St Landrew

OK, here's a quick account. Me and a few mates had been playing football at the Sports Centre, and all had gone home except me and another. We were chatting away and were vaguely heading off home ourselves. We'd got about two-thirds of the way across the last cricket pitch before the exit and it was quite dark, although we could easily see each other, as our eyes had got used to the light. Besides, even back then [late 1970s], the Sports Centre main areas were pretty well lit at night. So we kicked the ball back and forth for a while. The cricket pitch was raised about 20ft from the surrounding football pitches, etc.., with a fence around over half of it. We both noticed that a line of multicoloured lights had risen up high over the fence and was now descending and coming towards us. The line of lights was about half the width of a football pitch and shaped like a ring of gas flame jets on a hob, although of course, they were solid, and we viewed them approximately at the horizontal. This sort of thing. As I said, they were multicoloured, one red, one yellow, green, blue, etc... They were also quite large and bright, even though they were the distance of half of the cricket pitch away. There was no sound being made. I remember thinking... what is that..? What the hell is that?? But I didn't panic, but I quickly ran through as many options as I could, as to what it could and couldn't be. None of the options made any sense at all. Helicopters and fixed wing aircraft made noise. Balloons..? Garbage..! People carrying the lights would given themselves away, and besides, how could they carry them so high and so smoothly..? And it was moving so slowly too. At some point I said to my mate, Mike, are you seeing this..? He said, Yes I am. I turned to look at him, and he looked so frightened that it made me panic. So we ran out of the Sports Centre and into the estate of Lordswood. When we got to Arnheim Road, there was a wall of a carpark we could sit on and catch our breaths. We could also look back at the line of trees surrounding the Sports Centre. Up over the trees came the line of lights, now in the shape of an elipse. I estimate about 60-80ft off the ground, and then rolled around, so that the lights moved like a wheel, as it changed direction to follow Dunkirk Road. When it came to where Arnheim Road intersected, it turned again and followed that. Within a few more seconds it was directly over us, about 50-60ft up and very big, as you might imagine. It was very clear, and we could easily see all the stars and it. If memory serves [must find that written account], it was totally the same as the background blackness, except for the lights. It stayed still for about 10 seconds and then slowly moved off NW in the direction of Romsey. We started to run after it, to keep it in sight, but it started to accelerate incredibly quickly, and within seconds it was gone. Of course, we talked about it for a long time afterwards, and I eventually wrote up an account of it. So there you go. That's as I remember it, as of this moment. Hope you find it interesting. Perhaps you've finally realised I'm as nutty as a fruit cake.

Excellent. Next time try chanting something about Ron Davies scoring 4 goals at OT, and see if anyone says it was only 3. Because of course, there is a dispute over that too.

Yeah, I remember that one. Hasn't been chanted for ages, as far as I know. I prefer Saints to Reds, as well. There are plenty of Reds in English league football. There is only one Saints.

Absolutely. Wouldn't mind a chat over a beer, hamster.

If think Saint-Stevo, that if you'd have been a bit kinder to your Golf, it may have been a bit more reliable. You do realise that WVs tend to be reliable, even if you maltreat them a bit. That's where they've achieved the reputation and loyalty from owners, after all. However, not every VW can have had the distinction of an ant infestation, and almost any VW is not going to stand wheel-to-wheel with a Toyota and be more reliable. You're probably making a good choice in changing. What about a 6th or 7th generation Celica though..? What a cracking little car..! Sixth or Seventh Quite nice, though my favourite was always a Fiat Coupe. But tbh, I wouldn't turn one of these down, after a zip down the road on a bike. They must be easily affordable to the average VW owner, and plenty of them around. EDIT: I read you need economy..! Do you know about progressive throttle, rather than flooring it, all the time..?

Quintet [and counting]

You mean the near post header against Argentina in the Qtr finals, I presume..? Not offside, and very West Ham'ish. In those days, all crossed balls went to the far post and then headed in [as we've seen, Ron Davies did a lot of that]. But Ron Greenwood and West Ham started the near post header craze. What it meant was that in the 1966 World Cup, Geoff Hurst scored a couple of headed goals at the near post totally unchallenged. Nobody defended against it. West Ham were quite the trend setters, as far as tactics were concerned, in those days. Not sure, but I think 4-4-2 or 4-3-3 [instead of 2-3-5] started with West Ham in the early 1960's.

Hughes

Indeed.

Oh come on, surely this one has been put to bed. The referee, Clive Thomas, was the very best one in the UK at the time. He had eyes like a hawk, and, when asked, has always said Bobby Stokes was onside. Besides, David Coleman said, Bobby was onside, in his commentary, so that's definitive.

Jam

Hog

I, for one, am pretty glad I didn't come up to spec. In any case, there's having witnessed a UFO, and there's believing in alien abductions. It's two different things. Perhaps they take place, I don't know. Never really given it much thought.

