Jamie123

Better to have been a happy oyster...

We might all be oysters in the cosmic oyster bed...

https://www.plough.com/en/topics/culture/literature/why-we-should-envy-mr-collins Enjoy what you have and take delight in every small thing. And give no thought to what other people think of you. Could this be the long sought-after key to happiness?

I think "whole life order" means you will never be released alive. Its quite rare - most murderers do get out eventually, but some are considered so bad that they get "whole life" sentences.

And the judge. I know old Rumpole aways complains about "The Judge for the Prosecution" (he nearly always defends) but at least in theory the judge is neutral.

I know this has nothing to do with the insane vs. evil debate, but I have always been totally against the death penalty. I agree that if Axel Rudakubana were some isolated case which set no precedent there might be a case for it, but you can be sure that if it were allowed for him it would soon be applied to many other less clear cut cases. People are convicted of murder on purely circumstantial evidence, and sometimes these same people are later found innocent. They may have lost years of their lives, but they can still be let out of prison. No hanged man can ever be let out of the grave. One of the most heart-rending cases was Stefan Kiszko, who had an emotional age if 12 and was told by the police he could go home for Christmas if he confessed to murdering a little girl called Lesley Molseed. He had a useless defence in the form of Lord "Toad-Face" Waddington QC and he spent 16 years in prison before his conviction was overturned. Aside from many other inconsistencies in the prosecution, he suffered from hypogonadism and could not produce headed sperm. The sperms found on the victim had heads. Later still, DNA evidence was used to find the real killer who is now thankfully behind bars. But had capital punishment not been abolished, Kiszko would have been hanged. Now you may say that Kiszko and others like him are rare cases, and that most murder convictions are safe. If a few innocent people need to be killed on order to create a deterrent against others committing murder then its a "price worth paying". (Though it's funny how the people who use that phrase are never the ones who are going to have to pay the price.) But as Spock says: "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." But is it true that the death penalty deters potential murderers? That question needs to be answered by evidence, not blind supposition. Ok rant over.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/czepl8406n8t You're going to hate me for saying this, but I cannot believe that Axel Rudakubana is sane. It's no use telling me he's "perfectly sane, just evil". He's not. "Perfectly sane" people, even if they're evil, do not go around stabbing little girls for no reason, and with no regard for the consequences to themselves. He's now in prison for life. True, he could be released on license when he's 70 (assuming he survives five decades in prison) but he probably won't be. He's thrown his life away for no other reason that he likes to play stabby-stabby with little children. That is not "sanity". He belongs in a very secure mental institution, for however long it takes him to be properly cured, with no guarantee that he will ever be released.

Now how to waste the rest of Friday afternoon...

That reminds me a tiny bit of an early 1980s comedy sketch I have never been able to find since. It's at a chess tournament, where a very dignified Grand Master (played by Mel Smith) is getting thrashed by the scruffy, nose-picking preteen "Wonder Boy of Chess" (played by a very young Rowan Atkinson). The commentator is saying "And what will this revered veteran do at this moment of humiliating defeat?" Suddenly Mel Smith stands up, cuffs Rowan Atkinson round the head, and starts blubbing like a baby. P.S. I found it. Mandela effect at work here. It wasn't Mel Smith, it was some other geezer. Plus it was Atkinson who blubs at the end.

The question was rhetorical, but I think you guessed that! Most people on YouTube agreed with me, but a few did seem to find it funny. It might have been funny in a cartoon, but not with a real animal.

There are some really lovely animal videos. I used to like watching the ones with the cat and the otter playing together. I don't know if they're still online.

Poor kitty! Am I the only person who not only finds this not funny, but who thinks that whoever set it up should be made to share a bed with Mr. Pinchy and all his brothers and sisters?

Another example aside from "tart" is "pussy". I understand in the US, this is primarily vulgar slang for female genitalia, though the original meaning of "cat" still survives (just). For example in the Tom and Jerry cartoons, whenever Tom interrupts Spike's nap with his violent pursuit of Jerry, Spike grabs him and says "Now listen here, pussy cat!" There's also Tweety bird saying: "I tought I taw a puddy tat". In the UK it's the other way around: the primary meaning is still "cat" but we are well aware of the secondary meaning, and the cross-reference is a frequent source of bawdy humour. There used to be a popular comedy show called Are You Being Served, which featured a character called Mrs. Slocombe (played by Mollie Sugden). At least once in every episode, Mrs. Slocombe would make an innocent comment about her cat, which was always open to alternative interpretation. Examples: "My pussy was in such a state this morning!" "Mr. Humphries, leave my pussy alone!" In an interview years later, the show's writer David Croft said "Mrs. Slocombe was talking about her cat! Anything else was entirely in your mind!" Which was absolutely true!

