Tamura

Gary Óg and some other Irish rebel acts in Manchester a week on Friday, should be lively.
 

7 hours ago, SuperBacon said:

No disrespect to Halifax, but is this a prestigious venue or something? I'm sure Pixies played there recently, which is great, but I'm sure it was the only other date apart from London, which does seem a bit odd. 

Edit: ignore me, it's upcoming and nowhere near the only other date, and loads of big acts are playing there and it looks gorgeous. 

Viva Halifax!

The venue being called Piece Hall probably confuses people at first, as people are thinking it's going to be your usual type of concert hall not a stunning, outdoor courtyard.



There's a BBC article all about the place coming back from the dead and becoming the place people want to play over Leeds and Manchester (according to the promoters at least). It's only a few miles from where I live, so should they ever book anyone I really want to see I'll be there (I did want to see First Aid Kit there, but I was away in Sweden when they played).

2 hours ago, Keith Houchen said:

I guess if they did just hunker down in someone’s basement and they didn’t acknowledge Hunters at their property it wouldn’t make for a good show!

Contestant Magid Magid said pretty much the same.
 

Jaxon and Nicola were complete idiots at the end though. They were in the helicopter with £100,000 between them, so why encourage Sade to get in so they'd only get £66,666? Jaxon should have jumped out and pinned Sade down until the helicopter took off, trusting that his sister wouldn't screw (pardon the pun) him out of £50,000.

Speaking as someone whose job involves checking dates on fruit and vegetables for out of date produce, I also noticed how little of it is actually produced in the UK. Obviously if we were to send back all this foreign food eroding our national identity.Obviously most people are familiar with the introduction of the potato in the 16th century so we won't go down that well-trodden path. But one common staple of the woman's much missed "meat and two veg" is the humble carrot, which came from Afghanistan. In fact, pretty much every fruit and vegetable sold with "British grown" or similar on the packaging appears to have been imported to the UK at some point in history, I honestly can't find a single indigenous piece of produce, although I'm sure there must be at least one.....

21 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

The two biggest arseholes in the Manchester Mayoral Election (Reform and the independent, utter bellsniff Nick Buckley) both have Reclaim The Streets as part of their pledges. 

I assume that's a law and order thing, and not a resurrection of the 90s/00s street parties?

5 hours ago, Keith Houchen said:

She replied with something about the bible had a bit about puberty blockers but Leviticus made them take it out

That has to be one of the most insane things I've read in a long time, I even had to fact check what she actually said to make sure she wasn't being misquoted. But it turns out to be substantially correct, since she said;
 

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I heard there was a bit in Revelation about puberty blockers but Leviticus made them take it out

The idea that the Levi censored the book of Relevation tends to fall down flat on its face when you consider what's actually left in the various books of the bible (and yes, I'm aware there isn't a single universally accepted version of it, but bear with me here). Over to Richard Dawkins;
 

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The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

But hey, let's leave all that in and make sure we only take out the part about puberty blockers ok? The Book of Leviticus itself is one of the most insane parts of the bible, featuring heavily in the Heretic's Guide to the Bible. Some more liberal-minded people might consider the death penalty for cursing one's mother or father (Leviticus 20:9), sleeping with your neighbour's wife (Leviticus 20:10), or cursing the name of the lord (Leviticus 24:16) to be just a teeny bit excessive, it's no surprise thart I don't remember the Book of Leviticus ever being mentioned during religious eduction at school. But of course the bible isn't meant to be taken literally, say adherents. Of course which particular bits that applies to can be generally taken to mean anything which makes Christianity look ridiculous. 

I'll never understand people like Rowling. Undeniably a creative person. fabulously rich with the freedom to do whatever she wants with her time, and she spends most of it arguing online about transgender people. Utterly baffling.

