spEak You're bRanes

HYS questions sometimes get phrased in a rather odd way. You get the main question – Should there be an upper limit on pay? in this case – then a series of curiously-bolded subquestions to try and make you really “think” about your answer. Does any job deserve a £1m salary? Do you earn a million pounds or more? The relentlessness of the questions coupled to the utter blandness of the subject makes it a bit like being interrogated by the W.I.

No

Finnish Viewpoint, Helsinki, Finland
Recommended by 50 people

So 50 people agree that either there shouldn’t be limits on pay, or no job deserves a £1m salary, or they don’t earn a million pounds. This is why HYS is so good at capturing the national mindset.

I dont see how anyone on the planet could possible need more than 60k maximum per year.

Valkyrie woody, Burton on Trent, United Kingdom

….you obviously haven’t met my girlfriend yet!

RYAN GRIFFITHS, SOUTHAMPTON, United Kingdom

If you have to pay her that much, technically the word “prostitute” is more accurate than “girlfriend.”

If I take my life savings and open a shop, employing lots of people, paying them wages, paying employer’s national insurance. If that shop buys things, benefiting the supplier, and then sells them and provides great service and I happen to sell a million things at a profit of £1 each, why am I not entitled to the million pounds profit?

I took the risk, I employ people, I provide work to suppliers…and I’ll be paying £400,000 in tax!

Andrew Carter, London, United Kingdom

Yeah, Andrew Carter, why not? You could get off the sofa right now and open that shop. Take your hand out of the bag of cheetos and sell those million things. Stop masturbating to This Morning and provide that great customer service! David Jason and Lynda Baron are just waiting for you to take that risk, you fiscal dynamo!

We normally don’t cover the political blogosphere for the same reason we don’t hang around fish-filled barrels holding shotguns or punch ourselves in the face until our fists bleed, but Alan has found us a gem of a comment from Guido Fawkes (Honestly, don’t even read the article itself, or if you do, don’t discuss it here).

It really is incredible – this evil man is the Devil himself.

Look at the date that Brown became the unelected Prime Minister;

27th June 2007.

The Tewkesbury floods hit a few weeks later in mid July 2007.

I was made redundant for the first time in 30 years in October….2007.

Everywhere,simply everywhere he goes,a trail of utter chaos and ruin
follows him;

Factories close,industries collapse,children’s financial future’s
dissolve,wars happen,economies shredded,bereaved mothers insulted…it
goes on and on and on.

Perhaps he will be available for an updated “The Omen” film?

Gordon Brown – The Omen.

While we’re discussing updated films, I’ll see if I can get Lars von Trier on the blower. We’ve found the perfect lead for a remake of The Idiots.

Occasionally we accuse the Have Your Say mods of not even trying any more, usually when they come up with a topic like “Do you agree with unchecked immigration?” or “Immigration: bad, or really bad?” or “Can you think of any imaginative nicknames for New Labour and/or Gordon Brown?” This time around though, they’ve pulled their fingers out. The question, “Should The Queen’s Speech Be Cancelled?” is at least one degree removed from “Fill the little white box with your impotent whinging” and requires the HYS faithful to exercise at least a little mental effort to turn it round to their favourite subject. It’s like Brain Training, but for people with the brain age of a orange.

I agree with Nick Clegg, Britain is in a hell of a mess what we do not need is more legislation, or new policies, a root and branch search for recovery should come first as Out of all Europe Britain is still in recessionand the Queens speech seems soem what irrelative.

jim evans, brighton

Yep, what government should do is get us out of this recession, but not by passing any of that difficult-to-comprehend legislation or having any of those silly policies or anything. They should think about the problem, like jim evans has.

No the Queen should still make her speech.

She should start it by saying:

“This government has totally failed Britain. I hereby dissolve Parliament until the return of democracy to Britain through proportional representation.”

Indigenous Englishman, Shoeburyness, ENGLAND.

I think she should start it with a joke. It could go, “A Chinaman, an Indian and a Somalian all walk into a bar and my husband enormously offends them all.” Props on your solution for the undemocratic resolution of democracy though.

I would rather listen to a thousand Queen’s speeches than listen to any of our political leaders even once!

Ben, Brighton

That’s our Queen that is, hardest working woman in politics. As well as all the queening, she has to think up all the forthcoming legislation for the entire year and write a speech about it all on her own, with no help from those political leaders. Good on yer, ma’am.

You’re the captain of a Royal Navy tanker. You see a British couple being kidnapped by Somali pirates. You crew isn’t trained for such a situation, and wouldn’t be able to attack anyway without putting the couple in danger. What do you do? According to the comments on this MSN thread, you KILL THEM! KILL THEM ALL!

