Bits, out of sequence, you got right! I'm Spanish as are both my parents but my ancestry is a combination of Scottish and Irish so I suppose I'm a bit of a mongrel. I still have relatives in both Scotland and Ireland and while English is/was not my first language, I've been using it so long that it might as well be now. My work has me based outside of Spain (not Scotland) but I go home at every opportunity. My affiliation with the mighty Celts stems from the fact that I have a relative who played for them. That's probably far too much information for the internet already so I'll leave it there to avoid becoming a target for some of the lunatics who trawl it! I have to admit that I have problems understanding many of the Scottishisms used on here at times and the cruder stuff is not to my taste - though that may be as much down to not quite understanding the supposed 'humour' in it. Mr T was kind enough to give me a link to phrases/urban language used in Scotland but I think I'd better refrain from trying to use any as I'd probably get them wrong!
As I said to Psycho, many of the Scottishisms on here go way over my head - but I'm slowly getting there ... although I'm not altogether sure that's a good thing!
I don't know anything much about Buddhism either, I think I learned a bit about it in school - they must have taught me something in those two hours of religious classes per week - but I obviously unlearned it. As much as treating others as you would like to be treated may sound like the most basic of moralities, I think they religion it all up with the concept of Karma - don't do that or something bad will happen in return. In terms of supernatural punishments for doing what you're not supposed to be doing I think I like the concept of Karma better than the concept of Hell - I mean at 27 years old I have on average 50 years ahead of me to repent my sins and make the big fella happy, but that bastard Karma is going to get you next week. It also, maybe, goes some way to explaining why a lot of the seemingly devout Buddhists I met were quite liberal (of the drunken conversation I spoke off earlier one of the preachiest faithful was a ladyboy called Maria - I didn't enquire how she made a living although it wasn't hard to guess) - I mean how is Karma going to get you back for giving or deriving pleasure which hurts no one, apart from maybe yourself? Then again just across the Bay of Bengal they also adopt the concept of Karma and my experience when I visited last year was one of around 95% less debauchery - so I probably don't know what I am talking about. Around 5 minutes after a Ping Pong Show Salesman had unsuccessfully tried to make his pitch to us on a Bangkok street - the wife turned to me and said "why would anyone pay money to watch table tennis?". Indeed. I forgot to make the point that you can't loan people Kindle books - this is a source of much dismay when you get into a dinner table conversation with a friend, have some interesting views on the subject because you read something relevant, then can't loan him the book. Annoying. I've also managed to break two Kindles, I'm on my third in two years. Mostly my fault as they don't have the same resistance that a normal book would have to the full weight of my arse, but I could have bought a lot of paperbacks with that 400 quid thus far invested in hardware. Still I will fight the corner of it, all your books with you at all times and the ability to shop and download books instantly, anywhere, is just too damn convenient to go back. I only became a bit of a consistent reader around three years back when I moved from Malta to the Channel Islands. I was commuting between Guernsey and Belfast where I placed the then girlfriend and kids - it took on average around 7 hours travelling each way via two planes and three airports, which meant I had 14 hours of nothingness to fill up every week - and airport WH Smith always staring at me. I always loved to read but keeping myself stocked with stuff I wanted to read was never as convenient as it became then - you'd always have to be wandering into the bookshop in town or ordering off Amazon, which is a bit of a psychological impediment. So plenty of books to read, 14 hours to get into a book and the rest of the week to finish them off. I found myself starting to go through at least 1-2 books a week - up from the previous 1-2 books a year. When I left Guernsey I had to leave half of my new collection of books (50% of them ended up being finished in Belfast) because I was relocating via some tiny 6 seater plane which wouldn't allow me to bring more than 40 kilo, no matter how much I offered 'em. I was getting quite proud of that little collection as well, which is why I can see how attractive the physical book will remain to someone who builds up a proper collection. I only have a single 30 minute flight to and fro these days but I have the Amazon Kindle store on my person which allows me to keep well stocked and doesn't put that impediment to reading back in my life again. At a guess about 20% of it - I mean I get a lot of the concepts as I follow the words along, but don't ask me to argue the case in a debate afterwards. A lot of the concepts are so anti-intuitive that it lacks that bit of reward you get for finding something which makes perfect sense: less "ah, a new idea, it's logical and sound reasoning behind it, I like this idea!" more "what!?, well that makes no sense at all, how can the cat be both dead and alive at the same time? My perception can not alter the state of another independent being, I hate this idea!" But yeah, of the 5 unfinished books I'm working my way through 4 of them are on Physics - I'm desperately searching for that one that rewires my brain into understanding the harder concepts in other books more easily.
I was once told by my old teacher that everything anyone needed to know about Physics could be written on the back of a cigarette packet. I was about 16 years of age at the time, didn't smoke and therefore, didn't have a cigarette packet on my person ... so I never discovered the secret of that wonderful penetrative synopsis ...
Considering English is not your first language EC you hide it well, i'd never have known. What do you reckon Hoops' first language is then?
