28 June 2010

28/06/10

Sunset in rural southern China, uncredited from a travel website

Hunger makes a thief of any man.
-Pearl S. Buck

218 comments:

  1. Hellfire, poor stuff yesterday from England. Going into the game I was confident enough – hadn’t seen anything from the Germans that suggested they would do us over like that. Then again, I wasn’t expecting our back four to play like they’d only just met on the bus on the way to the game, or our midfield to forget that you’re allowed to pass the ball to a team mate, or our front two to remember that the net-type thing in front of them is for putting the bouncy useless plastic fucking Jabulani beachball in.

    Ah well. At least we beat the hated Aussies in dramatic and sickening (for them) fashion to wrap up the NatWest series, and Leeds United will be promoted to the Premiership at the end of next season.

    Result!

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  2. Beat the ozzies in the second rugby test a fortnight ago too, apparently only our third ever test win in Oz - they werent happy.

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  3. Swifty:

    The excuse on GMTV this morning is that the wives and girlfriends weren't allowed to give them their support.

    Hmpf ;)

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  4. @La Ritournelle:

    LOL, add that to the long list of reasons why we just weren't good enough...

    I think every team we played in the tournament sussed our great weakness out early doors - our utter inability to keep the ball under pressure.

    We lacked width where it counted; we didn't support each other - I lost count of the times one of our "players" was put under pressure and was unable to find the "out ball"; we lacked pace all over the pitch; when Heskey is your manager's first choice of "do or die" sub; and when your keeper's your best player, despite having four put past him, it's time for a bit of a re-think.

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  5. Swifty:

    You summed it up perfectly. It was just bloody awful - I reckon they've been spending too much time on exclusive golf courses forgetting they're supposed to be 'team' players!

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  6. Wanted: 11 fit blokes who understand what makes a good team player. Must have a gsoh and the ability to eat humble pie.

    Remuneraion - 50p a week and a free bus pass.

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  7. There was a great bit of commentary, something like: "They really need to give it a go now, make the changes. Heskey's started warming up."

    You knew then it was all over.

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  8. Saw one of these monsters yesterday....

    http://www.habitas.org.uk/dragonflyireland/5620.htm

    If this is described as a 'medium-sized' dragonfly, lord knows what the 'large' dragonfly is! It was hoooge ;0)

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  9. Eeek -I'm an Untrusted Visitor ! Who is from NZ ?

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  10. Well, at least there'll be rejoicing in the corridors of the Graun and its North London heartland now we've been knocked out.

    Next up on Comment Is Free - How 4-1 to Germany goes some way to atone for England's colonial, racist past. By Philippa Column (additional research by Wikipedia).

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  11. From yesterday -

    BB- Jaffa cakes are the nourishment of the bourgeous yellow bellied neo-liberal running dogs

    They are well tasty though

    Well they always hog all the best stuff don’t they?

    Jaffa cakes for the masses I say!

    On 'other things' - glad I'm not a footy fan - managed to not watch any of it so far! But the state of our team does reflrct the state of the system doesn't it?

    Capitalism is now not only a vicious exploiter of the poor, it is completely useless and cannot take the human race forward in any way - they spoilt effete 'footballers' are about as pointless and disgusting as spoilt bankers.

    Its a break on human progress - and a denial of human decency away with it!

    I can remember when footballers went to the match by bus! Then it really was the people's game.

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  12. @La Rit

    Thanks very much for your message yesterday, which I've just seen. No problem. :-)

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  13. Short England analysis:

    P4: W1,D2,L1
    Goals For 2, Against 5
    The two goals were scored by a centreback and a midfielder, and not a single goal from a striker in 360 minutes of football.

    You can draw your own conclusions.

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  14. Well, we'll never know how the second half would have panned out if we'd ended the first at 2-2.

    What interests me is Blatter and Co.'s motives for refusing a goal-line technology routinely used in all high-street shops, where they can tell immediately if an unpaid item crosses the line.

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  15. Yep, I'm most unhappy with the decisions in this world cup: I'm being docked points in the work predictions sweepstake on a technicality!

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  16. The Daily Mash has a summary of the football technology debate:

    "The use of television has been a source of controversy in the sport, but experts insist it offers a fool-proof method for determining whether a team is good at football or whether it is simply a collection of absurdly over-compensated, second-rate commercial brands with ghastly, vulgar wives, locked in a sado-masochistic relationship with a cretinous media that merely reflects a society that has taken its natural intelligence, its sense of perspective and its values and violently drowned them all in a bucket of piss."

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  17. Spike-- total complete mystery to me too. Any body got a suggestion, apart from that FIFA and all who sail in it are incredibly stupid about anything except their own corrruption?

    The cost of such systems would I think be pretty minimal , esp compared to £50,000 a week salaries.

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  18. Just logged on to the 'World Cup daily' thread on the Graun football page. On of the links on the side of the page is:

    Bestsellers from the Guardian shop

    Heimat: A chronicle of Germany


    Either a Jock is in charge of links or they need to change their keyword sensors.

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  19. @Duke

    Since you drew our attention to Wyrdtimes, I have paid more attention to his (I assume it's his) output. Extraordinary tenacity in sticking to a single point and introducing it everywhere. He must really miss the Druids.

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  20. Some big questions have to be answered by the England team today,"Window seat or aisle?" being the first. Frankly,I see the Lampard "goal" as a red herring, a means of deflecting attention away from how poor England were over the whole tournament.Counter-factuals are fun for debate, but shouldn't distract from what did happen, not merely in that game yesterday, but the three earlier ones too.

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  21. Peter,

    a perfect example. This from WADYYA from England's no.1 fan:

    England.

    The world cup pointed out two things about England a) England are shit at football. b) despite it being over 300 years since England was a proper nation the vast majority here still identify as English first.

    Isn't it time to consult on an English parliament to work in the interests of the English people? Something the The UK government will always (by definition) fail to do.

    England one nation.

    (yes this again - it's never going away)

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  22. @Duke

    I think he's slipping - there was no mention of the £1600 more every Scot gets from England each year...

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  23. A bug report for Montana:

    The Science section of Untrusted reads has no way of leaving a comment. (Not that i wanted to post a sciencey something ...)

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  24. Alisdair-agreed.

