30 December 2009

30/12/09


The Granada Massacre took place on this day in 1066.  Around 4,000 Jews, almost the entire Jewish population of Granada, were killed in one day.  The Battle of Wakefield took place in 1460.  The Pirates of Penzance was performed for the first time in Paignton.  Lincoln's Inn accepted its first female student in 1919 and the USSR was formed in 1922.

Born today:  Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), Bo Diddley (1928-2008), John Hartford (1937-2001), Paul Stookey (1937), Michael Nesmith (1942), Davy Jones (1945), Patti Smith (1946), Jeff Lynne (1947), Tracey Ullman (1959) and Tiger Woods (1975).

It is Rizal Day in the Philippines.


198 comments:

  1. And, since music doesn't get much better than Segovia playing Albéniz, here's Granada

    ReplyDelete
  2. Indeed. Here's an English dude playing a nice version of asturias.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDAHl54V0CU

    ReplyDelete
  3. "It is Rizal Day in the Philippines"...and Rizla Day elsewhere...

    ReplyDelete
  4. and Rizla Day elsewhere

    Zig-ZagZig-ZagZig-ZagZig-ZagZig-Zag

    Zigzag rock
    Rizla suck

    ReplyDelete
  5. Quality bit of press-release-copying, sorry journalism, at the Graun this morning. They're reporting that Greater Manchester Police received 1.4 million 999 calls between Christmas Eve and Boxing Day. Greater Manchester has a population of about 2.5 million (according to Wikipedia, which is never wrong), so more than half of them, apparently, called 999 in 3 days.

    But Nufubar has nailed it. A BBC article on the same subject says "GMP said it received 1,377 999 calls", i.e. 1,377 calls to the 999 number. Eejit Guardian person has read that as 1,377,999 and rounded it up.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Morning all

    Paddy, that's bloody hilarious! :o)

    ReplyDelete
  7. BeautifulBurnout said...

    "One thing that is interesting about bitey under his new nick is the racism, though. I hadn't really spotted it before, but now it is pretty clear that he holds no truck with Muslims - be they "honour" killers or hit-and-run drivers. And his sideways comments about the increase in population in the UK is quite interesting too. So as well as a stalker he is also a bigot! Who'da thunk it?"

    And what is this "Muslim" race about which you accuse me of being racist? Surely it couldn't be the race of which both Nicky Reilly and Elaine Atkinson are members? How about the now infamous Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab? How about Hui Liangyu, vice premier in charge of agriculture in the People's Republic of China?

    If I approached you in your professional capacity, wouldn't that accusation of racism be the kind of issue you'd be required to prepare a libel case for, had the person making the accusation been sufficiently unwise to identify themself? But thank you for publishing this new aspect of your character.

    Clearly Mrs Burnout you've not been paying attention, for as almost as soon as I started posting on CiF I made it clear that I oppose any religion that in both its doctrines and practice, decrees that women will have the status of second class citizens. Had you not played your part in getting me excluded from CiF, my posts would be available for you to examine. Further I would hope that this would be one thing I do have in common with the ranks of The Untrusted, although the more I read its views the less convinced I am.

    I suppose one of the few encouraging developments I've seen within the Christian community I had the misfortune to have been born into, is the way the position of women, which once required them to have their heads covered in church, to remain silent, and never to have any say in decision making, has largely been reversed. When other religions make similar changes to their doctrine and practice, and of course Islam is by far the main transgressor in the world today, then they will also be recognised as worthwhile contributors to a modern civilised society.

    As to what you call "sideways comments about the increase in population in the UK", you really should try to read more carefully. This was a question I lifted verbatim from one of the "Life in the UK" tests not because of it's subject matter, but because it demonstrated perfectly that in order to achieve the 75 percent correct answers required to pass the test, you have to have both a sufficient knowledge of the English language to understand the question, and a sufficient knowledge of "Life in the UK" to know the answer.

    Or are you also saying that it's racist to require people who want to settle permanently in the UK and be granted citizenship, to have a rudimentary knowledge of it's language and culture?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Good Morning. BB did you retaliate and send your bad weather here? Foggy, muggy, and cold (not to mention the terrible air quality). Fair comment Paddy, but I take issue with your deduction that "more than half of them, apparently, called 999 in 3 days". It could have been just a few naughty persons calling lots of times.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Morning all.

    Medve

    It's grey & raining here, so we haven't got your sunshine in Yorkshire.

    On 999 calls. Yesterday, Radio 4 were running a real Xmas 999 call from some woman complaining that her cat was playing with string & it was doing her head in. Unbelievable. But on the other hand, New Year at A&E also delivers some ridiculous moments - someone in Sheffield went for 'treatment' for a broken false nail a couple of years ago.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Hi MsChin, perhaps we should stop trying to mess with this weather. We did not get a good result. On the other hand, grey and raining is about par for the course in god's own country (Yorkshire) at this time of the year. Just popped over to Compassion is Fucked -- Weasel words of UK Border Agency had to give up after recommending BB's comment. Unbelievable.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Medve

    Agreed on the weather tampering, I'll put the cauldron back in the cupboard.

    I think the UKBA thread is best avoided, tbh, along with several others. BTW, have you seen BBs posts (made yesterday on WDYWTTA), about immigration law?

    ReplyDelete
  12. Please enlighten me to find WDYWTTA.

    ReplyDelete
  13. MsChin, thanks again, been there, done that. Good reading (including your tuppence).

    ReplyDelete
  14. Sorry about the weather Medve. Quasi-omnipotent thought I might be, I haven't quite mastered that one yet... :o)

    Off to the shops. Bleh. Be back later chaps x

    And a special xx for Bitey.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Hank re: yesterday's quote 'going naked into the conference chamber. It was Nye not Ernie.

    See this clip from LP conference 1957.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Hi anne.

    Sorry to hear about your house sale being scuppered. And quite right for correcting Mr Scorpio's anti-Welsh slip up!

    ReplyDelete
  17. andysays said...

    "I’m genuinely interested, or at least curious, in why BTH keeps on with his apparent crusade to ban mothers from the workplace and return them to the home. Really, BTH, what’s it all about?"

    Really andysays you've also not been paying attention. Have a look at my comments here on this thread following Ruth Sunderland's article - one of my finest moments on CiF.

    "This mess was made by men. Now let the women have their say".

