Fog Dude

Gorgeous George is only on 0-2% in the London polls I'm afraid, Butch. His second preferences will probably flow to Khan, who is certainly preferable to Goldsmith and likely to win.

My better half is planning to vote Plaid twice in North Wales as well, despite my pleas to use the list vote for the Greens. A second preference for the independent Police Commissioner candidate would be wise, since you can't (validly) vote twice for the same party in that election.

Bristol might have to vote for an 'Avon' 'metro mayor' between now and 2019, Lister. The Man in the Red Trousers caused a nice upset last time, but I hope Rees is able to topple him this year. Turnout will be much higher in the city proper than in the rest of the policing area, so my Green vote will count for a lot and could help the candidate get his £5,000 deposit back with 5% of the vote. I'll probably chuck the Lib Dems my second preference out of sympathy. We have no councillors to vote for here this year, but make up for it with the County Council next year and district and parish on the same day as the Euros in 2019.

Labour will also easily hold the mayoralty in Liverpool and Salford. Scotland will re-elect the SNP, almost certainly with another overall majority. There are only about a dozen constituencies where they realistically might not win. Don't forget that Northern Ireland is voting on Thursday too, although there'll still be a 'cross-community' government there for the next 5 years, no matter what the outcome.

Worrying news ahead of the budget as regards the education system.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-35814215

The first line of that article explains that this applies to England only... but yeah, taking schools out of local council control is further proof that the Tories don't have a democratic bone in their body. 

Colchester and Harwich are more like East Anglia, aren't they?

Odd that the second search result for 'Tories' highlights the part of the article's text that refers to a Canadian context. If you sign out, does it assume you're looking mainly for North American sites?

Thank goodness for that. Looked for the old Facebook page from when we had downtime circa 2008, but it's clearly not there anymore. Eventually resorted to Otter a couple of days ago, but only 2 or 3 people had bumped a thread there. Would certainly not have thought to check Reddit or the .tk domain. 

What did Gabriele Marcotti do wrong? He's a lovely fella that enjoys his wrestling.

In the past 10 months, nothing. But during his time on the Sunday phone-in on Radio 5 he was content to make himself sound cleverer than he is by debating what is, essentially, a simple game alongside complete morons such as DJ Spoony and Steve Claridge.

Just looking at some of the nearlytwats makes me wonder how they slipped my mind. Being without a TV for much of the last 18 months, including the last 7 weeks abroad so no iPlayer or 4oD either, hasn't helped. Plus there's the whole not being angry with life in general at the moment thing.

I think Marcotti was quite a way up my list as well, but he probably shouldn't have been there at all. I even admitted at the end of my rant that I agree with him sometimes. Plus I'd forgotten he was a wrestling fan, although that in itself doesn't preclude twattishness.

THE CABINET RICH LIST

 

15. Oliver Letwin

We have yet another WW2-based drama to look forward to and another Brit fail in Space... There was talk of less old baddies so Cyberleks are turning up yet again is a massive dissapointment as is the re reusing of other baddies created since Tennant.

AFAIK there were only 2 previous stories set during WW2: 1989's 'The Curse of Fenric' and the following season's (albeit 15 and a half years later) 'The Empty Child'. So it's hardly overkill in Doctor Who, but if you mean drama in general uses that time as a setting an awful lot, it might be because there's stacks of material there.

As for last night's episode, I basically agree with what everyone else said so far - a solid start for young Matthew, story was nothing special but saved by a few funny lines and the new assistant is gorgeous. The episode and the trailer were both good for spotting the guest stars at least. To think celebrity stunt casting was something the old series was criticised for near the end!

The only real downer was the new version of the theme tune, but it might yet grow on me.

Independence will happen within the next 5-10 years. The next general election followed by the next Scottish election will prove that. No matter the outcome of the general election, it's going to cause a shitstorm in (or for) Scotland. If Labour wins, it will be by a slim margin. Some polls even suggest a minority government. How are the English voters (the majority of whom will have voted Tory) going to feel about Labour whips getting Scottish MPs to force through legislation that only affects England? It happens already to some extent, but the problem will become more obvious and raise more ire if the Labour majority is wafer-thin. If that happens, English people will start to demand independence. On the other hand, if the Tories win, you could well have a party without a single Scottish MP setting policy and enacting legislation that affects Scotland. It's what happened under Thatcher and Scots hated it, as a rule. At that time though, the SNP was not a serious electoral force. Now it's shown it can operate as a party of government, whether you think they're a good government or not. Thus, at the next election, more people will vote SNP because they'll see that voting Labour is no good, since the Tories run Westminster anyway and voting Liberal is already a wasted vote, since all you're doing with a Liberal vote in the Scottish elections is voting for another Labour government. It's going to happen. Just you wait.

