More or Les (was Bloody Plurals)

[Ozzyjack]

SPOILER ALERT - Mike's rebus

 SPOILER ALERT - My Rebus

SPOILER ALERT - Pen's rebus

[Ozzyjack]

Sorry to sound pedantic and ''Englishteacherish', Jack, but the words you are using in your current rebus are actually 'compound' words rather than 'portmanteau' words.

Don't be sorry, Mike.  I still enjoy learning, particularly when I have something screwed up in my mind. So thanks.
I have enough self esteem not to be precious about being corrected.  I will leave you with a cartoon which I discovered when doing one of your recent rebuses.

[mkenuk]

A 1974 suspense classic, which starred some of the finest actors of the time.
It's been remade a couple of times, once for TV and once for the big screen, but neither of the later versions comes close to matching the original.

seven words - 3/6/2/6/3/3/5

picture 2 - cut the final letter
picture 4 - cut the final letter
picture 5 - cut either the second or the third letter, it doesn't matter which

[blackrockrose]

The thing I found most remarkable was that he claimed not to be bitter any more.  He was an impressive man.

In the 1970s I had a work colleague who had been a prisoner of war in Changi. He was a pleasant, decent bloke, but once remarked that if he ever saw a Japanese person walking towards him he would always cross to the other side of the road.

Years later I worked for a long time for the Australian subsidiary of a Japanese multinational company. I had many Japanese colleagues, the vast majority of them delightful and easy-going. I visited Japan for work several times, adding many more Japanese people to the list of my acquaintance and confirming the view that, as with any society, most people are pleasant and there are a few bad eggs. I have to wonder how the Japanese army in WW2 managed to find so many of the latter.

[mkenuk]

The thing I found most remarkable was that he claimed not to be bitter any more.  He was an impressive man.

 I have to wonder how the Japanese army in WW2 managed to find so many of the latter.

I think in the case of Japan in WWII it came from the very, very top.
There were also their outmoded ideas of 'Bushido', the 'Code of the Samurai', 'death before dishonour', 'worship of the Emperor' and all the rest of that (pardon my French) bollocks.
I suspect few Japanese teenagers these days subscribe to this claptrap. Some do, of course, in the same way that Germany has its neo-Nazis, but I think, I hope, they are just a tiny minority.

[Ozzyjack]

most people are pleasant and there are a few bad eggs. I have to wonder how the Japanese army in WW2 managed to find so many of the latter.

Hi Mike and Rose,

I felt I should try to address this question but that it would take more time than I have and so I looked for an article that would make the points I wanted to make and I found one "A Culture of Cruelty" by Mark Felton which also includes Mike's bollocks.

Click here for an edited version of Felton's article.

However, the other point I wanted to make is that under the right conditions some ordinary and decent people can be driven to commit atrocious acts.   For years, psychological scientists tried to understand why. Much of what we know on this topic can be traced to the work of one man: Stanley Milgram. In the 1930s, Milgram, an assistant professor of psychology at Yale University, began a famous and controversial series of experiments (probably outlawed today) to test the boundaries of people’s obedience to authority and determine how far normal people would go in inflicting pain on others just because they were told to.

The experiment involved forty males who each took on the role of a “teacher” who delivered electric shocks to a “learner” when they answered a question incorrectly. Though the “teacher” believed that he was delivering real shocks, the “learner” was actually part of Milgram’s research team and only pretended to be in pain. The “learner” would implore the “teacher” to stop the shocks and the “teacher” would be encouraged to continue despite the learner’s pleas.

These experiments laid the foundation for understanding why seemingly decent people could be encouraged to do bad things. Thomas Blass, Milgram biographer and a professor of psychology at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, says that Milgram’s obedience experiments provided a powerful affirmation of one of the main guiding principles of contemporary social psychology: “It is not the kind of person we are that determines how we act, but rather the kind of situation we find ourselves in.”

“What Milgram’s obedience studies revealed above all was the sheer power of social pressure. Suddenly it was conceivable that the sorts of psychological forces producing conformity that social scientists had been interested in for some time could not only explain fashions and stock market gyrations, but also some of the 20th century’s most egregious collective behaviors: genocide, the Holocaust, totalitarianism,” says Dominic Packer, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Lehigh University.