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/01/davos-global-recession-gender?showallcomments=true#start-of-comments

    Then as well as making it easier for women to continue to be part of the work-force, I'm in favour of requiring fathers to take time off work to look after their children as part of their own and their children's development.

    So as you raised the matter in an earlier post - would you care to let us have some details about how responsible a father you've been to your daughter, so I can hold it up as an example to errant fathers who aren't?

    ReplyDelete
  18. Bitey, I very much doubt that you are competent to comment on andy's parenting abilities, or indeed anyone else's. You are however arrogant enough and deluded enough to believe that you can. How are your own kids, by the way? Turned out OK, did they? Well done!

    ReplyDelete
  19. I'm inclined not to trust embedded links from an untrusted poster who as declared an agenda on the UT.

    ReplyDelete
  20. As my grandmother said of sores: they go away quicker if you leave them alone.

    ReplyDelete
  21. So many amateur psychiatrists on The Untrusted. You should add the following device to your banner:

    “We analyse at a distance – no face to face session required”.

    scherfig:

    “Your own parents fucked you up totally”


    BeautifulBurnout:

    “So less about poverty and more about puritanical nutters.”

    “Muppet. You are losing your grip, Bitey.”

    “Freak.”

    “You are just a bit thick,really, aren't you Bitey, if you haven't worked that one out yet...”

    “A very sad one, but a troll none the less”

    "Cognitive disonnance” (sic)


    Andysays:

    “You’re clearly too deluded”


    Boudican:

    “You, on the other hand, seem to be rather puritanistic (sic) and mean spirited. Why do you even bother if you don't enjoy it?”


    Sheffpixie:

    "I have only very rarely come across someone with less insight into themselves than you and who is so remarkably obtuse."

    Monkeyfish:

    “You're fuckin banned you nutcase”


    A traveller, by the faithful hound,
    Half-buried in the snow was found,
    Still grasping in his hand of ice
    That banner with the strange device,
    Excelsior!

    There in the twilight cold and gray,
    Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay,
    And from the sky, serene and far,
    A voice fell, like a falling star,
    Excelsior!

    ReplyDelete
  22. MW

    Wise words, spoken by grandmas everywhere it seems.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Longfellow's Excelsior? 'It is a narrative about a youth whose tragic flaw is his idealism and apparent inability to give up on anything, even if it involves his own destruction.'

    Even amateur psychiatrists can see where you're coming from, Bitey. You reveal far too much.

    ReplyDelete
  24. My grandmother used to come out with some right good ones. I wish I had written them all down at the time because I haven't heard anyone else come out with them since.

    And she swore like a trooper too. A bit like a scottish version of Nan on Catherine Tate. Old baggage she was.

    ReplyDelete
  25. scherfig said:

    "The difference between you and normal, well-balanced, well-meaning people is that you jump on every small personal detail that you can glean and use it to put people down."

    And you of course restrict yourself to gems like:

    "Yeah. On the other hand - Aspergers syndrome is merely a fine description of the general condition known as female."

    and

    "And when he called you a revolting male feminist-sycophant that was totally out of order. He should have called you an obsessive, cyberstalking, retarded fuckwit."

    So just to set your mind at rest scherfig, here's a few complimentary responses I've made to Untrusted regulars, from the dozens I've posted over the three and a half years I've contributed to CiF.

    "I would also like to commend princesschipchops for this excellent piece of advice posted on 26 April 2009, which should be inscribed on the opening page of CiF.

    "We may both see the very same thing and interpret it in two very different ways. All qualitative research is value laden. Which is not to say it does not have a place but it is not value free."


    "annetan42

    "Excellent and informative post at 7:24pm. Strange though it may seem, given the 'expertise' that abounds on this thread, I think that tonight you will have educated a great number of men about the mysteries of the female body."


    "Some excellent posts here by princesschipchops, MsWoman, sarka, freewoman and Theresesmate "


    "BeautifulBurnout:

    "Fortunately there is a government initiative to introduce more and more Specialist Domestic Violence Court Programmes."

    "The specialist court programme is a co-ordinated community response to DV that combines both criminal justice interventions (eg dedicated DV prosecutors) and non-criminal justice interventions (eg independent DV advisors). Together they form a multi-agency response that creates greater victim safety and brings perpetrators to account."

    "This is excellent as far as it goes and is indicative that the government is starting to recognise the deficiencies, the institutional sexism that exists in the criminal justice system of the UK. It's rather a pity given your specialism in this field that you didn't make this the first subject of your foray into CiF 'above the line'."

    Now you might conclude that's damning with faint praise, but it's still praise.

    ReplyDelete
  26. scherfig

    If you've nothing much to do, we could chat about representation of the other/Other or something.

    ReplyDelete
  27. BB

    Know what you mean. My grandma was inclined to 'sweep the muck under the carpet on a fine day, and get out & enjoy it'.

    ReplyDelete
  28. My granny used to say that knickerless girls shouldn't climb trees.

    ReplyDelete
  29. Yeah. On the other hand - Aspergers syndrome is merely a fine description of the general condition known as female.

    As I pointed out at the time Bitey, that comment was a verbatim copy of a comment from your old chum millytante with the word 'male' changed to 'female'. The anguished howls of misogyny that this elicited were most amusing.

    And when he called you a revolting male feminist-sycophant that was totally out of order. He should have called you an obsessive, cyberstalking, retarded fuckwit.

    Thank you for preserving that gem! A neat turn of phrase, if I say so myself. Do you have any more of my old Cif comments on file? My archive is deleted now, but I quite fancy a trip down memory lane.

    mschin, the 'otherness' of the 'other' is a sadly deficient concept in this particular case. It might work for the Indians or the Kenyans, but we're dealing with a whole other otherness here.

    ReplyDelete
  30. scherfig

    I, as opposed to the other, take your point.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Let’s hear it for grandmothers’ advice.

    We all know the temptation to pick a scab, to squeeze a spot or to fiddle with a sore, but if I have to make a New Year’s Resolution, it will be to try even harder to follow Grandmother Wildhack’s suggestion.

    ReplyDelete
  32. NormanHadley has just pointed this out to Jay on the fashion thread:

    "Apropos of nothing, have you noticed your handle is an anagram of 'Airy Jelly'?"

    Made me smile, anyway!

    ReplyDelete
  33. # No to gendered grandparent advice on the Untrusted! #

    song

    ReplyDelete
  34. Hey thauma

    Your grandma was right!

