the stain

1984 contained the first sex scene I ever read (probably still does unless they've re-written it). The Handmaid's Tale prompted my first use of the word 'f u c k' in an essay. I remember both with fondness.

Just read Leaf Storm, a collection of short stories by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Some of his best work in there IMO. I like him when he's being all magical. Now I'm reading The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, by Milan Kundera.

Me too. He might get all the names wrong, but his insights are genuinely quite erm... insightful. I also like Garth Crooks. Not because he's a good pundit (he's terrible) but just for the way he makes everyone else in the studio so uncomfortable. It's something about the way he bellows out the most banal comments as if they are statements of defiance, and then looks Ray Stubbs in the eye as if to say "... and you'd better not cross me!". Always followed by 2 or 3 seconds of nervous shuffling on the part of his co-pundits.

I've only got myself to blame

No. No no no. No. There may be something to be said for a hawkeye style device to determine if a ball crossed the line. But generally, no. It's not about 'luck' evening itself out. It's about the referee calling it as he sees it and everyone being big enough to go along with it. Players will argue with the referee (and disrupt the flow) whether his decision his good or bad. This is because they have lost sight of the fact that the referee represents the rules of the game on the field of play. This won't be addressed by stripping the referee of his authority over decisions, but rather by backing up the hot air of the Respect campaign with some actual stern and immediate punishments. I think one of the great things about football is that it has thus far resisted the TV-driven pressure to hyper-analyse every decision and just lets the game play in a natural way. The broadcasting companies paw over each equivocal call and work themselves into a lather about whether the official was definitely 'right' or 'wrong'. The referee is right, the decision is 'marginal' and we move on. We already have systems in place for reviewing referee performances and for contending red cards, why emasculate the referee further?

Sho'nuff.

The Mash Tun, Winchester - May it rest in peace

I like 'aged one'.

See how the rabble-rousing mania of the first highlighted phrase is undermined by the following two? Nothing has been banned; politeness and thoughtful courtesy have been recommended.

I'm afraid I don't, for the simple reason that I'm bloody useless I've been doing some surfing of my own (for book review sites, not your song) and not really come up with anything except sites where users send their own reviews. Not really what I'm looking for. One should never judge a book by its cover, as they say, but if you can't spell 'genius' then you're probably not well placed to denote it.

You lot are bloody useless.

Hello boys and girls. I'm looking for a book criticism comparison site. Something like Metacritic, only maybe without the crass scoring system. Anybody know of one?

This deserves its own thread, before it gets lost amongst the other 'local gigs'... http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/forum/showpost.php?p=109635&postcount=2 If you can make it to Winchester on Saturday night, please come and put food in the mouths of infants by getting spannered, while me and jeff leopard play awkward, angular math-rock and afro-jazz. JayetAl are playing; they really are bloody good. They're a bit like if you set a load of teddy bears on fire. Only more dancey. Rude_NHS will also be playing. He's been trying to start a band with that Ashley out of Freakpower, but that's on the back burner while he while he remembers who his real friends are. DJ action from Jeremy Waxman, The Emo Hunter, and literally some others. £2 to get in, all profits to Oxjam. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll see the stain's brown eye...

Three dots at the end, or two dots and an exclamation mark, would've made acceptable shorthand for an expression of exasperation. e.g. "Why I oughta..!"

When you're trying to do mental arithmetic in a hurry, particularly when handling cash, try remembering which pairs of numbers add up to ten. Once you've got that sorted things kind of just fall into place and the surplus becomes easier to deal with. Honest.

Yesterday I watched... Kind Hearts & Coronets, which was an absolute treat. Polite, gentle English comedy about murdering your whole family. Alec Guinness was a genius... Son of Rambow, fairly charming comedy about two kids in the 80s making a film. I liked it cos it reminded me of my childhood (the main kid even looked like I did then), but it was frustratingly simplistic in its 'message'. Watch it if it's on but don't bother paying money for it.

Maybe the Christmas Tree thing was put forward by someone who was offended? We don't know. Maybe rather than saying "let's ban Christmas trees!", someone actually said "what do you guys think about not having a Christmas tree this year"? We don't know that either, but it would sound far less ludicrous. It was considered, it was rejected. I don't know where you work, but I'd imagine people aren't told at brainstorming sessions "if you have an idea and you're not sure whether to say it, keep quiet".

And all I'm suggesting is that, just because someone puts forward the idea that maybe they wouldn't have a Christmas tree, and just because any suggestion has to be properly noted and discussed, doesn't mean you should assume that someone is trying to 'score points'. Just that people are trying to look at things from all angles, which is surely a good thing? Who knows, maybe they were trying to score points, but it's a big leap into conjecture, whereas the motivations of the media that twist the story are pretty damn apparent. I don't understand why you want to make so many assumptions about these people (their motivation, the depth of their research, even the colour of their skin). And I don't understand your argument that people shouldn't be allowed to suggest things, when your beef seems to be about people restricting what we're allowed to say; that seems to defy logic. And I also don't understand what 'muggy' means, but i reckon I can have a guess on that one.

I'm beginning to think you might be better qualified to answer that question than I am.

And you wouldn't perhaps accept that when these things are merely an idea passed round for debate in (for example) a local council, they aren't a problem, particularly when nothing comes of them? And that maybe the problem actually arises when The Daily Screeching Hitler gets hold of this non-story, brings in a lot of rent-a-quote jobsworths (see Express article above) and tells everybody to get angry that their liberties are being infringed? The 'banning' of "sing from the same hymnsheet", the 'banning' of saying you're British, the 'banning' of christmas trees, along with so many other thing that have been 'banned' by the 'PC brigade'; none of these thing actually happened! They were ideas put forward for sensible discussion by the appropriate bodies. You or I would never have heard about them had they not been picked up and twisted by the press. To blame the people who had these ideas for the way they have been so willfully and publicly misrepresented, and to claim that it is they who are trying to score cheap points, would be the act of a spazz.

IWAY is The9

So they shouldn't say "we shouldn't say it because it might offend them" because it might offend you?

And just like the thread in The Lounge, this is also a load of cobblers. Someone has written guidelines advising people to be aware of their audience, to avoid causing offence when communicating with the general public. Sensible advice, you might think. Everyone moderates what they say according to who is listening, it's one of the most basic principles of communication. The Express's agenda for interpreting that as a 'ban' on calling yourself British is to provoke in the reader a feeling of righteous indignation, that they are being put upon, that yet another of the perceived ills in this country is attributable to those who are different from 'us'. And it works. Sickening xenophobic c**ts.

It's amazing how quickly a lie (and it's not a misunderstanding, it's a deliberate falsehood) can be spread as fact and how eager people can be to believe it.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain. Yes'm. Just read If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, by Jon McGregor, which I loved. It's like a wonderful poem about change and re-birth. It made me feel all magical.