pap

I like this post a lot. You didn't really think about this one either, but it delivers the mercy of brevity.

Love these type of name-calling threads, particularly when the OP conjures a fantastic set of assumptions. Let's deconstruct this, shall we? May as well start with the subject. It's not really clear who "Verbal and Co" are, so let's assume you mean republicans. So, erm, why would republicans not have had a good day yesterday? If Republicans were being rounded up and forced to watch the spectacle on pain of death, then yeah, that'd have been a bad day. I myself spent the day with my Southampton relatives, zoomed up to Salisbury for a bit, and then went back and chilled. Introduced my mum and brother to Game of Thrones and got to know my youngest niece a load better. Personally, I had a cracking day. Now, this is obviously just one account and obviously isn't accurate for all republicans However, it's a reasonably good bet that not all of them sat around squirting tears on account of the Jubilee.

I think he's entitled to feel a bit miffed. After the initial squad announcement, Hodgson made a neutral announcement citing that Rio's exclusion was for footballing reasons, specifically countering questions that the bad feeling between the players was the reason for the exclusion. We've lost another centre-back, and Martin Kelly is taking a berth that Rio could have been in. How many club managers would select Kelly ahead of Ferdinand? The truth is that Hodgson knows he can't have both in the team, and has made a decision in Terry's favour. Rio's getting dropped because his brother is the complainant in the Terry racism case. It's actually a pretty sensible decision; the potential risk of disharmony is too great. It's just not one that is politically easy to utter out loud.

We don't exactly have set meals, but we eat at the table at least twice a week, usually more often but the last year has been mental with Juvenile Unit #1 doing her GCSEs, etc. Everyone in our house can cook well, so we often shift the duties around. Ms pap is the current house Masterchef, but faces a strong challenge from the eldest daughter. Not really sure I like the idea of having the same thing just because it happens to be a certain day. Variety is the spice of life, as they say. Unless you're a chef, in which case spices are the variety of life.

Don't take a lack of immediate resolution as a sign that he won't come. There was a massive time lapse between us announcing we'd had a bid accepted for Cork last year and him actually signing.

Just back from Northern Ireland and had a chance to talk to a couple of Catholics about Sinn Fein, the political wing that sprouted out of the IRA. Chiefly, I was interested in their politics. The response I got was that they don't really have any and conduct populist opposition, playing to people's concerns, even if that means adopting opposite policies either side of the border. In the Republic, they've increased their vote share by playing the anti-austerity card. In the North of Ireland, they're cutting public services. This piece by the Irish Independent is particularly damning. Sinn Fein: Smoke and mirrors

Yep, although special mention must go to the penultimate episode of Heroes S1, "Five Years Later".

Bearsy Not 'Bearsey', or 'the other sort of bear'

An oldie, but a goodie.

A mate of mine calls them Macsturbators.

Tyrion is now the poster child for all small men with delusions of granduer He cannot be dead. (Plus the teasers for next week indicate he's probably going to get as much credit as he can write on his cock!). Anyways, no (further) spoilers. The point-of-view chapters in the book often play with your expectations. Even back in the first book, it actually took chapters before you knew Ned was actually dead. I love the way that GRRM uses the inefficiency of communication in his world and individual points of view to blur the line on the mortal status of individuals.

Man who has no clue attacks man who has no clue. I like the symmetry. No offence, Sour Mash. The good ship Southampton FC doesn't leak stories like it used to.

@reluctantnicko just got back to me on Twitter. @papingu: @reluctantnicko Any update on Adkins, sir? Recent Jay Rod interest would seem to add to the "Nige is staying" ledger. @reluctantnicko: @papingu I can't go into that at the moment. Oooh. Cryptic!

A couple of thoughts to share. First, had a conversation with someone on Twitter before the weekend who claimed that Nigel had already been sacked and that we were just waiting for Monday (yesterday) for the news to come through. Apparently, this chap's Dad works for the FA and has contacts, which was his source. Yesterday came and went with no announcement save that we're looking to employ the services of Jay Rod. Now, it's clear that at best, my Twitter correspondent had his dates wrong or at worst, was telling a big porky pie. Can we read something into the Jay Rod bid? I see him very much as a Nige target, and if Adkins was on his way out, I doubt we'd be looking to sign someone that could potentially not be in the new manager's plans. That said, that doesn't necessarily discount the possibility that any potential replacement would have been told about the Jay Rod signing, but generally, I think this makes Adkins staying more likely, not less. I think the only currently available job that Nige would leave us for would be Liverpool. Don't think he'd fancy Villa and almost certainly not Wigan Athletic.

Blackwater Got around to watching "Blackwater", the penultimate episode of this season's Game of Thrones. Very smart television. First off, the whole thing is set in or around Kings Landing. Game of Thrones is usually quite the global traveller; keeping everything in one place really changed the show up and really added to the intensity of what is a very important episode. As suspected, a good portion of the budget went into doing a very decent battle. About time too. There are battles that the show could get away with depicting in the background. The Battle of the Blackwater wasn't among them. Easily the best episode so far, doing a great job of reinforcing all the characters we've seen so far. Dubai Phil is right to highlight Peter Dinklage's performance, but as a fan of the books, I quite liked seeing Stannis in action. Definitely gets an A+ for effort. Book deviation corner The biggest difference from the book is what happens to Tyrion in the battle. In the book, half his nose is chopped off. Frankly, I don't think the audience or Peter Dinklage would have appreciated having a dwarf with no nose. Next up As previously indicated, the whole of this episode was set around Kings Landing. North of the wall, Jon Snow has been captured by the wildlings along with Qhorin Halfhand. The rest of the ranging party are camped out at the Fist of the First Men. On the other side of the world, a dragon-less Daenerys is about to visit the Hall of the Undying in an attempt to retrieve them. Basically, we're getting two season finales this year

To be fair to dune, he has never been a big fan of Baroness Warsi.

Punk rock for me lately. First up, the Menzingers - a band I discovered through its album's super-high rating on metacritic. Would definitely recommend "In the Impossible Past". This is a very good track:- [video=youtube;tS4RPbg-EI8] Also been going through Sleater-Kinney's back catalogue. Listened to their final album "The Woods" back in the day. Yep, that's the completely wrong way to go about it. Been listening to "All Hands on the Bad One" - very good jumping on point.

The purest solution is to replay until a winner is found. Don't understand why we don't do this, especially for major international finals. Italy may have won the World Cup, but they were not the best team in the world. Sure, it throws out timing, but you could counter that by allowing teams to have bigger squads and playing the replay the day after. That'll buck their ideas up

Yeah, I'm with you on the hammock tent itself. The "fun" comment relates to the overall experience - being able to pretty much camp anywhere with trees, and not having to get back to a camp-site. Do your mates have any good recommendations in terms of places to go?

I'm proud to be an adopted scouse git and a trueborn Sotonian

I was having a look on Amazon. Hennessey, a company leading the way in hammock tents, charge around £140 for one with bells and whistles. My chief concern is getting into the thing! I am not a giant redwood of a man.

No doubting its strategic importance, TDD. That's why the ending of Das Boot is so interesting.

The most interesting Gibraltar has ever been was at the end of Das Boot.

Aye, those are the beasties. Looks ace.

He puts the "little" into "Little Englander".