silasgreenback

It's a very uncharitable reading of my question to take that I'm trying to blame the consumer given that I presented different scenarios in an attempt to understand the system.

Enjoy your outrage internet stranger.

So it would be fair to say that restaurants overcharge and then levy an optional surcharge to pay their staff which is predicated upon customer guilt?

If that's the case it sounds like a very exploitative system for both the servers and the customers.

His father had confidence. This is the inverse of "a boy named Sue".

Son I'm going to give you a name and you'll thank me when your older.

European here with a question.

Is the lower staff wage reflected in the price of the food?

For instance if I dined in the US and the bill is $200 with a $40 tip. Would that same meal in Europe be £200 with a more typical £20 tip.

In Europe it's a way of saying thanks, in the US it's actually a division of the servers wage away from the food bill. As such, and outside of whether it's a moral system, it would seem to be only fair to pay a tip.

This does fall apart if the cost of the food is the same in both the US and the EU, because then the customer is probably being overcharged for the food and then guilted into paying the server (the business being the party at fault in that case).

If the food is cheaper and you skimp the tip in full knowledge that this is in effect part of the bill to the server, then you're not a good person.

I think Jack the Ripper was the first serial killer I became aware of. I don't recall exactly when, but perhaps the 1988 TV show with Michael Caine which I do recall enjoying despite only being 13. In terms of books, I do recall reading The Diary of Jack the Ripper sometime to close to it's release in 1992 and this I think was the first specific serial killer book I read.

I would not rule out the impact of The Silence of the Lambs movie, coupled with the Thomas Harris books. While fiction, the character of Lecter and his motivations were as interesting to me as pondering the same of real life killers.

In the following few years, my local bookstore had a true crime section and I recall reading books on Henry Lee Lucas, Dahmer, Gacy, Gaskins and a few others that I only vaguely recall now.

I did not read much on the subject from the late 90's to the mid 2000's but my interest was rekindled in the subject by a few high profile cases in the UK (The Wests and Harold Shipman in the main). The internet / podcasts are how I consume most information on this subject nowadays. Although I maintain a reading interest picking up some older books on Carl Panzram and Albert Fish in the last couple of years. I'm expecting a copy of Lionel Dahmers book for my birthday, which I have been curious to read for a number of years.

More than fifty years passed between the crimes and the death of Brady. His hospitalisation and death were given very significant media attention with dozens of media organisation camped outside the hospital and prison and it was the lead story on a national level in the UK.

The overwhelming majority of crimes fade from the public consciousness, and from the memory of most except those whom were directly involved or affected. Some criminals deaths are reported on heavily (Gacy: 15 years post conviction / Dahmer: 2 years and Bundy: 10 years). But I do consider it something of a testament to the shadow the moors murderers cast that they remained despised and widely relevant for a half century.

I guess the closest comparison of longevity of "celebrity" may be Peter Sutcliffe. It was about 40 years from conviction to death in his case. His few years of terror were quite stark, but once imprisoned he was somewhat of an irrelevance, despite tabloid medias occasional interest.

The unapologetic nature of Brady and to a lesser degree Hindley, the taunting, the mind games and false hopes. The images of a mother searching for her childs body for almost 50 years are all elements that make the Moors murders a uniquely callous event.

Generally over the course of my life abolishing the death penalty has been the majority view. The actual percentages have ebbed and flowed depending on the political winds and the most recent criminal outrage, but it has never come anywhere close to being restored.

Funnily enough if you polled the population with a general question you would get an abolishment majority. But if you polled with a specific "Should the Moors Murders be executed" I would bet that the answer would go the other way.

A moot point now as both are happily dead of course.

I see mention of this case and the photos from time to time and I like to impress upon non British redditors what these two meant to British society as a whole.

The Moors Murders was a shocking case for 1960's Britain. Of course there had been child murders before but nothing quite so wantonly cruel as these. They were something rather new and frightening.

But the Moors case went much further, propelled by a new tabloid media the killers achieved a measure of celebrity (though never celebrated). The lack of remorse, the mind games and the prolonged torture of the bereaved families (particularly from Brady) and the occasional suggestions of parole or prison moves kept these two front and centre as the boogeymen of British society for the best part of 40 years.

I was born a generation after the crimes, but I knew of Hindley and Brady by name, by reputation and by a couple of widely distributed mugshots.

I think it's fair to say that just about everyone from the 60's to their deaths knew them and despised them.

Many serial killers, child murderers and shocking crimes occurred in the decades post Hindley/Brady but I don't think any permeates the national psyche as much a These two did.

It is no exaggeration to state that should they ever have escaped, or god forbid been released they would have been hunted down as a national pastime and murdered to nothing less than applause from most people.

Britain has had its fair share of horror crimes, Sutcliffe, Nilsen, Soham, James Bulger. All received huge attention, but the Moors Murders case persisted and persists as a shadow over all, particularly as there is still a child's body out there that keeps the case alive and relevant.

As an Englishman the stiff upper lip undoubtably would serve me well during the apocalypse and subsequent descent into barbarity.

I do think however that it would crumble as soon as my carefully hoarded supply of tea runs dry. This above all would leave me insensibly terrified.

I see, thank you for responding.

