saintbletch

Now, you see that's just not the way I see it. The chef has 4 little spindly legs. In fact, thinking about it, it could be that the chef has 4 little spindly legs on each side making 8 in total. It actually looks like the chef is mounted on the half body shell of some decapitated arachnid. And now I'm really, really staring at it, it looks like the moob-breasted, spider-mod chef is scuttling hither and thither like a first round loser in Robot Wars, carrying a piece of paper with "Wham Sings" scribbled on it. Who'd have thought the mods were such George Michael fans? The one thing I'm not having a vision of Big Bad Bob, is a mod reading a thread about the signing of a defensive midfielder. I think you need a better camera phone 3B.

Lazlo78, take a bow. We now have our very own Muppet Show Banksy. Do you do requests? If so, can I ask for one of Bear giving Toke his legendary five-limbed bear hug?

The mods are all four legged, large breasted, chefs?

She's dead. Wrapped in plastic.

Forum love and peace to you too ericofarabia. Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

(humour) ericofarabia, aren't you overlooking the fact that what passes for trolling and bullying on here is already being used to "massage the ego of some already egotistical posters"? Don't we need something to attempt to balance that? Unfortunately some posters appear to get off on the "Look how great I am, 59 people got really upset by my sh*tty retort." I was reading a thread yesterday, I think it was the Wanyama one, where to my eyes Turkish proffered a grovelling apology to a nearly 70 year old, occasional poster who had an opinion he wanted to share as he'd seen Wanyama play extensively. Why did Turkish fall to his knees? Well to be honest, he didn't. But he did curb his aggression a little because a bunch of other posters called him to account. Having reflected that perhaps he might have been a little aggressive with a near-70 year old, occasional poster, he then went back into full sarcasm mode. But it was, for me, how the forum should work in microcosm. Personally, I'm not sure that Turkish did too much wrong in the first place, and I enjoy his posts in the main. He's entertaining, witty, probably well-dressed, certainly muscular and he does make me laugh. Now, if we had the ability for Turkish to get instant feedback on the temperature of the posts he made yesterday. i.e. he saw 50 "likes" for the person taking the other side in the argument, or 50 thumbs down for his position, then he would have been able to see that in the eyes of some posters he'd gone a bit far. As it happened, he's not hard of thinking, was sensitive to the situation himself and moderated his comments accordingly. Would such a system change the behaviour of some of the extreme personalities we have on here? Probably not. But I think it would start to define what the larger community expects, and then the mods/owners can steer the forum in the right direction. I see pap's suggestions as a starting point to help to build a forum where we value good content, and through the pollice verso system, begin the process of democratically starving those who crave the oxygen of trolling reactions. Personally, I don't really want to see anyone banned. I don't want to see a beige forum, so I'd love to see such a system encourage edgy posts and posters. I simply want to urge "trolling" posters to moderate any behaviour that the majority finds objectionable. Will pap's suggestions work for all? Probably not. Will it work for most? Probably not. Will it work straight away? Probably not. But does something need to be done? Yes I think so. Wouldn't it be great to have an environment where new, or occasional posters feel able to contribute without the fear of an aggressive, knee-jerk response? I'm sure that many lurkers on here would contribute if they could be guaranteed a fair share of the voice. We all have opinions, but we're not all alpha-male, self-publicists. And for some, sharing their thoughts accurately in the written word doesn't come easily. If any mods are reading this, I broadly support pap's suggestions. Turkish, apologies for making you the rat in my maze.

Alex Salmond: OK Cameron, I want the referendum rigged, or I tell the world exactly what the hand of the woman on your right is doing in your lap. Cameron: Ahh Alex. Umm, you make a strong case for devolution, and I'm minded to support your cause. BTW Have you met Mrs Miliband senior?

I'll check out the small print of my Muppet Show loyalty card, but I think I am able to gain TMS reputation points for coercing you into handing over the fiver. I'll check it out with Spudgun. Got the PM, with give you a call in the week to see if we can get those ones and zeros into your ears.

