alkan

I don't understand this. You don't want to name and shame the person who actually committed the crime but you are prepared to blame everybody, adult or child, guilty or innocent, on the grounds that they share what you believe to be a name of similar origin. Nor do I understand @Guy Fawkes, surely @big dale was simply looking at a vaguely possible explanation. How can that be trolling?

You don't think there is simply a large chunk missing from the story as reported? It would seem from what is stated that the only crime is that committed by the "university" in presumably collecting fees for services that they had no intention of providing.

Slots are a minority interest on this forum.

Wot, no savoury pies at all? Steak and Kiddley, Pork, Stargazy? Chinese pie? The Greeks have a rather tasty vegetable one. Perhaps opentops don't count though, you might have to include things like pizza and quiche as well.

Hopefully reality and not the series, you mean.

And very dashing I'm sure you looked. There is something about a cummerbund, though, silk, with a trail at one side and a dagger at the other....

Did you mean a sash in the sense of cummerbund? Or as a Miss America contestant?

I don't disagree at all with the benefits as described by yourself and @quoththeraven. My thought was simply and rather casually that 50,000 was too high a target for the people for whom it seemed to be intended. And, as I indicated, for some authors it would not ever be desirable. I was interested to see that they used a clunky old portable typewriter on their Home Page. Well I remember the struggles with carbon paper and stuck keys - my idea of revision and refining hell.

50,000 words in a month is a big ask, surely, unless writing to an established formula or under the influence of white-hot inspiration? Unlikely in either case, I would have thought, for someone who tries to do it merely as a response to a casual challenge. Good luck to anyone who took it on, though. I remember once visiting a certain famous essayist who was happy to produce one well-rounded and polished paragraph a day. I have to admit I found him almost unreadable even then, when I had most of my faculties.

I "walked the walls" on my own and that takes you through some pretty rough neighbourhoods and in retrospect was probably not the best idea. At the time, though, it did not feel unsafe. In general I suppose taking the ordinary precautions that a single traveller should take will (probably) keep you safe, i.e. keeping to well-populated areas and not accepting invitations to go with someone you don't know to somewhere unknown. As for what you should see, you will get the greater value from the historic mosques and palaces if you read up a little in advance. This city has a truly fascinating past, long and diverse, and populated by a cast of unique and colourful characters, inspirational, mad and evil beyond comprehension in turn. The Topkapi Palace and the Hagia Sophia mosque are the main tourist sites, together with several of the grander mosques, all of which are organised for tourist visits. Of the smaller (not that much smaller) mosques, I would suggest the Sokullu Mehmed Pasha or the Rustem Pasha mosques, the first for the instructional design and the second for its eye-popping traditional decoration. The Saqarin is a more modern and quite stunning example of the genre. (Most mosques are named after an historical figure, or the patron who paid for them. Even a little research here will pay off in terms of added interest.) I would suggest that you spread out your mosque visiting so you don't, like me, get the details confused in your memory. If you visit most of these and add the covered markets and the Bosphorus cruise (I went up to the Black Sea and back, half a day, but even the ferry crossing to the Asian shore for lunch would be worthwhile), you can see that three or four days can be taken up. Add in a visit to the ancient cisterns under the city and perhaps the Dolmabahce palace for variety and you won't in five days have time for even one out-of-town excursion. The city has hotels in abundance in the full range of prices. The traditional wooden hotels are quite scarce but worth looking out for if you are happy with a less luxurious feel (not always cheap though and often in dark sidestreets.). Other forms of entertainment like belly dancing during dinner (oddly enjoyable) and Mameluke music together with experiencing the whirling dervishes as @Unicorn suggested are easily accessible to the interested visitor. Taxis are reasonably cheap and public transport useful though crowded. Beware of the suburban train services unless they have now decided to have doors on them! I could go on but as you see I am an enthusiast.

My preparation for looking acceptable when going out - finding a classy paper bag to go over my head!

In the areas around the east of London, it was, and still may be, the custom between friends and workmates to shorten names as much as possible. As my full first name has only three letters, the version they came up with for me was "E". At that time, this was the name of a well-known brand of beer. Nowadays of course, it would have different associations.

Not quite what was being asked, but on the same lines. I had a regular, years ago, who used to cook for me when I visited him in his flat. I am a vegetarian but I didn't like to say no to the offered meat. (My original typing of this post had the word "kick" instead of "cook". What Freudian nightmare was that signalling?)

Not sure really why you were quoting me in your post on this point as I was talking about public opinion, not what the criminal law says about it. I was trying to answer @MassageAdams point about it not really being rape because of the subsequent actions of the parties. That is where the legalism came in. It used to be the law in Scotland, I think, (It is the only legal system I know anything about, and then not much.) that you could not allege rape against someone with whom you had had sexual relations subsequent to the original action. My point was that perhaps you could not be held to condone an act that you had not understood. As regards the legal viewpoint, if we are going to bring that into it at all, does the fact that the offence seems to have taken place in Russia have an effect on how we should regard the matter? Another complication would then be that the original act as described would have been regarded at one time as sexual assault, not rape. (If I know nothing about US law, I know even less about Russian law.) But as you say, perhaps the criminal law is not involved so better not to invoke it.