    How's the dog doing? Mine's been in runaway mode for the last week or so, despite the fact that he's an old fella & should be at the pipe & slippers stage of life.

    ReplyDelete
  35. Aaargh! Should have given a trigger warning, scherf.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Sorry, mschin. It's brutal stuff, I know, but sometimes you just have to face up to frightfully terrible unpleasantness.

    ReplyDelete
  37. Yeah, but I'm not at work today, so I can eschew frightfully terrible experiences. Its my right as a woman. Ner.

    ReplyDelete
  38. scherfig is getting really quite evil with his links. He addressed a link of BoyGeorge singing The War Song to me last night. I am sure that constitutes cruel and unusual punishment under the Geneva Convention...

    ReplyDelete
  39. BB

    But in mitigation, scherfig has been severely goaded ..

    ReplyDelete
  40. ha ha BB.
    'War is stupid and people are stupid and love means nothing in some strange quarters!'

    Just don't chain me to a wall for that offence against taste. Here's a better anti-war song:
    buffalo springfield

    ReplyDelete
  41. It seems to me, that there are some people, who post briefly and cogently from time to time and then presumably go off to lead their normal lives. I wouldn't know how to find the time to cobble together swathes of text that no-one wants to read. Sad really.

    ReplyDelete
  42. #No to gendered grandparent advice on the Untrusted!#

    Fair enough scherfig, but I hope that doesn’t rule out other sorts of advice.

    I was intending to start a new thread the following on Untrusted 2 to discuss this, but my invite to contribute there seems to have expired due to lack of use, so hopefully it’ll work just as well here.

    I’m starting to sort out stuff for my move to Cornwall, and I’m looking for recommendations for reading material to take with me, particularly stuff related to the sort of political/social subjects we attempt to discuss here.

    Most of the stuff I’ve read and been inspired by recently has been non-contemporary - George Orwell, Rosa Luxemburg, and the Kate Millet book I mentioned the other night spring to mind.

    What I’m after is vaguely recent books by their contemporary equivalents, assuming such things actually exist. A few people (monkeyfish and Hank for sure) have mentioned things over the past few months, and I’ve been too crap to follow them up, so reminders would be great.

    And can someone (anyone) suggest a piece of contemporary feminist writing which avoids the middle class and/or rad fem trend which The Guardian would have us believe is the alpha and omega of current thought, but which has some relevance to the women and men of today?

    What I’d really like to find is something which recognises that patriarchy and capitalism are both significant obstacles to overcome, and looks at ways of challenging them both simultaneously.

    Does such a thing exist? Is there anyone today writing in a genuine attempt to unite Feminism and Marxism? And if not, maybe someone should be writing it.

    All contributions and suggestions gratefully received.

    ReplyDelete
  43. Andy,

    If you want a good read Sokals newish book is extremely good, cant remember the title, came out about 6 months ago i think, collection of essays.

    ReplyDelete
  44. andysays

    "Is there anyone today writing in a genuine attempt to unite Feminism and Marxism? And if not, maybe someone should be writing it".

    Mmm, old text but still a good starting point - Hartmann wrote about the 'unhappy marriage of Marxism & feminism' - I'll see if I can find it.

    Sylvia Walby's Gender Transformations

    ReplyDelete
  45. ""Is there anyone today writing in a genuine attempt to unite Feminism and Marxism? And if not, maybe someone should be writing it"."

    Annetan would probably have some good recommendations on that front, though not sure if she's about today.

    ReplyDelete
  46. andysays

    More Walby - have been waiting for this to come out in (cheaper) paperback version so haven't read it yet.

    ReplyDelete
  47. Hi All

    MsChin--I'm with 3p4 on this; After years of personal scientific testing, ZigZag is king.

    Medve--Weather here is lovely. Sorry.

    ReplyDelete
  48. andy,,a book i consider profoundly useful as a tool to understand the

    """" stuff related to the sort of political/social subjects we attempt to discuss here.""""

    is "Moral man and Immoral society" by Rheinhold Neihbuhr,,

    many/most/ political/social subjects are about balancing the individual values with the collective values

    its an old book but quite common second hand as anyone who reads it tends to then treat it as a valuable resource,and the old copies are being preserved,,

    ReplyDelete
  49. Andy - how about Barbara Ehrenreich (Nickel and Dimed, and Bait and Switch)?

    Will have a think around the subjects.

    ReplyDelete
  50. Green Rizla, zigzag filters... détente?

    ReplyDelete
  51. (filters not allowed if smoking the good stuff. Roaches only.)

    ReplyDelete
  52. andy

    Although not recent, there's a new translation of The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir just out, which is a much better and more accurate translation and has in it a lot the original translator left out. You might give that a go.

    ReplyDelete
  53. Radio 4 now - maybe worth a listen!

    ReplyDelete
  54. habib habib habib

    how can you put the colour first ?

    green rizla ? you mean Rizla green surely,,
    and if i were still in england i expect i would still be using Rizla blue,,

    Roaches ?

    i have made pipes for thirty years from semi precious woods stones and metals,,roaches do not exist in my world,,
    i make pipes like Faberge made toys

    ReplyDelete
  55. Sorry - R4s Thinking Aloud on class & social mobility.

    ReplyDelete
  56. 3p4

    No, we have to state the colour first when purchasing our Rizla, or we get the wrong ones. There's a Rizla silver as well as the blue.

    ReplyDelete
  57. Texture, feel, and tensile strength are crucial, so ZigZag white is the way to go. These papers have been peer reviewed!

    ReplyDelete
  58. in my day (in england in the 60s) it was the colour second,,and there was also red,,the silver are american style and didnt exsist in my day,,,, i have a double pack of rizla blue printed in french and several packs of rizla red printed in dutch amongst the detritus of the "kitchen drawer" and there is also zigzag white which are almost the same as rizla blue

    none of this interest will make the slightest sense to anyone who thinks tobacco is that yellow
    crumbly stuff sold prepacked in tubes,,vile and deadly product that it is,,

    ReplyDelete
  59. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  60. MsChin, that R4 programme was interesting and represented in macrocosm above.

    ReplyDelete
  61. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  62. Rizla liquorice for that sophisticated 'cheroot' look. They taste good too.

    ReplyDelete
  63. heyhabib

    It was interesting, yeah. I like Danny Dorling's stuff anyway, but I will pay more attention to Lynsey Hanley now.

