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Ah, George. If you only you could separate his political convictions from the ego that puts them about. But then he wouldn't be the same, and I do think we're a bit richer for having him around. Wouldn't vote for him, though.

That was like watching a cat toying with a mouse. In audio form, obviously.

I think this is a massive blunder on their part. The only way they'll get away with it is if companies like Sony follow suit. They're basically engineering a system so that games have no value to the customer after purchase. Dealbreaker for me if those prices are accurate.

Very good.

We need to delete all of the other sub-forums, including the Muppet Show. This is a football forum. Alternatively, all Lounge stories now have to have a football in shot. Any muppet show post must reference football. I'm on safe ground with this one, because I've mentioned football several times. So football. It's a funny old game, isn't it?

If you'd said "pop over to Normandy in 1944" to defend our freedoms, you'd have a hell of a point. Is our involvement in the Middle East about defending our freedoms, or legitimising US neo-imperialism? Remember that the soldiers in Iraq went there on a lie, and that war was directly responsible for the loss of a million Iraqi lives. My personal view is that Afghanistan was a sledge-hammer to crack a walnut. The US should have done what they eventually did, conduct a surgical operation to get the guy, with very little collateral damage. That would have been the moral thing to do for the leaders of the free world. Members of the Forces don't get to make these decisions. The old saying "once you take the Queen's shilling" is true. So my stance, to give you another opportunity to perhaps get offended, is this. I have tremendous professional respect for the work that members of our armed forces do, in the same way that I have tremendous respect for any accomplished professional - but I don't consider a member of the armed forces to be intrinsically better than anyone else. Lest you forces types take umbrage, that goes for everyone. As I said before, it's tragic whenever it happens. I don't think it becomes more or less tragic based on what someone elected to do as a career.

I think I have been. Read over this thread. I've basically repeated myself the whole way down. I'll do you the honour of not repeating it again. If you stick to what I've said, and not what others have made up for me, then it's a very reasonable question. Why does the physical evidence on the victims contradict the eye-witness accounts?

Micky, thanks for the introduction and the acknowledgement that you read the stuff I put on here, but apart from your last point - which I'm not really in a position to argue, the rest of your post is speculative junk. So what's going on in my life that has adversely affected me so much that I am driven to point out glaring inconsistencies with what people said and what is apparent from the photos? I don't know how you're going to reconcile this with your theory that I've disappeared into some deep dark hole, but life is pretty good right now. I've been banking cash for over a year, the missus has recently got a new job, the girls are doing well at school/college. I can well appreciate the whole angry loner tag you're trying to attribute me with, but it's not an accurate description, as anyone on here who knows me in real life will attest. I honestly don't give a crap whether you believe that or not.

People are murdered every day in this country and it is a tragic occurrence every time it happens. Is it your view that because this man was a soldier, he deserves more respect?

You find the suggestion that there isn't much blood on people that have just hacked a man to death offensive? Especially when eye-witness accounts speak of a frenzied attack, trying to remove organs, and it being like something out of a horror movie? That right there is the entirety of my so called "conspiracy theory". The rest is all on you.

You are free to characterise my posts in any way you want, just as I'm free to disagree with yours. I didn't put the smiley face there for the reasons you state. It's just that once someone has come in and called you weird, and you admit that you are, where exactly does that person go afterward? The only comments I've made on here relate to the lack of blood in a bloody attack. That is it.

Perhaps you'd like to start by addressing what I've posted which is so offensive.

One of the assailants is wearing a beige coat. The other, he with the bloody hands and political message, was spotless apart from his hands. Nothing on his jacket, and there is a whole video of him spouting off. This is one of those eyewitness accounts. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0SybVHGZqU The eyewitness describes the assailants hacking at the victim as if he were a piece of meat. Later, he says that it was like a horror movie. I find that account incongruent with the state of the assailants post-attack. Take a look at the bloke in the beige jacket. Does he look like he has recently committed the acts attributed to him? Well worth a listen.

For what? Saying that there isn't much blood for an attack billed as bloody? That the sub-headline on that Sun article, "Brave mum confronts bloodied killer", doesn't actually show a bloodied killer? These are statements of fact.

You are very observant. Yes I am. Where do you go next?

Honestly don't know. Like yourself, I'm no expert on blood spatter or decapitation. I'm just pulling at a few loose threads.

