En Passant

Ouch! Get better soon. I keep reading about cars "rolling" in the US, but I've honestly never heard of this happening elsewhere, especially in the UK. Why does this seem to be a uniquely US thing? Because of Michael Bay. Heh, and US highways and particularly interstates have miles and miles outside city limits with a thing called a "median" basically that big grass patch between the carriageways that's just made for rolling cars on especially if you're making a film movie. In the UK, there's not the space for all that, so there's a crash barrier and then the stuff doing 70 odd mph in the opposite direction. If it happens there, it's harder for your lead character to jump out, dust himself down and carry on.

No indeed, completely changed my view. Never let it be said a balanced and cogent argument cannot sway me.

the sun is what? 'is' as in existent. I was going to explain with 'extant', on reflection though, that would probably only have made matters worse. It's subtle humour MK, shortening something already there with FTFY to say "It's not a shame the sun is 50p....its a shame the paper exists at all". Writing it in full is less amusing than simply curtailing the original, don't ask me why its funny though, explaining humour just kills it as a rule. Apologies to you or anyone else who finds explaining the obvious irritating.

Have you booked a trip to Thailand this weekend? For a "Country and Western" convention obviously, place is well known for them. Why else would anyone visit Thailand?

The ones that annoy me are those that pull a funny at somebody else but get offended when the tables are turned. If you can't take it, don't dish it. Wrt the specific: RC herself was the one that said "I've got a great rack", I cannot for the life of me see how Toasts' pic of a different sort of rack is offensive, even if you factor in the idea that it is used in some kind of sexual activity, the very phrase "I've got a nice rack" is sexual to start with. How the hell is anyone supposed to know you're going to take offence if it's twisted slightly, when you yourself were in the same ballpark?

13? 13? you're just messing about..... Only compo i managed to hit the deadline for and this dratted Canadian has destroyed me XD.

He said that although he'd let you compete with a copycat theme, he'd punish you by not using your subs, so you compete with 18 people only. It's not a copycat team. Also, he said not using subs, I thought that meant any additional substitutes. If I'd known that he wasn't going to use the subs he'd already provided I'd have asked to submit a new team. There's a very long precedent of teams with people who died, even years before rather than days as in this case, being submitted to a competition being removed by the game runner with the subs added in their place (see any other dead pool). Oh come on. You posted that team on 14 March. Martin Crowe died on 3 March and Joey Feek on 4 March. You even posted comments on Crowe's thread on 4 March and Feek's on 5 March, so don't pretend you didn't know. That's beside the point, the precedent exists. I forgot they were in my team, as I'd come up with it at the beginning of march before they died and just copied and pasted it into the thread.. Forgot? ok.... Either it's an attempt at a serious team, which you claim is not plagiarised.... I didn't expect the team to be realistically considered. I'm not trying to be rude, but imagine there is a hundred hits in the MHDP and a thread was started after every one to "collect" obits - the forum would be clogged up with the rubbish. ....Or it's not. Which is it? In either case you have tangled yourself up here and any further wriggling isn't going to improve it. Let it go.

You put in a duplicate of somebody elses team because the rules were too complex? Then when pulled on it state there's nothing in the rules against it. Now you have a pop at the organiser? Who yes, happens to be an admin; One who has been nothing but a responsible, helpful and considerate admin at that, at least in the couple of years I've been around hereabouts... Ah yes, you were previously banned recently, heading that way again it seems, and nobody would marvel at it if you keep this kind of thing up. There are people behind the accounts here, you're not just being rude to a computer.

Oh the irony. You are the only person who has singlehandedly got me to "mark all forums read". The pity of that is, if you weren't in some self appointed post whore race, the ones you put up that have a purpose can be interesting. Baby, bathwater, though.

I never fully understood that line. Did it mean "put on your socks" or "put your hands on your socks"? Surely one doesn't need to be male? Assuming you aren't taking the michael..... Young man, morning glory, being told to stop what comes naturally to young men, and put on their socks instead. i.e. stop wanking, start dressing. But I still think you're messing about....

Cook sees this as 'personal' as Palmer was the only person who made a death threat to Cook( and Cook has had umpteen) that was taken seriously. That's not true. Several years ago, I saw Roger Cook (who used to live a few miles down the road from me) driving in his gas guzzling 4x4 AGAINST the arrows in our local Tesco car park. I made a death threat and an offensive hand signal to him. Maybe he will make a documentary about me next. Aside from that, my dad also sold him a car many years ago. Said he was a right cunt. The same has been levelled with some frequency at that fat yank Michael Moore, who's docu's ostensibly fight for what is right against the corruption and indifference of the state or others. Perhaps being some kind of cunt goes with the territory? the more genteel amongst us may concur in many respects with what they are doing (or we may not), but wouldn't be where these guys are in the first place. Dunno. No excuse for a 4x4 though.