Wargaming in my (somewhat dated) experience, is an exclusively male club. When I joined the students' union wargaming society at university in 1991, to the best of my recollection there wasn't a single female member. Even play-by-mail, where women might have felt slightly more at ease from the unwanted attentions of men who rarely interacted with women on a regular basis, had relatively few women involved. Excluding the editor of Flagship magazine Carol Mulholland, I can probably count on one hand the number of women involved, or at least ones playing the same games as me. In 1992 there were (at least) three PBM conferences, in Leeds, Sheffield and London (the latter at the York Hall in Bethnall Green, that's how many people were involved), although my memory of events is blurred due to the passage of time and consumption of alcohol, if the number of women present wasn't zero or close to zero it was a significantly long way short of being even remotely close to ~50%. Given that women make up approximately that percentage of the population (and many apologies if that rather unscientific division excludes non-binary people) it's hardly unsurprising that any company should want to attempt to also market their product at the non-male market, without having the perjorative "woke" thrown at them? Was Tomb Raider "woke" in 1996 for having Lara Croft as the protagonist rather than some Indiana Jones-ish male character? It's not a case of "wokeness", but straightforward capitalism. For a variety of reasons far too tangential to this thread to explain in any detail I haven't watched The Appentice for a number of years now, but even I know that a product that potentially excludes ~50% of the population is a Bad Idea™.

Wrestling already was popular. While certain territories were on their way out, in 1983 wrestling was in a pretty healthy state. Mid-Atlantic was doing great, as was Georgia, Florida, Mid-South, Memphis, World Class, the AWA, Portland and numerous others. More people were paying to see pro-wrestling than they are today, and more people were earning a full-time living from it. I recommend reading "The truth about smoke-filled halls" (post just before half-way down) by @JNLister which summarises the state of wrestling before and after McMahon. 

5 minutes ago, Dean Ayass said:

There's also a Russian and a Kazakh in the top division and a Bulgarian and a Georgian recently retired.

The Bulgarian, Aoiyama, isn't retired although I was pretty sure he would. He finished the January basho with a 0–7–8 record after injuring his ACL resulting in him dropping down to the jūryō division. As he's now 37 I figured that would probably be it for him especially if the injury kept him out for any extended period (absence = demotion in the rankings), but he was back in the March basho and ended up with a 7-8 record. I can't imagine him carrying on too much longer though, especially if he drops out of jūryō as that means a significant salary cut and loss of his servants.

Haru (March) basho spoilers.
 

On 2/25/2024 at 11:19 AM, Egg Shen said:

yep, suitably horrible sounding. 

There was a small backlash to Iron Monkey reforming and releasing 9-13 in 2017, I don't know the in's and out's but I think certain ex-members not involved took issues with the other with the band releasing new music and playing under the name Iron Monkey. I can't recall them ever really touring in support of that album either. Dunno if this new stuff will get a similar response?

My band played on Iron Monkey's debut London gig in 1995, and I've never seen a frontman like Johnny Morrow before or since. He was like a tornado destroying everything in his path. I had a quick look online for live videos but can't find anything too early and he's generally confined to the stage on later shows and a bit more sedated. It's difficult to imagine how anyone could possibly measure up to Johnny's standard, especially as Jim is doing guitar and vocals. I know they've played at least one gig since the reunion, from what I remember (can't find the interview now) Jim stopped playing live with Geriatric Unit because he couldn't tour for some medical reason.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68226509

Guinness World Records getting in on the act.

Running off a couple of hundred copies of my 50ish page fanzine on the photocopier at work, without realising there was a built-in counter. In fairness I did supply my own paper, as we didn't use that much and it would have looked mighty suspicious if we'd suddenly used 12 reams in a week. Luckily I was indispensible at that point in time, but the boss did make me use the local print shop for future issues.

16 hours ago, Lorne Malvo said:

I'll just continue getting my own back by taking in tinned fish everyday which they both hate the smell of. 

If you feel like pushing the tinned fish envelope a little bit further, take in some surströmming.

My mum wasn't one of those crazy hoarders with rooms crammed with rubbish from floor to ceiling, but it's fair to say she didn't throw much away. After she died in 2022 I found this when cleaning out her flat, I wouldn't mind so much but she moved in 1992 so somehow it got kept during that move.

Self-assembly furniture instructions. "screw holes and screw with screw and screw"???!?

£6,354 for a table and chairs?! I suppose I should be grateful it's on sale for the "bargain" price of £2,495 instead. 

