TLC

...and if he doesn't deal with his impending demise in the best of spirits he'll be a 'furiously wan king' right up to the end.

Despite my long rambling posts on this thread I just realised I've not actually answered the question 'Do you believe in ghosts?' I don't really believe in ghosts or life after death, although I'm always prepared to change my mind if something gives me reason to. But thanks to Cher & her wobbly voiced pop anthem I do at least believe in life after love.

I've heard varying reports about whether death involves an eternity of penitence, an eternity of lovely ladies, being joined with your other half for eternity to create some horrible siamese angel type thing, coming back as another lifeform, or just bacteria food amongst other things. I'll admit it sounds interesting, so I reckon I'll try it at least once. Don't knock it until you've tried it, as 'they' say. 'They' generally being a bunch of cliche-swallowing fuckwits as far as I can tell, but no matter. If I manage to let you know how it went, you can safely presume the reincarnation-ists were correct. By my estimations, I'll be on the way sometime in the next 15 years whether by my choice or not.

Reminds me of the 'Fistful of Yen' section of the Kentucky Fried Movie, where the main bad guy introduces his evil henchmen: - "These are my enforcers: Big Dong, Well Hung, Long Wang... and Enormous Genitals."

I have heard this once before. Sometimes a life that is lived with pleasure or comfort may have a violent or negative twist to it. This can be argued about since some don't find death as a negative thing at all. Or it could just be that massively obese people are not only more likely to get cancer BS, but also less likely to have it detected early. Because they can't be bothered to drag their fat arse up to the hospital Because all of the extra body mass is more likely to hide any ominous shadows that would show up on an x-ray I'm guessing? The fact that he refers to the cancer as a "punishment" suggests to me that he isn't entirely looking forward to his final resting place just yet.

Deviant, it would serve you right if Patrick rammed his xylophone right up your rectum. It would give you your very own personal 'human meatbox beatbox' to amuse yourself with, if nothing else. And every time you produced an air biscuit you'd have your own 'human windchime'. I suggest 'The Borley Rectal Sound Machine' as a snappy stage name. Need. More. Coffee.

It can't all be true, surely... I saw at least one post by iain up there, for a kick-off. I can't really complain about being pulled up on my grammar after my last post on this thread can I? But I meant everything I put in my post, of course. However, now I've temporarily recovered from my latest lapse into Catholic-style guilt (despite not being at all religious in either inclination or upbringing) I have more to say on the matter, you'll all be delighted to hear. Fear not, this time it will be done in a constructive way about the points raised in the post, rather than just trying to be clever about grammar usage, and failing. The numbness (or something similar) can actually happen in normal (ish) circumstances, something to do with your body being effectively paralysed during a certain level of sleep (can't remember which, possibly the rapid eye movement stage) and then waking up before the body comes back out of paralysis. This has happened to me dozens of times, and I'll admit it's a little scary at the time because you want to struggle to sit up but you can't even struggle because you can't feel anything. It's not like being tied down (so I've heard) because that gives you something to struggle against. Can't comment on the pain of numbness without saying something glib, so I'll refrain. I just like the drama of that sentence, honestly. For four years, night after night? I can see why this has had such an impact on your life then, whatever my actual opinion of what happened. That must have been bad. Will that really make you feel better if everyone else relives the worst experience of their life every night for four years? Again, that might sound a little like an attempt from me to 'score points' or whatever, but that's how it reads to me however often I re-read it. If I have misunderstood please let me know. Without meaning to be rude, bad circulation or lack of movement can also be the cause of this sensation occasionally. Sorry, that was a little euphemistic, I mean pretty much always the cause. Again, I'm not doubting the sincerity of your story, but I heard the same well constructed hypothesis when I was still at primary school from one of my classmates. I didn't really believe it then, but that might just be my basic inability to understand the sentimental side of people. Psychics seem to make up for a lack of facts with large dollops of what people want to believe sometimes. Talking of my inability to understand the sentimental side of people, who'd have thought there was so much information about my emotional state contained in just one of my posts? You're probably right though, I prefer to look at the sentimental side of people minus the senti- . The two are often quite closely linked as far as I can tell, but I'm hardly objective on this. One of my biggest problems with the human race (I've started now) is the insistence on getting everyone to put more credence in superstition, fate, destiny, the refusal to believe that unlikely coincidences can be anything other than God's will, organised religion, charms, omens, healing crystals, unicorn figurines etc. I realise that some things work that we don't know why at the moment (a Donald Rumsfeld 'known unknown' I think) and some things we see as scientific fact will prove laughable in the future, but some people are much more likely to believe self-appointed psychics, healers, tarot readers etc. without question than to believe things presented scientifically. Scienctists can be wrong of course, but at least they can show you the reasoning behind their conclusions. Whenever psychic readings are secretly filmed and analysed, they always appear much vaguer that when the reading was taking place, but does it stop anyone going and believing? Phew, feel better now. I hope you realise that wasn't all aimed at you Ms Anderson, I've clearly got some other 'issues' here. Feel free to comment or ignore as you see fit.

