[Dr David Thork]

something they are unlikely to achieve in the real world due to its proclivity for social skills and facial symmetry.       

I'm not an ugly man, Jura.

[Jura-Glenlivet]

Within the confines of this rant you have to be, the words came unbidden as I channeled my inner bitch (the child, having got right on my tits).  Roll with it.

Outside of here I am willing to grant you all the status of Adonis and promise to go for Jedi next time.

[juner]

To say that the questionnaire is trying to pigeon-hole FE’ers as stupid when the range of options Has three degree levels and an option to add whatever else you like is disingenuous, rather it smacks of Thork thinking this is what the survey will reveal, against I might add superficial evidence to the contrary. Those of us who have any history here will be fully aware of the prodigious brain power and educational accomplishments of Pete/sexpest, as at one time there was barely a post where he didn’t mention it. Parsifal (our leader) has a back to school thread that lists his proposed schedule, which so impressed me, as I had no better idea after reading it, what he was to study than before. Thork himself is no shrinking violet in enlightening us as to his achievements since his return either, so why the negativity?

I deduce your honour, that this site is a sham! I furthermore propose, that when this place was conceived, it was so, as an ironical send up of what was at that time an extreme marginal belief, that it has burgeoned since to include a proportion of the general population that is almost measurable, has not only come as a surprise to its creators but presented them with a dilemma. That being, if they turn their backs on the current crop of devotees, they abandon not only their satirical high ground, where they can look down on both sides of the dispute and say, “we’ve had you all” but also risk losing a community they are integral too and thrive in, something they are unlikely to achieve in the real world due to its proclivity for social skills and facial symmetry.
 
Hence, Thork’s denouncement of the education question makes sense, as it is apparent that those who do truly believe have to band together in large numbers to form an idiot, should they manage to complete the survey it would be glaringly obvious that those above, are leaders of a crusade of fools, fatally undermining the pseudo-scientific foundations of the wiki and everything that Tom says.         

Let's keep the ramblings in the proper fora. Split/merged.

[Jura-Glenlivet]

Damn it Junker! Ramblings? I thought I had “concise” nailed there.

[Dither]

Merry Christmas Jura, Junker, Pete, Tom, Rama and everyone else

Love the holiday snaps Jura, my wife wants an Olympus now.
With the way the worlds heading, I'd like to have a holiday in a place like that and go MIA.
The Wildlfe Officer's can chase me round the island, it will relieve the boredom.

Anyway, Have a great Chrissy with lots of food and ale.     (And no mayo)

[Jura-Glenlivet]

So Murica is broken, its children have realised the futility of existence under the guidance of grown-ups, who from the comfort of their armoured bariatric buggies, saw fit to swap a lean erudite capable leader for an orange amphibian who had realised the path to godhood was as easy as letting dumb people vent their hatred for the world, for well, changing.
So, they take their parents guns to school and swap a life of perceived despair for a spike in fakebook traffic, in droves.

Now before ya’ll rise out of your corn syrup filled baths to point out the obvious fallacies and downright lack of empathy in the above, I was being a tit for a purpose, as my sympathies lie to the left it does echo the gut reactions I felt listening to responses from certain parties, to the recent school killings, especially those that didn’t fit into my view of the world, and here lies a problem.

These weekly (daily, hourly – pick according to how far in the future you are reading this) atrocities are invariably attended by the venality of the media willing to encourage and interview just about anyone to bump their ratings so adding to the circus.
The roots and reasons for the actions of the perpetrators range, according to your bias, and include guns/not enough guns, liberals, homosexuality/gods wrath, Nazi’s, atheism, video games, heavy metal, the internet and girls who won’t fuck nerds, so spanning the gamut of available experts/crazies.

Something needs to be done, is it a case of restrictive gun laws and a redress of balance between the rich and the poor or arm the teachers/janitors/kids and reinstate classroom prayer. When I hear some of the remarks by the gun apologists, I want to shoot them in the face, thus proving that though I would undoubtedly pass any psychological test you could throw at me, I shouldn’t be allowed a gun. I would argue that (like joining the police) as soon as you express the wish you should be barred, especially AR15’s which seems to be the weapon of choice for the cowardly self-promoting suicide shooter.

