MikeJD

Nice one. It's a little off-topic, but this reminded me of the time a friend's elderly mother showed me the long plaits of hair she'd had cut off as a young child, along with the commemorative photo her parents had taken just a few moments earlier. There they were, nestling in a shoe box like two fat, hibernating snakes; the chopped ends tied off to keep them from unravelling, and each still decorated with the ribbons she wore in the picture. I remember being actually quite moved, touching the precious artifacts that she'd kept all these years: a perfectly preserved, physical part of that little girl smiling for her portrait. I wondered whether, when she'd asked to keep them, she'd imagined looking at them again as a grey-haired old lady.

Agreed. And this is where I think skydivers lose out. Yes, lose out to whuffos! Many of us spend all of our time and money at the DZ, while other people are out there enjoying a richer diversity of stuff.

My one and only bungee jump was from a crane over the not-too-picturesque scenery of a Chelsea car park. The only crocs within miles would have been safely incarcerated at London Zoo. It was plenty intense without the threat of being consumed by local wildlife, anyway. Of course, people said that a bungee jump should be nothing to a skydiver. I beg to differ, but I don't think I'd do be in a hurry to do it again.

I worked with one called 'Wai Ling'. And there was a Mr Meenagh at my college.

It wouldn't be if their last names were Tyers and Pitcher. :)

That sounds more like Satanic temptation to me. ;) So what would sound like a blessing from God...a big fat, gray, geriatric with cataracts? Oh, you found popsjumper's actual match?

That sounds more like Satanic temptation to me. ;)

I've seen a similar test that asked the reader to identify anything unusual in the following phrase (or something very like it): THE WIND IN IN THE TREES Looks obvious to me now, but I wonder whether everyone will spot it at first glance.

I know a very active UK skydiver called Richard Head. Maybe he'll pitch in here at some point. :) The name's not as uncommon as you might think!

Wassail? Wassat?

I made it five. Which means I do recognise the 'F' in the word 'OF', but I can't count.

You know, I'm pretty sure Google can help you out there. In fact those very three words will probably work pretty well . What part of I'm lazy don't you get? God! What I really don't get is why someone would use nine words to tell me he's too lazy to type three (or let's say six, if you don't have a toolbar shortcut and so have to add 'www', 'google' and 'com'). I dunno, maybe it's an engineer thing.

What, like "soap, apples, cereal, dog food..."? If so, he'd just left his shopping list at home.

You know, I'm pretty sure Google can help you out there. In fact those very three words will probably work pretty well .

If you can sell me a 'high powered carpet' I'll be impressed

Sorry to hear that. I've been lucky so far in that it's never happened to me. I'm super-security conscious and do everything I can to avoid it, and I'm sure that's made a difference - but at the end of the day if someone decides they really want to break in then it's very hard to stop them. Sad to say, it's really about making your property a less inviting target than somebody else's. Possessions are just that, and although it sucks to lose stuff you've worked hard for I think the worst thing must be the thought that some scumbag has been wandering around your home - as evidenced by your roommate's very natural reaction. Hope you get back to normal soon!

You just reminded me of a Goldfrapp lyric: Only clowns would play with those balloons What d'ya wanna look like Barbie for?

Shah, since you're still harping on about this , I feel the need to speak up for the opposition. I hate the very idea of fakes and, speaking personally and all else being equal, I'd be much more attracted to a woman with any size or shape of natural breasts than to one with implants. Also, in case you haven't been following the news there's a large number of women currently fearing for their health because of a high rate of rupture among some implants - no joke. Many of those will have had boob jobs to begin with in response to a 'sales pitch' like yours. Please stop it!

