barrymarshall

"Food Solutions Partnership" (caterers)

Brendan - what do BCE and CE stand for? I can't work it out.

"Sleeping Solutions" (beds) http://www.sleepingsolutions.co.uk/ "Currency Solutions" (foreign exchange) www.currencysolutions.co.uk "Vet Solutions: Vet Solutions provide high quality practice management solutions for the Veterinary Profession in the UK

or there is the tautologous "Solutions Recruitment: a leading provider of recruitment solutions" (job agency)

yes, I do read the Eye! I nearly sent one in a while back. I bought some fresh coriander and when I got home I found the company was called Fresh Herb Solutions. http://www.freshherbsolutions.com/index.html

not really euphemisms, but I get annoyed with the proliferation of "solutions" to everything: "digital colour solutions" (photocopiers) "staff refreshment solutions" (water coolers) etc, etc.

Do they still make you pay separately for the chips when you order fish and chips? If so, they should get rid of that. There's having aspirations of being a gastro-pub and then there's just being damned cheeky! Still, was good though

Oooh, oooh, oooh ... Mention must be made of the all-new Battlestar Galactica. It's on Sky One, I think, but it is well worth getting on DVD if you don't have satellite telly.

Citizen - I have neither seen the movie nor read the book. However, on the strength of that clip, I think I shall. Cheers! SMG - nice idea. I love making CDRs.

I recently bought this telly http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sony-KDL-40S3000-Widescreen-Bravia-Freeview/dp/B000OQ9W3Q Absolutely gorgeous and PS3 games look incredible on it. Even regular telly looks stunning. From Amazon it was several hundred quid lower than the RRP.

... and then there's Save the Green Planet ... eek!

Charlie - I like Korean flicks - A Tale of Two Sisters is an entertaining psychological thriller/ghost story. I loved the OldBoy/Mr Vengeance films, but thought the third, Lady Vengeance, was too laboured. Looked beautiful though. If you liked 3-Iron, check out Kim Ki-Duk's Spring Summer Autumn Winter ... and Spring, a tale about a boy as an apprentice Buddhist monk who becomes a man, commits a crime and learns repentance. Lovely photography in it and minimalist performances. Great stuff.

Have been heavily revisiting Led Zeppelin lately - got their latest Best Of, Mothership, the oter day. The remasters have done an excellent job with the sound quality, which makes LZ sound like nothing you have heard before. A bit of a shame on the selection of tracks (I'd have liked Thank You or Gallows Pole on there, for instance) but it's a great reminder of their musicianship and arrangements, but also of how diverse their sound was - swamp blues, folk, heavy metal, funk, reggae (okay, we can forget D'Yer Maker) ...

The Verve and a few others (including indie band Powder - anyone remember them?) at a free festival in Avenham Park, Preston, 1995.

Well, I've had beer for dinner several times this week - if tonight's going to be a big night I need something solid in my belly for once ...

ooh, I've never gone for the refried beans and jacket spud option. Cheese and beans is my perennial choice. I might give it a go though. I once saw something on a show where someone was eating jacket spud and peanut butter - could be amazing but talk about stodge city!

Yes yes, yes ... Coldcut are legends. What about this great slice of neo-Northern Soul mixed up with some fine beats? Coldcut and Lisa Stansfield - People Hold On She's a Lancashire lass, which makes it all the better ... And Jah, yup, love love love that track. >:D< Actually, I've been on a bit of a DnB renaissance lately. In fact, off to The End tonight to rinse it with some old skool dnb tunez http://www.endclub.com/node/5988

Good lord, I dug out that one a while back! It reminds me of raves we had in the woods at university, our very own mini second summer of love in 1998. In terms of eco-dance stuff, you must have heard this Jah: Classic video too.

I don't understand why anyone would want one of these cards. Imagine if it got stolen. You've no Oyster card to get home and you can't buy a regular bus/train ticket because you can't get to a hole in the wall, becuase that's gone too (yes, I know this is a credit card, but regular banks are getting in on it too). I'll just keep to my regular Oyster, thanks, and use cash to buy small items. Are we really so "time-poor" and socially maladjusted that we can't stand to queue for a few mitues and hand over some cash? I don't think it saves time anyway. A case in point is the new Evening (sub)Standard card. I got a card the other day for three free copies of the rag. However, it takes much longer to put the card on the reader and have it authorise the transaction than it does to hand over 50p. Add to that all the trouble of registering your card and topping it up ... I don't know why I'm moaning, I don't have a Barclaycard ... However, my bank, Halifax, is part of this scheme. I shall be watching out for reportedly apparent underhandedness like this.

I entertained that for a while too SMG, but I don't think so. Although Croatia have nothing to play for (well the prestige of coming top of the group) no team goes onto the field without intending to win - except for England, obviously ...

You know when you haven't listened to a band for ages and you forget how good they were/are? I had that with the Beta Band this morning, listening to them on the bus. Here's Assessment, from their final ablum (sniff).

no, PCG, bow down with me before the great Wiki God ... an invaluable "fact-checking" service to lazy journos and debate point-scorers everywhere. ;-)

PGC: Terminology: "Union Flag" or "Union Jack"? The issue of whether to use the term "Union Flag" or "Union Jack" is a matter of some debate. One view is that "Union Jack" should only be used for the flag when it is flown as a jack (a small flag flown at the bow of a ship), but it is not universally accepted that the "Jack" of "Union Jack" is a reference to such a jack flag and is only an educated guess. The Flag Institute, the vexillological organisation for the United Kingdom, stated that the term Union Flag is a "relatively recent idea". It also noted that "From early in its life the Admiralty itself frequently referred to the flag as the Union Jack, whatever its use, and in 1902 an Admiralty Circular announced that Their Lordships had decided that either name could be used officially. Such use was given Parliamentary approval in 1908 when it was stated that "the Union Jack should be regarded as the National flag". ETA: got this from Wikipedia, so I leave it up to you decide on its veracity, and in a wider context, your position in this argument. My own view is that it is perfectly acceptable to call it the Union Jack.

I was listening to the Today programme last week and Giles Brandreth was offering his tuppence-worth about the decision to fly the Union jack/flag (apparently it doesn't matter, in the end, which term you use) from major public buildings. He said, and I agree with him, that it is just un-British to wrap oneself up in the flag. Unlike, say, the French or the Americans, whose states were founded on revolution and nationalism, we Brits have no need to show off the flag and it actually makes us uncomfortable becuase of the use of flgas as symbols of jingoism, war and oppression. It is part of the British political culture that we simply do not need to be reminded that we, er, are in Britain. Unlike those uncouth Yanks of course! Of course, there has long been an element of British society that is racist, jingoistic and oppressive and has wanted to turn the flag into a symbol of white power. I find it odd that now, at the moment in time that British identity is most in crisis, that people have these campaigns to "reclaim the flag". Why?

SMG: I dunno who you'd vote for to change it as it's really the total world system rather than a specific party and its policies (and there's barely any difference between them here). The nation state is largely dead in terms of what it can do to shape the economy, which goes some way I think to explaining why nowadays there is so much waffle about public services or crime or immigants - because these are the only things a government anything about, not that they'd admit that!