saintbletch

Remember when Bear was still perfecting the Bearsy character? He used to pluralise everything, but that was it. Now he's evolved it to a new art form. Isn't Toke AKA FILF, the poster formerly known as Deppo (allegedly)? Well according to Deppo's twitter feed he is. I always assumed that Bear was Deppo.

So who was Angola Saint? Or is Angola Saint alive and well, but just not thrusting his sex parts at tourists?

I do have an outstanding "incoming friend request" from Glasgow_Saint that I have studiously ignored. Does that count? BTW wasn't Glasgow_Saint AKA ITK, the poster formerly known as Bournemouth Saint? Or, again did I just make that up? Perhaps PhilippineSaint needs to put an (allegedly) next to these names until it's proven?

Sorry Halo, that should have been crossing The Man's palm with bhaji. Crossing another man's palm with BJAJI would be disgusting and perverse. I like to think of a forum name like a "brand". You spend a lot of time creating the brand and its values. It represents you in the world, and the good and bad that you carry out on here becomes associated with your "brand". Corporations don't change brands easily, and neither should TSW posters. Unless they've been outed as a sort of forum Jimmy Savile or Garry Glitter of course.

LOL. I wonder who could have written this? 04 Aug 2013 i had v.sexy time! Chilled atmos and a lot of cute guys at this site! I'm there every Sunday, watch out for me I have 2 dogs but don't worry they also like to "play"

Did you "erect the rainbow flag" while you were there? Oddly enough when I went to that site, it said that I was already logged in as BigBadBletchBoy. #mustnotdrinkwhilesurfing

A good mate of mine is known as Halo due to his surname. I had assumed that you had a similar family name. Anyway, I think you have to send a message to The Man, who will complete the necessary forms and give his blessing (you may need to cross his palm with bjaji first). Alternatively, you can just create a new account paid for using an off-shore and non-traceable credit card. Although, this route is somewhat frowned upon. Who would you be Halo?

So he's ClaphamCommonSaint too? What's the name of that place where you go in the summer to "Walk the dogs", Toke?

Isn't PhilippineSaint the poster formerly known as AngolaSaint or something, or did I just make that up?

Good work PhilippineSaint. I've long thought that we needed a thread like this to keep track on the family trees of our celebrity posters. It should be a TMS version of "Who do you think you are?". You will have to maintain the list by editing your first post. Unbelievable Jeff AKA Sarb AKA 27% Sarb is the poster formerly known as Dibden Purlieu Saint.

That is very sad and a little extreme, but I can't help feeling that the second paragraph needs editing. The separate concepts of a man falling and something being dented are a little confusing.

Apparently when the policeman leant through the car window he asked the driver if he thought he was "Ayrton bloody Senna". The 63 year old male driver, rolled his eyes up into their kids, rubbed his head and replied in a very poor Brazilian accent " Yes, and I have a message for someone called Frank Williams..."

Well, it was either double the points or have Adrian Newey assassinated. And the authorities are watching Ecclestone a little too closely at the moment for him to get away with that.

Fonte's enthusiastic celebration meant that the kit man would once again have to turn the washing machine dial all the way to "gusset wash".

Iain McInnes' irritation was starting to show as journalists pressed him as to whether a pattern of suspicious results over many years was evidence that an Asian betting syndicate had asked him to engineer Portsmouth Football Club's departure from the Football League.

Good post.

