Zombie

Heheh Glad you like the stylin'. Another GA member was traumatised by my nekkidness - those Swedes are such prudes

Sure you know But for any who don't, it's 'cos the world is still controlled by men - statistically mostly straight men - and men have a pretty bad track record in terms of sexual politics - oops, can't say that - in terms of their behaviour. Yeah, bad behaviour, double standards and... you get the idea Edit: oops, omitted the old sexual insecurities thing too - yep, that's deffo a big one

the reality is most who work as creative artists never achieve commercial success as artists as for the question "where is he going to go on from there" that's why I posted #87 the link to his interview with CBC which pretty much answers the who what how why where

Sadly no, but just google "An Unearthly Child" and you can find several postings on Dailymotion. Not looked for "The Night of the Doctor" mini episode - it may be there, or try google again. FRIDAY 22 NOVEMBER CRITIC'S CHOICE: Me, You and Doctor Who: a Culture Show Special BBC Two, 9.30pm This sounds good “I actually think that Doctor Who is one of the most important things in our culture, one of the most rich and interesting things that has been made in our country.” These are the words of presenter Matthew Sweet, who pins his colours firmly to the mast from the outset. This Culture Show special is an hour-long hymn of praise to “Doctor Who’s greatest victory – how he became part of our culture, how he became indestructible, how he got inside your head”. It’s all good nerdy fun, especially in the first half-hour as Sweet beavers around busily in the archives for traces of the Doctor’s earliest origins – successfully uncovering a distant antecedent in a long forgotten 1957 stage play. Sweet meets pioneering directors, plays the theme tune mastertapes spliced together in the revolutionary BBC Radiophonic Workshop by Delia Derbyshire, explores The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’s Douglas Adams’s time as script editor. Among the contributors are playwright Mark Ravenhill, politician Ken Livingstone, psychotherapist Philippa Perry and writer Caitlin Moran. For Doctor Who diehards, this is an absolute must ahead of tomorrow’s epic 50th anniversary special.

Point taken Although I did say I gave up trying to define art a long time ago And even with "performance arts", while accepting what you say, it seems difficult to give a comprehensive definition with terms like "live performance", "happening" and so on, and setting out where the boundaries lie exactly. The dance critic Sally Banes wrote "by the end of the 1980s, performance art had become so widely known that it no longer needed to be defined; mass culture, especially television, had come to supply both structure and subject matter for much performance art; and several performance artists, including Laurie Anderson, Spalding Gray, Eric Bogosian, Willem Dafoe, and Ann Magnuson, had indeed become crossover artists in mainstream entertainment.” Certainly the idea of shock is important. But however it's defined, if this is even possible, the risk of not being able to practice and rehearse for this particular "event" remains

Spot on Ron Speak to any musician or actor and they'll tell you some performances are magical, others just don't go so well despite rehearsals and practice. Maybe no-one will know why, or maybe it'll be reasons including those you gave. That's the appeal of live performance art, it's unpredictable and "of the moment" But there's another risk with this particular event ... they can't exactly rehearse or practice

*is wondering what happened to common sense ... *

I've copied this to the Dr Who thread

For Dr Who fans it's essential viewing The recreation of the TARDIS and the console was just beautiful and I loved seeing the Cybermen smoking in between takes Some parts were really sad as the role became more difficult for Hartnell to cope with, but there were some funny moments too. Hartnell famously fluffed his lines and I laughed out loud when the show included this line in the script: "Quickly, child! We're running out of time! Check the fault locator" and Hartnell gets it wrong and screams "Check the fornicator!" It's being shown tomorrow night on BBC America so catch it if you can Immediately afterwards the Beeb showed the whole of the very first series An Unearthly Child and then a new mini-show "The Night of the Doctor" with Paul McGann who "dies" at the end and then regenerates as the John Hurt doctor. I guess this is the link between the 1996 movie and the TV show timelines which will feature in the 50th anniversary show on Saturday... less than 36 hours to go!!