No way! I've often wondered the same, but could never be arsed to look it up. I thought it might be the sort that has buttons on the collar, that was fashionable in the 1970s. Yes way! It seems. One place did say collar, but the preponderance of those I saw just mean down the front, where, you know, a shirt has buttons. Ludicrous. Probably American in origin due to them being a bit like that, 'it's not a sweatshirt or a Tee-shirt, so we have to specify its a "button down" shirt', or summat (sue me for the generalisation of an entire nation), but I got bored before delving that deeply. Unsurprisingly....

I've never known wtf a button down shirt is anyway. So I looked it up, and apparently, it's a shirt, with buttons down the front, so in other words then, a shirt. There's some bollocks in this fashion business.

Nasty, I imagine. For reasons I can only guess, this incident was reported on Dutch morning TV news. And is now amongst the most popular on the bbc news website for what must be some similarly obscure reason. "Officials from the construction company said the man was not supposed to be above the third floor and had removed his hard hat." The utter fool, no hard hat....

Fuck me, how unlucky can you get? Chain of occurrences needed, bird has to fly out at the wrong time, it has to hit the helmet sufficient to lose control, you have to go off the road and hit something which is then fatal. No bird, bird misses, bird hits other than helmet, you don't lose control, you head off road but hit nothing, any of these and you're ok... sheesh. Pheasant shouldn't have got up that morning either...

Don't pick him this time. It's unlikely two hits in a row will be British men born in 1919. Even more unlikely I'll get a second hit in a row, so Leslie Phillips is safe for now.

Yes but, lets be honest, 71.4% of adult men would shag Palin but only 0.4% would have sexual intercourse, or summat,with Burley. There appears to be little doubt about that....

That dumb she doesn't even know it and thus also opinionated which is the part that really grates. Gets my goat so much I can still recall how annoying she is even though it must be 5 years since i saw any Murdoch owned media. Palin was cast in the same mould for sure.

To this:

I've seen the pedants rattle on about 'fewer' is a specific quantity where 'less' is non-specific. So 4 of something is 2 fewer than 6, not 2 less than 6. But have never really considered 'a few' v 'several'. On the face of it I have no issue with both 3 and 9 being several or a few. Several would run out at about 9 or 10 for me i guess. However I'd view both terms as somewhat relative with 'a few' rather more 'relative' than several. For example if one said one had 'a few' coat hangers and it was 25 I'd be fine with that, otoh if one said one had 'a few' houses and it turned out to be 25..... But I have no evidence for that, just my view of common usage.

The trouble is, those who have it within their power to do anything about it are already convinced. They have other reasons for the failure to change things. Global warming is quite possibly the doomsday scenario for our descendants but that doesn't bother those who are concerned about profits now, or at least it doesn't bother them enough. Nor apparently, for some reason the governments who could enforce it (actually, thats not entirely true, they have to be voted in and for example telling people that they have to drastically cut down on meat consumption, isn't a vote winner. Also politcians and political parties need funding, guess where some of that comes from). Even Greenpeace and other organisations I believed were taking a stand, are at best disingenuous when it comes to the reality of it. I was surprised to discover they are funded in part by the very companies causing the problem. Finding hard facts about any of this, that is, without it having been spun, is difficult. That said, there is some info as to why this is, here. Ignore the somewhat ludicrous name of the site. (as far as i am able to discern it is reasonably bias neutral) I should state for the record, I went vegetarian when I found out the biggest cause of global warming, not suggesting others should, but I was no longer comfortable with my impact on the environment. I could go on, but I won't for now, as I don't want to appear anymore of a loony than my previous postings have already proven.

I know of Putnam's existence, I even read a few snippets of his work,. but I have the feeling I should have known more of it. Well, I don't, so I quess celebrity and philosopher don't go well together. well, Hilary Putnam was the Kim Kardashian of analytic philosophy - a rather well-known person in the various fields of philosophy (philosophy of mind, science, mathematics or language). He knew a lot about everything, yet he was not a super-authority on anything. He shifted his positions on various topics way too much. Now there's a thought I hadn't spent any time whatsoever considering.

Hmm, isn't the ability to be both concurrently the very definition of being a late teen?

I have seen them, up to the first one with that floppy bunny binks thing in it anyway, at that point I couldn't take any more. The first three pass the time as well as any other soap opera in space I guess, but in my view are undeserving of the legendary status they seem to have acquired. Cowboys and Indians in space, not in any way thought provoking; and yes this has been said before, and yes that's fine if that's your type of popcorn. But don't try and convince me it's something that it's not. Edit to add, off the top of my head and in a rush without putting any effort into it or searching gloggle... 2001, Capricorn One, Solaris (either version), Silent Running, Blade Runner, Logan's Run..... are all more worthy of a watch, dammit even Terminator was better and more thought provoking despite Arnie's comical accent. Still whatever floats your boat and films are all in the eye of the beholder.