Fort Hood Terrorist Now Playing the Victim Card

Golf Beej ?there we diverge!I must confess to having little interest in the game;despite peer pressure to dip my toes.
My interest in sport is confined to rugby,cricket,football,motorcycle racing,formula 1,in roughly that order.
In terms of participation I'm now limited to sailing yachts;and the occasional game of poker and bridge.
Although I've never met you I could imagine you playing bridge(or chess).
I've only once beat my son at chess(the apotheosis of my ability!)
In terms of music I agree with you on Walton despite the fact that he and I were born in the same place.
I once read "Time out "mag were some pillock wrote"sometimes I think Beethoven was musically naive!!."
It ranks with some of the statementsI've read here by Muslims as amongst the most pitifully absurd comments I've ever heard.
My modern music tastes are reasonably catholic;but I agree with you about the origins of "rock music"being of
American origin;just that some Brits like David Gilmore,Eric Clapton,Jeff Beck,Brian May(just got his PhD in astrophysics30 years after starting it) have eclipsed some of their American contemporaries in terms of presentation and delivery.
Jazz wise I've seen and heard most of the greats:Theolonius Monk,Cannonball Adderley,Dave Brubeck,Art Blakey,
Oscar Peterson,Dizzy Gillespie and others.
The most excellent blues session I ever heard was the original Fleetwood Mac,at the Marquee(Soho)(Peter Green)!
To digress a little I read that onceHerbert von Karajan ended a rehearsalof the BPO saying he had tickets for a Louis Armstrong concert!
But Herr Maestro exclaimed the lead violinist why."
Because mein Colleague he can play in time which clearly some so called musicians here cannot!"
You should listen to him!"

OFF TOPIC.

von Karajan was a Nazi - twice! Jascha Horenstein had poor English. When he was rehearsing an English orchestra he became annoyed when he realised they were taking the piss out of him. Empurpled with rage, he roared, "You think I know fuck all, but I tell you I know fuck nothing!"

Hellosnackbar, The part about motorcycles I picked up on. I live in the middle of the #1 motorcycle destination in the USA........East Tennessee. I ride my bikes almost daily. I have a FZ1 Yami (Called a "Fizzy") and a Honda Magna 750 (the one wifey rides with me on). If you ride, and you're out this way, give me a "heads up" and I'll show you "twisties" like you ain't never seen!

I never miss a motogrand prix Tonto ;anybody who's ever ridden a fast bike has to wonder at the riding of Signor Valentino Rossi!
If I ever met him I;d ask him if he has trousers specially tailored to accomodate his balls;.cutting in onthe inside track and overtaking on a bend by ultra late brakeing at 170mph gives the reason as to why he;s a nine times world champion.(I usually shout ole! from my armchair).
A FZ 1 yammy is a serious piece of hardware!
I recently read a report of a daily Daily Telegraph rider who'd taken a Ducati Desmosedici for a test drive.
The bike cost about$75000!
Buit after riding this 800 bhp /ton bike he said only $75000 what a bargain!

OFF TOPIC.

The Boxing Day Test is a ripper. The 4th Day's play has just ended. Pakistan has some superb players - especially a 17 year-old quickie called Aamer and a 19 year-old batsman called Umar. Had Pakistan fielded well on the first day they might well have won this Test (they might yet pull it off, although it's unlikely). They have a leg spinner they have hardly used. God knows why. They sorely miss Younis, but he might be here for the Sydney Test. The Pakis are great to watch. They are excellent sports.

What a game cricket is! Why do Americans play that godawful thing they call baseball? Come on, Yanks, play the real stuff!

Agree absolutely Beej just listening to test match special and England have taken 6/50 in this session.
It seems that SA might lose by an innings.
Baseball just doesn't do anything for me;and basketball is also painful(but I enjoyed playing it.)
Test cricket is peculiar, insofar as little can happen for a few hours then there's suddenly magnificent drama.

