Chindie

*insert nudge wink references to Black Gates and Mordor as sexual euphemisms. I would have done this myself but all the ones I could think of sound just that bit too pervy even for a patented VT discussion of early relationship etiquette*

From the man himself! Not on strike. ...however he is French so he probably will be shortly

Whelans always been an arsehole. He's one of the main reasons to dislike Wigan. I was surprised more people didn't already dislike him.

Leave replying till this evening at least. Caveat - I Am Not Casanova, advice taken at your own risk

The Collector's Edition details of this dropped recently, usual kinda thing, premium box, statue, in game bonus stuff, nothing too special... ...it's £130. Guess Star Wars is a licence to print money because that will sell like hot cakes regardless.

It's quite 'arty', really, which I think put some people off. It's less a film about Charles Bronson as it is a film about the fascination of the character he made himself. Good watch though, has a real look to it and if you like Hardy he turns in a superb unhinged performance.

On that note Tony, somewhat related, I got listening to Radio5 doing some interviews on this crisis last night, quite intently. A couple of things stood out. Firstly, one fella mentioned that this feeling in the UK and to a lesser extent America that theres becoming an increasingly stark choice to kill the Euro is something that just doesn't exist amongst the powers that be on the continent - it's out of the question, it's not even considered. The feeling appears to be that they will only kill the Euro when it it's that or kill themselves. Another thing a couple of the financial experts interviewed just dropped in conversation very matter of factly is that Greece cannot pay this money back. They just can't, they owe too much to ever feasibly be repaid. The money that will be given them today was described by one guy as 'kicking the can a little further down the road'. That metaphor was then turned a little by the guy following him being interviewed who said 'it's not so much kicking the can a little further down the road as kicking the can in the long grass and hoping no-one can find it', as it appears that EU knows just giving Greece money isn't going to solve a thing but they've no idea what else to do and seem to be crossing their fingers that between the time todays bail out (which all speakers agreed is basically a formality) gives Greece a boost and them next needing more money something comes up that makes the decision go away. If it weren't for the fact that that this has the potential to royally **** us too, it'd be absolutely fascinating to look at. As it is it's like looking a car crash that just happened a couple of cars ahead of you - you've had to slam the anchors on and are a little shook up, but the guys ahead could well be in a bad way but since it's just happened it's hard to tell how bad... but it doesn't look good from the wreckage.

I've got a pretty decent beard at the moment, which is short for this world sadly. Really annoyingly, from about half way down where my sideburns would be to the bottom of my jawline on the left side, the hair is curlier and sticks out more than the rest of my face, leaving that side looking bushier and more unkept than the rest. It's really, really annoying. I noticed it a little before the beard with my left sideburn always seeming to have like, a swirl in it once it got to a different length, but it appears to effect that whole side.

One might question why someone would choose to inflict a pain they know only too well on someone else.

I finally watched Rescue Dawn the other day. Very good but unsurprisingly was a bit haphazard with actually happened with the other chaps in the prison camp. The portrayal of one of them would probably warrant a law case were he not dead.

Mensch always looks like she's sucked a bee up her arse whilst swallowing a wasp and is very smug about the whole thing to me. Turns out Jonnie Marbles isn't a terribly successful comedian and also has a line in a lot of anti-govt stuff. Unsurprisingly on the first count at least.

Foam pie apparently.

It's the Ernest Saunders defence - I'm a weak old man with dementia, please go gently. I'm surprised he didn't turn up wearing a nightshirt and diving helmet. I did wonder if that might be the case. I'm not so sure though, James' role somehow makes me think that they know Murdoch Snr might not do so well. I do wonder if the committee suspects similar hence why they've often in effect told James to shut it. Either way if Murdoch Snr is playing a role here hes not come out if it well as one member had already suggested Rupert's lack of knowledge on things did not reflect well on him or News Intl.

And it would appear that the committee are very keen to question Rupert only. Indeed. 'Your father is in control of the corporation, we will come to you'. I have often heard that the son was worse than the father. At this moment in time, I can certainly believe it. James appears rather more keen to deflect and put up the defences (whilst trying to appear to kowtow and be sincere), while his father is bumbling through it more or less straight and not sounding all that powerful or...well, fit.

It is remarkable how weak, and feeble, Murdoch is sounding already. He genuinely appears to be struggling with every question so far. The line of questioning currently has him repeatedly saying he appears to either not know an awful lot that was going on under him or he knew very, very fleeting details. James is desperate to prevent his father being questioned it seems...

Not the biggest fan of Shay, not the biggest fan of this deal. Could have done worse I guess.