    We woz robbed just ain,t gonna cut it this time.We woz crap in all the matches and were lucky to make it to the last 16.

    @@Duke

    This new liquid gold find is estimated to be 300m barrels of oil of which 150m are extractable.Worth at current prices around £11.4 billion.Though that is based on current finds.Could be up to 800M barrels in that sector.

    Bet Alex Salmond has been working on his next speech all night.Whilst of course celebrating with a few drams of Scotlands finest.

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  25. @Alisdair

    Well, they were starting to play well against Slovenia - if the Slovenian goalkeeper hadn't been so good, it could easily have been 3-0 - and when they actually woke up in the last quarter-hour of the first half yesterday, they looked to be on fire.

    As I've said, we'll never know how they would have played if they'd gone into the second half at 2-2. Playing catchup leaves you open to counterattacks.

    The defence were all over the place in the first half-hour of the match and the midfield were bunching in the centre all through, but at the end of the first half, the German defence were looking extremely patchy, something everyone seems to have forgotten today in the usual English masochism-fest.

    And not giving a start to Joe Cole and bringing on bloody Heskey again? I blame Capello, myself. And Wayne Rooney certainly doesn't play like that for United. Not fully recovered? Not used properly? If he was fully recovered, I'd have played a 4-5-1, but then I'm not England manager

    I'd be a crap manager, but I think even I'd have done a better job of selection than Capello. Asking Paul Scholes to join the squad five minutes before the final stage? Good grief! Even if he hadn't played full matches, Scholes would have been infinitely better than Lampard.

    And if the ball tears a hole through the netting, even FIFA linesmen can't fail to notice it's crossed the line.

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  26. Duke

    Meant Alex Salmond celebrating the English defeat.Getting his hands on the oil will be a very different matter-hence the need for the speech.

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  27. Excellent Graham Taylor interview on the Today programme at around 1:30. Asked if Blatter should resign over the goal-line incident, he laughed and said there were a lot of things Blatter should resign over, but we all know it's not going to happen.

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  28. Peter,

    Old Wyrd appears to be making the link that England are cobblers at football because they don't have their own Parliament.

    I wonder if someone could nip onto WADYYA to explain that ever since Scotland got her own Parliament in 1998 they have qualified for nothing! The successful campaign for qualification for the 98 world cup took place before the Parliament came into being.

    I think that may be enough to make him explode in a kaleidscope of red and white- Scotland have been subsidised by the English taxpayer and still can't qualify.

    And this impeccable empirical evidence shows that if England gets her own parliament, she won't qualify for a tournament again.

    Paul,

    I have every confidence that the oil discovered will fuel Cameron's tax cuts for the rich the same way Thatcher used the oil to fund her socio-economic 'experiments'.

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  29. Hi Spike:

    Glad you saw me message. Thanks ;0)

    Been feeling pretty shitty about it all weekend...beating myself up about various stuff is one of my specialities, so I am now drowning my sorrows with a couple of German Bratwurst from Lidl's and a hard boiled egg.

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  30. Hey LaRit

    Hope things have eased up for you a bit.

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  31. No sooner suggested than done, Duke.

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  32. @La Rit

    German Bratwurst, today?

    Spike gets out his Wall's sausages and Crosse & Blackwell baked beans

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  33. Excellent Peter, I look forward to the reply!

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  34. Speaking of English products, I do love the Indian and Sri Lankan grocers' shops in Paris.

    I didn't even know Pond's Cold Cream still existed.

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  35. When will I ever learn not to read the comments on the benefits threads on Cif, they put me in a bad mood for the whole day.

    What do people think would actually happen if welfare was removed?

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  36. Hey Paul,

    Ah, thanks for asking chuck ;)

    A combination of many factors had really turned me into a stewing, miserable mess over the last few months, I just went down into the hole last week because I didn't make the shortlist for a music job I'd applied for ... when the economic situation is like this any set-back seems like a major blow as the jobs I really want to do and I'm qualified for that have the right hours/money etc...come up very infrequently and so the competition is stiff - you start getting paranoid about your age, name, school you went to, abilities.... the list just goes on and on.

    The problem with our neighbour is ongoing but we're trying to work out a strategy about it, so I'm off to the CAB this week to get some advice, also, decided to jack my (part time) job in as it's gone from bad to worse and it was really getting me down. You start to think you've no options left.

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  37. Spike:

    I don't know what came over me.......

    ;-)

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  38. Spike

    surely you can't manage to eat a Walls' breadcrumb sausage after 30 years in frogland .You're winding us up.

    In Caen I get all that stuff from the general purpose north and west african/asian 7/11. Patak's lime pickle a l'instant.

    Talking about crimes against food: every saturday morning there are 20 brits outside the Bar des Sports the other side of the street to the busy vegetable & fish market. Never seen any of them actually buy anything there.

    After all food comes only from supermarkets.

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  39. Don't think this'll last on waddya, it make I larf..

    InvisibleDirigible
    28 Jun 2010, 11:54AM
    Seeing as Julie Bindel gets to write about Snoop Dogg can we have a right of reply ?

    Could the opening salvo be:

    Guess who's back in the mutha****** house,
    With a fat d*** for Julie Bindel's m____.

    ; )

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  40. @La Rit

    As I said, no problem at all. Water under the bridge. :-)

    These are hard times. Just over a year ago, I was wondering if I'd have to sell the house after four months with not enough to pay the bills, but then fortunately the work started coming in again. Not to the level of two or especially three years ago though. Can't complain about my situation, though, although it can get a little scary being self-employed because there's no unemployment insurance safety net, and incoming tax and social security contributions are based on what you earned in previous years, so if you're an optimistic idiot like me and have spent it all...

    I hope something comes up for you soon, but just remember it's not you, it's the sodding banks and capitalism in general.

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  41. @frog2

    Ah, nothing like breadcrumb sausages with bacon, egg, baked beans, mushrooms, tomato and fried bread. My French mates and family all rave about my Full Englishes.

    Saucisses de Toulouse just don't work with a Full English. It'd be like putting Wall's finest in a cassoulet.

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  42. Hello. 'Young Nap' here.

