DonnyTJS

In my view, yes. The whole tax burden / civil list set up has changed hugely in the past couple of decades anyway, as far as I'm aware. Of course the financial benefits of a monarchy such as ours is impossible to quantify, but I don't see much relevance in your French example as 18th century tourism wasn't quite the same as its 21st century counterpart. A constitutional monarchy is absurd in this day and age, but I don't think it's dangerous and I like the absurdity. The alternatives are also absurd, but in a less amusing way.

I nearly stopped reading at 'dictatorship'. That's just silly. So's the rest of your argument. Give me a breakdown of the burden on the taxpayer represented by this sprog - or any of the royals if you prefer. Balance it with the supposed benefits to the economy that the soap-opera that is the royal family is said to provide. Then factor in all the other stuff our taxes go on that we might not approve of. The cost-to-the-taxpayer argument is daft.

Just out of interest, how precisely have these total cretins kept you in your subservient place? In what ways are you subservient (apart from feeling the need to call a dead woman "a fucking cow", thereby displaying subservience to a group mentality that thinks this is in some way shocking and therefore both commendable and effective)?

Appropriate use of semi-colons often comes down to 'feel' rather than any strict adherence to grammatical rules, but, on the whole, they can be used instead of a full stop where two grammatically independent sentences are closely connected in terms of meaning. This means that they can often take the place of conjunctions like 'but' or 'so': "Semi-colons cause confusion; a lot of people avoid them." ... "Stadiums and arenas make shite music venues; I rarely go to a gig that holds more than a few hundred folk." The important thing is that the clauses on either side of the semi-colon can stand alone grammatically (so they're not like commas). You can also use them when giving a list when the contents of the list are grammatically complex so that you need commas to punctuate individual elements of the list. Doddle.

Duty?

Anyway ... This is a great shout. Not only is it beige, but it's naïve drivel - I've never understood its classic status.

Fair enough. I find it hard to dislike some 'Ace of Spades'-era Motorhead, but as you say, defining lines are blurred. Most greeboes back in the day wore Status Quo patches, and I quite like 'Mystery Song'.

Fine, which again rules out 'Red Red Wine' which is thought good by precisely three grannies now living in secure accommodation. I wonder if those above who slagged the entirety of reggae were under the impression that aficionados believe RRW to be the epitome of the form, holding it up as 'peak reggae' (when everyone knows that that title rightly belongs to Althea and Donna's 'Up Town Top Ranking'). The Pistols' 'God Save the Queen' probably fits into your redefined category. The weakest of their first three 'classic' singles by a stretch, and it's not worn well imho.

I was once asked to leave a Kiki Dee gig, by Kiki Dee. I'd inadvertently guffawed when she said she was playing Madison Square Garden with Elton John the following week - this was upstairs at The Leopard in Doncaster in front of some 30 punters.

Stating you hate all of any genre of music, unless you happen to have listened to every song comprising that genre, is a bit silly. I strongly dislike a large proportion of Prog, Heavy Metal, and Country & Western but certainly not all of any of them.

Agree with that. How he has managed to maintain a career in BBC music radio for so many decades is an absolute mystery. Re: The Police. As I may have mentioned before, I first saw them playing the coveted support slot for Albertos Y Los Trios Paranoias at a small club in Sheffield - I'd heard of 'em as they'd released Roxanne to zero success a month or two before and a mate of mine had bought it (it charted on re-release). Didn't particularly mind the song - it was different for the time, but the band live were mingin' - particularly Copeland destroying his sticks on the cymbals. Next time I saw them was less than a year later, topping the Saturday-night bill at Reading. Still shite.

You are so transparently dishonest, it's laughable. None of the points mentioned is about churches of any denomination, nor about 'Christendom' - they are solely about Romans 10:10-13. Go back to the thread and give some answers ... there's no reason whatsoever to clutter up this one.

Rather than continuing to derail a thread about some poor bugger I'd never heard of, how about answering the points your are so diligently avoiding on a thread generally connected with such things?