What @nycman says. But also, you can't control what happens after you are gone with 100% certainty anyway and, at that point, you won't be worrying about anything. All your concern happens while you are still alive and can take proportionate steps towards the desired outcome. A reasonable precaution to take in your case might be to attach a note to your home copy of the will, saying that UCLA holds another copy. That in itself might make anyone intent on destroying the will pause before taking action.

Search on YouTube for a rather scary cooking(?)video under the name Mehdi Alan Benaissa Golubovic Ribeiro. I did try to meet him but it fell through, perhaps miscommunication.

If you can't be a fly boy, be a flies boy? Sorry, I meant to do that joke earlier.

Fascinating. I had forgotten it was the Cessna till you mentioned it. I wanted to try the Auster but they wouldn't teach in it as it was supposed to be tricky. I think they were pretty clear with me I was never going to get "it" while it sounds like you had a basic talent for it, they, or you, just had to find a way to tap it. I won't be trying again.

Old fashioned gauges and I think around twenty five hours in the air. They made me repeat some of the early lessons several times because I clearly wasn't getting it.

My obsession about sailing was much stronger than the flying thing. My brother and I made rafts and boats (sort of) from a very early age and were duly shipwrecked in all of them, as we deserved. We did manage to own a seaworthy boat or two as we grew up. I have to say that the happiest time of my life was (I suppose aged 16 or 17), exploring some of Scotland's sea lochs, sailing and camping in a 12ft dinghy. You are right in that the sail and the wing operate on some of the same principles and perhaps that was part of the reason I had comparatively little trouble with the theory of flying. We, my brother and I, both managed at some points in our lives to earn our livings afloat though in very different ways. As I say, I managed to get over the disappointment about flying while retaining the feelings as mentioned above. I would have been crushed if I hadn't been able to fulfil at least some of my watery desires.

I get the appeal of the clip, of course. My ambitions were much more modest. Somehow this didn't attract me. Besides, from what little I know of gliding, it is even more dependent on having the natural instinct. What a beast! I mean, the C130.

I wanted to learn to fly. It wasn't an obsession or desperate need, but started when I was very young and was always something in the back of my mind while I was growing up. But I was late in coming to a position where taking lessons became practicable. It soon became obvious that I had no natural gift for the physical act of controlling a plane. Much of the theory was easy to grasp or already there but actually flying, maintaining level flight during a turn, for example, I just found extremely difficult. So much so, that when I eventually managed some of these basic skills, my instructors and I agreed it would be very costly for me to carry on, with no great indications of final success. I gave up I accepted the fact that it was not going to happen but it hasn't eradicated the, yearning is too strong a word, the feeling I have about planes. I cannot see a plane, even today, without thinking myself into the pilot's seat. Some of you who can fly may recognise this. It is a feeling about soaring but also about coming to earth, it is a feeling about control but also about being controlled by natural forces, it is the sideslip and the bank. It is the thrust and the slowing. And for some reason, the feeling happens in the seat of your pants.

Is this her way of committing suicide and disposing of the body?

I don't think this is quite as simple as you make it sound. For instance, if the original incident was brought to light at the time, it probably would not have been regarded as rape by everyone. The perpetrator himself (if the incident happened as described) might not have so regarded it (and this has some bearing on how we regard his subsequent admissions) and the victim herself seems not to have quite thought of it that way, while aware of feeling something to be wrong. If it had happened yesterday, there would be more agreement about how to assess it. (Our perception of how much valid consent a drunk person is able to give has changed. What about the degree of culpability of a drunk perpetrator?) This changing attitude also reflects on how we should look on the subsequent acts of condonation (this may be a Scottish legalism, betraying my roots) you refer to. A steals from B. B gives a present to A. B is to some extent wiping out the original act. A steals property, which B only learns long afterwards belongs to B. In that case does the present-giving condone the original act? Also, in the actual case, the way the "victim" describes the subsequent acts is significant. She says quite clearly that she did not regard the consensual acts as constituting a "relationship". In other words did the original action influence her subsequent consent? And if so, and our attitudes and hers have changed regarding that original action, how does that change affect our perception of how the consented-to acts were influenced? I know it is difficult to believe but this is a shortened version of my original reply. I have tried to condense it and any incomprehensibilities can be put down to this!

Yes, of course that makes sense. The drawback is that broadcasting has such an influence that someone speaking in their perfectly correct local accent is looked down on as somehow inferior intellectually. You may say that is not the fault of the broadcaster and that is true. But I suppose the BBC as the national broadcasting service in the UK has a wider understanding of its cultural and social responsibilities (sometimes) than just the avoidance of blame.