    ReplyDelete
  64. absolutely adore rizla liguorice,,used to eat them instead of rolling them

    someone used the image in a poem recently on the poster poems blog and everybody commented on it

    my removed post MsChin was a brain fart that i hope no one saw,,i dont see your reference to it

    ReplyDelete
  65. I'm such a snob, MsChin. Dorling and Hanley I broadly agreed with, the other voices I heard on that programme were drowned out by the voice in my head saying "tosser!" and it wasn't directed at me, for once.

    ReplyDelete
  66. Know what you mean, habib.

    BTW, if anyone's interested, Danny Dorling has a website where a lot of his publications are freely available.

    ReplyDelete
  67. 3p4
    "brain fart"
    You try and keep it in, but sometimes you twist over a certain away and...

    ReplyDelete
  68. OK, so now we’re simultaneously discussing a contemporary synthesis of Marxism and Feminism, and the merits of various cigarette papers. It must be Untrusted on a Wednesday afternoon…

    My personal interest in the second subject ended about 15 years ago, but there’s clearly a broad range of experience and opinion represented here.

    Thanks for all the suggestions for my reading list. Please keep them coming, though I’m going to need to hire a bigger van to transport my new library at this rate.

    And that discussion on Thinking Aloud was kind of interesting, though ultimately unrewarding - whetted the appetite without actually satisfying it. Seemed to be taking the view, for the most part that middle-classness is synonymous with having a university degree, which is rather a superficial view.

    ReplyDelete
  69. Yep, but better than what we're used to from the BBC.

    And it's looking like a better than average week for feminism - In Our Time is about Mary Wollstonecraft (R4 9.00am tomorrow).

    ReplyDelete
  70. andysays,
    it was the idea of aspiration that interested me. "Make more money, move out of this neighbourhood, get a bigger house".

    I think that's how they defined aspiration on that programme.

    ReplyDelete
  71. MsC

    Haven't made it out to the Peak since I got back. Today, my daughter made me drive to Ikea so she could get some new saucepans. Pissed down all the way there and back. It would have been a dismal experience except that she's on very good form at the moment and made me laugh a lot.

    On the Rizla debate - it has to be green. The red ones are too thick, the blues too thin and I always want to eat the liquorice ones too.

    ReplyDelete
  72. andy

    And that notion that social mobility - climbing up to the next class - is *the* most important thing to the working class really annoys me.

    ReplyDelete
  73. I see habib was on the same planet as me.

    sheff

    Ikea? I can't get out of there without spending more than I wanted to.

    ReplyDelete
  74. tried to get the radio show but the bbc was unfortunately "unavailable in my location"
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    heres a good one

    i have never been in an ikea,,ever

    ReplyDelete
  75. Honestly, sometimes you people make me feel like I completely squandered my youth. I thought a paper was a paper was a paper. I've never bought any, I've never used any. Never mind what the hell you were putting inside them.

    ReplyDelete
  76. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  77. It's never too late to learn, MW!

    ReplyDelete
  78. Oh -- AND we're getting more damn snow

    AND Ikea's Swedish meatballs are pretty good, 3p4. They alone are worth a trip. And the one in Seattle also had the really good crispbread that's big and round and comes in a blue and red package, the name of which escapes me now and Kiviks Herrgårds Cider.

    ReplyDelete
  79. MsChin -- I'm open to corruption, but geographically challenged vis à vis anyone around who can corrupt me who isn't 15 years old. It's not that there aren't people my age here who still, erm, use papers -- it's just that I can pretty much guarantee you that the ones around here would be people I wouldn't want to use papers with.

    And seeing as how Child Protection Services is already watching my ass for having had the temerity to try to chose what types of toys the sprog played with when he was a kid and spending too much time on the interwebz, I probably better keep my nose clean, anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  80. i have never been in ikea,,ever

    Very commendable 3p4 - wish I could say the same but have succumbed a few times now and they really know how to get you to spend. Fortunately, I am all spent up - although did have enough for a plate of their meatballs which are quite good.

    ReplyDelete
  81. MsChin:

    Yep, but better than what we're used to from the BBC

    You’re apparently a “glass-half-full” person, while I, I’m afraid, am very much “glass-half-empty”.

    heyhabib:

    As far as the working class aspiration thing goes, I think one of the contributors suggested that it had previously meant something along the lines of getting a good trade (although that would seem to be more relevant to men than women in many ways) and remaining within your community, rather than earning enough money to leave your roots behind.

    The whole social mobility/working class becoming middle class/embourgeoisfication theory seems as dodgy now as it did when I first came across it 25 years ago, not least because it was totally based on regarding particular economic and social changes which existed for a couple of generations after the War as if they would go on forever.

    Now that the economy is no longer expanding in the same way, and the growth in “middle-class” jobs is over, many more people will find that having a degree won’t automatically give them a ticket to happiness.

    Here’s a song for Sheff, MsC and 3p4:

    Date With IKEA

    ReplyDelete
  82. Fuckinell. I've been staying sober all day (in the holidays!!!) because I was going to drive to Stratford to meet some friends for a quick drink, and they've just rung to cancel.

    Grrr.

    *pops cork*

    ReplyDelete
  83. Pavement-Date with Ikea-

    what it sounds like when the Byrds roll over in their graves

    ReplyDelete
  84. Ikea's Swedish meatballs are pretty good, 3p4

    oh dear this could get to be a chorus
    i never this i never that

    i never buy pre cooked meals or drinks,, including restaurants and coffee shops,,

    ReplyDelete
  85. 3p4:

    Does that mean you don't approve?

    At least they're inspired by/ripping off someone worthwhile.

    ReplyDelete
  86. frikadeller

    Good recipe here. When making the meatballs, dip the tablespoon in the hot fat before scooping out the mixture. They should be oval shaped (like a spoon) and there's a knack to shaping them with the spoon and the palm of your hand. Good fun to make and they taste great. Especially good with pickled beetroot.

    ReplyDelete
  87. 3p4
    Your mention of the Byrds reminded me of this from my youth

    Eight miles high

    ReplyDelete
  88. Veal scherf? don't think we're allowed to eat that anymore, are we? Can I make them with ordinary mince?

    ReplyDelete
  89. MsC
    oops - we're going to get Melanie Philips on the work shy scroungers who milk the benefit system on Radio 4. Should be a barrel of (hollow) laughs.