Atlas Shrugged is a hateful book. Absolute literary garbage and run through with vile politics. As for Hoare's death- I take the immediate 'he was killed' reaction with a hefty dose of cynicism on any of these scenarios, but this one particularly so. He was apparently quite quite ill after a life (prescribed by the NOTW funnily enough) of booze and drugs, and hadn't got into the story much after his initial whistle blow it seems, which art the time was obviously given short shrift.

Say hello to chronic shoulder and back injury and pain if you want to be a plasterer, they all end up suffering with it one way or another sooner or later. You might want to look at doing a more generalised building course and then pick up the plastering side of things as you go along once you've got the other skills in your locker. You're more useful (and thusly more employable) if you can do more than throw plaster on a wall. My sisters partner is a plasterer and rarely (if ever) does a job where he's called in just to do the plastering, he's expected to do other work as well.

James May has a go with the GTRs launch control behind the scenes. Just emphasises how incredibly the thing gets away. It's like it's in a cartoon.

I think more than one person has said it before now, but the XK8 when it first came out was felt to be a bit odd looking, looked like it was on spindly stilts and that. And then it grew into itself and now looks pretty stellar. I've liked them for a long time. Then again I like the XJS a lot (non-American spec though - the US ones look hideous, keeping up with the tradition of European sports cars being Americanised and put through the ugly machine while they're at it).

It was made a bad sketch by the fact was drawn out obscenely, terribly acted on at least 1 count, bordered on retarded from it's inception, and above all, just wasn't funny. It may have been funny if, for example, it'd been something come up in Last of the Summer Wine back in the day, where it's clearly set out to be a comedy show with a script, rather than this stupid half way house the show continues to do with them playing caricatures of themselves (in Hammonds case, terribly) and somehow seems to pitch the comedy on that fact that it is scripted, rather than it is funny. And even then it's not going in the comedy hall of fame. The stuff Top Gear does well is the stuff that is less about being a comedy and more about entertainment and information. The races from early in the show's lifespan, clearly to one extent or another scripted, but the script wasn't about making it funny it was about making it a little more interesting, and the comedy came from some throwaway moments (the SLR vs boat race scene on the ferry with James nearly but not quite coming onto Hammond by saying slightly creepy things) or from comments from all of them, not in playing some dumb character. The same thing happens in their road tests or other more factual pieces - they're funny because of the set up, or because of the things that are said. They need to cut the bollocks attempts at comedy because they've collapsed over the line over 'OK' never to return. And it's not like a dyed in the wool Labourite who hates Tory Clarkson and wants him off my screen or just doesn't like the show - I like Clarkson generally (Meet the Neighbours is the best thing he's done) and love Top Gear. That love is getting burned out by the constant shit they're putting out disguised poorly as comedy. If you go back an watch some repeats on Dave (not hard) theres a marked change in the show that comes around about the time they do the caravan sketch, where the dumb caricature sketches come in thick and fast and more often than not, unfunnily.

I thought the 'Scum Class' recurring joke was pretty grim, just to underline a painfully unfunny sketch.

If you cobbled together the non-shite parts of the latest series, 3 episodes in, you might just about have enough to make a really, really good episode. The train thing last night was positively painful to watch, and disappeared over the horizon of Dreadful the more Hammond was involved. As a comedic entity he's non-existant. The playing up comedy sketch bits have always teetered on the line between cringeworthly bad and just about acceptably mediocre, but Hammond just cannot do this shit. He can't even do the bad acting caricature thing that Clarkson and May do slightly more convincingly. Terrible.

I've considered having a rant about Twatter recently, but I think you've saved me the effort Darren. It's everywhere and it seems just about everything on it is bollocks. I've already just about had it with the effect it's had on transfer gossip (everything seems to be prefaced with 'some prick on twitter' or 'the reports (**** OFF) on twitter say...', or the absolute highest crime, using hashtags in normal typed conversation), and thats positively trivial. At least back before twitter, 'ITK' bollocks was infrequent and pretty easily ridiculed or filtered thorough. Now shite spawned on twitter is everywhere and relayed with glee.

Holy **** shit... I can go down the street and buy a half-dozen bottles of 500 x 500mg pills off the shelf. It used to be like that here - they brought in the new rule, oh maybe ten years ago. I used to buy painkillers (paracetamol) in bulk - 200 tablet bottle - before the law changed. It's a damn nuisance. I suspect that the "suicide" thing is actually a cover to hide a de facto price increase caused by having to buy in small quantities. Apparently paracetamol suicides went down dramatically as a result; maybe 80% or something. It's also a nasty way to die, very painful and extremely slow. I seem to remember hearing that it is not a way to commit suicide that you want to be saved from - the talk always was if you went down that route and were saved you were left vegetable like if it was far enough along.