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Spoilers for people who don't read the news I guess. <smiley face>

So, is this any good then?

Couldn't find the key for my bike lock until lunchtime was nearly over.

cheers for that, I did enquire about downgrading the entire system but all the shops I spoke to didn't recommend it as the Tesco bike I have just aint worth the expense ...i'll just have to walk up hills until I get the strength and stamina built up again.

It's a bit late now but, in general, cheap bikes bought from the supermarket or whatever aren't worth the money you save on them. Cheap components wear out and decent replacements either aren't available or are such a significant proportion of the initial cost of the bike it puts people off altogether.

While not wishing to be an apologist for an apologist, I don't think that's what the Shark said.  He's just noting the disparity in how we view things when the Russians do them, while the rest of the world does similar or worse.

I'm afraid I find this an astonishingly generous reading of his comments. As far as I can see, he is bending over backwards to find a way to defend (possibly replace "defend" with "present a defence for" I suppose) Russian policy for the simplistically contrarian reason that Western politicians and media don't necessarily represent it the way Russian ones do, therefore the Russian view must be valid.


At best, this puts him into the same doublethinking apologist camp as Western leftists happy to endorse the Soviet regime.

[Pretty much everyone agrees moving pictures look wrong and off in portrait.]

**And don't even get me started on how many people filmed their videos in portrait. 

Pretty much everyone agrees moving pictures look wrong and off in portrait. When there's to big black strips taking up a great deal of the screen, it just looks shitty. Why is it even possible to film in portrait?

Ha ha. One of the great things about the internet in general and threads like this in particular is finding out about things you never even knew were supposed to annoy you. What's the problem with filming in portrait? Is it going to turn out to be one of those things like kerning where it's me that's weird because it doesn't bother me.

Just watched best of the best. It hasn't become a good film in the years since it was made, but there's something about it I like. The best thing is that with a bit of cheating I can add best of the best 2 to my list of"sequals where the hero from the first film is killed off in the second one' it's cheating because Chris Penn isn't the lead character in botb2 but I've been waiting years to add a fil to iron eagle 2 and maniac cop 2.

Road a House 2

Daevid Allen from out of Gong.

Whatever the one with Sophie Marceau was, that's the best one.

No liquid is undrinkable.

Might taste like shit, but it's not undrinkable.

As my secondary school physics teacher was fond of saying:

Johnny was a little boy, but now he is no more,
For what he thought was H₂O was H₂SO₄

This, this is the beginning of the end.

Not everyone has a shed you know.

This seems as good a place as any to post these.

Fasnacht is the equivalent of Carnival over here (but you can tell it's a completely unrelated event on account of it always being exactly a week after Mardi Gras.) Basically, the whole town gets smashed for three days while roving bands of drummers and piccolo players wander the streets erratically. At the heart of it are the Fasnacht Cliques. Groups of locals with a band and a basement bar who spend a good part of the preceding year getting organised for the big blowout.

Each clique will have a particular theme to their costume for the year and their lantern (of which more later.) There are stock characters but it's frequently drawn from popular culture or events of the past year. The death of HR Giger made an impression and there were several references to his most famous creation. No, not Penis Landscape, the other one.

Without further ado, allow me to present the First Facehugger Marching Band.


Random pack of Xenomorphs.


The bandleaders are usually identifiable by the extra big heid on their costume. Here a papier mache Giger plays host to a cheeky chestbuster.


Another part of the tradition is the lanterns each clique produces to illustrate  their chosen theme. These commonly get mired in the - presumably hilarious - minutiae of local politics but can also be simple, striking images. The industry probably keeps signwriters gainfully employed for months and some of the results are quite wonderful pieces in themselves.

Giger portrait.


Reverse view, variation on that thing he did with the woman.


Much more colourful variation on the same theme.


Reverse view incorporating Giger imagery into the more common heavy-handed-but-still-not-entirely-clear satire style.

Hello. Isn't Pineapplehead a Lard song?

I'm not a helmet evangelist - I wear one if I'm going out for a proper ride but not to work or the shops - but I hear they can be useful. The one thing that will make any cyclist safer is actually occupying the proper space on the road, being fully in the flow of traffic (and obeying the same rules) rather than hugging the kerb.

I haven't cycled in years, but I always loved those drivers who think they need to accelerate like a motherfucker to overtake someone going 15 miles an hour.

Conversely, one of my biggest bugbears is the sort of clown who arrives at a junction and immediately proves himself unable to judge the speed of another approaching vehicle but simply assumes that all bicycles are travelling at the top speed of an eight year old child.

I try not to get too tribal about it. There are plenty dicks on bikes and I'm sure I read about one driver who wasn't that bad. It has, however, been genuinely eye-opening to spend some time living in a country where cycling is a mass form of transport.

The range of people you see cycling in Switzerland, and the array of different machines they do it on, is extraordinary. Of course, people still do stupid things and get annoyed at each other but the oppositional, adversarial mentality which prevails on British roads simply doesn't exist here. I assume it's because cycling is so much more common and, therefore, the vast majority of drivers are also likely to cycle at some time too but there is far greater acceptance of and patience with cyclists. It's almost like paradise on two wheels. Or it was until some cunt kicked my bike over and dented my mudguard last night.

I find buses to be worse

I have often encountered the hypothesis that bus drivers are the biggest arseholes on the road.  I may even have postulated it myself.

Just wait until you both see taxis for the first time.

I'll stake a crusade. Z

I quite like both Crusades. The Dredd one is easily the best of Me & Gwant's longer efforts on the character.