Monte Carlo

We should be represented by our head of state, to wit Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Brown is merely first among equals in the House of Commons (albeit that the only people who have ever voted for him are the people of his Scottish constituency, making his mandate even more negligible). He is not, nor is any Prime Minister, our head of state. Tony Blair wanted to be, and behaved like, a president but even he showed due respect for the Monarch. Unlike Brown, who is a disgrace. Cheers MC

^ Yes, Mister Blumenthal, you are mad.

I struggle with vegetarian food, but try this one. Monte's Vegetarian Mediterranean Meze Concept - a little bit of everything and extremely easy to make, the veggies I know love this. Serve a large platter of the following - Home made houmous (there are a million houmous recipes, you could literally start a war arguing about it but this is mine) Add chickpeas, olive oil, lemon juice, freshly ground black pepper, garlic and paprika into a blender and blast it until it is just slighty lumpy. Serve with some chopped parsley on top with some grilled pitta bread. Pan-fried Halloumi Slice some halloumi cheese into one inch thick strips and sear in a frying pan with a very small amount of olive oil and lemon juice. Cook until brown and crispy at the edges on both sides. Serve garnished with lemon wedges. Salad Finely dice tomatoes, red onion and cucumber and make a salad, dressing it with olive oil (this is really good with chilli oil, actually, the heat plays of nicely against the cold veggies). Home-made dip that isn't tsatsiki but almost Take some low-fat natural or Greek yoghurt, a teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper and some finely diced cucumber left over from the salad. Mix and use as a dip with your pitta bread. Miniature Veggie Moussakas Fill some tiny dishes / ramekins with a mixture of fried onions, courgette, tomato puree / stock, mushrooms, garlic and some chilli or paprika. Top with a cheese sauce (buy some, it's only dinner, or use pre-made bechamel with some grated cheese in it) and top with some aubergine slices that you've rinsed and dry-roasted in a hot frying pan. Put it in a hot oven for fifteen minutes and serve. Hot chilli and Celery Cous-Cous Finely slice some celery (peppery) and carrots (sweet) and fry them in olive oil until soft, adding some chilli oil, powder or flakes depending on what's in the larder. Add to some pre-prepared cous-cous and pan fry with this mixture and a knob of butter. Serve in a dish with some finely chopped parsley and lemon. This would all go nicely with some chilled beer or a cold New World white wine. Pudding would be Turkish pastries, pistachio nuts with a very sweet dessert wine and some grapes. Then put on some Barry White and let nature take it's course

Yeah, war is preposterous. I mean, declaring it on Nazi Germany in 1939 was, like, total FAIL! The only reason that War isn't as optimal as it used to be is squeamish media and infantilized Western electorates. Can you imagine CNN on Omaha beachi n1944? The focus groups in Iowa and California would have resulted in the invasion forces hopping back on their landing craft and heading for Portsmouth. Howabout Serbia and the great UN Balkan 'peace-keeping' operations of the 1990's (yeah, the ones where Western troops were ordered to sit back and watch genocide)? A war would have solved that with palpably less casualties and a clear mandate afterwards. War is a constant. It's not very nice, but then again lots of other things aren't either. It should be like any emergency surgery - quick, focussed, proportionate. The Allies defeated the Axis in five years - the US will be in Iraq for twenty five and achieve much less with greater technology. I wonder why? As for all your other arguments - meh. You clearly only answer the points that suit you.

^ Hmmm. Am VERY interested. Is that an easy install?

Christian Bale will be, for me, the guy who appeared in the Dragon Movie (Reign of Fire) with Matthew McConaghey (spelling?) as the butchest skinhead Yankee redneck dragon-killing uber-commando EVAR. He drives around a post-apoc Scotland in a tank. His dudes kill dragons by free-falling on top of them from helicopters. And he dresses like an extra from an old Duran Duran video. It's so awesome my eyeballs literally imploded, Bale could only ponder Matthew's utter brilliant screen presence. I watch it about twice a year and get all sad that McConaghey concentrated his career on light romantic comedy instead of the OTT sci-fi route. Bale, OTOH, continues to have an interesting career but does come across as a bit of an ass. Cheers MC

I should have added an important qualification to my last post - I really am rubbish at FPS games. I mean, dreadful. In the middle of a hectic firefight I'm looking at the keyboard for the strafe button. It's like discovering a passion for choral singing when you're tone deaf. Cheers MC

UPDATE - Crysis is the first game I've ever uninstalled because I was getting too addicted to it. I have discovered, relatively late in life, that I am in fact a FPS crack-fiend. Nooooooo! Also, for some reason I have this almost overwhelming urge to play Doom2. Will check out Farcry, I really like the idea of sniping. For some reason the SCAR rifle in Crysis with scope was a terrible sniping weapon. Cheers MC

^ As far as I'm concerned Chavez is on the same continuum. He's currently at the slightly warm and fuzzy adopt-absolute-power-and-attack-free-media phase of his left-wing authoritarianism. That's sort of phase one. Just watch, there will be secret police vans rocking up in the middle of the night any time soon. He doesn't need nukes, he can just play with the on / off switch on the oil pipelines instead. Funny, when you think about it, that the only genuinely authoritarian states left (Middle Eastern theocracies notwithstanding) are Commie throwbacks like Belarus, Zimbabwe and Venezeula. And the liberal-left fellow travellers and useful idiots in the West can't really bring themselves to admit that their bien pensant views actually support dictators, or those on the early stages of that journey. Cheers MC

Lord of Flies, you can try banal Fisking as much as you like, but you are still issuing an apologia for totalitarianism. Meanwhile, I now eagerly await your robust defence of Kim Jong Il, the much-misunderstood redistributionist of North Korea, currently harrassed by the running lapdogs of Neo-Conservatism.

