Zombie

OK, here's the place you can post the most unpleasant / horrific / terrifying / pant wetting flying experience you've ever had. I don't fly much so my risks are low, but there was one experience flying back from Portugal. We're more than half way through the flight at cruising altitude and thing's are ticking along nicely, trolley dolly's have finished flogging tat, passengers are snoozing, kids are laughing and kicking the seat in front [mine] - the usual stuff. Everything's just ticketyboo when suddenly, with no warning, there's a grinding, grating screeching noise from underneath, followed by a loud roaring noise and the plane suddenly jerks forward into a steep dive. Passengers screamed, someone was shouting "We're all gonna die!" [i kid you not] and there was mayhem. After about a minute the plane then leveled out and resumed normal flight. Not a squeak from the captain or flight crew. It was as if it had never happened. Talking to my brother afterwards he suggested there was a strong tailwind and lowering the undercarriage [the cause of the racket] meant the plane could rapidly lose height and speed in preparation for the approach to land. I guess this was cheap entertainment for the flight crew, or maybe they wanted passengers to test out the sick bags ...

Britain has direct experience of when to "let go" of territory. Many times over in fact And if any nation should be supportive of the right of self determination then it's the good old US of A. Heck you were the first guys to do it! As I said earlier I hope separation doesn't happen but I can't object to the right of the Scottish people to split away if that's what they want to do.

Heheh, guys, you do love talk of wars. But you overlook the fact that England and Scotland had their wars over 100s of years. We are now mature democracies with embedded institutions across all levels of society and robust, independent and highly effective legal systems recognised as such across the world. We're not the Balkans. There will be disagreements and I don't have details of the roadmap - no-one does yet - but these will be addressed by negotiation. Sure, bargaining positions will not be equal because England has a bigger population, more wealth and greater power but it would be in neither side's interests to create an unstable or unsustainable settlement would it, just as if you live in a house joined to your neighbour's with shared foundations neither occupant would wish their neighbour's house to be damaged or the foundations undermined. There has to be common sense as well as realpolitik not to mention both countries will still have the same Head of State

Good questions Graeme. As I understand it the referendum is just the first step in what will become a very complex process if the vote is yes. The various parties have got less than a year and a half to put together a roadmap for the stuff you've mentioned but the actual implementation will of course take a lot longer and will involve international entities like the UN as you mentioned plus of course the EU. There may also be implications for the Commonwealth countries too. More information I am sure will emerge this year as the debates get going. If the vote is "yes" then it's inconceivable the SNP would not go full steam ahead for separation - that is what they were set up to do

Bad news: this has had to be moved from The Lounge Good news: you can now say what you like Next year Scottish residents will get to vote in a referendum on whether Scotland should become an independent country. For this process to work you have to have an appropriate question. One that is simple to understand and neutrally worded. Responsibility for coming up with a suitable wording was delegated to an independent body, the Electoral Commission, and has been accepted by the UK and Scottish governments. The question the Scottish National Party wanted was “Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country”. Language is a complex thing and the subtlest choice of words can influence behaviours. After extensive testing it was decided that "Do you agree" has innate bias because it tends to incline neutral voters to a positive view i.e. to support whatever is being proposed. So the question that Scottish voters will be asked next year will be: “Should Scotland be an independent country? Yes / No.” The commission has also proposed arrangements for campaign funding so that both "sides" have equal spending power. Scotland has always had its own distinct identity, including a distinct legal system, but joined with England in 1707, under the Acts of Union, to create a new nation Great Britain. Under these acts Scotland retained its identity and legal system but the new nation combined national functions like treasury, defence and foreign policy. Interestingly it was assumed that "England" included Wales - a Principality - but legally this was not watertight. So 40 years later a further Act was passed to confirm this. Even more curious, it specifically included the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed. This town had swapped backwards and forwards between England and Scotland so many times that no-one was quite sure where it belonged! So, just to be on the safe side, they bunged it into this Act as well - the Wales and Berwick Act 1746 In Britain we don't have referendums on laws, only on constitutional matters. That's because under our Parliamentary system of government we elect a representative - a Member of Parliament [called an "MP"] - to act on behalf of constituency voters and use his / her judgment when voting in the legislative chamber [the "House of Commons"]. But where there is an issue concerning the nation state at the highest level convention has developed that these matters are put to the nation. That's what happened in 1975 when Britain was negotiating to join the European Common Market [which is what it was then - an international free trade area on agreed terms], and we may get another referendum on whether we want to leave [recently promised by the Prime Minister - yeah, right, government promises heheheh]. And that's what's going to happen next year - because for some time more and more people in Scotland have been seeking separation. At some point a tipping point is reached where politicians have to decide how to respond. In some countries this can lead to fighting and insurrection. But the UK is a mature democracy and the referendum process is obviously a more democratic and humane response So now it's up to the Scottish voters. Personally I hope they vote to retain the Union because I think Great Britain is a more viable entity than two separated nation states, and disentanglement will be a complicated and expensive business. As the song says "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do" but if the Scottish people decide to part company then so be it.