On 1/18/2024 at 10:11 AM, Egg Shen said:

What's all this about then? @Tamura

 

 

Basically there's amateur sumo worldwide, the main reason being there's no easy way to become a professional sumo wrestler in Japan. I say easy, because it's certainly possible if you have the means and the motivation, but you'll need lots of both. These short (two minutes each) videos give some useful background, apologies for lack of embedding but Youtube doesn't allow them to be for some reason.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZt7WEfbGYs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dicAVdozx70

I'll exclude Mongolia which does seem to have a decent system for feeding people into sumo (hence the high number of Mongols in sumo). But to get into professional sumo you'll need to be under 23, travel to Japan (and I'm guessing you'll need a working visa, which probably isn't easy to get). take part in the application process, be accepted by a stable, do menial chores around the stable while sleeping in a dormitory with the rest of the wrestlers while slowly working your way up the sumo pyramid to hopefully reach the second highest jūryō division. Why the second highest you may well ask? Well, until you reach that division you don't even get a salary only a small allowance. Some current and recently retired gaijin demonstrate the timescale involved, Aoiyama (Bulgaria) took two years from debut to reach jūryō, Kaisei (Brazil) took nearly four years, Tochinoshin (Georgia) took nearly two years. I can point to plenty of Japanese rikishi who've taken even longer than that.

So bearing all that in mind there are probably some decent amateur sumo wrestlers outside of Japan, who simply aren't willing to make the rather extreme sacrifices needed in order to became a professional in Japan. So it might be worth a look.

@JNLister's tweet on the darts was on BBC's Newswatch just now.

One decent thing about my new job is that they are constantly giving away random stock to staff free of charge, so I've managed to accumulate a decent selection of beverages to see me through the silly season. Been madness at work the last couple of nights due to the amounf of stock needing filling, my boss said I'm not supposed to compare customers to a plague of locusts but it's the most appropriate term I can think of.

Serious bargains on fresh vegetables at Tesco. 15p clubcard price for red cabbage, swede, broccoli, 500g bag of brussels sprouts, 500g bag of parsnips 800g bag of carrots, 2kg bag of all-rounder potatoes. And yes I do work there, and have the misfortune to work on fresh fruit and vegetables so I'm currently busier than a one-armed juggler with a sexually transmitted disease.

26 minutes ago, westlondonmist said:

The first job doesn't sound like you're the problem. If a company doesn't care about wellness and continue to put people on temp contracts for 3 years they are pretty shit to work for. I can imagine that being your first new job in a while may damage your confidence. 

At the start of each shift they even had the brass neck to have a five minute reminder about a different aspect of health and safety, when it should be pretty obvious that someone who hasn't slept for three days doing heavy lifting is a danger to themselves and other people. Plus in the week I got sacked they'd just prepared for their peak period of the year by transferring everyone onto alternating shifts of 6am to 1:30pm one week then 1:45pm to 9:15pm the next week, which isn't particularly good for anyone's health. So yeah, I'm pretty happy I did get sacked from there (by text message). However if I hadn't worked there I'd never have got the permanent job with Tesco, as by taking the first job I came off Employment and Support Allowance (where the rules around how much work you can do are really strict) then ended up on Universal Credit (where you are encouraged to work as much as possible) when re-applying for benefits, since it was my willingless to work as much as possible even at short notice that was a key factor in securing me permanent employment.

6 minutes ago, Wretch said:

I take it full time contracts are a thing of the past now though? 

I'm currently contracted for two nights a week, however I've not worked less than four since I started, and have worked six a couple of times. My boss sounded me out a few weeks ago about how many nights I'd be happy to work if I became permanent, I said I'd be happy with anything between two and five. I wanted to be as flexible as possible to improve my chances of being kept on, didn't want to insist on a figure that didn't work for them. I was that happy at being told I was being kept on I didn't think to ask how many days I'll be contracted for going forward, even two nights a week saves me from a starvation diet.

Got let go from my first conventional job in almost twenty years after six weeks for the heinous crime of asking to go home as I had a fever and hadn't slept for three days. Kind of glad it happened as there was no job security there, I was talking to one of the Polish people I worked with and he'd been an agency employee for three years, so subject to dismissal for any reason at any time. Working there did give me an insight into the difficulties I was going to face being in conventional work again, and things I need to keep an eye on in future employment. Speaking of which...

