nolongerabout

Hearts of Iron IV. There's always a different outcome to every game, a different country to play as, a different ideology to follow. Great fun if you've got the time to put into it.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Damned funny.

Well, I have a few. Zulu Robocop (The original) The Big Lebowski Sharpe's Challenge and Sharpe's Company (TV movies, but movies nonetheless) Howl's Moving Castle The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Dragnet Dirty Harry Gran Torino You Only Live Twice A View to a Kill Great films, the lot of them.

@@Once In A Blue Moon, Sharp's hoof grasped his sword almost unconsciously. He was in awe at what had befallen his city. He shouldn't have left. It clawed at him, anger and guilt chewing through his bravado. He could have done something, anything to prevent this. He was a captain of the guard, with what little authority that position still held with all the military reforms, and he had failed. He spoke under his breath, hardly loud enough for anyone to hear. "I don't care who or what you are, but I'm going to shove this sword so far up your arse you won't be able to sit without it tickling your eyeballs, bad bloody luck for me or not." He turned to the others. He spoke loud, loud enough for whatever creature that had claimed the city as its own to hear. There was unbridled rage in his eyes. He gestured to the warped and distented gates. "That's where I'm going. And none of you have to come, but that's where I'm going. And I'll tell you why. It's 'cause them demons laugh at us. They think we're gods-damned pushovers, that we'll just sit down and die quietly. Offer us our heart's desires? No honour in that, and no bloody reward either. All's well in bloody Canterlot, eh? They don't even offer a fair fight of it! Well, I ain't standing for that. I don't care if I have to carve my way through every bastard from here to Tartarus, I'm going in there. And when I find the bugger who did this, I'll introduce them to proper Equestrian etiquette for dealing with demons. A damn sword through their poxed face."

"So, I says, 'look up at them ye bunch of cowardly bastards and be struck down! Be made of blocks of stone!', says I. Ah, but their tread! Their tread! The earth shakes from their tread! So with their bayonets twirlin' and twirlin', and their drums goin' ra-tat-tat-tat! Ra-tat-tat-tat..! Then the whole world goes BANG!"- Patrick Harper describing a French column, Sharpe's Regiment "The army doesn't like more than one disaster in a day."- Lt. John Chard, Royal Engineers, officer commanding at Rorke's Drift (Zulu)

@@Once In A Blue Moon, Sharp considered the options. He knew Canterlot well, so getting lost probably wouldn't be an issue. It was just a choice of how to get there. "Well, I can probably blag our way past any guards we meet, as long as they haven't been given orders to apprehend us. I don't really mind the path we take, but half Equestria might be destroyed soon," He said, "So I imagine haste is a bloody good thing right now."

This video more or less sums up English football teams through the last thirty years. And to think, we wish we still had the football team we had at the 1986 world cup (when it was made)... (It's from Spitting Image, a satirical comedy show in the 80s, hence Margaret Thatcher at the end. True, nonetheless, about the football.)

I played Grand Theft Auto III when it came out. I was four.

@@Once In A Blue Moon, "Alright, sergeant, make sure everyone's loaded, blades sharpened. You have an hour, unless we're forced to land." He pocketed the telescope, as it might be of some use later. Besides, he doubted the captain would notice it missing, nor mind him borrowing it now. Why would the city be emptied? Or hiding, perhaps? How long had it been since their party had set out? The eternal twilight did no good to his internal clock. At this point, there could be only two reasons for the lack of activity, that Sharp could see; that somehow the capital had fallen already to the enemy, or the King was going to detonate his weapon, and was enforcing a curfew. After all, the more ponies in the city, the more powerful the explosion. Preventing their escape, by keeping them inside. Both made him feel sick to his core, and that quickly turned into hate. Destroy the whole damned country to save his own sorry hide, eh? If Sharp lived past the next few days, he would make sure the king was in the dungeons, or more preferably, a twitching body dangling from a hempen rope. No pony should sanction such wanton death when other paths still lay open. He trotted back to Twilight, his face a grim mockery of a smile. "Princess, can you do some sort of scan, to see how many living ponies are still in the city? There are hardly any guards on the walls, no ponies on the streets. Even this rain couldn't keep the taxis from running, nor the farmers selling their produce in the market. I fear the worst."

@@Once In A Blue Moon, Sharp looked at the city, and knew there was something terribly wrong. He had not lived in the capital some twenty years without learning its subtleties, its tiny signs that even total war could not stop. And they were different. Not gone, but changed in a way he could not tell. He didn't like it, Not one bloody bit. He called out to the helmspony, "Bring us back to quarter-speed!", he turned to the Princess, "Just a precaution, ma'am. There's something damned strange going on, I can feel it. Sergeant!" He walked back along the ship, towards the cabin at the aft of the ship, and waited until the sergeant was in sight. "The captain must have owned a fine telescope. My own is in Canterlot. Can you bring hers here, please? Thank you."

