Definitions

[Quizmonster]

I had never heard of Ambrose Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary until seeing a reference to it in a recent newspaper. Here’s what it says for ‘Conservative’:
“n. A statesman who is enamoured of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.”
Given that we are unfortunate enough to have a coalition of these precise political tendencies, where does that leave us in the Evil Stakes?

It has many truly wonderful definitions such as “Lawyer: One skilled in the circumvention of the law” and is well worth a look. I chose the political one above at least partially for laughs. Find it here http://www.thedevilsdictionary.com/

[Frank97]

Phillip Franks used to read from it when he was on Countdown, always meant to try and find a copy but never got round to it.

[Buenchico]

A few quotes which you might like:

"A Conservative Government is an organised hypocrisy"
- Benjamin Disraeli

"As usual the Liberals offer a mixture of sound and original ideas. Unfortunately none of the sound ideas is original and none of the original ideas is sound"
- Harold Macmillan

"The Labour Party is going around stirring up apathy"
- William Whitelaw

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers"
- Dick the Butcher, Henry VI Part 2, William Shakespeare.

[mikey4444]

I'm not sure if this is in the dictionary but I like this definition of an alcoholic..

"Some one you hate who drinks as much as you do"

[Chinajan]

Doubt this one's in either, but I agree with this definition of 'old':

Someone who is 12 years older than you.

[mikey4444]

Just found out it was a fellow Welshman that made that very accurate remarks about drinking...Dylan Thomas.

[Gromit]

Uncyclpedia.com

Conservative:
// Conservatives are individuals obsessed with the continuation of things exactly as they are, well into the foreseeable future. Almost always American, Christian, homophobes they absolutely hate every form of advancement in the human race which strangely does not include things like the internet, a device used by them to rant their awesome opinions to the general public.
Conservative values include: Everything in this book, general intolerance for all ethnic and social minorities, anti-abortion (also called pro-life), heavy support for the second amendment, banning alcohol, non-interventionist style government, backward Christian fundamentalism and general whining about liberals. You can quite easily identify a conservative as they are almost always, wealthy middle aged men from the Southern US. //

[Gromit]

http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

[Peter Pedant]

Ambrose Pierce ended up getting eaten in South America


I thought you needed to know that

[askyourgran]

He could have ended up getting (b)eaten if he'd stayed here.^^

[naomi24]

Ambrose Bierce has taken pride of place on my shelves for years.

[Quizmonster]

Bierce disappeared without trace, according to Wikipedia, having travelled to Mexico. There are tales of his having been executed by Pancho Villa's forces there and there may well be other tales such as being eaten alive. However, there appears to be no firm evidence as to what actually happened to him.
His An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is a fascinating short story.

[ludwig]

Thanks for bringing this to our attention QM. I hadn't heard of it either but it looks good. ..it's not really news though is it?

CABBAGE, n. A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head.

CAT, n. A soft, indestructible automaton provided by nature to be kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle.

FAITH, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.

[youngmafbog]

Looks like you have prompted a good old lefty love in here.

[SeaJayPea]

War: God's way of teaching Americans Geography.

[SeaJayPea]

Incidentally QM, An Incident at Owl Creek was filmed 50 years ago and won an Oscar. Done in French, it's called La Riviere du Hibou and is brilliant. Can't believe it's not on You Tube, it's just 28 mins long.

[Quizmonster]

Ludwig,
1. On Monday, Vince Cable said at the LibDem conference that our very own Dear Coalition might well die before the next election.
2. On Tuesday, the papers were full of that possibility.
3. On Wednesday, I raised a question about the impact upon us of that seemingly "utterly evil" conjunction of Conservative/Liberal control.

Assuredly, Ambrose Bierce, as such, is not much in the news these days, but I felt that the coincidence of (a) my discovery of his dictionary and (b) the coalition's being very much "in the news" was sufficient to conflate them and present them to the AnswerBank public. You are, of course, perfectly free to disagree.

[mikey4444]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrose_Bierce

No mention here of him being eaten by cannibals.

[anotheoldgit]

Gromit

/// You can quite easily identify a conservative as they are almost always, wealthy middle aged men from the Southern US. ///

Now there is something I didn't know, the fact that our Dave was from the Deep South of good old US of A..

[ludwig]

// (a) my discovery of his dictionary and (b) the coalition's being very much "in the news" was sufficient to conflate them and present them to the AnswerBank public. You are, of course, perfectly free to disagree. //

It's about as tenuous a link as it's possible to conceive.

I might raise a news question on the battle of Waterloo based on the fact that I had my Wellingtons on when I reading the newspaper on the loo last night.

[Quizmonster]

Go for it!