Well, having a fair knowledge of what was practically possible in terms of human technology, at the time, and my UFO couldn't be explained by anything of those things, then yes it was. I should add that there were two of us, and we both saw exactly the same thing, and although I'm estimating from memory [i have the account written down], the closest approach of it was about 40-50ft, while it was in the air, or twice the height of a house. It was not a vague flickering look behind trees or anything like that. It was a completely clear, night time view for about a minute or so.

The new season gets underway tomorrow, with Friday practice. MotoGP organisers has been really trying to cut the budgets, so that other teams can afford to enter. It hasn't resulted in an overwhelming response, but just to give an idea, of how effective the response to the new Moto2 series has been, they have had to make up a list of reserve teams. It looks like the Moto2/600cc grid will form up with something like 35 - 40 bikes, all with the same engines. The frames and cycle parts are where they make the differences tell. I would say competition is going to be an understatement, in that series. Cuts include a reduction in testing, and shorter practice days. Also, the teams have 6 engines to play with, over a season of 17 races. That's very few when you consider that in between races, the teams are not allowed to do much more to the engine than change plugs. Of course, they can play around with settings and change clutch plates, for example, but essentially the engines are wire/lead sealed. They can peak into the bores with an endoscope, I understand. The 125s have no such restrictions. Plenty of bikes, plenty of competition, and loads of brilliant racing. The 125s never disappoint, and often the races are of the heart-in-mouth variety. Bradley Smith is pretty much the favourite to be World Champion this year, but it is in no way guaranteed. With so much competition, the field is wide open. It has now become de rigeur that there is a night time race somewhere in a Grand Prix season, and MotoGP gets its one straight away, at Losail in Qatar. Hopefully, it won't rain, or there will be no race. It's impossible to see track detail with floodlights bouncing off the glossy road. Apparently, the amount of power consumed to light the track could light a small city for a week. Not exactly a great advert for green issues. I expect the usual suspects to be in there, with one or two changes. Here are my riders to look out for over the season, and particularly in this race. Valentino Rossi [obviously] Casey Stoner [if he stays well] Jorge Lorenzo [if his hand has healed] Nicky Hayden [finally getting some speed again] Ben Spies [super fast rookie in a satellite team. Current WSBK champion] Significant others are Colin Edwards, Andrea Dovizioso, Loris Caparossi, Marco Simoncelli [i believe will master his Honda] and lastly Dani Pedrosa. I tack Pedrosa on the end instead of where he should be, i.e. right up the front, because he can't get the new frame on his Honda to work. His teammate Dovizioso is doing a lot better than him. It's typical of Honda nowadays, not to be properly ready at the start of the season. Personally, I think they have the wrong rider. Losail Saturday 10 April BBC Red Button 19:50-23:00 MotoGP Qualifying Sunday 11 April BBC Red Button 17:50-20:05 125cc & Moto2 BBC Three 20:45-22:00 MotoGP BBC Two 00:00-01:30 MotoGP (rerun)

No offence taken. Post your Speedway threads here or on the Motoring forum. Entirely upto you.

Didn't he have the nasty incident with the T-Rex BEFORE he went off to save the world with Will Smith..?

safe

It used to be that scientists/people would talk about whether there was other life in the universe. Since then it has become accepted that there must be other life in the universe, as the mathematical probabilities are overwhelming, even in a universe of finite size. In a universe of infinite size, which mathematicians are considering now, the chances of other life are not about if, but how many. As to UFO's, I'm pretty sure I've seen one, which I described before, the last time this subject was talked about here. I say pretty sure, because there is always that element of doubt, over time [nearly 25 years ago]. Why am I even pretty sure..? Because it simply couldn't have been anything else.

welded

Tim, how badly damaged is the VHS tape of the Old trafford game..? If it isn't too bad, then something can be done to ressurect it. This may be preferable, especially if it has much more material on it than there exists on the Google Video that is available worldwide. Of course, there is also the Big Match interview with Ron Davies at the time, where He and Jimmy Hill talk about a new formation called 4-4-2..! This used to be available on Google Video, but is sadly missing now. I'm sure that is on Ron's tape too. Drop me a PM, and let's see what we can do.

Indeed. Before the big SRN4 made crossings across the Channel, IIRC years ago, the smaller SRN6 hovercraft crossing from Southampton [next door to the floating bridge] to Cowes was called a flight. It was no idle boast either, as on one crossing the tide was most definitely out, and there was a low water post and breaker from the beach to the post on the Woolston side. Because this jutted out into the mouth of the Itchen/Southampton Water approaches, at low tide it was completely exposed, with a good 3 feet of the breaker out of the ground/surface water. We passed over it doing a fair whack, with nerry a ripple from the skirt. I remember all the passengers being highly impressed by this, as was I as a kid, and I've allways had a soft spot for hovercraft ever since. Here you go [note no Itchen Bridge]: Seaspeed SRN6 comes into Southampton.

donkey [does that need explanation..?]

Well for starters, the club could send Ron a copy of the JPT Final DVD, which I believe is coming out shortly. This friday, I think..?