Iun

Different worlds, my friend. When you get into the world, you'll be surprised how compartmentalised life can be. You can be the top man in your sphere of influence, but when you try to access another place, often you have to start at the bottom. He can get me free tickets to the Beijing Opera in the Stalls any time I ask him: I can get his friends into any school in Shanghai with a little effort. Neither of us has any contacts within the world of football, unfortunately. He can buy a shirt outright, does anyone have any suggestions as to where would be a good place? I don't really want to risk getting a fake one.

Rich is relative, he earns a little more than I earn every month, and I earn a good wage for China. But we both have mortgages, plus the RMB is not a good currency to convert from, so realistically neither of us is "rich" by any definition. We can go down the money route, but I want to know if anyone has any contacts or advice other than that. Donating to Charity is out for political reasons :/

Calling all Liverpool fans! Hi! Listen: I have a friend here who's a reasonably high-level Chinese bigwig, not a politician but he owns a big company that promotes Chinese culture and traditional entertainment in China. He's got some friends in high places -e.g. the Mayor of Shanghai. He's a very close friend of my wife and we regularly eat together and go out on trips (I took his daughter swimming yesterday). Thing is, he's a very loyal and big Liverpool fan, and he desperately wants to get a shirt signed by Gerrard and Torres as they are his favourite players. According to his wife, it's all he's been talking about for a while. Now, the question is: how can I help him get this done? He speaks no English, and I'm the only foreign friend he has. He even wrote a very long letter in Chinese that my wife is slowly translating, it's really sweet the way he talks about these guys. Anyway, I have no idea how to make this happen, so does anyone have any suggestions or clues? Many thanks!

I would break into your fully-stocked petrol station and kill you. Thnks for going to all that effort on my behalf. :awesome: If you knew your spouse/partner would never, ever, ever, find out, and you would not be judged for it in this life or the next, would you cheat with your ultimate sexual fantasy liaison? My answer would be never. I would know, and the guilt would eat at me.

Probably the Elf from Heroquest, one magic specialty and a big sword. Balanced, but still pretty strong. Magic specialty would have to be Illusion from the Elder Scrolls series - night eye, light, invisibility, chameleon, charm and provoke (or whatever it was called). I like playing a good character, or a magnified version of my own personality: quick to remedy any injustice.

Happy Birthday, young Tphi! Mr Boss-man-sir!

"Article 798 of Iun's New World Constitution: Anyone Who Looks At Me Funny Will Be Shot. They're Man-boobs And I Can't Help It." Or "Practicing Religion Should Be The Right Of Any Citizen Of The World, Provided It Does Not Interfere Or Impinge Upon Aforementioned Right Of Other Individuals To Practice Their Own Religion. After A While, When You Get Really Good At It, You Should Stop Practicing Your Religion And Try A New One. Everyone Needs A Hobby." My question: What is the greatest gift someone could get you for your birthday?

Sharia law is subject to interpretation. Strict interpretation is pretty shitty, and robs people of the right to dress as they want, socialize with whom they wish and enjoy life in a reasonably free manner. Lax interpretation is better, but it's still scary. No, people shouldn't routinely use drugs, cheat on their partners or walk around with their tackle hanging out, but every religion and state, secular or otherwise says that. And stoning people to death? Barbaric.

Fixed that for you there. But seriously: live with them for a few years like I did. Walk the streets I walked, take the buses, travel on the trains, teach the kids, meet the parents, observe the radical unionisation of everything from the highest level of bureacracy to the cleaners in the office building. Read, ingest and understand their constitution and the reason it was formed. Then you will see what I mean. Historically, the Ancien Regime, 1st, 2nd and 3rd republics were, if not a force to be reckoned with, were certainly on par with most of the militaries of their day. But they had too much faith in the defences of the border iwith Germany, instead of recognising fully the traditional German/Prussian route of attack through the Low Countries. From the end of the First World War the French began to disappear up their own asses: it's understandable, their country took one of the biggest poundings any country has ever taken. But what was notable on their part was a vindictive sense of wounded pride, and a strong desire to punish the whole German nationn for the war. Blitzkreig could have been stopped by a flanking counter-attack. However, the French army was massively underprepared and underequipped oustside of the Magineau line. The BEF pretty much had their back to the sea from the start. Had the FRench forces been better prepared and better led, they could have regrouped, and counter attacked the infantry. Infantry is essential to maintaining a hold on occupied territory such as cities and outposts, and the French infantry was made up of over-30's in need of retraining. Partly right. Their construction and oil contracts with the country made after the first Gulf War were significantly more revenue-generating than any other Western power. Don't kid yourself that the French held back on a matter of conscience -their motivation was purely economic self-preservation. And yes, they did control much of Europe - but that was a different France. That was the French Empire, 100 years before the Great War, Britain controlled the largest empire the planet has ever known. The French as a nation are naturally divisicve, unco-operative and selfish. They have been since the Revolution. A fully united France under military dictatorship is a threat, as they turn all their whining energy towards conquest, France as is now is pretty much a controlled argument. The largest issue the Allies have with France is their lack of gratitude for the help of other nations during the wars, and of course De Gaulle's blocking of the UK's entry into the EEC. The French love the Americans, but they just wish the Americans were more like... the French. As far as they are concerned, Britain and other Allies played no part in the liberation of France -it was all the Americans. Not simply for acts of terror, but also for their disgusting insistence on implementing Sharia law and the strict interpretation of the Qu'ran.

