Fivetide

the last five minutes of oldboy... and it's not because of the gore.

If you retune your digital box thingy and go to channel 801 (for freeview) at 4pm... Baywatch! It's just as wonderfully godawful as I remember. Mmmm... godaaaawful.

"The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc" - took itself so so seriously, and was so so bad. At some point the director's going to see Monty Python's Holy Grail and do some proper facepalming. Favourite scene was Joan deciding they needed to have a dawn attack - she wakes up the army - who are all asleep IN BATTLE FORMATION right in front of the castle. Blokes literally sitting up, rubbing eyes, and charging the walls - which they actually start hitting with swords. Hilarious. ---------- Post added 01-02-2013 at 10:16 ---------- I'm amazed that Speed, Scream, Blazing Saddles, Blair Witch, E.T., Forrest Gump, Armageddon, Singin in the Rain... have all been listed by various people. I think most of them are pretty darn good, the other one or two are sheer awesomeness. I'm not arguing, it's all personal, but it just shows how varied tastes can be.

The other method (which like the tongue-test is from genuine experience of just this problem) is to be methodical about how you take the ciggie from the packet and transfer to mouth. If you can master that it ceases to be a problem (right up to the first time you forget and give the filter a good old blast of flame, then realise as you're spitting tobacco from your mouth - because it won't light dammit so you need to suck harder - it was the last one in the pack). Seriously, I do know how inconvenient it is to try and smoke through a melted filter tip. I feel for you. (And one of those two last sentences was not a lie).

What's your maritime status got to do with it? Or the light? If you have a lighter - you have light. Or, you use the tip of your tongue to feel the texture of the tip - smooth is safe rough is rotten. I resent having to think of these things!

Lmao - I agree with every word. Good point, well made!

LOL - I'm more of a democrat when it comes to language. When a term gets taken on in wider society it does get used more broadly, but (and yes, I'm seeing this is an agree to disagree moment!) I'd be loathe to say it was dumbing down. I believe most people are mostly pretty smart. If a word or phrase moves from its original meaning which was used in a small group of people, and takes on a broader more general (or more flexible) meaning as more and more people use it in their own day to day language, that's the creativity of people at work. And we're all enriched by it. (I'm loathe to admit this but ... after all that it still sets my teeth on edge whenever I hear someone say 'evolved' when I think they mean 'developed' ... hehe ... ) As for the results - ah - again we disagree but not on the outcomes, just the reasons for it. The social development of words and meanings is just part of the natural processes and doesn't affect the overall 'intelligence' of the competing narratives. But the setting up of false dichotomies, skewed perceptions and such for my money is the result of the deliberate manipulation of language by idealogical forces which control the media and actively seek to destroy informed debate. For me.

I disagree entirely - taxation is the most efficient way to prevent private sector companies (and usually the few individuals who own the companies) from hoarding wealth - the more wealth is taken from society in the form of profit, the less wealth there is to go round in the rest of society. Lower taxation means easier exploitation.

My apologies. It felt lecturey. But to be pedantic (lol) the 'true definition' is the one the general population uses, not the one found in an academic book.

We also need to be careful to read things in context and not get pedantic for the sake of it. Not only did I use quote marks to foreground the complexities of interpretation the phrase might be open to... If I'm posting in a thread about modern society, and posting about modern society, then I mean the free market operating in the society what I'm posting about in the thread about the society in which a free market exists. Just because there are other potential definitions, doesn't mean they have any relevance here. Currently we do have a free market because that's what the system operating in our society is called, by our society. Just because you can find other narrower definitions doesn't actually make them relevant to the debate. The rest of your post is a series of non sequiturs which aren't worth repeating. No offense.

Society. For example, there was general public unhappiness when energy firms were seen taking more than 10% of their revenues as profit. The 'free market' has become a smoke-screen to hide exploitation. As such it might be time to curb such behaviour through regulation.

I have a new favourite. Good call.

Am I allowed to loathe the 1% who own everything else, and exploit every level of society in order to take every last drop of wealth they can squeeze from the system for no better reason than they can? Because I do.

It isn't a dichotomy. Socialism doesn't go against the principles of self-reliance, it goes against the principles of selfism. A family that cares for you doesn't mean you're not self-reliant.

Or simply remember to check before lighting.

I think we can let them have this one, with honour intact.

It's really nice to read this at the start of the day. Don't know any of the posters, but do know it cheered me up no end. Good shooting, Sheffield Forum and kidley - you got serious kudos!

Because: Corporate dictatorship, neo-feudalism, capitalist regime. I'm not even kidding. The few at the top have discovered the most effective tool ever for exploiting the masses into oblivion - 21st century consumerist culture. They make us grateful we're being screwed. This I disagree with. It's time we nailed the evil buggers properly - although less soldiers, more predator drones is my preferred solution. Any 'poor people' in those third world countries don't like us nailing the evil buggers that perpetuate the poverty (because fundamentalist Islam is about living in the stone age apparently) can quite easily fight on our side instead of standing by and letting the evil buggers take over their countries. We could afford it, but we'd have to waste less of our own society's surplus productivity on useless toys and candy (ie we'd have to have fewer new generation mobile phones and tablets, and less over-priced junk foods - and more predator drones, and predator drone missiles).

yes, I agree with that - it's all about instant gratification nowadays. (we'd better stop there or we'll get reported for having a sensible discussion.)

Is that a list of items for a first date?

it was the banks what caused the recessions - and let's get things dang straight, we could afford to invest in more jobs, and a better society, if corporations took less profits and paid more taxes. It's the taking of ott profits, without paying enough back to society... that's the main cause of unhappiness in this country.

6 nations still free as far as I can remember - even for us english (woop woop license fee!)

Scotland given up have they?

Now you mentioned it I just noticed there's a report post link - has that always been there? What the hell has the legitimate sinking of the Belgrano got to do with an increase in suicide over the last two years? Money might not lead to happiness, but lack of money definitely increaes unhappiness. As does lack of opportunity - caused by unemployment and underemployment (the hidden evil of the Conservative government's policies imo).

If help doesn't appear to be available, if you don't feel the support is there, if it looks like you have nowhere to turn... then you probably won't admit you have problems. You're not going to seek help that doesn't exist. Not only that but when people stigmatise (and demonise - literally) those with mental health problems by suggesting they're automatically dangerous to society - speaking as though mental health problems = dangerous individual - then it discourages anyone with developing issues from admitting their problems. (And why shouldn't she have taken him to the range to learn to fire weapons? I doubt she'd have done it had she had any idea what was going to happen. It's no more loopy than making guns freely available to society, then acting surprised there are so many deaths from guns in your society. ) And as far as I can tell, your post would suggest the only way to prevent the atrocity would have been to stop him having access to weapons. And as you couldn't stop his mother buying a gun just on local hearsay her son was a bit weird, it would mean stopping anyone buying hand-guns - just in case. The real problem is, as with so much in American society and British, the corporations make too much profit from things that cause harm for the general population. imo.