Zombie

Here's some background stuff. In England and Wales [scotland has a different legal system] a serious case like this will be indictable and tried in a Crown Court but will start in the Magistrates' Court which will decide if there is a case to answer [the case will then be committed to the Crown Court for trial by jury if "yes"] and consider any bail application if the defendant is in custody. The defendant says nothing except to confirm his name and address. In Magistrates' courts there are either 3 magistrates [the "bench" - the middle one is the "Chairman"] who are ordinary citizens not legally qualified but who are advised by a legally qualified Justices' Clerk. Or there is a single District judge. There is a Court Usher who introduces each case to the court and names the defendant, and legal counsel for both sides. In a serious case like this there will be a solicitor and barrister for the prosecution and defence. Everyone wears business type clothes except the usher and clerk who wear a black gown. In the Crown Court the barristers wear wigs and black gowns and the judge also wears a wig and red gown and sits facing everyone, with the jury - 12 men and women selected at random - sitting on the left side of the judge. They just listen to the evidence, but they can pass notes to the judge if they have questions and they may be given evidence to look at. The prosecution opens with a statement summarising the case and the defence barrister responds. The trial then begins with prosecution and defence witnesses being called by each side and - after they swear an oath or affirm they will tell the whole truth - examined/cross-examined. A case like this might take a few days because the day is quite short - trials usually run from 10.00 - 4.00, with lunch and various breaks plus time wasted on procedural and legal queries. At the end both sides sum up their case, the judge gives an overall summary and direction to the jury who are then taken by the Court Usher to a closed jury room to discuss after the Usher has locked the door. It's just like any bland business meeting room with tea/coffee, food etc. They will agree a verdict of guilty - at least 10 must agree the evidence is "beyond reasonable doubt" - or they must find not guilty. When they've reached a decision, they call the Usher to notify the judge to call everyone back in to court where the jury foreman, when asked, says "guilty" or "not guilty". If guilty the defence barrister will make a plea in mitigation and then the judge will give an indication whether a prison sentence is likely, then the defendant will be remanded in custody for sentencing or released if the judge agrees. The judge usually has a day or so to review the trial and any mitigation evidence before another hearing for sentencing. Rumpole's fun but not realistic - Kavanagh QC is better - but the best research is to go along and sit in the court public gallery to see first hand what goes on and understand the process. But you won't be able to see a child case because things are different - the court is "closed" to press and visitors, young children will appear by video link and no-one wears wigs.

How did I miss that?! *gives self a smack!* And in just 3 days time ... Prof Brian Cox BBC2 9.00pm "The Science of Doctor Who" on time travel "with experiments"

It's going to be shown on TV and cinemas in 200 countries in 3D - 87 just in Australia! Two tasty teasers

I believe this is the only WWI colour photograph of flowering poppies growing on the battlefield. It shows a French army patrol with a donkey in a communication trench near the frontline in 1915 or 1916 and was taken by a member of the Photography and Cinematography Organization of the French Army. Red poppies have been associated with war since the Napoleonic Wars - it was noticed they were the first flowers to grow in the churned-up earth of soldiers' graves - but the modern tradition of wearing a poppy in remembrance of servicemen killed in all conflicts was started at the end of WWI in 1918 by the American Moina Michael, probably inspired by In Flanders Fields written in 1915 by the Canadian soldier, John McRae, in memory of his friend who had just been killed In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields.

I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free, Billy Taylor I love this gospel jazz piano style This year is the 50th anniversary of two brilliant songs: Sam Cooke's A Change Is Gonna Come, and this number. They were both anthems for the black civil rights movement in 1960s US and have resonance today for gays. But I just love it anyway. It was the theme music of the BBC Film show on TV in the 1980s - which is where I first heard it - and also for the 1996 film "Ghosts of Mississippi" Count Basie and Oscar Petersen - smootchie smooth piano blues ...