    ReplyDelete
  90. andy,,no it did not mean i did not approve,,
    hard for my gnomic style to explain

    impressions:

    1 it was very 'BRYDS' for the opening bars (pure rickenbacker,, nice kind of 'cascade' effect to the chords)
    2 it was vocally grungy and indistinct
    3 i wouldnt say ripping off,,i think it was very respectful in intention but limited in execution
    the original byrds were very proficient technically,,

    ReplyDelete
  91. Nice one Sheff.

    Roger McGuinn was apparently inspired to some extent by John Coltrane, and I guess you can hear that strongly there.

    There’s a fine line between inspiration and rip-off, but I reckon The Byrds and Pavement both stay the right side of it.

    And as a work shy scrounger who’s been successfully milking the benefit system for years, I’d better see what Melanie has to say about me…

    ReplyDelete
  92. sheff

    When's Mel Phillips on? Isn't she supposed to have a bit of an epiphany moment when she realises how much bus fares are? Can't wait ..

    ReplyDelete
  93. Sheff - you can use pink veal i.e. baby moo cows who have not been kept in the dark in crates all their short lives like the white veal.

    In fact, we ought to eat veal more in this country otherwise they have to be exported, which involves being locked up in a lorry for hours on end before ending up in a country that might not have the same animal welfare values that we do.

    We can't drink milk or eat cheese without there being calves, so from a compassionate farming point of view it is better to eat it, but insist on the pink stuff.

    ReplyDelete
  94. I am pretty sure that, like with Vogon poetry, my intestines would come up through my throat to strangle me if I had to listen to Mel Phillips again. I can't bear the Moral Maze because of her.

    ReplyDelete
  95. MsC

    Not sure when she's on I missed that bit, I was heating up my tea. Keep checking with Beeb 4 - they're trailing it at the moment.

    Doesn't she know about bus fares? Jesus H - what planet does she live on? She's only a bloody journalist not the queen mother.

    ReplyDelete
  96. Sorry, sheff. If it's not veal and pork, then it's not frikadeller. Dunno what the deal in the UK is, but here minced 'veal' is just calf meat (they're not tortured or force fed milk or anything.) It's no different from any other meat really, just heifers and bullocks slaughtered young. I suppose ordinary mince would work, although old milk-cows slaughtered when they're on their last legs probably won't taste as good.

    ReplyDelete
  97. You know, if you're that bothered about animal welfare, you could stop killing them to eat them.

    "being locked up in a lorry for hours on end"

    Hmm, doesn't remind me of history, at all.

    Habib, vegetarian fundamentalist.

    ReplyDelete
  98. habib

    I have one of those in my house. Bloody nightmare they are, those veggie fundies. It would be less stressful living with a Mad Mullah! :o)

    ReplyDelete
  99. Mad Mullahs are a side dish, we recommend only two at a time.

    ReplyDelete
  100. hey BB what was the MaM reference on waddya about ?
    i dont get it ?

    ReplyDelete
  101. Habib

    Fact is I'm a complete hypocrite when it comes to eating. I know how appalling some animal husbandry is and the conditions in abbatoirs prior to and including slaughter can be really grim - I've seen it. but I still eat meat from time to time and have never been able to take that final step to becoming a vegetarian.

    ReplyDelete
  102. Steady on, heyhabib! You can care about animal welfare and still eat the fuckers. My family has had a farm for several hundred years and I am fairly relaxed about killing animals for food. I like milk and eggs, but I also like meat, and have no qualms about killing a turkey and then plucking it. Shitty job though, in a cold barn in December. I don't eat that much meat, but I doubt that I could ever be a vegetarian.

    ReplyDelete
  103. sheff/scherf (I've been wanting to do that for months)

    Do your own thing.

    ReplyDelete
  104. 3p4

    It was a joke. Given MAM's political stance, I thought it would be funny to suggest he was the chap that wrote the article about the 9 yr old boy in asylum detention :O)

    Obviously not a very funny joke though....

    ReplyDelete
  105. Re meat-eating: I stifle my qualms by buying organic meat. At least I picture them having a nice life before they're off to the slaughterhouse.

    ReplyDelete
  106. since MAMs appearance above the line is imminent
    i was looking to closely for connections,,
    my humour detector fail

    ReplyDelete
  107. Thaum

    I was talking to a muslim woman the other day about halal butchering and she was saying that there is research that shows that the animals are actually quite calm and unstressed when they are slaughtered the halal way, whereas those slaughted by the traditional methods here are stressed out by the process. I wonder if there is any truth in that? I will do some googling...

    ReplyDelete
  108. Thanks, folks, I am now eating my food minus the dead animal I was supposed to be having.

    We like halal meat, but the halal butchers is an otherworld experience.

    ReplyDelete
  109. LOL habib!

    "Dead either way". :o)

    You sound like my son.

    "I'm not going into the kitchen while there is a bit of dead animal in there" is a common refrain when we have a roast joint.

    ReplyDelete
  110. BB - no, I don't think so. Halal meat is slaughtered in a particuarly horrible way.

    Sorry, MsChin!!!

    ReplyDelete
  111. Heyhabib - my sis is a fundie veggie. She is always telling me of the evils of meat eating. But as I point out to her - if we all stopped eating it there wouldn't be any cows and pigs etc. But I do eat meat that has been treated well - rather than factory farmed stuff.

    Thauma - ''My granny used to say that knickerless girls shouldn't climb trees.'' Hhmm, so that's where I have been going wrong!

    Anne - I wanted to say I am so sorry about the house. I hope it all gets sorted soon and you find a place you love.

    I cant listen to Mel Phillips - seriously I will just lose it and run amok in my lounge or some such. Speaking of running amok - and I know it was yesterdays debate but I have to side with Hank and Sherf on the debate about violence. I really try to live a peaceful life but when it comes to those fuckers in high up places then heads really should roll. And unfortunately I believe it is the only way to loosen their vice like grip on power. Off with their heads!

    Speaking of those in power - I had a vaguely rude dream about Tony Blair last night. I am really disturbed by myself now. Don't want to go to sleep tonight.

