Off Topic The "Discuss Anything Else" Thread

I know it's a very sensitive subject but I do have concerns about how this World is developing. Genuine homosexuality is a hormonal thing and is no fault of the individual so inclined. I had a few homosexual friends who had partners, so I am not biased in any way. But, what really gets me is the relentless thrusting of this on TV soaps. There isn't one, as far as I know, that doesn't have homosexuals or lesbians, or both. That in itself is not what I am concerned about. It's the constant passionate kissing on the screen, especially when I am having dinner, between 2 homosexuals. It is becoming so regular that it is clearly making it to be the norm when mother nature rules it clearly is not the norm. At the rate things are going, in 100 years or so, heterosexuals will be locked up for indecent behaviour. I stress, it is the TV and media that are causing my concern, nothing else

 

Wise words from Rowan Atkinson. He is certainly much more than a madcap comic actor, comedian, etc. Extraordinarily erudite and compelling in this verbal essay on Free Speech:

Rowan Atkinson on free speech - YouTube

 

What worries me is that you watch soaps.

 

. Don't worry Nass. I don't. But my wife does and it's difficult not to see some of it. When she leaves the room the TV goes off. And when she's not around, it never goes on, apart from racing and football

 

My sister has never missed an episode of Coronation Street since we got a telly in the early sixties.
I cannot for the life in me understand what she saw in it…..
A woman going outside in “hair curlers” - which I never saw; a window cleaner who never gets dirty; three women gossiping in the pub.
A total misrepresentation of northern life, if there ever was one!

 

No no no

It might be as bad, but nothing could be worse as far as soaps are concerned

 

It’s all pervasive Oddy. Even in kids local football the teams want the lads training throughout the summer. Madness. No break for kids or coaches. To an extent the same happens with other sports like rugby and cricket though not as bad. When I played the start of the football and cricket seasons were something you really looked forward to.

 

When I was a kid I used to love the test matches with the likes of Jim Laker and Tony Lock, Freddie Truman and Frank Tyson, Dennis Compton and Len Hutton. It dwindled after that until Ian Botham an Fred Titmus. Then the 5 days started to become boring and I lost interest in Cricket all together, although the 20/20s are much more entertaining. To be honest I haven't really noticed when the cricket season starts and ends. Has it started?

I think the horses are still jumping round some tracks. Has that always been the case in the middle of June?

 

Just an opinion, but I find this "Vitality Blast" thing in cricket completely barmy? Whatever next?

 

All I’ll say is I can’t wait for Have I Got News For You tomorrow.

 

Whatever is it?

 

It's the current name for the old "T20 Blast". Wikipedia explains it here:

T20 Blast - Wikipedia

 

I agree in part Swanny as i much prefer the longer formats. I’d hate to be a bowler getting deposited everywhere even off the edge of the bat! However it’s undeniable that a market exists for it among folk who wouldnt dream of attending longer formats. Also the standard of fielding has massively increased because of it. Catching in the deep is eye watering when i think back to what was more than acceptable when I played. There’s a staggering catch on the bbc website from a VB game last night.

 

Inflation remains at 8.7% (so no change). So the buckets of water are not working.

The BoE increased money supply at a time it didn't need increasing so fuelling long term inflation. Bailey and his team, and his predecessors for that matter, are all guilty of that. Nearly all that money was wasted and found its way to people and institutions that have prospered.
The BoE didn't used to have this authority. It was handed to them in that fateful budget of 1997 by bloody Gordon Brown (in the same budget he decimated Britain's gold standard 'final salary' pension schemes which had secured the futures of many working people in this country). Up to then we'd had the famous 'Ken and Eddie' show (chancellor Ken Clarke and BoE's Eddie George) which had worked as they jointly had responsibility for setting interest rates but no more. I still insist this was the most stable and sensible growth period for the UK I'd seen in my lifetime. There were stronger growth periods but debt was racked up to secure it.
For some reason Brown gave everything over to the BoE. Do we really want to be governed by unelected members of a National Bank? Brown thought so.
It has turned out to be a disaster. Of course Cameron could have reversed it but he didn't, so he's as much to blame.
The people who are really being hurt are the ordinary working men and women of this country and the poorest of them more so.

 

Elon Musk versus Mark Zuckerberg

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Can we have the cage fight in a submarine next to the Titanic?
That is how much I am interested...​

 

I barely watch football anymore.

 

The coaches are after the parents money that’s all. The kids are just another commodity to be exploited. My dad coached weekend football all his life kids and adults. He did it for the love of the game.