    1. My laptop's ability to acess the internet broke down last week.
    2. I lost my mobile phone yesterday.

    Other than that. I am fine. I wish everyone the best, won't be on here or on Cif for a while

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  43. Bindel on Snoop, this has to be in the top 10 all time Guardian twat list for wankishness well beyond the realms of parody. Just excruciating in every possible way.

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  44. Invisible Dirigible's put another cracker up (well,made me smile), which may not last so here it is:
    I would like to talk about the guardian luvvie set and how one becomes a member.

    In preparation I have spent the past week with a homemade blue "C" stuck to my forehead. Admittedly this has caused tension at work.

    I also on occasion take a bus that goes through Islington (The 341) and I try to sit as close as possible to the mummies with the bugaboo prams. Admittedly this has caused tension on the bus. Especially when combined with the blue "C".

    I am proficient at air kissing and fawning. I have also prepared a short article on socks.

    My intention is to worm my way into the group and then deliver a devastating critique on the fatuous and masturbatory nature of posting on Cif, preferably whilst pretending to be a girl. Again I have done preparation although the disclosure of which would in all likelihood prejudice my upcoming court case

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  45. I never wathced the football match.
    Yesterday I went to Edinburgh. Anyway, about 5pm along Princes street come a gang of thugs in England shirts-- 'Ten German bombers in the air' they sang, literally all 10 of them were marching down Princes street shoulder to shoulder at immense speed (comparable to a waffen SS goose step), shoppers, old ladies, tourists and me were shoved to the side.

    I was fucking mad at the scum. I am English, how dare they. The sitaution hfor English people in Scotland is dleicate. In all my time living in Glasgow no one made jokes or insulted me for being English (in fact they were more joking towards me when they found out I was from Stornoway, that I am a 'teuchter'.) So these fucking scum, all they are doing is reinforicng the worst apects and stereotypes of the English to the Scots, rampaging down Princes street like they owned the place. I nearly went back to go and wallop the lot of them. Hose them down with a shower.

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  46. @turm

    You were right. Deleted already. :-)

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  47. @ Nap K
    Hose them down with a shower. Or maybe hose 'em down with a,um, hose. Just sayin'. :)

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  48. Hose this shower down?
    Down with this showers hose?
    Show this hose downer?
    etc : )

    Worse thing about Embra, all the flaming English! (Yes, I'm guilty too!)

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  49. Dying like flies on the Diane Abbott thread.

    Jay, you're right - Bindel has finally retreating entirely into her own rectum:

    Next Week: Trevor Phillips on "The Wisdom of Skrewdriver"

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  50. TX:

    "Guess who's back in the mutha****** house,
    With a fat d*** for Julie Bindel's m____."

    You shouldn't feed dates to mice

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  51. "Coalition's plans include taking people off higher rate of benefits if tests reveal they are fit to do some work"

    First crit is how much is 'some' work ? A quadraplegic who types with his chin and can talk is fit for 'some work' in a call-centre, or tele-working from home or hospital , or what ?

    I was in hospital a year ago with two young accidented blokes who could , just , do that, pretty slowly. And they got tired after a time , sometimes lasted an hour or two, sometimes knackered after ten minutes. They quite often had completely sleepless nights.

    Aw shit-- outside to be active.
    ---------------

    (@ Spike Last Full English was in Auckland so I wondered about our NZ visitor.
    @ NapK -- I wonder what speedkermit thinks about your singing thugs.

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  52. Thanks anyway, my internet acess in the libary is about to run out.

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  53. "NapK -- I wonder what speedkermit thinks about your singing thugs."

    They're probably just misunderstood.

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  54. frog

    It is the 'some' work that is worrying along with the who decides and against which criteria ?

    Jenni

    They can hardly pull all benefits leaving millions without any income. I suspect the idea is to take them as low as possible - drive people to search for work enabling the minimum wage to disappear completely.

    The alternative is perhaps a plan to create gangs of wandering beggars thus solving the housing crisis for the deserving poor, increasing the need for private security guards for the rich thereby creating more jobs.

    Each parish could assume responsibility for the beggars on its patch. This would enhance the power of the parochial church councils who could register as charities, claim grants, hold jumble sales in order to finance the workhouses they would build. The workhouse inmates could then be put to work producing body armour in exchange for a rope to lean on and a plate of gruel.

    Enforced sterilisation would be introduced - thus solving many problems within a generation.

    Think woman think - you will clearly never a politician make.

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  55. Leni that was just the beginning of a potential comment ....in case the Welfare Crackdown thing was opened. No time to run with it.
    Sunhat and shades and away XX

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  56. @Leni

    It looks like we are headed for a return to some sort of Poor Law system. I can't quite decide whether it's the Pre-Elizabethan or the Post-Elizabethan version.

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  57. Leni

    Think woman think - you will clearly never a politician make.

    That's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. ;)

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  58. Fuck me that Diane Abbott thread is risible. Nothing about her hypocrisy allowed on the one hand, and then on the other, some real right-wing fuckwittery. Pray tell, if folk move out in search of work, what happens to the places left behind and the remaining folk there?
    A certain Belgium-based correspondent has excelled on that thread with a pearler (1.04pm),beating previous standards of posts.

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  59. Leni

    Before Mary Seacole and Florence Nightingale improved nursing care for sick and wounded soldiers in the Crimea life was made as uncomfortable for such men in order to get them back to the frontline ASAP.Seems the main thinking behind current welfare reform is the same.To make life as uncomforable as possible for all working aged people on unemployment and disability benefits so they,ll be forced to take any crap job.

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  60. AC - agreed. The Bru post is a thing of awesome crassness.

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  61. Peter

    An early refernce to racism (Other than anti Jewish ones ) is an instruction from Elizabeth 1 to get rid of 'this sort of people ' with reference to 'Saracens' - probably Africans and Middle easteners in general.

    This is interpretated as concern that immigrants were taking jobs from local people.

    Shortage of jobs, increasing poverty and poor housing standards have generally been accompanied by anti-immigration/incresed racism as the rulers fear the anger of the hungry and dispossessed.

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  62. Alisdair

    Ooh i dunno there!'Her' input on a recent MH thread still leaves me gobsmacked.

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  63. @Paul:

    ...life was made as uncomfortable for such men in order to get them back to the frontline ASAP.