I don't know guys, where we play in the boonies, there ain't no center-field fence to blast one over, but the occasional 8 point deer has been known to almost take out the shortstop at about 50 mph. That makes for a bit more excitement....or how about them 'gators on our golf courses? A bit of fun when the outfielders got to dodge sidewinders like when I lived in Arizona. Ya'll's games are too civilized for us 'mericans I reckon. Australians got almost football and that's pretty cool....especially the guy in the white coat...laughed out loud a couple times with his gestures for scores.

Hey, you old Apache warrior! I wonder how long your footballers would last if you stripped them of their helmets and body armour and put them on the field against the New Zealand All Blacks. Half an hour? 20 minutes? : - )

Yes, the guy in the white coat is ridiculous!

Their hakka demonstrations are pretty interesting.......but, I don't think you can understand how awesomely huge some of the pros are....I had one step up behind me once at a bar, I turned around and was looking at a belt buckle. Felt like a tree was about to fall on me.
Man, are we off topic or what????? Happy New Year ya'll! Or....as Apaches say "Walk in beauty".

I guess I got a hell of a bargain on my FZ1, only paid $6,000....out the door. Ain't never looked back. I get respect from people just looking at it, not just from straightening twisties with it. 1/8th mile=110mph.....no prob. I get my adrenal buzz that way. Even after 35 assorted bikes of all different types and styles, this is the best I ever rode.

I missed wishing you a great Christmas and a fabulous New Year to you and yours. So, Merry Christmas!

Thanks a whole bunch...and the same to you and yours! Grandkids ran me raggedy, but I'll recover. This was the best for us in a long time...all the kids were home, grandkids all over the place, and, best of all, lots of love in the house. I wish the same for you and EVERYBODY!!!!!

Give him to me. I'll give the little prick something to whine about.

Hi all from Tunis, I found out my mobile-connect works here as well! Really slow though.

I have really simple response for the above complaint of not being allowed to "pray with his family". He should be allowed to pray, I am sure he is allowed, all it takes is a mind to do so. Even if the direction of Mecca is unknown, you just chose a direction. If you have no clean place or are restricted from bowing down, you can do so sitting on a chair and do the motions in your mind. If you are incapacitated, you can do the entire thing lying down with your eyes closed. So, what's his problem? Nothing, he is attempting to have more because he thinks he is special because of being a Muslim? Screw-that, if he was in a jail over here, he would be allowed to pray and like all over the world, he would be insisting that his bending over be done privately!

The above, to me, is the greatest wank. Somehow asking for more than people deserve or what is in fact not typical or unacceptable over here in the real Muslim world. They think that the system is so scared of breaching human dignity that the word "rights" has become a defence or fear tactic.

As a Muslim I automatically believe in the death penalty, thus this man deserves to be executed as the murdering scum he obviously is, the judge should make it clear that he has breeched laws and Islamic principles and that any claim to martyrdom is rejected. The Belgiums are trying very hard to train up three Belgian-Muslim judges for the entire reason to blast such outrageous milking as un-Godly. Maybe that is what is needed in the US and to get someone like Hassan to be condemned to death or life under US laws by another Muslim. That would really bite!

For clarification,

Hasan was ORDERED by the cops to only speak English over the phone unless an
interpreter was present. He violated their rule and was therefore cut off
from speaking. That's it. That's what it comes down to. It has nothing to
do with violating anyone's civil rights. That's just absurd. If he prayed in
English, or prayed in arabic while an interpreter was present, we would not
even be arguing about it. He decided to defy the rules of the police and
they did the right thing in cutting him off.

Hey there, just found this..

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BN0S2200...

Awlaki supposedly killed in airstike. Two different reoprts at the moment. Hopefully true.

Merry Christmas.

Now if we could get Mr. Hasan a meeting with The Almighty then that would be icing on the cake.

Being as he was born, raised and educated in the USA, he should be able to communicate just fine in English, no way are his rights being violated!!

He ca communicate just fine in English, yes, but what I meant was when he and his brother were praying over the phone, the cop guarding him wouldn't have understood what was going on as all he would hear was Arabic prayer. He may have misunderstood what was going on and could have thought it was code for a terrorist attack. The cop did the right thing. But now Hasan is crying big crodocdile tears. He'll get his CAIR-appointed lawyer to sue on his behalf.

