DonnyTJS

Parklife wasn't talking about you; he explicitly says that he's referring to the poster with the highest number of reputation points. However, to be fair, thinking he was talking about you does make you come across as dumb as fuck.

I'm well aware of Scotland's separate legal and education systems, thank you. I was simply pointing out that there's significant shared culture when compared to the EU. FWIW, the only worthwhile measure of cultural affinity is how easy it is for a member of one culture to use a supermarket in another.

Really? It takes a fairly bizarre reading of history to suggest that the dissolution of a 300-year-old political union - a nation state with all the shared cultural and economic elements that have developed with it - is on a lesser scale than leaving an economic grouping that has only really attempted a strong political focus since the early 1990s. This doesn't mean that dissolving the UK is either impossible or undesirable, it just means that your statement is myopic.

So did I. But upon opening the thread last night, found it had been resurrected by that Debora poster: "Good evening. While waiting for a bus I overheard two people discussing bitcoin and they recommended this site … <some link or other>". Obviously a bot, so I made a post pointing this out. Woke this morning (my time) to find that both posts had been deleted (and at least one more as I had a notification that Ally B had quoted my post) … then I forgot about it as we had a bit of an earthquake, and a 6.1er tends to monopolize the concentration.

Now then … Malcolm Owen, Joe Strummer, Ian Curtis, Ari Up, Lemmy (+ Fast Eddie & Phil), Lee Brilleaux, Mick Green (The Pirates), Bert Weedon ...

That upgrade was certainly a factor. The Euros; the post-2014 hangover really kicking in; the rise of other forms of social media ...

May 2018: 5,243 ... Women, children and middle-aged statos first.

Actually, the issue there was divorce.

It doesn't make the slightest difference. Since when did symbolism depend upon genetics?

Aye, slap us down with an Express story. You were talking about their being 'descendants' - we don't need the Express to tell us that the current monarch isn't a 'direct' descendant, as in pure primogeniture. That's what the whole Act of Settlement was about.

I do think for myself, honestly. She's not 'in charge' of me. She's a constitutional monarch - same as in Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark - most of northern Europe. What's the point of having an elected apolitical head of state? It simply causes a potential democratic clash with the elected government. There's no inherent advantage in increasing layers of democracy.

… and how does having a monarch prevent anyone thinking for themselves?

In what sense are you ruled over by the queen?

Really? Yes they are.

Btw, assuming you were going to spend two or three nights in Cairo you'd want to take in the Cairo Museum, just off Tahrir Square. All the Tutankhamen tomb contents plus a mass of monumental statuary and stuff.

I know Cairo well. Was last there in 2010, just before Mubarak was overthrown, so don't know the current security situation but suspect a lone male would be absolutely fine if you're sensible (ie: don't go wandering off the beaten track - same as most any large city). The Giza pyramids are right on the outskirts of Cairo. Any halfway-decent hotel will run a bus out there for guests. If you're looking at three nights there's plenty of options for other days (Giza wouldn't take a whole day anyway). If you're just after pharaonic stuff, I'd spend a day in Sakkara (sometimes written Saqqara), site of the oldest pyramid but also many tombs that are open with wall paintings, incised hieroglyphs and the like - none of which you'd see at Giza. Again, I'd imagine that a hotel would be laying on trips out there (it's a few miles south of the city). The old medieval centre of Cairo is well worth a visit too, for the architecture, and Khan el Khalili, the main souk in the medieval centre. Accommodation - depends on budget. Plenty of five-star options, but a personal favourite is the 3-star Windsor Hotel. Great bar barely changed for sixty years or so and I'm sure they run day trips. Palin stayed there in Around the World in 80 Days (I actually appear very briefly being served a beer in a panning shot round the bar).

As has been mentioned before, ad nauseum, 'right division' in this case means dividing Romans 10:10 from Romans 10:12. That's not 'right division', that's redaction. Inventing a 'new dispensation' and then cherry-picking bits of scripture to support it is a poor route to salvation. That's very kind of you, but I'm reasonably confident that it doesn't work quite like that. I also think that if I was working for the occultists, I'd mention the benefits of the occult now and again - you know, a bit of mild occultism clears the sinuses and does wonders for the libido: that kind of thing ...

Hi Kimba. No. Have you an answer for the contradictions in Paul?

None of that is clear in Paul, for the perfectly simple reason that Paul never said it. What he did say, clearly, was that "there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek" (Romans 10:12). He had plenty of opportunity to spell out this 'program' (chapter 8 of Romans would be one obvious place when he talks about what can separate us from Christ), but he doesn't. Indeed, 'program' isn't a biblical word. It's a 20th century North American usage … which is where this novel misreading of Paul originates.

Similarly, I have a great book, but it's on t'other side of the world at the moment and I can't remember the author. It focuses on the space race, the early lead of the USSR and NASA's desperation to catch up. The event that struck me most (though, as mentioned, I don't remember it) was the death of the three astronauts on Apollo 1. Gus Grissom had been one of the original Mercury 7 - he'd made the second sub-orbital flight (Glenn's orbit was the third US manned launch, the first two were just parabolas.). When the Mercury capsule landed in the Atlantic he blew the hatch too early, water came in and it sank, nearly taking him with it (all this is from memory so might have the details wrong). I've always had a soft spot for Grissom - look at the photos, he wasn't yer square-jawed space-hero type, unlike the rest of the Mercury 7. Years ago I was on Grand Bahama, just cutting through the pine barrens, and came upon a deserted group of buildings. Clearly long abandoned, one of them was a library with tattered books still on the shelves, visible through a broken window. Mystified I wandered round to the front of one of the buildings and it was covered by a faded mural of what was clearly a Mercury capsule being shot out of Kennedy, over Grand Bahama. Finally I found a plaque, and it turned out that this had been the place where the first two astronauts, Shepherd, I think, and Grissom, along with Ham who'd chimped the first, pre-human, launch, had been taken after being picked up from the ocean. A spooky place. The descriptions of the Apollo 1 fire are horrific - pure oxygen in there. They could be heard banging on the side of the capsule but there was no way to open the hatch quickly enough (I've a vague memory that this was because they no longer used explosive bolts since Grissom's Mercury accident, which would be a tragic irony if I haven't imagined it). White had been the first American to space-walk, during the Gemini programme, once again pipped to it by the Ruskies.

There's the odd bit of whistling in this Stanshall classic:

Yup, same with re-entering the earth's atmosphere. Long radio blackout at probably the most dangerous part of the mission (along with lift-off, I guess). Nail-biting stuff.

That made me check. Nope, you're on about the landing (which I was allowed to stay up for …). Armstrong didn't leave the module until six hours later.

Agree with all of that. One of the many good things about Osaka is that the 1970 World Expo was held a couple of miles from where I stay. Expo's actually meant something back then when the future seemed boundless (barring nuclear holocaust). Plenty survives today (including this) and the monorail that was built as part of the infrastructure. Every time I ride it I get daftly excited - it's like entering the future fifty years ago, if that makes sense. Back in '69, I was woken up to watch Armstrong and Aldrin take the first steps on the moon (must've been fairly late BST). My most vivid memory is of staring at my dad's back as he completely obscured the TV taking photos of the screen.

There's not much good about being nearer 60 than 50, but being able to remember the Apollo space program as it happened is a definite plus. I don't think I recall the deaths of Grissom, White and Chaffee, but at some point between then and the launch of Apollo 8 I had become gripped, and my long-term memory had started to function properly. The Airfix stuff was great too. I couldn't afford the Saturn V, but my neighbour had it, and I had the lunar module. Shitely put together, but still a thing of strange beauty.