pap

Yeah, the missus says stuff like this too. Here's pap's musical credibility challenge. How many of the bands that you listened to as a teenager can you still stomach today? See, the missus listened to a load of old ****e like New Kids on the Block. I was into Guns 'N Roses, Rage Against The Machine and Nirvana. I still have those albums on all the time. She cringes whenever Hanging Tough is played on some dodgy music channel. Sure, music is a matter of taste, but as her behaviour in later life proved, she had no taste then, and little now (imo, ofc). I doubt she'll be listening to anything she listens to now in 2023.

The only real issue here is that so many people like crap music. It is a shame, but it doesn't mean there isn't good music out there. I haven't bothered with the charts for yonks. If I want to broaden my horizons, I go to Metacritic, sort by highest to lowest album score and have a listen of the top new albums. I've discovered loads of great bands through that site.

She put that one on too. She's a stubborn little bollix. She likes to vex me with "all One Direction" playlists. Dads: never EVER feel guilty about playing your own music in the car. Democracy sounds like a good idea, until you actually hear it.

One Direction are truly fkn awful. The cover versions are travesties. The youngest put their version of "One Way or Another" on during the school run on Monday. For something so relentlessly cheery, it had me full of rage within 30 seconds.

Not the way it went down. It's even worse from a certain perspective. One of the Conservative members was missing, so the Labour councillors wanted to push the vote through sharpish so they could reject it and propose an alternative with their then 2/3rds majority. The key point of difference is Boris' ideological council tax cut. Good old Boris, eh? Fighting for Londoners. The average household will save £3.64 a year under Boris' brilliant scheme. I'm sure that'll make up for the fire stations and cop shops they lose as part of that budget. I don't blame them for chancing their arm and trying to get their alternative in.

I'd expect a half-decent politician to be able to build consensus, particularly in a post such as the Mayor of London. Is that what we've got to look forward to with him as PM? Shouting and pointing. Yay.

Is that what you saw? Blimey, I thought I was watching a man shout at a room full of people who had zero respect for him. His podgy-boy pointing act gave a clue as to why he might not be respected.

The alternative is getting off our collective arses and demanding better alternatives. No one can be arsed, so instead we hail a performance that shows Boris has no leadership qualities as amazing

That is more worrying than amazing. People actually want this guy? He looks a complete prawn when he's hanging around (after he's been dismissed) pointing fingers at people.

I've been called a troll on here. Have to admit, couldn't really launch a staunch defence of my complete posting record. I may euphemise and say "er no, it's just provocative" but I can see how some might think I'm sending my posts from under a bridge (footstep permitting). Think the trick is to not be a troll 100% of the time, or even 10%.

Peas, especially mushy. The thought of them used to knock me sick when I was a nipper. Amazing now. Peanut butter. Anything spicy. The punishment for swearing in my grandad's house was a bit of chili powder on the end of your tongue. I had some foul-mouthed uncles so parroted a lot of what they said. Put me off curries for 20 years.

http://netforbeginners.about.com/od/weirdwebculture/f/what-is-an-internet-troll.htm Local dialects may differ.

I generally run with the traction control off, for the reasons you state. Accidentally turned the bugger on the other morning. Came round a 90 degree corner (ok a little fast) and it kicked in. Was only really doing the speed I was because there was nothing on either side of me, but yup, scary.

I've followed Charlie Brooker's career for yonks, since the days he used to draw offensive ads and write for video game mags. Always been very funny. He used to have a website called SuperKaylo. Home page carried the disclaimer "Not suitable for children. Or c**ts". Will need to catch up with Black Mirror.

The grand game is enough. Been played for centuries, ongoing now. There used to be a slogan - "Britain is a supporter of all revolutions except her own".

Behave yourself, Phil! Political correctness may be responsible for many things, but I seriously doubt that known extremist groups (all those I listed have a history of violence) were being tolerated in the country at the behest of the PC crowd. I can understand why people might be emotive about Palestine, but most who are see Hamas as being part of the problem anyway. These other groups? They could have been broken up at any time, moved on, closed down. There'd have been no outcry for the likes of the Paris Metro bombers or the Zawahari. These people were allowed to stay because someone wanted them here.

He couldn't get them into the microwave and close the door.

