I liked them both. Always had a bit of a soft spot for Merton.


Incidentally, did you catch that Mark Lawson interview with Hislop?



Follow to dah Toob for other parts :)

You know, regarding that portrait, I think it's the camera angle that makes him seem like such a smarmy prick.

Most portraits are taken at the eye level. This one is taken at the level of his Adam's apple, so you have to look up at him and he's looking down at you. I have to assume this was his idea.

Missed that, so thanks.
Need to find a different recording though - even with both volumes on max it's too quiet for me to understand.

No. He really is that much of a smarmy twat.

Cleese is one of my favs, go figure. I agree with the others, send Morgan back. Snotty smarky bastid.

I'm conflicted about Clarkson, cause, I LOVE Top Gear... and hating every word he says on top gear makes the show BETTER not WORSE. His bullshit about, like, strikers being shot, or his usual offhand racism and sexism and homophobia, matches perfectly with his rhetoric about all bicyclists being shot. Jeremy Clarkson IS a character, and I enjoy the character even though I disagree with him.

I would pay a fair amount of money to see Morgan have the ever-loving shit slapped out of him.

Or fucked by a grizzly bear on bath salts...either/or.

Merc, that Cleese bit was very funny.

Ian Histlop is my hero. :D

Piers Morgan is always "misspelled" as Piers Moron in Private Eye.


I like Jeremy Clarkson and I think that people take him too seriously. He reminds our society that we need to get the fuck over ourselves sometimes and remember how to take a joke.

Yeah. It's good we have a middle-class, middle aged white man to make sure the rest of society can take jokes at their expense.

Victim....

Says the middle-class, middle aged white man :P

I actually don't mind Clarkson so much. He's quite entertaining, and as ibs suggested is a character. He plays up to his image of a curmudgeonly Little Englander.

But I don't really think that we need racist, anti-poor or misogynistic jokes to make us take ourselves less seriously. I'd be more impressed if he targeted some of his ire on those who aren't already the butt of everyone's jokes and occupy a stronger place in our society not a weaker one than him.

I have no real beef with Clarkson. He sends himself up too. Get what you say about criticism from a point of privilege though, Dans.

And yes, I know Cleese can be funny, but I just compare him to Michael "nicest man in the world" Palin. Same wife, same house (albeit extended), same values as when he started out. And some cracking travelogues to boot. Dinner party invite already written for when my boat comes in. His diaries reveal somewhat of a gourmand, but I bet I could serve up sardine and tomato paste sandwiches and still get a positive response.

Do we have a dinner party thread here?
I know Limey, DanaC and myself discussed a Dwellar version when in Glasgow. Don't think it made it to the board. Surprisingly for three women of a similar age and overlapping politics and humour, we had quite varying opinions on who we wanted to eat with. we kept cancelling out eachother's suggestions from what I remember.

Michael Palin is the shiznitt. I used tohave a major crush on him when i was in my teens :p

Yeah. It is.

People get "offended" by ridiculous things. As Stephen Fry says, it has no purpose, it's just a whine. "'I am offended by that', well so fucking what?" Haha, that man is a legend too.

There's a difference between simply making a joke and actually being derogatory or inciting hatred.
I'm not saying Clarkson never crosses a line, sometimes he does, but for the most part he really doesn't. I think we need people like him so that we can have a discussion about where the line is between what it's okay to say and what isn't.

Yes, people get offended by ridiculous things. But they also get offended by stuff that isn't ridiculous. Tell you the stuff that does offend me, is the anti-poor rhetoric. But that isn't specific to Clarkson, it's a pervasive thing at the moment. I am generally offended by the idea that people in a position of social power feel comfortable in making other people with much less social power the butts of their jokes. It's not really specifically racist, or bigotted humour that worries me, it's the general tone of the stronger in society mocking the weaker and then expecting the weaker to suck it up and have a sense of humour about these things. It's comedy from an unkind place. I don't like it. It makes me feel uncomfortable, because it feels wrong. At a gut level. Not offensive, but just wrong.

I personally am rarely offended by Clarkson. And I think the outcry that regularly goes up when he, as you say, crosses a line is fucking ridiculous. Why? because he's Jeremy fucking Clarkson, that's why. We all know what and who he is. The people who employ him know what and who he is, that's why they employ him. And in fairness to him, the lines he crosses are a damn sight less objectionable than some of what was considered mainstream acceptable a few years ago.

What makes me scoff is those who are offended by other people being offended.
Political correctness gone mad!!!!! And yes, those exclamation points are justified. Because that's how they think.

Stop being offended being other people's sensibilities, then.
And as an added extra, go watch a few episodes of On the Buses or Love Thy Neighbour. And imagine your daughter or friend being treated like that because of their gender/ race.