Reconciliation of the opposing views with respect of hammering out a credible response is not going to fucking happen..soo..get packing, either in the sense of an arsenal or do a Dave and head off to a sane country.

Or, third option, split the country along the meme line, pacific states, north-eastern and great lakes states fusing with the Canucks as the United States of Canada, thereby joining a country that can handle guns without going batshit. The rest becomes Jesusland, Cornacopia or Dumbfuckistan, and walls itself off to await the rapture clutching its guns/cousins.         

[Dr David Thork]

Murica has never not been broken. It is still the wild west and a man can still pull out a gun in a bar and shoot you, because he doesn't like your boots. Yeehaw!

The British tried to give you all some manners, but you chose freedom instead. Enjoy your freedom.

[Cain]

Ouch, my national pride. I might never recover

[Dr David Thork]

[Jura-Glenlivet]

Not only have I neglected this thread (and indeed FES in general) but I left it with Thork in colonial mode waving his twatting flag, sorry, but Molette should have stepped up with her musket and shot him in the face, it’s the American way and would have been fitting.

So, spring is here in merry England, actually it isn’t, the dates say it is, there is green in the hedgerows, the dawn chorus is growing day on day and my Camellias are blooming but spring is not here. It has rained since November, Leicestershire is a shallow lake, my disposition is bleak, and I would burn god and kill your children for some sun.
 
Before any of you lightweight desk jockeys decide now is the time to capitalise on Jura’s mood, or point out that Rain defines the UK, I would like you to consider a few things; I am outside a lot, I have big dogs that need big walks and I cycle to work, consequently I have lots of wet weather gear and the elements are not usually a problem, but my soul is sodden now and I need respite, it will come soon and I shall be reborn, in the meantime avoid me and remember the dogs.

On the subject of rebirth, Easter has passed but I would like to mention a curious incident pertaining. My partner, bless her forbearance, was walking past one of the churches of our community when she was accosted politely by a man with a bag lurking in its portico, he gave her a box as a present and requested only that she should read the message contained and reflect on its meaning. The gift was an Easter egg, the communication therein, “The true meaning of Easter” a badly drawn cartoon of the crucifixion and subsequent resurrection. She offered it to me with a smile that not only conveyed her beauty but also her endearing inner cruelty.

I know Christianity has successfully wiped its collective memory of all the pagan roots of its high days but to blithely pass out the true meaning of Easter pamphlets is just abusing the privilege to be stupid. To her credit she vetoed my plan to go and smash the egg on the aforementioned mans forehead whilst screaming “look up the fucking origin of the word Easter shit-for-brains” lest I break the conditions of my injunction, and she listened with admirable tolerance to me ranting on about how could they reconcile eggs and bunnies with the zombie Jesus story without question (some nonsense about the egg representing the empty tomb), what can I say, she keeps me sane.

Anyway, spring is here, rebirth of the year with eggs being laid and bunnies being born, I just wish it would stop fucking raining.       

[juner]

and I cycle to work     

I hope to start doing this soon. Although where I will be living has about 80% sunny days, so I can't relate to your misery.

[Jura-Glenlivet]

An admirable intention, make me one promise, do not wear Lycra. Nobody who drives a car to work wears racing leathers and a helmet, so what on earth possesses cyclists to dress like Lance Armstrong? There are only two kinds of people that can in anyway pull this off without looking stupid, they are athletes and nubiles. 

[Jura-Glenlivet]

Well I am happy to report that the sun has arrived in style, I am wearing shorts much to the amusement of my better half, who maintains that my legs look like threads hanging from my undergarments. If you ever need to confirm the identity of an Englishman, get them to drop their trousers if they look like they're carved from lard sprinkled with cat hair, then God save the queen.

Anyway, I realise that you are all dying to know more about Leicestershire, well it's not that big a deal, we're kind of on the way to other places, so no one stops here much.

