Monte Carlo

Ashdown is a left-winger who was against the coalition --- he was the attempted architect of the deal with Bliar (intentional spelling) to 'condemn the tories forever' in 1997. Why on earth should he be rewarded with a cabinet post?

Korea... yes I agree under-reported but for many it's a cold-war hiccup. I don't think that, it's just a perception that exists. Hollywood fast-forwarded to Vietnam, I think because it was more relevant to lefty, anti-war baby-boomer directors (I exempt Ollie Stone, he might be a lefty anti-war baby-boomer, but he had the cojones to become a combat infantryman and he makes interesting if not slightly deluded movies). I can't help but think that the "US fighting man in WW2" cycle that Hanks and Spielberg have started isn't finished. A trilogy seems right, and N.Africa and Italy is the one major US theatre of war they've not covered. I suppose their problem would be portraying egomanical General Mark Clarke in a positive light, or indeed plastering over the fact that the CiC Italy was British. Indeed, the most iconic battle, Cassino, was largely (although not exclusively) Commonwealth affair.

We are up to episode 7 here in the UK, and it's ok as far as it goes but I agree that is remains disjointed and with poor character development. I hope if they do another (US forces from the Torch landings in N. Africa to the Gothic Line would be good, a la the Big Red One) then I hope they return to the BoB tighter narrative.

Just saw Dr John Reid on the telly, the man is a hoary old Scots Marxist with whom I would probably disagree on the precise date of Christmas. But. He was deeply impressive and non-partisan about this, thinks that this stitch-up will rebound on Labour big-time. He showed himself to be a true parliamentarian, and to their credit there are voices in Labour who are saying similar things. Labour need a couple of years in opposition (for me five hundred wouldn't be enough but that's not the point).

Incredible. Here at the Schloss Monte I am pouring myself a very stiff drink and settling down the watch this awful melodrama play out. Then I'm off for tinned food and hunting rifles.

Law-Abiding Citizen For a while I thought the protagonist in this entertaining piece of nonsense (Gerard Butler) was going to morph into a sort of Tyler Durden, an anti-hero you could not only root for, but who also prevailed albeit in a freaky meta-physical way. Sadly, Jamie Foxx (why the extra 'X', I know he's not an adult film star) also seemed determined to be the protagonist and hero, playing a brutally ambitious and thoroughly unpleasant assistant D.A. So the film ended in a silly, focus-group influenced blancmange of disappointment. It also underuses the great Colm Meaney. Nonetheless, worth it for a grim homage to Se7en, The awful remake of The Jackal (the .50 cal remote control robot trick), and a parody of every US cop / courtroom drama you've ever seen with a world-weary, feisty female judge (the scene with the mobile telephone is worth the price of admission alone). David Fincher should have been brought in on this project and turned it into what it should have been, a great pitch ruined by mainstream hollywood values.

Look at the UK election map. England is this big blue blob with a bit of red in London and a couple of red scars across the northeast and northwest (i.e. Labour susbsidy-junkie heartlands). By the beloved AV or PR systems, the Tories would be the single biggest party in England. The Nu-Lab devolution project is now reaping it's bitter harvest with no English parliament. The 'progressive' (guffaw) Coalition of Losers will need the Labour and Libdems (still not enough seats) augmented by the Celtic nationalist fringe. The price? Even more pork-barreling in Scotland, Wales and NI (like they don't get enough already) and more economic pain for the powerhouse (London and the SE). Who should, by rights, be Tory-led. Let the Libdems get into bed with Zanu NuLabour and watch the English electorate punish them brutally at the ballot box at the next, inevitable, General Election (in 12-18 months time). Sadly, the cost of this will be our economy as the left continue to strangle business, raise tax and protect their special interest groups in the north and the celtic fringe. Am seriously considering emigration, this is the 1970's all over again but worse.

It's a luxury of living in a peaceful state.

No. Health: The budget needs a massive restructuring programme, invloving the brutal carving out of many tiers of superfluous management. This isn't a job for the feint-hearted, especially a lib Dem. Ironically, their manifesto pledge is interesting on this one, but it matters not because they wrote their manifesto never expecting to win. The NHS needs some very tough love to make it match-fit and forward-looking. Education: Both tories and LDs have some interesting policies. Gove's Swedish plan is better. In fact it was one of the best tory policies. To dump it so that some pro-teaching union lib dem moonbat can ruin everything? I wouldn't let any of them run a whelk stall yet here's call-me-Dave offering them the Home Office? Bleh.

