spEak You're bRanes

It must be tiring, logging into Have Your Say every day and trying to somehow twist the subject round to war. Imagine that you’re very, very good at fighting and love to chat about it (not that you fight very much, you understand… in fact, you never fight, but I bet you could… well, you could if you met someone reasonably short and unarmed.. who was quite tired… and you were half a mile away with a massive gun). Imagine you know a lot about battles, can name 12 kinds of tanks and have possibly painted upwards of 1,000 miniature soldiers (in the RIGHT colours for the period!). You’re going to want to tell the world a thing or two about warships and armies aren’t you? The last thing you need is another discussion about cervical cancer, A-level results or Susan Boyle isn’t it?

Well it seems that the HYS mods have taken pity on horny young war-lovers everywhere and created a thread where they can get it all off their bravely puffed-out chests. Come on little fellas. It’s your chance to shine.

A massive expansion of our Armed forces, this will create Jobs in high tech industries, with good export potential, bring in conscription for 18 year olds, 1 years service to learn self worth, discipline and a worth while trade, be it Cook, Medical, Electronics etc.
Enough resources to allow us to engage in to Regional Wars plus enough reserves for a 3rd emergency response.
Nuclear Deterrent based on SSN’s firing Cruise Missiles, similar to the converted US Ohio Class (SSGN)
Crusader, London

You had me at “massive expansion”.

1. stop fighting America’s wars, we had no help from THEM during the Falklands conflict, why should we care about their interests.

NOT TRUE: The US supplied us with the newest version of the Sidewinder AAM (AIM-9) that gave us an edge over the Argentinian AIM-7, also an Amphibious Assault Ship was put at our disposal incase one of our Capital ships was sunk or damaged.
Iraq & Afghan are the Western Worlds wars, or do you relish the thought of becoming a Shiara muslim State.
Jake, London

Dammit Jake. I was standing proud for a moment there, surface-to air, nearly ready to fire and then you had to go and bring forruns into it. Fucker. Now I’m looking down, somewhat wistfully, at a launch site suitable for a surface-to-surface attack at best.

The people who say we should never fight abroad are viewing the world through rose-tinted glasses. It is an absolutely excellent policy to fight your wars on someone else’s soil. Waiting until the enemy is coming up the beaches is far far too late! We nearly got caught out that way before. Defence sometimes does mean offence. How many lives would have been saved if Hitler had been stopped sooner? It’s easy to be all touchy feely when your protected, but don’t ignore human reality or history.
[numenius], England, United Kingdom

And let’s not forget the exciting world of espionage. We need to get spies in there stealing their secret chocolate recipes before they steal ours.

‘Scrap Trident.’
Jacques Cartier

Without Trident, our country would have no deterrent against invasion or nuclear annihilation. Scrapping Trident is NOT an option.
Paul

Eggsfuckingxactly. The Channel and the army might be able to save us from frenchy fuckers like Jacques, with his “kissing” and “garlic”, but if Godzilla turns up we’re gonna need nukes.

Thanks to Charys.

My question is a rather simple one, which is what are the first signs of dementia?
Kevin, London

I’m willing to bet that asking Have Your Say for mental health advice is fairly high up the list.

Thanks to Rebecca for finding this Times Online thing about a gun turning up at a college in Kingston.

why does the govt send these people to university they should be conscripted into chain gangs
ptere blake

An excellent suggestion but the government are unlikely to read it as they’re far too busy sending people to university.

Oh dear. And in another part of tol, it says crime has gone down massively!!! Oh no – it’s not a crime yet because a shot hasn’t been fired in this case.
joy B

You’re probably laughing at Joy right now and thinking that she’s very, very stupid indeed. Well, think again. People laughed at Melvyn Bragg when he invented quantum mechanics. Sometimes, things we take for granted and think we understand turn out to be unimaginably strange. All her life Joy has inhabited a strangely counterintuitive world where our everyday, predictable mathematics no longer applies. She can walk into a room with 1,000 people in it and, in a universe-bending twist of statistics, the average IQ will drop from 105 down to 7 or so.

