The MSCList
January 1998: Notes and explanation
This page makes no sense without looking at my original postings.
This refers to an on-going discussion about the etiquette (or otherwise) of posting spoilers to the movie "Titanic" to the list.
"Countdown" is a cheap game show, where contestants try to make the longest possible word out of a collection of letters. In its 16 year run on Channel 4, it has built up a large cult audience, and is soley responsible for inflicting Richard "Ferretfingers" Whitely on an unsuspecting world.
"Top Of The Pops" is the BBC's weekly pop music show, where bands with big-selling singles mime them to a crowd who can't hear a thing of what's going on. Vanilla were (they've split up, I hope) a group who put out a poor record entitled "No Way No Way", featuring the Muppet's "M'nah m'nah" call.
Time to name names, I guess. The school in Solihull was the independent Solihull School, where fees were around 2800 pounds per pupil, per year. The one in Coventry was the state-funded Barr's Hill, a sink school just to the north of the city centre.
Phil had just returned from St John's...
WWJD = What Would Jesus Do. The bracelet is worn on the wrist, where the wearer can see it in times of need or puzzlement. That's the theory, at least...
"This Life" was a cult BBC drama, about an ensemble of flat-sharing London lawyers. Due to a massive contractual mix-up, the stars were let go after a hugely successful 2nd season in 1997, and the series came to an unnatural and controversial end. "This Life: The Next Generation" was an Armistice spoof, bringing toddlers in to wander around, with voice overs from the original dialogue.
Queen Victoria didn't return to public life until 1876, when she visited Wolverhampton to unveil a statue of her late husband in Victoria Square. The statue's been moved a couple of times but it's still there; if anyone's in town and wants to see it, let me know.
Key reason why: no digests were sent out during the period that the rest of the list was down. This strongly suggests that Netcom's mail server was having a problem, and was almost totally out of action. Had the problem been the spam-dump that Alfredo referred to, then digests would still have gone out as scheduled; a quick look at the headers shows that this didn't happen.
Retro-spin: Alfredo is also the owner of a domain name, and has adopted the cause of preventing spam as one of his own. I think it's accurate to say that once this ex-listee had a bee in his bonnet about something, he would not let it drop.
We refer, of course, to the best American Football (as opposed to real football...) team in Kansas, the Chiefs.
shim and Leonardo di Caprio got engaged in July 97; she announced it to the list at the time, but Leo refuses to acknowledge this in public. As a result, many listees refer to him as Leo di Laine, his name after marriage.
During a debate into the use of the word "bible".
The Denver Broncos later went on to beat the Green Bay Packers 31-24 in an exciting, intrigue-filled match. Ah well...
Referring to Shampoo, who hit with a track called "Girl Power" a week before the Spice Girls debuted in summer 96. The line Brem quoted was the title of their follow-up single.
The final flare-up of the Kristine -v- Alfredo war occupied about 60% of six digests I received that morning. This post makes no direct reference to the post, and the indirect references (here and at the end) could be mistaken for the Clintern scandal, which was breaking at the time.
"Liberty" was a name some members of the MSCList gave themselves during late 1996. I've never associated myself with this community, as it has appears to have values and rules that I'm not aware of.
"Pulling a Groucho" is taken from Groucho Marx, who died in the same week as Elvis Presley, and means to be a significant story overshadowed by an earth-shattering one. "A reverse Groucho", therefore, is to concentrate on the smaller story while totally ignoring the massive one, as I was doing in connection with the list's flame war of the time.
This page updated Jan 31, 1998
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