Fullerene

What exactly is the point they are trying to make? Suppose the steel did not melt or even weaken. The towers would have continued to burn. Everybody who could not have escaped would still have died. You would have ended up with two burnt out shells that would have to demolished. It would still have been a catastrophe.

So Dumbarton were somehow behind this attack to enable a victory that might not have happened without a suitable distraction. Sounds entirely credible to me.

Stalin was an opportunist who gained more than he could ever have hoped for. Remember he is the guy who refused to believe that Hitler would attack. The Soviets held control over all the countries that they "liberated" including East Germany and North Korea. It took a while for everyone to realise what Soviet Liberation actually meant. A cynic might suggest that D-Day was a plan to liberate France, the low countries and West Germany before the Soviets could. Even more cynically Hiroshima and Nagasaki were intended to get Japan to surrender before the Soviets could liberate it too.

Every Vietnam War film I can think of is about being an American fighting a pointless war in a faraway land. The natives barely come into it. You could replace them with alien space monsters and still have basically the same story.

You say the Russians were a big part of WW2. That can't be. I watched Where Eagles Dare and didn't see any Russians. Same with Kelly's Heroes, the Dirty Dozen, Guns of Navarone and Tobruk. Maybe Bridge over the River Kwai but actually that was the Japanese. Maybe you are thinking of some other world war. Nice statue though.

Nicolae Ceausescu in Romania got his name because his father was blind drunk when he went to register the name and thought he was being asked for his own name. Bizarrely this happened twice, so as well as his father, he had a younger brother with the same name.

Even if Brexit did not get reported at all that would not mean it will be painless.

I agree with you about Johnson. Nothing more than an after-dinner speaker who is there to get a laugh but struggles with anything serious. Brexit might work for the moment but at some point something has to change otherwise what was the point in doing it. If things get worse, people will blame the EU, then blame them some more but eventually they will want someone to fix it. I doubt Johnson will have a clue about that.

I agree with this. Cameron was an idiot and a chancer who was more concerned with his own party that the people he governed over. He was surprised when the normally compliant media were on the other side but also by the lack of effort by the Labour Party. I do blame Corbyn as well. He seemed a nice guy with his heart in the right place and I suspect I would agree with him on a lot of things. Also he seemed a breath of fresh air compared to his bland opponents. However once Corbyn became leader he was constantly seen as weak, inept and wishy-washy. Yes there was a hostile press but even without that he still seemed to dither on everything. What was his stance on the EU? Who knows. Not very keen at the very least. If he did campaign it was barely noticed. A lot of Labour voters were left without direction. Let's give Cameron a kicking. Let's give Clegg another. The council didn't empty my bin last week. The referendum became a beauty contest between Cameron and Johnson and the serious issues were overlooked. After that, any talk of a people's vote was seen as undemocratic. We already had a vote - in 2016. Johnson is now treating that vote as a blank cheque for any form of Brexit that he likes.

In the Western Isles, the first son is named after the father's father and the second after the mother's father. If they are both called Donald then a middle name is useful to tell them apart.

I had that happen to me. Eventually I gave him my business card and asked him to pass it on to someone else. That worked. Similarly if you ask him to write his name down on a piece of paper where you have obviously written your name already. Alternatively you should call him Amundsen - thus continuing the theme of Antarctic explorers.

Obviously it is true. If you drive east of Perth, Australia for two days and then turn right, you will end up the sea.

There are urban myths of Australian road trains where they lock the steering wheel, switch on the cruise control and then take a nap. Not sure if any are true.

Sometimes in America you see one car overtaking another at a painfully slow rate because their cruise control is 1 mph faster.

Pitlochry is twinned with Blair Atholl. Basically they liked the idea of having a twin town but realised the budget for it was a bit small.

Due to a misunderstanding, Brian Blessed auditioned for the part of Hamish Macbeth. It was a very short audition.

Maybe she doesn't like it and is using angry caps lock to consume her rage.

Which came first?

.. or an episode of Doctor Who. "So here we are back on Earth - again. The year is 2020, hardly anybody about and all of them wearing masks. Everybody thought it was some virus - even the governments of all the countries of the world. They had no idea. Actually it's the Daleks. Oh well, never mind. That's why we're here. To rescue Earth - yet again! "

Yup. That's why I refuse to go camping.

It is a question of space. With a front loader, you can have a work top above it.

An average speed of 75 is more serious than an occasional speed of 75. Personally I don't know of anyone who has been caught by average cameras. I don't think they can factor in roadworks but if your average speed exceeds 70 over a section that includes roadworks then you are definitely going too fast.

The credibility of the SNP is based on their strength in the Scottish Parliament.

.. and yet his party had more power and influence than the DUP even with zero MPs.

I agree. Theresa May always looked threatened by the DUP but I don't think Cameron ever felt threatened by Clegg. They just sat there together with big smiles. I am surprised they were not holding hands. It must have been unnerving for their voters who hated the Tories. I doubt those voters will rush back to them any time soon. FPTP has been a disaster for the UK. It makes the Tories look more popular than they really are. It did the same for Tony Blair. I still remember Nigel Evans on breakfast TV in 2017 saying "I don't understand what went wrong. We got 43% of the vote. That should have given us a landslide".