Sorry Giz, just had to fix that for you. There's nothing "Illegal" about war, otherwise half the world would be brought up on charges. The question is not "Can we go to war?" to which the answer is almost always "yes", but instead "why are we going to war?" .

Agreed. My little vilage in England had 6 buses go through a day. But the village was beautiful with some gorgeous walks through quiet tree-lined avenues, little hamlets on the narrow empty roads, the gentle glow of warming house-lights through latticed windows... Now I live in Shanghai: its' big, dirty, not even slightly quiet and all the parks and gardens are fully landscaped to the backdrop of some of the ugliest buildings in the world. ...however, there's always a taxi you can hail when you need one (except in the rain) the metro system is cheap fast and convenient. If it's 9pm and I fancy a late dinner, out I go to a restaurant that closes at 4am. Hell, I can even go clothes shopping until 10pm in most places. I guess... country for life, city for living.

The Red Poppy money goes to help the veterans of wars and their families in some cases. Where does the money from the White Poppies go to? Help the conscientious objectors and other cowards buy white flags? I want an end to wars, hate and suffering, but I'm not going to disrespect the memories of people who died by screaming "not in my name" and marching on parliament. I want to see the world's nuclear arms rendered useless by love, understanding and mutual respect. That's just not on the cards because that assumes that people are all loving, understandable and capable of respecting each other. Until we evolve that far, I'll keep the armed forces, and anyone who doesn't want to have them can line up against the enemy and throw flowers. Seriously Paj, I don't want to upset you or anything, but the White Poppy is like a smack in the teeth and a kick in the ribs when you're on the ground to us who have lost family members in wars and acts of terrorism.

We poured money into Africa after Live Aid, and all we heard was "it wasn't enough". Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. What is true is that what was given was not taken care of.

Happy Birthday, I think it' still Sunday in the UK?

You want to hear about Charity? Let me tell you about Charity. My mother died when I was 16 years old, I never knew my biological father, so I was orphaned. Six months later I was diagnosed with non-terminal testicular cancer. I was put on all sorts of experimental medication as I did not want any kind of radiation therapy. Under the same consultant, there were 4 other men - men, mind you, we're talking 40's and 50's. Three of them were in their terminal stage. We made friends, not close friends, but we had a laugh everytime we met. Always talked about how it would never happen to us etc. Every day I went there, I looked 3 men in the eye, and we all knew they were going to die. Have you ever done that? At the time, I was fit, and it was around about marathon time. One of us- I don't know who, suggested a run for Imperial Cancer Research UK (now Cancer Research UK). It all pretty much snowballed from there. We ended up with sponsorship to the tune of more than £60,000 from a little community that hardly ever heard about cancer. I mean, you see ads for breast cancer, and women have cervical smears every year, but cancer is something that happens to other people, and testicular cancer... what's that? Why talk about it? So, we contacted ICR and they were overwhelmed, agreed to send a representative down when we completed the marathon and receive one of those "hilarious" novelty cheques from us. We did the run, got the money and down came Mr Man in his suit. Families were there, friends were there, heck, I think even the mayor was there. It was a big event for that craphole. Up stands Mr Man, his nice suit on and hair fluttering in the breeze. "This is a wonderful achievement, and will go far and helping us fund our research into breast cancer." The next month, 3 men were dead. Memories nicely pissed on. The reason that breast cancer research was the priority? "Everyone knows about it" was the response. Forget the silent killer, forget the unspeakable curse... F*ck charity. Give your time, never waste your money, there's never a guarantee that it'll go where it's needed.

Speechless. Thank you Harry, you were an ordinary man in extraordinary times.

Gah.... hardcore man-cold... somebody... help... or set us up... the bomb. Alternatively, Lemsip and sympathyplzk?

