Are you bored? Fed up? Get smiling

Ok posters, if like myself you get fed up with religion but just want to discuss this and that what is going on in Britain or the world, or just want to tell a joke to get us all smiling   instead of being serious all the time on your threads.
But when you do our uncle Ivan or one other moderator will tell you to stick to the thread, then this is the place to come.
No offence uncle Ivan cos you are doing your job, but sometimes we slip do we not?
C'MON GET DISCUSSING ABOUT ANYTHING, MAKE EACH OTHER SMILE/LAUGH.

stuart torr. Speaking personally, I don’t have time to get bored. I get frustrated because there aren’t enough hours in the day to do all the things I want to do. I can, however, understand anyone getting bored from talking about religion day after day. You either believe in the supernatural or you don’t. You can’t prove that a god exists and, as with any negative, you can’t prove that one doesn’t exist. Anything else just seems like point-scoring.
 
Maybe you should have had a better look around this forum before starting this thread. There are a number of boards for discussing what is going on in Britain and the world, and if you want to tell jokes you can do so here:-
 
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The one-liners which I harvest from Twitter make some people laugh:-
 
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We offered to provide a chat thread for members but that stirred up a lot of apathy:-
 
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Lets see if I can get that apathy moving eh Ivan?
I can see what you mean with regards to the number of posters compared to the number of threads, it must be a difficult job for you at times mate.

The jokes were brilliant, thank-you very much.

Travels with my pants (or, revisiting lost youth)

Many years ago, when I still had a waistline and all my teeth, I bought an adult tricycle, which I used for all local journeys for several years. I loved my Pashley Picador, which was silver and black and had a lovely basket on the back for shopping. Many happy miles we travelled together, and even the least pleasant journey was improved by the thrill of travelling on the trike.

When I got my first car, the trike fell out of favour and eventually moved into other hands.

Lately, I have been getting a bit bored with CAB, the Labour Party and taking my mum shopping, so looked around for another activity. I hired a tricycle for the day and set of on a fabulous adventure, covering fully five miles of Norfolk coastline. I'm sunburned, worn out and looking around to buy a tricycle.

I'm no good at jokes, Stu, but maybe a feelgood story is suitable for this thread?

Perhaps others have revisited youthful activities with a good outcome

No boatlady that sounds a lovely story, and if you have any more of them I would love to hear/read them my love.
Myself I bought some films of Robbie Coltrane as Cracker the psychologist, and also the complete series all 52 episodes of the Sweeney old john thaw.
Watched the cracker films, so now I've started on the Sweeney which takes me back some years.

I loved Cracker - The Sweeney, not so much.
I never tend o enjoy shouty, violent things on TV - Sweeney was always a bit in your face for me, Cracker more subtle as I recall -- and you had to love Robbie Coltrane

Yes boatlady.
old Robbie played the part to a tee did he not?
Excellent actor too.

I also love Johnny Depp, for many of the same reasons - Captain Jack Sparrow is a less dark version of the Cracker character, imho

What kind of films do you like then boatlady?
myself I am a big clint fan but also one of my real favs is Shawshank redemption, and of course Casablanca.

I'm ashamed to say I usually go for the big shiny box office stuff, with lots of fantasy and special effects - loved all the Star Trek and Star Wars ones, watched every Pirates of the Carribean (got the box set for my 57th).

I did enjoy the noir movies of the 30's and 40's - Casablanca, Maltese Falcon, etc etc, and Shawshank is of course a classic.

I will watch even bad movies with Robin Williams in, or directed by Terry Gilliam, and I ADORED the Lord of the Rings movies - the Hobbit, not so much.

I hate shouty violent movies, so never watch thrillers or James Bond movies, and I'm not crazy about comedies, except of course Forrest Gump

Hi boatlady.
It is nice to come on this forum where there is no bickering and name calling, I'm afraid I'm getting too old for that kind of thing these days.
Well your choice of movies surprised me a little my love, but when I read on regarding the film noir movies it did bring a smile to my face, as I must have watched Casablanca at least 500 times and I know it word for word. I collected quite a lot of old bogie's movies before starting collecting Clint's, and Shawshank is definitely a classic.
What made me collect Clint's westerns especially, is he always seemed to be the stranger riding into town, with the confidence that he was always the fastest gun.
What it must have been like to have that confidence?

If we are to form a Clint Eastwood Appreciation Society, acknowledgment must be made to the spaghetti westerns which made his name. Filmed in Spain by Italian producers, they are still very watchable 50 years on, and by Hollywood standards cost halfpence to make.

So very very true oftenwrong, and the haunting music that went with them. IMO the good the bad and the ugly was fantastic.

Maybe Clint Eastwood is a bit of a 'boy' thing - women don't usually think of riding into town in a moody way and killing all the bad guys - I think the female fantasy may be a little different, possibly involving less sweaty action

Afternoon boatlady.
We really must carry on meeting like this,  
As always a pleasure to see a post from your good self.
Of course you are right it is more of a boy/man thing, unless of course you are a female who fancies that kind of thing.

