mjmooney

Chris Rea - Blue Guitars disc 1.

**** me, did you buy the whole shebang? 11cds and a dvd?

bejezuz, that wasn't cheap

Chris Rea - Blue Guitars disc 1.

Bad set of choices, I need to tick three:

PC at work, THEN a laptop at home.

After the Flood - Talk Talk (from Laughing Stock)

New Riders of the Purple Sage - Gypsy Cowboy

Michael Nesmith - Continuing

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

The picture round in University Challenge is usually a piece of piss, this week it was national football federations badges

Arthur Connolly - Soul Music

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

The referee performed adequately. I didn't see a single yellow card brandished so fair play to him on that one

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!

The Enemy - Technodanceaphobia

PS Is there a topic where people introduce themselve when you're new, like me

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

Mike!

I'm trying to find a rant from you on here where you sort of mock the stories in the bible. Did it disappear?

Found it very funny and wanted to share it

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.

I do like how Sikh has been spelt incorrectly, and incidently is it not possible to be a non practicing Sikh, I thought I was one but it looks like that it is only possible to be non practicing if you are a Christian.

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.

ah the figurehead that's provked wars and the death of millions over two milennia, ironic considering how peaceful he was supposed to be. Caught a part of it, but had to switch over due to the ridiculous tone of some of the commentators who take it all so seriously.

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.

I do like how Sikh has been spelt incorrectly, and incidently is it not possible to be a non practicing Sikh, I thought I was one but it looks like that it is only possible to be non practicing if you are a Christian.

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.

Never watched it, apart from the odd few seconds while channel surfing, or that "falling through the bar" clip a million times on compilations.

The best thing David Jason ever did was the voice of Toad in the animated "Wind In The Willows" (I'm dead serious).