FORUM NAZI! HATE CRIME! Naw, love you really. You are techincally correct, and that's the best kind of correct, Portuguese Man'o War are for example, if memory serves, not an individual organism but in fact a collection of four smaller organisms clustered together. And therefore not a jellyfish, but still they are mistaken for one. But yeah, we still call these these things "fish" even though they're not fish. It's like you know, we say "French People" but they're not actually...

JELLYFISH ARE FISH TOO! HATE CRIME! Essentially my point is that though it's sad that the goldfish died, Jellyfish are made of win and can be pets too. You have to see it to believe it. Also, I want to go back to that cool treehouse place on my own sometime. EDIT: I found a picture! Though it's not the same one as I saw.

Sorry to hear about this. In China, Mrs Iun and I recently went to this MASSIVE furniture shop in Putuo district. Right in the centre, reaching up about six floors it had an ENORMOUS treehouse filled with sparkly lights and fairies, slides, seats and other cool stuff to play on! And the best thing about it was, there was nobody else playing on it! But I still wasn't allowed to play on it I would have been careful! Anyway, my point is, the ground floor was just filled with aquariums - tropical fish mostly. But what really cught my eye were the Jelyyfish. Yes, in China you can get an aquarium that is square with a round viewing glass, it has neon lights and is full of deadly, deadly jellyfish. It is awesome.

Paper or plastic? Hurhurhur... Love is not overrated, but there's plenty of time for it in life. If you go into every relationship expecting "The One" you'll be disappointed. And besides, Keanu Reeves looks funny.

This is worrying, I agree with you more and more as the days go by... I'm never going to open mouuth kiss Arsene Wenger though, okay? I am a "professional" and I see every day kids who would really benefit being smacked around the chops afew times: it would wake them up to the reality that their actions have consequences. Their parents make no contact with teachers unless it is to complain about them, and it's pretty obvious that they get whatever they like at home. There's a lot of things to blame: principally the parents in these cases. A lot of parents have their children because of a "me too" attitude or as a function of biological urges. They then decide to carry on their career as normal as if nothing has changed. When they come home at night, it's far easier in the short terms to give in than discipline. Discipline doesn't mean violence, it doesn't always mean punishment, but it does mean showing a link between action and consequence. At times, I really want to lose it with the little kid who's just smacked me in the nuts because I used a word he's never heard of before - "no". I know I won't, and yet there's always that little part of me that says "if it teaches the little piece of jizz that he can't act like this and he becomes a better person, it might just be worth losing my job over".

I guess I should have joined the f*cking Merchant Navy then shouldn't I? Not only do I pay tax on my UK savings, plus the interest accruing on my student loan, I also pay tax on my Chinese income in the UK AND pay tax in China, plus my socal security and health insurance. And the only reason I do all this is because I want to stay on the level. No-one else I know here does the same, in fact, most Chinese nationals don't pay tax if they can avoid it. I'm now married to Mrs Iun (forgot to mention that ) so I'm pretty much aiming for permanent/semi permanent residence here. Anyway, back to topic. No-one wants an army, but it would be suicide not to have one. Don't like what they're doing? TS. So long as they're not breaking the law, then they are doing their jobs right. We'd need them if we were invaded, and then you wouldn't be complaining. If yu don't like the army's role in foreign countries, vote. Labour helped instigate these two wars, and yet they're still in power. Send them a message: put someone else in charge! Or you could come to Chna whereyou get locked up for dissident behaviour.You choose. The soldiers have a physically and psychologically difficult job to do, made worse by budget cuts and soapdodging greebos whining at home. I don't like war, I don't like killing, but ultimately these men need the right equipment, whether you like it or not. I don't believe that things like fertility therapy should be free on the NHS, but I'll support the people who carry out the work, and kick up a fuss if they run out of test-tubes. Be against the war, by all means, but never, ever blame the soldiers. "See, there's three kinds of people: dicks, pussies, and assholes. Pussies think everyone can get along, and dicks just want to fuck all the time without thinking it through. But then you got your assholes, Chuck. And all the assholes want us to shit all over everything! So, pussies may get mad at dicks once in a while, because pussies get fucked by dicks. But dicks also fuck assholes, Chuck. And if they didn't fuck the assholes, you know what you'd get? You'd get your dick and your pussy all covered in shit! "

Sometimes you really fancy kicking one of the little shitbags in the head. And frankly, it would do them the world of good, when they have the no-one can touch me attitude of invincibility that the ridiculously PC "No Children Are Naughty" and "Smacking Your Child Makes Them Into Hitler" brigade encourage. But of course, you're not allowed It's your duty to take care of them and educate them - which can be the hardest job in the world sometimes. And when faced with unsupportive parents who couldn't care less when you have things thrown at you, but go ape-shit when you call their child the worst in the class... it's hard not to just say "fuck it".

Fancy being mine?