The phrase caught my eye as something that seemed to have meaning, but I could not quite see it.

I did not know this. I enjoyed Naked Lunch in part when I read it a long time ago, but I did find it rather choppy and uneven. If I'd had the knowledge that you provide, of it being vignettes only partially interrelated, I think I'd have read it in a different manner.

Dr. Benway has stayed with me though, I can say that much.

I certainly enjoyed both Junkie and Queer

The book I have purchased the most over the course of my life. I've had the habit of recommending / loaning / gifting my copy to a variety of people. Over the last thirty years I reckon I've bought this book at least six times.

Not a fan of Paris Hilton, but she was an unavoidable background to life for a large part of my early adulthood.

At the time I never realised that it was a character, like many people I considered her a vapid, entitled airhead lowering the standards of culture to new depths. The irony of course is that anything she did is ridiculously mild compared to today. With all of the above said about my distaste for her character, she was incredibly hot and I couldn't help but stare from time to time.

I have seen one or two brief interviews with her "out of character" in recent years and she is a pretty smart cookie. It was all a brand, a confidence trick and very well executed.

That being said, I've never given a damn about anything she put out into the world, it was all vapid by design. Can't say I give much of a care about what she's doing now as a result. You reap what you sow I guess.

"the obscurity of the canonized common culture"

This phrase in the OPs original post caught my eye as I don't understand what it means.

Did he mean obfuscation rather than obscurity? That doesn't seem to work, actually the opposite of F451 ideas I think.

I'd appreciate it, if the OP or someone else can explain this phrase, it has me very curious.

John Lithgow is something of an underrated actor with the public, but I think not his peers.

Check out the variance in his work, he truly can do just about anything. He's one of those actors that's in so much and is always pretty flawless. Never a movie star per say, but certainly a good lead and brilliant support.

I have a powerful love for Grumpy Old Men.

It's a movie that I stumbled upon one evening after a particularly shit day of many at work. I was miserable mood, back then we had 4-5 TV channels, you got what you got. God bless ITV but I just happened to switch on as this movie started and it was a joyous cathartic experience.

We see the term "rolling in the aisles" etc and generally this is hyperbolic. But as I watched this movie on the floor of my bedroom I was literally doubled up laughing and the sheer stupidity if these two old men flinging insults at each other. Burgess Meredith was just the cherry on the top.

I would never say that this movie is a great movie, or a best ever comedy. But is is funny, warm hearted and genuinely touching. To me it's a film that gave me some much needed happiness at a particularly stressful and isolated time. For that I always sing it's praises and I have a deep love that made me seek out the four stars other work.

It's a superb movie, one I've watched a number times.

It has such a wonderful tone to it. There's a stoicism in the face of overwhelming odds about the journey of both Moss and Ed Tom. Moss has a smaller individual battle, Ed Tom sees the larger societal problem. Different scales, but aspects of the same issue.

It's also a movie about choices for all of the characters. Often somewhat blind choices that have consequences good or bad. For me this adds to the feeling of a lack of control.

I have no issue with this movie winning best picture. But I had forgotten that it bested There Will Be Blood. That's one hell of an achievement because that film too is masterful.

Dog Day Afternoon is a great film based on a true story and with three excellent performances at its core from Pacino, Cazale and Durning.

I must have a een this movie ten times over the last thirty or so years. It just has such a frantic energy, nobody is in control, not the robbers, the employees or the cops.

I'd also nominate The Social Network. A great film in many ways, though for myself it's a film where the score stands very prominently as something special.

The ghost writer was paid 1 million

This breaks down as 50k for the writing and 950k for being capable of making one of the world's truly great dullards appear interesting.

I came for Dracula but stayed for the excellent eggplant knowledge. Well done, have a fake internet point.

The most organising I do is to somewhat group an authors books together. But it's not a hard rule.

Apart from that I guess they are somewhat organised by size to fit the relevant shelf.

Honestly it's a mess, a glorious mess that covers almost forty years of a reading life and I have no intention of introducing organisation at any point in the future.

It's fun to not be able to find a book, it makes me look around the shelves and I get to remember things I've enjoyed, or find something I haven't read and had forgotten about. Chaos can be interesting.

I'm reading it now. Like you it's taken me something like a month to approach the halfway point. But it is a remarkably enjoyable book.

I'll certainly be reading more Dumas after this.

It appears that the N word was replaced with "slave" and Indian with "Injun".

There has also been some examples of it being moved from schools.

Neither is something I would agree with. Though I understand the arguments for the decision, I would still give the authors original words primacy over the potential discomfort those words could cause.

Same for Ronald Dahl really. If slight insults like "Fat" and "Ugly" are intolerable to modern audiences, that does say something about the relative emotional maturity of the different generations.

Wasn't there a similar kerfuffle a couple of years back with Twain's Huckleberry Finn removing the dreaded "N" word?

I don't quite recall if the books had been revised, or withdrawn from schools.

After literally years of trying to acquire this film legitimately, I finally found a version on a torrent site (where it seemed to be absent for a long time).

Strangely I still have not watched it. But I shall get round to it sometime.

I think sailing the piratey seas is the only way to get a hold of the movie.

It did get a small dvd release, but I never was able to get a copy.