iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Exactly! AP Herbert wrote much (and very funnily) on this, and was also a great campaigner for divorce reform

NARRATOR: he did not in fact give the peasant most of the other material things he wanted either

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The fall of the USSR, like the fall of the Romanovs, can much more easily be traced to a decision to suppress alcohol. I can recommend, well, any history of the period, and Mazower "Vodka Politics" for a general overview

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Time to pull out the forty-five minute one on Brotherly Love

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Oh, and also a divorce required exactly one of you to be adulterous. If you were both cheating, you had to stay together.

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Spodomancy @spodomancy.bsky.social · 3h

I always say a police department is like a box of chocolates. Whichever one you pick will kill your dog.

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Fortunately they generally didn't call the fake mistress as a witness, because while a judge might forget having seen the same maid in two or three different cases, he would definitely remember seeing the young Elsa Lanchester

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Spodomancy @spodomancy.bsky.social · 3h

This was common! But you had to be careful not to use the same hotel (and indeed maid) too often or the judge might get suspicious and refuse to grant a divorce on grounds of collusion.

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Spodomancy @spodomancy.bsky.social · 3h

That's the one. Industrious and clever is perfect for staff officers. Use can be made of the stupid and lazy. Intelligent and lazy is ideal for high command because they won't try to overcomplicate things. But the stupid and industrious must be removed immediately, as they are dangerous.

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Spodomancy @spodomancy.bsky.social · 12h

Ah yes, whisky, that famous London-based industry.

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Spodomancy @spodomancy.bsky.social · 12h

This is lifted more or less from Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord, who is not, despite the name, a Warhammer character but a real general

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Spodomancy @spodomancy.bsky.social · 12h

Turns out the Zulu culling song is actually a Gregorian chant

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Spodomancy @spodomancy.bsky.social · 13h

I think actually "Earnest" is the only thing stopping Oscar Wilde going the same way.

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Spodomancy @spodomancy.bsky.social · 13h

Not enough pockets though. Post independence the Malaysians tried to make the bush jacket their equivalent of the suit and that seems like a good idea for warm climates

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Spodomancy @spodomancy.bsky.social · 13h

The ambiguity is unintended but definitely the funniest bit. Holy shit, that nun told Katy Perry to stop and then KATY PERRY'S HEART JUST STOPPED. "Now, Sister Yagami, this isn't the first time this has happened, is it?

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The only time I ever got approached by LDS they said "we're from the Church of Latter Day Saints, have you heard of us" and my sincere response was "oh, like in A Study In Scarlet?" and they just walked off

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Modern Britain's strengths, as a country, are things you learn in primary school. The creative sector (singing and telling stories). Sports, at least economically. The military (kids are always scrapping). And, as we've just seen, toys and board games. Oh, and F1 (kids love drawing cool cars).

I preferred the sequel "The Cook, The Thief, The Other Cook, The First Cook's Wife, The First Cook's Second Wife, The Second Cook's Wife's Lover, The First Cook's Second Wife's First Lover, And Another Thief"

Parallelism is a very good trope and they should have just stuck with it rather than going for that weird pparenthetical clause.

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Spodomancy @spodomancy.bsky.social · 15h

Fair point though I think that putting on blackface to play a white character in blackface (which is what they did) is a bit different

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It's funny, but not in any sense well-written. Too long and the syntax is weird.

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Little Britain and Catherine Tate were about mocking your inferiors, and so weren't really funny. Mitchell and Webb were mocking... people who were, you felt, probably quite like Mitchell and Webb. Hence why they never had to put on face paint or a different accent for a skit.

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Because the Oran massacre was committed by FLN and local civilians against settlers, not by French army or police. So that disproves your argument.

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So some of them at least left in reaction to the Oran massacre?

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Yes. That is all that I said. So the answer to your question "Are you saying that they were in fact expelled" is.... no. That is not what I am saying. You missed it first time round so I suggested you read it again. Glad you got it on your second pass.

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There is a long tradition of Small Hot-Tempered Proud Heavily-Armed Guys in western literature that includes Reepicheep, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, Gimli, Rocket Raccoon and no doubt many others

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A few of them mentioned the Oran massacre - that probably had something to do with their decision to leave, don't you think?

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"Are you saying that they were in fact expelled" no, read again

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Yeah, i have some bad news on the current political status of the far right in the country that actually invented the gulag

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"The left have historically supported the Catholic cause" the people whom the term "the left" was originally invented to describe might not agree with that take

There is no "if" here - Biopreparat started up in 1974 and Y.pestis was one of the pathogens it tried to weaponise. They've been trying to weaponise plague for half a century now.

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You could, in very broad terms, say that Britain fought two major wars in the decade before the US Civil War. The Crimea, run by the landed nobility, and the Mutiny, run by professionals. It won both, but there's a reason that the Mutiny generals are in Trafalgar Square and the Crimean ones aren't.

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The Dmitry Donskoy Servo-Skull.

ET. The alien, specifically. Horrible little deformed dwarf thing that hides in your bedroom cupboard. I was rooting for the nice men in apacesuits to come and take it away.

This would be funny if it was more true, but at present it really isn't. "European countries with far right parties in government is basically Russia, Belarus, Italy". That's it. Not Germany. Not Hungary any more. Not France or Spain or NL or the UK or Ireland or Sweden. Meanwhile in the US...

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There is another word which also means "personal assistant or advisor" with the same implication of confidentiality - "silentiary". Sadly it isn't much used now, because it would be a great job title.

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They arent *exactly* like Nazis because they are not trying to claim East Prussia back (for very obvious reasons)

What you *could* have said was "PPP is the correct measure *for military contexts* because it takes into account that Russia is a poor, low wage country, which means it can buy more soldiers per $m than the UK can". That would at least have been arguable. What you said was just wrong and stupid.

Can - but, in this case, haven't. USD/RUB is about 83 right now. When the war started it was 77. ...what, did you think i wouldn't check?

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Partly I think for practical reasons - it allows them to have cars, planes etc, and the copious spare time neededto get into adventures.

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You could have a chapter on the things that are only remembered through their much more popular parodies. Cold Comfort Farm and the Rural Misery genre. Alice and all the Victorian children's rhymes it parodies. Flashman and Tom Brown's Schooldays.

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Yes you can! Russia is under (some targeted and inadequately enforced) sanctions, it isn't cut off from the world economy. It is still hugely reliant on commodity exports. Its imports run to hundreds of billions of dollars a year.

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He called one of his sons Sixtus after the 16th century pope, which if you're a British Catholic is kind of like being a Muslim guy who calls his son Osama

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