saintbletch

Lost the first half in midfield, not defence (although the own goals by defenders didn't help). We were overrun and didn't close down - not an easy criticism of any team facing Arsenal. Second half was much better in spells but still a lot of work to do. Yoshida saved Fox's bacon against AOC a couple of times. Ramirez good in spells, looks calm on the ball. Santi Cazorla is the best buy of the transfer window bar none.

He started it.

The great benevolent Apple eh Essruu? I take your point that by not making the latest version available to older phones they have reduced the pressure for users of older phones to upgrade. But to cite this as if it is something special is a little blinkered in my opinion. When the S3 was released I could already have been using Android 4 on my S2 for months. As it happened I waited some months before Vodafone made it available officially. The principle around Android is simple. You buy the phone and from then on its simply a bunch of hardware with which you can do whatever you want. If I want more memory, I buy the best price/performance memory I can find and stick it in. If I want to use a different charger, I find a new one with mini-USB. If I want a spare, or better performing battery, I buy a new one on eBay for a couple of quid. If I find something too restrictive on the standard phone, then I buy a different app that can tailor pretty much every characteristic of the phone's features. No hidden, proprietary ways of doing things to keep the money flooding in. I am simply warned that I am giving the app permission to do things. And if I'm comfortable with that, then I let it. And if I want to install an App without using the app store, I'm warned but of course I can do that too. And if I really didn't like a part of the operating system, I can download a copy of it myself, change it and install it. It's free. Free as in free beer. And free as in free speech. It's a community thing. But it's not the features of Android phones, or the features of the operating system that are hurting Apple at the moment. It's the community - that openness and the fact that Android is available from multiple competing manufacturers. iPhone 5 is a great phone I'm sure. But come on, recognise that owning the iPhone - as great an experience as it might be, is a process dictated by Apple for which you are charged every step of the way.

LOL. I had to look up at least one of the those words Tokyo-Saint. Well done! Madeley was one that I wasn't familiar with. Apparently it means "vain as f**k". Anyway, in other news, you need to kick the bear into action here Tokyo-Saint. We've got benign and sensible threads about instant coffee in The Muppet Show. What sort of Muppet Show moderator allows threads like that to remain? Laudable and earnest as it was, it should have been sent to The Lounge with a warning about future behaviour, or it should have been properly trashed deppo-style (deppocated?) as a warning to others. And now we've got threads about Kate's breasts - where some people are trying to make serious points about the intrusion of the press - in The Muppet Show. This is chaos. The Muppet Show is becoming a joke. When I first joined, The Muppet Show was a place where old and pretentious people like me wouldn't dare set foot. Now if I didn't give you and the bear a comic foil, days would pass without anyone popping in to say hello. Sort it out bear! Have a curry with the powers that be and work out a plan to bring The Muppet Show back to its former glory. It needs to be a place where I don't feel comfortable posting. We're Premier League now for God's sake - we need Premier League muppets. P.S. Tokyo-Saint, it was good to see that rather than bowing to tradition, you bravely separated the words "some" and "what" with a space. You've got to admire that sort of syntactic bravado.

Well done? Can you spell patronise? Can you? Really? Well done you! [ruffles Tokyo-Saint's hair in "I'm proud of you son" sort of way] I'm caught between believing that you spelled that word correctly, and thinking that you tried to make up a random word but failed. Anyway, this is Bearsy's manor. He's God here. It's up to him to decide on honours and suitability and so on. By going behind his back like this (that would make a nice change for you), it looks like an act of disestablishmentarianism. Are you trying to bring down the bear 'from within'? Or, like me are you an antidisestablishmentarian? Recant Tokyo-Saint, and join the antidisestablishmentarianism movement. 15-all.You can still win this. And by the way, what long words? *How convoluted was that, just so I could get a26m into a proper context? **Wait for the chemists and doctors to join in with their polytetraveryslippery and their pneumonogotmycockstuckinabottleandalightbulbupmyarse syndrome

And if I recall correctly you haven't once yet made it to the final 'dum' before your spumante moment. 30 seconds? How can you get from flaccid to sticky in 30 seconds bear? Anyway, Rachel Riley doesn't find your jokes funny - continually asking her if you can have 'one from the bottom'. It's not right. A couple of points of order. 1) nobody comes in my 'dictionary corner'. Ever. 2) Regarding 'norks' buctootim is right IF he was stating that he liked female mammalian chest appendages (presumably human), but if he was saying that he liked to see two (a pair of) unpopular, teenage computer users (geeks, dorks, nerds) then there is a silent G in 'gnorks'. Which was it buctootim?

Can I firstly say that it's a shame you've chosen to leave the debate. But to contradict myself a little, can I also say that I wished you'd do more of this sort of thing. i.e. recognise that your views are the polar opposite of many (but not all), realise that you've done your best to explain your rationale, recognise that you're not going to convince people of your point of view (and vice versa) and retire from the debate. I can respect that and it would save a lot of friction and animosity. For the record, I joined this debate thinking that it was all the Police's fault and have gone away from it recognising the semantic, if not particularly germane point, that the crowd itself had a role in the disaster.