@@Once In A Blue Moon, Sharp more or less repeated what he had been told and seen in Canterlot. "Well, ma'am, we have several options. The King has gathered the remaining unicorns of magical talent, and has them working on a weapon. It's purely theoretical, and with your help could likely be improved perhaps to the point where only the demon horde is affected. I guess it's either that or we find a way to send these demons back to Tartarus, if you're unwilling to fight 'em the old fashioned way. And I ain't an expert on these things. I don't even know if sending them back will fix this. It's probably best that we discuss this back in Canterlot, with the King. Hopefully he won't consider this a challenge to his power. We can't afford to fight each other right now." He felt a twinge of pain from his injured leg. "If you'll pardon me, princess, I need to see the surgeon." He looked about for the ship's surgeon. Gods forbid the wound got infected.

That's not necessarily true. It all depends on the trade deal we organise with them. And the benefits aren't exactly all they're said to be, otherwise the vote would likely not have happened to begin with. Pay them a huge amount of money, only receive half back, and of that half we're not allowed to say what we spend it on? Give up democracy in return for the single market? Surrender our fishing zones, and be only able to sell about 20% of what we actually catch? Be able to work in the EU, in return for mass uncontrollable, unskilled migration from eastern European countries that is crippling our public services? I think I'd take Brexit any day, unfortunately. As would most with genuine experience in life and work, as the vote has shown. The older, working class people who are this country's backbone.

@@Once In A Blue Moon, Sharp gave a curt nod to the sergeant, and thought about the news. Another good pony, lost. She was said to have been the best sailor and captain since Admiral Ratio, who routed the whole griffon fleet without a loss of even one of his own ships, and Chaser would no doubt have made that same position given time. But it didn't bear thinking about. More than enough ponies had been lost already. "The captain is dead, as are half the crew. What do you propose as our next move, princess?" He came to attention. "We are at your command."

@, Well, these outspoken remainers are such upstanding members of the community! They're truthful to the last, and the leave camp has some racists in it, so they must all be so. Utter rubbish. It's already been said that anyone already here lawfully will be able to stay after we leave. There won't be mass deportation of any one, and if I understand the Australian points system correctly, it doesn't give twenty points for being white, ten for Asians and five for everyone else. And I highly doubt we'll go back to having segregated bathrooms, it'd cost the government far too much money. I mean, the leave camp may have 'lied' about the possible £350 million NHS funding, but remain said there very well could be nuclear war. They also support a political organisation whose president literally said, and I quote, "When things start getting tough, start lying."

Thought I'd revisit Scouting For Boys, the original 1908 edition, by Lord Robert Baden-Powell. I swear, every time I read it, I learn something knew. A grand book, recommend it to anyone.

@@Malinter, Oh, indeed. Labour has more voters these days among the 18-24 demographic than any other party. About 40% in the 2015 election, if I remember correctly. 11 Shadow cabinet members have resigned, 1 sacked. That's out of 21. The majority of senior Labour party members don't want him anymore. He's indecisive, unwilling to admit he's wrong, and I doubt he'd be able to lead the country at all. But, he makes a good opposition. Don't agree with him firing Hillary Benn, though. He was threatened before by Corbyn after criticizing the EU, and it was only a matter of time, but he is experienced and genuine, and more than worthy of becoming the new Labour leader, in my opinion. After all, he wasn't afraid to come out against Corbyn after his lacklustre Brexit campaign participation. I don't think he took part in one debate. What sort of political leader does that?

7/10, and I'm not even much of a fan of country. Not a bad song at all. In honour of the occasion. Maybe a couple days late.

@@Pripyat Pony, Sorry mate. Just worded it a little funny, is all. I can't really understand why they blame old people. The ones who built the country in the first place, the ones who suffered so that democracy could exist in this country. The ones whose pensions are damaged, the ones who rely the most on the National Health Service that might well suffer. If anything, we should be listening to them, those who grew up in the tough economic times of the post-war era. They've seen it before. The ones who don't understand why their grandchildren are so lazy, so uncaring of all that they've been provided with. Things like the right to completely disregard their vote. At least they appreciated that, for a while.

@@Twiggy, Yes, but the problem is many people who signed it are silly enough to believe that it's true. Even the bloody BBC did! They tried to bring it up on the question time special this evening, but were shot down by a guardian columnist who was wise to it.

@@Pripyat Pony, I already know it's pointless. I would bloody riot if they announced another referendum! This ain't directed at me, is it? Bloody hell, I voted leave! And not for me, but for the damn country!