This is fact. Educational if you like. This is essentially a US site and a lot of Americans have Scottish ancestry. Most likely they will be aware of what is happening but coverage in the US - from my experience of US TV news and current affairs - is unlikely to cover this kind of thing in great depth. But if you prefer a diet of Beiber and Birthdays then I won't bother posting here again Edit to add - oh, and One Direction too of course. Gotta have a daily diet of that ...

Blame Mel Gibson

Congratulations CJ for being impressively on target to complete this epic saga in no more than 100 chapters and by no later than the promised deadline of 31 December 2012. This is a staggering achievement or, should I say, would have been will be when but for your evil and hideously cruel delaying tactics the final word is triumphantly typed. You may have noticed I've been absent of late. I decided a while back that the best way to enjoy a feast is to pile up the food in front of you and then, holding two large spoons, scoop up the food, cramming it in using a rowing motion and swallowing with each alternate stroke while simultaneously breathing to avoid oxygen starvation - a technique, I suspect, that was key [as in Lime Pie] to Trevor surviving that unfortunate mishap with the pirates. And so it is with your literary feast. But I didn't say anything because I feared this might disrupt your equilibrium and thus sabotage your carefully planned and brilliantly executed roll out scheme the evil Goat's cunningly clever yet deviously wicked Australian numbering ploy. When the epic is complete I shall sit down and gorge myself. I can't wait for 31 December 2012!

Yeah, lots and lots of questions. Costs will certainly be a big part of the campaigning because for a lot of people it will come down to money. Well, money or Braveheart Your point about the power of corporations v nation states is relevant, but also a much wider issue of growing significance. As I understand it the SNP have based their "case" on Europe, specifically the benefits for smaller nations within the EU. But it now seems an independent Scotland would have to apply for membership as a new state and, presumably, accept whatever terms the EU laid out. Will be interesting if England then leaves the EU ...

