Chindie

Now thats more like it, Redknapp appears to have gone for a variation on the Ken Dodd defence. Glorious. 'Arm too fick to av darn it me lud!'

No, I'm happy for you all, really. ...damn your eyes

I wouldn't have thought Clegg would pick up any Labour policies - he doesn't need any help to be less popular .

I was hoping there'd be something mildly more hilarious, but that is a pretty funny defence itself... Even if you were pretty 'for' 'arry in this whole thing, I'd think that the moment you hear 'he named it after his dog' you'd have to start questioning just how 'innocent' you thought this whole thing really was. Sad really that, for as guilty as he is, because he's 'arry Redknapp, he'll get some pisstake punishment.

I genuinely am anticipating what his defence is going to be, because he appears to be guilty as sin.

Blighttown killed my enthusiasm for the game - it is shit. It runs terribly (I genuinely cannot think of a game that has run as badly as Blighttown does from the last... well, from the entire lifespan of this console gen), looks shit, and the game effectively becomes a chore the very second you set foot in the place. Being sniped by blowdart fellas who poison you in 2 hits and are carefully placed to be hard to see and even harder to hit, is not fun, it's not even fun in a challenging, 'you ****!' kinda way, it's just a chore.

Parties generally are not in it for you. Which is why the rabid support they get perplexes me.

Hopefully it's bit more competitive at the top this year. I still don't like Vettel.

I actually quite like Apocalypse Now Redux. A bit more of a possible nugget of info has dropped for Avengers - Skrulls are not in it, according to Marvel Studioes Kevin Feige. He's hinted that the baddies are an established feature of Marvel comics, but rather than Skrulls he's indicated that they are something from one of the 'realms' that the Thor mythology brings to the party, which are all mentioned in the Thor film. This immediately lowers my expectations further, because the 'realms' idea was idiotic in the first place and the established races from them, asides from the one they've already dealt with, are shite. There's been some talk that the Skrulls were an option (they were in the now canned videogame adaptation) but then it appeared that Fox had the rights to the characters and thus, Marvel were ****.

Went to log into my Halifax online banking last night, and had a moment that I can only think must be a limpse into old age - I couldn't remember my username, at all. I had a rough idea of what it was, tried a couple of permutations, gave up and used the 'Forgot your username' thing. Filled out all the details and it gives me a username that is a garbled set of numbers. I knew that wasn't what my username was, but thought maybe they'd given me like a secure temporary one and I'd have to change the username later on. So I log in, check everything is fine, and look to change my username. No option exists. Shit. I can't remember the set of numbers, I'll never remember them, and sometimes I need to use the account away from home and saved details. So I ring up Halifax this morning, use their dumb automated system that eventually says 'If you want to reset your username, press 3'. Which it then tells to follow the instructions for forgotten usernames on the website which will allow me to reset it. It doesn't allow you to do this at all. So I ring back and hold on and eventually get to talk to a nice Scottish lady. She informs me that Halifax, in their infinite wisdom, had updated their security system 2 months ago, haven't informed me of this, and have changed their system so that the username it generates for you, an admittedly secure but unmemorable garbled set of numbers, is unchangeable. I say to her 'But I've been using my old username till last week, so...?' and get told that if you make a forgotten username request, it switches over to the new system immediately and doesn't inform you of any of this. What a load of **** shit - who on earth thinks changing the log in details of something as important as that without telling anyone is a good idea?!

but he was right, wasn't he? :winkold: Damn straight. .

An 'angry young man', by a history teacher who thought I'd never hear about it.

Dalglish apparently believes Downing is a better player than he thought when he bought him. ...eh?

Chalky. '**** English imperious ponce' 'Tory waster' And 'Racist'

Decided not to turn up for This Week

I'm for it generally, though I get torn over how far I take the principal that I believe largely underlines this - that a person should be, as far as possible, master of their own fate. This topic has come up before on the forum and, given how vocal he is on the subject, usually has Pratchett's thoughts come into it. He's produced a fair amount of media on the subject, he's referred like Mark has above to the history of this sort of thing - in the Victorian era doctors would often help the terminally ill 'along the way'. A few months ago Pratchett was involved in a documentary called 'Choosing to Die', in which he followed the story of some British people who had chosen to end their life at the Dignitas clinic in Sweden. The documentary eventually showed the process that that clinic provides in intimate detail - they were allowed to film the death of one of the men who had travelled there with his wife. It was a moving and powerful watch, and also quite... sobering. This painless end was not clinical. It's hard to describe but as a watch it was quite grim. Having taken the 2 liquids required this mans end came in the arms of his wife in some odd cabin hundreds of miles from home, pleading, deliriously, for water he was not allowed to have. What particularly struck me, though, and what makes me falter in my belief that is up to a man to decide his fate, is that it was discovered a fair number of people that had travelled to Dignitas sought their services because 'they had become weary of life'. I can't quite bring myself to say I would be happy to know that people, who physically were fine, but suffered some mental health issues (given the vagueness of Dignitas' description, perhaps even comparatively minor depression issues), had died, which I would view as a tragedy that could, perhaps, have been avoided and with treatment and support left someone with a lifetime ahead of them. I've never quite been able to feel confident in a stance that undermines a principal I largely feel is right, but allows for something I struggle to accept. Pratchett proposed that those who wished to end their life, would go to what amounts to a tribunal to be granted a licence to end their lives, with the panel effectively only granting such a licence to people who, of sound mind, suffered from a terminal illness that would in time significantly impact their quality of life. I find this probably the best truce between the principal I want to hold and the worries that that principal would give life to, though it still sits slightly uneasy with me somehow.