Thanks for your considered post rustle. I hope he doesn't go ahead. If he's not announced the venue he could just remain silent, and when the date comes and goes people can be left wondering - did it happen? Or even better if he has booked and publicised the venue, all the raincoats "art critics" arrive, eager with expectation after their 3 months salivating, the lights are dimmed, a single spotlight draws their eyes, and they wait ... and they wait ... and nothing happens I'm thinking something like John Cage's 4′33″ - the performance art is ... the critics themselves :funny: As for Andy Warhol, no I don't think he was a great artist. But he was definitely an artist. And he was very influential. And he made a lot of money. There's no requirement for artists to live in poverty, in cold, damp, squalid garrets, living off their own creative juices But what about The Factory? How could its "mass production" be Andy Warhol's? Warhol had no personal involvement in the production of much of its output. He may even have had no personal involvement in the ideas, the concept - he may just have been shown the idea or finished product and said "yes", or maybe grunted, or maybe rolled his eyes ... How could that be his art - wasn't that a cynical scam, a con, a fraud, compared to the works of the venerated Old Masters hanging in galleries around the world? Well, consider this. Those Old Masters often had their own "factories" - it was called the "workshop system" where "the Masters were responsible for the overall design and for painting the focal portions of the work such as the face or hands of the figures, or the embroidered parts of the clothing. The more prosaic sections would be left to assistants; in many works it is possible to discern abrupt shifts in style. If the master was secure enough financially, he could dedicate his workshop to the production of copies of his commercially successful works, or on new compositions based on his designs. In this case, the master would usually produce the underdrawing or design. Because of this many surviving works are today attributed to workshops or followers. A workshop kept patterns and prepainted panels to sold directly to the public. The masters' workshops typically consisted of a family home with lodging for apprentices who were either earning their entry into the painters' guild or fully trained journeymen artists who had not yet paid the dues required to establish their own workshop." So maybe Andy Warhol wasn't quite so ground-breaking and radical after all, and the creation of art maybe isn't so straightforward either http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Netherlandish_painting#Workshops

But that is exactly what you said, Thorne. You want the unexpurgated version. Not a problem - here it is. Your first sentence "I'm of the school that says that if you do it primarily to make money, then no, it isn't art." is an unqualified and unequivocal statement. Your sentence means that someone like Bach who composed music "primarily to make money" - and he did, he did it so he could support himself and his family - is NOT by your definition as contained in your first sentence an artist and therefore by your definition, his sublime music is not art. Likewise none of the others in that list can be artists according to you because they also did what they did "primarily to make money", so they could support themselves and their families [if they had them - obviously some, like Jane Austin, did not]. You then repeat this by saying "But if making money is your primary objective ... then I don't think it's art anymore". In the middle of this sentence you do, this time, introduce qualifiers that were not present in your unequivocal first sentence: - creating something that you can be proud - of/telling a story you want to tell - whatever - if you compromise what you set out to create in favour of making an easy buck But these are nothing more than the basic attributes of any competent and proud tradesman. And that's what Bach was - a tradesman. He did it for money. It just so happens that JS Bach created some of the most uplifting and sublime art the world has ever known. Oh wait, of course, according to your post #30 it's not art [see above] I've made my position clear. I've nothing further to say. Readers can make up their own mind.

#35 "I've nothing further to say"

Oops, missed old Charlie Boy - thanks Daddy, and I do believe you're absolutely right

As Addy said, "Interesting". So according to Thorne none of the following professionals created art because they did it "primarily to make money". Which they indeed did. Yep. Irrefutable fact, they all did it "primarily to make money". All their works were either commissioned or speculative. So none of the stuff these people created is art: Handel JS Bach Mozart Beethoven Johannes Vermeer Rembrandt John Constable JMW Turner Andy Warhol Henry Moore Ingmar Bergman William Shakespeare Jane Austin and on and on and on .... For goodness sake!

Nope. I think you'll find, Thorne, that it was you not me that made a specific claim about English. So if you want to believe your definitive and unqualified claim that "any type of English" sounds the same to each and every non-English speaker then that's absolutely fine. Just don't expect claims made in GA forums to go unchallenged. I've done that. Others can make up their own minds. I've nothing further to say except, in the words of Carl Sagan "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".

