Meenzer

Croatia and Serbia are very different yet the Slovenians, of all people, are just like the Russians? Rightio.

Quality that. The Scots man think he is not really sorry, the irish man think it wasnt really r@cist and the English man thinks its not very funny. Theres a joke there somewhere. Probably a racist one.

You've got to be this kind of cruel to be this kind of kind.

I ought to unleash my better half on this place. Finally, a practical use for a degree in Serbian and Croatian Studies.

I like the use of inverted commas in the other news sources shown: Edinburgh Evening News: Jason 'sorry' for racist joke Belfast Telegraph: David Jason apologises for 'racist' radio joke Bucks Free Press: David Jason apologises for 'joke'

if I was already loaded and was responsible for a lot of angry people losing their jobs, I would A bit harsh to suggest it was former employees of his fiefdom. That is unless you are presuming that we can pin an inevitable correction in a totally overstreched economy on the actions of a few people. Goodwin and his empire building are in the past and the longer people yearn for some figurative retribution, the longer we'll miss the opportunity to look at the challenges ahead. Goodwin pressing ahead with the ABN Amro deal did not bring down the UK economy- yet it seems to be as if it did. Let's not forget that Teflon Gordon is more than happy to keep the press fed about the evils done by "the City" under a regulatory system that he not only created, but boasted about around the world. Yet now he's off to the states telling people how it should be done. Bit of an about-face, that. This sort of action only helps the sort of yobs who will be 'protesting' against the G20 next week as they wreak a general trail of havoc and interrupt the lives of thousands of workers so we can listen to the same message that has been relayed countless times in the past, only to be forgotten on Monday as we struggle to find glaziers who wil repair this damage out of the goodness of their own hearts. This is an incredibly important point.

I shouldn't worry too much Magma, your time will come. And it's not like you need to worry about having galloping nob-rot or owt like that. SMO on the other hand...... I'm cleaner than Meenzer's poo tube i'll have you know! I suppose that's sort of a compliment, in a weird way. Or at least I hope it is.

Aye. And all I know about him is his son used to host Canadian Idol.

Isn't the passport office in Düsseldorf? They probably thought you were speaking in code. Or tongues.

They're all useless. When my bank/debit card was suspended because of suspicious activity before Christmas, the Barclays call centre drone went through about ten minutes of past transactions - "have you used a betting website called Paddy Power, sir?" "did you withdraw money in Beo... Bel... Beg... Serbia last May, sir?" - even though I'd already told him that I'd checked my online banking the previous weekend and everything was fine. Then it occurred to him to ask "did you pay £1,372 to Generic Company Name two days ago, sir?" What, you mean the day before my card was suspended? Did I try to pay £1,372 to a company I've never heard of, despite knowing that I had a current account balance of less than £500? Why no, sir, I did not. Fucking idiots.

Maybe if I had Fred Goodwin's salary.

Aye, happy birthday fella, and don't be so subtle next time, you know we can't handle it.

Hello Zath.

Well if you will live near Lange Reihe.

In my experience, those surveys classify things far more innocuous than bum-bashing as "homosexual activity". If you've hugged a bloke at the match after a goal you're probably in the 10%.

That's the problem with these irregularly-shaped countries, they just don't realise they're irregularly-shaped. We need to impose Wyoming-style latitude- and longitude-based borders throughout the world. Where's Dubya when you need him?

Someone should probably inform Mrs. Renton.

I'm getting a distinct sense of Jàdé vu.

That Live Aid type thing for the G8 a couple of years ago (I forget the title) was a classic - the tickets were free but there was a huge fuck off VIP area in front of the stage just for corporate guests. You mean Bono hasn't given all his money away to help starving people. What little he has left after flying his hat first-class, that is.

Sometimes it feels like you could start a thread on here containing just one word - "ARGUMENT", say - and 12 pages later a handful of people would have got bogged down in a tug-of-war debate on the shape of the letter "M".

Jesus, I never realised the bullshit of our professional lives was quite so closely linked.

Well that'd certainly fit with the rest of East London. A return to a sense of scale would be nice after the excesses of Beijing. Then again, I imagine the organisers are so paranoid about being seen to have "failed" that they won't entertain the prospect unless it becomes a financial necessity.

Turnout at the next election will be fascinating. I can imagine there'll be a lot of shoulder-shrugging from people who won't vote Labour again but can't bring themselves to go with one of the other options. Wouldn't surprise me if we even get a couple of BNP MPs as a result.

I can understand that. It can change, of course - see the Lib Dems in Newcastle after however many years of Labour - but it tends to need a hell of a lot of perseverance by a consistent group of people in the face of a long struggle. Mind you, you'd think with Labour's ongoing national collapse that someone would be targeting other local councils. It'll be interesting to see how the Tyneside parliamentary seats shape up next year. I tend to prefer local politics myself - I can get a handle on schools, potholes, dogshit and recycling collections far more than I can the broad strokes of nationwide policy statements - but I can fully understand any apathy towards it, particularly in places where voting doesn't offer any realistic prospect of change. You don't half get some nutjob councillors too.

It's only the start. I'm getting bored of the "media fabrication" line, too. It's not like the media weren't quick to trumpet the fake boom.