Hello John, I started a business in digital audio many, many years ago as a slide-line. At about the same time, my own consulting business took off so I couldn't really dedicate the time to it. I do however still have the CD ripping and audio conversion equipment that I built. My son's home from university at the moment and I mentioned this project to him. He'd be happy to rip your CDs for you. You mentioned that you didn't understand this area of technology so here are my thoughts/advice. Regarding format, what I would advise is that you rip the CDs to what is called a losslessly encoded format such as FLAC or WMA. And then convert that format to the MP3 size of your choice. Lossless encoding means that you take all the ones and zeroes from the CD and compress them without throwing away any of the musical information. The resulting files are very large; too large to realistically use on your phone/MP3 player. But if you are going to use a high-quality music server/multi-room system, then those files will yield the highest level of musical fidelity. You would then also take the tracks that have been ripped to a lossless format from your CDs and then convert those files to a lossy (where some musical information is lost) MP3 encoding. These files are small enough for you to use on your mobile devices. You could skip the lossless step and go straight to a high bit-rate MP3 encoding. Something like 320 Kbps would include practically all of the information that MP3 can encode. Whilst the file size of the individual tracks will be more portable, they are still quite large. It's a trade-off. Just a word on what you'll be losing if you go down the MP3 route and not going with lossless files. MP3 uses a branch of science called psychoacoustics. It basically works on the assumption that the human ear can only hear certain frequencies, and that when two or more frequencies are present in a recording, some of the frequencies will be less audible. MP3 achieves the space saving by discarding this less audible musical information. The lower the MP3 bit-rate, the more aggressively this less perceptible information is removed. So is this a problem? Well, when you're using a mobile phone with average quality headphones in a space with background noise, then you can argue that this lack of detail is not as important. If you are spending some cash on a good multi-room system, and perhaps even feeding a really good quality stereo amp at some point, then I'd argue that you need your musical files with none of that detail missing. I've done a lot of research on this area and if you feed a really good quality amp with losslessly encoded music versus high bit-rate MP3s (320 Kbs), the difference is really significant. As you can probably tell I'm a bit anal about my music quality, so this advice may not be for everyone, but I'd recommend you rip the CDs to both Lossless and Lossy. Having your music in a lossless encoded format, also protects you from the protectionistic behaviour of technology companies who may in future years restrict the portability of their own file formats. If you think my son can help, please let me have an email address/phone number (or pay your fiver and accept private messages you cheapskate!). He would rip your CDs to a lossless encoding, convert those files to a lossy format such as MP3 192Kb/s, download associated album art and copy all the files onto DVDs. Alternatively, he could deliver them on a portable hard-drive. Good luck.

Ha! I didn't spot it either sandwichsaint, but to be fair I was simply quoting artists and albums in my top 100 as a way of not limiting myself to 5. But now we're forced to choose, I might bring along The Gift instead of All Mod Cons.

Arrived this morning. It is a refurbished unit as it arrived in a very plain (very non-Apple), non-consumer box. It's certified as-new by Google, comes with a 90 day Google warranty and hasn't got a scratch on it. So far, so good. If it doesn't go bang, it looks like I might have saved myself ~£90 (RRP was £389 not £379 as I mentioned above). It's also not as ugly as I was expecting. Very quick and has a lovely screen.

Everyman has his price pap. And mine was Gill (as I now call her) climbing unannounced into my car in Winchester last week, wearing some luscious pink lipstick, carrying a box of hankies and some post-fellatial tic-tacs.

Gillian "blow-job in a car" Taylforth?

That's an interesting defence Toke. It reminds me of Ian Brady in its narcissism. Imagine being up before the Beak for, let's say the rohypnol-induced rape of a Japanese woman and the disposing of her body in the sand-filled bath in your London home. Imagine the Judge handing you life without parole, at which point you say "I didn't agree to this rape and murder being wrong 'thing'". You don't make the laws, you abide by them. And if you won't then we'll get the Muppet Show police force to track you down, hold your head under Bear's golden micturation stream, and force you to change your avatar. If you go on the run, you can expect to be on BBC's Tw*t Watch with Kirsty Young and Matthew Amroliwala holding up pictures of you and suggesting that you did it due to penis envy. Remember to Sky plus it.

Thought so. Let me guess. Is there a patch in the middle of the patio, say about 6 feet by 2 feet, where the weeds have grown particularly vigorously? If so, never agree to let Time Team come and dig for Roman coins or the skeleton of the original Liver bird.