    Not really. It was just that no one who could do anything about it ever cared particularly about the health or otherwise of the ordinary soldier - whether they died or not just didn't matter that much. Hell, even the ordinary soldiers didn't care that much about each other.

    The Crimean War was a bit of a watershed in a number of ways, at least as far as the British Army was concerned.

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  64. Afternoon all

    Just finished toiling over a hot VAT return, so I am having a well-earned skive and a cuppa.

    Haven't looked at CiF yet - Abbott's thread sounds...erm...interesting. Will take a shufty.

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  65. Just stuck something on UT2.

    I was having a problem with html tags and spent a heroic 4 minutes trying to solve the formatting mindful of the fact I have to go to the town square, drink Heineken and roar on the Dutch.

    Apologies for the formatting towards then end of the piece. It shouldn't take away from the piss poor quality.

    Hup Holland Hup

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  66. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  67. Swiftboy

    My understanding is that when Nightingale first went to the Crimea and saw how shocking the conditions were for the wounded British troops-compared to the French-she was obstructed by the military in her attempts to improve things..And one of the reasons for this is the reason i stated previously.

    Incidentally whilst establishing herself Nightingale refused all offers of help from Seacole who was speciality was treating cholera.And unlike Nightingale Seacole also treated soldiers on the battlefield.

    It,s pretty shameful IMHO that in this country Seacole,s considerable contribution is usually overlooked by Nightingale,s.For in British folklore it is the 'Lady of the Lamp' who is given all the credit for improving the conditions for wounded soldiers in the Crimea.

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  68. Ew. Going to keep out of that one. The usual fortunate suspects, unable to recognise that all people are not born equal, with the same life chances, intelligence and talent, preaching to those at the bottom of the heap for not having the "moral fibre" to get off their arses and relocate.

    Eejits.

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  69. Back on the internets. It must be the broadband connection in the house- I can use it elsewhere fine now.

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  70. Several small grandchildren just left - house resembles bomb site - bit like the Bindel thread.

    Personally I could never get on with rap - all that hos, bitches, porno, self conscious macho strutting and bling. And as for snoop; my instinct is to shoot him on sight, ironically enough. Fuck him and his music. Bindel is weird it has to be said.

    Apropos of the women thing, a (male) friend of mine is out in Guatamala and says the attitude to women there is terrifyingly hostile, men appear to despise them utterly, though I don't know whether that's reflected in their music the way it is in a lot of rap. His daughter is working out there and he has serious anxieties about it. The attrition rate in women's lives is appalling - and the authorities apparently can't or won't do anything about it.

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  71. @NapoleonK

    I only use wi-fi with the laptop. Apart from anything else, download and connection rates are so much faster with a cable. Watching live footie is impossible on wi-fi, the picture freezes every two minutes, usually just before a bit of goal action.

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  72. I changed my mind and had a rant. Gonna leave it at that though because it is too hot a day for my blood to be boiling...

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  73. @Paul:

    ...she was obstructed by the military in her attempts to improve things..And one of the reasons for this is the reason i stated previously.

    Not so. The Army was simply indifferent to the suffering of the wounded, as I said. And it started right at the top, with good old one-armed FitzRoy Somerset, the 1st Baron Raglan.

    There was never any attempt to get wounded soldiers back onto the Crimean battlefields by making their lives in hospital so unbearable that they preferred to take their chances with shot and shell.

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  74. Sheff

    Your now deleted post was really intersting!

    There is an ongoing debate in Britian,s Black communities about the lyrics you quite rightly object too.And as with Bindel there are many who seperate their love for the beat with their objection to the lyrics.

    Personally i can,t get my head around that way of thinking.Can,t see a White group getting away with making music that is rife with sexist and homophobic lyrics as well as encouraging machismo as well as glorifying violence.So i suspect an element of cultural relativism has crept into Bindels warped thinking on this.And she is old enough to know better.For in Black communities there is a clear generational split with older generations bought up on lovers rock etc questioning the lyrics whilst younger generations of both sexes more inclined to accept accept them.

    I am surprised that a rad fem like Bindel isn,t more questioning as to why so many young Black and White women are drawn to men like Snoop who clealy treat them with contempt on some level-irrespective of how good the actual music is.And surely must contribute to encouraging young men to believ you have to 'treat a woman mean to keep her keen'.

    Finally in London we have a growing problem of young men gang-raping young women.And a disproportinate number of these are committed by young Black men.-and the majority of victims are young Black women.A few years ago when i first saw a programme which alerted me to this i was shocked by the attitude of some of the mothers of perpetrators who had been sent to jail.They refused to take any responsibility for their sons attitudes to women and one dismissed it as 'Boys being boys and girls being girls'.So the examples set at home are another worrying dimension to this problem.But more relevant to the wider debate there is the question as to whether these lyrics as-well as female responses- are a factor in explaining why some young men clearly have no respect for women.

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  75. sheff

    Oops your post is still there.Must have been hallucinating!

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  76. The Bru post is a thing of awesome crassness.

    This pretty much sums up every Bru post, doesn't it? I've always found it amusing that, every time a new poster pops up and says anything negative about her, she and her Greece-based fangirl both assume it's Monkeyfish -- as if he's the only person in the world who thinks she's a vapid waste of space.

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  77. Morning all!!

    I just read the Duke's post over on UT2.

    Quality.

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  78. Off now to admire the beginnings of the tan I got at Le Zoute over the weekend. Dahlings .

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  79. Paul

    I deleted it to do a slight re write and reposted it.

    I understand what you're talking about. Black friends of mine (my generation), mostly of Afro-Caribbean extraction, are quite bewildered by it and frightened by its effect on the attitudes of their children and grandchildren.

    You can see its reach in the post code gangs in Sheffield (by no means all black kids - there seem to be plenty of white boys aspiring to the cult). the gangs are very difficult to avoid if you're young and you live in the areas - so parents worry all the time about what's happening to their kids.

    My grandson is 12 and has already been approached several times by members of a gang in his neighbourhood.

    If misogynistic and violent rap is the only way that some boys/men can feel they are 'properly' men then we have reached an appalling place. Its very depressing.

    As for Bindel - she's a stupid cow.