Well done to the Police and the college for handling the incident. Why wasn’t he named and pictured? We don’t want to jump to conclusions as to his race: just give us the facts.
Martin P

Political correctness gone mad! By not publishing a photo of a black man called “Abdullah Tsangarai Mbimkulu”, they’re pretty much FORCING you to jump to racist conclusions all by yourself.

Here you go, I’ve drawn you a picture of a bad man from Africa. You’re not a racist now. The picture of the black man with the gun made you sad. That’s all.

Our old friend BC/CB is back on Twitter again. This is as much as I got before I couldn’t be arsed with him clogging up my feed any more and stopped following him. It’s worth a look though. You see, while his fiction is wide-ranging and his HYS posts are limited to specific topics, on twitter, flickr and his own website, he can really get to grips with his true passion – the environment.

Remember 40 degrees.. That is what the temperature will be when you will start to think …Is there somethind awfully wrong?

I’m not sure I’m warm enough to understand what this means.

You can always keep warm, but it is very difficult to keep cool is it not? Do not think for a minute that i am a doom monger rabbiting on.

It’s very illuminating though. Cuger sounds like how climate change sceptics must imagine the rest of us think. It’s like looking in a pig-headed, gullible mirror that keeps wanting to yell at science.

At this point in my personal crusade, I must confess, I just feel, what the heck, get on with it! If it was not for my children I would…

Just let things exponentially evolve and try and survive when most of the population are dying from heat exhaustion..

Yes it is cold, but. Remember those childhood summers of blue skies, white clouds, the seaside..ect..WELL..Forget them!

Mediterranean summers, Mediterranean fruits growing in our English countryside, vineyards galore… Forget them….

Pestilence, disease, immigrants running from desolate equatorial countries, to descend upon us will be the new Garden of Eden.

Don’t believe me? Happy with your hedonistic little lives? You all have a new beginning awaiting..

See, this is really handy. I reckon if we want to win round the fucknut right to this whole “stop making the world warmer before we break it and die in a stinky frozen-methane fireball” thing, we just need to threaten them with a few boatfuls of Africans. Oh yeah, SYB shout-out coming up!

By the way. Stop slagging off my books! Especially when you have not read them (worst, have not bought one). You sycophantic blog followers!

See you next time!!

Pleasure to know you’re a fan Bruce. I’m guessing you self-googled your way here.

Someone’s dead.

Who?

Dave Perry, Pembroke, where sanity rules in a world that is cross wired

You wouldn’t have heard of him anyway. But maybe if you’re lucky you’ll run into one of the moderators at a bus stop in Pembroke-where-sanity-rules-in-a-world-that-is-cross-wired and they’ll be able to explain it to you.

JD who?

Dick Barton, Somewhere on page 165 just after the debate’s closed. Marxist censorship from the BBC., United Kingdom

Here’s a tip: If your paranoid, whiny, self-obsessed signature is several times longer than anything you have to say, don’t expect the mods will rush to share your brilliantly insightful location with the world every time.

Have Your Say is still sicking up nuggets of braingob on Tesco’s pyjama ban. Thanks, Kirsten!

At last they have made a stand. I haven’t been to Tesco for over 5 years. The last time I went I found it noisy, garish and overlit to the point that it gave me a headache. The last straw came when I found two women arguing, using the “f” word and the “c” word in front of their children, never mind the other customers. As I believe in, and practise, good manners to all, I decamped and went to Waitrose. I always leave Waitrose with a smile on my face and a feeling of wellbeing.
[joy557], devizes, United Kingdom

And fair play to [joy557] for cutting straight through to the shrivelled heart of the matter. This isn’t about pyjamas. It’s not about propriety or decorum or the arbitrary designation of items of clothing as nightwear, not be worn outdoors.