We are where the land rises from the coasts and fenlands of East-Anglia and Lincolnshire, so we have an affinity born from holidaying there by dint of proximity.
However, should those areas be inundated by climate change seas, we will happily remember other bonds, draw a line across the high ground between Tilton and Harborough and cast the evacuees back into the flood.

Leicester itself is one of Britain's oldest cities, the Romans settled on the site of former settlements due to its centrality, a stopover (again, see) for troops coming from Colchester and the south heading for Chester and the north. Do not expect however the city to show much of this, industrialisation and the brutalist building regime from the 50's - 70's put paid to that, shit, we built a car-park over the grave of Richard III.

Two of the most famous people to hail from Leicester were Joseph Merrick (AKA the Elephant man) and Daniel Lambert a gaoler/bear wrestler who grew to 50 stone (320kg), the US reader will not be impressed (yo mamma's fatter) but for the late 1700's that was big. So, Leicester had the fattest and ugliest people in the realm, if you visit the clubs of this fair city of a weekend you will see the genes still endure.
Fortunately, the people of the shire are cut from a different cloth, sylph like with a radiant beauty.

Its not all bad, we have gentle rolling hills, cute villages and cheese, Stilton cheese, blue mouldy and just gorgeous. Others may wax lyrical about the Melton Pork-pie, but it's just offal with a crust, avoid.
Other people of note are David Attenborough and;

Steam the founder of the sport Extreme ironing.

[Boots]

Well I am happy to report that the sun has arrived in style, I am wearing shorts much to the amusement of my better half, who maintains that my legs look like threads hanging from my undergarments.

TMI LOL

[Jura-Glenlivet]

 Treks around the Isle 2;

For our wedding anniversary we took a break in another of the Landmark Trusts properties (look them up), a tale of weather and history.

The journey from our home to Purton Green in Suffolk took nearly an hour longer than it should have, but it was in many ways a blessed relief.
You see since I put my shorts on in the last post it hasn't rained, not a drop (on my home at least) and it has been hot, really hot and we don't do air-con in England except in cars, so the probable reason the A14 & M11 was one big slow moving car park is that much of the population had just gone out in their cars to get cool, if the trend continues I predict that the English will evolve into mechanised gypsies.
The property had been billed as remote. Remote means something different in Britain to what it does in the US, Canadia or Aus', there are no vast distances to get lost in here just twists and turns in the landscape, forgotten corners. We drove out of one village and a mile down a narrow road was a footpath sign pointing down a rutted track, we trundled down there for half a mile, over a ford (dried up, see above) until the track ended at a fence with three wheelbarrows lent against it, we loaded one with our stuff and set off up the footpath. Getting out of the car and loading the barrow took a minute, by which time we we were soaked in sweat, it was still hot.
The instructions, the man we had been told to ring before we set off had given, was to follow the track until you come across the house, after 400 yards we were starting to doubt, imagining we were being pranked by one of those hideous TV programs where we are filmed slogging up a hill with a barrow full of crap in the boiling heat until a manic presenter jumps from the hedge with a camera crew shouting surprise! and I punch him in the face and set off back down the hill.
However as we get to the top we turn to our right and there it is.



There's a narrow path mown through a vast bank of thistle, dock and Willowherb to a lawn with a Walnut tree, the key the man said, is under a stone, it is. The huge oak door creaks open, this is the door you hear in all those old films where a creaky door is requisite, undoubtedly. 
The hall runs from where the thatch fans out on the right to just past the big door on the left, all the way up to the roof and is beautifully cool, a stone floor and one small window at the back, simple air-con.
The original house was built in the 1250's , a minor lords house and what makes it special is the beams that support the roof, at this time they used simple cross beams that could only span the width you see, the outer walls as they are now were actually open supports in a broader hall which was six foot wider, the thatch would have come down to head height. When better methods capable of  holding bigger spans were introduced instead of ripping this out and rebuilding they built another further up the road (now gone) and this was downgraded in status and ended up as three cottages for farmworkers, plastered over, bricked up, chimneys and hearths and more doors added, when they bought this in the sixties they ripped it back to the skeleton replacing like for like where the wood had degraded too much. Anyway it's grand, not for arachnophobes though, the bare thatch in the hall is home to hundreds of spider webs.
Oh, there were several ponds surrounding, remnants of the moat (there were wolves back then) and I got bit to fuck by mosquitos watching bats at dusk.