It does make one wonder why successive governments have been so tolerant of Islamic extremists. There are quite a few organizations that have been called "terrorist organizations" (sic) by the US State Department that the British Government has openly tolerated, including the Islamic Group of Egypt, at one time led by Zawahari, one of Bin Laden's right hand men in the later days of the War on Terrorism. Before that, he was known to have taken part in the attempted assassination of the Egyptian President and also liked to murder foreign tourists to wreck the Egyptian tourist industry. We've housed Hamas, the Kurdish Workers Party, the Tamil Tigers and the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria (a.k.a GIA). Other countries have been onto Londonistan for well over a decade. Israel, Algeria, Turkey, Libya, Yemen, India, Egypt, France, Peru, Germany and Nigeria all protested about the UK's apparent willingness to let terrorist groups operate on UK soil. This happened over a four year period, between 1995 and 1999. The French were their usual "non mince word" selves. As early as 1995, Figaro was reporting that "the track of the GIA leader in Paris leads to Great Britain. The British capital has served and logistical and financial base for the terrorists". This was after the Paris Metro bombings that year. For some reason, UK governments of both colours seemed to be collecting terrorists like Pokemon in the 1990s (well, tolerating - but it amounts to the same thing). I find that interesting.

I'm not really convinced your argument is all that scientific. Better comparison. Look at any Mac you can buy now and compare it with a similar PC/lappy. Bit better than saying an 8 year old Powerbook comes out on top against four PCs you didn't own. Personally, I wouldn't use how long something lasted around my daughters as any indication of build quality. The eldest's first laptop looked like something out of Mad Max by the end.

So did you buy her a laptop that cost as much as a G4 would have done at the time, or did you cheap out and buy her "something for a kid"?

The long-term future of Windows does concern me, particularly as I think they'd like to make their own Apple-like walled garden.

Your point was about contribution to this thing called society. I think we've demonstrated that the concept doesn't really exist in any meaningful way, so let's tell it like it is. Contributors like ourselves pay for an organisation to run the country. These organisations have continually failed at this task, yet have the audacity to label its citizens as feckless scroungers when they, or their predecessors, created many of the conditions that keep the poor where they are. Lack of jobs, overbalancing the wrong parts of the economy, expanding the labour market to 500 million. All of this stuff adds up, has a massive impact, and has almost bugger all to do with the actions of the unemployed and a great deal to do with the politicians who'd have us tearing strips from one another. I'm not saying that these people are moustache-twirling villains overtly committing acts of evil, but they sure do facilitate it. They get away with it because the transient nature of Parliaments, particularly when you have a change of party in government, gives politicians ample opportunities to wash their hands of all the bad policy that went before by blaming the previous lot. Strangely, they keep the unpopular money spinners that they campaigned against in opposition. Sorry mucker, but it seems to me that we're just throwing good money after bad. I would have no problem with the "contribution to society" angle if such a thing as society existed and was worth fighting for, or even if we had a complete range of options on the table. We don't. Returning to the original point, prisons. How many people are in nick right now because of drug-related offences? How much money are we spending banging doors down on domiciles with particularly high electricity bills? Why is that even necessary? This is a concrete example of how a decision made by politicians ("drugs are bad, m'kay") has led to more problems down the line. The amazing thing is, it's not like these people didn't have precedent when they made these calls. Prohibition in 1930s America? Didn't that give rise to a load of gangsters? So it is with narcotics, to the point where entire countries are bandit havens. Interesting article about drugs and UK prisons here:- http://www.tdpf.org.uk/MediaNews_FactResearchGuide_prisons.htm

Society doesn't exist, at least not in the sense of a cohesive whole working toward a common goal. You can get evidence of that on this forum; look at the way that people are ready to blame others or even sterilise those that don't conform with their idea of what a functional person should be. Look at the impact of multiculturalism, the self-segregation, the weak-minded white Briton blaming everyone else for his problems. And what do you say to people like me, who routinely toss HMRC 40K a year? I'm contributing more than the average person makes gross, yet I utterly reject the directionless soon-to-be-dystopia that we seem to be creating. What does the 40K p.a. I give to the government actually get me? What influence do I have on where that money goes? One fkng vote in a safe seat in a rigged system? You talk of contribution to society like it's a genuine two way thing. Personally, I think it's fkng poor value for money.

Replying to the same post twice, I know. This Register article is at odds with your explanation. The Java VM that shipped with Macs had an exploit in it. Rather than hapless berks giving their account details to any program that asks for it, this was a shipped vulnerability. Even better, the people seeking to exploit it targeted devs, not muggles. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/02/20/apple_java_omnishambles/

Bugger off and get your own