Started DiscWorld series...where do I go from here?

MickeyG42 · 2012-05-25T16:34:28.043332+00:00

Read them in a random order first (based on your personal preferences) and then re-read them all in order. Repeat.

ultracynic · 2012-05-25T16:15:37.696973+00:00

This is bollocks. Recently a gov petition to keep the ban on the death penalty received over twice as many votes as a petition to reinstate it, despite the latter having been heavily promoted via the right wing press. Surveys like this, done over land lines, are weighted heavily toward older people and don't reflect actual public opinion.

How you phrase the question matters a lot too. If you ask 'should child rapists and murders be executed?' a lot of people say yes. But if you ask 'Do you trust the courts to avoid miscarriages of justice and would you give them the power to execute people?' a big proportion of those same people would then switch to no.

StevieTV · 2012-05-25T16:09:03.756574+00:00

Support for the monarchy in Scotland is well over 50% there's a good chance if they go independent (hopefully not!) they will still retain the monarchy just as Australia and Canada have.

massivecoiler · 2012-05-25T13:51:25.598073+00:00

I watched a lot of catch that pigeon and Dastardly and Muttley never did catch the pigeon.

AxeMan_ · 2012-05-24T23:46:54.189253+00:00

Because they have power over us, they can have us committed to an institution, or socially ostracised, or denied opportunities. Those who can prosper without their approval may overcome this fear of which you speak, but the majority must curry their favour.

ffhfhffh · 2012-05-24T18:23:39.822709+00:00

The Green Party opposition to GM crops is purely ideological and not evidence based, they seem to rely on their supporters being totally incapable of distinguishing between Monsanto as a company and GM as a technology. GM crops have enormous potential for helping to feed the world and helping to treat malnutrition and disease. If you look in to the history of the organic farming movement and the anti 'industrialised' farming rhetoric you'll find it stems from anti-Semitism of the 30s. Technologies developed by Jewish scientists were vilified, subsequent generations have absorbed this vilification without knowing why it originated. (This isn't hyperbole, the soil association for example was born of Mosley's lot) I'm not saying the Green Party of today is anti-Semitic, that would be an absurd leap, but their current intransigence and unwillingness to allow the science to go ahead shows that they haven't changed at core. They're replaced purity of the race with purity of the soil, but it's still the same hackneyed propaganda, the same scaremongering and tunnel vision.

abstrusejoker · 1 day

Meh. Some of us had to wear a tie for school uniform for years. With a little practice any idiot should be able to tie a tie smartly within a few seconds.

chrishawes · 1 day

Electric ladyland? Hardly. Try returning faulty goods there, great place to go if you want to buy stolen goods though.

Mikxuuz · 3 days

Bemusing to see Sacha in this socially awkward meme context since his cousin, Simon Baron Cohen, just happens to be the director at the autism research centre at Cambridge university.

maffige · 4 days

too late now for this match, but the crown (st nick's) has turned in to a football pub in recent years, but it still has the alt. gothy/metaly vibe as well.

originaux · 4 days

Parmesan is to Italian culture as bacon is to north American, it's not a luxury item, it's a basic and necessary staple and its a significant source of export earnings, so no, it's not trivial, there are many many livelihoods that depend on the Parmesan market.

thenamesbootsy · 6 days

My little brother won Batman returns on VHS via a coke or pepsi prize draw thing. He was about 10 at the time and the video was a 15 or 18 cert. which bemused us all. That's the full story.

ElizWiz · 7 days

I would expect that people of rank in this context would have used some Latin for interpersonal relations as a matter of course, just as 19th C. Russians of noble birth preferred to converse in French rather than Russian.

markik · 8 days

Africa is not one homogeneous nation. Assuming countries as diverse as Botswana and Sudan are the same is like assuming that Turkmenistan and Japan are the same just because they're both in Asia.

remyworldpeace · 8 days

It's the same as public transport, if you're very unlucky you'll be sat next to someone appalling, but generally everyone just ignores each other. Bring a book or an ipod.

hyperian24 · 9 days

British English has an equivalent term, 'Kronenberg' meaning 16 from the back and 64 from the front.

MKRLTMT · 9 days

It's enough of a word to be listed in unabridged German dictionaries.

MKRLTMT · 9 days

We have a term for 'bakku - shan' in British English. 'A Kronenberg' meaning 16 from the front and 64 from the back.

Qwill2 · 9 days

This is a must watch if you haven't seen it, it was a really seminal programme at the time and although it's rather dated the argument and presentational style still hold up excellently. The accompanying book is also a must read.

dylandavidson · 11 days

Whether you decide to keep going or not I hope you don't give up on Woolf. I also found 'to the lighthouse' an uphill struggle (although I'll try to re-read it to give it another go) but I adored Mrs Dalloway and Orlando.

DownOnTheUpside · 11 days

A soft 'c' pronunciation isn't uncommon The football team 'Celtic' of Scotland pronounce it with a soft 'c.' for example. Remember 'Celt' isn't a Celtic word, it's an English translation (of sorts) of a Greek term 'Keltoi' which originally referred to Gauls, but not to British Celts etc. The disunity as to whether it should be a hard or soft c comes from the fact that this variation occurred within Latin as a part of a general pronunciation shift.

DownOnTheUpside · 11 days

Perhaps in America 'Celtic' usually refers only to Ireland, but in the modern Celtic nations and I think in the rest of Europe, 'Celtic' may refer to any of the Celtic nations. The Breton (Britanny, France), the Welsh, the Scottish, the Cornish and the Manx (the isle of Man, UK). The are also other areas in which activists claim Celtic identity, the main ones being Galicia Asturias and Cantabria (all in Spain.)

As to their origins and the historical use of the term. Here's an article that may be enlightening.

http://www.proto-english.org/l4.html - this one focusing on the early usage of the term

Note, 'Celtic' is an ill-defined term, 'Celtic' peoples are ethnically diverse, and whether they are or ever were culturally unified is debated. I'm not clear on the history of the term although I know that it fell in to disuse and was revived in the 19th century thanks to nationalist movements, but the bit in between I'm hoping someone else will be able to fill in.

To clarify on the linguistic diversity; as well as the core Celtic languages theoretically descended from proto-celtic, which is hypothesised to have split in to P-Celtic and Q-Celtic branches, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-Celtic_and_Q-Celtic there are also Romani languages which have undergone some degree of creolisation with Celtic languages, such as Welsh Romani and Beurla Reagaird (of the Scottish highlands).

AlkalineDuck · 11 days

Well thanks for making me crave what I can't have! Having said that though.. there's a bright pink (lurid pink) 'marshmallow' flavour fizzy pop which I think is Morrison's own brand and it has a similar sort of taste.

theclaaaaaaw · 11 days

If it had legal person hood then yes. There have been cases of people being charged with murder for destroying a foetus against the wishes of a mother (assault on a pregnant woman) so again there is legal precedence for giving unborn children legal person hood. This is a very thorny issue as far as the abortion debate goes, what is and isn't a person. Remember also that although monarchy travels faster than the speed of light (passing as it does instantaneously from the dead to the heir), organising coronations takes time. If William were to die whilst Kate was in the very early stages of pregnancy, that pregnancy would be apparent by the time Harry got to the crowing stage. So there's no real danger that they'd crown Harry before realising Kate was preggers.

theclaaaaaaw · 11 days

well monarchy isn't exactly an originally British idea, divine right of kings was taken from biblical precedence wasn't it? I'm sure they'd take it in to consideration. I would.

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