Next year Scottish residents will get to vote in a referendum on whether Scotland should become an independent country. For this process to work you have to have an appropriate question. One that is simple to understand and neutrally worded. Responsibility for coming up with a suitable wording was delegated to an independent body, the Electoral Commission, and has been accepted by the UK and Scottish governments. The question the Scottish National Party wanted was “Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country”. Language is a complex thing and the subtlest choice of words can influence behaviours. After extensive testing it was decided that "Do you agree" has innate bias because it tends to incline neutral voters to a positive view i.e. to support whatever is being proposed. So the question that Scottish voters will be asked next year will be: “Should Scotland be an independent country? Yes / No.” The commission has also proposed arrangements for campaign funding so that both "sides" have equal spending power. Scotland has always had its own distinct identity, including a distinct legal system, but joined with England in 1707, under the Acts of Union, to create a new nation Great Britain. Under these acts Scotland retained its identity and legal system but the new nation combined national functions like treasury, defence and foreign policy. Interestingly it was assumed that "England" included Wales - a Principality - but legally this was not watertight. So 40 years later a further Act was passed to confirm this. Even more curious, it specifically included the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed. This town had swapped backwards and forwards between England and Scotland so many times that no-one was quite sure where it belonged! So, just to be on the safe side, they bunged it into this Act as well - the Wales and Berwick Act 1746 In Britain we don't have referendums on laws, only on constitutional matters. That's because under our Parliamentary system of government we elect a representative - a Member of Parliament [called an "MP"] - to act on behalf of constituency voters and use his / her judgment when voting in the legislative chamber [the "House of Commons"]. But where there is an issue concerning the nation state at the highest level convention has developed that these matters are put to the nation. That's what happened in 1975 when Britain was negotiating to join the European Common Market [which is what it was then - an international free trade area on agreed terms], and we may get another referendum on whether we want to leave [recently promised by the Prime Minister - yeah, right, government promises heheheh]. And that's what's going to happen next year - because for some time more and more people in Scotland have been seeking separation. At some point a tipping point is reached where politicians have to decide how to respond. In some countries this can lead to fighting and insurrection. But the UK is a mature democracy and the referendum process is obviously a more democratic and humane response So now it's up to the Scottish voters. Personally I hope they vote to retain the Union because I think Great Britain is a more viable entity than two separated nation states, and disentanglement will be a complicated and expensive business. As the song says "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do" but if the Scottish people decide to part company then so be it.

I've just been reading an old Guardian interview with William Gibson [Necromancer]. He was talking about "cyberspace" and the profound changes that have happened because of it. He said: 'I think that one of the things that sets us most thoroughly apart [from other animals] is the ability to preserve our individual memory. The information of the cave paintings becomes Borges's library, Borges's library becomes a laptop computer.' And then the Guardian columnist wrote "The internet is the shared memory of the species." Likewise Arthur C. Clarke wrote in 1970 that "the accumulated knowledge of the world [would be available] to your fingertips" via a personal computer type device. Now the "internet" for pretty much everyone means the World Wide Web [as invented by Sir Tim Berners-Lee] which has been freely available to all of us for just 20 years [the anniversary date is actually 30 April 1993 - that's when CERN "gave it away"]. But what the Guardian guy and Arthur C. Clarke wrote may - sadly - not be true. Think about it. Web pages get updated, replaced and taken down. Stuff you could Google last year may now have gone. Forever. Web pages from the early days of the WWW - less than 20 years ago - have now disappeared forever, along with all the stuff that was on them. Corporations may have archived these but if they've gone belly up those will have ended up in the skip. Same with personal blogs. And Facebook - all those personal diary entries and photos of family and friends recording your life online, when you die they'll disappear too. Forever [Facebook is currently working on options in this area but it's fraught with legal difficulties]. Go back just 20 years and it was all so different: - people kept personal diaries [yeah, hard to believe, they wrote things down on paper pages bound together in something called a "book" thing] - families kept hard copies of family photos stuck in more "book" things called albums, maybe with dates and captions written alongside [and these things last for centuries if kept in a cool shaded place - I've got some going back to the 1880s] - people wrote letters to each other [yeah, on that weird paper stuff again] and often kept them in correspondence files for future generations to read. I've also got a 15 year old laptop with personal stuff on it I can no longer access because it's now hopelessly out of date [it can only access the internet via dialup and can't handle webmail, it's got an obsolete floppy drive - look it up - and the connectors are all obsolete too]. Other threads have talked about CDs, CD-ROMs etc degrading after a decade or two [so all those archived "backups" will just become novelty drinks mats] and who can guarantee USB drives will still work in 50 years - if you can find them! Same with eBooks - when publishers delete titles they'll be gone. No more hard copies stocked by second hand book shops, stored in lending libraries, or archived at the British Library. Maybe that's why the UK government still records every statute on parchment or vellum, stored in the tower at the Houses of Parliament. Why? Because it lasts for centuries - probably millennia - with minimal work [you just need secure dry storage]. And proof of that is the archive of legislation going back more than 500 years [older records like Magna Carta are kept elsewhere]. As the Parliament website says, this is the "memory of Parliament", not the WWW.

