,

    Thankfully that Barbara Ellen piece has been flame grilled on both sides then helicoptered out to a remote weapons testing area and subjected to napalming and finished off with an experimental new form of white phosphorous.

    And the McKenna article is full of fear filled shite as well.

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  7. I am glad to see it isn't just me on the BE thread. I wondered if I was being a bit too "Disgusted, Tunbridge Wells" about it, but it fills me with horror to think that there are people that seem to accept paedophilia with a female perpetrator and a male victim as just, you know, kinky sex fnarr fnarr. Stupid cow.

    Haven't looked at the McKenna thread yet - will have a look later as I need to be off and cooking roast lamb at my dads in a min.

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  8. Morning all

    Think that BE has lost her final marble. Can't think why someone at graun towers didn't have a word with her about it. As Ally points out its not the first time she's been a tad more than controversial in this area.

    Still she's being comprehensively beaten up by the btlers as His Grace so eloquently describes.

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  9. BB - I don't think there was any chance of that one being laughed off as not worthy of bile... Annoying that some posters are asking for feminist rebuttals when a clear half of the critical posts (including some of the most angry) are from female posters. Another one for the 'not fucking helping' pile...

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  10. Sheff - the tone is so weird as well - sort of, 'how can I make this into a light and funny Sunday morning article?' when that kind of treatment just is not appropriate for the subject matter...

    to show just how low she's sunk, check out the post from LastJackStraw's latest incarnation. Says it all, really, if she's managed to offend even him/her...

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  11. Phillipa

    Its that rather frivolous edge that adds to the offence - same with her previous piece on Vanessa George. The woman is bonkers. Cath E has come out strongly I'm pleased to note.

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  12. Morrisey is on Desert Island discs. And its raining stair rods too, going to be a cheerful morning!

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  13. Here's an email I've just fired off to the Reader's Editors of both the Guardian and the Observer:

    --

    Dear readers editors

    When it comes to crimes against women, Guardian/Observer columnists are rightly very alert for any suggestion of victim blaming. So why is it that, in the pages of the Guardian and the Observer, it is acceptable to excuse female crimes against males by saying "he was asking for it"?

    Last Wednesday - the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women no less - we saw Libby Brooks, the Guardian's Deputy Comment Editor, attempting to excuse Jane Andrews' murder of Thomas Cressman on the grounds that he (allegedly, very allegedly) had sexual appetites his murderer was uncomfortable with, and used to pick her up from work. Apparently, he was asking for it, and deserved to be beaten round the head with a cricket bat and stabbed in the chest.

    Today in the Observer, only a few days after a report into widespread abuse of children (80% of them boys) by clergy in the Irish Catholic Church, we have Barbara Ellen applying explicit double standards ("do we seriously think that a female teacher sleeping with a male pupil is on a par with a male teacher sleeping with a girl pupil? I don't.") to the case of a female teacher seducing a teenage boy, on the grounds that teenage boys have sexual desires and sexual fantasies. He was asking for it - he deserved to be groomed and seduced by someone in a position of trust.

    This is far from the first time the Guardian/Observer has advocated such a double standard towards male and female abusers and male and female victims of abuse. Women and girls never deserve such treatment at the hands of men. When it's men or boys receiving such treatment at the hands of women, an excuse can always be found for the abuser. Barbara Ellen (Observer, 4 October) somehow even attempted to deflect the blame for Vanessa George's abuse of children onto men.

    I would like someone at the Guardian and/or Observer to explain whey they think this double standard is acceptable, especially given the timing of the two recent articles. Actually, I would like the editors to recognise the unacceptability of such double standards, and put a stop to it.

    --

    We'll see if they take any notice.

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  14. Paddy

    I'd put my name to that too - well said!

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  15. Here's Sid Lowe's take on it, martillo, if you've not already seen it...

    elderbi

    Good luck to MF as well. Everton, Arsenal and Barca to complete a treble today in a victory of good over darkness (-;

    Jimmy Anderson's set the tone for the day...