I suspect the fighting female fantasy is more on the lines of Lara Croft - masterful, independent, but the hair is always fabulous
   

Evening boatlady.
So we meet again   I think Lara Croft could be down in a few male fantasies too, but how can she do all that action without putting a hair out of place?   

Because she's a female fantasy figure, and having your hair look good is part of the female fantasy?
(Just like being mean and moody is maybe part of the male fantasy)

Hello boatlady.
Do you have any hobbies at all apart from your star wars movies?
Of course being a moderator on the forum.   

Dogs, boats, gardening, sometimes a bit of knitting, drinking wine, reading trashy thrillers - how about yourself?

I have my gorgeous one dog, her name is Tula, she is a golden Labrador/ golden retriever cross.
Extremely intelligent, but malt's her hair continuously, so my hoover overheats every day.   
My gorgeous Daughter, 8 years old called Siobhan, should be pronounced Shibaun, but as she lives with her mother 6 days a week, they have called her by the American way Chevaughn.
I just see her on Sundays for access visits.  
The only thing I can drink is tea and coffee, or like to drink, by the bucketful.
Love watching my DVDs, very large collection.

I lived alone for several years, working unreasonably long hours - when I retired, all I wanted for a while was to stay home and cook.

I never really got the TV habit, and I have a very small collection of DVD's (about 20).

Now I've got used to being able to stay home if I like, my main entertainment is being outdoors. We have our little boat where we go weekends in the summer, and a large and messy allotment, also a small garden with greenhouse. Mostly I grow food and I have to say I'm not a good gardener (except for potatoes, beetroot and broad beans), but it's so different to what I did when I was working that it's just interesting because it's new.

Never had kids, so the dogs are my family - as you know, if you live with them they almost speak to you and seem to understand what you mean even before you speak.

Domestic pets can be good companions, and constant entertainment, as well as enforcing healthy walks for us too!

We've had two loony dogs and two demanding cats, each of which died as they reached their natural span. They won't be replaced, since losing them was so painful.

The one I have makes me cry with laughter, but you are right oftenwrong, losing a companion after so long is so painful.

Well coming to the end of decorating totally the living room, everything new just my blinds left to replace now after tomorrow.
You have one very shattered poster.  
Going back a while now oftenwrong, do you have any hobbies?

Are you pleased with the result?
I usually feel a bit dubious once it's finished

Actually boatlady I'm not 100% love, as I ordered different shades of teal and I did not check the paint when delivered, so I've ended up with a shade darker than the one wanted.
It looks great and sets the white off fantastic, but just will not match the carpet and sofas and chandelier tomorrow.

stuart torr wrote:Well coming to the end of decorating totally the living room, everything new just my blinds left to replace now after tomorrow.
You have one very shattered poster.  
Going back a while now oftenwrong, do you have any hobbies?

If it's confession time, Stuart, my principal interest now lies in watching everyone else rushing around at a dizzying speed "keeping themselves occupied".

Explaining that was quite exhausting, so I shall probably now fall asleep in front of the telly.

Open the door,
and the flies swarm in,
Close the door,
and I'm sweatin' again!

(Song: Life gets teejus, don't it?)

Apart from the last couple of weeks decorating, and picking furniture out and carpet out etc oftenwrong, I shall go back to doing the same as yourself.   

I'm sure that the amendment to Staff Mules which allows limited exiting of smelling mistakes will be welcomed by all survivors. Sorry! Subscribers.

More deodorant needed then oftenwrong for these smelling mistakes.   

boatlady wrote:I'm ashamed to say I usually go for the big shiny box office stuff, with lots of fantasy and special effects - loved all the Star Trek and Star Wars ones, watched every Pirates of the Carribean (got the box set for my 57th).

I don't know why you would be ashamed to like the shiny box office stuff. All too often good movies and books are never appreciated when they are new. I could never figure that out. Why does something have to be old for it to be good? It's a load of crap if you ask me - there are plenty of supposedly "good" classic things that I find to be rather boring and lackluster.

I really don't like old movies for a rather lengthy list of reasons:

Obviously, no special effects. Movies are meant to be watched, so if I can close my eyes and still follow the movie and not miss anything, it's rather boring to me. Movies should have some eye candy. Otherwise, I'll read a book.

The music. Again, it's boring. A lot of those old black and white movies just have a violin in the background playing random tunes. There's no feeling to it, no emotional connection, no visceral feeling, and little connection to the scene in the movie. It's just this stupid violin that isn't even playing a recognizable song. Plus, those movies are in mono - yuck for audiophiles like me who enjoy high fidelity surround sound.

No action scenes. How many movies from the 40's had a good car chase? Yeah ... about zero. Nothing about those movies are suspensful or gets the heart racing.

