Hamilton Saint

Man, I admired that guy! He's by far my favourite Saints player of recent memory.

I just had nightmare memories of my first pair of football boots - hard as rock when they dried out from being soaked. Dubbin definitely needed for those. Then in about 1964 I got a pair of puma boots; they were wonderful - soft, supple leather. A new age! Back in those days we had to regularly put dubbin on the football as well.

Last week in Cuba I read Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls. Fantastic book - probably his best novel. Good adventure/war story all about an American professor who volunteers for the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War. The book recounts 3-4 days of the protagonist, Robert Jordan, getting ready to dynamite a key bridge with the help of a small band of Republican partisans, who live in mountain caves behind the Nationalist lines. Gripping book. It goes into the detail of the politics. And there's a love affair, too, between Jordan and a young woman names Maria. The two most interesting characters are Pilar (the matriarch of the group) and Pablo (an unreliable fighter who keeps raising problems for Jordan). They made a pretty good film of the book in the forties, starring Gary Cooper and the radiant Ingrid Bergman.

"Unrealistic mathematics"? Oh, dear. This sort of maths is a matter of probabilities - it's not about realism. Why don't you just admit that you're wrong!

Well, there you go - it's an optimistic statement of intent, not a prediction that we would.

You lectured me before about not answering the exact question put by the OP; well, read your quote of the OP - his question was a clear choice between winning the play-offs, or getting second place. He didn't mention first place, did he!

I don't think he said we would win the league (TBH), I think he said that was still our target. A reasonable thing to say, isn't it? (We're going to try to do our best.)

We were one point better than Coventry in '65-'66, but were promoted to Division One; we were one point better than B.H.A. in '77-'78, and got promoted to Division One. I don't care what the margin is; just as long as we get promoted - even it's by GD!

OK. I prefer to finish second!

A Clockwork Orange is by Anthony Burgess, not William Burroughs. But still worth reading!

Conversely, why is the distinction between a hypothetical scenario of guaranteed promotion and a hypothetical scenario that doesn't guarantee promotion so hard to grasp? We're asked what our preference is now, given the situation that we face, not what we would like to see with the benefit of hindsight.

I've been listening to Chuck Berry for the last couple of days. It's a best-of compilation of his Chess Records stuff from May 1955 - January 1965. It's called The Great Twenty-Eight. The booklet gives all the details about recording dates and recording personnel. Wonderful!

How many points do we need? It depends on how the other teams do around us. HTH

That doesn't make sense: finish in second place, you're automatically promoted; being in the play-offs, you can lose!

Preferred way of going up? Isn't this obvious? 1st choice: champions 2nd choice: runners-up 3rd choice: winning play-offs HTH

Been listening this evening to Blackwater Side. It's a 2-CD compilation of some of the best of Bert Jansch from '65-'71.

That's sad news. In the early 60s my favourite band was The Beatles, but my older sister was always a big fan of Cliff and The Shadows.

Did a week in Cuba last week (March Break). Went back to the same resort as last year because we liked it so much.

And your point is to give up the certainty of promotion (by securing second place) in favour of the uncertainty of the playoffs. Because of the uncertainty of Lallana's and Chamberlain's condition. Lots of uncertainty in your "point", whatever it is actually. But I notice you've decided that Peterborough are "winning the race for 2nd place". Is that your point? Do you really have a point? Or are you just waffling?

"What route would secure the highest probability." Finishing 2nd? Or ending up in the playoffs? I think the answer to that would be finishing 2nd, eh?!

Then there's William Shatner's version of Mr Tambourine Man. OMG!

Try ABE books. Listings from second-hand bookstores in NA and UK. http://www.abebooks.com/

Something In the Air - what a great single that was! Their album (produced by Pete Townshend) was great, too.

That's great! Thanks.

Maurice Jarre: he wrote the original music for over 50 movies, including Lawrence of Arabia and Dr. Zhivago.