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  80. #I've always found it amusing that, every time a new poster pops up and says anything negative about her, she and her Greece-based fangirl both assume it's Monkeyfish -- as if he's the only person in the world who thinks she's a vapid waste of space.#

    It bothers me as it goes. They sure as fuck aren't all me. I can give you a few pointers: if the poster in question writes anything which suggests he/she might be addressing a person with any discernible self-awareness, intellect or empathy for anyone outside a small circle of mutually supportive sycophantic parasites then it isn't one of mine...oooh..except the brown babies of course..she just loves the brown babies...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3wG8_VCCM8

    Give it 40 seconds

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  81. sheff

    You,re right -plenty of White and Asian guys are aspiring to this hybrid culture as well.But Black guys are very much the top of the pile in neighbourhoods with a large Black communtiy.And i say not to posture but as a fact as i see it.

    Dr Tony Sewell has done a lot of work dealing with the subject of what he calls hyper-masculinity-specifically amongst young Black men.Has made some enemies as a result as like a growing number of Black people he refuses to put the root causes for this -and other problems-on White racism.And once you start going down that route you immediately find yourself in the middle of a PC minefield.

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  82. Sheff

    Meant to say Dr Sewell refuses to put ALL the root causes etc

    I,m too bleedin quick to submit my post!

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  83. "I've done 18 hour days working on third world aid over a lengthy period of time so don't assume you know anything at all about my life."

    Any guesses who this might be.....

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  84. Monkeyfish

    ''except the brown babies of course..she just loves the brown babies...''

    It,s this seasons must-have accessory my dear!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  85. Gandolfo

    could be why third world aid is failing to lift millions out of poverty.

    ReplyDelete
  86. just read Bru's comment on the Abbot thread - example of which is:

    Directors of multinational companies, particularly those from the US, have usually moved country several times before they end up in Brussels. The same is true of the diplomatic services.

    She should do stand up! Where would we be without her. I spluttered my lunch all over the keyboard.

    ReplyDelete
  87. This song makes me feel better expresses my feelings about life the universe and everything at the moment!...

    and the chorus of This expresses my feelings about the footy!

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  88. Leni
    LOL
    I'm feeling that that remark should be plagerised and posted.......;)

    ReplyDelete
  89. Paul

    It is a pc minefield as you say. Interesting prog on R4 now about attitudes towards Tyson's rape conviction and how it has divided the black comunity in the US.

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  90. Paul

    I spent some of my childhood in Liverpool so was quite used to people of all colours, shapes and sizes.

    When I was about 6 had a christian missionary type teacher who was always talking about the 'brown babies' who needed help - I couldn't imagine what these brown babies looked like or where they lived. i didn't connect them to the black kids I played with.

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  91. Peter - call that £1600 a part payment for the harrowing of the highlands OK?

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  92. @anne

    It's Wyrdtimes who has a problem with it, not me!

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  93. Sorry - didn't get that it was a quote - been shopping, am hot, brain not working!

    Time for a siesta methinks!

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  94. Oh, sweet motherofgod! I just had a look at Bru's comments (went to her profile rather than the Abbott thread -- you should take a peek. It's pure comedy gold).

    She really couldn't be any more of a self-righteous, self-absorbed, out-of-touch elitist bitch if she tried, could she? If I didn't know better, it would be easier to believe that she's a parody.

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  95. Just a quick visit... trying to get something constrcutive done!

    SheffP:

    re: Rap music.... this was a great prog. on Radio 4 this week.... well worth a listen if you have time and will give you a diff. perspective on Rap... it ain't all bitches n ho's. Public Enemy were superb, using rap as a political tool....

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00ss468/The_Black_CNN_When_Hip_Hop_Took_Control/

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  96. Leni

    Did you know i first became a dad at 7?

    The nuns at my primary school managed to con-vince most in my class to part with our pocket money to adopt a 'poor black baby in Africa.Those who fell for it were given a card which had a religious picture-natch-and a space for us to put the name of the child we were adopting.Which of course had to be a saints name.

    Can,t remember the name of my boy but i,ve often thought about him.And wonder whether he ever thinks about his 'dear old dad'.:-)

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  97. I've been on waddya trying to persuade PeterB to do a piece on the deluded left who support terrorism.

    I really think we need a thread on this - perhaps someone here with a blue C could write a rebuttal of this nonsense ? It would make an interesting thread.

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  98. Paul

    Chances are that he is dead already.

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  99. @Leni

    It's not entirely nonsense among some small sections of the left, surely?

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  100. La Rit

    it ain't all bitches n ho's.

    I know it's not..tbh though, I don't like the music enough to explore it. In the community centre where I used to work there were music workshops where the kids could rap and they did - about their lives and each other. The mysoginism and violence were obviously discouraged but it'd creep in.

    The bitches and hos aspect of it is popular with the gangs round here.

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  101. Paul

    Yes - it was to do with money. I remember taking money to school for the brown babies.

    Funding whom I wonder ?

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  102. Peter

    No - but support for terrorism of various types is connected to different agenda driven ideologies.

    This is the discussion point I am interested in.

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  103. Leni

    ''Funding whom I wonder ? ''

    Themselves i,ll bet.Once that convent door was shut of an evening it was off with their habits and party time!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  104. @Leni

    There needs to be a clear distinction between support for a political objective and support for the tactics used in attempts to bring about that objective. Once you start accepting 'we can't be too fussy' arguments while supporting organisations whose tactics involve mass civilian casualties, then you've lost.

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  105. LaRit

    I,m with Sheff on this one.Rapping about your own lifes experience,making political statements etc can be positive.But when the misogyny,homophobia and glorification of violence starts creeping in,which it invariably does with the high profile artists ,then it becomes problematic.Because these high profile rappers are generating a trickle down effect(hate that expresion)right into the hearts of many communtites.And it is these communtites which are the ones blighted too often with violent crime,sex crime etc as well as poverty and social alienation.

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  106. Peter

    Agreed again but we are then left with questions around right to resist and defend.

    The root of the problem lies in the accepted view that violence - state authorised or irregular - is a legitimate political , commercial tool.

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  107. Paul

    I always associate Alpha Males with gorillas - though gorillas are more peaceful generally than mad men with a devotion to the superiority of the y chromosme.

    The mighty Y shouting - "We want violent expression and we wnt it now".