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  16. Yeh, well said, Paddy. Said before I used to be a fan of Barbie but she's been writing some very odd stuff the last year or so.

    Think she probably needs an "equality awareness" refresher.

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  17. Good luck to the bluenoses today - they need a win. Liverpool's season is pretty much over.

    A 3-0 win to Everton was on offer at 75-1, very tempting, but I think it's morally reprehensible to bet against your team. Having said that, I did put a fiver on McCain to be president last year, just so that I would have enough money to get blind stinking drunk if he had won.

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  18. A fiver on McCain to get blind stinking drunk, habib? You either got fantastic odds or you're a cheap date...

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  19. Believe it or not, Hank - it would have paid for a bottle of Jack. Cheap is how I feel... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9N5T-4dOuk
    I've always hated this time of year, but just a day left to go of two months that I hate as much as they hate me.

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  20. Sid Lowe? Think I'll pass on that thanks Hank. Whatever happens tonight will almost certainly be exciting. Are Chelsea and Liverpool fascists, too?;0)) Looks like God's on their side so far...

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  21. nice post heyhabib, suits the weather and my mood....

    Come on you reds, we've everyhing to play for !

    I think I need to eat.

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  22. everyhing to play for?

    I was under the impression that Liverpool's season was effectively over.

    Scouse Boom-Bust Cycle

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  23. scherfig
    Now that was just cruel.

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  24. In fact He may already be moving myseriously to save us. If it keeps on pissing down like this, it could be called off.

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  25. Sorry, bitterweed, but sometimes you just have to take a long, cold, hard look at reality. And it may not be pleasant. :0)

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  26. Bad as that, martillo? It'd be a bugger if it gets postponed. Maybe they can just play the first 74 minutes, and then abandon it when Real are 4-1 up.

    Any Barnsley fans on here? PCC? What a farce that was yesterday, usual contempt shown for the paying fans.

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  27. Morning everybody! (or afternoon, if you insist...)

    I long ago consigned Barbara Ellen to the same drawer that I put Tanya Gold into -- the 'just don't even look, it will only make you angry' drawer. But now you're giving me that car-crash curiosity...

    As anyone looked at my thread today? I'm not sure I want to go back -- when I looked right before I went to bed, it seemed to be too overrun with the outraged and offended. Seems to be very little point in responding to any of that any more than I already have.

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  28. Arvo, Montana - 651 comments. lailibella / ngavc trying to broaden out the debate to take in economics/demographics, maybe worth a look, BTH still ploughing some strange furrow of back-handed (sorry, that should probably be cack-handed) sniping...

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  29. As anyone looked As anyone looked?? What on Earth did I do there? I can hardly claim it was a typo -- I had to hit the shift key, FFS! Need coffee...

    Thanks, Philippa. Maybe I'll brave it after I've finished the BE train wreck. Haven't decided if I should try to get the last comment in or not. Wonder if the open comment box trick still works, now that they've changed the posting?

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  30. The mods deleted AntonioBandanas comment on the Ellen thread. Has anybody here saved it for posterity? It was really genuinely funny and hit the right spot.

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  31. Actually I seem to have been punished for that cowardly thought Hank. It's stopped. Ah well, no point postponing the inevitable.

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  32. "sometimes you just have to take a long, cold, hard look at reality. And it may not be pleasant."
    That's usually when it makes me giggle, cher Scher.

    Montana, your article's thread became off-topic a long time ago. Go back and argue with them, if you want to, but they'll keep missing the point ad infinitum.

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  33. Habib: Yes, I know. I said several times that their outrage only confirmed my point, but to no avail.

    Now, general question for the men: As I'm making my way through the BE thread, I keep thinking that this notion that teenage boys would consider sex with a teacher to be a big score and the posturing that teenage boys supposedly do about sexual experiences is actually:

    A) A bit of a myth
    --and
    B) Some false bravado

    I can't help but think that teenage boys are every bit as scared about sex as girls are, for one thing. For another, when I look at the kids in our school, the girls seem to be a lot more sexually aggressive than the guys.