Yes. Apologies. Keeping with the wind theme, I was evidently having a mind fart. The hare is there, but not easy to make out - certainly in any scaled down reproduction: As it happens I saw a Turner exhibition in Kyoto last week. Here's another of his steam-powered industrial revolution numbers: Snow Storm: Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth (1842)

Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion. Francis Bacon (1944) The Great Wave off Kanagawa. Hokusai (1829) Rain, Wind and Speed - The Great Western Railway. JMW Turner (1844)

Trafalgar Day.

Thing is though, Homo sapiens is a social animal with a developed culture, and shared, cultural celebrations are probably not a bad thing. It's just the egotistical celebration of one's own birth which is a bit sad. Admittedly, the modern Christmas is generally hellish (who celebrates Easter?), but in theory, if not in practice, there's nowt wrong with a few culturally shared annual booze-ups. Given our multicultural makeup, the appropriate days need a bit of a shake-up, but I think we can all agree on getting communally pissed on Trafalgar Day. Fuck the French!

No, actually he's pretty much bang on. Can't speak for the women, but any bloke who's into his twenties or beyond and gives a toss about his birthday is more to be pitied than admired. Sorry.

So much art; so little bandwidth ...

Just for the record, that didn't come out right. Kimba thinks 'outward expression of inner repentance' amounts to 'works', not Scotty. It would have been far more enlightening to have the two of them discuss it here, but sadly Scotty decided not to be a part of exposing their uncoordinated theological linen in public any further.

The existence of Christianity itself is fairly convincing evidence. There's also Suetonius' account of Jews causing disruption in Rome around 49AD 'at the instigation of Chrestus'. That would negate humanity's free will. There has to be an element of choice involved, wouldn't you say? (And how do you know that the world is now a far more dangerous and hateful place? I suspect that on many criteria, that would not be the case - not that it matters). Bloke trying to reform Judaism fits best with the evidence (the Gospel accounts).

Well, you're certainly studiously avoiding an explanation of Romans 10:10-13. Aye, it's really simple when you ignore all the elements that make it complicated. For those who haven't been following closely, Kimba berated Scotty for suggesting that "outward expression of inner repentance" is a form of 'works' as opposed to 'faith' and therefore contrary to the economy of salvation in the new dispensation (the rules of which we get from Paul, who got them from the ascended Christ etc etc). Unfortunately for Kimba, this same Paul in Romans 10:10 states that "with the mouth confession is made unto salvation". Her explanation for this is that Paul here is addressing perfidious 'Israel' and not the lovely Gentiles who get a free pass on the 'confessing' bit. However, immediately after verse 10, Paul makes it clear that he isn't restricting this to 'Israel' at all: "11. For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. 12 For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. 13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." So your idea of 'right division' is dividing Romans 10:10 from Romans 10:11, 12 & 13. That isn't 'right division'. That is simple dishonesty. You say 'we are to study' - here's a bit of 'study' for you: verses 11, 12 and 13 of Romans 10 each begin with 'For'. In Paul's Greek, this was the conjunction 'gar' [γὰρ]. It can be translated in a number of ways ('for', 'since', 'this being the case', 'therefore'), all of which explicitly join that which has gone before to that which follows. You have quoted with approval a number of verses in this thread where it is used in precisely this way - just one example: Paul's word in 2 Cor 4:18 was also 'gar'. So, you cannot divide Paul's inclusion of both Gentile and Jew in "with the mouth confession is made unto salvation" despite your attempts to do so. You are not studying the primary source; you are gullibly being taken in by 'pastors' posting Youtube videos that denounce confession (presumably, because they equate it with Catholicism). What was it you were saying about 'perverting the Gospel'?

Sounds like a good bloke. Frustrated me in his England days by his refusal to make a forward pass.

Yup. A fine example of unintended consequences: Notice that I failed to use a hyphen in 'gatekeeper' at one point in the PM.