Haden, you might like to watch this TV doc shown last week on Channel 5 about the Welsh International rugby player Gareth Thomas who came out in 2009. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asQcPQVin00&has_verified=1 http://www.youtube.com/verify_age?next_url=/watch%3Fv%3DasQcPQVin00 Let's get one thing clear - rugby is a seriously tough, physical contact sport. Unlike you namby pamby Americans suited up with armour plated padding to look like enormous behemoths, rugby players wear minimal body protection and just rely on their skills and body muscles to absorb the impacts with other players *hides to avoid the flack from outraged Haden and US "football" fans *. So anyway, Gareth came out to his team mates and the press and .... nothing happened. His story is one of regret. Regret that he kept his sexuality a secret for so long. And like you, James, he compensated during his early years by being the meanest bastard on the rugby field. But he's now committed to schools education and the Child Helpline providing support to young people and gay youth at a difficult time in their lives. By any measure he is an impressive guy. So next time you hear some rednecked ignorant bigot mouthing off negative stereotypical crap about "gays" - if you can be bothered - just show them the Wiki page page on Gareth and his outstanding achievements in probably the roughest toughest most macho of all sports. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gareth_Thomas_(rugby) Anyway, Haden, good luck to you in whatever you decide to do with your life and sport. And remember the important thing is to be true to yourself and to be happy!

It's ten years since Maurice Gibb died [Robin died last year] leaving just Barry Gibb sole survivor of one of the most successful pop bands ever. Many people think of the Bee Gees as disco falsetto screamers but they were much more than that, and wrote major hits for many other artists too. "Morning of My Life" is a beautiful and early song from 1965: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHDYet_tsOI The words and melody work so well together, full of wistful sadness evoking lost youth: In the morning when the moon is at it's rest, you will find me at the time I love the best watching rainbows play on sunlight; pools of water iced from cold nights, in the morning. 'Tis the morning of my life. In the daytime I will meet you as before. You will find me waiting by the ocean floor, building castles in the shifting sands in a world that no one understands, In the morning. 'Tis the morning of my life, In the morning of my life the minutes take so long to drift away Please be patient with your life It's only morning and you've still to live your day In the ev'ning I will fly you to the moon To the top right hand corner of the ceiling in my room Where we'll stay until the sun shines Another day to swing on clothes lines May I be yawning T'is the morning of my life T'is the morning of my life In the morning In the morning In the morning The song was not released until 1971 when it was used in the soundtrack to the sweet and funny childhood romance film "Melody", or "S.W.A.L.K" in the UK [short for Sealed With A Loving Kiss - aaahhhh!] starring child actor Mark Lester who's best friend Jack fears losing his friendship when love strikes ... .

A recent high profile example is Elton John and David Furnish in the UK where Elton is the biological dad. At the moment it's not possible to create a human embryo using DNA from both dads, but who knows what future developments will bring. Some US states support surrogacy, others don't. Wiki's a useful kick off point if you want to dig deeper http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrogacy http://en.wikipedia....laws_by_country Edit: sorry I assumed you were in the US - my bad

