St Landrew

Inn [good house, nice beds]

red rag

Didier [Pironi]

Oh come on S-I-N, just get a 2010 Yamaha R1 and be done with it. Probably a fair bit cheaper [though you try finding a bloody price], and he'd be able to afford some fancy gear, aswell. I'm being tempted again by a V2 Firestorm. Love that motor, though pity about the camchain.

You talk of ioslated points about the cars and tyres being narrower. How much narrower..? Narrow enough..? Are the cars slim enough..? Is there enough bodywork between the wheels so that there is no danger of wheels interlocking..? You imagine if F1 had the excitement levels of Touring Cars [which has gone off the boil in recent years too]. We'd all be jumping out of our seats if the pure excitement was anything like. As for aerodynamic efficiency...!?! They make minor amendments, and then the manufacturers quite rightly get around them. Start with the aerodynamic efficiency of a vertical wall and work forward. What I'm getting at is that F1 car rules are too piddled about with around the edges. Something fundamental must be done to make overtaking more of a doddle rather than the once or twice event per race that it has become. It is so rare an event that the TV coverage replays any maneuver, ad nauseum. I dearly want to see some exciting racing. I just about remember when it was regularly exciting, and I mean properly exciting; not just interesting. Frankly, I don't know how you lot put up with it.

I saw about 10 minutes of Bahrain. Nothing has really changed. At the first yawn I turned off the TV. I'm not surprised in the slightest. F1 still doesn't get it after years and years of yawn fests. Getting cars to have to refuel does nothing to the fundamental problem. The cars are way too big, too wide, too slippery and too grippy, and have been for donkey's years. It just took me until about 10 years ago to realise it. If you can't overtake you don't have a race. 1. Make the cars smaller and especially narrower. 2. Make the tyres smaller and/or narrower 3. Put bodywork between the wheels so as to stop another car's wheels interlocking when trying to overtake. What they do to the engines is entirely up to them. Personally, I'd make them smaller. At present, the Emperor's new clothes are well up to standard.

**Saints Web Health Warning**

I could put walleyed again, but I won't. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- alignment

...on the Beeb website. Apologies if posted before: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_div_2/8558198.stm If you can't score...

Agree with Ladysaint on pretty much everything in her rant. The problem with the PA system is that, in a stadium that was designed to contain and enhance noise within its confines, sound waves from sound systems are going to bounce around, and echo and re-echo effects just confuse into noise. The speaker enclosures need careful positioning, and it is all the more difficult without the dampening effects of a crowd in the stadium. In the short term, turning the sound level down would actually help.

Squint [Yeah, I got suckered into a difficult one again. ]

sleeplessness

Star Trek - Generations Sometimes, I feel this film is my favourite of the whole ST film canon. I remember seeing it in the cinema, and being really entertained by it. But my favourite bits are when Captain James T. Kirk is onscreen. And that's the problem with the two preceeding films. All the old cast were there, going through the motions, but in truth, by then only Kirk and Spock were actually worth watching. Some of us were in our childhood when Spock, and especially Kirk, would go knuckle to knuckle with an opponent. And boy, could ol' Kirky boy scrap. Spock had his famous Vulcan neck pinch, but his Captain had to get his hands dirty, and take a few shots, in the process. Which brings me back to the defining moments of this film. Alone, Captain Picard isn't physically competent to find a solution, and is drawn into a timeless environment, called the Nexus. In it, he finds Kirk, and persuades him back to make a difference again. It has the desired effect, and one last time, Kirk does make the difference, but dies in the process. When I was in the cinema in 1994, I remember surprising myself by how upset I was. This was a fictional character, often lampooned, but dear to the hearts of a generation who had loved to watch sci-fi adventure, since they were very young. We had been part of the new space age, and here they were killing off the chief fictional hero. This was the show that I would rush home, from The Dell, to watch on Saturdays at 5.10pm. Often, I would just miss the first few minutes, and my Dad would bring me up to speed. He couldn't say, it's the one where they... because they were all completely new adventures at the time. The film has much to commend it also, for example, Commander Data's little adventure with his brother Lore's emotion chip, and his exclamation of Oh Sh!t, as the saucer section of the Enterprise was hit by the shock wave of the exploding warp core in the main section; the resulting crash of the saucer section into the surface of the planet Viridian 3; and Malcolm McDowell, who raised the quality of the film every time he was on screen. But it is Kirk's death and mourning which sets this film apart. It was reported that baby boomer, sci-fi cinema goers actually cried. Well I don't remember doing that, but a bit of dust got in my eye, and my chin trembled a bit. Although it didn't happen this time, I remembered the feeling. Good film.

Read the odd review where AP talks about it still being mathematically possible to reach the playoffs. Which of course, it is, but now it's a remote chance, requiring absolute consistency of the kind Saints are just not doing.

oxy-acetylene

Star Trek - The Undiscovered Country I like this one, even though by now, the original cast were getting creekily old and were becoming caricatures of their own characters. The story isn't too bad, but we have to put up with a script which doles out a line of dry humour to each regular cast actor, especially if they are not Shatner or Nimoy. Kim Cattrall, as Valeris, was fun though. A smiling Vulcan, at one point..? Once again we were back to quoting from famous literature. With Khan it was Melville, and with this one it's Shakespeare. Christopher Plummer as Klang, quotes away like his life depends upon it. I really don't know why they kept this up, but apparently Nicholas Meyer [Trekkie director, producer, writer] liked having them in, so they said. It didn't enhance them, as far as I was concerned. Crikey, I've just read that lot back and it looks like I only like the picture because of Kim Cattrall. Is that a good enough reason..?

Duncan, of course it is based on the radio commentary, and on the live match data provided by the BBC Football website. I can work things out from the data and the commentary, otherwise I wouldn't be making the comments..? You can play the were-you-there card all you like. I am entitled to my opinion. I have to pay for my ticket, when I can afford it, and I prefer to pay my bills and mortgage.

Thought Swindon played very well, and stood up to a lot of pressure. This is what -10 points and bad starts don't allow for. Season over. Let's enjoy the rest of it.

I think that's it folks. Move onto next season, I think. You can't argue with it, Swindon have played us very well. Fair play to them. Game over.

Post your comments here.

Nevertheless, that is what Saints have to do, if they are to make the playoffs. We can't have any more inconsistency. This team is now the best, or thereabouts, in League One, but they have to play like it practically all the time because, although they are considerably better than teams in the bottom half, those teams will undoubtedly raise their game. This lesson must be learned now, because it will be required for next season as well, whether or not Saints are promoted.

Oh for christ's sake, I KNOW THAT. Of course it was the bad start. We are talking about the results since LGTC did the BBC Predictor. Saints have slipped a few points from where we expected them to be. That is all.

Yes indeed. Those are the results. I was attempting to explain why those results came about. Although, as you point out, Saints played a few more away games than at home.

rod

From Wikipedia... On 18 August 1979, David Peach became the highest scoring full-back in the history of the Football League when he scored a penalty against Manchester United. Now we know why the commentator said... ONLY.