chrisp65

Yes, if I do pick up a newspaper it'll be the Independent, although that's sadly becoming more difficult to find. Not a big deal for me, but their sports reporting is going down hill. They have a dick of a footy writer that keeps dropping into articles that Wales can now throw in the towel and merge with England, now they've (almost) qualified for something. He only does it to wind people up, but it wipes out a few other footy forums for 24 hours every time he does it.

On a shellfish note, I don't see the current situation helping the lazy limp David Cameron cajole his euro leader chums in to giving the UK more special concessions around our membership and what rules apply to us. Germany has sensed an opportunity here, something that will be a grand gesture, that helps it's own economy, that gets a rule change on moral and christian values, that coincidentally does nothing to help its closest rivals partners. In its own twisted way, this could see the UK much more likely to leave the EU. By leave the EU, obviously I mean still trade with it, still have to meet all its rules, still have to organise our services to match their standards, just not have a say in anything. Leave deciding the rules entirely to Germany, France and the rotation of nodding dogs from Malta and Lithuania etc.. With this being the dominant issue and us being out of step, I just can't see the political mastermind and detailed thinker and strategist that is David Cameron and his 'advisors' (yah, sounds great Henry, you sign it, I'm on holiday), being able to negotiate a deal for us that will appease the newspapers' need for petty victory. I know it's a different topic really, but I think the last few weeks have seen us take a step towards leaving. The silent selfish majority have seen the future, they'll be scared.

Laughing at the poor.

The UK has committed to 4,000 refugees per annum. As the last net migration figures were over 300,000 inward per annum, this doesn't look like a game changer to me.

Did we get to the bottom of why the english can't wear caps in Treorchy?

working my way through all my old Small Faces albums, mostly rehashed versions of 'best of' but due to labelling glitches and incompetence, the occassional rare gem dropped in there too Small Faces very much in my top three.

Yeah, it's a hell of a proportion. It's the sort of number that could stop a state being viable, the equivalent of 16 million French turning up here. I know Tony for one would struggle with that sort of number. What's Syrian food like? Can we expect the local takeaway street to have any new smells and flavours in a couple of years time?

I'm doubly confused now, firstly, who has told you you cannot wear a hat? Secondly, are you in England or Treorchy?

Best you tell Lebanon your theory on muslim countries not taking refugees, they clearly didn't get the memo. There will undoubtedly be all manner of criminals and broken people in the mass of refugees, they are not 100% saints, they are people from a war zone. I believe even some non-muslim whities from northern europe can be criminals as well, though obviously I'd rather be raped by a whitey than a blacky. Smaller penis. If you believe a million Syrians can turn 500 million europeans into creamy coloured muslim drug addicts, well, you don't have a very high opinion of europe do you. Other than that mate, top post.

I've got the Guardian and the Observer regularly for a few months now. It's free in Waitrose and it's the exact same size as the rabbit's litter tray. Rarely read it, haven't even flipped through the last few, just brought them home and put them in the newspaper pile, ready for pet clean out day. That might sound a bit div, but it is true. It's symptomatic of why the planet needs to kill us off.

My own personal god loves all of you. Count yourselves lucky.

Gulp A gorgeous side project from Guto (SFA). Stick this on and the summer will be 44 minutes longer, it's lovely.

I think the Guardian is a little bit middle class, despite it's Manchester routes. Stereotypically, you'd find a Guardian on the coffee table in the school staff room, where it's easy to pontificate on all things left, but there is little desire to chance losing any actual status or pension rights and make this a workers' republic. So the Guardian tends to be 'anti-tory' rather than 'pro-socialist'. I think they quite liked the theory of new labour / labour lite. Maybe. Or they can just see he has some unpalatable and unworkabley expensive ideas in there amongst the brilliant populist stuff.

it's my wedding anniversary today wife is popping home for lunch

So you don't think Europe is a basket case then? A quick skim through the last 100 years: World War I Flu Pandemic Another Flu Pandemic (5% of the world population killed) Great Depression World War II The Cold War Oil Price Quadruples in a month The Winter of discontent - rubbish on the streets, bodies in the morgues, no electricity AIDS BBC celebrities The Financial Crisis The Middle East yet again I'm going to stick my neck out and say we'll get through this. Maybe not unchanged, but we'll get through it.