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  34. Montana, honestly, if Miss Kilbride (my English Teacher at age 14) had seduced me, I would have been a very happy boy, but I think that teachers have a duty to be professional and so I agree with the penalty recently enforced.

    Sex is scarey when you're a young boy, but my opinion is that the longer you have to wait to lose your virginity, the more skewed is your viewpoint as to how it's going to be. The first time is memorable, because it's the first time, but it's not the earth-shattering experience you think it's going to be.

    I think I had to wait too long, because before I'd had sex it was all I ever thought about, after I'd had sex it was mostly what I thought about. (Even just a few minutes in the day, thinking about other things can be useful.)

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  35. There was one teacher (French lessons, for clichees sake) some of us considered hot when about 12 (the thought of her in a bikini some classmates fanatasized about made me feel rather uncomfortale, though).

    At least for the more sensitive guys, sex was not something we were "up for"; if the more loudmouth were showing false bravado or really felt that way, I cannot quite say.

    And I faced more sexual aggressiveness from girls on one god-damned weekend that screwed my perception of everything sex-related than I ever showed to women in all the 16 years I'm interested in sex put together, but such experiences were not, I think, that common amongst others.

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  36. Something that's been lost here is the difference between 1) hot witless juvenile lust that propels many boys into all sorts of idiotic behaviour and 2) emotional entrapment by an older person. (And I think its very hard to argue that there hasn't been some form of ensnarement in the vast majority of cases.)

    For an average teenage lad to want to sleep with a teacher all that is required is that said teacher is sufficently attractive and the boy has a pulse and the requisit tackle. The teacher has to go through, by comparison, an enormous amount of emotional, psychological and ethical contortions to get to where s/he feels able to become emotionaly and sexually involved.

    I'd lay money the woman has some serious psychological problems. I don't know if that's always the case with the male teachers who less rarely cross the line. They all seem pretty pathetic and inadequate individuals, by definition. Whatever, I doubt if she'll have a particularly easy time in jail.

    There is always room to view cases like this with sensitivity; the CiF team has confused doing that with just being boneheadedly controversial.

    What's new there eh ?

    ---
    In other news, get in Yobo !
    ;-)

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  37. BE wrote this "Likewise, while teenage boys are usually sexually driven, teenage girls tend to be validation-driven."

    And proves, in one short sentence, that she knows less about life than an armchair.

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  38. Thanks for the responses. Working in a middle school and being around 14-15 yr old boys five days a week, I cannot for the life of me, understand how a middle aged woman could find them sexually attractive -- even the most physically and emotionally mature of them. Seriously messed up woman would be the only way, as far as I can see.

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  39. Montana

    Its weird isn't it - I don't get it either. Teenage boys are fabulous - so physically and emotionally gangly and all over the place, voices going up and down - consumed with embarrassment one moment and wildly showing off the next - they can be incredibly funny.

    My son was a punk - ragged leather, spikey blond hair and a moderate to serious personal hygiene problem for a while. He was beautiful though. He brought lots of his mates home and although I loved most of them I cannot imagine actually fancying any of them - they were so young - it would have been grotesque.

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  40. Exactly the word -- grotesque. I really enjoy talking to some of them, but nice as some of them are, you just never forget that they're boys.

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  41. Hoy martillo...

    Best team won, I reckon. Puyol and Pique were immense at the back, and Messi was, well, Messi. Diarra's red card was about an hour overdue, and Kaka looks a shadow of himself so far this season.

    Interesting to compare that game with the Arsenal one. Barca and the Gooners are so similar in style, and Chelsea and Madrid both tried to bully them today, and while Arsenal succumbed, Barca's class won through in the end.

    That's why AFC, much as I love watching them, lack the steel and the guts to win the big prizes.