It wasn't Mr. Hassan's fault. Islam is the ultimate culprit. It
orders its followers to do exactly what Mr. Hassan did, that is,
to KILL AS MANY INFIDELS as possible.

Islam is a CANCER and must be delt with accordingly.

Islamic Jihad terrorists are very, very religious people; they pray to their god before committing murder and before flying planes into buildings, and yell "god is great" (allahu akbar) when they torture un-Islamic people and when they cut off your head.

It is interesting how these religious people act so similarly to Nazis and Marxists. The Communists do essentially the same thing to un-Marxist, un-collectivized individuals while yelling "the collective Marxist State is great."

Un-Holy submission before totalitarian collectivism (as opposed to Sacred individualism) is the common thread running through Nazism, Marxism and Islam.

I think this lad should be allowed to take a leisurely drive with Tonto into the desert;there they can have a friendly chat about the infringement of his human rights!

OFF TOPIC.

Tell me, HSB, are you, like me, a dinosaur? Have you, too, failed miserably to keep abreast of technological advances? Do you despise all these youngsters who know how to send SBS messages on mobile phones that have cameras and other facilities? Do you, like me, fervently loathe people using such phones in shops and public transport? Do you even own a mobile phone? I don't. The mobile phone must be the most tyrannical device ever invented. Do you hate our world of beeps - fridges that beep, ovens that beep, etc? Do you want to kill people when you telephone a bank or some other organisation and you get a recorded voice ordering you, step by step, to press numbers on the key pad, or whatever they call it? Are you up to scratch with computers? I can send emails and can Google things. That's it. I have a deeply mysterious computer. It has, for example, FIREWALL (I think). What the f*** is firewall? Something to prevent my burning to death while I sleep? What is WORD? What is BLUETOOTH? (I don't know if my computer has this, but I hear people talking about it, so I pretend I'm on the ball.) People have invited me to CHAT. Clearly, they mean something other than what I understand the word to mean, so I become evasive. We have now entered the world of .......... hell, I can't remember the word. Glitter, or twinkle or sparkle or something of that nature. God knows what it all means. I had a warm argument with one bloke, involving the word MODEM. I swore blind I had no such thing: I could not ever recall going into a shop and saying, "I want to buy a modem." It turns out that it's that little box thing with green lights just over there. You will not believe this: Having grown accustomed to CDs I was eventually confronted with the rise of computers. Most unsettling. A boy I taught offered to lend me a disc packed with information about the Periodic Table. A computer disc - what do they call the bloody things? CD Roms? God knows. Now, a CD lasts a certain time, yes? So I asked this boy, "Great. How long does the disc last?" He gave me a funny look. "As long as you like," he replied. The boy was clearly an idiot, so I repeated my question, only to receive the same answer. I have never taken cheek from any kid in my life. Clearly, this wretch was taking the piss, so I bristled and, taking a leaf from Barry Humphries' book, gave him the hairy eyebrow and said, "Don't come the raw prawn with me, you little shit. Piss off, you mongrel." He was deeply wounded and slunk away. "F*** him," I thought. Only much later did I learn that the disc to which he referred was not a CD, but a whatever-the-hell disc. How are we to keep up with it all? The world is aswim with children of 6 who handle this stuff better than I. Yet, I fervently claim to be something other than moronic. I know a bit of science and mathematics, and I devote my life to reading history and listening to Beethoven and the lads as well as Dylan, AC/DC and the Stones. Then there are Charlie Parker and Ellington and Jelly Roll and Mingus and Louis in my pantheon of Gods. Verily, my reading is doing me not an ounce of good, while the music is perhaps keeping me away from advancement into this strange new world. Well, HSB, I'll remain where I am, and do so happily - until I hear that bastard at the other end of the phone line telling me to follow maddening instructions. By the way, have you ever actually watched a child of 10 use a computer? It beggars belief. The little bastards move their hands and fingers at close to the speed of light. They actually use BOTH HANDS! (I use a single finger of my right hand. If I try to press into service a finger of my left hand, said digits argue and fight, and the result is chaotic.) I hate them, but try not to show my intense envy lest they think they rule the world. God forbid they should ever ask me a question. I try not to use a computer in their presence because it results in howls of nasty laughter - very nasty - derisive, even. When I am asked why I do not use two hands to type I archly reply. "I never learned to type. I leave typing to the lower orders." I make lots of friends this way.