Blass states that Milgram’s obedience experiments are important because they provide a frame of reference for contemporary real-life instances of extreme, destructive obedience. The fact that recent studies have replicated Milgram’s findings demonstrates that Milgram had “identified one of the universals or constants of social behavior, spanning time and place.”

Now, fifty years later, Milgram’s experiments serve as a turning point in the field of social psychology reminding us, as Packer observes, that “normal psychological processes – working away in all of us – can give rise to terrible behaviors if we are not careful.”

[Ozzyjack]

Hi  Pen,

Back in the day, before Sheila brought him to heel, Blue was sitting at the next table in a hotel restaurant to an attractive woman sitting alone.

Suddenly, she sneezes, and a glass eye comes flying out of her eye socket. It hurls by Blue, and he snatches it from the air and hands it back to her.

"This is so embarrassing," the woman says, and she pops her eye back in place. "I'm sorry to have disturbed you. Let me buy dinner to make it up to you. May I join you?" Blue said, “Bloody oath you can”.

The woman is a stimulating conversationalist, stunningly pretty, and Blue finds they have a lot in common. He gets her phone number and asks, "You are the most charming woman I've ever encountered. Are you this nice to every guy you meet?"

"No," she replies. "You just happened to catch my eye."

   

I was doing the write-up on Mike’s rebus and I came across a number of superb quotes but this one from a hooker really took my fancy.

Listen, you little prick. #2  #5  7(#6 ‘ #1) #3 a  #4   #5  #4
.
Listen, you little prick,     '        a    

Picture 1. A 2-digit number
Picture 4. Model?

[blackrockrose]

The Felton article makes sobering reading, Jack.

Fortunately, I think there is little evidence of these attitudes in modern-day Japan (as far as my limited experience goes), although I did  meet two individuals whose general attitude would have made them appropriate candidates for camp commandants in another life.

[cmh]

About 20 years ago I had Japanese students to stay in my home for a long weekend to immerse them in English home life. We had four over the space of a couple of years and three of them were just as typical teenagers as  any English teens. The first one that we had was from a more elevated background and was traditional Japanese to the core. Frankly I felt that he was the raw material that the military shaped into the type of character that we often still assocoate with that nation even though it is no doubt an outdated  concept.

[Hobbit]

A 1974 suspense classic, which starred some of the finest actors of the time.
It's been remade a couple of times, once for TV and once for the big screen, but neither of the later versions comes close to matching the original.

It took a little while to truffle this one out & then the penny dropped!  You are absolutely right the original film is by far & away the best.  I didn't even realise they had made a TV version.
A great rebus Mike about a great film

[Hobbit]

Hi Jack

I can't even begin to tell you how glad I am it's Friday

Up until about four years ago we had a Japanese consultant radiologist.  He was one of the most thoughtful & kindest people you could ever wish to meet.  The complete opposite of the people who inflicted those dreadful atrocities.

I've almost solved your rebus but I'm stuck on one word   I'm going to leave it for now & wait for Zoe to finish working &, hopefully, put me out of my misery!

My rebus is a bit ambitious!  It's a book which later was adapted into a film with a shorter title!!  Please pretend it's all on one line.
#5 #5 #8 #2 #3 #7 #4 #4

THE
Please lose the first letter of the fourth picture.  The last picture is an anagram.
It's a bit long winded but I don't think it should pose too much of a problem.

      

Going out for a walk

[lilys field]

Thanks folks. The jokes & cartoon continue to knock me out. My favorite toon du jour is the spider on the couch.

[Hobbit]

Pleased you enjoy them Paula

[Ozzyjack]

SPOILER ALERT - Mike's rebus

 SPOILER ALERT - My Rebus

SPOILER ALERT - Pen's rebus

[mkenuk]

An award-winning play, an award-winning film, an award-winning performance by one of Britain's greatest actors.
What more could anyone ask for?

five words - 1/3/3/3/7

picture 4 - cut the first letter