Most important things first.

1) Many, many congratulations to xsabx
2) Happy birthday to copygirl and belatedly, to christhetoken
3) Hello again.

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Each year in the historic village of Brodilovo, some 320 miles from the Bulgarian capital Sofia, they have an ancient custom called Trichane na kuche

The villagers grab a large dog and harness it into a specially crafted device attached to two twisted ropes. They then haul the poor cur out over a pond and the two ropes begin to unspool, spinning the terrified dog faster and faster.

The villagers believe that the more excrement dispersed into the pond by the swiftly spinning dog (lending new credence to the term "shit-scared"), the healthier and wealthier the village would be. **

What a perfect metaphor for the flaming LJ slapfight. I think we're in for a very healthy and wealthy year already.

Should anyone object to being characterised as the "dog", I suggest you run a find/replace and substitute another animal. Aardvark, maybe. Echidna. Sloth. Wombat. Politician. Whatever. Only the tonnage of shite varies)
**If you think I am making this bit up, I'm not. It's totally true. I can probably even rustle up some photographic evidence

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I see that Friendsditto caused a cloud of hissyfits last week and I thought that amid the general "Subscribe to Frienditto and I will SHUN THEE!" and "defriending amnesty" posts, I should state my friends list position once more:

If you defriend me, I understand that this is seldom a personal judgment but more the manifestation of a general diverging of interests. The LJ use of terminology is freighted with meanings which makes it incredibly difficult to negotiate a social contract agreeable to all and understood at an end user level

Nevertheless, I *will* hunt you down and kill you.

Not so quick on the button now, are you sunshine? Not now that you know that I'm going to shove your computer so far up your freckle you can type the answers to the "Which rock god would shag you?" meme with your tongue

And if you hide yourself away I will send my RABID KILLER ATTACK BEES after you and don't go saying there's no such thing as rabid killer attack bees, did you not watch The X-Files? Was the philosophical message of The Swarm lost on you? Did Michael Caine toil for NOTHING?

Also, I know there are killer attack bees because I have the Discovery Channel, National Geographic, Animal Planet, the History Channel and the food channel on my cable package which is like AN A-LEVEL in Weird Shit (I also have UK Style, oxymoron though it is) and I am thus an EXPERT in Weird Shit.

Well, weird shit, sharks and Nazis. And if you defriend me I will send the RABID NAZI SHARKS after you. That'll be the second wave, after the bees. And then the bees will sting the sharks to get them really pissed off. You won't even be safe IN THE BATH, you evil defriending BASTARD!

Now where was my medication again?

Long story short: friend/defriend, there's not much I can do about it, but I am always sorry to see people go. (Unless I'm not).

I know that some people filter and for people on the flist, I have to say that if you're on there I'm interested in anything you have to say about anything as a rule, whether you filter for work things/ politics things/ hobby things. Most filters interest me. Except if you have a gynaecology filter or similar, because I wouldn't want to be on that even if you do feel it's central to your personality.

Indeed, I would go further and suggest that you should please, for the love of God, repress a bit. Share less. We'll all feel better.

I hope that clarifies things.

Actually I did write a post about friending and unfriending some time ago and I rather liked it but I am buggered if I know when it was.

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Real-live RPS, OMG!!1! Pt 1.

Piers Morgan, former editor of the Daily Mirror, says his relationship with Tony Blair carried a homoerotic frisson

Morgan stresses that he and Blair met 56 times, not counting public events. He says it was an extraordinarily intimate relationship. He talks with tenderness about the notes he received from Blair - always handwritten. Morgan saves most of his bile for Cherie, accusing her of inconsistency and meanness and double-dealing. There seems to be a homoerotic tinge to his relationship with Blair, I say. He nods. "There is a touch of that." I tell him I kept expecting to read, "There were three of us in this marriage." "There were! Possibly four, with Campbell. Tony and I could have been very happy together if it hadn't been for her." He's joking - and not joking. [ The Grauniad on Saturday]

Piers kept Tony's billets doux! He counted up how often they met! They could have been happy together if it weren't for that bitch Cherie!

The slash just writes itself, just as it does with Blair/Brown. Blair/Bush's a bit BDSM for my taste, involving as it does heavy sub/dom action.

Proof that the profoundly unsexy Tony Blair is nevertheless *totally* out of Piers Morgan's league, here

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God bless the peers, who defeated the government's cretinous and power-grabbing terror bill

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I note that the US has appointed a bumptious weasel scrotum outspoken hawk to be US ambassador to the United Nations, which is going to be interesting since John Bolton doesn't believe in the United Nations, or indeed any form of inter-country cooperation which does not involve the US dictating the terms.

If he's going to be a voice for reform, that's one thing and possibly a good thing. If he's going to be a loudmouthed neocon obstruction in the large intestine of international politics, that's another.

It sounds more like a sop to the crazy rightwingers courtesy of Uncle George and Condoleezza Rice, who is very bright and sometimes astute in her own way and not above that sort of thing. Why else appoint someone who despises international cooperation?

What next? Britney Spears to sing in Die Walküre? Ian Paisley for pope?

Condoleezza Rice is altogether too greedy for letters. I mean, not only does she have double E, which is pushing it a bit but she also has double Z. I suspect it's all part of a plot in which John Bolton, will use the UN to force other countries to accept the use of proper names in Scrabble, allowing Dr Rice to lengthen the word 'condo' in any game to condoleezza and thus use TWO zeds, one of them probably on some kind of double word score because she's just that jammy, and reinforce American superiority in all fields of endeavour.

(Or zees, as you call them because Noah Webster got his nads caught in the mangle about American English deriving from English English)

If this turns out to be the case, I plan to change me name to Qari-Xupezztllq, thus winning all future Scrabble matches under the new Condi rules, if only because I'm the only bugger who can spell it.


It has been suggested that Labour might not win the forthcoming election because of general voter disillusionment and a backlash against the Iraq war, which would mean that the satanic Michael Howard would win and we'd have in charge someone who makes the current bunch of illiberal bastards look like the organising committee of a commune circa 1968.

It would also mean that two members of the teensy tiny coalition of the willing, (now including the mighty POLAND!) would have the surname Howard. I think the UK should agree to invade Iran *only* if George Bush of the US and Marek Belka of POLAND! also changes their name to Howard, in keeping with Michael Howard of the UK and John Howard of Australia, thus enabling them to become The Ramones of international politics.

And then we'll all wanna be sedated

Bah-dum KKKSSSSSHHHHH!!

Thank you very much, I'll be here all year.