Chindie

I mentioned last week you may benefit from a consistent approach and was told the reason you wouldn't do that was the media wouldn't pay attention if you didn't switch things up so you had to keep moving the goal post. I'd reiterate that, for this to get traction en masse, you need to have a consistent approach that builds momentum and makes a routine out of something. People aren't going to spend to assist this, not in great number, so it needs to be something that takes no effort. You also want visual impact. The Out the Door protest was probably the best of the scenarios offered so far for those criteria and there's no reason you can't return to that - you'll need to kick-start it, as effectively you're starting over and you've got to combat the feeling that you've stumbled, but that's the one to date to go with IMO. And do it every week. Repetition begets repetition, the crowd will do half the job for you if you can gain traction. Frankly you may also be helped (or hindered, if we're honest) by the state of the team, people won't mind leaving early if the team is still being spanked, although you also get the impression then that it is less about protest and more just disgust at the performance. By constantly changing, you only confuse people, no matter how much you advertise and use media to get it out there. Pick something, keep doing it. Again, I have to be honest and say I'm not a supporter of the protest (I advocate a full boycott as that's the only thing with any material impact that can be done), so take everything I've said with a pinch of salt.

I'm still of the mindset that a single type of protest is likely to be more 'successful' than constant chopping and changing, assuming you gauge success on take up rather than the degree to which your aims are achieved.

You need to either redress things at work, or you need to find another job. You shouldn't have to put yourself through that and if it is affecting your health, your priority needs to change.

Of course the traditional use around here of a hammer is to drive home a screw.

I'll just reiterate my long-standing position on Martinez - he's not very good and his entire reputation stands on just doing enough to keep Wigan afloat whilst stupidly playing 'good football'. He wouldn't know a good defence if one gave him a leg breaking clattering.

The Commission is the legislative arm of the EU, that's true, and it's unelected, which is also a problem and is the fundamental democratic deficit of the organisation. I'd be wary of jumping to the conclusion that that means the EU definitely wants to have a United States of Europe. I have no doubt whatsoever that there are members of the commission that want that. I also have no doubt there are as many that would burn the EU down the moment that was on the table. Because these Commissioners are nominated by their respective nations as representatives. Why would David Cameron send a bloke to Brussels who wants to put David Cameron's job further down the ladder? 'Our' current Commissioner, Jonathan Hill, who nobody had ever heard of, was almost certainly sent to Brussels as a way of sticking the middle finger up at them, because he was a nobody and Junkers wanted big names and diversity. So we send someone nobody would look twice at in the street and the whitest man possible. There are so many bits of the EU and it's organisation is such that those bits are made up of hundreds of different people, and there whole elements of that which are pretty much there to decry the organisation, particularly in the Parliament who can, at will (provided there is 2/3rds agreement), make the Commission resign, and it can also tell the Commission to piss off with legislation if it wants. You'd have to have an enormous majority of every element of the EU that wanted a United States of Europe for it to happen. So it won't. Unless there's a cull of all the dissenters in which case the organisation falls apart, or unless they completely change the organisation unilaterally, which again would have so much uproar the EU would cease to be. Countries within the EU have already ignored it on issues far more minor than an existential sovereignty crisis. I can see why the USE is a concern. But it's not a real one IMO.

Indeed. There are whole swathes of people whose job it is to essentially find these loopholes and work out how to exploit them. There is money sloshing around that derived from someone not being whiter than white with HMRC. I don't like it, I don't think a number of these schemes are right. But there's no way they're going anywhere.

The Anderson Silva ko of Shogun is perhaps my favourite front kick knock out. Came out of nowhere, Shogun was actually probably on top iirc until it hit him as well. Sadly not on YouTube. Edit. Not Shogun, it was Belfort! Of course...

You'd need a long wall...

Tax avoidance also props up entire industries - we aren't going to make it illegal. It's one of those things where there comes a clear 'you're taking the piss' point I think, the unfortunate thing being my taking the piss level is probably lower than the kind of person able to pay for a good accountant and tax lawyer to mitigate my costs to the tax man. Without knowing the ins and outs, I'd probably say Tony's suggested scheme above would probably go above my taking the piss level. I'm also aware of a scheme to avoid stamp duty which is clearly, whilst arguably legal, obviously a dodge and immoral in my view. But it isn't going away. Government basically needs to keep shifting the goalpost to make it seem like they're doing something but in actuality all they're doing is opening an opportunity elsewhere to be found. And everyone's happy in ignorance and/or a reduced rate... The particularly daft thing, for me anyway, is that i've been sat watching the news this week on all this and seeing Mr Cameron squirm (which is always fun) and I was struck by an immense feeling of 'is anyone shocked, really?'. I just naturally assume anyone earning significant money is playing the system somewhere to minimise their tax obligation. I don't for a second believe Cameron's accountant isn't earning his keep by squirreling money via some route somewhere, even now. And the same goes for, I'd imagine, at least half the Commons. You don't get rich by spending money when you can avoid doing so. You don't pay your accountant to simply only tick the boxes. So we'll play this silly dance for a while and a few with their hands too far in the cookie jar might be nobbled and a few will have broken the line of legality and the rest will squirm for a while, hunker down and in 6 months will be eagerly hearing their accountant tell them off the latest wheeze to pay 3% where you'd normally pay 20%.