    ReplyDelete
  112. princesscc

    Jung would say your dream was compensatory - have you been having particularly nasty thoughts about Blair lately? Not that I could for a minute imagine why anyone would.... :p

    ReplyDelete
  113. The thing with cows, at least, is that they are incredibly stupid beasts. They're afraid of an unexpected gust of wind, so yes, of course they're going to be scared shitless any time they are being herded from one place to another. When they're being herded into an abattoir, they don't actually know that they're about to be killed -- they just know they're being forced to go somewhere and they don't like it. From what I know of the way they are butchered around here -- the death is extremely quick and painless.

    Pigs are another animal altogether. Pigs are intelligent and wonderful creatures. If they weren't so damn big, they'd make excellent pets. Still, I've been known to eat the cooked muscle tissue of a dead one in my day.

    Habib -- the thing is, if everyone stopped eating meat, what would happen to all the livestock? You can't exactly expect anyone to shoulder the expense of maintaining them with no prospect of financial remuneration and you can't exactly release them into the wild.

    ReplyDelete
  114. Okay, before anyone else says it: financial remuneration is a tad redundant.

    ReplyDelete
  115. I'm really sorry, Montana, but can you think of another time when the argument of your last sentence was spoken about another issue?

    Eat meat if you want to, everybody in my family does. It doesn't make me wrong or you right and besides which, I really miss the taste of it. Meat eaters don't have to defend themselves.

    Just eat.

    ReplyDelete
  116. Habib

    "can you think of another time when the argument of your last sentence was spoken about another issue?"

    Me! Me! I can! o/

    MPs!

    ReplyDelete
  117. For what it is worth.. My grandmother was a vegetarian since she saw a chicken slaughtered when she was aged ten. She stayed vegetarian when she was in a Japanese concentration camp and all there was to eat was wallpaper glue (rice pulp has some rudimentary nutritional value) and the other women and children were eating rats and bugs to try and stay alive. I am not strictly vegie, occasionally eating some good bits. If we realise that the Netherlands imports the produce of four times its surface area from the third world just in animal feed, something is askew. Also cattle do a lot of farting, which is methane, a rather more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2, so I would not condemn anyone for being a meat eater, I would just ask people to eat somewhat less than before.

    ReplyDelete
  118. But I do eat meat that has been treated well - rather than factory farmed stuff.

    I know nothing about 'industrial' cattle operations -- all the cattle farming in my area is still traditional family farms. However, there are some hog confinement operations around here. They're much more of a health hazard for the humans than they are for the hogs. The hogs, while it is true that they live their entire lives inside a building, are living in quite sanitary conditions. No, they don't get to wander around in a yard, rooting in the mud. But they and their enclosures are kept very clean, their health is closely monitored.

    Not unsurprisingly, several thousand pigs in one building tend to produce quite a bit of pig shit. This is channeled into lagoons and can seep into the groundwater, polluting local water supplies.

    ReplyDelete
  119. Change of subject - Portsmouth vs Arsenal starting now, and not a single Englishman on the pitch. Something for the UKBA threads perhaps? They come over here, take all our football jobs, undercut indigenous wages by accepting a mere £150,000 a week etc etc etc

    ReplyDelete
  120. Habib -- I'm not saying you're wrong not to eat meat. You referred to yourself as a veggie fundamentalist and, in my experience, fundamentalists of anything tend to think that everyone should do/believe what they do. I've been lectured by quite a few vegetarians who do think that way -- I was even told once that I can't be a proper progressive if I eat meat.

    As I think scherfig would agree, if you grow up around livestock production and butchering, it is hard to see it as anything other than perfectly normal. I've yet to meet a vegetarian who grew up on a farm. (Not to say that there aren't any...) And having no qualms about animals being butchered doesn't mean that you don't care about the welfare and living conditions of the animals while they're alive.

    I leapt to the conclusion that you felt everyone should be vegetarian. Sorry.

    ReplyDelete
  121. Apology is quite unnecessary, Montana. Veggie fundamentalists probably exist, but I don't think we're a movement, yet. (constipation joke).

    ReplyDelete
  122. I remember a letter in Viz that went something like "If we didn't kill the animals, then the animals would eat all the vegetables, and vegetarians would have to eat sausages like the rest of us." Logically pretty unassailable I think.

    I've been in Ikea once, and I think it says something very unpalatable about human psychology. It's like being a rat in a maze, yet before they opened a branch in Belfast, Ulsterbus used to order weekend breaks to Scotland just to go to Ikea. People will pay to go on holiday to be part of an animal behaviour experiment!

    ReplyDelete
  123. Problem is though, Medve, my son does a great deal more farting now than he did when he was an omnivore. All those beans and nuts.... So vegans could be dangereous to the ozone layer too. :o)

    ReplyDelete
  124. paddy

    Ikea = being a rat in a maze. True that!

    ReplyDelete
  125. Evening all!
    On being vegetarian..I've been one for 20 odd years admittedly I have had the odd lapse :)I wouldn't say I'm a fundamentalist at all, and as you said Montana, I have no interest in imposing my beliefs on others. I don't like the taste of meat, don't like all the antibiotics, steroid and crap they pump into animals
    I remember my mum coming home from school after their pet day, she taught in a country school. The kids brought rabbits, dogs, cats, ferrets etc but also a few lambs and goats. She asked a little girl "what's you lamb's name?" The girl replied "It doesn't have a name we're going to eat it.."
    here's one for you habib :) and for those of you not yet converted :)))

    BB tell your son to hold off the chick peas!!

    ReplyDelete
  126. I've never been to an Ikea either. Paddy, I absolutely cannot fucking imagine going on a 'shopping holiday'. Shopping is top of my list of things I hate doing. Up above having root canal surgery with no anaesthetic (which has happened to me).

    ReplyDelete
  127. Paddy - I am with you on the Ikea thing. Halfway around it I always start to develop a vague sense of unease that then starts to turn into panic - it is like a trap from which you can never escape. it seems endless.

    Habib - my dream was not THAT rude. BB - I have been having hate filled thoughts of him. Jesus - I might have erotic dreams of James Purnell too!

    Montana - I know what you mean about pigs because my sister tells me endlessly that they are one animal we should not eat due to being as intelligent as us monkeys nearly. I don't like Pork anyway - well except for bacon. I don't like lamb either - which seems to be everyone's favorite meat so it is plain old beef or chicken mostly for me. I was veggie for a few years - yonks ago - because my sis was and then my mum turned (she's now turned back) but I got anemic and doc told me to eat meat. I think a lot of women who are veggie need to take care and take iron.

