Sheaf Saint

Can you be a bit more specific dune? what has gone big? Is it your icons on your desktop or is it the size of the displayed pages on your browser?

Blimey. It must be the time of goodwill to all men. For once I find myself in (almost) complete agreement with dune!!!

Perhaps he was not part of the riot and was engaged in peaceful protest?

Yes, they showed the clip on the BBC news earlier. A 20-year-old man with cerebral palsy was dragged from his wheelchair and thrown to the ground by a group of 4 or 5 police officers.

It was Badger that you challenged to name some, not me. I was just interested to know how you measure success, that's all.

Again, at the risk of repeating myself, by what measure do you define successful?

By what measure do you define successful?

Somebody who I have discovered only fairly recently is Ludovico Einaudi. A contemporary pianist / composer without compare IMO. Some of his music was used on the soundtrack to This is England 86 to amazing effect as the it captured the emotion of the film perfectly.

It was soooo predictable that you would, at some point, make this connection dune; seeing as you can't resist the opportunity to turn any thread into a personal rant about the far left and your belief in western christian values (I suggest you read about the origins of Christianity to appreciate the contradiction here) but I would be interested to know how you know this. I respectfully request that you present some evidence to back up your claim that the violence we saw on thursday was organised by the UAF.

I agree to an extent, but it's not like the LDs are actually 'in power' as they are effectively just the Tories' lapdogs. The other alternative in this situation is that they could have all voted against the bill. The knock-on effect of that would have been the break-up of the coalition, meaning a new general election would have to be held. If that happened, A lot of people who voted Lib dem would choose not to do so again, and with Labour being lead by Miliband we would surely end up with a tory majority. What the Lib dems have done is go against their principles in order to cling to the little amount of power they have.

Really? So not one of the students in London yesterday was washed, clean-shaven and wearing freshly-washed clothes?

Sweeping generalisations are DD's speciality. According to him, anybody who condemned the EDL mosque demo in Pompey the other week is a 'yoghurt-knitter', whatever one of those is.

I haven't really listened to much new stuff this year, and what little I have been exposed to has just passed my by mostly. However, the one standout album that really caught my attention is Trentemøller's Into The Great Wide Yonder. Brilliantly original piece of work and well worth a listen if you haven't heard it.

Indeed. I have a pair of HD215s which I bought for DJing purposes about 5 years ago and they have served me very well.

This is all very interesting but it is not Iran we should be worrying about. If, as the UN seem to believe, they are developing nuclear technology for weapons rather than energy then it will be many, many years before they are able to use them. In my opinion it is the stockpiles of nuclear weapons that Pakistan holds that is much more of a threat to the rest of the world, owing to the likelihood of them being seized by Al-Qaeda / the Taleban. The Iranian president may well be persona non grata, but he isn't stupid. Whereas the fundamentalist nutters in Pakistan would not think twice about launching a nuke at Israel given the opportunity.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/03/elephants-drunken-rampage-india?CMP=twt_fd OK, Ok, I know I really shouldn't laugh because 3 people died, but come on - how can you read that headline and not at the very least chuckle to yourself.

The main problem? A severe lack of decent venues. The Guildhall is the only place big enough for the capacity that a lot of bands would require, but the acoustics in there are shocking.

This is such a common misconception - it is almost as bad as people still thinking that the pediatrician / paedophile thing happened in Portsmouth. Ahmedinijad never said he wants Israel wiped off the map. What he actually said was that he wanted to see the current Israeli regime to be wiped from the pages of history: not the same thing at all. It seems that certain elements of the media picked up on a mis-translation in one of his speeches and used it to spread a bit of mass hysteria... seemingly so that any military action the US (and the UK as well, most likely) decide to take against Iran would appear to be completely justified.

Watched Bad Boy Bubby the other night. Just an ordinary tale of every-day life in Australia. Or not, as the case may be. One of the strangest, most disturbing, most f***ed-up films I have ever seen, about a 35-year old man who has been kept at home all his life and used as a sex slave by his mum, and whose only method of communication is to mimic what other people say and do, who escapes into the outside world. Well worth a watch but be prepared for some uncomfortable viewing.

Don't we already have that every other 4 years though???

Yeah and South Africa has got one of the worst records in human history when it comes to racism, but that didn't stop FIFA giving them this years WC did it? I never said that Russia doesn't have a good reputation, and I don't doubt that the current issues they have with racism and bribery are much worse than what we have in modern-day England, but to whinge that they shouldn't have been given the WC and it should have gone to us instead because of this just comes across as sour grapes. We know FIFA are corrupt; we knew they probably wouldn't give the WC to England. It's done - accept it and move on. Personally, I don't think any of those countries you listed should have been given a second one if there were other countries bidding who have never held one. Just my opinion which I am entitled to, as you are to yours.

Yeah, cos English football is squeaky clean as well isn't it! Dear Christ, all the accusations on this forum about corruption against the PL and the FL from our administration to the Pompey debacle. Yet when Russia gets picked to host the WC, everyone's upset because of the corruption in their national game. I don't know why anyone is surprised. FWIW, I really didn't care whether England got it or not, and I'm not the slightest bit surprised we didn't. If we had, the Russians would only be complaining about it owing to our history of hooliganism etc... It's swings and roundabouts. We've already held one WC. The way I see it, we shouldn't get to hold another one until everyone else has had their turn. Just because other countries are more corrupt and less capable than we are to stage the WC, doesn't mean they shouldn't be given the opportunity.

Why does everyone assume that just because England didn't get it, the voting was corrupt? Why shouldn't a country that has never held it before get one before we host another one?

More snow in Sheffield overnight - it's still coming down pretty heavy, yet the weather forecast says heavy snow showers until lunchtime and then HEAVY SNOW after midday!!!!!! This is nuts. The one and only time in my life I have seen this much snow is when I went on a snowboarding holiday in Bulgaria in 2006!

we've had shedloads here in Sheffield over the last two nights. I worked from home today - the snow is so deep in our garden it comes up over my knees. The cat refuses to go out his catflap and instead decided to relieve himself all over the bathroom rug!