    This trend towards aggresive masculinity is alarming and is harming many of our young men - even quite young boys who buy into the idea.

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  108. @Leni:

    This trend towards aggresive masculinity is alarming...

    ...but not really new. Indeed, I’m pretty sure every generation preceding ours has been equally alarmed by the seeming self-destructiveness and general wrong-headedness of a proportion of its young males.

    It's not the end of the world just yet.

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  109. swifty

    it's more the alpha types who run business and the money markets - a much more dangerous offshoot of masculinity. Alpha male is used to describe apparently 'desired' masculine traits.


    Guys who fail this test have to compete somehow - look at some of the complete Bozoes young men are offered as role models. Nasty, swaggering types - like action man with gripping hands - you can see the gravel rash on their knuckles.

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  110. swifty

    I think you're right in terms of every generation being alarmed by the behaviour and attitudes of young people - and certain groups of young males in particular. In my youth adults were worried about teddy boys and the licentious influence of rock 'n roll, which seems laughable now.

    The difference now is that attitudes have become more extreme, society in the west is much more overtly sexualised and its reaching younger and younger kids. There's more access to the 'pleasures' of violence by proxy; for example, all these computer games the kids play that are based on war and killing etc.

    You see sex 'n violence everywhere these days, on tv, cinema, advertising, it's hardly surprising that it influences the way some kids think. For my generation it was all much more hidden - plenty of things wrong with that too.

    Take horror/slasher etc films (some truly disgusting, imo) are also everywhere and people seem to love them. Why?

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  111. swifty

    I suppose military indifference in the Crimea to the plight of wounded soldiers could be interpreted as a ploy to get them back to the front-line as much as them not giving a shit whether they died or not.Sadly as neither of us were there we only have historical testimony to rely on.Which of course is always open to different interpretations.

    I accept the wording of my original post gave the impression that it was an absolute fact that it was a military ploy.As indeed the wording of your post gave the impression that it was an absolute fact that i was wrong.With a different wording however i,m sure we can agree that there may well have been some truth in the point i was making-even though there is no record of it being official military policy at the time.

    ReplyDelete
  112. The culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, apparently ssuggested (today?), that hooliganism played a part in the Hillsborough football disaster.

    His actual words were: "the "terrible problems" of "Heysel and Hillsborough in the 1980s seem now to be behind us".

    Great isn't it? The fucking 'culture' minister...words fail me!

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  113. Tinkered about with the format for my UT2 piece and it's been modified to look a bit better.

    Sheff,

    Hunt's comments are indicative of the entrenched establishment view of Hilsborough and why I doubt we'll see justice. Remember, not only were they Northern, but they were also football fans ergo they deserved everything they got.

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  114. Yr Grace

    they were also football fans ergo they deserved everything they got.

    Yup..agreed

    Completely forgot about your piece....! Will have shufty now.

    ReplyDelete
  115. Well done to whoever put up the picture of the bridge being decorated at Orgreave.Can,t believe it,s just over 26 years since that battle.

    It,s very relevant we remember that because those communities formerly dependant on coal have not recovered to this day.And are actually a testament to what can happen within a generation to once thriving communites once their economic base has been decimated.Young and skilled people move out,crime rates rise,families break down,health breaks down,possible increases in drug and alcohol consumption further fuelling crime rates etc etc.And these trends are what the ConLib coalition want to encourage by getting unemployed working aged council tenants to move out and seek work.Leaving behind the elderly,the sick and those who for whatever reason are deemed unemployable.

    ReplyDelete
  116. it was me Paul..a few of us were over there at the weekend, around the anniversary - we go every year.

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  117. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  118. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  119. Lovely piece Yr Grace - will forward it on to a few folk I know who will appreciate it!!

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  120. Sheff

    Nice one!

    Brain really isn,t working today.Orgreave was during the Miners strike at a British Steel coking plant.

    Obviously you knew that but i thought i.d made a prat of myself for a second.But have just checked and i was right originally.

    Did many of those miners ever get back on their feet after that.Because wasn,t it Tory policy to put all unemployed miners automatically on what was then called invalidity benefit rather than the dole.

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  121. On the subject of Hillsborough, there are currently four civilian vacancies with SYP for archivists to prepare Freedom of Information disclosures of all the available documentation relating to the disaster. Pays about 20 grand I understand. If you know anyone interested - and it does sound pretty interesting -tell them to get their skates on, the closing date's tomorrow.

    ReplyDelete
  122. Also, can I recommend that anybody with a few spare minutes pops over to opencopy news. There's a good piece up on there today too!!

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  123. sheff

    Have checked and it was Tory Party policy from the mid 80,s to encourage out of work miners to claim invalidity benefit rather than the dole.

    ReplyDelete
  124. Paul

    They were left to rot and of course they wouldn't figure in the unemployment stats if they were on IB.

    There are many things it's impossible to forgive thatcher and her fawning minions for - but what they did to our mining communities - visiting the pain on subsequent generations must be amongst the worst.

    I'd like to ring the old cows neck with my own hands, bury her, then dig her up and do it again just to make sure.

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  125. Evening all - busy lately, not much time to spend on-line. Next week I am off work so no doubt will be doing so in the spirit of procrastination; loads I ought to be doing around the house.

    Have not yet had a chance to look at the Duke's latest nor Atomboy's stuff, but I do intend to when I have a few mins!

    Bru really is beyond parody.

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  126. Montana

    i seem to remember someone calling their child after a whole team - more recently than the 60s though !

    ReplyDelete
  127. Montana - I seem to remember it making the news in the UK way back.

    If not true it is certainly well established folk lore here,

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  128. @Montana

    Don't know if that particular one is true, but there are real examples of it. I remember one bloke named after the entire QPR team. Will have a look.

    ReplyDelete
  129. Montana,

    not sure to be honest, sounds a bit daft to me.

    Yours,

    James Pele Zico Garincha Socrates Romario Leonardo Rivaldo Dunga Dixon.

    ;0)

    (hi D30 *waving*)

    ReplyDelete
  130. Ah, OK. Charlie Oatway (ex-Brighton player and now managing Havant and Waterlooville, was named after the entire QPR team, but with their first names. There's an article mentioning him here.

    More digging...

