saintbletch

Well that's a mystery then trousers. It either didn't happen the way the ITN journo said or Virgin, who are now back in with a chance of retaining the right to run the West Coast Mainline franchise, chose not to embarrass the Chancellor.

Agreed. If Vince Cable had done it and said that he did it for work reasons and paid for it himself then that would be fine. But given his background and current job, Osborne has to be seen to be beyond reproach. Then when interviewed about it, instead of confronting it and turning it into a non-story. He stonewalls the question and gets himself tongue-tied. Week-in-week-out, he's taking the biggest one for the team ever.

I'm trying to remove all vestiges of party politics from my motives, but I have to say that George Osborne is a liability to the coalition. I watched Ed Conway interview him at lunch time on Sky and it took just two questions to flummox him. 1) Have you personally felt the impact of the recession? 2) Have you ever travelled 2nd class on a train? The questions came from a theme that Conway was exploring - that Osborne and lots of politicians are shielded from the problems of the population as evidenced by Osborne's ability to pay for a 1st class rail fare. This leads to a feeling that we not all in it together and makes the man in the street believe that something else lies behind these motives. To my eye he gets tongue tied and can't answer. Instead of saying he is shielded from the recession by his wealth/wage and that he does travel 1st class because he sometimes needs to work on sensitive papers, he feels he can't answer because he will make himself the news. The interview is here. http://news.sky.com/story/1002496/recession-ends-amid-olympic-games-boost insightful commentary on it in the Telegraph blog here. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jameskirkup/100186526/george-osborne-just-wants-to-talk-about-gdp-sorry-chancellor-but-your-first-class-train-tickets-matter-too/ EDIT: It seems that the question about whether he'd travelled 2nd class was edited from the one that made the web. But he did leave in the lovely line of

Anyone see the Bear's game last week?

..as part of European restructuring plan. Just been announced on Sky News.

Congratulations Twentytwentyvision on having the balls to spill your heart into this collection and then letting us lot trample on it. Overall, I enjoyed listening to it. Are you looking for comments?

..and all Austrians molest their children in cellars. It's easy but not very edifying to take a 30,000ft view. Unless you live on the ground and are invested in the nation's future you can miss subtleties and countless shades of grey. You also miss the instant feedback mechanism provided by a few beers down the pub with your Britain-based mates and them telling you that you're a tw*t for holding such and such a view. I wonder if on this and other threads you're not subliminally repeating to yourself "I made the right choice moving away. I made the right choice moving away..." If I were more nationalistic myself, I might take real exception to someone calling my country a f**king cesspit. I think your statement in the quote above this one might contain a little evidence for the resentment I thought I detected in you toward the BBC. I've seen senior politicians calling policemen plebs, I've seen our politicians lie and fraudulently exploit their expenses and I've seen prime ministers lie to us over illegal wars. None of this made me call for the end of parliamentary democracy. Well not seriously anyway. I instead did what I could to put pressure on the system. The same will happen with the BBC over its current mismanagement. We've got one BBC programme in the shape of Panorama investigating another BBC programme in the shape of Newsnight, resulting in the removal of the Newsnight editor from his position. That's impressive in my book - but not enough. I'm sure both enquiries will call for changes and I'm sure they'll be accepted in full with heads rolling. I also wonder if following that, the issue of its self-regulation will be examined and tested too. This is the way behemoth agencies are called to account, change and stay relevant. I must also say I was impressed with the way that Sky News handled the whole NotW and Murdoch business. It might be churlish to suggest that they had little choice as they were trying to retain a licence to broadcast, but they still reported it very well IMO.

The world might be her oyster Toke, but if she signs the contract, her oyster will be Christian Grey's. Don't sign it Anastasia. Fortunately as she will never have used a pen before, it could take her until book three to develop the requisite fine motor skills to fashion an autograph.

I guess you're right bear. But I can't help but think that in a few years, perhaps after we're both dead and gone, queues of women will come forward to accuse the person reflected in those glasses of the deepest, darkest sexual perversions. And people will say to themselves "I thought there was something odd about him you know". Anyway, the boys are following another lead now. They've traced the IP address of the perp and have installed a covert camera. This picture was taken at approximately 4:57pm yesterday. Other than this image which is inconclusive, the boys say that they've also caught the perp on camera "eccentrically attired and knocking one out while reading a popular female erotic novel". They captured this still a little later. Any ideas?

