Hamilton Saint

I went there in 1986. My wife and I took a day-cruise in a small boat run by a couple of young, hip guys. I always thought of them as Cheech and Chong! A wonderful day out on the water sailing past nearby islands. Had lunch on a beach at midday. As richie said the food in Turkey is great. An amazing difference from often-bland Greek food.

I have two mental images of the guy: 1) wiping the ball with his shirt before delivering yet another of his "famous" long throw-ins (that achieved nothing - well 997 times out of 1000, that is); 2) jogging aimlessly back towards our half of the field in order to do vaguely something ... now, what was it? Then there were those 2 wonder goals at Arsenal. Where did that come from?!

There is a revolving door connecting government, industry and the defense department. Upper management figures move across these three levels of society with ease. Di ck Chaney is a good example. Many areas of industry are tied into the military (aircraft manufacturing, for example). War is good for business. The last Iraqi war, for example, seems to have been conceived by the Bush administration as a golden opportunity for U.S. corporations to "clean up" once the armed conflict had ended. Another element in the situation is what people have dubbed "the technological imperative". The military-industrial complex invents, develops, and manufactures new weapons systems. These highly technical weapons get tested - but there is always the push for them to be used in actual combat: cruise missiles, for example, drones, cluster bombs, etc. "If you have 'em, then use 'em." The military is offered new toys by big business; it pushes government to provide the funds to purchase them; foreign policy is manipulated in order to push for war, so that industry can reap profits from the manufacture of more weapons. It's a cyclic system. [And, parenthetically, the U.S. gun culture is part of that, too. Private collectors are driven to acquire even more sophisticated weapons; they start with hand guns, and move up to assault rifles and machine guns.] As I said before, the U.S. exists as a permanent war economy.

Or, Lovren will move right because of Hooiveld's comfort on the left.

Agree with this!

It's to do with a sense of domination or, even, oppression. The English can feel smug and condescending, because of their history of domination; the minority groups feel resentment because of their sense of being ignored, or exploited. It is the difference in the power relationships which creates grievance and resentment.

The U.S. exists as a permanent war economy - the result of what Eisenhower identified as the "military-industrial complex". What drives the U.S. now (and Britain in the past) is not an altruistic drive to "police" the world, but a desire to secure its economic self-interest. More and more, in the future, this will become a struggle for natural resources: oil, natural gas, fresh water, etc.

Nationalism is fine, as long as it doesn't become a xenophobic kind of jingoism. American nationalism, for example, often manifests itself as an ugly exceptionalism; they truly believe that America is the greatest democracy in the world - that their system, per se, is better than any other. That kind of nationalism is unhealthy - it needs to be tempered by a certain amount of internationalist spirit. You can feel a pride for your own - a pride in being English - as I do, and still admire and respect other peoples, other nations.

Al Jazeera were thinking of adding the American cartoon programme The Flintstones to its schedule in the Middle East. Concerned that there might be some xenophobic opposition to such a move, they conducted surveys in all the countries of the region. The survey simply asked respondents if they would want The Flindtsones included in the schedule. Opinion was split in the United Arab Emirates; in Dubai, for example, they do not want it, but those in Abu Dhabi do.

"It [southampton's Academy] is a great breeding ground for players to do well at bigger clubs". What an attitude! They can't do well at the club that trained them and formed them?

No, just wrong. She had a "different view" about Pinochet in Chile. She was wrong on that, too. And bad!

I think they chose clapping because they were concerned that some reactionaries, with no sense of historical perspective, would break the silence by yelling out "he was a terrorist!" HTH

Yes, she opposed apartheid; but she also opposed sanctions.

Proud to recall that Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney (who was generally a supporter of Thatcher's economic ideas), vigorously opposed apartheid in South Africa and took the lead amongst Commonwealth leaders in pushing sanctions - disagreeing strongly with Margaret Thatcher on that issue. Mandela never forgot Mulroney's support on this crucial matter.

You mean this, don't you? 'As revelled in by me yesterday evening'.

Interesting post! I agree with some of this; however, my use of the word "right" or "wrong" has to do with the rules that govern conventional use of the language. If you decide not to follow the convention, you might create uncertainty about your meaning. What you write might be ambiguous. Ambiguity indicates "wrong" syntax; certainty indicates "correct" syntax. Take your example - "bit the man the dog". As you say, the conventional approach to English syntax is to begin with the noun phrase, and then follow that with the verb phrase. And if you have a transitive verb, the verb phrase is followed by a direct object. Your example ("bit the man the dog") is ambiguous because of the order of the words - which is inconsistent with regular English syntax. Regular syntax would be "The man bit the dog". The man is the subject; bit is the transitive verb; and dog is the direct object. Your "wrong" syntax makes your example ambiguous: did the man bite the dog, or did the dog bite the man? If you need certainty, you should follow conventiona syntax. The dog bit the man means the man was bitten. The man bit the dog means the dog was bitten. Bit the man the dog is uncertain because of the irregular syntax. "Wrong" grammar is not a moral or legal issue; it is an issue of clarity and efficiency. Remember this from your study of ambiguity in English class? What is the problem with the following sentence? A piano is for sale by an elderly lady with ornately carved legs. Do the carved legs belong to the piano or the woman? You indicate that by the order of the words - the syntax. If the sentence is ambiguous, then it is "wrong", in the sense that it doesn't do a "proper" job of making the meaning clear. To reiterate: there are no absolutes; these things are relative. But judgments of "wrong" and "right" are based on syntactical conventions.

Well, there are no absolutes, perhaps. But I would say there are "right" and "wrong" ways of doing things, relatively speaking - based on convention. For example, it's fair to say that it is "wrong" not to start a sentence with a capital letter, or not to end a sentence with a punctuation mark. Things evolve over time, but you do need to have a "temporary" standard - otherwise, it's chaos.

Canadian usage is a bit schizoid. Spelling often follows British forms, but idiom and syntax usually follow American style. It can be very confusing. The verb suffix -ise vs. -ize is a good example. and do you "fill out" a form, or "fill in" a form?

100% The only question I had a slight hesitation with was the one involving that vs. which.

Come on, Saints. Must get three points from this one!

Is this a hope of yours, or are you providing information?

We're only 77 places above Pompey!

Our Glen Hoddle worshipper on here would start his with "exterminate!"

They could start with an emoticon - that would be a symbol, not a word.

Palace have lost 7 more than Saints. Discuss that!