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  42. Well said Paddy, The latest article in a long line, it creates the impression in some minds that this attitude is 'typical frminism. To be honest, if there was to be bias (and I don't think thy should)it should be in favour of boys as they are generally les mature than girls at 15.

    However the biologist in me does make me wonder if our definition of paedophilia needs tweeking. I have always taken it to mean being sexually attracted to children (i.e. individuals who are sexually immature). Most 15 year old girls are sexually mature and will elicit a "response" from males. This does not mean that men who are very much older than them should act of the response mind you and definitely not if they are teachers. The law is there because as a society we consider such relationships to be inappropriate.

    Again quite a few 15 year old boys are not sexualy mature and many haven't started shaving or had their final growth spurt.

    Not sure how the law can deal with this though.

    Again if there was to be bias it should be in favour of boys, which makes Babs' article even more wrong headed.

    On balance the law should perhaps stay as it is.

    I can't help thinking about this woman's kids - they have effectively lost their mother. This crime has so many victims!

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  43. Evening possums

    Got my crimbo tree up! That'll cheer the place up a bit for a few weeks.

    Haven't looked at your thread since early this morning, Montana, so I shall take a peek now.

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  44. Hello All,

    Haven't read the thread yet but wanted to "share" this superb song for anyone who's ever had problems with depression: Digging in the
    Dirt
    .

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  45. Oh Hank! This is why we should never take our politics to a football match. I've no complaints, though I feel Barça were a little lucky in terms of goal chances. But should you highlight Diarra's red card when Keita could easily have had 2 or 3? You're right about Kaká though. Pellegrini's insistence in keeping him on for 90 minutes despite some frankly appalling performances is nothing short of bizarre.

    Still, I was encouraged by the performance in general...

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  46. I just looked at Barbara Ellen's column. The double standards are fuckin unbelievable but I reckon I know why she wrote it. Ellen, like everyone at the Guardian/Observer and virtually everyone considering themselves a liberal holds a special place in their hearts for that most quintessentially "lovely, gentle, small voice of humanitarian calm" that is Alan Bennett. Anything Alan Bennett thinks must be right...he's the voice of fuckin gentle tolerance..right?

    Personally, I detest the guy...which to many people is like taking the hunter's side in the Bambi's mum debate. I've always found his limp-wristed celebration of banality intensely unconvincing and trite. My missus read one of his books once and was most amused to find in his trawl of the UK, that the only place he found had no redeeming features was Liverpool...or rather, he was quite taken with the architecture but found the people brash, aggressive and irritating.

    So think how amused I was to find that the much loved timid little bushbaby of a liberal idiot is in fact a blatant apologist for pederasty. Another bastion of middle-class gentility, self-effacement and all-round niceness is revealed in his naked 'fucked-upedness'

    http://www.johannhari.com/

    I might lack manners, tact, reserve and gentility but at least I don't go round excusing kiddy fiddlers...up yours Bennett you screwed up boring twat.

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  47. MF - yer 4th god is the one that really pisses me off....

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  48. Read the Barbara Ellen stuff today. Her usual twaddle. She really wants to be on the Daily Mail staff, to re-use a tired cliché, as all she seems to talk about is celebrities and inflammatory child-related stuff.

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  49. I cannot believe that scratchyoureyesout has seriously suggested that the 15 yr old victim of the perv teacher should be on the sex offenders register himself, and repeated that suggestion in the waddya thread.

    Either the guy is a troll taking the piss and laughing at everyone when they respond, or he is seriously fucked in the head.

    Reading a post like that leaves me feeling sullied.

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  50. BB, I think he really means it. On the 'lesbian teacher' thread a while back, he was calling it a 'loving consensual relationship' and even posting about it on unrelated threads. Now he wants the abused child to be classified as a sex-offender. What do you imagine the key difference is? Got it in one - the 'loving' child was female, the other (who apparently is a danger to young girls) was male.

    And you know he's a teacher himself?