Let’s be honest: nothing could be less conducive to the consumerist experience than the sight of the poor, scattered about the place like human litter, swearing in broad accents. They’ve already got Lidl, Aldi, Poundland and Bargain Booze. Why do they have to invade our shops as well?

Thank God, then, for Waitrose, where the shoppers are appropriately dressed, verbal communication is stilted and unexpressive, and the air is suffused with nitrous oxide.

That’s Waitrose.

Thanks to Schroduck for finding this one and for penning the perfect response to it.

Most recommended comment on the J.D. Salinger RIP thread:

Who cares. He has no importance in my life because I’ve never heard of him. I’m sure I’m not alone on this.
[RockingTheJoint]

[RockingTheJoint] takes empty-box-filling solipsism to new heights here. Not only has he never heard of the guy, nor, by induction, has anyone else in the world.

On the plus side, he’s accidentally just written his obituary.

Thanks to Mankytoes for finding this chap generously sharing his expertise under an article about the REM song “Everybody Hurts”.

As an expert on depression I can assure you that if you are depressed then you want to avoid this song completely. It’s a neat song if you’re in a reflective mood yes, but depression… oh no!
David, London

I’m glad you’ve finally published your research on the BBC site, as it ties in neatly with my own work on this subject (which I published on the back of a pay-and-display parking ticket and then dropped into the canal).

Thanks to Samantha for finding this chap, who seems a little bitter about being dumped. I reckon he should count his blessings. At least he got his winkle wet once or twice. Chances of finding anyone stupid/desperate enough to let him have another go are minimal.

Ha! There’s no such thing as equality in the UK.

Split up from your partner? Got kids? You’re the father? Sorry, you have no rights to see them. You’re the mother? Feel free to use them as a pawn.

Are you an unemployed white British male? Sorry, we can’t help. You’ll have to scrounge the bins to survive. An unemployed ethnic minority immigrant who’s never worked in this country? Here’s a house. Take all these benefits too! Is there anything else you need, Sir?
[FubarBritain]

It’s a disgrace. I was down the pub the other night, right, and I heard about this one chap, from Africa I expect, who had only applied for a library card but the council sent him a set of free ear-muffs, a year’s supply of mango chutney, half-price cinema tickets, a lifetime subscription to Grazia, a voucher for a ride on a tiger, 14 different kinds of shoe, an apache gunship full of organic cider with a personalised number plate, a technicolor dreamcoat, a life peerage, some woolly mittens knitted by Eva fucking Perón, a 3-Megawatt mining laser and docking computer, a fart-grill, three french hens and a FUCKING CLOUD IN A JAR. A REAL LIVE FUCKING FLOATY CLOUD. In a jar.

Something about wearing pyjamas to the shops.

I fully support Tesco’s action. It is high time that all people learned to have and show respect for others and this is just one way to do it. This attitude should prevail in schools, workplaces, actually everywhere and maybe we would then see less ASBOs and cruelty.
Dani Bertschy, Poole, United Kingdom

Yeah, that ought to do it. The crime rate would plummet if everyone took the time to put on a pair of chinos and a smart jacket. I mean, when’s the last time someone well-dressed turned out to be a lying, corrupt, selfish, racist, warmongering, mass-murdering, money-grubbing, right honourable, power-crazed fuck?

I used to live in the Dunfermline area and had cause to speak to the management of Asda.
It was a warm summers day and a man came into the store to buy items for a barbeque, he was only wearing a pair of shorts, no shoes, no top. He was a very hairy and heavy chap and was leaning over open produce counters, I found this to be completely inappropriate. I am not a prude in any sense of the word but his state of undress was suitable for the back garden or the beach NOT A FOOD HALL
Anne-Marie, Stirling

I looked up “prude” in a few online dictionaries for you and found definitions as diverse as:

• a person excessively concerned about propriety and decorum
• a person who is easily shocked by rude things, especially those of a sexual type
• someone who is overly concerned with modest or proper conduct, speech, dress, or the like

… are you absolutely, completely, 100% positive you didn’t mean “prune”?