Monte Carlo

Prison guards shouldn't be carrying guns, unless they're up in the watchtowers, right? Look, Scandies are wacky. We love them for it. But they live in their own very unique homogenous Scandie nirvana, where building Disneyland prisons sort of works.

Sorry Grom, I'm not buying into the hole-in-one analogy. I've never seen anybody, Arnold Palmer onwards, score three hole-in-ones consecutively. Even in perfect conditions. Cpl. of Horse Harrison did. Tango one, Tango two then the crew mounted weapon. Bang bang bang. He's modest about it and had a good spotter, but it's still an epic achievement. On a par with the US Navy SEAL marksman who slotted the Somali pirates-in-a-lifeboat bobbing up and down in the sea with a hostage next to them. Like the man said, the harder I work, the luckier I get. Cheers MC

Wals, Dr. Evil is Belgian.

Treated myself to the Best of the Foo Fighters, it was a bargain. Am re-listening to a lot of my old Soul / Ska stuff from the early 80's (the Specials!) and have the soundtrack to Gladiator still going on in the car, it makes London feel even more like the end of Rome...

Quick! My crucifix! My holy water!

Yes, it is odd but we are fascinated with experiences we are unlikely to ever have. I know two men who have served as snipers - one in the Falklands in 1982 and one in Iraq. Neither will talk about it, politely pointing out that killing is a personal, unpleasant experience and not to be boasted about. That, to me, makes them impressive individuals.

So the book shop has a 3 for 2 deal. I get a thriller, a historical novel and one book completely at random. Why not, serendipity and all that plus it's free. I'm travelling a lot on trains at the moment - I forget how good that is if you like reading. Anyhow, the book I get is called The Strain. I barely read the rubric at the back - I'm guessing it's something to do with bio-terrorism and there's a sort of non-commital picture of a bridge in New York on the front. Anyhoo, I finally examine it properly and this book has two things I'm not wild about. 1. it's written by two people. Books that are written by two people generally suck. 2. It's horror. I don't dig horror. Well, movies perhaps, but not really novels. They don't scare me or intrigue me they send me to sleep. But it was a long train journey and, hey, the book was pretty good. One of the authors is Guillermo del Toro, who directed Pan's Labyrinth and Hellboy(s). There are some spoilers ahead. The book is a take on the vampire genre. I know, I know, vampires are done to death I'm sick of them too. But this one is different. Why Because the vampires are also cancerous zombies. Vampirism is effectively a sort of viral cancer, and the hero is a Bio-Squishing doctor who is almost 2.5 dimensional. There are some other cooler characters (a Mexican gangsta, an ancient Romanian vampire-hunter who makes all his own weapons, a pest eliminator who is destined to become the best character). Vampires are emo and pathetic, but zombies are generally acknowledged to be awesome. And happily, the mash-up avoids emo zombies (arg!). I think it's a series, if you like the idea of zombie-vampires and want to read it before the inevitable movie comes out then I give it a solid 7/10. Cheers MC

The Soviet invasion of Finland showed up the Soviet army for what it was at that time - an ill-trained agrarian rabble devoid of any decent commanders, doctrine or equipment. It made the Nazis even more confident that they could whup the Commies in a quick one-summer Blitzkreig. Stalin didn't get a grip of the Red Army (having had all the general staff executed) until the Winter of 1941.

^ A Byron loan is awesome, in my mind's eye I see us sending a horde of fey, Opium and Absinthe-addled public-schoolboys to write obtuse poetry and shag their way across the Med in the name of Anglo-Greek harmony.

^ I'm pretty sure that the Eastern Front snipers on both sides were in that range of kills, including Ludmilla whatsername the Russian sniper-chick. Awesome sniper of the day for you all to look up: Carlos Hathco*ck (sorry, language filter is crazy on that one)

There's this app that looks at key-word use and grammar to deduct a % similarity between two authors. I'm sure I saw it on t'internet somewhere, or mentioned on the Times tech website. If I find a linkie I'll post it.

And Gym-Nazis who look down their noses at other people aren't a problem for society. Dude, just go back to looking adoringly at your guns in the mirror.