The headline says "Brave mum tackles bloodied fanatic". The fanatic has no blood on him

Oh aye, but that'd be at odds with the reports of them being crazed maniacs, wouldn't it? Crazed maniacs ready to start a war concerned about the state of their jackets. Matey in the video had jeans on with no blood on them either. Do you reckon he took them off too?

Yeah, I'm well aware of the "butchered to death" business. This is really the root of my issue with those photos. The two perpetrators managed to butcher someone to death without much blood appearing anywhere. Is it your view that in order to question one part of an account, one has to have a complete understanding of everything?

I have spent a bit of time going over the photos this morning. Not a lot of blood about, considering the nature of the attack. The dude in the video with bloodied hands is a classic example. Here's a bloke who has just hacked someone to death, and the only blood on him, anywhere, is on his hands. Nothing on his coat or jeans. in motion:- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22634468 Similar deal with the other attacker, but it's actually a lot easier to see (as this bloke has a beige jacket on). Also, the prone body lying on the floor.

CB Fry is right; I have been busy. Matters of industry sadly, so I haven't had chance to form much of a view. Still haven't. I've been watching Twitter for the last ten minutes. UKIP as a search term is going mental, with some real nasty stuff being spouted. Here's one attributed to @Luke_Bird:- These sort of incidents allow racist attitudes to flourish. I honestly haven't read enough to be able to suggest anything suspect yet, but perhaps that's not the point right now. There's a lot of nationalist sentiment out there right now and not a great deal of perspective. I'd say a lot of people have been coiled up, spring-loaded for such an incident to occur so that they can spout their hatred, and use the exception as the rule. I'm not sure whether the media attention has been disproportionate yet. I acknowledge that the murder of ethnic minorities is almost criminally under-reported in the mainstream media, but this is an unusual case. People aren't usually beheaded in modern Britain; that alone makes this incident all kinds of bizarre. Conspiracy theories can wait a bit. The national pulse is far more interesting atm.

I had to buy two of these buggers in one go, so I ended up taking interest free credit on the pair of them. My view on computers is that they are an expensive purchase, and one easy to regret. The girls wouldn't really be Crysis fans themselves, but everything they play runs smoothly. My genuine best advice is to find a machine you want and get a decent credit agreement on it. Dell do loads of it, and they have some very nice Alienware machines that'll do you for a few years if you're prepared to fork out that much. buctootim will tell you that I'm an elitist bugger when it comes to this stuff, and he is right. I can't even buy computers for my kids that don't have a decent graphics card. However, I do feel it's worth getting a decent machine, and in earnest, it's probably worth waiting until Company Of Heroes 2 actually comes out ( and is out for a month, to give them time to sort out all the massive gamebreaking bugs ). You'll then have a good idea of how well it actually runs, and better machines could well be within your price range.

Ooh, having said that, you'd need more RAM.

I've got two of the next model up versions of that Dell in the house, the 17R Inspiron SE. Do read the customer reviews, the negative ones are hilarious. One bloke was moaning about having a GFX card that has never existed in the machine The Dell response is a very gentle "are you sure you are commenting on the right machine, sir?". The other negative reviews are from people who legitimately moaned about the since fixed fan issue. Basically, an Inspiron is an XPS (Dell's old gaming laptop) with a poorer chassis. The internal components are up there, but the external stuff is built with lower quality materials. This is the model I got for the girls, which has a better rating than the one you posted:- http://www.dell.com/uk/p/inspiron-17r-se-7720/pd?refid=inspiron-17r-se-7720&baynote_bnrank=0&baynote_irrank=1&~ck=dellSearch&isredir=true The original Company of Heroes was a system resource hog. Relic acknowledge "we sold a lot of graphic cards ( http://www.polygon.com/2012/9/28/3425718/the-cold-logic-of-company-of-heroes-2 ). They are not going to be at the absolute bleeding edge for this, but equally, they've got some very cool stuff, such as terrain deformation, which is integral to the way the game works. The recommended spec on the link I posted says 450GT or higher. The Inspiron 17R SE has a 650GT in it, and is 600 of your finest English knicker.

Fair play, the bat cave is right underneath Wayne Manor, but isn't a great deal of your work on site above the skyline of Gotham City. You can't work very well from home when Commissioner Gordon sends the bat-signal up.