There's only one part of this where I disagree with you completely, and that's all of the words you chose to use. I really couldn't disagree with you more alpine_saint. But I will acknowledge that I'm such a fan of the BBC that I'd struggle to see too much bad in it. Perhaps you'd acknowledge that you're filled with so much resentment toward the BBC, that you'd struggle to see the good in it? Perhaps you already have. Personally, I'd pay the licence fee for bbc.co.uk, Radio 5, Radio 4 and its podcasts alone. I never get my news from just one source, although I do tend to lean on the BBC in a tie-break. As with all bureaucracies they'll be made to look outdated and self-serving from time to time. But as long as politicians, other media outlets and the BBC itself continue to pay it close scrutiny, then it will be continually be made relevant.

That's just your crippling inferiority complex kicking in Toke. Everyone has a boss. Recognise the guy in the reflection?

OK Sherlocks Holme and Dr Watsons I've been doing some more investigatings. I was suspicious of the bear's tepid reaction to the opportunity to mount an investigation. He's normally keen to mount anything, which set me thinking... Anyway, I wanted to see if we could identify the person that the young lady in the video was talking to. So I've had the lads in the lab all over the video overnight in an attempt to identify the other party. One of the lads throught he spotted a reflection in the lady's glasses, so they've used cutting edge video processing and image identification techniques to arrive at this. The chief is not going to like the overtime bill but he'll be glad to know we've got a suspect. We're looking for a big, furry, beast sporting the sort of inane grin usually borne by mental patients with permanent-erection syndrome. Any ideas?

That's magnificent cussing bear and whilst insults don't get more cutting than that, my favourite for randomness and the gum-mouthed lack of bite is... "and plus she went on a camping trip..an' leave her alone, an' you leave my family alone awful(unclear)..hiccup..you ****ing moron...you ****ing monkey-face." What interests me though is that most people the narrator has ever met are dead. I'd call the authorities if I knew her identity. So perhaps this needs a damned fine cup of coffee and a Twin Peaks style investigation. When you're done with 50 Shades of Grey bear, this needs investigating. Perhaps Toke can do the 'donkey' work? Evidence. Dad died three weeks ago tomorrow (at 6:18am). That's 378 minutes after midnight. Coincidence? Her bothers, Jackson and Daniel are "****ing dead also". Daniel died supposedly from contracting an eradicated disease (good work Phil the resident in Angola and inappropriately named, PhilippineSaint), whilst his twin - our narrator, survrived(sic). The only people present at Daniel's birth which took place in the living room in Hometown Mt Vernon (because Mum was watching Jeremy Kyle USA), were Mum and Daniel (obviously), and his surviving twin - our narrator. Coincidence? Jackson died at the age of 27. in a car wreck. Last year. On his birthday - August 2nd. Unlucky? Hmm. 27 is exactly 14 times smaller than 378. Coincidence? If he had survived Jackson would be 28. 28 is exactly 2 times bigger than 14. August 2nd is the 214th day of the year in 2012. That's 18489600 seconds into the year. 18489600 is exactly 27 times bigger than 684800 which in turn is exactly 214 times bigger than 3200. Coincidence? Pretty damning but she's not finished. Aunt Donna, Grandma Milley Staley(unclear) and Aunt Margaret are "dead also". That's 3 more dead. 3 is exactly 9 times smaller than 27. Coincidence? Our narrator claims she was 'in their rooms when they died'. Mum corroborates this by claiming she was there too. Just two people in the rooms with the deceased when they died. If both claim they didn't do it and tell the authorities that the other didn't do it, then the police can do nothing. Smart. Really smart. But someone called Pete(unclear) is claimed to be alive as our narrator tells us "No, I did not run him over". I think you should get this Pete in for questioning.

I'm struggling to detect any irony here. Plus you omitted the kettlebell routine, you psycho.

Anyone with an iPhone 5 able to confirm if this is representative? [video=youtube_share;OSFKVq36Hgc] More here.