I knew about the Norton thing, he famously likes to be involved with the production of a film and will make changes to things and generally be awkward - he was never going to work in something like the Avengers where, at the very best, keeping the story going is going to be like spinning plates, you couldn't just let him change things to his liking on his whim. I don't think there will be much/any backstory for Hawkeye or Blackwidow, Black Widow will be shoved into the mix effectively as 'someone from SHIELD', as they kinda used Iron Man 2 for as much back story as is really needed, and Hawkeye will have similar happen as he already is in cahoots with Agent Coulsen. The Tesseract has had 2 films of set up and is blatently going to be a/the Maguffin. The Skrulls will be in it, I'm sure. Saw some on set photos with very alien looking guns and blokes done up in CGI capture suits meaning they're playing 'something' that isn't human. Plus the Skrulls have been an Avengers enemy before, and the trailer has numerous things that could be nods to Skrull involvement. They are shapeshifters, which could explain quite why Thor and Cap go at it in the trailer, and there are the numerous lasers and explosions the trailer shows. I think they will absolutely fly through the set up for the Avengers, they'll use the tensions between the big egos to underwrite the main plot.

I'm not sure I can blame him for wanting out of Blackburn, but unless QPR are offering silly wages I daresay he could go somewhere better.

The ship in it is called Prometheus apparently. But more significantly there looks like there will be similarities (in a metaphorical sense) in its plot to the original Prometheus greek myth. what is the original Greek myth about? Prometheus, a Titan, decided to steal fire from the gods, climbing Mount Olympus and taking it from Zeus, and giving it to humanity. He was then punished by the gods - chained to a rock for eternity, with an eagle tearing out and eating his liver every day, the organ growing back only to be devoured again the next day.

The Wasp Factory is a great book, but I think a lot of the praise it receives is based on the context of it's release. A debut novel comes out of nowhere that is 'smart' on many levels, whilst also being a pretty straight and simple read for anyone, and also being quite depraved and matter of act (even humourous) when dealing with quite grim stuff. It's an incredibly ballsy work for that time, which in time is an effect thats worn away. It's clout has been diminished by things that arguable followed in it's footsteps - American Psycho for example, but the hype is still there that for a modern reader will set the bar a little high. I still loved it, and still do to this day. I was recommended to read it by an English teacher at A Level, took the advice, read it on holiday. Made the mistake of leaving it on my aunts table whilst on that holiday who then denounced it as filth schools shouldn't be recommending

I liked the Bridge a lot, for the mystery of it and for the decision he clearly made to write a 'Bildungsroman' and then take that idea and place inside a much more complex narrative(s). And then I saw as the novel closed what he had actually decided was going to be the reason for this looping complex triple narrative, and I lost a little of my love for it - it was a great idea and he did it superbly, but it wasn't a terrible original one. Perhaps it was more so when first released. But still a bloody good read.

I don't have much faith in Whedon to be honest. And the whole idea is just unwieldy - by their very nature each of these characters are larger than life and you're going to be shoving what we can only assume will be 4 major players backed by 2 other big characters, on screen at once, and thats before you get to baddies (which is blatantly the Skrulls, which in itself just makes me go 'Eugh'). It's asking to be a complete mess, unless you break them up into teams (which I think is likely, it's pretty much what the comics always did, especially when they realised that Black Widow and Hawkeye are effectively useless when you've got a **** godlike being, an angry monster, the peak of human ability and smart mouthed bloke in a suit that makes him damn near unkillable) in which case it's going to be disjointed as it bounces all over the shop. And then I look at some of the fiddles done to costumes and the like and none of it looks for the better (wtf is going on with Thor's hair? It looks like he's been homeless with only straightners and peroxide for company for a year)... even the trailer managed to make the whole thing look very cheap. I also agree that Mark Ruffalo is an odd piece of casting, more so when you see some of the publicity shots they've done - what on earth have they gone for with that look? I actually enjoyed most of the films more than I expected to (which made me warm to the idea of an Avengers film, something until recently I saw very cynically), particularly Thor and Captain America, less so Iron Man 2, but I just can't see good things coming from this film. I bloody hope they do though, cos it'd be a helluva ride if they pull it off.

I'm only really just starting out. I read the Algebraist, which was alright as a piece of standalone scifi, and then read Excession a few years back as my first foray into the Culture series and effectively read it with bewilderment all the way through (probably not the best place to start on reflection). I've been told Consider Phlebas isn't a great place to kick off from either (despite being the first book in the Culture series) so went with the Player of Games. Feersum Enjin is the one that features a character who narrates in phonetics isn't it? Hence the title. I imagine thats the kind of thing you have to bear with til it clicks. It intrigues me if I'm honest. I'll read that as a brief break from the Culture, which I think I'll be ready for once done with the Use of Weapons then another one... Inversions perhaps. I must admit even with 3 M. Banks novels under my belt, I think his straight fiction stuff is still better. Everyone I've read (the Wasp Factory, the Bridge, Espedair Street, the Crow Road, Complicity, Whit and the Steep Approach to Garbadale) has been superb. Indeed the Crow Road, Complicity and Steep Approach... are some of my favourite books ever.

Finished the Player of Games last night. Enjoyable, the first time I've been able to genuinely say that about one of Banks' out and out sci-fi novels, although it seemed to want to sprint to the end and get it over with and I wasn't entirely satisfied. Moving onto The Use of Weapons now, which is already looking like it's gonna be good.

As much as I'm looking forward to it, my thoughts on the Avengers currently are that it's going to be a hideous mess.