Sometimes you have to stand up to authority and just say "No!" Let the law take you to court, use that platform to name names - those who passed such a crass law and those who enforce it without common sense - refuse to pay and tell the court that you hold IT in contempt, contempt for basic common sense. Let it send you to prison and then crank up the heat on those named until they crumble. As Dicken's Mr. Bumble observed "the law is a ass—a idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is that his eye may be opened by experience—by experience.” Experience and common sense. Because no single meal has to be "balanced", it is diet that has to be balanced - the child's intake over days, and weeks, and months - and the idiots who passed and enforce this ass of a law are taking no account of that. Shame on them. Name them and shame them!

True Yeah kudos to Joe Boxer, Kmart and all other companies with a sense of humour that hurts no-one Companies are like people because they're run by people, all kinds of people - nice people, nasty people, philanthropic people or ignorant bigots So when we buy products we choose which companies to give our money to. This is why I'll consider Renault for my next car And this is why Flora can go f*#k themselves ... Anglo-Dutch firm Unilever says it has ordered the withdrawal of a Flora margarine advertisement in South Africa that has been condemned as homophobic. The advert features a bullet with the words "Uhh dad I'm gay" flying towards a heart made of china. The advert, on a pink background, includes the tagline "You need a strong heart today" near the Flora logo. International advertising firm Lowe and Partner, which designed the controversial advert, said it was "very sorry". youtube.com/watch?v=ozVClBTao3s

Maybe I missed something but we're not exactly dealing with real news or serious journalism here are we? This HP thing is just an online version of Tit-Bits magazine

If you're interested in why what where and how, here's an interview Clayton Pettet has given with CBC http://www.cbc.ca/q/blog/2013/11/13/virgin-art-student-opens-up-on-plans-to-have-sex-publicly/ Click the "listen" tab just below his pic to hear the interview with him and also with Therese Shechter whose movie How to Lose Your Virginity has just been released. It's a serious discussion, answers a lot of questions raised in this thread and does raise some interesting points. And if you've not yet applied for tickets... then you're too late!

LDV probably got the idea from the hurdy gurdy, which uses the same idea of spinning wheels on strings. These are the drawings You can see from this pic Slawomir Zubrzycki constructed four spinning wheels to play all the strings It isn't the first instrument built from LDV's design but it's certainly impressive

This is the law in England and Wales ... "An adoption order has a quite different standing to almost every other order made by a court. It provides the status of the adopted child and of the adoptive parents. The effect of an adoption order is to extinguish any parental responsibility of the natural parents. Once an adoption order has been made, the adoptive parents stand to one another and the child in precisely the same relationship as if they were his legitimate parents, and the child stands in the same relationship to them as to legitimate parents. Once an adoption order has been made the adopted child ceases to be the child of his previous parents and becomes the child for all purposes of the adopters as though he were their legitimate child.” [Lord Justice Swinton Thomas in Re B (Adoption: Jurisdiction to Set Aside) [1995] Fam 239, at 245C] Well that's pretty crystal clear In other words, an adopted child is exactly the same in the eyes of the law as a birth child. So the suggestion that an adopted child can somehow be treated differently from birth children by adoptive parents -"given up", "handed back" or whatever - is incorrect. There is no difference, nada. The case I mentioned before, from memory, I got some of the facts wrong - in fact it was far worse. But the court made clear that powers to revoke or set aside an adoption are very very restricted. The finality and irrevocability of adoption trumps everything - except flawed consent based on mistaken fact, procedural errors in the adoption process, flawed foreign adoptions, or fraud - although interestingly in that case there was no referral to the ECHR. But this case happened in the US. What does US law say? http://www.newlawjournal.co.uk/nlj/content/family-revoking-adoptions

wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who#Viewership) lists countries that show it including Sweden: BBC Entertainment BBC HD TV4 Guld Kanal 9 SVT but obviously it's out of date The docdudrama (#59 above) is called "An Adventure In Space And Time" and BBC America is showing it on Friday 22 Nov. The 50th anniversary special is being shown simultaneously worldwide in 75 countries on Saturday - so that's 2.50 pm Eastern, 11:50 am PST http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/showtracker/la-et-st-worldwide-time-set-for-doctor-who-the-day-of-the-doctor-20131108,0,5722192.story#axzz2l7nnAYLR http://www.hitfix.com/whats-alan-watching/bbc-america-to-simulcast-doctor-who-50th-anniversary-special

