BBC programme on poker / money

[Colchester Kev]

can i just say this has to be the strangest thread ever

LOL thats a bold statement on this forum

[doubleup]

can i just say this has to be the strangest thread ever

I agree but I still think we could have made more of the mysterious XML viewers

[Ironside]

can i just say this has to be the strangest thread ever

I agree but I still think we could have made more of the mysterious XML viewers

it was the aliens

[Robert HM]

It's IMPOSSIBLE to see a photo of Dina & feel let down. And she's just FINE in her uniform. Imagination is a wonderful thing. Remember, it's not the destination, it's the journey......

tikay, you uttered those immortal words the weekend I joined to follow the Vic update in April. I remember it well, I thought, "this is a poetic and educated forum, the sort where I belong" ... anyway back to snatch.

[TightEnd]

Dina has the loveliest sparkling eyes and a super smile....and I get to see her 3-4 nights a week should I so choose...


Yes lads, it's been a while.........

[Robert HM]

Dina has the loveliest sparkling eyes and a super smile....and I get to see her 3-4 nights a week should I so choose...


Yes lads, it's been a while.........

It is showing through 

[Ironside]

Dina has the loveliest sparkling eyes and a super smile....and I get to see her 3-4 nights a week should I so choose...


Yes lads, it's been a while.........

when you next se her tell het that grandad has been peddling photos of her to cochesterk (he is on another diet)

[RED-DOG]

But I will confess that "Snatch" was one of no less than THREE films I have watched in the last 30 years, the other 2 being Lock Stock etc & Pulp Fiction.

So did you just decide you wern't going to watch any films, if so why

and if thats the case, how did you come to see those three?

[Ironside]

he took a date out for a romantic night out

[Colchester Kev]

i hope he spat the stone out

[tikay]

Where were we before we got so rudely interrupted.....ah yes, Red's question to me - why did I see the three films I have (in maybe 30 years) & why do I so rarely watch films.

Julian & "Belly" (Ian Odershaw) kept insisting I watched Pulp Fiction, & Ian loaned me the Video. I was indoors, alone, on Crimble Day, & the TV was crap, as per usual, all that shmoltzy crap, Jingle Bells everywhere, and I suddenly thought, "OK, I'll give this Pulp Fiction a try". Watched it a dozen times, adored it. But had to give it back to Ian eventually, & now I don't know how to get hold of a copy of it. Actually, I have watched not three, but maybe 6 ior 7 films. The others were Goodfellas, The Godfather, & Once Upon a Time in America.

Lock Stock, Snatch - both were presents from my then (& now sadly ex) partner, who insisted we watched them together, & I loved them both, & still watch them when time permits.

Why did I never watch movies? Just never interested me, that's all I guess, always had more interesting things to do. And 99% of movies are fiction. I much - MUCH - prefer non-fiction.

I prefer readiing to be honest. I have maybe 2,000 books, & of that, no more than 6 are fiction. And that includes Papillon, which is actually "embellished truth".
 
I love true stories of heroism, battles against adversity, biographies, "wow" stories. The round the world yacht race where one guy cheated, then took his life because of the shame. Gangland, mobster & "hard men" stories. Fairground boxers - REAL hard men. Stories from the Japanese POW camps & about the Allied POW's building the railways in those dreadful, disease infested tropical forests. Unbelievable - but true stories that you would not believe if they were fiction - the Thalidomide story, ( a drug made by Distillers that caused horrific mutations), the Robert Maxwell saga, the Nick Leeson Barings Bank debacle, The Nixon Tapes, & the whole Watergate story - that is a real jaw-dropper, & partly led to my loathing of the American political system. Imagine this. Nixon decides, in his vanity, to install a 24 hour voice recording system in his office. He overseess a criminal act, discusses it with his aides, ducks & dives this way & that to avoid telling the truth when it came out on top. And it was all on tape - every last word. So the judge says "give me the tapes". Nixon says "no, on grounds of National Security". Eventually he tries to destroy the tapes, but is destroyed himself. A few President's later, we have a President having oral sex with a yoing trainee girl who is on the staff. He denies it on the grounds it was not "real" sex. Imagine that - two Presidents & two exposed liars. Imagine how the American folks felt. Imagine how those two guys felt. Simon Singh's "Fermat's Last Theorem" - a book about a Mathematical formula that is so intense in it's fascination that you have to read the whole thing in one go. Fermat discovered a formula, & it took 4 centuries to prove the formula, but it was true. And on the way to it's discovery, we discover that you can calculate the actual length of every river in the world, if you know it's "as the crow flies" length. Sounds impossiible, but it's true. And - on the way to this weird & obscure maths formula - we discover an insect that breeds every 17 - that's seventeen - years. Bill Bryson;s "A short history of nearly everything" is so gob-smacking that I have to keep re-reading some of the data in there, time & time again.

So it's non-fiction for me, always will be. I have no prob with peeps who prefer fiction, thats their gravy. I get a little prickly when I get derided for my "lack of imagination", but I generally hold my tongue, & keep my true feelings private.

So, I don't often watch movies, & now you know why. You did ask!

Next question!

[TightEnd]

hells bells tikay....what a post

I agree on Bryson, a fascinating book

I have just begun rewatching the 1973 Thames televison documentary "The World at War", the one narrated by Olivier. It fascinates me

As did the Gilbert biography of Churchill

and much much else in the sphere of military history, political history etc

I love good fiction, but also great biographies

[RED-DOG]

Thank you, that was a great reply.  I agree with you about the non fiction, I used to read it,(fiction that is) and enjoy it, but I discovered biographies/ auto biographies and their is no going back.

Please read  'a Jump for life' by Ruth Altbeker Cyprys, it made such an impression on me

Next question? don't tempt me!

[patman]

i love bryson,,,,,he has a great take on things and writes with an insight thats hard to match....plus he brings up the wierd and wonderful things about the world

[yt]

Bill Bryson;s "A short history of nearly everything" is so gob-smacking that I have to keep re-reading some of the data in there, time & time again.

Couldn't agree more - this book should be on every school kids desk.  This book explained things better than my old physics teacher ever could.
It also provides you with lots of info to become a complete bore to your friends!