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  51. Oooh, the open comment box still works! Managed to get the last word on my thread. Can I just say over here that ellipsis10 is an arrogant cunt? Thanks, I knew you'd all understand.

    BB: Sadly, I think the man is serious.

    Non-smoking socialist that I am, the 2nd god is the one who makes me angriest. But I guess I'm just weird that way.

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  52. He's a teacher?!

    Christ, I wouldn't like a weirdo like him anywhere near a child of mine. Seriously.

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  53. Montana, afraid your thread is still unusable for me. Have tried to post a reponse to something from last night, but it's hung up.

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  54. BB, I'm only guessing, but I reckon from his posts that he's an EFL teacher, so it may be that he mostly teaches adults.

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  55. Yeah, but scherfig, would you want him around any of the adults you know?

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  56. Oh and right about ellipsis. Just read through his recent comments and it isn't just you, MW

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  57. Evening all

    Just read the BE thread and erm, oh dear. I find it hard to believe that anyone can write such an article on CiF and not expect a volcanic eruption. And after the last debacle over a student / teacher relationship, I really don't know what BiteThePillow is hoping to achieve beyond total vilification. But I see that speedkermit got deleted & that Cath expressed her opinion in very clear terms!

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  58. Have you read 'Morbo' by Phil Ball, martillo? Really interesting book about the social, cultural and political backdrop to Spanish football. Covers Bilbao, Huelva, Valencia etc as well as the big two. The chapter on Los Merengues is subtitled 'Madrid and the legacy of Franco' though, so I'm guessing he's with me on bringing politics into El Gran Classico.

    And 2-3 red cards for Keita? What for? Diarra spent the whole game kicking Messi and Iniesta. It's an indictment of the modern game that players like him get transferred for £20m when they are purely destructive and cynical.

    I reckon Pellegrini will be gone by Xmas. He's got very little out of El Winker and Benzema, in addition to Kaka. They're hard to beat, but I guess the Madridistas expect a bit more than that, a little flair etc, especially after spending £230m in the summer.

    Ramos is a fine player though. And Michel Salgado did a fine job as an analyst tonight.

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  59. Well, thauma, your comment seems to have made it. Assuming no one else still has an open comment box, it looks like you got the last word.

    BB: It isn't just on my thread, either, is it? I looked at some of the others and they were all dripping with the same sneering condescension.

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  60. Blimey, can we have a separate BTH site on here, UT3 perhaps? Martillo and I are trying to have a civilised discussion about the big issue of the day and it's all drowned out by the white noise of agonising about a professional WUM.

    I understand why you're pissed off about him, MW, but he's obviously got a free pass from the Mods, and clearly enjoys the attention he gets here. And every mention of him just encourages him all the more.

    Nobody takes him seriously apart from us lot. Ignore him and he'll shrivel up and die, just like MAM, waltz, LenFirewood and all the other truculent tosspot trolls who are good for pagehits but add nothing to the sum of human understanding.

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  61. I meant yellow of course, Hank. With you on Pellegrini though. I might take a look at Morbo, though after reading some of Sid Lowe's stuff, I'm a little tired of the 'Englishman finds Barça heroic and put upon/Madrid fascist approach'.

    Anyway, it was a good match and I'm glad you're happy...

    I'm off to bed as I'm up at 5:20 (sob!).

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  62. I don't know what's going on in BTH's head, nor do I particularly care anymore. He's a twat. But any man who buys so heavily into the notion that women are morally superior to men is heading for a severe disappointment. If he's sincere, a fiver says he'll be a raving misogynist in five years time.

    Songs for depressives: how about...

    Stars Shine On by the great but sadly defunct Belfast band Watercress (sadly no video, you'll have to make do with Last.fm)

    Another one of theirs I like is Skyrocket.

    And here's Dan Donnelly, ex of Watercress, doing Diamonds in the Road.

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  63. I heard a bit of Morrissey on Desert Island Discs this morning and he was really quite good.

