Hamilton Saint

Too bad. It's a fascinating place. I've been four times. Would like to go back. It's like London and Paris - you can walk around for hours and hours, passing all these famous spots you've heard about, read about, and seen in the films and on TV. Much cleaner and safer now than it seemed in the 70s. So much to see and do there - so many different angles you can take in considering the place.

Pink Floyd's "Shine On You Crazy Diamond": an epic intro, that includes a great guitar solo from David Gilmour, before the lyrics begin - eight minutes and 41 seconds into the track!

Roger Daltry's scream in "Won't Get Fooled Again" Jimmy Page's solo in "Whole Lotta Love" the coda of Springsteen's "Jungleland"

Another issue to consider when buying an 'old' house is doing renovations before you move in, or as soon as you move in. This means you need to use some of the money you've saved in order to put some work immediately into the house. It's usually cheaper to buy a less-than-perfect house and then sink some money into significant improvements. For example, our small house (built in the early 1940s) had a tiny kitchen. Next to it was a small bedroom. We took the wall out dividing these two rooms, in order to create a combined kitchen/dining area. Of the $35,000 we saved, $25,000 was used as the down payment and $10,000 was used to make significant cosmetic and structural improvements. Over here the pattern is this: buy a smaller, cheaper house when you start out; move to a larger, more expensive house when the family is bigger and you've built up considerable equity in your home; finally, downsize to a small house or condominium when the children have moved out and you no longer want to deal with exterior work (gardens, sheds, painting, etc.). Instead of moving to a more expensive house, when your family gets bigger, you could also finance further renovations and additions to the house you already have (which is what we did, because we liked our neighbourhood so much).

Better off. Salary has risen steadily. Mortgage will be paid off in a couple of months. No other debts. Rarely use credit card; pay for things with debit card.

Some advice from the other side of the pond - for what it's worth. We will finish paying off our mortgage in two months. Basic strategies you might consider for your mortgage: go for the shortest period of repayment that you can (ours was 15 years). Don't choose 35 years just because you pay less each installment - you will end up paying a huge amount more in interest on the loan. We made a mortgage payment weekly, rather than four times a month. That means you make 52 payments per year, rather than 48. Over 15 years, that's 60 extra payments - you pay off the mortgage much faster! [i'm not sure if you have the same options over there.] Also, get together the largest down-payment you can. The smaller the mortgage, the smaller the interest you pay. Don't let the bank persuade you into believing that you can afford a more expensive house than what you have already decided on. Be conservative in your personal finances. You do need disposable income for other things! We decided that we could afford about $125,000 maximum for a house mortgage (back in the early 90s); the bank did their calculations, and tried to convince us that we could go as high as $235,000 (by spreading it out over 15 more years, and paying a gigantic amount more in interest).

You are correct. [To write that with a contraction, drop the a and add an apostrophe: i.e., you're correct.]

The plural of tattoo is tattoos. To form a plural, in most cases, you just add s. An apostrophe is not required.

And don't forget the fantastic left-winger John Sydenham (front row, far right). Went to my old grammar school - St. Mary's College. What a group that is in the photo!

Really? His job was to score goals. He scored 10 goals in ten games in 2000-2001; 14 goals in 2001-2002; 24 goals in 2002-2003; and 17 goals in 2003-2004. He was inconsistent - suffered several long droughts, but there's no arguing with those stats.

Worded as a statement - but then you put a question mark on the end. Is that a statement or a question?

But players are not selected because of their price tag and potential quality, surely? They would be picked because of their current form, or in order to fulfill a role in the formation planned for that day's game.