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  131. @Montana

    "Another couple in Bloemfontein also had a set of boy twins while the opening match of South Africa and Mexico was on.

    In honour of the two teams that played a draw, the couple, Mr and Mrs Venter, named their twins, Bafana Reinhardt Venter and Mexico Llewellyn Venter."

    need I say more..........

    James...silly bugger!!!!;)

    ReplyDelete
  132. 2nd para p4

    "Bricklayer Peter O'Sullivan is a British soccer fan and a proud father. He decided that just any old name would not do for his third child, a girl. It should be something grand, he figured, honoring his favorite Liverpool team, its manager, coach and trainer.

    May we present Miss Paula St. John Lawrence Lawler Byrne Strong Yeats Stevenson Callaghan Hunt Milne Smith Thompson Shankley Bennett Paisley—ah, yes—O'Sullivan."


    \0 - James

    ReplyDelete
  133. D30

    I was thinking today, "where's that D30 keepin' is 'ead down or wot??!!"

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

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  135. @Deano

    Yes, just found that link too. I got distracted going round the ad agency and production company sites.

    However, it's a bit suspicious that there are so few mentions of this anywhere if it's true.

    ReplyDelete
  136. Just having a breather Gando - I still read here everyday and thought that since UT is buzzing these days it will get along just fine without me for awhile.

    Dog walking - laters

    Peter - its dated 1966 ?? so sounds on the money.

    The Morris Minor Estate car in the drive in the advert looks to be in time but the house was a bit posh for a bricklayer although in the 1960's on piecework young bricklayers could and did earn big big money.....

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  137. @Deano

    I just have a suspicious mind. It was just a filler in a 1966 US magazine, and they wouldn't have done any checking on it so it might not have been true then.

    I've worked on magazines, and I know this kind of thing. :-)

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  138. Still a lot of stuff from 1965 that is not yet in the archives - the local Liverpool papers don't seem to go that far back yet etc

    I'm fairly sure that I recall the story making the news - but the false memory syndrome always a potential problem.......

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  139. Interesting prog on C4 just now. About the "bloody foreigners" who fought in the British military over the centuries. Tonight it's the Battle of Trafalgar and there sure are lots of non Brits up in the rigging of HMS Belerophon, to name but one ship - not all of them press ganged either.

    Apparently the navy practised an incentive scheme for capturing enemy ships and you could share in the booty.

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  140. @Deano

    I found a couple of Liverpool fan forums discussing the advert, and it seemed to come as a surprise to them. You'd have thought older fans would have remembered something like that, and passed on the story.

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  141. Sheff

    "Apparently the navy practised an incentive scheme for capturing enemy ships and you could share in the booty."

    this govt will most probably use the same tactics for new DLA assements....assess someone a "less" or "not disabled" and you get a bonus.....

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  142. Hey deano

    where you been? place ain,t the same without you.

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  143. Right, that's my team (wot I've been cheering for from the star, innit) through to the quarters.

    Now for Duke's fellas!!

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  144. @Sheff

    The Navy's always had lots of non-UK seafaring men in it, from all over the world. As you say, you could make a lot of prize money from captured enemy ships in a very short time, which was a temptation, and seamen would often be taken on in foreign ports.

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  145. First: Poor Chile. Didn't really expect them to win, but I sure did want them to.

    Second: I'm going to consider the Paula St. John Lawrence Lawler Byrne Strong Yeats Stevenson Callaghan Hunt Milne Smith Thompson Shankley Bennett Paisley O'Sullivan story true, then. Mostly because I so want it to be true!

    If I'd had the presence of mind when my son was born, I'd have named my son after the 1908 Chicago Cubs -- Joe Sheckard Evers Schulte Chance Steinfeldt Hofman Tinker Kling Reulbach Wildhack has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? (if, perhaps, a tad Teutonic for a kid with no German ancestry)

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  146. I remember that story from being a kid..it's definitely true..not even uncommon...including managers and coaches is a bit rare but it's true.

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  147. Montana
    "If I'd had the presence of mind when my son was born....."

    bet he's glad you were out of your mind....!
    You could always threaten him with it though......

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  148. And the post-match interview/analysis was with.................

    Kaka's grandma!!!

    Brilliant.

    (to be fair though, she wasn't much worse than Andy bloody Townsend!!)

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  149. Hmm. Not sure my daughter would have been happy with Rosie Mulhearn Book Pardoe Doyle Heslop Oakes Lee Bell Summerbee Young Coleman Jackson...

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  150. My next dog will be Rog Bod Poc Doc Kearney Tommy Trimble Peter Bull Flannery Heaslip ....

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  151. PeterJ

    Some of the stories are really interesting - one seaman on the Bellerophon was a Swede who escaped slavery (he had been captured by Moors) in the Med somewhere or off the coast of Africa.

    Seems also the Royal Navy was also a bit of a haven (if you can call it that) for escaped slaves from the US. Also French Royalists - bearing in mind it was the time of the 'terror' in France.

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  152. Thanks for the confirmation, Monkeyfish. Yea!

    My next dog will be Rog Bod Poc Doc Kearney Tommy Trimble Peter Bull Flannery Heaslip

    I'm guessing that's short for Ronan O'Gara and not Roger, then?

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  153. Correct, Montana!

    BOD = Brian O'Driscoll
    POC = Paul O'Connell
    DOC = Donncha O'Callaghan (don't think we've had a perve over him before on here)

    Off 2 bed, NN!

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  154. @Sheff

    Yes, there was a policy of taking on escaped slaves during the (primarily naval) war of 1812 with the US after slavery had been abolished in Britain, and an ad hoc acceptance of it before and afterwards.

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  155. PeterJ

    Seems there was a window of about 30 years when black men were able to fight/work along side whites and be valued for their contribution. All went to shit after that though.

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  156. @Sheff

    I just remembered that I have a book about the Bellerophon upstairs - I'll go up and dig it out in a bit. I also remember this from my dad's book club edition of Fifty Famous Paintings, showing Napoleon on the Bellerophon after his post-Waterloo surrender.

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  157. Yippee! I can do links.
    Thanks to Turminder for the instructions.
    Spot on: I owe you a drink.
    *floats off to kitchen mix my reward!*

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  158. @Sheff

    My dad told me about Caribbean aircrew who were with him in the RAF during the war, where they were well respected. There's some good info about them here.