    He wrote some of the most depressing songs I have ever heard, though.

    When I were a lass, this is the one that I used to listen to when I was feeling particularly sorry for myself.

    I know it's over

    Especially the bit starting "If you're so funny, why are you on your own tonight?"

    *Sniff*

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  64. I understand why you're pissed off about him, MW, but he's obviously got a free pass from the Mods, and clearly enjoys the attention he gets here.

    Sorry, dear. Actually, I was irritated by an arrogant cunt called ellipsis10, who made a lot of noise on my thread. Honestly don't give a damn about the other one any more -- just observing that I think he's sincere in his defence of middle aged teachers having sex with adolescents.

    Did I mention how happy I am that Barça won?

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  65. Hank - when I said shut up, I didn't mean it!! :o)

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  66. And while I'm recommending Belfast music, here (with no relevance to depression) is Duke Special doing John Lennon Love.

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  67. Songs for depressives, paddy?

    brighteyesfortwistedfuckers

    This is the daddy of them all...

    everybodyhurts

    And cos I watched Control again the other night...
    atmosphere

    But if you mean songs for depressives that will actually help, this always puts a smile on my face...

    wackosfinest3mins

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  68. I always found a dose of bitterness helped after a heartbreak. This does nicely.

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  69. MF I kind of agree about Bennet. I used to get similar reaction from people when I slagged of that awful limp-wristed and mawkish Saturday morning show Peely did. It just felt like a middle class version of Simon Bates' "Our Tune" half the time...

    I though Morissey aquitted himself pretty well today. Don't like his songs much but the man's got integriddy, and teaming up with Johnny Marr was an inspired move.

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  70. I still haven't seen Control yet. I found the bit in 24hr Party People where he hangs himself upsetting enough. :(

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  71. Rocking good tune, Montana. Reminded me of a young John Cougar Mellencamp (-;

    If you're looking for bitter, here's an old fave. Style never goes out of fashion...

    butterflycollector

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  72. That's odd, I just posted a reply to MW, with a youtube link, got the "your post has been published" message, but it's not appeared...

    Am I in pre-mod, Montana (-;

    Anyway, just in case it's lost in the ether, Weller does bitter here...

    butterflycollector

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  73. Oh right, slow connection then...

    Control's a very good film, BB. Not a big fan of Samantha Morton but she is brilliant as Deborah Curtis. As is Sam Riley as Ian. And it's not all doom and gloom, too much no-nonsense Mancunian piss-taking for that. And some great songs.

    It's a life-affirming film, oddly enough. Partly because it makes the viewer think about those serious life and death questions.

    I liked 24 Hour Party People but Control is a better film, more interesting and more thought-provoking.

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  74. Hank -- there seems to be a bit of weirdness on blogspot tonight. I had the same thing happen to me when I tried to post my apology to you, above.

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  75. MW - ah yeh, the old weirdness on blogspot when people are posting their apologies to me, MW. How many times have I heard that one? Apparently Kiz's apology for calling me a twisted fucker is still out there somewhere, queueing up in cyberspace, taxi-ing over Brussels, where there seems to be a bit of a blockage.

    As we all know, Montana, there's nothing like champagne to lubricate these blockages.

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  76. BB

    Don't let bitethecarpet wind you up on waddya he's on a trolling frenzy at the moment and he's just not worth it.

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  77. So you got the Veuve Clicquot that I sent, Hank?

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  78. Sheff - if he believes what he is saying, he is a sick little puppy.

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  79. V late on the BE thread, but BB, Cath & Sheff (amongst others) have expressed what I think much more clearly than I could have done.
    - BTH a teacher? Good grief.

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  81. Hank

    Just watched Enemy At the Gates - set at the Battle for Stalingrad and think thats enough fighting for me tonight - so rather than get into an argument about Ally, champagne socialism and beigeness on cif think I'll trot off to my pit. Night all.

