Hamilton Saint

I have the vinyl LP of that!

Agree. Good idea, though. Thanks.

I saw Richard Thompson at Massey Hall in Toronto last week. He was opening for Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell. RT played with a drummer and bassist - power trio format. He did 10 songs (five from the new CD) - just under an hour. Excellent as always, but the PA sound was very poor. First time I'd seen Emmylou Harris. I know her best for her work with Gram Parsons on his LPs Grievous Angel and GP. She was very impressive - a good partnership with Crowell. I would call it country-folk-rock.

Interesting line-up. The Move have been unjustifiably ignored over the years. Amazing band when they had Roy Wood AND Jeff Lynne in there together. There's a mistake on that poster: Amen Corner was the name of the band - not The Amen Corner. Likewise, it's Pink Floyd, not The Pink Floyd! But it was The Nice!

No, physical assault is not justified for that.

That's the spirit!

And then there's Donna Summer!

Why would you be reading in a pub? I'd rather be drinking!

Been listening to The Next Day - David Bowie's new CD - for the last couple of weeks. It's very good!

I was watching film of Jerry Lee Lewis just last night. There was always something very scary about him on stage. No wonder they called him The Killer! And then there was Little Richard - always something deranged and kinky about him on stage!

That's a coda! Or do you mean the opening guitar riff?

AC? DC? Or a bit of both?

Easier to pay directly from a chequing account - and no risk of paying interest on the purchase, if you neglect to pay off the credit card balance on time.

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.