My local Tesco was that desperate for seasonal staff they had a piece of paper in the window saying "Looking for work?", so figured I had nothing to lose by applying. I'm now 2/2 for successful interviews since 2004, I got offered the job on the spot thanks to having some previous experience of retail work when doing my A levels giving me knowledge of stock replenishment, rotation and retail jargon. It's night shift which I don't mind since I'm happier not having to deal with constant customers, and I live less than five minutes walk away so don't have to spent ages travelling to and from work. Been working pretty much non-stop since the start of November hoping to make a good impression, and tonight I was told I'm being kept on as a permanent employee.

23 hours ago, BigJag said:

The latest tournament popped up on my YouTube feed today. It's on the NHK World channel. Not sure who the commentator is but he seems to be very good at explaining the bouts. Very engaging.

@Tamura any chance you could give us an overview of the current state of play in Sumo. It's been ages since I watched it properly. 

Just watched a great match from Day 10. 

There's a few commentators and it tends to vary each day, see here for the team. The only one I don't like is Murray Johnson. He knows his stuff, but once during day 15's live coverage he was talking to a younger Japanese woman and it came across as very mansplaining and strange that a gaijin was explaining to a Japanese native about their national sport.

The current state of play is probably best off described as a state of flux since the retirement of Hakuho in September 2021. Since then there's only been one yokozuna, Terunofuji, but he's been out of action for most of 2023, winning the tournament in May then pulling out after a handful of days in July. For the rest of the year he's been out injured, and the Yokozuna Deliberation Council have requested that he participate in January's tournament, indicating that they may issue a formal notice if he doesn't. This would only be the fourth notice issued since 1950, the previous one being in 2020 when yokozuna Hakuho and Kakuryu were both issued a notice also for their failure to compete. Basically the ticket buying public want to see the yokozuna in the ring competing, not sat out injured.

Below yokozuna you have the ozeki who are a mixed bag. Recent demotions from ozeki are Shodai and Mitakeumi. Shodai and Mitakeumi both looked good prior to their promotion to ozeki  but struggled badly at the rank. Takakeisho has been an ozeki since December 2019, and the best that can be said about him is that's he's consistently inconsistent. Every now and then he'll look dominant and win a tournament (although he recently won a play-off for a championship with a henka, or dodge at the initial charge, which is very much frowned upon when being considered for promotion to yokozuna) and the expectations will be lifted that he'll also win the next tournament and finally secure promotion to yokozuna (for a long time he's been tipped as the next Japanese yokozuna, to stop the Mongolian domination), only for him to struggle badly in the next tournament. Following his three tournament wins as an ozeki, his records in the next tournaments are 2-8-5 (the 5 is days skipped due to injury), 3-4-8 and 9-6. Mongolian ozeki Kirishima (formerly Kiribayama) will enter the January tournament as a yokozuna candidate having won in November, and fellow Mongolian ozeki Hoshoryu (nephew of former yokozuna Asashoryu) has been in consistent (albeit mostly unspectacular) form for the last two years, he hasn't had a losing record in a tournament since November 2021. 

The lower ranks are probably where there's more intrigue right now. Atamifuji is looking like a star in the making. He failed miserably in his top division debut in November 2022 with a 4-11 record, but since being promoted back afer winning the jūryō (second highest) division in July, he's been neck and neck for the chanpionship in the last two tournaments before ending up runner up with an 11-4 record, losing a play-off in September. He'll be ranked higher in January so facing tougher competition each day, so it'll be interesting to see if he's up to the challenge. The one I really had my eye on was Hakuoho, who ented sumo's top division aged 19 after only three tournaments in the lower divisons which was a meteoric rise, so fast he hasn't even had time to grow his hair long enough for the regulation top-knot.



He looked great in his top divison debut in July with an 11-4 record, but has been out since with a shoulder injury and might return in January (obviously in a lower division as absence equals demotion).

27 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

I assume this is some northern thing.