mjmooney

"Seven Minutes To Midnight" by Wah! Heat is the best single The Jam never released.

Inspired by the above, Ducks Deluxe: Coast To Coast.

**** me, did you buy the whole shebang? 11cds and a dvd? bejezuz, that wasn't cheap Twenty quid, second hand.

Chris Rea - Blue Guitars disc 1.

Bad set of choices, I need to tick three: PC at work, THEN a laptop at home.

You've just reminded me to dig out "Spirit Of Eden".

New Riders of the Purple Sage - Gypsy Cowboy

Michael Nesmith - Continuing

Honeybus: "Do I Still Figure In Your Life?"

So, did you get Azerbaizhan?

Conley. Me? Graham Parker "Gypsy Blood".

Just found out that Colin McRae was a Sheffield United fan. Apparently his last words were: "Come on you **** BLADES!!!"

General, You may remember way back when you first joined this board that I warned you that the UK press were very likely to be rather underhand and mischievous, and distort your words to bad effect. Here's the proof. But don't let them gag you. We know what you meant, and you have nothing to apologise for. The changes that have been effected since Randy took over have been fantastic, and we really appreciate it. Keep up the good work! Semper Fidelis! Mike

I believe Gabby was booked for his goal celebration.

As somebody has pointed out, if you go to Manchester you'll see loads of small companies calling themselves "Second City...(this, that or the other)". I'm sure loads of Mancs actually think that they are officially second. But they're wrong. It's always been Brum, it always will be.

My brain hurts.

Marine starfish have no brains and no blood. Their nervous system is spread through their arms and their “blood” is actually filtered sea water.

I was on the Holte that day, it was a cracker. Andy Gray put West Ham to the sword in no uncertain fashion. I look forward to more days like it.

Driving South - Stone Roses.

Good article John. Worthy of John Lerwill, that!

Don't think so - why don't you start one?

You mean THIS? Christianity: A belief in a cosmic Jewish zombie, who was his own father, and will let you live forever, if you pretend to eat his flesh, drink his blood and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that he put there a long time ago, as punishment for all humanity because a rib-woman made from a dust-man was convinced by a talking snake, to eat fruit from a magical tree. (It's not original BTW, I found it somewhere on the web).

Still 0% Jewish. Come on, there must be some out there.

Can you explain that? I know loads of people who identify "culturally" with the religion they were brought up in but don't necessarily "believe" in the myths, or practice the rituals. This includes Sikhs, Muslims, Hindus, Jews and Christians. Sorry Jas, I just re-read your post and I can see you were saying the same thing as me and questioning the wording of the poll. You're right, the poll should really restrict itself to "practicing" religions, otherwise it's just asking: "what is your cultural background?" - interesting in itself but not, I suspect, what the original pollster wanted to know.

I've just finished reading a really excellent book called "The Happiness Hypothesis". Towards the end, the author quotes a fellow academic who explains beautifully why this whole "peace-and-love-religions-practicing-mass-violence" phenomenon makes perfect evolutionary sense. I'll try and sum it up: We have evolved to be competitive to ensure the survival of our genes. This obviously works for individuals, and also for extended families/tribes. However, we have also evolved a predeliction for "ultrasociality" - effectively forming larger communities like cities and nation, giving us advantages in defence, commerce, etc. Within these large conglomerations, "selfish" genetic competition can be counter-productive. But.... those of you who have read their Dawkins will know about "memes" - cultural traits which are not in any way "genetic", but are subject to natural selection just as if they were. This includes fashions, ideas, etc. - and religions. The theory is that religions have "evolved" in order to bind larger communities together, based upon shared myths, practices, etc. These "religion memes" are in effect in competition with each other. So from an evolutionary viewpoint, it actually makes perfect sense for them to violently oppose each other. Interestingly, part of this process usually involves a taboo on "marrying out" of one's religion or caste, so that any minor genetic mutations will stay within the group, and cultures may over a long period actually become more physically/racially/genetically diverse. Which in turn is used to instensify the "they are not like us" attitudes. That's massively oversimplified the idea, but it makes a lot of sense to me, and I intend to read further.