In 1979, Thatcher won 24 of 70-odd Scottish seats out of 277 total Tory constituencies. By 1983 this was down to 17 from 339 Conservatives across Britain, and in 1987 there were just 8 Scottish Tories out of a UK-wide 376. In 1979 Scotland didn't vote that differently from everyone else, except that the Labour vote held up a bit better and the SNP were a factor. Thereafter, while there was a divergence between English and Scottish voting habits over the period when Mrs T was in power, it isn't as clear cut as you make it. The Tories were still winning in places they couldn't dream of having a hope in now, as in Wales (ignoring the freak Euro elections result) and many English major cities. However you were right that the situation since devolution is virtually incomparable.

FF7, yawn. Not in my 15, but seeing it only just sneak the top 10 isn't too bad. A good story and amazing graphics for the time, but so very, very long. As far as turn-based RPGs go, I prefer Suikoden.

Didn't go for Tetris either in the end, but there's no denying its addictive simplicity and greatness. A pleasant surprise to find it this high. UKFFers may be more discerning than we give ourselves credit for.

Sonic 2 almost certainly the highest-charting Sonic game after all, get in! The split-screen 2-player mode slipped my mind completely, but it just adds to the perfection.

MGS spawned a generation who probably don't realise there was an original Metal Gear game before it. My ex-stepbrother swears by the sequels, and although they might look and play better objectively, for me they get too bogged down in story rather than action as Kojima became far too fond of cutscenes. Again not one of my 15, but the original rightly got the nod from enough of the rest of you based on memories and how it took the series forward. That Psycho Mantis battle is epic, particularly in the opening convo when he reads your memory card and mentions any other Konami games on there. Eerie the first time round. Stealth~.

No Mercy, predictable but bland. Just a standard update of WWF Wrestlemania 2000, which really wasn't all that. Didn't have as much fun with it as with later PS2 editions, but if so many other people's experiences differed, fair enough.

As for the top 5, I still think Vice City will be in there somewhere, but I'm getting slightly worried by the lack of any Mega Man so far. Oh yeah and as mentioned above, GoldenEye should be there too.

First I regretted not going for S3&K because I didn't know if it would count as one game, then I saw Sonic 1 was higher and despaired. No accounting for taste. The second screenshot is from the vastly... heck, infinitely superior Sonic 2 anyway.

 

I'm pretty certain it's not. That baddie type didn't appear in Sonic 2. (The one where Knuckles is on screen on his own yeah?)

Wait, you thought I was calling Sonic 2 infinitely superior to S3&K?!? You must think I'm mad. Sorry if I wasn't clear, but as someone else pointed out since, the end-of-Act screenshot clearly reeks of a Hill of the more specific Emerald kind, rather than the broader Green.

I also take issue with the idea that Sonic 3's soundtrack wasn't up to scratch. The boss music wasn't as epic as 2's and yeah, no single level was audibly quite up to some of the stuff from the first 2 games, but it was still more than all right. Flying Battery Zone still sounds awesome.

 

Mega Drive went through a strange period here that it never recovered from; cart sizes increased but music playback quality decreased, and I never figured out why. The most striking example of this was Streets of Rage 2 to 3 I think.

Fair point. I'll concede Sonic 1's soundtrack may have been better, but only because of an inexplicable overall decline in music quality throughout the Mega Drive's life. It was still blown out of the water and rendered virtually unplayable by its sequel in November 1992.

Since there's also a discussion on the Sonic 2 ending, search for the 3D version on YouTube if you haven't seen it yet.

Mario 4, lulz.

 

Why the lulz?

I don't think I've heard SMW world referred to as Mario 4 or SMB4 for about 15 years, and I'd never read it as 'Mario IV' (with the Roman numeral) until now. It just seems strange these days. I mean, you wouldn't dream of referring to SMG2 as Mario 9, would you?

Anyway, of the most recent ten entries, there's only one I've never been into, and unsurprisingly it's also the most recent. I can still see why some people like Fallout 3 though, it was a lot of games journalists' favourite of last year and my cousin couldn't stop playing it last Christmas.

About time we got a management sim on here. It was always going to be CM or FM, and even though I couldn't narrow it down to one particular year, reading the entry it looks like 01/02 was the season to go for. Not so sold on Here Comes the Pain as the pinnacle of the WWE-licensed games though, as great as the create a character mode was, but maybe another one has managed to make it into the top 10.

Looking at the SF2 screenshots, it made me regret going for a later iteration since I forgot all about the bonus games from the earlier ones. They were still in Turbo though, weren't they? I should probably have picked that, for the change colours and ability to play as the bosses. SF2 deserves its place anyway for how revolutionary it was, and as is often forgotten, for being a huge step up on its predecessor.

On the RPG front, delighted to see the original Broken Sword in there and to find Zelda 3 above Ocarina of Shite. When your biggest criticism of the point-and-click classic is the box art, there can't be too bad a game in there. Might have to check out that obscure recommendation in Black2's write-up, mind.

I wouldn't rank San Andreas higher than GTA 3 or 4. The cities are fine, but the wilderness is boring and the only way to get around it quickly is via a plane that's impossible to control, with obstacles that don't appear in the distance rapidly enough to give you a fair chance to react. With any luck Vice City's made the top 10.

