ICTChris

The Good Shepherd - 7/10 The Godfather of spy films? It's certainly an ambitious film, covering the gestation of the CIA from it's inception in the build up to WW2 until the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. Matt Damon plays an operative who is consumed by his secrets, which leads him to neglect Angelina Jolie, his wife, and his son. Robert de Niro, as well as directing, plays the founding figure of the CIA, who gives Damon's character responsibility for coutner-intelligence. The film covers a wide variety of eras, scenarios etc. We see Damon 'betraying' his tutor while at college, working during WW2 in England, post WW2 in Berlin, in Latin America and in the Carribean. I tought Damon was superb, he came across very well as the all seeing but unfeeling spy. The sacrifices he has made for his profession are hinted at in the love story sideplot (Damon's character has to abandon his first love for Jolie after she falls pregnant to him). Overall, the film is about secrets, truth and the affect that they have on people involved in them on a day-to-day basis. One criticismis that as it covers such a wide variety of characters over a long period of time it's difficult to get any depth, which I think is probably valid, although it depends on personal taste how important you think taht is. It has a fantastic cast - Damon is superb, de Niro plays his small cameo well, William Hurt is good, Alec Baldwin too.

I went to the Fubar once, during my Freshers week. It was a horrible place, full of minks.

Prescription charges - £26.80.

That would be a Daily Record front page. What does 'winched' mean?

I saw John Lambie walking down Falkirk high street with a big bunch of keys pissing himself laughing.

FUCKING MEGABUS website crashed when I was printing out my confirmation numbers I had noted them down, do any Megabus-ers knwo if they accept this? First the fucking Citylink website crashes now the megabus one is pish, they can both f**k OFF.

I just went through the whole booking process for a bus ticket when the fucking site crashed. Nice one citylink. On a lighter note the trainline site offered me a return journey of 11 hours from Inverness-Edinburgh on Sunday night/monday morning

United 93. Not an 'enjoyable' film but very impressive. The tension isbuilt up very well, particularly in the moments leading up to the hijack on the plane. The pieces in the air-traffic control towers really convey the chaos of the day and the panic amongst the controllers. As usual with Greengrass he uses the shaky-camera documentary style to great affect. The actual hijack is well played I think - the violence of the takeover is pretty sickening and the hijackers are shown to be aggressive and brutal. However, he also shows the nervousness, panic and confusion that they must have felt when executing the murders - the pilot in particular seems lost. The storming of the cockpit is well played, a truly heroic act.

What's Left: how the Liberals Lost Their Way by Nick Cohen. Nick Cohen examines the movement of large elements of the left to embrace totalitarianism in the 21st century. It's an interesting book, he covers historical precendents for the left embracing facism talks about the anti-war movement (run by a committee of Communists, Trotskyists and Islamists) and the aftermath of the Iraq War. Basically the chastises a large section of the left for adopting political positions with no thought for the logic of them - the US is evil ergo Osama Bin Laden et al can't be all bad for fighting them. Some of it is very funny, there is a section on the rise of 'theorists' and he is pretty acidic in ridiculing them for impenetrable technocrat gobbledegook, reminded me of a lot of Orwells essays. Other parts of it are pretty depressing really.

Didn't want to start a 'look at the world today thread' but Would the world be that worse a place if these people (the adults) were shot or at least put in jail for ten years?

Just you wait. My final year at Uni I had one lecture a week and that was at 3pm on a Thursday. Since then every job I've had has involved some form of sleep deprivation

These jokes are all shite. Big Mac.

I do not relish reading these puns.

Careful now, you'll end up in jail like that burd off of Hollyoaks, getting chibbed by a lifer on teh nonces wing. Of Chester Jail We all know how you picked up that one RiG

Is someone drooling over you a good thing? Were they literally salivating onto you, UI hope you have cleaned it off. If this was the case, probably best it wasn't RiG as you would have required vaccination against the clap, gout and bird flu.

RiG and SaintSam I wouldn't have thought Perth's premier snob would've gone for a Culloden mink like the RiGger but there you go.

People with beards never really look neat or clean. There is always the suspcion that they live in a nest in a park somewhere and wash in a stream.

Away and c**t yourself fucknut.

People telling me to 'cheer up' or 'smile'. No.

Good advice if it wasn't for the fact that Comrade Wedgie has spent the best part of the last 20 years as a lone voice on the outside. My dad was a union organiser for the NUJ and he said that the journalists never gave anyone any trouble but the printers would go on strike if one of them got a warning for turning up pished.

I am in the process of putting the following albums onto my MP3 player Amy Winehouse, Back to Black Talking Heads, Stop Making Sense Queens of the Stone Age, Songs for the Deaf Manic Street Preachers, Lipstick Traces Anyone got any good sites to download some tunes? I'm looking for X-Press 2, Lazy.

What line of work are you in?

What's that about, might buy it for the new teacher in my life. I am currently reading Unforgivable Blackness, a biography of Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion of the world. I am just over halfway through, the racism of those days (1900s) was unbelievable.

What is this HowardHughes.com? personally I just piss all over my hands, the floor, the toilet seat, the door handle, the sink, the paper towels, the mirrors and anyone else in the toilet with me. best option.

My itinary this weekend: - Tell my boss in the next ten minutes I'm handing my notice in and leaving in a week - Pack away all my possessions into boxes - Get a bus out to Sighthill (tin hat on) and pick up a van - Drive van to flat, load in massive dressing table - Drive van to future mother-in-laws house, unload and put away huge dressing table - Drive van and future mother-in-law to flat, load up boxes - Drive to new flat, unpack boxes, arrnage possessions. I have a sneaky feeling I may be back on teh fags by the end of this weekend, I'll probably be found in the Hibbee bar that is now my local comatose on Sunday morning.