You lost me Toke. I know this thread is racist and aimed at Japanese people only but which one of the crims was Turkish and which one was Sour Mash? Or was one of them This Charming Man? I particularly liked the one (Turkish?) with the bandanna tied under his nose. It takes some guts to eschew common usage guidelines like that. I only guessed at Turkish because I know he has a keen interest in setting fashion trends. BTW. That video has instantly moved into the top 3 of a select group of videos that I've seen in my life labelled weird as ****. And yes I was expecting the girl to say to the crims "Nice shows, are they Italian?" 28 times accompanied by a series of robot-like calisthenics moves.

So you say Dibden Purlieu Saint. So you say. But I'm impressed - it can't be easy typing with one hand and with a resonant frequency of 2Hz moving through your body.

Oh trousers, trousers, trousers. What mischief you make. The only thing that would cause Starbucks' share price to drop in that scenario is if they didn't invest to build more coffee shops in the UK to meet the presumed demand. I think your example has some merit if it were, say, Intel choosing to set up an administrative headquarters here due to perceived tax benefits. They could be anywhere in the world and therefore the jobs they create offset any local tax loophole they might be exploiting. But if the company has to physically be here to pour the caffeine down our throats, and if they didn't do it Costa's or some other independent would, then they would be cutting their own throats not to invest to meet demand for their products. They could be taxed to the hilt and they'd still have to be here. Unless they can do a delivery service from Boston. You'd have to be a pretty rabid free marketeer to not see the damage to the domestic economy caused by a powerful foreign company not paying the UK exchequer its due whilst using its power and market position to dominate a large chuck of a domestic market. When that amount of wealth leaves the UK ecomomy - £3B since 1998 and all that comes back in taxation is £8.6M then your pension suffers. As you said in your edit, if Starbucks wasn't here then a Costa's or a trousers' coffee or a Bletch's coffee would appear to take its place. And that's a lot of entrepreneurs that currently aren't going into business or aren't able to stay in business.

I could see it coming. CB Saint. I could see it coming. Did you see the bear's game last week CB Saint? But don't worry, I have it on good authority that the bear is immune from such sexual doubt. He's tri-sexual, so we'll have a new chapter soon. Except... The last thing we saw from the bear was that he was going to remonstrate with the other hannah about the slug stain he found on the page of the first 'bonings'. What if hannah said to Bearsy, "bear, why don't you come over? I've got a room I'd like to show you, oh and I've got something for you to sign...". I'm a little concerned for the bear. I think he could be trussed-up, clamped, whipped, shocked and penetrated in hannah's room right now - unable to review more chapters. Either way, I think there might be another stool in the room after hannah showed him the barbs on the butt-plug she intended to introduce him to.

[the class repeats as one...] Genki desu Tokyo-Saint-san.

Other than the lady that will never drown, I think I'm finding this thread more interesting and useful for learning Japanese. I'm getting the hang of it too. Whaddya know. I've been learning for two days and I'm nearly fluent. It must take a long time to write things in Japanese though. I imagine that one of my shorter posts could take me days to complete.

..desperately trying to wrest the thread back on topic. I liked the snake. The snake was definitely my favourite. I would have liked to have seen her beaver but I think I missed it. I was looking carefully too.

Cheers. I'll have a read. Turns out they have Haiku poems in Japanese too. Inquisitive Bletch Haiku discovered online Japanese respect

So I met with some Finns that told me that their language was one of the most expressive on earth and that Finnish poetry is stunning. They told me that a Helsinki radio station ran a competition for callers to phone in with Finnish phrases or words for 'being drunk'. They had to stop at 500. I'd always assumed that a language that is only spoken by people in a single location would be narrow and inexpressive. So, before I commit to adding Japanese to the long list of a language that I can speak fluently, I need to see some Japanese poetry (translated of course). I don't want 50 Shades in verse, but I'd like to see how rich the language is with a classic Japanese poem. Oh, and Toke. If you try to make up a Japanese limerick - I will know.

Is it the convention in Japanese to use temporal adjectives such as 'old', before a pejorative adjective like 'boring'? In my country we tend to do it the other way round. But as you say, let's save this for the Learn Japanese with Tokyos and Hanna Minx thread. I'm not going to be responsible for the erectile deflation of the lurkers on this thread. Some of them have been polishing their glans for 8 days. They've worked up such a shine that I hear tell that they can see their own faces in it.