Not bad. I can't say I've heard of Hostak but he seems to have been pretty famous, boxing hall of fame and all that. I'm afraid Payao only won the bronze, but it was still Thailand's first Olympic medal and he was regarded as a bit of a hero for it so fair enough. Right, I'll go to bed now, as you were.

Must be on a few dead pool teams with that high a profile. Although at only 69 I wasn't expecting Lacy to depart for a few more years myself..

That's some pretty impressive vomit you've got there Ms Anderson, rated by either volume or luminosity. I would suggest using a stonger watt light bulb in the future, it should avoid the serious dangers to the oesophagus lining and tooth enamel that excessive vomiting can bring. The floor should be less slippery too. I wouldn't suggest mockery as a form of replying to someone's worst experience of their life. Alas, some people do not have it in them to understand the sentimental side of people, and can only offer the lowest form of wit as feedback to such an experience. I wouldn't be rude to you if you ever had something to share. Nice wisecrack. Just a joke about the way it was phrased, a bit childish I'll admit but I wasn't making a comment about the experience overall. I didn't mean to anyway. It's a bit of a tradition on this site for people to make fun of language or grammar, play on words etc. I know the site is very much about death and various associated topics but it's usually fairly light-hearted. Plus from how I've grown up it's a habit to make light of serious stuff (without being outright nasty) including the worst night of my life when me & some flatmates barely escaped a house fire; they still take the piss out of me for shouting 'look out, the roof's gonna go!' in a dramatic voice at one point. Makes me laugh now, although at the time it could well have collapsed and they would have died; it's them who generally bring it up... Not that I'm saying everyone should react like me to things, not much would get done in the world for a start. Thank you. But I thought sarcasm was a lower form of wit than mockery? pps the above is all true by the way.

Happy Birthday to the normal Star Crossed.

Although not as many as are dying now due to his successor's rather exciting foreign policy attitude....

Ever since the local Lyons teahouse closed down my luck has deserted me, now I see why! I think I've seen too many films where you're always told that the 'wrong places to go' and the 'wrong things to drink' are actually the cool and correct choices to be made. After careful consideration, I think it's time for me to give up drinking absinthe in the local drugs den/squat, as fun as it is. I should have realised that none of the resident crack-whores even so much as comprehend a double-entendre that's been presented in traditional Sid James style; not even the more lucid ones who've still got some hair & teeth left. I eagerly await more tips later Mr Pooka, I even struggle with split infinitives these days. How easily man can be reduced to such a base state! ps do you know where I can get hold of a good pluperfect subjunctive? My usual dealer ran out yesterday; if only I had known, I would have ordered some earlier. Ha ha ha.

In case anyone missed this, BA halts all flights from UK

So no different than the rest of us when surrounded by loving friends & family on our birthdays! Or were you putting on a Yorkshire accent there and in fact talking about the infamous 'Castro birthday hose trick' photos in which he does look very strained, although I thought it was mixed with a look of pleasure rather than unhappiness.

I'd say 1 in 365.25* because in a leap year you're just as likely to die on Feb 29th as an other given day of the year. *not precisely 365.25 because there is no leap year in a century year unless it's divisible by 400 i.e. 1700, 1800 & 1900 weren't leap years but 1600 & 2000 were. I can't be arsed to work out the difference that makes to the probabilities, but not a great deal.

That's some pretty impressive vomit you've got there Ms Anderson, rated by either volume or luminosity. I would suggest using a stonger watt light bulb in the future, it should avoid the serious dangers to the oesophagus lining and tooth enamel that excessive vomiting can bring. The floor should be less slippery too.

Maybe I just need to try a bit harder then. I start off fine talking about ablative absolutes, sure, but a few drinks later and it's all split infinitives and tautology from me I'm afraid. If only I'd took more money out of the cash point on Saturday afternoon there'd have been no unfortunate mention of 'PIN numbers' on my part to the lady I'd made the acquaintance of later that night. Oh how my tear-stained hot cheeks burned with shame as she pointed out my grammatical faux-pas, before quickly making her excuses and leaving.

Maybe I should change that to 'slightly pretentious' on the basis of the above comment! J'accuse, Maryport!