Hours vs. Ours just made me remember this from the 1980s. https://youtu.be/0QVPUIRGthI?si=ckiF5vQ2i8JNLvGs "No they're not ours, they're hours, h. o. u. r. s. No, not h-ours, hours. It's silent!!! I don't know!!!!"

Many many years ago a coworker was surprised that I knew what a whore was. I don't know where he thought I went to school, but even if I'd read nothing but the Bible, I'd not have avoided knowing about prostitution. It shows how much scripture he'd read.

As You Like It Act 2 scene 7. In Shakespeare's time the h was not silent, so he was actually making a rather naughty pun which goes unnoticed today.

Nebbish. I don't remember ever hearing that word before. Dictionary.com gives: "a man...who is so mild and submissive that other people tend to feel sorry for him". Perhaps I'm a bit of a nebbish myself. I've certainly always lived in existential dread.

I love Anne Murray. She's my favourite of all ever.

It's a long time since i saw him, but if I remember rightly, he comes over as the sad little nobody/loser that everyone is afraid that they are. Like: "I asked for a dog for Christmas, but my parents gave me an ant. They told me he was a dog, and I thought he was a dog. Until I set him on a gang of kids who were bullying me, and then he got squashed."

Ok I found the reference. Sleeper. My bad. I've watched some Woody Allen movies, but never that one.

Sorry. Perhaps it's the kebab... P.S. Or Starmer...

Well we could be on the brink of some great paradigm shift whereby our "knowledge" that the earth is round will be exposed as a misconception. Like the miasma theory or the effectiveness of leeches in medicine. But that doesn’t really alter what I was saying. My point was that no dialogue on the shape of the world could have preceded the concept that the earth has shape. But for what its worth I think we can "know" the world is a sphere as much as we can know anything. (Unless we are really in The Matrix!) Pictures of the earth from space show clearly that it is a sphere. And even if you think NASA is a conspiracy theory you can see ships disappearing over the horizon, or the earth's rounded shadow on the moon during an eclipse, or the different altitudes of the sun at different latitudes. Yes I know some crazies on YouTube think otherwise but they are so easy to debunk that I'm surprised people bother.

There is only one kebab shop within walking distance of my work, and up until now I have found them brilliant. Even a "small lamb doner" (which is what I normally have) is well worth the £7 you pay for it. Lots of meat. Lots of salad. And they heat the nan bread up for you and cut it properly and put the meat and salad inside in the PROPER way. When I went there today it was a new bloke, and I didn't like the look on his face. A bit self-satisfied. The equipment was all different. The counter was in a different position, closer to the door. Presumably it was "under new management". When he gave me the kebab it felt suspiciously light. Got it back to my office and found that the meat was nothing like as plentiful as usual. The salad was little more than lettuce and onion. And....IT WAS ALMOST COLD!!!!! AND IT STILL COST £7!!!! Absolute RIP OFF!!! I'm not going back there again. Grumble, grumble, groan. I blame Starmer!

It's a long time since I saw Hamlet so I could be missing something. But it just occurred to me... How can Hamlet say that death is "the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns" when he has previously seen his father's ghost beckoning to him? At least one traveller has returned to him (Hamlet)!

I'm not inclined to get too worked up about this. A gut reaction of many is "It's a sin, and you can't legalise sin." Which is total nonsense. There are plenty of sins which are not against the law. Nor should they be. It is a sin to "take the Lord's name in vain", but I don't think many of us would want blasphemy laws reintroduced. I don't want assisted dying to be a thing, but neither do I want poor old Mr. Harris who for years watched the misery of Mrs. Harris' slow decline, and finally helped put her out of her misery to be put on trial for murder. It used to be that suicide was a crime, and people sometimes were sent to prison for trying to kill themselves. The first reaction of many people upon finding a half strangled man dangling from a rope having failed to kill himself was not to call the ambulance to have him treated (and hopefully counselled) but to call the police and have him arrested. Thankfully those days are now over, but critics will point out that suicides have become more common since then. It's all swings and roundabouts.