That I agree with! But it's you that's making the claim. And he who asserts must prove. And it is a pretty outlandish claim. A claim without any evidence apart from your memory from many years ago when you were "a little kid". So I'm puzzled how you can claim that your childhood memories make you "a pretty good authority" on this. And now you say a few other people have made similar comments. To make such a sweeping claim based on that? That aside, though, more importantly it flies in the face of the facts. Because you are claiming that "any type of English" sounds the same to all non-English speakers: - Scottish - Welsh - Irish - Mancunian - Scouse - Brian Sewell - Jamaican - South African - Texan etc etc Honestly, Thorne, it simply doesn't fly. You just have to listen to the huge variety of sounds of the English language. This is not evidence but this guy makes a pretty good stab at mimicking 24 different English accent sounds. Tbh you'd have to be tone deaf not to hear the different sounds English can make

Problem is your continuing insistence that your Aussie video "is pretty much exactly what any type of English sounds like to a non-English speaker" based on your own personal memory from many years ago of how it was for you "when I was a little kid". Hmm, not exactly sure how that makes you "a pretty good authority" to make such an unqualified claim about how English sounds to each and every non-English speaker. For your claim to be true, that would mean you are essentially saying that the "sound" of a thick Glaswegian accent is aurally indistinguishable from Brian's. I think that would amuse Brian immensely .

Yes. French. I doubt your video "is pretty much exactly what any type of English sounds like to a non-English speaker" any more than Brian Sewell's magnificently mellifluous tones But, hey, we can test this here and now with non-native English members: can you tell the difference between Thorne's Aussies and Brian's crisply enunciated consonants? And there's no prohibition on Aussies making American sounding mini-movies

Ah, yes, which brings us back to the question what is art and what is the point of art? Art has always been controversial - for many that is the whole point - and is often labeled pretentious, as with Piss Christ and 9 other works featured in this fun critique

No it isn't. This is a portrayal of American English. Although this is "faked" it shows why much American English can be difficult to understand, specifically the lack of clear consonants. Accent is mainly about varying vowel sounds and these can vary to a remarkable degree yet the words will remain comprehensible provided the speaker takes the trouble to use clear consonants by articulation using the lips, tongue and teeth (those three words are also excellent words to practice clear elocution of consonants ). But downgrade the consonants and speech becomes unintelligible. Which is why I'm a big fan of Brian Sewell .

Cia is right. many people look around and see their local community, local values, maybe too their own country and its customs, and tend to think "this is how it is". Well, no it isn't. The lives we live today and the current values and customs we take as being embedded have existed for a mere blink. Go back just a few hundred years in England and it was common for newly-weds to consummate their marriage and then their bloodstained bedding would be immediately shown to the waiting crowd as witnesses, and such customs are still practiced in parts of Europe. In fact for most of human history sex has not been carried out in private. For the simple reason that people lived in single room dwellings - personal privacy was an unknown luxury. It is only in recent times that people have constructed the current - historically strange - attitudes to the sex act. And as for the comments that losing his virginity is this guy's "biggest worry" I've seen no evidence for that, nor that he doesn't have a "close loving relationship" with his boyfriend. Is this art? Well, I gave up trying to define art a long time ago

Seems like things worked out pretty well, Graeme - you're now comfortable in your own skin and you have a loving family. I think most people would grab that in a flash over anything else For me, losing touch with the boy I had a brief relationship with when I was very young, although he was in another country. But still. And not returning the kindness of a friend at school.

Sure we do - after all Breeze is a laundry product Just as we were all gripped by Mickey's 15 min trauma-wait at the hairdressers, and then relieved at the happy outcome - shaving it all off Fact is most human communication has always been about the mundane, so the shocking banality of tweets and Facebook really shouldn't be a surprise. There must be some primordial urge to share trivia - that way people don't need to fill their heads with unnecessary clutter. Like real problems