During our Queen's reign, America has progressed from a legal citizen with black skin not being allowed to choose where she sat on a bus, to a mixed race man in the Whitehouse. The world doesn't change because people accept bigotry. It changes because people notice it, decide it's wrong, and point it out to other people.

Middle class? Bwahahahahahahahahahaha :lol2:

Ahh, I'm forgetting. Middle class means something different over there. Here it means fairly affluent.

EDIT: whoops misread what was being quoted, sorry, thought we were still talking clarkson.

Middle aged? Bwahahahahahahahahahaha :lol:

He's WAY OLDER! ;)

Your forgot Middle of the Road. He's really that!

you wish he was in the middle of the road.

You're on a roll today, C-man! :lol:

Don't worry.... it means the same thing here. If you make less than whatever you think "Middle Class" makes, because so far no one can define "Wealth" or "Rich".

Middle class also means a cultural designation as well.

I am economically working class, but culturally I straddle working and middle class.


People may not be able to categorically define 'wealth' or 'rich'. But there are some fairly simple measures to define 'deprivation' and 'poor'.

Semantics.


I am poor. But I describe myself as "living in genteel poverty"
and suddenly I'm Jane Austen.

You have a wealth of ignorance.

You are poor in spirit.

You have an abundance of meanness (I never thought I could write a paradox that wasn't a paradox, until now).

Your money is just a number in a computer, and it can't buy you love.

Bla, bla, bla, and you are an idiot......

You don't get to judge me.

You know little about me and my life.

You are a judgmental narcissist who knows nothing about me but does have a superiority complex.

You have failed again, just as you did in your marriage. I beat you on that one alone.... Your failure in that "love" relationship proves you are a complete failure in the "love" department....

The fuck I don't. I *do* judge you. You've read a taste of that judgement, and your opinion of it is a matter of monumental indifference to me.

As for you life, who gives a shit? What you do and show here is what I base my judgement on; that judgement stands. You want a different assessment? Show different behavior. Around here, you're reaping what you've sown.

Since you bring it up, let me add hypocrite to your long list. I say this because you've shown once more--"you don't get to judge me" and a heartbeat later "you are judgmental...". Hypocrite.

You "beat" me in marriage?! Ok, congratulations "winner". I'll say this for you, you can be pretty fucking funny sometimes. ... words fail me here. But I must say thank you, hater, for your pearls of wisdom regarding my love life. Seriously. Thanks. I haven't smiled that much in a long time.

...

As for my judgements, they'll stand until you demonstrate otherwise. Go on, prove me wrong, I double-dog dare ya.

Has someone spiked Merc's water supply or something?

Take your own advice, Merc.

The mind boggles.
Why does anyone bother anymore?

Hate and fear rule merc's life. That is a problem no one can help
him with. He can only be pitied.

Limbaugh and other wacko extremist talk show hosts have been particularly vitriolic this past week. Best way to get party loyalists to vote is to promote hate. He simply reflects what he is being told by people who also proudly massacred almost 5000 American soldiers in Iraq.

Hate will increase and become extreme. The Supreme Court has encouraged the rich to buy elections. The Koch Bros alone have announced plans to spend $200 million on hate promoting SuperPacs.

Watch how those most easily manipulated will reflect that increasing hate up to November. Advertising easily manipulates many who deny they are easily manipulated.

Its not the water. Its in the air.

Bullseye. Right on target, tw. You are completely correct on this. Sad, but true.

A horrifying item of actual What the fucking fuck news:


China vows punishment over forced abortion at seven months

Another article with censored pictures and more appalling details.

In Michigan you can't even say vagina. :rolleyes:

She should have said gash.

She should have called them a bunch of twats and then kicked
them in the cunt.

Those men are being a bunch of pompous old dickheads, but technically, they're more interested in her uterus, not her orgasm chasm.

After all it's uterUS not uterYOU.

:lol2:

Utter ridiculous that some extremists remain so childish as to still be embarrassed by discussions of body parts. But then many extremists never learn basic science such as high school biology. Utter amazing.

Ladies and gentlemen, no more entries please, we have a winner.

Squid Injects Woman's Tongue With Sperm Bag As She Eats In Korea

How embarrassing. Now everybody knows ... she doesn't swallow.

When questioned, the squid said "I never had sex with that woman ..."

Perhaps 'axewound' would have been more well-received.

That squid thing ... (a) eeiiiwwww
(b) I think that IS possible, some squid do reproduce like that!
(c) this is why anything which might possibly be capable of fighting back in even the slightest way should always be thoroughly killed before being brought to the table.

FIFY.

And there's this:

Miracle Cat Survives Getting Impaled On Metal Fence Spike