I'm going to run it through that freaky grammar / typing comparison app to see if it's LOF. His reply was just so... measured. :: shivers ::

I think they need to dust off that Men Who Stare At Goats programme. Super-obese psi-warriors could kill the enemy by remote viewing from their hand-tooled leatherette Barca-loungers. Word.

His essay on his experience at the gym reeks alt.account to me, but I'm funny like that.

Right-of-centre chicks are hotter. Fact. Look at the newsreaders on NewsCorp media outlets.

^ But this doesn't detract from the all-round awesomeness of the Canadian sniper's shot.

I can't help but think that this guy is another LoF nom de guerre. He registered last night to, what? Tell us all about healthy diet. He's also weirdly into issues around physical fitness and race, I think he might be from Germany circa 1936. Dude, the racial stereotyping was offensive to this callsign, feign 'what me?' as much as you like but there it is.

The Latin members of the Euro have a different way of doing things from the Northern, predominantly protestant Euro-member states. As Rod Liddle said in the UK press this weekend, the Siesta zone versus the non-Siesta zone. I'm not going to be crudely stereotypical, not least because I love Italy and Spain... but. The Siesta Zone does seem to have higher incidences of public-sector waste and corruption, joke governments (q.v. Berlusconi), late 30-somethings still at university and not even remotely economically active and a lax attitude to tax compliance. and let us be honest - Greece wasn't ready for the Euro zone. Not by a country mile. The EU wanted it in for political reasons and is reaping the results. Ha ha ha. Happily, my own country, which has gotten far more 'European' than I would have liked in the past 13 years and has a wrecked economy, isn't in the Euro. As I said above, ha ha ha. I hope Greece pulls through, I harbour no animus towards them or any other European country (unlike the EU as a political entity) but they need to batten down the hatches because its gonna be tough.

Another irony of American / Euro awareness is the dispora experience. One generation after leaving the mother country, America does such an excellent job of integrating people that their view of their home country warps completely. Irish-Americans are an unintentionally amusing example. I remember a visit to Boston whereby folks about as Irish as I am were blindingly rude to me due to my accent.

If you are asking someone to lend you money, you represent a risk to the lender. The lender has every right to mitigate that risk, mainly by checking your ability to pay and using analysis to gauge terms and conditions. This is why Frau Merkel is being a bit sniffy about Greece, and who could blame her? She wasn't in the chair when the EU fudged Greek entry into the Euro. The problem kicks in when some smart-arse decides to bundle debt into a commodity and sell it, I'm not a financial expert nor economist but even I can see that's a bad idea. As for risk around the relative age of the borrower - it's a no brainer. In the UK the 40-something has more chance of having an asset that can be secured against the loan - namely his or her house and the equity in it. The 20-something probably has five pot-noodles, an i-phone and a pair of skinny jeans to his name.

Is one of those guys the Irish American who supports (almost exclusively Marxist) Irish Republicans? Oh the irony. Apologies if it isn't.

So here it is... what do our resident Stalin-apologists make of it? Don't tell me, they were counter-revolutionaries and it was all part of a greater good right? Try it, just remember, last week you were denying it.

LOL! A much-cherished sitcom here is Dad's Army. It's the adventures of a hapless unit of the 'Home Guard' who were the front line against the massed Teutonic horde camped in France. They spend most of their time trying to augment their meat rations, knitting scarves and gently mocking British class differences. They were made up of pensioners, unfit-for-service kids and guys in reserved occupations. They were armed initially with shotguns, broomsticks with knives strapped to them and US WW1 rifles. Life in Wartime England wasn't exactly luxurious (according to my parents, who grew up in the 1940's) but it was hardly a barbaric fight for survival. My grandmother used to tell me stories about the Blitz (she lived near the docks in East London), the bombing was probably the worst bit. Remember, the enemy never set foot on our shores, unless of course he'd just bailed out of a burning bomber.

Modern British firearms law is encapsulated by two acts, the 1968 and 1997 Firearms Acts ('97 is an amendment). I'm pretty sure the '68 one was a response to the 1966 shooting of 3 unarmed policemen in cold blood by a criminal called Harry Roberts (he's still in prison).