If Children of Men isn't Sci-Fi, what is it? It's a great movie, genuinely disturbing.

^ Education is too important to leave it to the astro-turfers. Ditto health. Give them... municipal parks management.

and it will get worse before it gets better.

What's the forum consensus on The Matrix? It felt cool at the time but I saw one of them the other day and it just felt... bad.

It seems to be to be a symbolic gesture. And, given that the protagonists here are machine Democrats it's probably a bit of dog-whistle muscle flexing for their blue collar voters. The USA has life-without-parole mega prisons, federal death penalties and has dabbled with extra-judicial POW camps using soft-core torture techniques. It renders foreign nationals. It hunts down it's foes with drones armed with big rockets. These are all bad-ass sanctions of which I would not immediately disapprove of. So tearing up some terrorists passport before giving him a lethal injection, or crashing a hellfire into his pickup, seems a bit meh.

Calax, your argument is wrong on so many levels I don't know where to start.

Don't want to be deliberately contrary, but Solaris was cinematic mogadon.

I do mean the 70's original with James Caan BTW.

For the purpose of clarity, I deem sci-fi to include sub-genres (horror / war / post apoc). These are ten of my favourites in no particular order: * Mad Max 2 (much better than any of the others in the series) * Aliens 2 (ditto) * Invasion of the Bodysnatchers (the 1976 remake with Donald Sutherland) * Rollerball * Starship Troopers (on a number of levels, but the original only) * Robocop (ditto - i'd buy that for a dollar) * Blade Trilogy (am happy to argue the toss, it's sci-fi / horror imo) * Independence Day (brilliant popcorn movie take on the invasion genre) * Mars Attacks! * Bladerunner (duh)

^ No. Honestly. The overwhelming view here was that the Tories would struggle on then go for a fresh election in 12 months. I suspect the problems the unionist parties had in Northern Ireland might have caused this strategy major problems. Secondly, the Lib Dems have far more in common with the Labour Party than they do the Tories. A lot of the rank-and-file will be spitting blood. Clegg, OTOH is being offered ministerial posts for his people in a way that Labour would not. He has more to gain, but a deal with Labour could see the end of centre right politics in the UK. I still can't see it working. The Lib Dems are moonbats. Barking mad.

^ One of them is part-Hispanic. This doesn't look as simple as it appears, difficult as that might be for the school.

^ You see, the irony is I'm one of the most tolerant people you'll ever meet. And the thing that pisses me off is the left-wing abuse of tolerance as part of their kulturkampf on the rest of us. The left lost all the big arguments after the end of the cold war, so they retreated to the foothills of academia and public service to carry on their guerilla warfare from there. And what they can't and won't see is the damage they do. Because to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. I hate racism. But when someone occasionally says or does something insensitive could it be down to something else rather than racism? According to the leftie torquemadas of the 21st century the answer is NO. Always. They are causing more racism than they solve.

Excuse me? I suppose you don't get over to the East Coast much, which is fair enough. The Irish-American link is more than tangible. The Irish-American lobby has been a real force in US politics since forever. No, it's about behaving like a bit of an arse, which is something entirely different. As a teacher I suspect you have had so much subtle cultural marxist water-boarding over the years you can't see where that one was going. Just playing devil's advocate, but why must they respect it? And were they clearly looking to disrespect it? Respect has become one of the most misused words of the 21st century. Tolerate this holiday? Yes, absolutely. Respect it. Why? Maybe we could build a re-education camp somewhere.

Cameron's offer to the Libs has stunned me. Lots of Tories will be furious about it. Of course, it's strategy. Trying to do to Labour what Labour are trying to do to them: destroy them utterly as a credible electoral force. It's also a high-risk strategy - for every superficially similar area of policy alignment there is another which is pure oil-and-water. And Brown is still hiding in No.10, pretending he's in charge.

Yes, on the telly. The man is an EU-sponsored machine politico who has never had a real job in his life. And, yes, his party is full of astro-turfers. Seriously.

Look on the bright side, America's southern border flanks a rapidly-failing narco-state.