    BB - your son sounds a lot less militant than my sister was when we were teenagers - she would freak if you even had meat in the house.

    ReplyDelete
  128. My sister's a vegetarian who doesn't eat vegetables. True story. She subsists on horrible processed cheese and white bread, mostly. Although, after her medical problems, she's been convinced to eat a bit of poultry now and again (on the grounds that poultry aren't very bright).

    ReplyDelete
  129. It has been shown that the methane emissions of vegetarians make a significant contribution to the green house effect. They are also a fucking fire hazard.

    ReplyDelete
  130. Actually, a scientist friend of mine co-authored an academic journal article on cows & methane production about 15 years ago. Bloody hilarious, even included historical references to flatulence!

    ReplyDelete
  131. MsChin,
    Very true, it has been proved that a fat bloke contributes as much methane as a small cow.
    Unfortuately I can't do links.

    ReplyDelete
  132. I saw this unbelievable Swedish documentary a few years ago. People actually go on holiday to an Ikea store in Sundsvall in Northern Sweden. It's almost a cult now! I'll try and find a decent link to the film, but here's an idea of what it's about.
    Mammon's Temple

    ReplyDelete
  133. I read someone describing a sunday trip to ikea could be Dante's tenth circle of hell....yep sounds a good to me!

    ReplyDelete
  134. ... root canal surgery with no anaesthetic (which has happened to me).

    You too??? More painful than labour, it was.

    I can't remember the name of the programme -- there was some show on the BBC in the mid-80s where they tried to explain different scientific advancements, etc. in very laymen's terms. They did a thing about alternative/renewable sources of energy and I remember that one of the things they said was being researched was some way of trying to harness the methane from cattle production to be used to generate electricity.

    ReplyDelete
  135. there are some very pet suitable pigs these days

    http://www.royaldandie.com/

    ReplyDelete
  136. Re the animal slaughtering thing. Until a few years ago there used to be small local abbatoirs all over the country which meant that animals didn't have to travel far (they get stressed herded up in trucks) and some farmers did their own slaughtering. EU regs changed all that and hundreds of local abbatoirs closed so we have far fewer now and animals have to be transported much longer distances.

    On top of that, animals waiting to be slaughtered get very stressed by the smell (blood) and seem to be aware they are in trouble - its really very distressing. Added to which the stunning technique doesn't always work - especially when there's pressure on to work fast. so sometimes you get animals hoisted on hooks by their back feet and having their throats cut while they're still conscious.

    There's no way round it - its a grim business.

    stoaty
    I new a bunch of mad Glaswegian climbers (Creagh Dhu Mountaineering club), back in the 60's who used to light their farts for fun when they were pissed. Don't know whether that helped or hindered global warming.

    ReplyDelete
  137. Montana hi
    I've seen the methane thing in use in India a friend in rajasthan has a farm which uses methane energy...also recently I saw a BBC programme about an NGO doing it with human poo in africa...:0

    ReplyDelete
  138. canine methane is THE WORST

    ReplyDelete
  139. i just went to look at the pigs and the website
    was announcing that paris hilton had just purchased one of their pigs,,

    ReplyDelete
  140. Heheh - there is a male acquaintance of mine for whom "No, can't mate, we're going to Ikea" has become a synonym for having to do anything at all with the missus that he doesn't want to do e.g. visit the garden centre, see rellies he doesn't like... :o)

    ReplyDelete
  141. 3p4

    ARgh! So now we are going to see minor slebs walking around with piglets in their handbags instead of chiuahuas?!! Kill me now...!

    ReplyDelete
  142. Sheff,
    Fart lighting is very common in some circles and can be quite spectacular. It is necessary to have someone you trust holding the lighter though.

    ReplyDelete
  143. BB ,, ,pakichick has fallen for your MaM joke,,i posted a small explaination

    ReplyDelete
  144. stoaty

    I would have trusted the Creagh Dhu lot with my life on a mountain - but when they were pissed they were lethal.

    ReplyDelete
  145. 3p4 and gandolpho

    I have apologised. Feeling a bit guilty about it now...

    ReplyDelete
  146. Montana, it's happened to you as well? I mean, they gave me anaesthetic, it just didn't work. So three hours of poking at my nerves with their evil little needles, and then announcing defeat on the third root. I think they were trying to stab it to death.

    Luckily I went to an oral surgeon to finish the job, and he had anaesthetic that wasn't past its use-by, and also knew what he was doing. Job done in 20 minutes or something.

    ReplyDelete
  147. ow ah oh

    "evil little needles"

    thats a fabulous phrase,,an album title or something

    ReplyDelete
  148. Thauma - that sounds horrendous! What an ordeal. My hubbies cousin doesn't eat any fruit or veg either - except for peas. He lives on meat and potatoes and pasta. And he is really healthy! Life is not fair.

    Sheff - You have made me think about the poor cows now. It is upsetting. There is a farm shop down rivelin way and I think they kill their own there and then sell the meat. If that is the case then that may be the way to go. Other than that I will just have to live on Chatsworth Venison - at least they know nothing about it. But you do have to watch out for bits of shot - and I would be bankrupt in a week!

    Right off to watch some telly before bed. So will say nite, nite all.

    ReplyDelete
  149. thaum and montana
    sounds like you've both re-enacted " marathon man " dental scene!

    bb she should have checked the link or maybe she did and thinks mam is the prison correspondent of the grauniad who spends hours of cathartic therapy on CiF !

    ReplyDelete
  150. Got one eye on The Turn of the Screw, which is on Beeb One. Love a good ghost story, me...

    ReplyDelete
  151. Thauma -- what happened to me was that the guy did some of it with anaesthetic and put a temporary filling in and had be come back a week later for him to finish it. When I came back, he didn't bother deadening it, as he thought he'd got the main part of the nerve removed. He stuck his little saw up inside my gum to saw away at what he apparently thought was such a small part of the nerve that it wouldn't need deadening.

    The actual sawing against the nerve was literally no more than a second, but it was absolutely the most excruciating pain that I've ever felt and it went through my entire body. I screamed & reflexively shoved the man's arm away from me. His reaction? "That couldn't possibly have hurt -- there's not enough nerve in there for you to feel anything."