Your eldest got a First in Engineering from Imperial? Hell's teeth! Remind me to call him "Sir" when I meet him. Bet he's good with computers, too. Bastard!

Computer technology is a wonderful tool for increasing human creativity, but it sometimes distracts us from the love and creativity of our flesh and blood families, friends and neighbors.

How very prescient of you to write such a missive Beej;it is like somebody writing a script for me along the lines of"this is your life!


I will however admit to owning a mobile phone;although almost as a daily non exercise I always forget to charge it!
And yes my son is amazingly good with computers;both hardware and software to the extent were he made a trip to Chicago to write the source code for his trading program(the professionals couldn't get to grips with what he wanted)
At first they were a bit stand- offish;but when he sat down and showed them the weakness of their thinking;they rapidly
cooperated and as a result kept e-mailing him in order to run their future work past him for an opinion.
Somewhere in the early nineties I "lost the plot"with new technology ;but I can rely on him to sort things out.
He's somehow able to take over my computer at his desk and ring any necessary changes.(he's not into campanology!)
Yes, I'm a curmudgeonly cranky old bastard;with an almost pathological dislike for modern culture.(and insane religion
in particular).
I second your infuriation with modern technology eg. phoning BT for help and having to wait 15 minutes for the call to be answered by someone in Bangalore!
I've recently found another soul mate(on the web)who like youself seems to have similar issues as both you and me.
Give him a glance(www.venerablebeads.blogspot.com)his writing is top notch.
Well I'm just about to fly to London;so my best wishes to all my chums here for the festive season;and read you all in the new year.
BTW Funky I watched a documentary on the life of Jimi last night.
It turns out that he was robbed of most of his income by some quasi gangster shit.
Well just time for a bottle of "Abbot ale"and a puff or two from my new box of Partagas.
Incidently Beej my son can type at a rate of 120 words a minute.

How passe,Beejj.I use a forefinger from BOTH hands....how do you like them apples?
Charlie Parker,Mingus,Dylan,Beethoven(my knowledge of Beethoven is sketchy,but I have much Bach):Glorious!
I listened to Charlie Parker and Chet Baker(Bird and Chet) "Live at the Tradewinds" just this afternoon!
Modem? Mine ,I think,is the size of a cigarette lighter that plugs into the side of my laptop.
Beejj,your single word making digit is worth more than the entire technological wet dream of the youthful tech savvy tyros.Give them Jimi Hendrix,and they will walk away scratching their heads with no small amount of appreciation and fear.God bless 'em.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLJhJGnpovo

OFF TOPIC.

I notice, FBF, that you did not mention Louis Armstrong in response to my mentioning him. You did not have to, of course, but I wonder if you hold him in something less than high esteem. If so, it might be because of his going with the flow, so to speak, once he became famous. I urge you to get hold of his very early recordings with the Hot Five and Hot Seven. I seldom use the word "genius", but I am sorely tempted to in his case. If ever a man made a noise in the world, to use Haydn's prophecy for Beethoven, it was the young Louis. You will be all astonishment. Gosh, the jazz world teemed with talent in those days and for decades to follow - all of it black talent. The only white guy to be mentioned in the same breath was dear old Bix, poor thing. White jazz groups who tried to emulate the genuine article failed miserably. Why? What caused the jazz world to overflow with black talent? There might be some deep psychological reason, but I'm not going there. One thing is for certain, though, and that is the daily struggle for existence that was the lot of the black musician (usually forbidden to play in white groups and in white establishments). There's the hackneyed old idea about suffering being the fertile soil in which genius may flourish, and people who are tired of it laugh it to scorn, but there is evidence aplenty. Just think of Beethoven. The black jazzmen never knew when the next gig would be, or where the next dollar was coming from. Hell, the white fraternity even referred to the magic that came out of the Ellington orchestra as "jungle music"! Can you believe it? Am I correct in thinking the black musical mind was so far above that of its white counterpart that the latter simply found it incomprehensible - just as most people found Einstein's work unfathomable? I believe I am. It seems to me that jazz has died. I cannot think of anyone of merit since the days of Coltrane, Miles and Rollins. Has the well run dry? Are people too well-off, these days? Will we see another Bessie Smith or Ma Rainey or Billie Holliday, those empresses of Blues singing? Are people these days too demanding of the quick fix - the simple tune with a strong beat that requires not an ounce of attention? You know something, FBF? I think I have seen the best. From now on it's all downhill.

