Ruth

It's funny that, as a native English speaker, I'd know instantly if it were to be used wrongly but had absolutely never thought about these two words before.

And I'd forgotten the posh use of 'rather' that sienna refered to.

It can have a saucy sense too.

Hi! Can you explain please the difference between quite and rather.

 

Which characterizes an object as better one?

e.g

The movie is quite good - it is really good

The movie is rather good - well, it is good, but ...just good.

 

Do I understand correctly? Or is it vice versa?

This is a tough one!

In your movie example, "rather good," could mean better than expected.

I'm not sure that one is necessarily better than the other. It depends on the context I think.

So, after leaving a 4 year old with me all day - "he has been quite good," would mean he'd been a monster, but I'm too polite to say so! And "he's been rather good," would mean better than expected, good. I think.

WAG on Children In Need.

 

Edit: HE on Children In Need! (I'm a bit OCD about writing on here EVERY time I hear a Mika song on TV)

 

Edit2: They played HE again...

I think I might be a bit OCD about it too :-)

So, Love Today on Come Dine With Me. I have no idea why.

My School , held a carnival for Childrens' Day and there was this stall for a "jukebox"(a laptop connected with speakers) and karaoke there and guess what?

It was blaring "love today" around the whole acres and acres of school and campus

It uplifts the whole day doesn't it?

'Happy Ending' piano playing gently in Strictly It Takes Two tonight.

Payment has to be made every time music is used doesn't it?

random

Not rude in spite of the first word

They gently played 'Happy Ending' - instrumental as Peter Shilton went out of Strictly on 'It Takes Two' this evening. And they played 'Rain' over the videotape of a very rainy Grand Prix circuit on Sunday, just like they did for the golf in Newport.

'....to not read ...' is wrong; it's a split infinitive - like 'to boldly go' in Star Trek which is wrong but we've got used to it.

He tweets in French as well as English. Donkeys are not always credited with brains!

 

 

MIKA - ED 2010: My Meet & Greet

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ApKIJ44ttQ

 

That's it! Enjoy!

 

 

 

Oh, you're an MFCer? Excellent. I'm rvleevee from YouTube and I'm so grateful to you that you captured my moment with Mika. I'm from about one minute to 1:18.

Lovely, thanks for sharing it :-)

There's a programme on atm called 'Fat and Proud' and - unsurprisingly - 'Big Girl' was on. And 'Fat Bottomed Girls'

Two Mika moments on Strictly tonight: Relax, and later, for Jimmi's bruised foot; Grace Kelly: the chorus! I can be brown, I can be blue . . . .

Indeed they did: for Goldie, but now he's gone. . . .

And also in other parts of England. In the North East you may be addressed as pet.

I think any of these terms sound really odd when being used by a non English speaker though.

In the cold NW - my home, older folk used to call everyone '****' or 'cocker' I wonder if that will be ***** out?

Yes it was ***** out. Never mind. I was writing the first syllable of a rooster (as known in the UK) It's not rude when used as a term of endearment here.

We recorded Rob Brydon last week and caught the end of the first day of the Ryder Cup Golf in Newport, Wales. Boy had it been wet!!!! They couldn't play for 7 hours. . . . .

And they played Rain - not my fav but very apt!

Just in case anyone is interested...

 

What a brilliant photo. What an odd angle! Thanks for posting :-)

There was a brief snatch of lollipop in the intro show for 'Strictly' last weekend.

The tinkling piano bit of Happy Ending was in the background as they got to the death of Mollie Sugden in a telly programme about her life & work this evening (ITV?)

Fran healy (travis) tweeted like this today

 

Is the word "that" in sentences like "He said that he wanted to go here" needed. Couldn't it be "He said he wanted to go here" instead?

 

I'm so confused also.. anyone can make it clear for me plz?

The one with 'that' is reported speech I think, (he said that he . . . .) without it's direct speech.

(He said, 'I wanted to go here.')

This was our view from the balcony..........it wasn't bad actually............and we could see what you were all up to

Hey, hey, I'm on this. I'm behind Sara and Silver with my hair up.

And John said that Mika has vowed not to be away too long this time, so fingers crossed ~x~

 

 

Hello!!! Glad you are back safely ....... and so is your passport at last!!

Hello - it's taken me all this time to read the first 10 pages!

