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I always found the "God why has thou forsaken me?" line to be a bit of a give-away: It always sounds to me like he was perhaps expecting God to get him out of it, or at least made it easier. It sounds as if he is completely in the dark about any purpose the sacrifice has. If the 'son of God' has such a crisis of faith, what hope do we have?

If we go with original sin the it would presumably also be right for us to blame Germans today for attrocities carried out by earlier generations (or some other crime such as eating an apple). By simple being their descendents they are guilty of the same crimes, even if they are unhappy about it, and the only thing they can do to make ammends is for them to be tricked into betraying and killing one of our sons. They way everyone's happy and we can forget about the whole war incident.

"How better to account for it than to say "I know! Let's say it was God's plan all along! And Jesus didn't die in vain; he died to save us all."

That's the other thing - that puts a whole different spin on what Judas was up to: As it were all prophesised and arranged in advance, Judas was at worst an innocent victim with God pulling the strings, or at best the a hero who vitally facilitated the act which has saved us all.

I hope the Jehovas come back soon and I can put it to them. And yes, they did say they were celebrating Easter tonight (Saturday). Wikipedia says they comemorate the Last Supper on 14 Nisan, whenever that is.

I had the Witnesses over this morning, was surprised that they celebrated Easter as I thought the reason they didn't celebrate Christmas was largely because it was a pagan festival and Easter would be the same.

I don't know why God couldn't have just forgiven everyone without the use of nails and death, God just likes a bit of blood. It strikes me that it's not that different from pagan beliefs - that God responds favourable to a bit of sacrifice be it animal or human, presumable that's why people call him the lamb of God.

"The Unexplained" magazine was a bit like that - I seem to remember a chapter about the belief that the Earth was hollow (seemingly based on photographs of the planet in which the poles are cast in shadow that looks a bit like enormous holes). At the end it says: 'Is the Earth really hollow? See chapter 12. Then after 3 another weeks of buying the magazine, chapter 12 says 'no'.

I enjoyed Arthur C Clarke's Mysterious World as a kid, though I doubt if there was anything on it today that had a any credibility or hasn't since been proven to be fraud, delusion or kids just chucking things around when people are looking the other way.

There ought to be some kind of regular publication which prints 2000AD art in a sequential format so we can all enjoy the pictures at a lower price.

Well here's the web site I have to re-build. Clicking on the flag buttons brings up a pop-up translation, some Chinese, Japanese and Russian. It works on the computers I'd used, and as one can see it's selectable text not an image. When I copy and paste it it doesn't work and looking through the html I can't seem to isolate what makes it work.

Link: http://www.integrityagency.co.uk/" target="_blank">Integrity

Hi all, I need to put some foreign text on a web site, in a few languages actually including Chinese, Japanese and Russian. When I cut and paste the text from another web site if turns into regular characters and/or gibberish. I've looked in their html and can't seem to find the piece of code that turns it into foreign alphabets (or perhaps I have to use the right font?). It's probably very easy, what should I do?

Thanks in advance,

ADE

Oddly enough Kenny Everett got away with exactly the same kind of thing as Benny Hill, sometimes more so, though got off scott free. It's little to do with how sexist you are and more to do with how much peoplke warm to you personally and how quickly they can trick you into laughing - no-one can laugh and then say they are offended. Look at Little Britain: Many of the characters are simply mentally ill (and we were already laughing before he got out of the wheelchair). Benny Hill left the disabled alone, though the real problem is he did the same jokes for too long. I don't assume he was sexist, he just wanted to follow in the footsteps of Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd.

The odd thing about Hughie Green is that no-one sussed he was Paula Yates' father until after his death. The likeness is striking, and it must have been known he and her mother were in the same cirles.http://www.ukgameshows.com/atoz/programmes/d/double_your_money/DYM3.jpg">

I told him he shouldn't take the Emu up there with him...

The Kenneth Williams drama was about as good as it was likely to be, and fair game since Williams made it clear his diaries could be published, though it was harder for the actor to perform Kenneth's 'off-stage' voice: Though plummy, Kenneth did still talk like a relatively normal person when not performing and didn't always do the 'snyde', 'thespian' or 'Arthur The Catterpillar' voices in normal life. Having said that, though the impersonation was good it still didn't have the warmth of Williams' performances when in on-stage mode either.

I'm very cautious of the 'dark secret life of comedians' cliche, though it is often true especially in less enlightened times: Entertainers like Kenneth Williams and Noel Coward did more for the acceptance of homosexuality than any amount of activism, and it's sad that Kenneth could never accept himself and live the life that he helped make possible for others.

Frankie Howard, though a true comic genius was a bit of a letch, and though I feel truly sorry for Bob Monkhouse who had to keep his advances at bay, I can't help imagining the scene in a comic way when Howard is involved: "No Bob, don't try and fight it, you know you want to..." etc.

"It's a Wonderful Life" is just as bad.

"It's a Beautiful Life". Can't get past the title.