Louis said a great thing. When someone referred to folk music, Louis replied, "All music is folk music. I ain't never heard no horse singing."

A thousand apologies for my tardy response,Beejj.
Christmas and another funeral kept me busy(another funeral.I feel like Harold from "Harold and Maude").
Beejj,my omission of Louis Armstrong was ignorance pure and simple.I don't profess to be a Jazz expert;I enjoy Miles Davis and Charles Mingus and of course,Charlie Parker.
Mine is the Blues,hence my love for Jimi.I like Charlie Parker for the same reason I like Hendrix:they take you on a journey.....you can just go with them!
Kerouac understood Jazz,he spoke it.
As for the "black" influence you are spot on;you could have mentioned Scott Joplin:a notable Ragtime "professor".
Struggle and art are synonymous it would seem.I can't think of one of my heroes who didn't suffer.Interesting.

"suffering for your art" is no wives' tale.
Bach is a strange exception.He was quite well adjusted by all accounts and modest into the bargain.
He thought one of his children would be the one to make the Bach name.
Bach is truly music for the people;there is a humanity and shimmering composure in all he did.
I'll avoid season''s greetings and instead bid you a hearty cyber-handshake and gentleman's bow.
"Without music life would be a mistake":-Nietzsche.

Beejj, you should PUBLISH this post. It's BRILLIANT.

Please,do share you wisdom with all of us by becoming an author !


Your vocabulary is RICH and your use of the English language is SUPERB.
Thank you for writing in this blog !

OFF TOPIC.

JH, I forgot to add this pretty little poem, a propos of my vapourings about music. Author unknown .........

Beethoven and Brahms

And Byrd

Would have quahms

If they heard

Music written

By Britten.

OFF TOPIC.

Jewhawk, further to that which I wrote to you a few hours ago about English and my words to Funkybarfly, let's turn our minds to "pop" music. The pop music of the 20th Century is American. Period. All the pop music invention of any merit of the past 100 years is American. Britain has contributed NOTHING. I hear Beatles and Stones fans howling in outrage, but they are blind and ignorant bullshitters. Everything that came from the Beatles and the Stones and the Kinks and all the others came out of America. Yes, a bloke could sit in Liverpool and write a song, but he built that song on American music. What British musical tradition gave rise to anything Lennon and Jagger ever wrote? Not a damned thing. Might the American blues boys and rockers have had anything to do with it? Um ........ Maybe! Britain is a musical desert, while America throbs with invention. Indeed, Britain has never produced music worth a damn. While Germany and Italy and Austria and Russia threw up musical giants, Britain gave us NOTHING. God help us, but there are those who claim the agonised outpourings of Elgar and Walton and Vaughan Williams and Bax and Tippett are music. Only English people do this, though! How many times, I wonder, have concert hall audiences in countries other than England suffered at the hands of Walton over the past 10 years. Who, in God's name, would listen to Walton when they might hear Mozart?? Who would choose Ivor Novello before Cole Porter? Only musically destitute Britons. Thank God for America. Americans, WAKE UP!!

