buctootim

No away games are too. I would have thought you'd know that Whitey.

Yonks ago I spent New Year in Glasgow with my then girlfriends parents. Her ****ed dad spent most of the evening going on about how great Scotland were and how awful the English were, culminating in talking about Bannockburn and singing Scotland the Brave. So I mentioned Culloden, he hit me, I pushed him back whilst holding a lump of the first footing coal and accidentally cut his eye open. We didn't go back the following year.

Some sort of post processing has. I don't think those pawprints are actually on the face either, applied digitally imo.

That seems to me to be a strong negotiating position for the rest of the UK. "Here are the terms of the divorce. Agree to them or stay in the Union". Assuming our politicians don't bottle / mess it up spectacularly of course.

You mean 'gain a large customer base then when you have them habituated, raise the price and gain margin'.

Most of them are wearing lipstick as well.

I dont know why any English people care very much. As long as the financial settlement is equitable - which means if they get the gas and oil they also get they HBOS and RBS debts - then they can happily go off as far im concerned.

Toon Saint doesn't seem as clever or perceptive as DuncanRG. I don't think he's gay at all.

It wasn't a law. It was a judgement.

My views haven't changed. I'm anti meaningless gesture politics - especially when they actually damage the issue they supposedly are trying to advance. More focus on house building, equitable distribution of wealth and measures related to quality of life - less on attempting to engineer what people read / say / think / do. Thats me.

You can undo my laces if you like Tokes.

Actually Lord Justice Mansfield ruling on emancipation effectively ended it in this country and the 1833 act ended it on overseas territories. Nothing voluntary about it.

So because we disagree on an issue I'm no longer any good. That's revealing about someone's thought processes, and its not mine.

The Brighton fans just think the opposition are unimaginative twots, thats all. .

So you think slavery was ended by voluntary choice? that maximum working hours and holidays were voluntarily brought forward by employers?

You don't know its her choice. She may be forced to by her father / brothers / husband. Banning something is not necessarily a negative, it can free people too.

Times move on Bearsy. Im waiting for the scratch and sniff laces in support of Syria.

Yeah but Im disappointed he bottled coming out as gay.

Why do they need special support? Why not just do it like the first black player, the first female official, the first player as oddly built as Crouch etc

For generations the American south had seen black people as slaves or the children of slaves. The flow of educated middle class black people from the north and the growth in availability of tv and radio forced am exposure to how other people did things and a change of mindset. Of course MLK had a role because he was eloquent likeable and moderate. If Malcolm X had been the primary face you might have seen a different outcome.

We have agreement

The Civil rights movement had been around in different forms for at least 250 years before achieving success. The change in prevailing culture meant that society had changed enough by the 1950s /1960s for it to win through. It was a consequence, not primarily a cause.

In Western European culture yes. In other cultures its marrying young. Are you picking and choosing which cultures and values are right? Once you get that subjective how do you know that the supposed homophobic majority arent right?

Has racism in football declined any quicker or slower than in the general population? Have the various initiatives made any difference or have they just taken place at a time when things were improving anyway? The success of the civil rights movement was a product of changed attitudes, not a cause of it. Its achievements were to force a retrograde minority to give equal legal rights to all - not to change their minds.

The whole of football is a paradox. Fat slobs chant 'who ate all the pies? ' at some highly honed athlete who may have a couple of pounds on him, women yell ' get up you big girl' at players after a tackle. Catholic friends of mine happily yell 'burn the Pope' at the Lewes bonfire celebrations which would have a totally different meaning in Belfast and they would never do. Values and norms change over time. Trying to force the pace of change just breeds resentment and obstinacy. My point about paedophilia is not to associate gay men with it, rather to point out the inconsistentcy of campaigning for acceptance of one practice, but condemning another which is culturally accepted elswhere. Perhaps paedophilia is too emotive to discuss properly. Why not campaign for auto-erotic asphyxiation to be accepted by football crowds? (with or without orange).