A 15 rated Avengers probably doesn't make the money that makes it worthwhile. Deadpool is an enormous success. It's a deeply unexpected one and it's success is largely down to a brilliant marketing campaign and importantly it's initial cost. It cost under £60m, and it shows. What they achieved with that budget is fantastic, but that's a fifth of the average blockbuster budget. The higher works for Deadpool, is the right character to do it with. There are others, and there a few that straddle the line between fitting a harder movie and more suitting a lower rating, like Wolverine, but not all comic movies should be more 'adult' and they won't be. But there might be more of them. Certainly there will be a Deadpool sequel - with Cable for extra fun.

There's an astounding number of ways to beat him in that fight that I can only imagine are even more annoying. The flexibility in this game is fantastic. There are more annoying missions ahead, though.

Brilliant band. New album going on the wishlist as we speak.

I think the only way you can make this a referendum matter is to reduce it to a principle question. The problem is that principle is loaded, for better or worse. Being practical, you can't just ignore the benefits and pitfalls of membership to make it a purely principle decision. In principle, no, I'm against the EU in many respects, mostly the huge democratic deficit it has. We vote for an element of it, yes, but that element is actually rather weak, it has no legislative power and only signs off on budget and 'monitors' the organisation. The arm with any real power we nominate a representative to who then has to act on the basis they no longer, in essence, have a tie to the UK. Which is a ludicrous notion and not good democratically. But. For all the crap associated, we benefit from it. For us these benefits are fairly intangible. We aren't Spain 15 years ago where every public project was paid for by the EU basically to try to stop Spain being the poor man of Europe, so we don't see the benefit directly, but we do gain from things like easier back and forth trade, easier movement (which possibly has a detrimental effect to the new entrants, as we can brain drain them) etc etc etc. There are also principle arguments to stay in. The background of the EU, in it's very infancy, was to create an organisation that got Europe on it's feet and in each others pockets to stop the continent collapsing again and trying to exterminate each other again. To acknowledge a block of like minded countries to operate together in an increasingly globalised world. I quite like the idea of being both British and European. So on principle alone I'd probably have voted no. But I can't remove that principle from the wider question of whether the EU is good for the UK, and because on the balance of things I think it is, it outweighs my principle objection. That's why you have to understand it on a more fundamental level. That's why this referendum is ludicrous. That's why the leaflets coming through my door are not showing to my principles, they're appealing to my practical side, and my wallet.

I understand that entirely. There's genres of film I don't get either - I don't really like horror movies. They don't really scare me (beyond the reflex jump scare, which is awful filmmaking) but I don't find them enjoyable to watch at all. I like a handful and they aren't the usual fair, stuff like the Shining. But I don't wait for them to disappear from the industry. There are loads every year and the trailers are always shit (the latest one, the Boy, Christ...). They always make a bit of money as well so Hollywood keeps pumping them out. I also don't get a lot of foreign stuff. A couple of Von Triers movies are genuinely unpleasant watches, and French art house stuff is hideous - I recall one I watched where a girl goes missing (I think her family might have died?) and at the end she encourages a trucker to pretty much rape her. I sure this was brilliant and moving and profound but it stuck me as pretentious nonsense. But for anyone that likes them, great, I want to hear about it.

We used to a have fry up every Friday, and everything was done in a frying pan. Including the beans. They went into this thick mush, still beans but like a paste, tasted awesome. I recommend cooking beans this way. And bacon. I've never grilled bacon ever.

Not a clue. Bad tattooist?

Browsing on a tablet, but I see this...

He apparently has Jewish relatives which may explain things. Although I genuinely believe if someone told him it'd get votes he'd say he advocated relocating Auschwitz to Manhattan, so that's probably not saying much.

I am knackered so could be completely confused myself, in which case apologies, but your first photo appears to be a picture of someone's tattoo with 'Blood honour' on it, which seems out of place.

I think that first pic might be in error.

OK. I'm not sure it's the best devil's advocate but clearly we aren't going to agree. What else is worthy of a referendum do you think?

I disagree, obviously, but would you not agree that 'Elections are shit as well then' isn't really a defence of a referendum for a decision of this kind?

That isn't the implication at all. There a difference between ignorance and stupidity. You vote for a party because you're ignorant, in essence. You say 'go make these decisions for me'. A referendum asks you to make the decision. In this case its asking the entirety of the UK voting population to make a decision, that almost all of them, PhD academics to the lowliest drop out on the role, are ignorant of. I have books, thousands of pages, that go into this shit and the wider implications of the kind of decisions the EU makes, that one tread and had to read and understand, and I wouldn't call myself completely qualified to make this decision. The rest of the population mostly haven't had that luxury. So they're making a decision, a really important decision, from a position based on soundbites, stupid leaflets, and newspaper headlines. That isn't a sound foundation for that decision to be made on. And it's impossible to make everyone understand even the fundamentals of how the EU works. So it's probably a decision that doesn't fit a referendum very well. It's not even bias. I'm pro-EU, just. It has problems, numerous ones, but I think we benefit overall. Even with that stance, I don't really like people making the same decision using soundbites and headlines to make it. I get my hair cut by a foreign bloke. He's benefited from the EU obviously. We got into this subject the last time I was in. He's fairly anti-EU and likes to think he kinda gets it. He looked utterly confused when I started parking prattling on about even some fairly basic elements of the EU structure. That's the standard of knowledge making this call.

New album this week. Such a good band. Can't wait.