Did you not title this thread "Cortese no mates"? There is no question mark after that phrase in your thread title, which would indicate that it is meant as a statement, right? I understand the reason for your uneasiness. I didn't like the way that Adkins was dismissed either. But we do not have the benefit of knowing anything about the inner workings of the club. Nearly all the negative comments about the Chairman are based on hearsay and conjecture - or "impressions" that fans have about his cool and disciplined manner. Most indications (both on and off the field) suggest that the rapid success of the club in the last few seasons has been built on a carefully planned vision and a no-nonsense approach at every level of the enterprise. Cortese is clearly not the personable type, but he is doing an excellent job. He may alienate people because of his blunt talk and single-minded pursuit of success, but he seems to be a principled and honest man. For no apparent reason (you supply none), you describe the Chairman sitting at the games "with a face like a smacked arse". How can you justify that comment? It's designed to ridicule and denigrate the man - and encourage others to feel the same. You may not care about rude and insulting posts on here (or do you?), but I do. It's just not right to defame someone publically because you don't like the way he looks, or you don't like his manner.

Why bother disguising your post as an opener to discussion by tagging on the question at the end of your post? You've clearly already made up your mind. You tell us that he has no mates. You tell us that his behaviour is unusual. "The evidence," you say, shows that "he really is quite unpleasant in his dealings with people." And then you make a statement in a follow-up post about rude and insulting comments. Let me ask you a question: aren't you being hypocritical?

"I'd love to change the world, But I don't know what to do."

Why would any sane person want to sell Lambert right now? Not just a proven goalscorer (and has he ever missed a penalty for us?), but a talisman for our club. And an honourable person - if that means anything to some of you people!

These kinds of smart alec, sarcastic, 'ironic' posts are becoming so tedious. The poster pretends to be sincere in order to make some clever point, and then, when someone takes it at face value (because they naturally assume the post to be sincere), they are often ridiculed by other smart alec, sarcastic posters for not being fast enough to detect the cynical sarcasm. Do us a favour and respect internet etiquette; use emoticons at the end of the post to indicate that you're being insincere and "ironic".

Yes, indeed. So a visit to Austen's cottage in Chawton (north-east Hampshire) would be impressive. And I agree with Lacock - an amazing place (some scenes from the early Harry Potter films were done in the Abbey there). And the village is incredibly picturesque.

Lulworth Cove - and walk from there to Durdle Door. The "Hovis Hill" (Gold Hill) in Shaftesbury. Stonehenge and Salisbury Cathedral. Beaulieu - the House and the Motor Museum. Winchester Cathedral.

Electric - the new CD from Richard Thompson. Another excellent album - even better than his last few! Gonna see him live in two weeks - he's on the same bill with Emmylou Harris. Wow!

Maybe in the '50s and early '60s. If an artist is putting out 12 crap numbers, they are not worth listening to or supporting. It was The Beatles who led the push to put out high-quality albums which were NOT padded with "crap numbers". After their first album, they even stopped putting their singles on the albums - which meant 14 new tracks. And they used the albums as a vehicle for creative innovation. The sign of a good band, or solo artist, was precisely that ability to put out a good, solid album - one that was not full of "crap numbers". During the early to mid-'60s, popular music was dominated by the single, the pop charts, and AM radio (the "Light" programme, which became Radio One). Starting in the late '60s, the shift was away from the single to the album; away from AM radio to FM radio. FM radio could broadcast in stereo and high-fidelity sound - and the shift was away from singles to predominantly album tracks. What we have now is a shift back to the era of the single. And that means inferior bands can thrive without the need to put out good-quality albums - collections of interesting and creative tracks. Me, I'm still an "album guy". I still buy my music on "albums" (CDs). I still prefer to listen to a band or and artist for an hour or so, rather than constantly shifting from one three-minute song by one artist to another three-minute song someone else, as it was back in the days of Top-20 radio. It's the way I prefer to listen to music, and the change in technology has not had an effect on that. Oh, and I still frequent "record stores", as well as buy CDs from Amazon.

I agree with you. A dozen or so posters on here who like to dominate and bully. They never know when to shut up.

Absolute disaster!

"Marquee Moon" by Television (1977)

Nah. Early '70s was singer-songwriters; mid-70s was disco sh*t; late 70s was punk