I agree with your summary Turkish. He was a great man and did a lot of good. As for his past, I'll have a go at rationalising some of it. But be warned that you'll have to confront arguments that contain a lot of grey and that require one to confront one's own preconceptions. And by the way, I think it's your style of debate that puts people off discussing these things with you, rather than their silence suggesting that you're necessarily right. Far be it from me to suggest that you should change your approach, but if you genuinely want to debate something, you perhaps should come to the discussion without such an intransigent position, such an aggressive approach and drop the use of the patronising images? Your call. [video=youtube_share;NKiePbTcAfY] Well on face value this is difficult to reconcile, especially if you bring any sort of preconception to the debate. For example, if you're predisposed to the idea that black people are given unfairly positive handling by the media and your peers, or if you're of the view that positive discrimination toward black people can never be justified - even to overturn centuries of discrimination, then I'd imagine it will be all but impossible to see this in any way other than negative. Personally, having watched the video, I see someone making a PR gaff, but not someone that believes in the words that are being sung. I'm actually not sure that Mandela is singing as you suggest. I'm not being obtuse, I just can't see his lips clearly given the poor quality of the video. Even the narrator of the video avoids suggesting that Mandela sang the words; validly stating, that the "words of the just sung song, just don't tally [with Mandela's conciliatory words in English]". But still we're left with an image of a man sworn to reconciliation in an environment that appears to contradict that. I'm also surprised that the elephant in the room isn't mentioned. You know, the ostensibly "white" man, standing next to Mandela and surrounded by many black people. Well that "elephant" either doesn't know what the words mean, or he is singing a song that has transcended its original meaning to become emblematic of the struggle for equality. I'm guessing that the many black people at the gathering either haven't seen the "white" man. Either that or they seem to also realise that the song isn't to be taken literally. Perhaps it's a song that has historically been sung at these gatherings and it's literal meaning is no longer directly considered? I believe the "white man" is actually a South African Jew called Ronnie Kasrils who describes himself as a "white Jewish boykie from Yeoville". Either way, I'd concede that it's not a clever PR move by Mandela to be seen there with those words being sung around him. Then again I've Googled what the term "Ama bhulu" means. There is some dispute, and I'd encourage you to do your own research, but it appears that it means "lots of Boers". So the song still has a pretty appalling sentiment, and for many, even if you factor in the context of their repression, it's still wrong. But it does put a different spin on the message of killing lots of Boers, and not killing lots of whites. It reduces, whilst not quite eliminating, the racist undertone of the message of the song. I'd acknowledge that I might be looking too deeply into the semantics here, and that the terms "Boers" and "whites" may well be interchangeable in the minds of those singing the song. But it does go some way to explaining how someone who appears to be "white" can stand at ease in what otherwise would surely be a hostile and frightening environment. As for the bombings and "terrorist" activities where allegations range from Mandela being either simply part of the responsible organisation, or that he personally controlled and sanctioned them, then I'd have to say that context is absolutely everything. But whether you decide Mandela comes out positively or not depends on the prejudices we each bring to the analysis of the situation. If he personally sanctioned the death of civilians, then this would be a huge negative factor to record in the con column of his life's ledger. He'd have to have done a great deal of good in the rest of his life to outweigh that. Whether he did either of these things (either the bad or the good), is down to the individual to assess. If however, he sanctioned the acts of violence against the state, but not civilians, then I wouldn't lose too much sleep about that. Regarding the use of the term terrorism to describe what the ANC and MK did, at the time the term terrorism could be used by the white South African Government and her allies because the regime was seen in some way as "legitimate". This meant that the acts of violence and sedition against the state fitted into a definition of terrorism. However, the lens of time and a more developed social understanding has allowed us to see the then white South African government as completely illegitimate. This in turn means that to my mind the actions of the ANC and MK were not those of a terrorist organisation. For me, any action that deliberately kills anyone is reprehensible, but I can also understand the motivation and the situation that might lead someone to feeling helpless enough to resort to acts of armed struggle against the state. The question was asked earlier about Jerry Adams' role in the Northern Ireland peace process. I see his role as being a significant contribution to the "peace" we see today. History will judge him on both sides of his actions, but ultimately his decision to pursue a political solution and to turn away from the armed struggle means that history will see his contribution as net positive. This is very difficult to swallow, and certainly if you have any personal investment in the situation, I can totally understand that people may arrive at a different conclusion. The main difference between Mandela's and Adams' struggle though, as others have suggested, is that Adams always had the option of turning to politics to resolve his problems. By law, the struggle for race equality in Apartheid South Africa had no political outlet. What do you do to right such an egregious wrong when you are completely disenfranchised and have limited access to education and media? Think about it for a moment. What would you do, and how would you justify you action or inaction to your children? If I was in that situation and had the courage, I'm pretty sure I'd resort to any means to change this situation. I'd also recognise that when history looked back at my actions, many would ignorantly ignore historical context and judge my actions in isolation and in the context of the world we live in today.

A great performance, but the most impressive thing for me was that the "system" is understood by the squad. We were able to bring squad players into the first team with exactly the same team performance. Great to see.

Whilst reading that I got a lexical lob on, found myself with a syntactic semi and realised that I'd suffered a grammatical engorgement! A great contribution. To support your final paragraph and to show the value of punctuation, see the final chapter of Ulysses by James Joyce. 60+ pages, two full stops and no other punctuation. Not for the faint hearted. I'll check out "The Stories of English". On a similar topic I can recommend Mark Forsyth's books on the evolution of the English language. I got 97%.

I reckon that you just got away with that Bear. How does it feel to have marked the passing of someone on TSW without being infracted? Mandela was central to repealing a set of unfair and pernicious laws, and also in changing the way of thinking for a generation of South Africans that were so out of step with the majority of humanity. Having never been oppressed in the way black South Africans were, it's easy for me to be of the view that violence should never be used to bring about change. But if ever there was a situation where violence against the state came close to being justified, it came during that shameful period. Apartheid, which segregated people based on the colour of their skin, was only abolished in 1990. That's a shamefully short time ago for a major country to still be practising some pretty ****ty repression. Credit to de Klerk for starting the process, but a controlled repositioning of power needed a figurehead that could keep a lid on the obvious tensions that existed. Mandela played that role. Without him, it would have been carnage. I may well be guilty of romanticising the situation from a distance, but one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen a governmental or quasi-governmental institution implement was the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings. These involved people sharing with the committee and the "other side" their negative experiences at the hands of the "other side". They were presided over by reformists of both hues, and often granted amnesty for horrific human rights violations. The idea being that recriminations would serve little purpose in uniting South Africa, but that unless people felt able to air their grievances they would harbour dangerous resentment. They weren't perfect, but they played a big role in allowing South Africa to move on. Mandela's legacy is enormous and reaches worldwide. Not bad for someone who spent 25+ years in prison.

78‰ possession as it stands.

Especially not one of the Bear's Lounge posts Whitey Granddad! You'll have operation CEOP all over your PC before you can decide whether you've got 2 apples or only 1.

I stopped reading here. I read enough perverted views in The Muppet Show without being subjected to them in The Lounge.

It was hard getting over my addiction to the Hokey Cokey, but I’ve turned myself around and that’s what it’s all about.

In my experience White Grandad, any post that starts with "Exactly, my ursine friend..." is never going to gain you too much credit. The context of the questions was that they were IQ questions, therefore, the answer examines intelligence. You should be looking for the "trick", and on that basis it's easy to think through the right answers. Boris didn't. I smugly got 10 out of 10 in the IQ quiz, but I did spend 5 minutes looking at the ark question.