Cloud

Used to go there too, they're efficient and effective if you don't want anything complicated due to impending baldness

That bit had me in tears for about 10 minutes, it's that genuinely funny and ridiculous. But the rest, as you say, is a bit meh.

It's time to get a new girlfriend if she's picking you custard! (frosties flavoured milkshake sounds even worse :/)

You tried a custard flavour milkshake?!

The problem is that they might not know where to look. If someone declares that they've been working in Poland for two years (with a seemingly kosher reference) but they were actually locked up in Germany, how would anyone know? And what about crimes committed by Brits abroad?

Yup, all the while trusting the grandad who lost his wife a few years back and who definitely wouldn't go touching the child when he's left there overnight. After all, who's going to believe the kid that the grandad was touching him in the night? And this is the real problem. I was reading recently that men just don't want to become primary school teachers because they're almost automatically assumed to be a paedo - what with the lack of male influences in primary schools to begin with, this can't be a good thing! The infamous Scott Simpson case was a classic example of where the media whipped everyone into mass hysteria, yet no-one ever criticised the parents for letting a child of 9 with learning difficulties go to the park unsupervised. Some of the tales coming out are really sad as well, I was reading online about a report of a father who was getting dirty looks from people because he took his daughter swimming.

You know, this hit home to me a few weeks ago. I was on a bus and some kid was making a silly noise. So I copied him while keeping an absolutely straight face. The kid laughed and did it in return, so I copied him again. Repeat for about ten minutes. The mother was laughing, other people were smiling (except the obligatory old git) and everyone was amused. But I wouldn't dare in the UK now. It's sad The CRB checks and new ISA checks would be fine well if they were based on common sense. But seeing as all sorts of allegations can find their way onto your 'file' - what's the point in any volunteering if a malicious kid can claim 'paedo' and ruin your career? Fair enough, children need to be protected - but adults need to be protected too.

Even Obama called him a jackass, which is pretty crushing...

He was brilliant in Donnie Darko, just because he played it almost perfectly. Mind you, the whole scene in the school between him and Donnie was perfection.

I made the most amazing spaghetti bolognaise today. Started off frying some onions for 2 minutes, then threw in the mince. Fried the mince for 3 minutes until it was brown all over, then added freshly chopped tomatoes. Cooked that for about 10 minutes, then chucked in pepper and some herbs (don't ask what the herbs are, I don't know!) along with sea salt. Covered it and left it for about 25 minutes, stirring frequently. During one of the stirring sessions, a meat stock cube and some Knorr cube thing was thrown in too. Absolutely wonderful, and ten times better than any store bought sauce rubbish. The secret? The tomatoes had been left in the open air for about a week before using them. Any suggestions (Chris, I'm looking at you!) for something that can be cooked using white wine? I've got half a bottle of wine here that I don't want and might as well use for something other than cleaning the toilet.

So the playlist *is* pre-compiled?

Aha, missed that Jack on Fridays, that's surely illegal. And they must have to hold the prices for gigs on those days too, which would surely eat into their profit..

Surely it would be fine, as long as the Friday/Saturday price was the same on Sundays and the Thursday price the same as Tuesday and Wednesday?

Shouldn't be a problem to do so, but I'm no fan of 24 teams qualifying out of 53 - what's the point? The nice thing about these World Cup qualifiers is the way that virtually every group is wide open and some big teams like France, Croatia and the Czech Republic might not qualify - but 24 teams is just going to make sure that the 'big' teams always qualify, which is shit and pointless.

Isn't it where someone poses after pressing 'play' on their already-compiled playlist?

Brilliant piece of TV to watch (everyone here that I've shown it to has been impressed!) - but it was just simple camera trickery in the end. Watch this - Scroll to 5:37 in, then watch the leftmost ball as close as you can. You can see the leftmost ball moving up - it's slow enough to catch with the eye without using slow-mo, Brilliant to use such a simple deception and yet get everyone talking about it!

The problem is - which countries do you check? Someone could live in Poland and be locked up in Germany' date=' yet this wouldn't show on a Polish records check. Polish criminal records checks also only show the last 10 years regardless of the severity of the crime - even raping a child wouldn't show up if it was committed more than 10 years ago. So there's another huge loophole - and there's nothing that anyone can do about it. Or a Maltese person could have abused several children as a minor (under 21 years old) and yet come up clean on their criminal records check as it's not allowed for them to list any crimes that occured as a minor. The whole loophole of not having data just shows the entire CRB system to be a total mess from start to finish. Most EU nationals don't need a work permit, and while the A8 countries need to be registered under the WRS, this is nothing but a statistical formality. They definitely don't do any police checks when applying for the Worker Registration Scheme. Bulgarians and Romanians still need a work permit, but this will change soon. People from the original 15 can just walk in freely and work tomorrow, no questions asked. Incidentally, for genuinely sensitive positions, they're restricted to UK born individuals only who have never lived abroad. Baggage handlers aren't particularly important - they get screened thoroughly, just as everyone else.

You could've just summed it up as "got pissed and played gigs"

The problem with down there is that it's one thing to put on gigs where everyone is inside the place at a certain time, doors closed and the general public aren't invited, but another thing to put on gigs that are advertised freely and having people coming/going freely and so on.

I didn't include you because I refuse to believe that I've seen the Kitchen Cynics for the last time

Ooo.. Real Shocks King Liar and the Brutes (will always hold a special place in my heart for singing Ted DiBase's theme) Small Enclosed Area Dedalus (first incarnation) I'd also charge 20 quid, lock the doors after the first band goes on and have a free bar. Could only really work in Drakes, but would be bloody good fun.

I still remeber the gig in the back room of Moshulu and being absolutely enchanted by Dedalus then. Epic is an overused word, but it definitely fits here. One of my all time favourite Aberdeen bands One of your songs actually had quite a decent guitar hook in it, if I remeber rightly

Volvo Death Spell - 2006 After an emergency call was put out by Stroszek after their singer came down with a dodgy throat on the eve of a Friday night gig in Drummonds, I answered the call and saved the day. What followed was 25 minutes of 'improvised music' in which we caused most of the audience to leave, Les playing guitar with his pint (bought halfway through our only 'song', Doug shouting Alan Partridge quotes at outraged punters who actually paid to listen to it, me getting told that I was a shit singer (despite not singing and just ranting into the microphone about how no-one understood us and how we were the future of music) and just generally pissing absolutely everyone off in the place. For some reason, we didn't get paid and got banned from Drummonds Never felt the need to go on stage after that for some reason.

Or more accurately : it costs money. The supermarkets have absolutely loved the whole war on carrier bags - what better excuse to cut down on them and save money? The whole signs saying "it's for environmental reasons" is clearly absolute bullshit. Funnily enough, if Tesco were so concerned about the environment, why are carrier bags plentiful and free to take at all Tesco supermarkets here?

Gah, Sorensen's form has been driving me mad, he's my sub and although Cech is fantastic for easy 6 points (the way Chelsea are playing this season, it'll be solid 1-0 wins the whole way), he's not racking them up in the way that Sorensen is doing. Rooney as captain seems to be a sensible choice this season though, Man Utd are heavily relying on him (at least at the moment) to score goals and with him as captain, he's good for 12+ points a game. Just need to ditch Carrick and Carragher (though Liverpool's dodgy form will surely improve, so thinking twice there...) and get some reliable point scorers in and I'm set.