Thank you, Jewhawk, for your kind words. The English language intoxicates me, providing pleasure that is everlasting. I know that languages develop - that a language, like an Army, must march or die - but it saddens me to see the equation Development = Decline. English is crammed with absurdities, and I love them all, but is there a more robust tongue? America has contributed mightily to the development of English, although many Britons would never admit this truth. Americans have a gift for coining excellent new words, "teenager" being an example. American spelling is another matter ......! Gosh, English is so subtle! Take, for instance, "shall" and "will". How crazy it is that these have different meanings! MacArthur ("I shall return") and even Churchill ("We shall fight them on the beaches ......") got it wrong. Churchill, for God's sake!!! If you want to enjoy English writing at its most simple and beautiful, read Churchill's "My Early Life." You'll not be able to put it down. (One of these days we'll have to have a long off-topic examination of old Winnie.)

I have written two books, but they were only chemistry texts. Actually, I recently wrote a children's story, so I must get it published. Writing stories for kids is great: makes me a kid all over again - well, not quite: I still can't use f****** computers!

That was one of the funniest comments I've ever read from you. Classic!

Awesome, not sure I understood every term and word but I love it because I can relate to it. My 14yr old came over from London (she is a scholarship student with the London School of Music) for a holiday recently and when I said my dvd player was busted and I will have to buy another one, she pointed out that the play-station II I had would do the job I was like dumbfounded. She then told me she was given a gift by the school of a new iPod MP3 player and that it had 160 gigga whatever-the-f*ck-memory that is. I said eh? and she laughed at me for 1 hour in tears and said that she currently has 6,833 songs on it and still some space. It is so bloody small that if I sat on it, it would dissapear considering it is a waffer-thin size of a bar of soap - if you get my drift. I used to be proud when I purchased one of the first cd music players ever built in Japan and spent a fortune wiring up to my record-cassette player back in Rotterdam. I have a really cool mobile phone (a gift) that talks to my computer and looks constantly for something called public-access-routers. I like it because it is small and can fit in my front pockets without my looking like I am permanently excited.

Beejj, I think I have new found respect for you!

ps. Barry Humphries is that Dame Edna lady?

I guess I'm in the minority here. I still have my first gen 10 GB iPod. I remember using it while all my friends were still using the god awful cd player. I was telling them all they were behind in the times.

Nowadays, I build my own computers, piece by piece, I have my whole house networked. I own 3 laptops and 2 desktop computers. My main workstation consists of 2 large 24 inch LCD monitors and a custom built system that can handle just about anything you throw at it.

My day job is working to make my company look good on Google. I'm on the internet many hours out of the day. I read almost 1000 RSS feeds in google reader so I can keep up with all my news.

ya'll are a bunch of newbs! haha!

Admittedly, I'm a hybrid. What I mean by that is I remember my pre-internet life, (before 1995) and my current life which could not do without it. The internet is one of the greatest inventions the human race has ever come up with.

Long live your awesome creativity; it renders you in the image of God the Creator. That is what I sometimes tell my kids, but it is good for us as adults to think in these terms as well.

BTW, our freedom reders us in the image of God as well; God is free and we are likewise born free. I pray for the defeat of all who conspire against the sacred right of the individual to his/her own freedom and creativity.

"Almighty God hath created the mind free. All attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens . . . are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion.” Thomas Jefferson

“God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?” Thomas Jefferson

"To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father's has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association--the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it." Thomas Jefferson

“I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” Thomas Jefferson

Thanks Storm!

Barry Humphries and Dame Edna are one and the same.
He has another alter ego called Sir Les Patterson.
Bye possums!

OFF TOPIC.

Are you a golfer, HSB? I like to describe myself as one even though I have not played for a few years. Indeed, when I don't play, I am a very good golfer because I know precisely what to do and how to execute every shot in the book. Honestly. I visualise it all and the results are invariably perfect. What would you like to know about the golf swing? Just ask, for salvation is at hand. I have read all the books and keenly watched the videos of the greats. It's very simple, really. It puzzles me that anyone should ever score worse than a birdie on any hole.

When I play, alas, something strange happens. What should be a routine birdie 3 becomes a 7. The 8th hole at Royal Melbourne East is the easiest par 5 on the planet. When I lie abed imagining it I usually attain an eagle 3; sometimes a tap-in birdie 4. When I play it, however, I average 8. I tolerate this because I KNOW I will soon do the 18 in 54, and that's discounting holes in one. What's the problem? What could possibly go wrong?

Do you ever ponder the unaswerable question "Who is/was the best golfer?" Nowadays, many would say Tiger Woods. Many others would suggest Jack Nicklaus. People will argue forever. Golf is two games - one through the air, and one on the ground, agreed? Who is the best putter of all time? Bobby Locke? Billy Casper? Ben Crenshaw? Take your pick. Certainly, Ben Hogan was not one of them. What about the air game? In other words, who was the finest shot maker the game has ever seen? As Tiger put it, "Who OWNED his swing?" Tiger dearly wants to, but admits he does not. Who, then? There are only two to be reckoned with: Ben Hogan and Moe Norman. (I bet lots reading this have never heard of Moe Norman.) I say so. Tiger Woods says so!! The air game is the very essence of golf. See what a bloke will score, armed with only a putter, on a 550-yard par 5! I can hear the modern youngsters howling in protest. Think about just this, though ...... Hogan shot 274 at the Masters in 1953. That was after his accident, when the very act of walking 18 holes was torture for him and one of his eyes had been damaged. Decades later, Tiger bettered that total by 4 shots. That's 1 shot per round. Impressive stuff indeed. But let's delve a little deeper into it. Does anyone believe that golf equipment in the 1950s was as good as the modern stuff? Does anyone believe the 1950s ball flew as far as the modern ball? And let us not forget the reply the great Byron Nelson gave when, late in life, he replied. "The lawn mower" when asked about the biggest advance in golf over the past 50 years. ("The fairways these days are better than the greens we putted on.") Just ponder: at Augusta, Woods was hitting 8 and 9 irons whereas Hogan had to use 1 and 2 irons to reach the same greens. Um ..... which is easier to use? Yet, Woods beat Hogan by ONE shot per round!!!! Yes, Augusta gets revised annually - but equipment advances leap ahead as a result of technology. Let it not be thought that I am putting Tiger down. The man is a marvel, but Hogan could have given God 3 shots and beaten him.

Then we must not forget Bobby Jones - he of the "impregnable quadrilateral" - the one sporting record that will NEVER be equalled, let alone beaten. Let Woods and the boys play with hickory shafted clubs and dreadful balls of that era and see how they perform. And never forget that there was no such thing as a sand iron in 1930. Can anyone equal Jones?

Here's news: a bloke called Allan Ferguson played the Old Course in 79 shots. Unbelievable! 79? That's a disaster, I hear the ignoramuses bleat. OK, give Tiger Woods Ferguson's clubs and featheries and let him play the Old Course as it would have been in about 1880 and let's see if he can break 90, shall we? No raking of bunkers in those days, remember.

Who was the best? It's not easy to answer. I'll pick Hogan every time because not only was he the consummate shot maker, but he was the toughest sonofabitch who ever hit a golf ball. There are more stories about Hogan than anyone else. Bruce Devlin once practised with him before a tournament. On one tee, Devlin looked down the fairway and espied a wickedly placed bunker on the left. "Is that bunker in play, Ben?" he asked. "No. Just play to the right of it," replied Hogan. At a course he had never played he asked his playing partner. "What's the line on this hole?" "See that cluster of three trees?" the guy replied. "aim for those." "Which one?" asked Hogan. At Augusta, a young big-hitting golfer mentioned to Hogan that Hogan had laid up on a dangerous par 5 instead of going for the green with his second. "Even I go for the green, Mr Hogan. Why don't you?" "I don't have to," replied our man. I could go on and on.

Why did I write all this? Because I wanted to. Because SOMEBODY ought to!

HAAA!!!!!!!!!!! GOOD ONE!

It's probably just a case of the police not understanding Arabic...a simple misunderstanding that should not hold up in court. The gurads might have figuered he was discussing another act of terrorism to be carried out by another fellow radical.
Nobody, except of course and Islamic Imam should have any sympathy for this outlaw.