I am outraged! Back in a minuite...

Very much this. But I only want to look so that I can then be outraged. I won't enjoy it. I therefore wanted to remind Saint in Paradise about Rule 1, but I remembered that the bear posted TMS Diktat #872.b in another thread stating that certain uses of Rule 1 were illegal in TMS - with consequences. I think it could be that if I remind Saint in Paradise about Rule 1, then he must post pictures of himself topless or it might be that I then have to then post pictures of myself topless or some combination thereof. What was the new TMS rule about rule 1 Bearsy/Tokyo-Saint?

Completely I agree with your analysis of the likely take off of NFC versus other mechanisms pedg. Certain retailers will jump at finding new ways to get people (initially teens and twenty-somethings) back into their shops to try a new way of shopping. Banks and the like will promote it too. Once it gets a critical mass then all retailers will have to have it and its use will widen to include older, less tech-savvy people. Not sure about the timescales though. That said, you seem to think that Apple has made a mistake in not including NFC. I'd suggest that, as with all iPhone launches, Apple knows exactly what it is doing. The strength of Apple's brand, the beauty of its products and the puppetry with which it is able to control its customers (we can see your strings Essruu) means that they can leave out killer features and afford to be multiple revisions of technology behind. They know that they can sell a shed load of iPhone 5 models (despite the apparent meh-ness of its features). They know that they're brand-loyal customers will wait to buy the 5s (with NFC) rather than leaving the fold to use NFC. Apple first has to ensure that it can dominate, or at least grab its share, of the transactions that will go over NFC. I'm sure one of the reasons for a delay is to ensure they can milk a small percentage of each transaction - or perhaps they'll go the whole hog and introduce Apple iBank - the best thing to happen to banking since banking. They already have a lot of the machinery with iTunes. I think one of the most interesting thing about Apple purchasers (and I've been one before and probably will be again) is how they/we will readily bend over while Apple introduces yet another proprietary way of doing things that, with no surprise, costs more with Apple. It's marketing genius. But, I think the cracks might start to show. Where once they could guarantee dominating an area such as NFC and perhaps even drive their own standards, Android is getting a lot of market share and quickly. Multiple manufacturers, competing to make differentiated handsets on the same platform means that Android technology will progress immensely faster than Apple can in the coming years. Cheaper tablets are providing more choice too, so iOS penetration will likely go down per capita in the coming years. Personally, I think you'll also see subsequent iPhone launches happening more frequently. There's no doubt that there is something very special about having an iPhone or iPad in your hand (or indeed owning any Apple product). It's intangible but it does cast its spell. And not everyone needs, or indeed feels comfortable with the latest technology. But more and more people are looking at the iPhone ingredients, and at that very old fashioned looking home screen, and at that price tag and are starting to ask themselves if they might enjoy something a bit more modern.

Personally, I think it'll be nice to see the Royal couple.

If we're looking for behaviour that is difficult to rationalise, there are some people in Southampton and the surrounding areas that would tell you they hate Portsmouth and the people from there. And vice versa. People deal with upsetting and emotional situations in different ways - many of your posts on here are testament to this. What appears to be missing from your analysis of this situation however, is the recognition of the impact on the people involved. Not the impact of the tragedy itself, but instead of how it must have felt for 20 odd years to believe/know that there was another truth to be told, but having no way of getting that truth out. That's not a simple mourning/grieving emotion alpine_saint. It's that, plus the feeling that the nation is probably thinking that your loved one was in some way part of a movement that led to their own death. It's knowing that someone should potentially be on a manslaughter charge for the death of your loved one, but instead people are talking about fans doing despicable things in the aftermath of the disaster. That moral wrong leads to the sort of slow-burning and deep-seated emotion that over time becomes a mission to set the record straight in the name of those they have lost. I think what stops you seeing this subtle, emotional situation is complex in itself. But it isn't helped by a what appears to be a negative stereotypical view you hold, perhaps rightly in your experience, of the people of Liverpool. The Sun, and MacKenzie in particular, served as a lightening conductor and acted as an important totem against which the people of Liverpool could vent anger and frustrations. Should they still hold animosity towards The Sun following the apology? Logically no. Can I understand why they will? Absolutely yes.

Thank you Sir. Except it was the Taylor Report and not the Hutton Enqury and it's Inquiry and not Enquiry. Other than that I stand by most of the other words.

I'd find it hard to believe that his words didn't reach our most senior politicians.