@, No, we're going to check who signed it, and whoever isn't eligible to vote in this country we're going to charge with fraud. 39,000 signatures from the vatican city, despite the fact only 800 people live there. 25,000 signatures from North Korea. Despite the fact I doubt anyone there is allowed to access western internet pages. God knows how many from the US. Only about 400,000 of the signatures are from people eligible to vote in the UK.

well, they'll only invade another former soviet state. We were in the EU when it happened to Ukraine and Georgia (Who admittedly aren't in the EU, but are working on it). Do you think the EU will really stand up to Russia, as inept as it is, without its own army, as a political body? Of course they'll say stuff like "We highly condemn these aggressive moves by Russia", but it's like pissing in the wind. Oh wait, they've announced that EU army thing now that we've started to leave. Also, you seem to think that the whole of Europe individually would be a pushover. Germany, Austria, (as much as I hate to admit it-) France, Sweden, notably Finland, and Belgium all have highly trained, modernised militaries, with both strong territorial and expeditionary forces. And while Britain has not the equivalent of its army in 1914, or even 1814, it is a damn sight better than the Russians, and we're not spending 300% gdp on it like we used to. Sure, they have weight of numbers, but their army has hardly changed in organisation or equipment since the 1980s, and can hardly invade one of the smallest countries in Europe with any degree of finesse or ability. Which used to belong to them, and has a negligible army compared to Russia or any European state. "The Russian Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence (C³I) performed poorly during the Georgia conflict.The Russian communication systems were outdated, with a 58th Army commander allegedly making contact with his combat troops via a journalist-owned satellite phone. Without the modern GLONASS, precision-guided munitions could not be used; the US-controlled GPS was unavailable, since the war zone was blacked out.Due to the negligence of Russian defence minister, the use of unmanned aerial vehicles was not authorised; an RIA Novosti editorial said that Russian forces lacked reliable aerial-reconnaissance systems, once using a Tupolev Tu-22M3 bomber instead." Quoted from wikipedia, but they are reliable enough on this. There's a reason why nobody considers Russia a definite world player any more- They're not. Putin may have aims for them to be again, but with a crippled economy (Mostly thanks to an EU arranged G7 embargo, actually, guess they did good in that) they don't have the political or economical clout they once carried. If they even tried to take the rest of the Ukraine, I've no doubt that many other European countries and maybe even the US would get involved, if the President (Whoever that may be) decides to, and that would be the end of Russia as it is at the moment. It can't compete with the US, not on any level these days.

@@Rawzy, As you can see, I touched on student riots already. Funny how the ones who complain the loudest are the ones who can actually afford it, and get arrested for property damage, drawing attention away from the ones who are protesting peacefully.

@@Concerned Bystander, Let's not forget that the majority of the 17 million aren't bourgeoisie office workers, but the working class, who have shown in the past they're not afraid to riot in large numbers. And I know I won't be the only one, should they refuse to acknowledge the democratic will of the people, to crimp my air rifle above the legal limit, strap on my pattern 1796 heavy cavalry sword and rally outside Nigel Farage's house, for the march on London. (I'm kidding, but they would be committing political suicide should they ignore the vote. After all, it hurts a lot more getting punched by a hardened northern bloke than being harassed on twitter by a privileged Philosophy graduate) @@Rawzy, No, we're still 100% still in Europe. We just won't be in the political union that controls it 'maybe' in two years. unless we suddenly learn how to move large land masses.

Actually, public services in the rest of the UK would most likely be better off if Scotland left the UK. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-28879267 They have more total expenditure per person than is raised by tax, and these figures are from before the oil price crashed, which is one of Scotland's main sources of income. If they leave, they can in all likelihood say goodbye to free university places (Which England doesn't get), and probably severe reductions in NHS care and funding, compared to what they would enjoy within the UK. Any economic figures published during their independence referendum in 2014 were based on the oil market recovering, increasing from $104 a barrel. Today it is less than half that, and has been around the $50 mark for more than a year. Doesn't look like it'll be heading back up any time soon, either. They are counting on the EU Ponzi scheme to rescue them, but it won't happen. Their deficit is made up by money from the rest of the UK, at the cost of our own, on the promise that eventually we will be able to reduce spending in all sectors to a suitable rate, and start paying off the national debt. And it's working. The Tories may be lying bred-for-politics scumbags at times, but they can manage a long term economic plan. Scotland doesn't have as much investment as England economy wise, which allows the latter to sustain such a rate of borrowing. Which would be another reason why I would prefer David Cameron to stay on a Prime Minister. He's been Euroskeptic for years, all the time up until that "Renegotiation" he organised. he made a mistake, we all do from time to time, but if he admits his faults (And gets rid of Gorge Osborne) I would welcome him back with open arms. That way, the silly new buggers probably wouldn't revert the steady progress we've made these last two years. I don't mind if Scotland has another referendum. I don't mind if they become independent of us, and another part of a declining bureaucracy. It's their choice, just as it was ours to leave the EU. I just don't like the way that the SNP puts it all. Nicola Sturgeon talks as though she's the new William Wallace, and the English are coming to pillage the lowlands again! Despite the fact that the rest of us paid for a whopping 10% of their public services in 2013, and probably even more last year. But we all must make sacrifices for 'freedom', eh?