And, with the same cavalier disregard for relevance as you’d have for the safety of the innocent, you might also sieze the opportunity to do yet another stream-of-consciousness belch about Everything That Is Wrong With This Country, right in the internet’s face. Thanks to Pete.

Like the rest of this country under Gordon Brown the Royal Navy is hide bound by stupid health and safety regulations. Bring back Vian and the cry ‘The Navy’s here’ when they boarded the Altmark in Norwegian waters to rescue the British prisoners held aboard her.
Phil Adwick

Fucking Gordon Brown, can’t stop messing around with the Royal Navy, constantly wandering into their headquarters at three in the morning, naked but for a pair of socks and a floral hat, waving around pieces of paper with yet more stupid health and safety regulations on them, stupid health and safety regulations such as:

• Don’t fire on civilians!
• Try not to endanger the lives of civilians!
• Don’t kill civilians! Especially when trying to rescue them!

Something must be done to halt these blatant acts of piracy. As an ex military man my response would be to destroy every craft on the Somali shoreline and every craft on the South Yemen shoreline if they support these criminals. If that proves insufficient then level Somalia to glass, leave nothing. They think life is cheap….then let us make theirs so.
Lurcher

That dishonourable discharge still rankles, doesn’t it?

Unfortunately the lawyers run the asylum, where people in authority know it is better to play safe than act. Nobody will sack the captain (teacher, policeman, doctor, electrician) for doing nothing. It’s doing something which leaves you vulnerable to the blood sucking lawyers and the judges. Judges who claim their judgements seem ridiculous but ‘their hands are tied’. Kids sue teachers, yobs sue anyone who intervenes, burglars sue the home owner. Captains of Navy ships would rather see an old couple be dragged off by ruthless pirates than risk making a mistake. And I’d have done the same. Britain is in a hell of a mess, getting worse each generation.
wshrtbe

I think washitterbee must keep this comment on a text file somewhere, and just copies it into any thread he/she/it blunders into, with some token reference to the actual topic clumsily stapled to its balls.

But there’s an interesting twist. Check out the admisson that: “I’d have done the same”. I think this basically translates as: “this country is a massive shitbasket of cowardice and opportunism, and I’m as much to blame as anybody. When is someone else going to come and make it better again?”

Well, we were waiting for you to sort it, wooshtibrubber. But you let us down and now we want blood. You might’ve heard a knock at the door just now – that’s the Royal Navy come to blow your face off with a massive battleship on wheels. Apparently you’re exempt under the stupid health and safety regulations.

On ultra-eccentric Haredi Jews’ guidelines for kosher music.

It’s good to know that fundamentalist rock-and-roll alarmism isn’t just an American phenomenon.

Justin Anthony Knapp, Indianapolis, USA

Admit it though Justin. It’s still not as surprising as when you found out about there being other countries.

Once upon a time, there was a group of people determined to control what the people could or could not read, watch and hear. Anything that did not fit with their view of ‘decent’, ‘upstanding’ and ‘respectable’, was banned, leading to large-scale book-burnings. That group of people later went on to ban and burn more than books. “Where they burn books, they will ultimately also burn people.” – Heinrich Heine

Jamie Jones, Linz, Austria

Ooooooh I know this one. Is it the Khmer Rouge?

Incidentally I rang Heinrich Heine up and asked him to write a humorous poem about you. Unfortunately he couldn’t think of anything to rhyme with “verdepperte Geißfut”.

SS isn’t pleased, and gives us a fascinating insight into the mind of the Have Your Sayer, (Well, the Daily Mail equivalent, it could be any idiot comment monkey on the internet). What happens when you’re long-term unemployed, and were the thickest in a thick workplace before that? How can you possibly convince yourself of your superiority to the rest of the pathetic human race? Simple: just take the only thing you’re good at in the whole wide world, and judge everyone else solely against that one yardstick. Please note: this may require extensive scraping in the lower regions of the barrel.

Why do they let these idiots on these programmes and waste our airtime? They should thoroughly test the contestants to make sure they are intelligent enough. Whenever I answer the Mastermind questions at home I always get the vast majority of them correct. The same goes for all the daytime quiz shows.

The standard of education has slipped too far in this country. We have ended up with a low IQ workforce or at least it was 10 years ago when I was made redundant.

- SS, London

Perhaps I was too harsh with SS. He/she does have more than one talent. Inadvertently confessing feckless stupidity to the internet, for one thing. Plus, I’ll wager SS wanks and eats Pringles with more skill and finesse than any of us ill-educated pond-scum could ever conceive.