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  159. My favourite story of the respect that some whites had for black people:
    A small tale of humanity

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  160. PeterJ

    thanks for that info - its a really fascinating, if previously lost to most, part of our historyI.

    remember Cy Grant from when he sang satyrical calypsos on the Tonight prog back in the 50s. He was incredibly beautiful and I had a massive crush on him.

    Anyway - they're doing 'bloody foreigners' who fought in the Battle of Britain next week.

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  161. chekhov

    I guess you haven't looked at that book then?

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  162. Sheffpixie
    On the Napoleonic Wars & Royal Navy , the Press gang, Patrick O'Brian is the best-researched historical novelist.

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  163. I've changed to John ?
    frog2

    something funny there webpeople ......

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  164. That was me on Patrick O'Brian not john ...................... ?

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  165. @Sheff: if you are referring to the utube link then, no, I just picked it at random.
    Should I read it?

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  166. frog2, you beat me to it. I read Patrick O'Brian's first Aubrey/Mathurin novel after seeing the film Master and Commander, and then read all the other nineteen in quick succession.

    Absolutely brilliant.

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  167. Johnny frog

    the O'Brien books are excellent - informative and well worth reading.

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  168. @Leni

    Heheh... That "Johnny Frog" makes you sound like a retired colonel.

    Johnny Frog... Well, by all means have him serving in your mess, but don't leave him alone with the ladies, what?

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  169. Spike

    Well that's my cover blown. You can call me Blimp.

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  170. Don't mind me, I 'm just practising the techniques Turminder posted on how to do links.
    I still don't understand what the "lime green" highlight means, so if anyone could put me straight about that, I would be most grateful.

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  171. Can a state with no permanent citizens be a state ?

    On the Vatican thread I asked about citizenship of said state. No answer so I consulted Wiki.

    There are about 800 religious type citizens + around 100 Swiss Guard. Citizenship is conferred when you get a job there - withdrawn when you leave. In other words Vatican passport is job perk.

    How does this 'state' justify a British Ambassador ?

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  172. chekhov

    I tried your link - it didn't work. Where is it supposed to link me to ?

    ReplyDelete
  173. @chekhov

    Do you know how to do links on CiF? I just do them in the comment box over there, copy the resulting code and paste it here.

    ReplyDelete
  174. Don't know what it's like where you are, but I'm struggling to work here. I don't mind the heat but it's revoltingly humid and sticky.

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  175. @Leni

    When Dawkins and Hitchens asked lawyers to look into the possibility of arresting the Pope during his visit to Britain, there were legal opinions stating that the Pope was not a true head of state as the Vatican was not a state recognised by the UN.

    See here

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  176. Spike: yeah, that's what Turminder suggested and I followed his instructions
    The "link" came up on here but no one seems able to access it.
    Actually it might have something to do with me accidentally kicking something under my desk which caused a "diagnose connection" page to pop up!
    Anyway any advice is welcome.

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  177. Leni: the link was irrelevant. I was just messing about with the "short cut" tips Turminder gave me to post a link.
    Looks like I need a bit more practise!

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  178. The link I've just posted for Leni looks like this (so you can see it, I've taken off a > at the end and a < at the beginning)

    a href="http://richarddawkins.net/articles/5415-richard-dawkins-calls-for-arrest-of-pope-benedict-xvi">here</a

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  179. Spike

    i saw the Dawkins thing - as I understand it the Vatican has observer state status at the UN. I think - but can't be sure, this is because the V never applied for full recognition. Doubtful it could not withstand close scrutiny of its claims to statehood.

    The sycophancy towards the V is ridiculous. It is the HQ of a religious organisation - part of Italy in fact.

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  180. So basically, you can keep a copy of that, adding the whatchamacallems, and replace the web address with your own, and the 'here' with whatever you want to label the link as.

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  181. @Leni

    If I remember, Italy fully respects Vatican sovereignty, though. You may remember the case of Cardinal Marcinkus

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  182. Should read "doubtful it could withstand ..."

    he Vatican , created by Musso to replace the earlier Papal state i think is unrecognised. Ma

    Time all this nonsense ended.

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  183. What is the name for a < ?

    Agreed, Leni. I find religion more and more ridiculous as I get older.

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  184. Thank you, Wiki. It's called a less-than sign. Doh!

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  185. Spike

    Vatican Bank etc. Italy may recognise it - presumably Musso enshrined it in Italian law.

    Apparently children born within V carry citizenship until they leave when they become stateless. Thet then automatically get Italian citizenship.

    For as long as V citizenship is retained you are safe within it walls.

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  186. Spike: at which stage in the process do you take off a > at the beginning and a < at the end?
    Is this just before you post on here or when you edit on Cif? Or is it just after you have copied the url?

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  187. @chekhov

    When you want to put in a link to a URL, you type in the following, replacing the two '#' signs with '<' and '>' and replacing 'text' with whatever text you want to be highlighted and displayed as a link. I've had to use the # thing because otherwise the bit below would be interpreted as being a link (which wouldn't be very informative!).

    #a href="URL">text</a#

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  188. I'll have one more go tonight but then I'll have to crash out and if it's not successful I'll have another bash tommorrow!

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  189. No, you put them back on! I had to remove a less-than sign from the beginning, just before the a href, and a more-than sign from the end, just after the /a, otherwise when I posted it, you'd only have seen the link label, for obvious reasons. So copy what I posted, paste it in a text file, add a less-than at the beginning and a more-than at the end, then save it.

    When you want to post a link, open your text file, put the address you want to link to instead of my Dawkins one, and put the words you want to label the link with in place of my "here". Copy the lot, paste it in the comment box and post.

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  190. Much more concise than me, PJ. Well done that man. :-)

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  191. Leni

    I can imagine nothing worse than being trapped in the Vatican indefinitely. Well, I can, but it involves some quite heavy gore stuff.

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  192. Try again!

    Am I getting close?

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  193. Well, so much for that idea. The Cif website is playing "silly buggers" but there must be alternative options for posting links on here.
    Surely, using Cif isn't the only option, although I can understand why it might be a convenient one.

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  194. Just testing, because I think my "steam driven" kit can't cope.
    Any reply would be welcome!

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