Now the English flag showing the cross of St. George was much in evidence during our trip, we were due to play Sweden in the world cup (another story). George being our patron saint is a strange one, as he was a Turkish or Palestinian member of the Roman army who was killed for his beliefs, so he never graced our shores.
We went to Bury St Edmunds where the first patron saint (of England) St Edmund, (yes you guessed it) is interred, somewhere, probably beneath the tennis courts if the slightly dotty lady who got talking to us in the cathedral there is right, little is known about Eddy other than he was in all likelihood, a local king/chieftain chopped up when the Vikings (Ivar the Boneless?) swept through East Anglia in the late 800's, whatever had been written about him at the time was destroyed in the sacking, burning and high jinx, the Vikings were not big on books.
So we made him a saint as we didn't like the Vikings, he was a Christian (probably) and he came to a sticky end, at least he was English.   

[Jura-Glenlivet]

Next stop Sweden, thinking payback for Edmund.

[Jura-Glenlivet]

Fuck Sweden, necro-posting, apologies.

So, we end up going out to Lundy again. Only this time the weather has taken it personally, amber warning of wind and rain, a last-minute decision to give it a go in a helicopter the same make as the one that, the week before ended up as a fireball in Leicester city's football club car park, killing all aboard including the chairman, sweet.

I'm on the MET office weather report as it comes in, 30mph wind gusting 45 mph, but he's ex-navy, and after scuttling the herd of sheep (seriously) he drifts it down the field and lands it like a feather.

No problem, they load all the baggage and do that run first, visible with binoculars all the way to the island 12 miles of the point, it's back 20 minutes later, lands, sheep scattered, like a feather, one of the guys in a fire suit comes in and announces a delay, there is an intermittent warning light on the fuel feed, they are investigating! Why not say the pilot has cramp, fuel feed? Fuck off.

10 minutes later, same guy, "Just going to do a test flight to see if it's fixed!" a few of us brave the wind and rain to watch navy guy throw it around the sky. Lands like a feather, sheep getting surly, MET office winds 35mph gusts at 50mph.

We are trip number 4, the waiting room is in a hut that has become steamy and over hot for people dressed for a November landing in Lundy, there is an undercurrent of hysteria, I find a sheltered (relatively) spot round the back of it to smoke and watch for the helicopter coming back, as the birds have largely given up trying to fly, the sheep are in a square formation at the top of the field, executing practice charges against a bale of hay, the aircraft comes in sight, flying at 45 degrees to its heading, MET office winds at 45mph gusting at 55.

There's been a delay, for refuel and the pilot to have a tea (!), sheep have mysteriously disappeared, ground crew looking edgy, some passengers openly praying, last look at MET office, winds at 48mph gusting at 65, island no longer visible.

We are ushered out and into the helicopter, the only discernible difference under the rotors is the wind direction, two of the ground crew are mounted on quad bikes with what look like lances, watching the brow of the hill, the buildings are evocative of Rourke's Drift, the smell inside the passenger compartment would remind Colonel Killgore of victory in the same way it reminds me of immolation.

One passenger in the back (me) is given headphones and mike should the pilot need to convey information of import to us, I say "Breezy" he replies "Yeah wouldn't have started if the winds were as bad then, but all the bags are over there now"  This is information I do not pass on, two of the others are hiding behind their hands.

We rise, a leaf in the wind, turning gaining height, swinging level with the cliff edge a surge of wind picks the craft higher, the navy man leans it into the squall and we leave, seven minutes to the island, aboard a bucking bronco, I enjoy it for what it is and the view, others are less sanguine, one woman does not look up or out the whole trip. As the island resolves itself, the whiteness of old light, the stone buildings huddled round the tavern the restored church, navy guy drops us down making us light, clearly enjoying himself, 200yds out from the H he drifts us in sideways and lands, like a feather. Word comes through on the radio, the sheep have taken the helipad.