Walsingham

Sounds good, fellahs. Looks like I'm waiting another week before I hear whether our new contracts are coming through. If it's a go then by the Lord Harry I'm getting a new PC!

It's what always happens when a Britisher is exposed to the warm air of our colonies for any length of time.

Understood. I guess my main question on tha rig is the motherboard and power supply. Any issues there?

What a picture you paint.

Thanks a lot, you bastards. Note that England are playing in all red. Naively I believe this to be our best kit. Far better psychologically than white.

That was certainly my main interest, Serrano. Besides, having dealt quite a bit with pain and sadness recently I think it's perfectly healthy to listen to music which makes you sad. It cleanses the system, like draining a wound. Show me a man who's never sad and I show you a fething mentalist.

Thanks mkreku. I appreciate that to the skilled it would be an inferior tool. But I doubt I should be able to stretch its capabilities without my own powers failing, rather than the machine's! Two further questions: 1. Should I purchase additional cooling? 2. How long will this machine be capable of keeping pace with games?

Legend as follows 1. Casa Gorthoba; to which the players are taken. It sits on a long and broad ridge, giving it views across the city and the bay of Quietude 2. The Kovostella; a huge and ancient arena 3. The Citadel 4. The Palace of the Prince, which is guarded, ineffecively by the city guards 5. The Plaza Gorrona; where those who need to be seen have their scene 6. Fort Barum 7. The entrance to the bay, guarded by seige engines, and towers of wizardry, plus several booms which can be lowered. 8. Fort Alejandrus 9. The artisan's dock, for finished goods, produced in the quarter behind it. Woollen fabric, cigars, pottry, silverware, stored spirits and fine wines 10. The new docks, for incoming goods such as grain, silk, tobacco 11. The old dock, now used mainly for the armed ships of noble houses 12. The Great Market. Hugely open. 13. The arabesque quarter, a concentration of merchant houses from Araby a land to the south across the sea [not very imaginative, but it's hardly my fault] 14. The Carcera. A wide flat fort, with extensive prisons and arsenals in the caverns beneath. Public executions occur outside fr the edification of travellers on the Calla Derechada 15. The small town of Laruja, where most of the fresh fish is landed for pickling, salting, smoking. The smell is proverbial to the extent that certain ladies are referred to as 'larujas'. A fact not in contest with the nearby presence of the fortresses. 16. The town of Carravosque, which contains many expensive villas on the windward western side. Servants have to live on the marshward eastern side and suffer for it. 17. The Carravosque delta. Alive wth insects, lizards, and which contains the abject ruins of ancient buildings just visible from the elevated roadway 18. The old market ~ Travel Most travel to the city comes via water, either sea or the great river to the northeast. The various calla are pretty reliable in all weathers, being based on much earlier work, as evidenced by their perfect straight line orientations. Almost no travel come from the north and northwest due to the trackless and highly unpleasant expanse of the great duty plain. The La'al. The main part of the city is only partially surrounded (to the east) by a proper curtain wall. This was supposed to completely encircle the city but as it was built the settled area got squeezed further and further westward until the available funds, and the prince concerned, both expired.

Interesting angle.

I don't mind admitting England is pretty nervous about Slovenia round about now. What makes it worse is that even if we do beat them we still won't really deserve progression. Bunch of holf-gokked hoofers.

Enoch: I think the MPs here often do wind up moving into the legal process. MPs here, even corporals are certainly involved in the interviews etc etc. But I guess with Big Army being so... big... there's no need to mix. How does it work with cops? Deputy Krook has a certain ring to it.

Running away simply isn't an option, Monte. I can see the appeal viscerally, but want isn't can; nor is it should. Very rarely is, come to that, as I know you'll agree. You comment about true believers is probably as pointed about me as it is anywhere. I thin the problem is that a military true believer can only deliver on one side of the triangle. They need to deliver on that side, but by itself it's no bloody good. As you say, Karzai and his mates are holding one of the other two sides, and they're as inspiring as a dose of groin fungus.

Rather than pay for subcomponents and go through the palaver of fitting them to my poor old PC I've been looking into buying a copmletely new system. I'll have to service the debt until December, at a cost of around

Krookie/Enoch: Just a thought. What about the military police? Relatively easy to enlist, pick your specialisation, career prospects, direct experience, could lead onto some interesting places.

It's on! I now have a mission to acquire some marmalade cooked hot roast lamb, bacon, egg, ketchup and wholewheat toast for my own personal signature pimped snack.

I believe it's spelled 'lustre'. Was that an article? What was it trying to say? "Please don't suck"?

Got my key now. You guys talk about bugs in Obsidian games (which I've rarely experienced). I can't get the sound to work, and the graphics are glitching like a mo'fo' even at the lowest settings. My God is clearly punishing me for collaborating with the DRM bastards.

Then by all means tell me who is behind it and I will shove several sharpened pencils up their fat rear end. Then claim that this was me attempting to be helpful, and that if they didn't want pencils up the arse then they should have said so in advance.

I wanted to raise this as an issue primarily with commercial business software. I have completely lost track of the number of times I've been obliged to spend several hours learning how to turn OFF a feature the software programmers decided I'd find helpful. I've been prompted today by this occurring in the latest release of Open Office. I was using the suite to fill out some government forms and the date function is set to work in yyyy, rather than the way the program thinks all right thinking people should which is simply 'yy. It took me fully an hour to establish how to do ithis in the new release*. My point is _WHY_ in the name of all that is sweet and good and holy in this imperfect universe am I forced to go through turning off every individual feature. I am not an infant. I work. I don't need someone to cut up my food. I don't need help going to the toilet. AND I DON'T NEED HELP TYPING OUT MY GOKKING DOCUMENTS. I type fething thousands of words a day and have done for years. If I want something done I will do it when I need it and not before. Now is that really so hard to understand? *select the whole cell, right click, and turn off 'recognise number'

Yeah. The refereeing on this world cup is horrible. I don't know why they refuse to study the slow motion stuff before they make their decision. It would save from much embarrassment. The problem there, as I'm sure you know, is that it would make everything bloody slow. eventually it would almost grind to a halt every time there was an incident. What I think is that the governing body should have the power to impose penalties after a match for unseen offences, and obvious dives. I don't see what real harm that could do.

At least twice he even annoyed himself so much that he wanted change himself and thought changing his internet nick would do the the trick. Yes, I know. You've got to love anyone who manages to annoy himself to the point of blowing up.

I bought ME1, and now I'm told I can't contact the key server. Apparently thousands have been affected by this. Nice one, you 'anti piracy' douchebags. Offer the game for a pittance to get me to abandon my principles then actually help me out by making me even more angry than I was before. This kind of admin slapstick is PRECISELY why I don't trust draconian DRM nd believe the gok-brained dimwits who champion it in management should be flung into the pacific.

Watched Brazil vs Cote d'Ivoire (3-1) yesterday. I thought there was something distinctly fishy about the referee. I think there's a definite case for preventing him working at this level again. In general he blew up for the strangest reasons and at very odd times. Then of course there was Brazil's second goal as a result of two consecutive hand balls. This basically put Ivory so far on the back foot that it was a miracle they scored at all. Then he sent Kaka off for an incident he could only have seen out of the corner of his eye, as it happened off the ball. Something I think he only did so as to distract from the handball incident.

It just proves what I've always said. Race, religion, creed... these things are not the measure of a man. Because there are wankers everywhere.

LOL. I really like it, actually. That reminds me. In the England game, a fat pigeon came to alight on the oposition goal net. A friend immediately observed. 'Well, that's the thing with animals. They have an instinct for safety. Nothing's going to disturb it there.'