BBC rebuilds original TARDIS! This is the original TARDIS from the feature length docudrama to be shown this week on Thursday 21 Nov 9.00pm on BBC2. With vintage cameras and period colour tint they've really captured the feel of 60s shows The show tells the story of how Dr Who came to be made by the BBC's first ever female drama producer, Verity Lambert. Looks like the Beeb has spent decent money to make this a great show with Mark Gatiss [scriptwriter], Brian Cox [bourne Identity] and an excellent William Hartnell looky-likey Now they've spent good money on the sets these could be re-used in future "multi-Doctor" stories Then it will be just another two days for the 50th!

Glad the Abominable One is back!

Sex trade aside, Hindu culture in India elevated sex to high art with the Kama Sutra and temple sculptures like this ...

Ahem, no-one's compelling anyone to take the slightest interest in the forthcoming attraction, so he's not exactly foisting anything on anyone Ahem, "European sexual culture" isn't the the same as US sexual culture, for example nudity is widely seen as sexual in the US and widely seen as not sexual across Europe. Also it hasn't (yet ) been standardised by the EU

Whaat??? This is 2013 not 1813 There's no place for archaic old farts being granted job security for under performing anywhere, let alone a taxpayer funded public institution. And if it's not publicly funded then it's a business. No modern efficient well-run business would allow its customers - er, that would be you - to pay good money in order to be knowingly shafted by incompetent staff. Even if the guy was Einstein if he can't teach or grade exams fairly then he is not competent to do his job - those are basic minimum competencies. See if you can get the student union on your side, get their representatives to request metrics, or survey the student body, to prove your case, maybe get them to present these to the governing body and advise them if they fail to take effective action these metrics will be published on social media in the most damaging way, naming the members of the governing body for putting vested staff interests ahead of their students' interests. Also check out the school prospectus for any claims about their commitment to deliver excellence to students and use these against the governing body. Unless you are on a full ride scholarship they are not giving you what you paid for. Maybe it's even breach of contract.

I don't know definitely that this is the position in all other countries - but I suspect it may well be - but in Britain adoption is a one-way trip. It is permanent, it is absolute, it is irrevocable. No-one can undo it. To give an example, a few years ago two parents were accused of killing their baby based on evidence of an "expert" medical witness and their remaining child was snatched by the council, placed in foster care, and legally adopted through a rushed process when the council discovered the birth parents were making a legal appeal and challenging the "expert" medical witness. Soon after the rushed adoption was completed by the council the birth parents won their case when the court ruled the "expert" had knowingly given dishonest / flawed testimony and the original ruling against the parents was quashed and new medical evidence confirmed "cot death" was the reason their baby died. Imagine that - they lost not one child through death but they lost their other child too because of the council's forced and deliberately rushed adoption. The adoption was irreversible and they were denied any restitution or further contact [until the child becomes an adult] despite the admitted wrongdoing and gross miscarriage of justice. For the same reason there is no process for adoptive parents to "give up" adopted children. It is final. As previous posts have pointed out things can go badly wrong with any parent / child relationship but adoptive parents must work through these problems with available welfare resources in exactly the same way as they would with their birth children. I think even non-parents like me understand the challenges of child rearing - we were all children once - and that is why adoption agencies must be tightly regulated and rigorous processes must be in place to weed out prospective parents who cannot reasonably demonstrate their suitability for such a huge and potentially life changing responsibility. Respect to those that can and do rise to this challenge.

There again if we knew everything it would be a tad dull

problem solved http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/fart-proof-pants-invented-using-2479966

That was quoted merely to illustrate the nature of the commitment being made - children are adopted for good or ill. In fact the adoption undertaking is more permanent and more serious than the marriage vow - you cannot legally divorce or abandon dependent children, natural or adopted. As for parents "just giv[ing] them up." or "giv[ing] their kids away" that may happen just like people rob banks and mug old ladies - some people choose to become criminals. That's why there's a legal system to right those wrongs as far as they can be righted. The tragedy is, as has already been noted, the terrible damage that is caused to children who are treated this way that the system then has to pick up.