SMW stands up better than SM64 so it makes sense for it to be marginally more favoured, but like some of you, I don't know what they're doing so much higher than SMB3 either.

I didn't see the original Halo coming, but I guess 2 will also appear now.

why?

 

it was the worst in the series, from both a multiplayer and single player POV.

Well a lot of others seem to have backed up that opinion, so fair enough, and until Black2's metacritic link, I'd never sought evidence (statistical or anecdotal) either way of which Halo game was most popular. I just remember a few years back some mates at college and my sister's then-boyfriend both raving about it, but unlike the DKC trilogy I'm not gonna claim to know all about it, so I can accept that Halo 2 was worse than the others.

There seems to be a pattern emerging of entries falling into three reactions from me: 'right series, wrong game', 'soccer overkill, yet still no management sims?!?' and 'huh?'. Only Elder Scrolls caused the last response out of the latest ten - nothing against it, just had no idea it was so popular - but even so it's a surprising order.

First I regretted not going for S3&K because I didn't know if it would count as one game, then I saw Sonic 1 was higher and despaired. No accounting for taste. The second screenshot is from the vastly... heck, infinitely superior Sonic 2 anyway. I also take issue with the idea that Sonic 3's soundtrack wasn't up to scratch. The boss music wasn't as epic as 2's and yeah, no single level was audibly quite up to some of the stuff from the first 2 games, but it was still more than all right. Flying Battery Zone still sounds awesome.

I marked out a little to see a quote from Mean Machines.

I did the same for the Amiga World quote.

Anyway, those ten were a real mixed bag, SMB3 clearly being the highlight, it being probably my second favourite of the core Mario games. Sadly I don't think the one I went for will be more popular. Monkey Island is also more than deserving of its place. It's not the humorous point-and-click I went for, but I'm a big fan of the series, so I hope to see more of them higher up.

I expect Resi 1 and 4 are still to come, and I didn't see the original Halo coming, but I guess 2 will also appear now. Suppose I shouldn't be too shocked by WoW either, but it never crossed my mind when compiling my list. So, apart from that, another footie sim gets in, plus a few more games I'm sure are all right but I've never been too bothered about. Pretty much only the presence of a Guitar Hero game in there is even remotely objectionable. Never got the appeal of that genre at all.

Pleased to see the DKC and SF entries, I picked other games from those series but it was a close-run thing. I acknowledged in my submission that it seemed to be the consensus that DKC2 was the best of the bunch, even though I don't agree, but it's still an awesome game and I can't argue with it being on the list. And we might yet see an earlier SF game appear even higher!

Not surprised to see the macho shooter games on here, but glad they aren't higher. Have a feeling Halo 3's predecessor is still to come though. Didn't realise Harvest Moon had quite such a following here though, never got the appeal of that one.

I almost can't believe I didn't nominate any footie or wrestling games, but the more I thought about it, the less I could justify putting any single one into my top 15. Never played that WCW game. However, checking my shelves, I see I have ISS 98 on the N64 (despite no longer having the console to play it on) which is apparently not the same as ISS 64, so Black2 might have been right the first time and want to re-correct it, unless the PS1 ISS 98 was still very different, but it doesn't look like it from the screenshot.

Happy to see Lemmings in there even though I didn't go for it, fond memories of that one too.

EDIT: Wikipedia says the PS1 and N64 version of ISS 98 were probably different enough to be counted as separate games, but it is true that ISS 64 was a different, earlier, Nintendo-exclusive game.

Cade & Dropki... I mean Jindrak.

Nathan Jones for me too.

WWE SummerSlam

Los Guerreros, with Eddie & Tajiri close behind.

WWE Backlash by far (the all-time nadir of interest in a pay-per-view), though it sounds as if Armageddon may well have been worse, but like many on here I haven't seen it. Don't know what everyone's problem is with Judgment Day and Bad Blood though - i thought there were both quite good.

Chris Jericho

The whole extended Vince & Sable/Steph & Linda fued. The saviour of the Vince & Piper/Mr. America & Gowan angle has to be the shameless Simpsons rip-off lie detector segment.

The heel turn of Jonathan Coachman! So it's led to some terrible matches, but at least it was funny seeing JR attempt the Stunner. Wasn't it? And it's surely better now that we're actually supposed to hate the Coach.

I seem to remember Maven vs. Rosey (while he was still a heel) from early in the year being pretty awful. Rikishi vs. Piper, however, takes it because it had a non-finish and dispels the myth that SmackDown! is the superior show for wrestling. Also Maven and Rosey are up-and-coming stars and will get better, whereas those two fat oldies were never really very good. Plus this has been mentioned already - thanks mickfan for reminding me.

HBK vs. Y2J @ WMXIX - amazingly, could've been even better and Jericho should've won, rematch was great too.

Haven't seen much FWA, but from what I have managed to watch I think Burchill definitely deserves to win this.From WWE, Spanky was the best of the 2003 d

The ring collapse just pipped by... Coach's heel turn at SummerSlam!!