Few outdoor scenes or movies shot on location. Nope, those old movies were mostly filmed in Hollywood sound stages and mock-ups of entire towns. But you can just -tell- that it's a stage. When something is filmed on location, it has an entirely different feel. Plus you don't get the awesome panoramic views or a sense of what it's -really- like to be where the story is. Even if they portrayed, say, China on a Hollywood sound stage, it's heavily "Americanized" and doesn't even resemble the reality of the culture.

When there is special effects, they are hopelessly bad. One of the most common are those horrible, disgraceful blue screens you can see out the windows of cars while people are driving. You can tell that the car is perfectly immobile and there are movies playing in the rear window that simulates someone driving - like someone filmed out of the rear window and then gave that film to the movie studio which then uses it as a backdrop for actors sitting in a non-moving car (to make it look like it's moving). It's just so horribly obvious. And those obvious matte backdrop paintings. Like the scene that shows Dorothy and pals in the Wizard of Oz standing on the yellow brick road - and behind her sprawls a vast open field filled with poppies and the Emerald City in the distance.  

You can see the seam where the backdrop painting meets the floor - the seam cuts across the Tin Man's and Scarecrow's head. Those actors have about 10 feet of space before they break their nose hitting the painting. I know old movie fans often bash CGI, but it is infinitely superior than the stage stuff they used to do - and it allows a lot of that eye candy I mentioned earlier. So the movie is actually worth watching. Otherwise, as I said, I'll read the book.

The acting. It's terrible. Terrible, terrible, terrible. Today's actors use method acting, which is to say that the actors lose their own persona and allow the character they play to completely subsume them. In other words, method acting allows the actors to -become- the characters they're playing. The result is MUCH more natural and realistic voice inflections, speech cadences, and emotional displays. Actors in old movies acted like they were acting. Plus, back then, anyone speaking in front of the camera talked with a very odd, very distinctive, and very irritating (to me) voice. It was the inflection, the cadence, the overall speech patterns that they used on camera that was very unnatural.

In older movies, they use classical acting, and that formula tends to be stiff and wooden. It's almost as if they're trying deliberately to make sure the audience knows its just a movie by purposefully behaving and talking in a way that no one in reality uses. Plus, the actors of old never really 'played' a character. Instead, they played every movie as themselves (just with a different name). When you think of old movies, you think of the actor's names - it's not Rick Blaine and Ilsa Laszlo, no, it's Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. There's no reason to remember characters because they're just Humphrey and Ingrid with stage names. With modern movies, you remember the characters more than the actors. You think of Indiana Jones, not Harrison Ford. You think of Hannable Lecter, not Anthony Hopkins. You think of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, not Mark Hamil and James Earl Jones - just as a few examples.

I don't like a lot of excessive violence - especially horror movies of which I am not a fan. Sometimes violence is necessary for the story - like war movies. Old movies are so tame that even war movies are as clean as a whistle without even a drop of blood. There's no realism.

All of these things and a few more reasons really detracts from the experience of watching a good movie, in my opinion. I don't care much for movies before 1980, and even the movies of the 80's have precious few movies that I enjoy. (The 80's here in the States suffered from a heavy influence of Jerry Falwell's "moral majority" - a Christian fascist group - that caused everything from Saturday morning cartoons to theatrical movies to become heavily censored and family-friendly, and I'm not a big fan of "family" movies. The end result was a long list of campy, cheesy movies that wanted to be more than what they were if not for the critical eye of Christian fascism.)

Shirina, I do think on the whole you're right about movies, but reading and mostly agreeing with your comments, I couldn't help thinking a bit wistfully about some old movies I really love and want to keep watching.

One in particular, is a movie called 'Dark Passage' starring Humphrey Bogart, who I think we can probably agree couldn't act for toffee, although he had wonderful screen presence. The movie itself is not that wonderful, but the central premise, of a fugitive from justice having plastic surgery to alter his appearance, was handled in what I felt to be a very interesting way - the initial scenes were all shot using a hand-held camera, from the point of view of the Bogart character, and I do think this give a very interesting atmosphere to this movie, at least in the beginning.

A lot of the 'noir' films from the '30's have interesting little quirks like this, which perhaps foreshadow the more exciting and watchable spectacle of modern movies.

I use to be a bogart fan especially Casablanca, then turned to clint in his westerns now I have all his films boatlady.

Hi folks can any of you tell me the best newspaper to start having again next week please?

My suggestion (in order of preference) would be:-
1. 'The Guardian'
2. 'The Independent'
3. 'The Daily Mirror'.
Anything else is only fit to line a dustbin - in my humble opinion!

Many thanks Ivan, I guessed about the rest or most of them anyway, did not think that you would recommend the Mail then,

Have found the Guardian getting a bit right wing for my tastes, lately -and some of the reader comments really objectionable - but it's still one of the more entertaining broadsheets

Well boatlady if I buy all 3 that Ivan recommended tomorrow and read them over the week-end I can tell my newsagent what to deliver on monday morning can I not?