Thanks to Simon for finding thomas thompson.

To be honest contrary to dis-information by unseen government spectres, most of the energy now being produced by nuclear power stations “provides” secretive underground establishments with their power needs. There is not a single minister with the guts to tell the truth about “the other world beneath”. Of course therefore more power stations would enable cheaper available fuel, for us above ground users!

thomas thompson, heacham, United Kingdom

What I like is that unlike most conspiracy theorists, Thomas is able to see the underground cabal of – well, he doesn’t specify but I suspect as usual in these cases they don’t eat bacon – as a largely positive thing. They’re probably running round the inside of the Hollow Earth making baby-alien hybrids, but if we build them a few more Sizewells petrol might drop by 5p a litre.

I have undergone many cerebral changes throughout my life. changes brought about by witnessing/encountering real phenomena! Close encounters with alien-craft. Observing the awaiting arms of seraphim when I drowned in 1996. There is an almighty being, whom in christian faith is represented by god, in Islam by mohammed. And so on. However I do not believe any faiths should be “interactive” , Individualism cannot be cloned. Iamwhatiam god

thomas thompson, heacham, United Kingdom

Maybe I’m being unfair. Maybe it’s not the shellfish-challenged breeding alienbabies in Shambhala. I mean, apart from completely bollocksing up one of the basic tenets of Islam, he’s a pretty inclusive and knowledgeable guy about religion. Also, I’m not sure what he means by “interactive” faith, but I hope it means Guybrush Threepwood having an insult duel with Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates.

Sometimes it gets hard to laugh at their giddy bumwank. Other times you barely have to try, it’s already pure, understated comedy genius.

What does Armistice Day mean to you?

50 million dead.
Lions led by donkeys.
A lost generation.
Maintenance of the status quo.
Forgotten pensioners.
The loss of innocence.
Drongo Umbongo, in the, Congo

Junkers for goalposts?

The starkest lesson to learn from WWI; the most significant thing we’ve given titled to unite the ‘World’ – mankind – was a WAR! The most horrific & casual loss of life we’ve ever known.

People of all backgrounds jumped to defend a nation & that generation is now passed, not merely in the flesh.

We owe an unimaginable debt for our ‘freedom’ to those who gave their lives for our country.

Thousands of people still jump to the chance to defend our freedom, that should NEVER be forgotten!

Oliver Westall, Somewhere in England, United Kingdom

Jump up, jump up and get down.

I really don’t understand this next post. Alright so the classic moves are all here: one opinion artlessly crowbarred in whatever the debate, a cack-handed role-reversal shot through with enraged white self-pity, a stubbornly aggressive failure to grasp anything about the world in the slightest, and a final lightbulb-over-the-head moment, if Thomas Edison hadn’t bothered with all that glass and filament bollocks and just thumbed a bunch of glow-worms into a fox turd. It’s all there, it’s just, I dunno, this may sound weird, but I think this comment was written by a search-engine.

Funny how it is ‘correct’ to applaud the leader of ‘The African National Congress’ yet if you show any respect for the ‘British National Party’ you risk your reputation, career and social life- everything really.

Does this mean there will be Nick Griffin day in 50 years time?

[DavidCOMMIEron], Chelmsford, United Kingdom

You know what’s even barmier? Become a national treasure, and everyone loves you. Win the Grand National, and suddenly you’re some kind of horse.

I noticed recently that Atom John is back, gamely sharing his bright beige opinions about everything, ever.

There are so many days and weeks dedicated to different people and causes that they have all become meaningless.

Except for Christmas and Easter.
Atom John, Derby, United Kingdom

Just in case it showed up in the Lord’s RSS feed.

I’ve missed John. It’s his kind of idiotic, everynob pronouncements that make HYS entertaining. I always imagine him looking all goggly-eyed and enthusiastically deranged, like this:

Here he is in the Berlin Wall thread, apparently auditioning for a job presenting the next obsequious BBC history documentary.

The Destruction of the Iron Curtain was just another step in Germany’s march to win, by peace, that which it could not win by warfare.
Atom John, Derby, United Kingdom

Nice try, but you’re up against that nauseating, slimy bumgrape Andrew Marr . He’d dress up in a bunny-girl outfit and do a 12 month stint as the House of Commons resident human bidet if he thought it would get him a couple of millimetres closer to the honours list.

Nuclear power?

Um – Where else would our energy come from?

I would prefer that every newborn be given a personal, nuclear-energy-pack which would provide power to heat feed and transport a person for the whole of his life.

The day is coming!
Atom John, Derby, United Kingdom

It’s either that or wireless laser-hats.