19 yo art student Clayton Pettet has announced he intends to lose his virginity in a London gallery as a performance art piece entitled 'Art School Stole My Virginity'. The 19-year-old will have sex with another boy in front of an audience of up to 100 people who will then be invited to ask questions about his experience. This is scheduled to take place on 25 January next year and "aims to challenge the idea of sexuality". He explains in his blog: My name is Clayton; I am currently at Art School in London. I am nineteen years of age. I have brown hair and brown eyes and I am a Virgin. A Performance for The People The Idea of “Art School Stole My Virginity” came around when I was Sixteen, when all my peers at school were losing their Virginity it was incredibly hard for me to ask why I was still a Virgin and why it meant so much to the people all around me. My piece isnt a statement as much as it is a question. The whole aspect of Virginity was incredibly emotional for me and has been ever since. It became a thought process that turned into the performance piece that I wish to create for the public on January the 25th. The London Art Scene has slowed down recently and whilst London is in its prime and is constantly changing the contemporary artists are the same and they aren’t so contemporary anymore. I want my piece to inject some speed into the arts, a performance of the people if you will. I feel like now is the time for the new scene. To lose my Virginity with the new age is the Avant Garde that London has been unintentionally waiting for. He explains further in an interview “The key thing about performance art is that it should only be performed once, and this is the ultimate once-in-a-lifetime performance. I’ve held on to my virginity for 19 years, and I’m not throwing it away lightly. Basically it’s like I am losing the stigma around virginity. I want the audience to see if anything has changed between me and my partner. Since culturally we do hold quite a lot of value to the idea of virginity I have decided to use mine and the loss of it to create a piece that I think will stimulate interesting debate and questions regarding the subject.” The idea is that people will be encouraged to question the importance of virginity and the traditional values placed upon it while also considering issues surrounding sexuality and gender. "Virginity has almost become heteronormative in its definition," he says. "Is virginity even real? Or is it just an ignorant word that was used to dictate the value of a woman's worth pre-marriage?" He also said he has chosen not to tell his parents about the project but has informed his tutors at the university. No, they're never gonna find out. Nope. Not in a million years Well, if a dead shark floating in a tank of formaldehyde, and an unmade bed are art then I guess anything can be. As the artist Grayson Perry said: "Art can't shock us anymore – we are all bohemians now." http://thankyouartschoolstole.tumblr.com/ http://www.thenationalstudent.com/Weird_World/2013-11-04/gay_art_student_plans_to_lose_his_virginity_in_front_of_audience.html .

and here we see Mr Mann in action via live webcam *all together now ... GROAN *

Hey, they're only pix - and it's too cold and dark in Scandinavia for these critters

What, me?? *looks all innocent* :funny:

Itsy Bitsy spider climbing up the spout Down came the rain and washed the spider out Out came the sun and dried up all the rain Now Itsy Bitsy spider went up the spout again! There once was a time when scary spiders lived in other countries, places like Australia and Brazil. Not any more. Just like us, spiders have learned about foreign travel. And now they live in places like ... Britain. Or anywhere with an airport And this is the time of year when spiders come indoors where it's nice and warm. Like into your home. Like under you bed. Or maybe in your hair at night, when you're sleeping. Or, if you sleep with you mouth open, inside you They may walk in through an open door, or climb in through a window. Or they may be hiding in that bunch of bananas you just bought from the supermarket ... "A mother of two and her family were forced to flee their home after dozens of the world's deadliest spiders hatched from a banana she was eating. Consi Taylor saw the spiders drop off the banana she was halfway through eating after she inspected strange white spots on the fruit's skin. The creatures fell on to her kitchen table before dozens of them started running off across the carpet." Brazillian Wandering Spider http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2487042/Mother-finds-deadly-Brazilian-spiders-nest-banana.html Or lurking in your garden waiting to bite you ... "If you leave them alone ... there is no reason at all why they should attack you". Well that's reasuring - but how do we know spiders act all reasonable when they spot a biting opportunity? http://www.redorbit.com/media/uploads/2004/10/0_485f7e446d0224dff8176e36dbab760f.jpg Tube Web Green Fanged Wall Spider - yes those fangs really are green, and they can bite through skin as easy as pie http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/10404819/False-widow-spider-Meet-the-incy-wincy-terror-whose-range-and-reputation-is-swelling.html Or nesting at your local school - and biting your children ... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-24623652 And next time you go on holiday to some exotic location keep an eye open for Camel spiders - truly these are the stuff of nightmares Camel Spiders - they get bigger than this and they eat animals ... maybe people too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIeCS8k_Vyc Sweet dreams

Definitely has the Phil Spector sound and the Dixie Cups were originally called "Little Miss and the Muffets" To show the video all you need do is top and tail the URL with the word media inside these brackets [] at the beginning - no gaps - and /media inside [] immediately at the end. I can't show you them because they're commands and won't display .