chrisp65

It's clearly mutually beneficial at the moment. The only difference with these 'morons' and despots is that it's being played out in public, with a first person rolling news narrative. Whereas Cameron / Osbourne / May / Johnson / Fox are clearly utterly competent international players, and China is not despotic. So we pay China to build nuclear power stations here and let them buy our national grid. China are aggressively pushing their borders outward, they are antagonistic to our allies, they have a human rights records as disgraceful as any anywhere. Yet we are determined to hand them as much trade and infrastructure as they can take. We might be watching the wrong game.

Yeah, that's not actually him in the avatar, fwiw it's actually Engelbert Humperdinck.

no resolutions as such, we're just gonna have friends over for a big meal to celebrate that 2016 is over and can't hurt us anymore... (nicked off of that twitter)

Debbie's extreme content behind paywall.

all looking like its Harry Redknapp right now

I think you see the confusion of the Iran Contra / Oliver North affair 30 or so years ago and it's fairly easy to believe that similar deals are rolling around today. Hezbollah had hostages, Iran could influence their release, so Israel were to sell them U.S. arms 'indirectly' with any reduction in the Israeli stockpile being directly and 'legitimately' replaced by the U.S. This was also hopefully going to stop Russia selling arms to Iran. Plus, any 'profit' or monies returning to the U.S. could then be diverted to indirectly helping insurgents across south America topple the Sandanista government. Good ol' white cowboy hat Reaganomics. What could possibly go wrong. That's a desperately abbreviated and simplified version, but it's one of my fave little political / historical events to delve in to every now and again.

yeah, for clarity, I'm not suggesting ours is better / worse I'm suggesting there's good stuff everywhere if you care to look beyond Nestle, Fosters, Carling, Starbucks etc etc.. To base your opinion on europe or where to live on what beer, bread or cheese is readily available in Netto and Morrisons is the level of debate that has got us exactly where we are today. Arguing over great british beer like some pub landlord parody.

italian beer that was simply the top item from a single random google entry I know there are a small number of interesting breweries on Malta, a country with a population of about 300,000. It's not just Cisk Lager once you move away from the holiday resorts. I'd be quietly confident even the Germans, Poles, Belgians and Czechs might have one or two decent beers between them. It's truly taking the blinkered piss to try and argue one side has better beer than the other. Which kind of sums up the whole debate really.

ahh, the whole Brexit debate in a nutshell. Brexiteer: British beer is the finest in the world and zee Germans will want to buy loads of it once we are free. Remainer: I'd like to point out that Fosters is actually australian franchised piss owned by a pan european mega brewery. Amstel is much nicer. Brexiter: I think you'll find Amstel is Belgian piss sold in tiny bottles because 250ml is the most you can legally drink in that France. Remainer: You can drink all day in France. Brexiteer: Maybe, but then Russian criminals run in to the square and steal our little flags. Better to drink all day in Slough. Remainer: Most pubs in Slough are run by Bulgarians.

It can be quite tough for a bloke to suddenly not be the cheeky lazy crazy little scamp of the family anymore. It's a nice lifestyle being a young adult male so it's quite a step to give it up. Plus at the moment, there's a supporting narrative that 'times are hard' so clearly people should 'wait' before having kids. After all, you wouldn't want a child without being financially secure, and you can't be financially secure and responsible and buy the latest x-box and stay up until 3:00am playing zombie car thief space cowboy. But it's always been the same. there's never been a good time to grow up and it isn't for everyone. I've known people with fairly chaotic lifestyles and the kids have turned out to be brilliant people that are a benefit to the world. I've also known safe and secure and sensible people that have raised a mini satan. Each to their own. But there is a tremendous amount of truth in Mooney's comment on a previous page. Many men have no 'desire' to be a parent. It happens for one reason or another and then from that point we all begin to find out if the dad is up to the job. The vast majority are. I managed 32 years before giving it a go. So I've seen both sides of the 'debate'. Turns out I'm o.k. at it. They don't always think so, but what do they know, they're only kids.

They had a review and discussion on the book and the subject on Radio 4 a couple of months back. Sounded interesting.

I'm keeping it vague in case Blandy really did mean villains (he didn't, but he might say he did).

I agree entirely. But would add it was a bit of a dick move by the Obama administration to do 'something' with days remaining of an 8 year presidency. Poor form from all of them.

look at 'im with his sausage roll thumb

to be fair, nearly 200 years later and the jury is still out a trolling we will go! a trolling we will go!

It was Diana that upset me. Due to the circumstances and everything I couldn't even claim for the scratch down the side of my Fiat.

Dr Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog (Dr Horrible tries to get in to the Evil League of Evil). Originally a series of blogs, stitched together into a dvd about 45 minutes long. I think it was the first superhero thing where I've ever put down the other thing I've been doing and concentrated on it. I'd give it a solid 7/10 and would watch again. Oh yes, and it's a sort of musical.

27th December, 1831 After having been twice driven back by heavy southwestern gales (and delayed due to 'drunkenness'), Her Majesty's ship Beagle, a ten-gun brig, under the command of Captain Fitz Roy, R. N., sailed from Devonport on the 27th of December, 1831.

I had a few Alabama 3 albums too. Not everyone's cup of whiskey admittedly, but hey, each to their own. I'm guessing I shouldn't be going out record shopping during January.

Having had crap jumpers for quite a few years from my mother in law I thought I'd get quite specific. To the point where I bought this album, gave it to my wife for her to give to her mum to give to me for Christmas. Sure enough, this year I got Dub Serial by Joe Gibbs. But I also got a crap, tight, sky blue jumper. You'd think after 26 years she'd query why she's never ever seen me wear a single one of the jumpers she's bought me. But the album is just great. Plus my neighbour is away for Christmas, so I'm testing the speakers with this beaut.

artwork looks really interesting I'm hoping for something stoner / psychedelic / wonderfully repetitive it's a risk though, Rob tends more towards the Led Jovi / Def Sabbath end of things I'll youtube it later

The 'banishing' could easily be done by 'nature' 'mother earth' 'the spirit of the wild' 'native american ghosts' 'jehu'. Let's not get overly literal. Words are for conveying ideas. I can see the body of earth rejecting the grit in its eye or the cancer in its belly or however else you want to flower up the language. Hell, if you really took a long toke, you could possibly even imagine an argument where Adam and Eve weren't actually two people, but 'the people'. It fits perfectly well with today's crisis.