[EDIT: I mentioned the Hutton Enquiry/Inquiry previously. It was obviously the Taylor Report] Thanks for that trousers. And as you've pointed out, and I orginally noted, successive administrations failed to act on what must have been a fairly widely known 'secret' (or at least suspicion). So I'm trying not to make this party-political. But the administration at the time and when the Taylor Inquiry results were published was Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government. But of course we don't have inquiries to uncover the real truth. That might be a by-product of the inquiry of course, but the reason we have them is to firewall our politicians from the responsibility for events and to then stop them having to answer any further questions on the matter. They are a mechanism our politicians use to definitively create "the truth". Following an inquiry the results become "the truth" and any other discussion is nipped in the bud because we've already reached "the truth". So it now appears with the Taylor inquiry. A decent job by Taylor it appears, but it either got nowhere near the truth or the warnings that politicians and Whitehall mandarins were given were not met with the political balls needed to get to "the truth". The more I read, the more it appears that Margaret Thatcher's government was more concerned with the impact of criticising the Police rather than getting at "the truth" for the victims and their families. In response to a suggestion from a civil servant that the government's response to the Taylor Report should be to "welcome the broad thrust of the report", she responded with. If, as her memo above suggests, Margaret Thatcher was concerned over criticisms of the Police, I'd find it difficult to believe that she would pursue any hunch, whispers or even facts that she might have become aware of - for fear of the damage to the Police force. This may well have been a passive, unintentional thing with perhaps fine motives. But that attitude that came from the top led to years of hardship and demonisation of the people that attended that football match and their families. For the record, I have little faith in government run inquiries - be they public or private. Politicians, police officers and now journalists for that matter, have become adept at remembering what they know can't hurt them and not recalling the things they know that can. However this current one into Hillsborough disaster might change my view on that - if the subsequent pursuit of justice nails the people responsible.

I've slept on this now and I still cannot believe the scale of deception over such a long period of time. During that time people must have known or come to know information that made them think "this is wrong". Keeping something like this quiet would surely take the cooperation of many, many people involving the Police, Whitehall secretaries and perhaps successive government ministers. I'm particularly interested in what Margaret Thatcher's government knew and also what the lady herself might have known. I can't imagine what range of emotions those directly involved with the tragedy will be feeling right now.

Yep, it'll still sell like hot cakes but it's nothing ground breaking. I'd be happy with one - if I hadn't tried Android and been spoiled by the screen on my GSII. Still staggered that there doesn't appear to have been any surprises.

Well, I hope Whitey Grandma doesn't expect you to still be at her side after 43 years if you don't get an 'upgrade'.

There's an app for that. My best wishes to you and yours Whitey Grandad.

You know, sometimes you don't need rule one. Sometimes, somebody paints such a vividly unforgettable image that it burns straight into your retina and gets worse when you close your eyes. Thanks notnowcato! Words > Pictures.

I thought the same sotonjoe. Maybe it was a leaked early version of the animation but it look a little clunky somehow. But someone has spent some serious time creating the video. Perhaps it's cleverly leaked by Apple, and the actual iPhone 5 will be much better than the video suggests? They are pretty smart at the marketing and pretty good at keeping a lid on leaks so I have trouble thinking that this will be the finished product. Some interesting, if a little provocative comments here ahead of the launch. I can't help thinking that Apple will be keeping an enormous surprise back. They used to do when Steve Jobs was running the show. Perhaps that rumoured 4" screen will be much bigger?

notnowcato is right Tokyo-Saint. I was slightly bothered by the fact that the snail knocked at the door, slightly more bothered by the fact that the snail spoke to the guy, but I now see that its inner-compass is much more likely to lead us to the truth. Now why don't you save us all the bother and tell us what really happened when the guy got up to open the door? I found myself drowning in an ocean made from orange carbonated water yesterday. It took me a while to work out it was just a Fanta sea.

[Clears throat. Closes eyes, goes into a trance-like state and attempts to channel Dune...] I see those work-shy socialists in Liverpool will today finally get to hear that they weren't to blame for the Hillsborough disaster. I'm sure they'll all be at home watching it on Sky news on their taxpayer-funded HD TVs pitying themselves to stupid. How long will it take for the liberal elite on here to jump to their defence? Justice for the 96? What about justice for honest working people that fund their benefit culture? This proud nation should hang its head in shame. [sorry pap, that's the best I could do at short notice.]

I remember it vividly. I watched it unfold live on Sky. It was horrific and I thought at the time that it would change everything. I think it did. My son who was about 7 at the time was watching it, presumably thinking that it was a film. He asked what was happening and I told him that some evil people had flown the planes into the towers on purpose. He thought about it for a while and then as if he'd found a mistake in what I'd told him, he said "But they wouldn't do that, because then they'd die too". The innocence of youth.

The forum is a little imbalanced since Dune was given an opportunity to spend more time with his family. He was the Yin to your Yang pap. The Morecambe to your Wise. The rhubarb to your custard. The Mein Kampf to your Clause IV. Without Dune and with a full compliment of Marxists on board, it's like we've got all the superheroes but no villains to fight. It reminds me of the Incredibles when the people took the superheroes for granted.