mockney piers

"Fascism, dictatorships and corruption emerge ..." Is this the first thread to Godwin itself on the fist post? Good effort. Buuuut for what it's worth, Pasta's cheap and filling and was moer or less my staple as a student (along with booze and drugs) and my first few years in london, not laziness, sheer economics, though I'd always make my own sauces, see p.94 for chopped tomatoes and tuna..... But better pasta than cheap sausages, idaho fried chicken and burgers n'est ce pas?

Ha ha, yes, that's them; we've DEFINATELY been in the same pub at the same time!!!!

Indeed, I'll keep an eye out for you sometime, be good to meet you, by the sounds of things you'd get on like a house on fire with my mates Keith & Matt.

I took it from the Rail Station to the Hotel as I had luggage and an the old man with me (that's not a euphemism btw). They drove the 15 minutes to get to the hotel. On emerging the next day we turned right out the front door, down a narrow street and emerged at Wenceslas(sp) sq, right by the station, cheeky sods. We were later informed that that was pretty commonplace among the Prague taxi fraternity.

What a coincidence keef, I made a whole group of friends there, you'd have thought we'd have bumped into each other at some point?!

Most young professional types aren't really from London, so when they hit their 30s and start sprogging they tend to return to their roots in search of a support network and good schools. I grew up in the purgatory Sean describes (it's actually heavenly until you hit about 16 and become VERY VERY BORED), and I for one would rather die in a coastal bungalow, alone and half eaten by cats by the time I'm found, than ever return to Letchworth.

My main advice is never take a taxi. Foreigners apparently have the word 'mug' etched into our foreheads and they will try and rip you off. Obviously the usual things are well known, Charles Bridge, the Castle, Jewish cemetery, Good King wassisname square, but my best memory was seeing a performance of Mozart's Requiem by the National Radio Philharmonic (or something) at the Rudolfinum Concert Hall, that was really something, so keep an eye out for events like that.

I do use my 50mm 1.4 a great deal, I love it's speed and sharpness and wonderful bokeh. It is however next to useless on our photo pootles, but I'd have to say it gets more use generally than my 18-85. I'm looking at a wide-angle L at the moment as even my 17-85 I spend 90% of my time at more or less full wide angle, so I'd rather have a lens that can actually perform there. I'm looking at the 16-35L 2.8, it's a grand for the new one, but ONLY 650 for the older version :-/

Amen to that.

If I was a gippo I'd probably be most offended by Brad Pitt's accent in Snatch. Mind you if I was a passionate film goer I'd just be offended by Snatch. Kerbala ain't done his mojo no favours has it.

Magnibulous

I can promise you this isn't spam, but amazon are doing Series 1 - 4 for 15 quid each at the moment http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wire-Complete-HBO-Season-1/dp/B0007IK5Z0/ref=xarw?pf_rd_p=205090591&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_i=350613011&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_r=11BNHFF69VT2EPFCW1QB bargain

I don't know what you mean, can you see an edited at, can you? huh? can you?

Watford were supposed to do the same and brought their youth team down after the omari deal, as far as I could tell, though I gather there was some bad blood between the teams at that point. Yeah, turnstiles will be fine, seeing as tickets consist of those raffle ticket things off a roll, I don't think they're even set up for all-ticket. Of course, Pardew used to play for the Hamlets, so maybe that's why he wants to honour the agreement in the right spirit.

OK, so it might not be the ATM. But both myself and my colleague have had cards cloned with withdrawals in Benin (attempted in her case as her bank is on the ball, ?2000 in mine because Halifax are idiots). We thought it must be somewhere in the Warren St area, but this has made me think it might be down there as she's a Barry Roadite. And no, I don't have a car.

It is the first time I've seen such a buzz about it in the press. I did love one quote in the Independent piece. "You either love the wire, or you haven't seen it"

I wouldn't call myself gastrosexual, though I am partial to a bit of cookwank (does that make me gastronanistic?), but to answer the question...finally...I do do about 95% of the cooking, but that's mainly because Mrs Mockers was a disaster in the kitchen. She is growing in confidence though and now has a few dishes under her belt, including a rather mean jungle curry, sauce made from scratch and everything.

Sure thing Brendan. See you there.

Thanks very much Shu, though I am but a grasshopper to Ant's Master Po. It would be great to have you along, we meet once a month *ahem* ish. And fire away regards lenses, am doing some initial research myself at the moment, so many lenses, so blimmin' expensive, so you really do have to think about where those pennies go.

ha ha, "conspicuously flash clothes". What the hell? I remember my mate getting stopped at gun point by armed police, the full hands on head, lie down, guns pointed at him sort. His crime, he'd dampened a passer by with one of these while doing a 'drive-by' at his mate at 2 miles an hour. I dread to think how that story grew in the retelling by witnesses. "..he'd just mowed down an old lady and some schoolchildren crossing the road with his AK47. I think he was on crack you know, if you'd seen his eyes..."

Am on a strict money save and liver clear out now that it is exactly 1 month (to the day) to the wedding. Buuut, as in your in my neck of the woods, it'd be rude not to say hello in either the Canning or Hoopers.

I'd be glad to give it a go D_C. Le Carre is hit and miss for me, well since the end of the cold war at any rate, Smiley books and A Perfect Spy are as good as it gets however. Clancy's been miss and miss for me for a long time, in fact won't go near one of his ever again. I think he's found his niche 'writing' computer game political backdrops which seem to inevitably start with "A Rogue ex-Soviet Republic....blah yadda ping"

Blimey, page 15?! Anyway, reading World War Z that I picked up at Euston on the way to Ireland. Not quite sure why I picked it up, but so glad I did. So far removed from what you might expect about a book covering the apocalyptic events of the zombie Virus and mankind's 10 year struggle for survival. It's presented as a series of interviews by a journalist with surviviors the world over a decade after the end of the zombie war (please don't laugh). It's in turns witty, dark, clever, human and so so insightful regards today's society and just how specialised it is and how unprepared it is to cope with any form of societal collapse. Think of it as a parable regards oil/climate change/the next pandemic if you will. Well worth a read even if you've never read a horror/sci-fi novel in your life.

I shoot with a 30D. Custom user settings are jolly useful. Basically you can set them up by going in and defining each setting for something that you'd find useful. My most common one - user setting 1) is +1 sharpness, +1 saturation, as I tend to tweak them thus in photoshop anyway, as Canon's have a slight tendency to a milkiness that you normally need to tweak out. Other useful settings are the Monochrome ones where you can add filters (red for those B&W day shots with dramatic skies, and green for that infrared filter effect at night or in low light), colour tones (sepia, blue etc) etc Then just go to it in your main menu in the picture styles bit whenever appropriate. How you set them up depends on what you generally shoot. There's a tutorial on the Canon site somewhere about which ones are good to use. I'll have a look for it at some point. And coincidentally I tried my first ever old photo a couple of weeks ago It's a bit sh!t admittedly and need to mess about with the border when I can be arsed, but we all got to start somewhere.

Can you imagine how livid Anderson will be right now. Grinds out his Test record and KP comes in thinking it's a child's tea party. Come on lad, behave like a grown up, just the once!!