Are you referring to the fact that I added a few extra random capitals in that post (for which I apologise), or is there something else? I'm genuinely confused, read any of my other posts on this site if you're in any doubt! Oh and Mr Fugit, I should like to place an order for 2 boxes of your finest jelly nails please; one for me, and the other to be stored in DL headquarters. In many aspects of humanity, the pointlessness or nigh-impossibility of a task neither stops people's fascination with it nor their attempts to complete it. I think the discussion of the correct use of the English language is one of those areas, although I think the major problem is much more basic than what we're discussing. For each incident of us discussing the correct usage of 'none of us is/are' there are 100 signs in fruit & veg shops across the U.K. committing crimes such as 'banana's' and the doubly terrifying 'potatoe's'. I think the English speaking world's horrific use of their own language (in the U.K anyway) is in part related to our general lack of ability in other languages. Clearly this is partly because so many other people speak English that we fail to see the point of learning other languages, but I think learning another language helps you get a feel for grammar due to the more often formal method of learning it. Many English people still compare multi-linguism (is that a real word?) to rocket science in terms of difficulty and required ability. And from what I can gather from some European friends I have, the French & Italians get taught the grammatical rules or conventions of their own language to a much more technical degree than us. We tend to get taught the 'i before e' rule and the rest is based on the more traditional 'why should I learn English when I can already speak it and read it?' approach. For f*ck's sake. There was definitely a point to this a paragraph or two ago; reasonable use of grammar really is no indication of the post quality. To my shame I can't speak any other languages except a pitiful amount of French; the fact that I'm fascinated by languages makes this a bit of a nuisance. It's also a useless chat-up topic in my experience, who'd have thought it?

I always used to get annoyed with the American simpllified spellings such as lite, nite, harbor, specialize etc. but then I found out why it was done. Apparently it was because the Americans were so appalled by the traditional English inconsistency of spelling that they tried to make one current version of each word the standard. In the spirit of things, they tried to pick the word with the most sensible spelling compared to pronunciation. Of course, we stubbornly didn't follow suit therefore making the situation worse, because these days spelling is more or less standardised (although probably less than you'd think) and so now you have to have English & 'American English' dictionaries. If we had adopted the American spellings the various different forms would have gradually disappeared or been much reduced in number as printing became more popular and standardised local spelling variations, or at least the variations in spelling would be more universal if that makes sense i.e. harbor & harbour would be more likely to both be valid alternatives in England and the USA. No matter how many times I re-read the above paragraph it doesn't read quite properly but each attempted patch makes it even more unweildy. I give up. I'm sure the fact that these changes were made just after American independence (sounds like it should end in -dance) had nothing at all to do with the reluctance of the English to embrace the American alternatives. Apparently the English even went back and added the unnecessary 'b' into the word 'debt' a few hundred years ago because it followed the classic Latin root word like anyone gave a sh*t. And other such high jinks, those crazy fools. No excuse for Aluminum though, because the extra English 'i' (Aluminium) was actually pronounced, so effectively it's a new word not just a new spelling. Says me. Plus somewhere deep down I still prefer the English versions of words and feel that the American versions are a bit lazy. Some of the words I balls up regularly are: - Various words that are variations of 'dependent' and whether the last 'e' should be an 'a', or the word should end -ants or -ence etc. A literary minefield. Juggernaut, I often spell it Juggernault presumably I've associated the spelling of it with 'fault'. Liase, I keep spelling it Liaise because Liaison is spelled (or is it spelt?) like that. I have recently finally got the hang of apostrophes though. I was always ok with avoiding 'the sign-writers curse' (get some lovely banana's here!) apostrophe for plurals, but always messed up it's & its. I kept putting its' for no reason. Tip of the day; if you can substitute 'its' in the sentence with 'it is' or 'it has' then it's 'it's', if you can substitute 'its' with 'the' and it makes sense, then 'its' is correct. I thought you'd be pleased for me! Wow, the most coherent post I've made in ages is about the English language. The structure & spelling of it that is, when it comes down to actual writing style & content I'm in no position to be giving out handy hints. More fun pedantry next time kids! ps In the meantime, I am also reading 'The Watchmen' graphic novel (long comic) as I'd always thought I'd read it, and only when I flicked through a copy in the shops at the weekend did I realise my error. It's looking pretty good so far.

And indeed 'Mainwaring' is pronounced 'Mannering', just in case English isn't already non-phonetic enough. I have just purchased a book called 'Accomodating Brocolli in the Cemetary' (sic) which is supposed to go through many of the irregularities of English spelling, common mistakes and the reasons behind them. I consider myself a fairly good speller, but already my lack of spelling ability has been massively exposed by this book. It mainly consists of lists, so is more a reference book than a novel. For that sort of thing, The Adventure of English by Melvyn Bragg is a well written story, and is also full of interesting facts. None of which I can remember, but they seemed good at the time. Much like with Dr. Johnson's dictionary, the heroine of the story is Old Mother Tongue, and no-one gets into a sticky situation over a pound note in Mr Bragg's book either.

I doubt I'd get on the ship in the first place with percentages like that. Also, TF you clever devil you, Q isn't even on the list. I guess that proves your Q likeness then by ignoring the rules.

Apologies for my slightly odd 'thought for the day' comment yesterday on this thread; I walked under a ladder earlier that day and it must have cursed me with bad luck and judgement, and so absolves me of all responsibility for my actions.... Again, I'm not entirely sure what point I'm trying to make but you can't have everything. Maybe I walked over 3 drains earlier today or something... Hope your good posting trend continues Iain, can't be having irrelevant posting on this site eh?

Well perhaps there should have been more thought before naming it the 'goliath birdeater tarantula' then. I imagine that name in itself probably helped it avoid a few fights during its lifetime.