I studied hard at school Dev, and more relevantly, always had a fascination with language! As for sh, I merely assume he uses some sort of local/urban-like language/dialect in his communications, whether it comes naturally from his everyday environment or adopted for this forum, I don't know. I would say, however, that it has struck me on occasion that there may be more than one person posting under his name but in any case, I make no apology for saying that, at times, I very much enjoy his witticisms (if that is due to me having a weird sense of humour, so be it!). You know this, of course, from previous posts. I try to make a habit of not dismissing anyone on the basis of their seeming educational standards. Lack of education, in itself, does not mean a person is stupid and a person's talents/interests/expertise may lie in other areas - nor indeed does being educated mean a person is particularly clever. I also try never to set out to deliberately offend anyone (difficult when being offended oneself, I admit). I know, however, that you and sh have had a few battles and a number of people on this forum tend to write him off or attack him at every opportunity -a tactic with which I do not agree. I also gather that he is probably not one of your favourite people on this forum, so if I may put your question right back to you - what is your honest assessment of sh?
I left school (got thrown out) when I was 16 so I certainly don't look down my nose at people who have little education - I just find some people irritating when they follow you around getting barely sensical digs in.
Espania. As you say, Dev, it appears that I am not one of your favourite people. I find it hard to know why you should take a dislike to me, when you have never met me, or spoke to me. I would be indifferent to you and from time to time I may not like or agree with your postings but there should be no need for a forum if we all had the same opinion on every topic. As regards ability to post, I have no doubt that I have more than sufficient Qualifications in Second level and Third Level education to permit me to post. The fact that these were obtained at a time, before most posters here were born, would indicate to me that my Qualifications would carry more wait than the paper efforts so easily obtained in more recent years. I have no doubt that my posts are more practical than the artificial constipated shoite that Maltese Mickey gets involved to hood wink people he has a brain. Espania you have often been very decent in the past and I often admire your postings, however I fear you are becoming consumed by a group of people who have attached themselves to Mickey, unfortunately that is not good for you, you are in danger of using your individuality and becoming a stupid pawn in Mickey's sordid life.
I'm the same as Mick, I left school at 16 with absolutely no qualifications, all I have learned (and some may say that amounts to little) I have taught myself, so I certainly don't look down on him. I'm fortunate that I have never had a problem with spelling or grammar and sentence structure, but I certainly would not criticise others for the sake of it. Maybe if he stopped trying to appear so wordy his points would be clearer. Most of the time his reasoning evades me, perhaps that's my fault though.
It's poor Espania I feel for here. He's done nothing but support Super Hooper but now he's getting pelters off the auld yin. Give him a break Super, like you say there are some on here who are just Mick's cronies and you'll never change that.
And you have criticised my GCSEs as well - I have a C in GCSE Religion - surely my expose of Buddhism shows that this qualification has served me well in life and is not just a 'paper' qualification
Thanks! I would have needed to continue guessing if you hadnât stepped in with an explanation. If your family live in Cadaqués (my favourite place in Spain) and youâre in some way related to Paul McStay (my favourite Celtic player) then we should be fine. If not, I fear for us.... Well, yes, I see what youâre saying, no worries, and have a degree of sympathy, but crude, non-crudeâ¦..itâs all pretty much the same to me. I like the bedlam of (unregulated) discussion threads on the internet and canât properly warm to the concept of something being âoff-topicâ or âout of boundsâ. If Iâm all super earnestly yacking away about the elegant beauty of Dâarcy Thompson on spirals in nature, say, or the hollowing pain of Andromache in The Iliad grieving for her dead husband and fatherless child, Iâm alright if a fight breaks out in the background and people start shouting out âHaw, ****oplasm, ahm gonnae melt your greasy coupon wiâ a spade, ya clarty jobby-gobblinâ ****-handleâ or threatening vague acts of sexual violence or going off on a tangent or strop. Sometimes itâs extraordinarily funny, oftentimes itâs samey and dull, but Iâve no particular objection to stepping over the grappling bodies as I talk with any person whose views or ideas or style of conversation I may actually find myself interested in. Itâs all just words, words, words. (Except for the pictures, of course, which are often quite stimulatingly rank.) Mr T? Surely you mean to say Dr T? The man has a PhD, Espania, show some respect. Watch it, you. There's nowt wrong with being wordy. Fight? Fight? Fight? Administrator â nice one. Iâll get back to all this once Iâve waded through Rebelbhoyâs responses on the Aberdeen board.
sh - I thank you for your kind acknowledgement of my past posts but fear not, I am no-one's pawn nor will I become one, stupid or otherwise. In fact, not only have I not been pawned but I have never been so badly off that I needed to pawn anything - and for that, I have been fortunate -at least up to this point in my life. I would ask a question of you, though, sh. I know 'that' joke of Mick's went down very badly with you but I do wonder are there other reasons that you have taken such umbrage at him? I have made, what I consider to be, gentle jibes but only because I could not resist them. (I've decided, to refrain from them though, for the time being at least, as I would hate to think that I might in any way be responsible for his being unable to open up to Psycho and experience the comfort of his couch as well as the benefit of his perceived wisdom.) Forgive me if I am incorrect but you, however, appear to be highly annoyed at Mick and I'd like to know why that is the case, if indeed it is so.