And thanks for the passport

And I see there are already loads of reports so I'll read them tomorrow. And I see lots of videos on YouTube. Thankyou all so much for sharing

We were, as ever, encouraged to leave straight away but I loitered, expecting a long wait in the cold and the wet. But no! There was a barrier, a very long line that was meant to be single file, a dry spell between rain clouds and the warmth generated by a Mika show, then before long Mika came out. I hope someone got a shot of his clothes, he looked lovely. He worked the line v quickly and efficiently but when he came to me I had time to do both things I had in mind: I showed him the mika-ish bag I’d bought at Beautiful Days and he signed it AND I gave him the gold star and he said, ‘that makes three’ which it does! or perhaps he said ‘I’ve got 3 now’ My God, what a memory he has! Blimey!!! Not like mine!

Then, Mika went in the car and we lingered for ages. Jen was ready to go so I went to tell John how much I’d enjoyed the tour and how appreciative I am of the work done by the whole team. He asked which shows I’d been to and he seemed impressed, which is great considering how many more of you have been to so many more gigs. Then, before Jen could round up the car load - crazy Ingie, squiffy Vicky etc, the band came out. So we briefly saw Martin and David, disappearing in opposite directions. Cherisse stopped to talk and recognised me. It’s always a shock and I guess it dates back to the free gig in Manchester in June 2007. iMMa and Jimmy were very friendly but Jen really needed to get moving. It was like herding cats as more lingering goodbyes were given, final hugs shared and we got back to the carpark. £19 was a bit of a sting. Thanks Edinburgh! We filled up the car with the latecomers and headed out of the city for tea and toast, a share of impressions and memories, then bed.

And who would have thought that we’d oversleep and have to miss the fun of reliving the experience the next morning? But we had to whizz to the station. I believe ‘someone’ missed her train, but I was fine, bought supplies for the journey home and was whisked back to normal life and a totally under-whelmed husband who viewed my signed bag in silence! Still, it was well worth all the trouble and expense of attending. Fix the weather perhaps for next time?

And, because that’s it for this tour I do feel the beginnings of post-gig depression which I haven’t had for two years. And it’s not nice.

At ten to seven they let us in: ten lines of five. Strict and calm. Their staff worked brilliantly with Mika’s team and we were checked in one at a time so our places were completely fair. For a change and to be next to my new friend from the queue I went to the Jimmy/iMMa side. We listened to the support band’s soundcheck and watched them. Pearl & The Puppets. They were good, it was quite funny when they noticed the balcony. Then we had the wait while the stage was set up for Mika. Yasmine became a stage hand, putting out wooden pallets loaded with sunflowers and sticking them down with gaffer tape.

Then, finally, the show began. It was a slow start, Mika seemed a bit tired. This was three shows in three days, but the band were on top form, and although there were errors- like when the mike stand was trapped amongst the sunflowers - and Mika said he’d f***ed something up, the atmosphere was great. At one point Danika and Sara were making gestures at him and he stopped to ask them if they were telling him to fix his hair. He ruffled around with it but that wasn’t the problem I don’t think. Also, we had the party bags and he had great fun throwing the things back when we’d used them: paper cups, blowers and balloons. I’d never been able to see his mouth before when he did the trumpet solo but I had a perfect view between his hands. I also had a closer view than usual of his clothes (fraying), his skin (sweaty:teehee: ) and his shoes (silver sparkle).

The show got better and better as it went on. I don’t know the setlist, someone else will, but it included Sweet Dreams that I haven’t seen live for 3 years and Kick Ass which I’d never seen live. He decided on the spur of the moment I think, to do Over My Shoulder, which was lovely. We listened to him! and he explained about writing it in a friend’s garage when he was 15 and how much he liked it. My side won in Blame It On The Girls, which was just. Another first was that there was no confetti, which I missed very much. Still, there had been the big girl’s leg, the crowd surfing doll, the fans on stage and the fun.

We had updates about the queue and decided we’d better join it before there were 100 people in it. Jen drove us in her car (thankyou so much ) We parked under the castle and joined the queue. I was number 30 but I could have arrived 2 hours later and not been much over 40. We are fools to ourselves! Still, a lovely lady and her twin 15 year old daughters just beat us into the queue and as well as meeting up with friends and familiar faces it was great to make a new friend. Hi to Jane, Emma and Tilly if you’re reading this.

O.K. It rained A LOT while we queued, but it was self-inflicted queuing from mid day and almost totally unnecessary. It was cold, for August, which wasn’t great. We didn’t do any group shots in our T shirts and we all looked a bit bedraggled. The venue staff were a bit bossy too and put us behind a barrier very early on. Luckily the doors for wheelchair access made a good shelter. There were shops nearby so I had a lovely cheese & tomato toastie. After they’d moved the start of the queue and put the barrier up, I got twitchy about having my back pack with me. My brains had turned to mush and I had trouble deciding what I did and didn’t need for the evening. So Sparkly and I went back to the car and I took my time picking everything up and making a decision about it. And I ended up with all the right stuff.