Don't give up on the idea of kids - there's still surrogacy

Happy birthday podga! Here's a special birthday treat

Today: "Three Kenyans who were tortured by British colonial authorities can proceed with their legal claims against the UK government, a court has ruled. London's High Court ruled the case, relating to the 1950s Mau Mau uprising, could proceed despite the time elapsed. The ruling means the case will now go to a full trial." _______________________________________________ Good. Only recently has the British government - my government - accepted that the British colonial administration tortured Kenyans during the "Mau Mau" uprising - widely seen as part of the struggle for independence from colonial rule. Quite apart from the appalling conditions in which detainees were kept, for a free society like Britain to have allowed its oversees administration to engage in torture is a disgrace, and insults the democratic values that British people struggled over centuries to achieve . The fact that atrocities occurred on both sides is no justification. Shamefully the British government is still seeking to avoid responsibility on the grounds of elapse of time and limitation and its claim that those responsible are dead so evidence is lacking. However, documentary evidence that the authorities knew very well what was going on is pretty clear e.g. a letter from Police Commissioner Arthur Young to Governor Evelyn Baring, 22 November 1954: "[T]he horror of some of the so-called Screening Camps now present a state of affairs so deplorable that they should be investigated without delay, so that the ever increasing allegations of inhumanity and disregard of the rights of the African citizen are dealt with and so that the Government will have no reason to be ashamed of the acts which are done in its own name by its own servants." This is a landmark court decision and will have significant impact if the British government's appeal to quash the case is rejected, in which case the government will almost certainly seek an out of court settlement to avoid the shame and embarrassment of the litany of abuse, suffering and torture being exposed in open court. If not then the judicial system must facilitate an early date in view of the age of the claimants [one has already died]. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19843719

Three of my g'pa's: - "you feeling a bit under the weather?" *=not very well/sorry for myself* - "you'll soon be right as rain!" *to cheer me up when I was feeling a bit under the weather * - "he's a slippery customer!" *anyone g'pa didn't like *

The reality is both bands were big fans and admirers of each other

*Aaarrrrggh it won't let me post 3 media links so here's the third* While My Guitar Gently Weeps [1968] 2002 live performance by Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and George Harrison's son with Eric Clapton at the Concert for George And finally, folks, if you play none of the above please please please click on this version of While My Guitar Gently Weeps played by the cutest Japanese guy on the tenor ukulele. It's incredible .... So what are your favourites?

Tomorrow it will be 50 years [5 Oct 1962] since "Love Me Do" launched The Beatles' recording career. The band was only together for another 8 years but their music had huge impact across the world, it has endured and seems likely to be around in another 50 years. Largely this is due to George Martin [the "fifth Beatle"] who signed them to Parlophone, even though he didn't really like their music at the time. You might think you know all The Beatles songs, but do you? Here are three of my favourites Norwegian Wood [1965] You've Got To Hide Your Love Away [1965]

From what I've seen the London 2012 Paralympics has had a significant impact on people's perception of disability and sport. Already there's huge interest in the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games and tickets for events with athletes like Oscar Pistorius, Jonnie Peacock and Alan Oliveira will be among the first to sell out. The paralympians have transitioned to become elite sportsmen that people want to see. Not only does that give huge inspiration to people with disabilities but it can only be a positive influence on the way able bodied people regard disability generally. A lot of progress has been made in Britain to address inequalities through law and guidance e.g. employment [disability discrimination is unlawful if it has no bearing on job performance], transport [all public transport must make adequate provision e.g. buses that dip down to the pavement] and access [all public buildings and larger businesses must have disabled access]. In the end I guess everyone pays a little for all this - but that's only right isn't it? The dystopian movies you mentioned, they serve as a warning to us of the future we could face - not "will face" - just as history warns us of the horrific realities of eugenics. As for combining the Olympics and Paralympics it's a great idea and Glasgow 2014 will do this for some events. The problem for the Olympics is the huge scale of the event, and the organisational and delivery difficulties that combining the two would make for what's already a logistical nightmare [and I won't name those who predicted chaos ]. Maybe earlier this year many people did perceive the Paralympics as "an after event" but for everyone that went to see them or watched on telly it seems they found them as exciting and entertaining as the able bodied games.

Tricky Dicky

Sooo, you know the secret too

Triggered a memory. These used to be favourites of my mum: "he doesn't know his arse from his elbow" and "she's a dangerous woman!" = man snatcher