Yeah I was thinking exactly the same .... I figure it's more for the rest of us'ssss benefit rather than to influence the Labour vote though .... Mrs H watched a bit of it last night and said bloody hell does he think he's a communist .... this was her impression after a few minutes having never even heard of him before My missus said basically the same thing. Then went on to add that she'd wished she'd paid the £3 for a vote. My missus was a dangerous commie insurgent way before twitter was a thing.

I think the comment about Strictly was bang on the money. If all the newspapers and tv news decide this evening to lead with a story about guide dogs for the blind, then that'll be a 90% drop in concern about Syria. People will comment on what is put in front of them. Not everyone, just enough for a bandwagon. Then, as said elsewhere previously, once a cause has been built up, it's time to rip it down. How long before the Sun, Mail and Express have scum 'journalists' out there looking for their first Syrian rapist, benefits cheat or aggressive preacher? You gotta have a narrative arc.

They were already theorising on Radio 4 this morning that the tories are holding off another vote in the commons regarding bombing in Syria. The theory went that they only have a majority of 12, some of them will not vote for bombing, but if/when Corbyn is leader he will want to vote against bombing. This would be an instant opportunity for 50% of the Labour MP's in the commons to vote against him, guarantee a tory vote win and trigger an instant no confidence in Corbyn. Giving the tories another unopposed 6 months and Labour a chance of getting their shit together with years to go before an election. It was like listening to Oliver Stone's JFK done in received pronunciation voice over. Conspiracies within conspiracies.

Prius is the only electric I've driven. I've had one as a rental 3 or 4 times. WNB

aye, not sure what happened with those other two quotes - and now I can't get rid of them it was more a comment on your prophecy of the end of europe oh, and nothing was 'fixed' in 2008, what was established was the current understanding of money and debt was even more abstract than we'd imagined. The banks had no money, but it didn't really matter, turned out they'd never really had any, so we pretended to get some more to help them out, now we have to pretend to pay that back - with new loans but again, it was really just a comment on excitable doomsday stuff

2008 phoned, it wants it's doomsday scenario back. Population of EU currently stands at approx 510 million, europe as a whole at 750 million. Frankly, if 1 million, 2 million, 3 million refugees and migrants on foot can take that down, they deserve it.

I've dropped this in the history thread because I don't want it to be part of the whole ISIS refugee topic. A few days ago I saw a claim that British soldiers in recent history would use beheading as a tactic or methodology. It seemed a bit far fetched to me so I've done a little digging and there isn't much out there. But there are a few websites I'm less than confident in (such as wikipedia) that do appear to back this up. The main claims appear to be that post war, when we were still trying to hang on to Burma and Malaya, between 1948 and 1952, the army would capture and kill rebels and rather than have to bring back all the bodies they only brought back the heads. That in 1952 the British army were beheading the opposition in the jungle and that had it been a 'war' situation and not 1948, it 'might' at the time have been seen as a war crime. Never heard of this before - anybody out there know if there's any legitimacy in the claims? It's just a bit of a crazy contrast if 'we' were doing this 60 years ago and now we think it is beyond barbaric in 2015. Might be myth.

I thought it was interesting on that programme that virtually the last talking head was Tristram Hunt, a Labour MP famed by some for crossing a picket line giving the excuse that 'he wasn't in that union', son of Baron Hunt of Chesterton, and educated at Trinity College Cambridge felt that Corbyn could pull Labour to the left. Lord forbid that should happen. I don't mean to come over as an inverted snob, but, you know, come on.

I'd like to see the evidence. I'm also aware that it is likely that there are still active investigations happening which are likely to be jeopardised by releasing anything at this time. Time will have to tell on this one. yep agreed, but it feels a bit like a very very small side story, I don't think this one incident turns Cameron into Blair mkII