Classic Film Quotes

A List of the top 10 movie lines has been published recently. Here are some more.

" I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
- Aliens.

"I got a bad feeling about this"
- Star Wars (various episodes)

" You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!"
- The Italian Job (original)

"Listen, you fucking fringe, if I throw a dog a bone, I don't want to know if it tastes good or not. You stop me again whilst I'm walking, and I'll cut your fucking Jacobs off. "
- Snatch

Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has recieved a standing ovation from the US Houses of Congress during his official visit to the US. It is hard to believe a French Prsident could be so walmly recieved after the cool relationship betwen the US and France in recent years.

It's not so long ago that the French were being rediculed as Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys in the US press and even in an episode of the Simposons. France, along with Germany and Belgium were also decsribed as the 'Axis of Weasles' for thier lack of support for the Iraq War. Fance also has been in the top 3 list of Most Weasliest Nations' on the Dilbert Site for many years, beating the likes of Iran and North Korea. Finnally who could forget the campaign to rename French Fries to Freedom Fries.

But not now, Sarkozy has put on a charm offensive of stunning magnitude and said all the things Americans want to here from a European head of state (Thanks for saving us from the Nazis; Yes we will support you in Iraq and Afganistan; No we won't stand by and let Iran develop Nuclear Weapons). The fact that France has a permanent seat on the UN Security Council will also help.

So now the American people will be free to embrace all things French again without feeling like traitors.

Vive La France!

Pakistan President Getting More Desperate

The situation in Pakistan is getting worse as General Musharraf has declared a state of emergency and is now rounding up opposition supporters of Benazir Bhutto.

The West has always turned a blind eye to Musharraf's not-so-democratic behaviour in the past as he has been such a keen ally in the War on Terror. However, now we are starting to see a desperate man using his position as head of the military and head of state to take unconstitutional action to secure his position in the face of popular resistance.

The danger is that a power struggle at the top of Pakistan's political system will give the militants breathing room to and spread further instability in the country. We can't afford to let Pakistan descend into chaos. This will give the likes of Al-Queda a haven to grow, just as they did in Afganistan.

Stability in Pakistan is good for all of us in the long run.

Don't Be Surprised When People Want Things For Free

Is it really a big surprise that so few people have been willing to pay for Radiohead's new album after they were invited to download it from their website and pay only as much as they felt appropriate.

When this was announced the Thom Yorke said something trite about trusting to the honesty of the public and proving the cynical record industry wrong.

Well that is a fine and noble idea but the fact that 62% of people have not paid anything and the rest have paid an average of 38Kronor says something else. The whole reason that people pirate music and films is because it is free and people like getting things for free or at least as cheap as possible. You only have to look at the scandal in the Swedish Moderata Party over ministers buying services without paying taxes to see this.

Still, maybe the people who downloaded the album for free from their website would have downloaded it for free from Pirate Bay or some other site anyway. In this case the band will not have lost out financially and have gotten a whole load fo free publicity.

Put An End To November NOW!

What is the point of November? Its just dark, cold, wet and nothing fun happens. There are no holidays, festivals of sporting events to take peoples minds of the tedium of getting up in the dark going to work in the rain and then tramping home again in the dark and gloom.

September has the blaze of colour that a nature throws up as its swan song for the end of summer. December has the lights of Christmas, Lucia and the anticipation of a well earned holiday. But November has nothing like that.

I propose to simply cancel November and go straight from September to December. That way we can all miss out the most depressing month of the year.

April is pretty rubbishy too. There isn't enough decent snow to ski and the weather is too cold and wet for it to really feel like spring.

If we could cancel April too then we could also ditch the silly Gregorian Calendar and replace it with a nice modern 'Metric' calendar with only ten months (only they would't be called months they would be 'deciyears').

Maybe I should start lobbying the EU parliament......

Religiously Inspired Terrorism in the 17th. Century

Today is the anniversary of a plot which, if it had suceeded, would have been the worst terrorist attocity in English history. The plan was very simple, to cause an explosion under the House of Lords during the state opening of parliament and kill the monach and most of the English ruling class.

This happened in the year 1605 and the plotters were Catholics angry at the mistreatment of other Catholics in England. They hoped to kill the Protestant King and then start a revolt to put a Catholic back on the English Throne.

At this time it was possible to rent store rooms under the Houses of Parliament in London and one of these was loaded up with gunpowder. In fact there was enough gunpowder to completely destroy the Parliament building and blow out windows in a 1km radius.

But the plotters were betrayed, discovered and tried. Although Robert Catesby was the ringleader it was Guy Fawkes, the explosives expert who is most associated with the plot. He was arrested and questioned by the authourities. Of couse in those days you didn't need to fly a suspect to a secret CIA prison in Romania to torture them, you just sent them to the Tower of London.

After being found guilty the plotters were sentenced to Death by being hung drawn and quartered. This involved hanging somebody until they were nearly dead, then drawing out their intenstines and burning them in front of the condemend man before beheading them a cutting up the body into four parts (presumably to make sure they were really, really dead!)

The idea of the plot was to give greater rights and freedoms to the Catholics in Britain, but instead Catholics were even more pursecuted in the later years.

Every year in Britain, on November the 5th. people light bonfires and fireworks. It is also tradition to make a figure of Guy Fawkes to burn on top of the bonfire. When I was growing up it was my favourite day of the year because I loved watching the fireworks so much and, unlike in Sweden, people don't light fireworks at New Year in the UK.

Stuck in Standstead Airport's Security Check

Last weekend I flew to England from Sweden for a weekend visit. Flying out from Sweden with Ryanair was a dream as I had no baggage and had checked in on-line so I didn't even need to queue for the check in desk.

Getting home again was a nightmare though. There were so many people trying to squeeze through the security check at Standstead airport that it took me an hour to make it into the departure hall. It's always the same; there are so many flights and just too few X-ray scanners, which creates this terrible bottleneck.

All around me were people worrying that after queuing for God knows how long to check in they were now going to miss their flights as they couldn't get through the security check. We were hot, frustrated and just shuffling along like sheep. By the time I made it through, there was barely enough time to buy a sandwich before I had to go to the departure gate. I wonder how many people miss their flights after being stuck there so long.

It was ridiculous and made me again wish that Ryanair had not moved their flights from Sweden's Västerås airport to Standstead from Luton. Luton airport is much smaller and consequently it does not take as long to clear the security.

I would have hated to have had my kids with me. Whenever I fly with my kids I use SAS or British Airways since the service is much better, even though the tickets cost more.