I'm going to stick my neck out and say: we're talking about jumping out of aeroplanes here. Given that, I think 350 is a pretty small number. If you want to talk about a simple waste of life, look at the numer of people who are killed doing something as banal as crossing the street. There were around 120,000 pedestrian fatalities in the US over the same period. Of course I wouldn't be so foolish as to try and compare those two statistics directly - there's no doubt that skydiving is the more dangerous activity - it's just that people talk as though the jumper fatalities are less acceptable, in spite of the fact that to some degree we're deliberately putting ourselves in harm's way. This is not to say we shouldn't be working to get the number of skydiving deaths as close to zero as possible - of course we should. But given the privilege of what we do, frankly I'm grateful that the current odds of survival are anywhere near as good as they are.

You feel a worm inside? Doctor can probably sort that for you. There is something a little sad about abandoned websites that were once the owners' pride and joy. Same with blogs - if you just flick through a few randomly (Blogger gives you that option) it's surprising how short-lived many of them were. Often there'll just be a single post from years back, and I wonder why. Did the author realise after that first, hopeful entry that there was actually nothing in his/ her life worth writing about? I guess if that's the case, then we should be grateful. There are many thousands more who just carry on regardless!

Agreed. And whatever the reasons and whatever the risk, I wish people would just relinquish a little control every once in a while and accept that there are rules that come with certain activities in life - including air travel. It's no great hardship to turn off your phone, or to stay in your seat until the plane reaches the terminal, or to listen to the safety briefing (if nothing else, I do that simply because it's polite). When I see people refusing to do those things it irks me - not because I think they're putting me or themselves in danger, but because they're treating with contempt the people whose job it is to take care of them.

Do yourself a favor: the first time you watch them, watch them in Swedish with subtitles. Noomi Rapace (Lisbeth) is so excellent in the part, and the rhythm, tempo and delivery and of her speech pattern, as well as her inflections, really is part of that. I've got to believe that some of that would be diluted in a dubbed version. Oh, I can't watch dubbed movies, no matter how well done. Give me the original performance plus subtitles any day. It's funny that some countries seem automatically to dub foreign movies - in Germany and Austria, for example, I've often seen Hollywood films on TV and have been really frustrated because they're all dubbed!

Don't agree. I saw the US version a few days ago (I have seen both) and really enjoyed it, and I thought Rooney Mara was just fine - although I did think the Salander character was painted a little unevenly, appearing sometimes quite vulnerable and sometimes super tough. My main criticism of the new version is just that it seemed a bit redundant, coming so soon after the original. I've liked just about everything Fincher has done, and I think he's a great director, but I'd rather he applied his talent to something we haven't seen before. I wondered whether he'd been tempted to relocate the plot. It does seem odd to set a film in Sweden and then have everyone speak English with an accent (apart from Daniel Craig, who didn't bother!) Speaking of Craig, it seemed as though they were playing on his 007 persona by making him the victim for a change, and also of course with the very Bond-esque title sequence. Couldn't decide whether I liked that, or whether it was just a little too obvious. I could have done without the last half hour of the film. I actually thought it could have done with tightening up. Maybe that's because I didn't finish the book - unlike most people, I didn't really rate it - but also I don't get why people are so precious about changes to storylines. To me a book and a movie should be different, and it should be possible to judge each on its own terms without playing them off against one another.

Wendy, I can't speak for Koreans but I think you underestimate the significance of 9/11 for non-Americans. Certainly we in Europe were shocked to the core, and you only have to see the photos and video footage a few times to have them indelibly imprinted on your brain. Given the nature of media now, I'm sure people of all nations saw them many, many times in the following days - and even for those who didn't feel personally threatened, or particularly empathic, they must have left a strong impression. In the years since the attacks I've seen a number of very affecting photos echoing those images, even vaguely. For many of us, any picture that puts an airliner and tower-like structures in the same frame still resonates - like this (admittedly deliberate) book cover from 2002. That's London's Battersea Power Station in the foreground, by the way. The pictures of the resulting explosion are equally well-known. I'm pretty sure, at least from the angle shown of that building design, that I'd have made a connection even without the context of the post.

did you mean LAST century ? Good question - I'm not sure what I meant. Let's say this century so far. Admittedly, the century is young - there's plenty of time for more shocking images yet. Actually gives me chills to wonder what they might be.