    His assistant had to insist that he give me novocaine -- the asshole thought he was going to force me to let him stick that damn saw up there again with no novocaine! Turned out that what he'd left behind was bigger than what he'd taken out the week before. It was the last time I ever went to him for anything.

    ReplyDelete
  152. BB -- is that the horrible one with the incredibly over-rated Nicole Kidman?

    ReplyDelete
  153. That Dustin Hoffman's a terrible wimp. Psha.

    ReplyDelete
  154. Montana

    No, looks like a BBC dramatisation thingy to me.

    ReplyDelete
  155. Montana - yeah, they didn't believe me either. I could feel everything. After a while, it was so painful I just started sort of tripping on it.

    Turn of the Screw is Henry James (as you probably don't need telling) ... no idea who's in any adaptations.

    ReplyDelete
  156. thauma

    "After a while, it was so painful I just started sort of tripping on it".

    That's your body's endorphins kicking in, bloody good stuff.

    ReplyDelete
  157. I think you are thinking of The Others, Montana. This is a beeb dramatisation. Pretty damn spookeh so far.

    ReplyDelete
  158. Why won't the numpties at the BBC allow people outside the UK even watch an effing clip on their website? Eejits.

    I take it this is what you're watching?

    ReplyDelete
  159. Zzzzzz ... hasta mañana, amigos....

    ReplyDelete
  160. That's the one, Montana - I don't understand why they don't open iPlayer up worldwide, except that it must be a tv licence fee issue.

    ReplyDelete
  161. Oh, what the hell! Here's my BBC rant:

    I do not, for the life of me, understand why they can't figure out that they could actually make money by allowing people to subscribe to iPlayer. I know that I would be happy to pay a reasonable monthly fee to have access. If they charged even $20/month could drop down to bare-bones cable (broadcast channels only), pay the Beeb for iPlayer and still save money. I'd be willing to be there are quite a few people outside the UK who would be willing to pay for access to iPlayer.

    I actually e-mailed them once to suggest it, but never heard anything back.

    ReplyDelete
  162. I like Sue Johnston. Used to watch 'Waking the Dead' every week. Don't even know if IPTV still show it.

    ReplyDelete
  163. At the risk of being staid, I'd just like to point out that a 75kg super veggie human does a lot less farting per year than the several tens of tons of cattle needed to sustain -- say -- a Texan meat eater on a yearly basis. I also have it on good authority that human and bovine farts pose no risk at all to the ozone layer, but as I said before methane is a more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2

    ReplyDelete
  164. Sue Johnson is fab and a national treasure. Particularly love her in the Royle family!

    ReplyDelete
  165. ok so heres the most revolting bit of news today,, one of the tabs i have open whilst flitting round the various blogs i check out everyday is a canadian sports channel,,at the moment there is an annual hockey tournament taking place,,national youth teams 17-19 from
    canada states czech russia slovak latvian swedish finnish,,i just have it running quietly
    as a sound track,,so heres the thing,,i just heard an official governing body commercial promoting a fan chant sponsored by pepsi,,with shiny bits for the first million people who SIGN UP to adopt this banal peurile totallly yucky commercialization of A NATIONAL YOUTH TEAM,,
    pepsi,,fucking pepsi,,i have never purchased a pepsi,,(its a religious thing)(metaphorically)

    the corporation, having neither body to be punished nor soul to be condemmed does as it pleases,,Baron Thingy 1777

    i effin hate corporations but i rarely lose my rag like this causes,,

    ok i am done now,, oh yeah Baron Thurlow

    ReplyDelete
  166. Good news about the british hostage in iraq who has been released.

    ReplyDelete
  167. It's the Coke and snack machines in schools I particularly object to above anything else, 3p4. I am quite glad my lad turned into a fasco-vegan in some respects.

    ReplyDelete
  168. 3p4: good for you. Always good to get these things off one's chest.

    BB which good news? (obviously apart from the good news of some-one getting freed) That "Iran" is said to be behind the kidnap?

    ReplyDelete
  169. andysays

    More for your reading / researching for suitable reading list

    - Nancy Holmstrom - see this for example.

    - Not too old (1991) but mayhap an interesting read, so how could I have forgotten The Cyborg Manifesto

    ReplyDelete
  170. BB: more power to your son. My sons are also far more aware and responsible about the world than I ever was (at their ages). Perhaps there is still some hope.

    ReplyDelete
  171. if i were one of you clever writer types i might be able to illuminate how invidious and extra dangerous this is over school mchines and billboards and advertising in general,,this is bigger,,much much bigger

    ReplyDelete
  172. Medve

    I hadn't heard that Iran are supposed to be behind the kidnap. Hmm. Sounds a bit too convenient for me. I did hear that the US have released a prisoner too today though, it seems.

    ReplyDelete
  173. Just back from looking at the IPTV website. Anyone ever seen 'Wallander' with Kenneth Branagh? Apparently, it's filmed in the area where I was an au pair and I've recently missed seeing it by not paying any attention to what's on TV anymore.

    ReplyDelete
  174. 3p4

    I worked in South Africa and Lesotho for three whiles in 2000 and was shocked to see Coca Cola signs fixed to every school. A local ANC dignitary explained that it was because the Coca Cola company had graciously offered to install free vending machines in every school in exchange for the advertising rights on the billboards. Oh well.

    ReplyDelete
  175. BB

    yeah. have a look at our favourite grauniad.

    ReplyDelete
  176. Here in the US, they did more than install free vending machines to get into the schools -- they donated sports equipment, offered a cut of the profits from the machines and all sorts of other financial incentives for the schools.

    ReplyDelete
  177. Montana

    The Wallander series is good. I have seen one or two of them. Beautiful scenery, amongst other things. Branagh is brilliant as the dishevelled melancholy lead in it

    Medve - thanks. Nothing about that on the beeb website that I could see. I will take a look.

    ReplyDelete
  178. Nah. Too bloody convenient.

    I do not trust a word anyone says any more in the news without there being some sort of corroboration that stands up on its own. I am a cynical old soul these days.

    ReplyDelete
  179. Montana

    I failed to mention the invisible cash dealt out to local "dignitaries".

    ReplyDelete
  180. BB

    Good for you. And your opinion is authoritative from where I am.

    ReplyDelete
  181. Time for bed, so good night all.

    ReplyDelete
  182. Bloody hell! Princesschipchops's dream about Blair was prophetic!

    EEEEEEEEEK!

    ReplyDelete
  183. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete