The Off Topic Topic

[Admiral Yi]

That's just awesome.

Specifically it was in the Scottish uncle scene in Flashman.  Great scene.

[Maladict]

I've seen bona fides used in the plural to talk about documents or references that vouch for your character.

Bona fides is still singular.

I think it would be bonae fides.

[celedhring]

From the makers of "this is the hardest name that country quiz you will take today" comes "this is the hardest name that flag quiz you will take today"!

http://www.buzzfeed.com/robinedds/the-hardest-name-that-flag-quiz-youll-take-today?utm_term=4ldqpia#.prja69QXw

16/18 - missed Rwanda and Gabon. I got a few 50/50 guesses right, though.

[Maladict]

17/18: a few tricky ones in there.

[Valmy]

That one is a lot harder.  I don't really think about flags that often.  14/18

[Barrister]

13 /  18. Much tougher. I suck at flags of Africa

[Eddie Teach]

http://www.sporcle.com/games/needapausebutton/just-kitten-wit-ya

Animal puns. NSFBB.

[Josquius]

I've been half listening to music whilst I do stuff on my computer. Just randomly clicking through youtube and seeing where I end up....for some reason I've just listened to 3 Kyary pamyu pamyu tracks

[The Larch]

I've been half listening to music whilst I do stuff on my computer. Just randomly clicking through youtube and seeing where I end up....for some reason I've just listened to 3 Kyary pamyu pamyu tracks

The "Mix" options that Youtube offers when you load a song are pretty good in my experience.

[Barrister]

http://www.sporcle.com/games/needapausebutton/just-kitten-wit-ya

Animal puns. NSFBB.

Thanks for the trigger warning.

[Sheilbh]

We swarthy peoples play more pleasing football than the English, imho. The Premier League isn't the be-all and end-all.

Yeah, there are few things more pleasing than Italians playing Catenaccio after an early 1-0 lead

I kind of agree with this piece

The Austere Beauty of Italy
By Alex Massie

A word about the defending champions. Not since Germany's victory in the desperate 1990 edition of the tournament has any victor been so little celebrated. Doubtless this owes something to the fashion in which Italy prevailed and to the sense that those players who remain in the squad aren't the men they once were, while the newcomers aren't the men they're replacing either. 

So Italy arrive in South Africa overlooked and unfancied and available at 16/1 with some bookmakers. That's a value bet worth a modest investment. 

I picked—he says, smugly—Italy to win the tournament four years ago and if I wouldn't do so again that says more about the opposition and the apparent impossibility of retaining the trophy than it does about Italy.

True, this doesn't look a vintage Italian side. But how many do? 2006 wasn't. Nor was 1990 (which needed Schillaci's surprise emergence) and even 1982 doesn't always get the respect due a side that defeated Argentina, Brazil and West Germany in a single tournament.

In America and to some extent in Britain too there's not much love for the way Italy play the game. Respect, yes, and admiration too but not love.

So let me be contrarian and say that I love the austere beauty of Italian football. That's not say I think it sensible for everyone to play like Italy—one of the joys of the World Cup in particular is the variety of styles on display—but it suits the Italians.

There is, as I say, a minimalist purity to the essence of Italian football. Score once and don't let the opposition score at all. Job done.*

It's an admirably lean philosophy that distills the game to its simplest concept. This apparent simplicity is deceptive however. It's exceedingly difficult to play like this and catenaccio is a stern doctrine that places enormous demands upon its adherents precisely because, at its purest, it aims to eliminate all error.

In that sense it's a perversely ambitious way of playing football. At one end of the pitch Italy has produced a string of penalty-box cobras trained to capitalize on fleeting chances; at the other legions of defenders trained to defend the herd at all and any costs, knowing that a single mistake could invite disaster for all.

No wonder games involving Italy are often such taut, high-wire occasions that burn with a subtle intensity. And that's why I always find Italy an intriguing team to watch. Fascinating, even.

And it works. Excluding penalty shoot-outs,** you know how many games Italy have lost in the World Cup since 1982? Four. That's a better record than any other major country. Better than Brazil (five losses). Better than Germany (eight). Much better than Argentina (nine). It's a remarkable record that deserves, I think, to be more widely appreciated than it is. 

Ah, but, you say, what about the diving—or flopping, in American parlance—and the cheating and the cynicism and all the rest of it? Well that, say I, is a matter for another post later in the tournament.

*Fancifully, I like to imagine that when Italy win a match 2-0 there's some grey-bearded football philosopher in Bologna or Verona or Milan complaining at all the wasted effort that went into scoring that second goal.

**Italy are almost as bad at penalties as England. I have no idea why this should be the case.

[Capetan Mihali]

Many people probably seen it before, but here is Freud's letter from 1935 to a mother of a gay son:

he has to come over to Vienna. I have no intention of leaving here.

Dude really thought Dollfuss was going to hold it together.

[Sheilbh]

Found this piece really interesting:
http://newsweekpakistan.com/uneasy-conversations/

[Valmy]

Dude really thought Dollfuss was going to hold it together.

Hadn't thought of that.

[Valmy]

Found this piece really interesting:
http://newsweekpakistan.com/uneasy-conversations/

That was really interesting. Thank you for sharing that. I have heard about the war in passing but know nothing about it. Considering how the creation of Pakistan went in 1947 I figured it was probably very nasty.