OK bear, I'm in the mood to hand down summary justice. We both know that the young lady you're besmirching and trashing the otherwise good character of, isn't in that picture. We all know that as it's July you've come into season, and inside your skull your bear brain is floating in a heady cocktail of pheromones and testosterone, so you're simply confusing one of your previous conquests with the beautiful, young, sweet, innocent, inexperienced, corruptible, willing, won't-tell-their-parents, lithe, tight, damp.....[CTRL+ALT+DEL] Anyway, we both know that this can't be the girl you think she is, because bushy, horsey girl, together with her bushy, horsey inner-Goddess, is still tied up in your red room of pain. Guilty. So Bear receives half a ton of negative reputation, but Tokyo also has to change his picture back to the one where Bear is loving him lengthways and being generally anally amorous. This verdict may be able to be overturned on appeal by m'learned colleague JP pap.

Given your location, I'd ultrasound the patio.

You've made me stop and think there papster. I wouldn't want to push a man in mourning over the edge. But to be fair, Essruu drew the caricature, I'm just colouring it in. Albeit with a fist-clenched Crayola in Android-blue.

Whilst Google execs descending on the houses of Nexus 10 owners and smearing their exec-excrement on the walls is obviously the most likely reason for the mass product return papster, I'm happy to indulge Essruu. At first I thought Essruu was simply shooting for humour, then I allowed my mind to wander and had a vision of him posting here with one hand on his Mini, whilst thumbing the washing instructing label of a familiar blanket with the other hand, rocking backward and forward mumbling "I miss you Steve". I hope I'm wrong, but it's the only logical explanation for Apple's #1 benefactor continually posting in Android threads - either that or he's on the cusp of moving away from Apple to Android. Apple's good kit Essruu. Really good kit. I'd stay with it if it suits you.

True. It could be.

Just ordered one of these from eBay as it looked like a bit of a bargain at £299 with free delivery. RRP new is £379. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Google-Nexus-10-10-32-GB-Android-4-2-JellyBean-Wi-Fi-Tablet-Black-/290933226712?pt=UK_iPad_Tablets_eReaders&hash=item43bcf8bcd8 The units are described as refurbished but given this description: ...I'm wondering if Google is shifting some stocks of new items either due to poor sales or to make way for an updated model launch.

Saw Johnny Marr at the Wedgewood Rooms in Portsmouth during the week. Really enjoyed it and the bloke can still play. Whilst I'd followed a number of his collaborations (The The, Billy Bragg, etc.), I didn't really know his solo work. I don't think I was alone in that, as it was only when he played the 4-5 Smiths' tracks that the place really came alive. Worth the £20 just to hear him play "How soon is now".

Good thread. Neutral Milk Hotel - In the aeroplane over the sea Decemberists - Her Majesty Ludovico Einaudi - In a time lapse Richard & Linda Thompson - I want to see the bright lights tonight David Sylvian - Brilliant Trees Ask me in 2 months and at least 3 of those will be displaced from my pool of ~20 special albums. Oddly enough, some other contributors have picked albums or artists my top ~100. So as a service to this community, I've helpfully edited down their posts. Perhaps when we get to the island, we can meet up for a music sesh?

As ever Toke you've managed to touch me with your kind words and dodgy Capitalisation. I've actually got Benjamin Britten syndrome. It's the same life-lived-backwards complaint that Mr Button suffers with, but I also manage to sound as though I belong in a different era. For the record, I long for the days when I was only 44. That thread was started over a year ago. I'm a bit concerned actually because I've heard that the Curry Crew are planning to make TMS age-limited. Like a cross between the Round Table charity and the plot of Logan's Run, our TMS membership is going to be voluntarily euthanised once we pass 45. It's an effort to keep TMS fresh and edgy for you youngsters. The good news is that, like OAPs, we'll get a refund on the £5 membership. I think Steve Grant is "running the numbers" in a massive spreadsheet at this very moment, just to make sure that there's still enough money in the coffers to allow him to stand up and shout "The salty lassis are on me!" at the end of the curry evenings. BTW, did you really go back through the "Who are you?" thread, just to read my back-story? I left out the bit about being your biological father. Thought we should keep that between you, me and your Mum. Have you posted about yourself on there?

I think that one must be "Monty" Toke. I'm reliably informed that he's the golfist with the biggest breasts.