Posts by Simon Grigg
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Hard News: It Began ... in Chicago, in reply to Grant McDougall,
the genre being discussed in this thread basically leaves me cold.
But clearly it doesn't do so for large numbers of people, including the rest of the posters here, so I'm not sure why that and the paragraph before needed to be said?
Headless Chickens
A band that enthusiastically embraced much of what this thread is about, surely.
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Hard News: It Began ... in Chicago, in reply to Russell Brown,
Best celebrity spot at Spectrum: Lofty from East Enders, having it large.
There was a time, early to mid 80s, when you could spot Boy George, Marilyn and Richard Branson, who owed the place, on the dancefloor
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Hard News: It Began ... in Chicago, in reply to nothingelseon,
Todd Terry DJing all his own/alter ego's records.
Same, at The WAG one night around the same time. It worked, but Todd was electric during that period.
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Predictably, I wake to find a typo – the reissues from Trax UK were in the late 1990s, not ’80s. [Fixed -- RB.]
William Gibson’s slightly misquoted maxim that “the street finds its own uses for technology"
The way these kids (and they were just that – many 15/16 or younger) used the tools they found themselves with is rather well covered in that series of interviews I linked to too.
If you have the time (and I guess the level of interest) they’re worth it, even if they’re perhaps sometimes little more than a trio of ageing UK DJs musing over the stories. They are, however, pretty well informed ageing UK DJs and I’ve not heard many of the stories before.
One of my favourite Trax stories was told to me by Roy Davis Jr, As a kid he was working in the label’s warehouse packing records. One day he came in with a demo cassette and handed it to Larry Sherman to audition.
A week later he arrived at work and began unpacking boxes that had newly been pressed. One was his demo.
Sherman had sent the unplayed cassette straight to the plant. He had no idea what was good or bad, he just knew that the kids were making the tunes that sold so he didn’t want to risk missing one.
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Hard News: Libya, in reply to Neil Morrison,
Cool, lets move on
Most of the time non-western troops are used, often for the reasons you described.
The French too are far more active in North Africa than most realise, with troops and aircraft in Chad and other former French colonies for many years.
Chad gives little back to France in the fiscal sense - it is one of the poorest nations on planet earth, its oil industry has an Exxon contract and it buys no arms. The French seem to be only there currently to force open a window to allow the oil money to pay for almost non-existent infrastructure and to enforce the borders, most especially from Libya.
It's hard to see what advantage aside from regional stability is gained from their involvement in that country.
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Hard News: Libya, in reply to Neil Morrison,
I addressed the points you raised and you responded. I was under the impression the points you raised were what you intended to talk about.
No you didn't. Not at all. The question was whether Libya had a closer relationship over the past few years with the USA than was first mooted upthread. Two people, myself included, offered investigative journalists who had written reasonably in depth pieces which offered information on this. It seemed reasonable, given the evidence, that it had, especially at an intel level.
Your response seems to be based around your personal 'common knowledge' that everyone knows this is not true because '[Obama] does not appear to have fallen for Gaddafi's spin that his opposition is dominated by Islamic extremists.' which really has little to do with what was being discussed. It wasn't relevant to the thread at hand and it seems to exist on some sort of tangent.
When asked to look at the work done by the journalists you responded 'I'm not all that interested in the writer you linked to.'
I give up, Neil. It's the same imploding circle you seem to always lead a discussion into.
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Hard News: Libya, in reply to Neil Morrison,
Good on you, Neil.
However, that wasn't what we were talking about.
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Hard News: Libya, in reply to Neil Morrison,
It's actually common knowledge that the US hasn't fallen for Gaddafi's spin that it's all the fault of Islamic extremists.
Really? The writer of that piece I linked to - you did read it I assume - may need your guidance back to the path of 'common knowledge'.
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Hard News: Libya, in reply to Neil Morrison,
But they clearly have taken it with a grain of salt.
Always appreciate your insider info, Neil
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Hard News: Libya, in reply to Clint Fern,
This is one dictator that the States has never cosied up to.
That used to be the case but the CIA has developed very close links with Libyan intel in recent years in the name of the War on Terror.
The CIA-Qadhafi spy agency working relationship was so close the U.S. handed over to Libya some anti-Qadhafi Libyans captured in its campaign against terrorism. The relationship was so rosy, the Americans allowed Libyan agents to visit Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba to interrogate Libyan detainees.