I'd love to do the speedboat thing in Crysis (why didn't I spot that - it's obvious now you mention it) but, honestly, I'm crap at these twitchy games. All of a sudden I'm thinking of digging Silent Storm out of the loft instead. Cheers MC

I am currently playing Crysis and really getting into it. Problem is that I'm playing with WASD and a Mouse - I'm also rubbish at FPS games and have the twitchy hand / eye coordination of a small boulder. Nonetheless, I'm getting there and enjoying the lovely graphics and sniper rifles and speedboats. I'm also quite smug that my puter can run it very smoothly Any ideas how to take out those darn tanks though? I'm on the mission where you save the CIA chick in the village surrounded by the minefield. Cheers MC

Hitler and Mussolini won 'elections.' So did Hugo Chavez. I love lefties - Right Wing dictators are beyond the pale, Left-Wing ones are 'popular' (like, er, Hitler in 1933). Chavez is muzzling the free press and abrogating property rights. It'll be the secret police next, and 'The disappeared.' Ask me? A dictator is a dictator is a dictator. Left, Right, whatever. Cheers MC

Seriously, it would be like Grenada. Take out the TV station, airport and presidential palace simultaneously at Zero Hour and the locals will be throwing bouquets at the LAVs.

Hey, I don't have a problem with intelligent drama, SF is a solid vehicle for that. Jericho was good, for example. What I don't get is the apparent necessity of US TV companies suddenly using ageing, cheesy IP like Galactica and 'V' to do it. Cheers MC

Can someone please tell me of a socialist government where this didn't happen? Chavez is obviously in his dictatorship of the proletariat phase and loving it. Unlike Eye-Wrack, this is a problem that could be solved with a couple of Marine expeditionary forces. Shame the new US Prez has Chavez on his Christmas card list. Cheers MC

The use of the capital 'D' in Democrat was intentional, but I think you missed the gag. Not to worry, it wasn't very good anyway I think we are due a slice of space opera, that's all, in these otherwise depressing times. 'V' was campy fun, but the remake looks like it's going to be portentous and dull. It's like setting South Pacfic in Hlemand Province with B-52's raining 500 pounders down on the chorus line. The heroine (feisty 21st century single mother / FBI agent) says something about devotion being the most potent weapon... yawn. Cheers MC

What did Lenin do? He lined the ball up. Stalin simply kicked it in the back of the net. Why did the Germans smuggle him back into Russia via the Finland Station? Altruism, or because they knew he was the political equivalent of Ebola?

So, basically, the Visitors are Democrats, right?

Ho-hum, watched the trailer. It has high-production values and an air of ponderous self-importance, as if it's trying to say something profound. 'V' is about lizard-aliens wearing prosthetics in an attempt to harvest humans for lunch. Of course, on the Internet, this is actually touted as a realistic scenario to explain world politics, but to me that trailer just looked too serious. Cheers MC

Diana eating a hamster was a seminal moment in TV sci-fi mini-series history. Even my mother, who utterly hates sci-fi, loved 'V'. However, I am bored of re-makes, although de-cheezing Battlestar Galactica was fine. But 'V'? T'would be refreshing if the folks making it had a production meeting where they decided to make 'V' even cheesier than the original. They should make it camper than Liberace's dressing gown. BTW, anybody else heard about the Magnum P.I. movie? Seems to have dropped off the radar. Cheers MC

You really should watch it. It's full of DArk HERoiC FanTASy for starters, plus there is the Love Scene Honestly, it's like watching a formula one car careering of the track and exploding into a fiery ball of hi-grade petrol and burning, bloodied limbs. Cheers MC

Have sold ipod ban to office as interesting social experiment for a week to see what happens, a bit like the person in the opening post to this topic. Cheers MC

Have you tried to ban anything in the 21st century workplace? The sky would fall in. Life's too short to be an ass with people at work, I just have to try harder to get the job done without annoying people. I grew up with Walkman. We loved them and spent hours making up Our Favourite Tapes. Yet, for some reason, we never sat listening to them at work. Mainly because we'd be sacked. Therefore I am just wondering what happened, and at what point this social atrophy actually became acceptable. When I was 23 we talked amongst our peers at work. It was fun, we learnt stuff and hopefully became better people. The ipod addicts might want to ponder that. Cheers MC

No, it's bloody rude when people keep interrupting you every five minutes while you are trying to get some freakin' work done. There is a time and a place to socialize with coworkers and that is not at my desk when I'm in the middle of something else. You miss my point. I am in a position to ask these people to do things for me. Being an inordinately nice person I always ask politely, usually pointing out what I need done and asking their advice as and when necessary. Without putting too fine a point on it, these guys are effectively subordinate to me and in twenty years time will be in the same boat I am currently sat in. The brighter ones understand this and, ergo, do not sit there listening to Evanesence, very loudly, whilst I ask for certain tasks to be performed. So, is it too much to ask that I don't have to perform human semaphore / nudge them / etc to get their attention? These people are commonly known in management circles as 'Generation Y.' I am aware of their mores. I am not an ass. In fact, I understand the cultural memes and ironic T-shirts they enjoy more than any other Old Guy in the joint. This is why I EXPECT THEM NOT TO PLUG INTO AN ALTERNATIVE FRICKI' REALITY when I'm working with them. That is all. MC