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  82. Hank, nice tirade. I don't entirely agree with it, but hey it's you're own thing, nice one.

    At least you offer a viewpoint, while many of us just sulk, squirm and solipsise (new word that I just made up).
    :-)

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  84. Cheers, habib, gotta another tirade since. You might like that one better...

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  85. Hank,
    I don't think I'm betraying any confidence by saying that Ally told me recently that he's been away because of time constraints, nothing more. And, for that reason, I'm guessing that he very probably is completely unaware of Bru's behaviour over here and on the Waddaya thread that was running at that time.

    Agree with everything else (in both comments) completely. I'd like to be at the barricades with you all when you decide to reclaim Britain.

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  86. True words, that is to say, from Hank
    (and Montana subsequently).

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  87. Just one last thing... AllyF is a better man than I am. If you find him weak, poor, or desolate, Hank, you should pity me so much more.

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  88. Hey, MW, it's up to him. I find it difficult to believe that time has been so constraining that he's not been able to post on here for 4-5 months while posting prolifically on Cif throughout the same period.

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  89. I don't find either you or Ally weak, poor or desolate, Habib. If you're reading closely, I'm suggesting that Ally is a bit shallow, a bit gullible, a bit of a fucking disappointment.

    Anyone who could post on Waddya a thankyou to Bru for a glass of champagne really needs to have a fucking word with himself.

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  90. "a bit shallow, a bit gullible, a bit of a fucking disappointment."
    Hank, your fight with AllyF has nothing to do with me, so I'll duck out, but bloody hell, your words hit me where it hurts.

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  91. I don't have a fight with Ally, habib. For one, he's a pacifist vegan, and secondly, I'm mildly peeved with his blanditude but not agitated enough to go to war.

    And it's Sunday night/Monday morning, and I'm tired of the game for now...Time's right for Bruce...

    brooooce

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  92. Screen door slams, Mary's dress sways, like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays...

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  93. Hank, you know that I adore you, but the time is never right for Bruce.

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  94. So Montana, about that workaround for getting in under the CiF curfew...

    Just between me and you, like.

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  95. It's a good song, MW. Cast your prejudices aside.

    agoodrow

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  96. Hey RapidEddie!

    It's simple really. Threads (usually) run for 72 hours. Look at what time the article when up, calculate the time it'll close. Shortly before the thread is due to close, open a tab to that thread and leave it there. Do whatever else you want to do in other tabs, or walk away from your computer, whatever... Then, after the thread has closed, you go to the tab with the open comment box in it, type up your comment, and hey presto! Your comment appears, after the thread has officially closed. But don't tell everyone, okay?

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  97. Hank, love, Bruce may write decent songs. I don't know. It's the sound of his voice that sets me on edge. Just like Bob. Can't get past the voice.

    And yes, that's quite a row. Sad that people really do end up hating each other like that.

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  98. Hmmmm....okay.....I think I follow. It might be easier to wait till GMG goes bust, buy the group for 5 bucks and then make the Refugees the moderators.

    Then again, having to created a blog of my own to join the MW Hack Pack, I could just do a short Rapid Fire blog post if it's really worth saying.

    Of course, that means that it quickly become a series of disjointed/borderline incoherent mumblings such as "That's a bag of bollix", "You're one sick puppy", "Yes, but which airports?" and "So tell me Isabella, how's pops?" Much like the majority of blogs out here on the interwibble in fact.

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  99. "...disjointed/borderline incoherent mumblings" is what we do best, Rapid. Stick around, kiddo, you've found your way home.

    andthat'showweplaygettheguests

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  100. I'm sure I could have used my Google account to comment, but I'd been thinking of a platform for my wordiness for a while now. Besides, it's often my longer posts that get modded, so I've learned to cut-and-paste to a MS Word file on my Mac if I think it's under threat. In future if that happens, I'll just tidy it up for broader consumption and voila/viola: The Blog For Today!

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  101. Learn Portuguese by watching Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? I think it could catch on.

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