Dr Hackenslash

Hitler did well with the Poles. I went for Clive Dunn, merely because everyone would throw a party/mourn if it happened. Would there be a special event to mark the occassion?

If, by nuclear submarine you are referring to the (Trident) ballsitic missile submarines then the answer is pretty straightforward. If a captain thinks that command has been destroyed by a strike, it is up to him whether to "let his birds fly," as it were. Although, as the world geopolitical situation has changed since the plans were drawn up, it's hard to know what would happen now as the missles are not automatically targetted on Soviet cities. The time needed to launch an attack has also been lengthened since Labour came to power in 1997 - and they also did away with the "free-fall" RAF nuclear weapons. Interestingly, and this isn't widely-known but I don't thnk it is any longer a breach of the Official Secrets Act to disclose, the UK's nuclear missles are guided by American satellites. If the Americans weren't happy with our choice of targets, they could simply turn the satellites off and the missles wouldn't do anything - they'd soon fall to the ground, before the nuclear warheads had been primed.

The only problem I've got with The Chrysalids is that surely Labrador is close enough to the USA to be caught by the after-effects of nuclear war. Neville Shute had a better idea in On The Beach, when he used Australia (one of the) final outposts. That's another book worth reading - and better than the film with Gregory Peck in it.

That brings back memories. A couple of years ago I was at a media do in Brick Lane - at the building Gordon Ramsay used for Hell's Kitchen. I'd already had a fair few when I arrived, and all the blokes were dressed up as angels - with boxer shorts, fairy wings and nothing else. I, along with my then boss, walked up to one of them and started talking about how I'd seen them on television but couldn't remember where. Then, before I could remember, said beefcake blurted out that he was a presenter on Gay TV. It took me a while to live that one down!

Very true - that made me chuckle, too. But she did do some dodgy things in her time - I seem to recall a scene (spoof, though) with adult actors Shagnasty and Mutley when she was at least 70. She ended up giving one of them a gobbling, I think. Can anyone else confirm that for me, or have I finally lost it?

But would Ian Huntley fit inside a pie, humble or otherwise?

It's not all that bad - and the humour is somewhat quirky, if a trifle too predictable.

I thought you only had eyes for Hayley Mills....

Last time I saw De Courcey was at a celebrity golf event in 2003. The bear was with him, I seem to recall, but the chap was an absolute ass. But not as bad as John Bardon (Jim Branning, EastEnders) who told at least one person to "F**k off" when they asked for an autograph. Bobby Davro was also there - just day or so after bellyflopping in the Games.

Am I the only one confused by the following line in the linked report? All the other tortoises given as gifts to Clive died soon after they arrived in Calcutta, formerly known as Calcutta, he said.

I'm still shocked Nelson Mandela was released. Our kids are now taught that he was a great man, a hero etc, etc. The school text-books and the liberal elite of this country airbrush out the fact that he was a terrorist. Seeing Mandela and president of South Africa was as bad as it would be to see Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness in charge of a united Ireland.

Yes, but I think it's a great book. It's easy to picture him sitting his in wheelchair, swearing every time WWE come on the television and grumbling "if I had them in the ring for five minutes..." etc. I still think Have a Nice Day is the best wrestling book, but Pure Dynamite is well worth a read.

You are making the assumption that nobody has saved the entire forum just in case this does ever happen...

Good to see you back. And, if someone can have a thread to celebrate their birthday, surely it is fine to have a thread celebrating a birth?

No, I fancy being struck down by a politically-motivated assassin, and then be granted a state funeral.

Don't dismiss Michael Crawford out-of-hand - he does perform his own stunts, after all. And he was born on the Isle of Sheppey - as was Rod Hull, and he surprised us all. Anyway, I agree with your point. Surely anyone who has been on the list should be monitored in a thread, and at 91, Morgan should have his own thread anyway.

Andy Kaufman should be reappearing soon... Would anyone pull such a stunt, I wonder - I half expect to see Eddie Guerrero turn up at his (posthumous) Hall of Fame induction in the WWE at Wrestlemania.

It's not hard to stalk her - she is dead, after all, and even her Stannah Stairlift can't help that.

BBC News report. regards, Hein Sorry, I've just got to quote Catherine Zeta Jones from that news article, it's an outrageous comment: "Actress Catherine Zeta Jones, a supporter of the foundation, said of Reeve: "She's better than Superwoman, she's Wonder Woman. Dana is like a saint to me."

I reckon WWE wrestler Mick Foley (aka Cactus Jack, Dude Love, Mankind etc) will have a spectacular death next year. He's no longer a full-time wrestler, but he will appear at Wrestlemania this year. Given some of the truly outrageous stunts that he has pulled in the past, I reckon he'll try to recapture his previous success and make a mistake. He has almost been killed in the ring before, notably in the notorious Hell in a Cell.

I would be far happier if it turned out not to be an accident. It would restore my faith in the British security forces, namely that they could eradicate a destabilising influence. If Diana were alive now, she could well be the voice of the Halibut world...

I'm not saying that some Jews were not deliberately killed. When they no longer served any purpose, I've no doubt they were. All I'm trying to say is that there is a big difference between the forceful eradication of a race and letting people die because you don't care whether they live. If someone kills a baby by shooting them in the head, they meant to do it. If someone lets a baby die by not attending to them, they are still guilty, probably as guilty, but there is a difference. One wanted the baby dead, the other didn't care if the baby died.

Zyklon-B pretty effective really That line was hardly the crux of my argument. Nevertheless, to clarify, the way Zyklon-B was used reduced it's efficiency. Also, as it says in the (somewhat questionable) site that your link's pointing at: It was widely available, as it was used for delousing. In fact, probably over 90% of the Zyklon used at Auschwitz was used for delousing purposes. See e.g. Gutman, Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp, 1994, p. 215. Now this opens up another kettle or fish. It's interesting that Zyklon-B would have been at the camps in quantity, whatever the Nazi's intentions - to kill or to let die.

I'm probably going to regret wading into this, but here goes. There is a difference between millions of Jewish people dying because they were worked hard, forced to live in squalid conditions and not being fed much and millions of Jewish people dying because they were gassed. I must confess that I am not to sure of the works of David Irving, but many of his fellow revisionist historians do not deny that many Jewish people died in concentration camps, but they do debate how these deaths happened. For example, it has been pointed out that Zyklon-B, the gas of choice for the Nazis, was very inefficient. Many revisionists claim that the Nazis didn't actual set out to eradicate the Jews, they just didn't care about them enough to ensure they stayed alive when in the concentration camps. There is a difference. As for how much Hitler actually knew, who knows? He knew the camps existed but, in his mind, there were far more important things to worry about than the welfare of the Jewish people in them. I think when people refer to the Holocaust, they mean a system that systematically killed the Jews, as opposed to a system that didn't care if they lived or died. There is, of course, a reason why many Western Governments would want to subscribe to the accepted view of eradication, rather than the revisionist view of death by not caring. And that, and I hate to bring the subject up, is the situation in Israel. While the Israeli authorities are not, by and large, killing Palestinians en-masse, it could be argued that they are killing them by not caring abou their conditions. In many ways, Palestinian areas have virtually become concentration camps in their own right. If it was accepted that Nazi Germany killed millions of Jews because they didn't care whether they lived or not, uncomfortable parallels would be drawn with modern day Israel. Anyway, that's just my opinion, and I'm no historian or socio-politician.

This must have been posted before, but I thought this thread had gone a bit liberal-socialist and this should move it to the right a bit: London Underground Note: I distance myself from the politics of the website it is on, by the way!