Jamal

Me too.

I don’t know what Faceapp is. Are you saying that what appears to be a photo of a girl, posted above, is actually some kind of AI rendering of you, as...

There are a couple of sections in the book that I did find a bit tedious, but on the whole I thought it was intelligent, insightful, inventive, and, m...

:cool: I know you have a cherished dislike of emojis, so I’ll translate: cool.

Don't do it.

I'd rather see unpleasant and dehumanizing poetry that taps into the unspeakable in a light and lively manner, than pictures of teeth in feet and what...

Yeh, I forgot you already responded to that post.

Yep, I like that kind of thing. I loved it, but I gather that several other intelligent readers do indeed find it tedious and obvious. EDIT: Incidenta...

Current Jorge Luis Borges, Fictions :up: :sparkle: Recent Italo Calvino, If on a Winter's Night a Traveller :up: :sparkle: Christopher Priest, The Dre...

This hits hard for me. It encapsulates my own mixed feelings about autumn. The third stanza expresses the feeling that it's now too late for projects,...

Talking of poems about poems--and apologies to Moliere if this is off-topic--I recently read the "The Thought Fox" by Ted Hughes. It's a poem about wr...

That's a rich seam of computer research. Did it work?

Moral vs. aesthetic assessments. I'm on the fence on this one.

Well said, Billy Collins. This reminds me of the character Lotaria in Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler. Lotaria is an academic who reads bo...

Nice metapoetry. Favourite line:

Yeh, not all writers of novels and short stories write poetry too. Maybe many of the best ones do, but I’m guessing many other greats didn’t. Interest...

I like writing prose, but I'm not interested in writing poems. When I read a good piece of prose fiction I feel inspired to create, because I feel I h...

Unable because I'm no poet, and unwilling because... well, maybe you could first answer why I'd want to do such a thing.

Probably unable, certainly unwilling. Why do you ask? There are such things as narrative poems, poems that tell a story. Maybe the nearest I've come t...

Marks & Spencer and Burton, the go-to clothing emporiums of my youth, were also founded by Polish and Lithuanian Jews who found fame and success in Le...

My brother got one of those DNA tests, and he reasonably claimed that whatever was found in his DNA would apply to me too. We had recently discovered ...

Thanks, and I was joking about the Castilians. Perhaps there are some other groups we can insult and offend instead.

It is not a fact. Please just consult some credible sources on the subject. It's a cultural phenomenon that goes back a long way. I do not feel "perso...

Thanks. It may be the case that you’re not personally antisemitic, but the idea that Jews control the banking system and the world is indeed part of a...

Personally I blame the Castilians.

Are you spreading antisemitic conspiracy theories javi?

Yes, I'm more aware of that history now than I was at the time I first watched the film, when my main reference point for Jewish American culture was ...

Yes, I still have that music playing in my head sometimes.

So what you're saying is, Frank and I are both right? I'll settle for that.

I appreciate the pace and the performances of Godfathers one and two, but I find them claustrophobic and unpleasant. I like Goodfellas more. The gangs...

My guess is that this is simplistic and romantic, perhaps even complete bollocks. My sketchy understanding is that the mafia primarily exploited, inti...

My father is in his seventies and seems more anxious and bothered than ever.

Haud yer wheesht bawbag

I beg to differ. Sake is nothing like those spirits. It's brewed rather than distilled, it has a much lower alcohol content, and it doesn't taste like...

Thanks, I did think there would be a word for it.

I think arborio is quite commonly used as a substitute. For a couple of years I lived in the Valencian region, where paella originates and where they ...

This is why I start drinking in the morning. I can finish drinking by evening, get a good night’s sleep, and wake up early the next morning refreshed ...

:cool:

Anyway, the Shoutbox has gotten too serious. I primarily blame universeness and Clarky, but I’ll take a small portion of the blame too.

Yes, for Catalonia, the fact that it has a distinct language is certainly relevant to the independence debate. What I said was that whether or not it’...

Gaelic’s relationship with English is completely irrelevant, and the fact that Catalan is a Latin language along with Spanish is also irrelevant to th...

Roughly 0.5% of Scottish people speak Gaelic.

Either they have succeeded in winding you up, or you're taking part in idiotic debates. Either way, saying "for God's sake" is not a problem.

I was indeed referring to the Darian scheme but I didn't know much about it.

That's silly.

Agreed. I always say "oh my jesus christ" or "shite-fucker".

I don't much disagree with anything you say, although I'm somewhat less in favour of independence than you. I didn't know much about the Darian scheme...

Yes. Scotland for a long time was a Labour Party stronghold and more left-wing than England on average. These days, I think the Tories have made a com...

I think BC was winding you up. At least I hope so. He has some outrageous opinions but that’s going too far.

What if you now live in the house that grandpa Hanover bought with his ill-gotten gains?