Hamilton Saint

This is fantastic! I have two relatives here who are West Ham fans. They ridiculed me mercilessly when Saints were relegated (not once, of course, but twice). So to see a gap of two divisions between us wiped out in the same season is great! What goes around comes around.

Again?!

West Ham!!

So, this is it! Come on, you Saints!

I remember writing in praise of Bobby Charlton on here about five years ago and getting shat on by five or six members of the forum who insisted he was an arsehole. But all positive on here so far. Maybe it was an issue back then of some grief between Saints and Man U?

Listening to the new album by June Tabor; it's called Ashore. A collection of songs about the sea. And sailing. Gorgeous stuff! Acoustic folk at its best. On the Topic label.

I remember the promotion from Division Two to the First Division in the mid-sixties. I was in my teens at boarding school. Football was a huge part of the culture then. Kids came to school there from all over England - there were supporters of Everton, Liverpool, Leeds. Spurs, Manchester United, etc. And a small band of ardent Southampton supporters. I remember a master teasing me about the result of that final key game that saw us finish second in the division. He pretended for a bit that we had failed dramatically at the final hurdle, but then admitted the glorious news. We played football pretty much every day then at school. About an hour and a half every day. I was never fitter!

Been reading a new collection of Leo Tolstoy short stories, newly translated by the esteemed and prolific modern translators Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. They've done about a couple of dozen translations of the Russian classics (Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Turgenev, etc.). The best of the stories here is The Death of Ivan Ilich. Most of the stories deal with obsession. Profound stuff.

Yeah, some of the writing was lame, but it was interesting that the fellow that wrote the script (Alun Owen - I think he was a Liverpudlian) tried to give a down-to-earth sense of what their life was like at the time. It wasn't the kind of fluffy romantic comedy/fantasy you might see in a Cliff Richard (and the Shadows!) film! The LP A Hard Day's Night was significant because all the songs on the album (first side consisting of songs they wrote for the film, second side of other songs written at the time) were written by John, Paul and George. No covers! Quite an accomplishment for the period.

The piano version, or the arrangment for full symphony orchestra?

Stanley Kramer made a good film from the book, starring Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire and Tony Perkins. A bit didactic - but still gripping.

Why is your thread title "Why" instead of "Why?"?

Hard to believe that's really a letter from the Director-General of the BBC. Two glaring errors in the third sentence! Surely his secretary would be more literate than that!

Answer: your thread title should be "Question", not "Question?"

Atkins?

Thanks. Where do I go to do that?

Just got in from work. SaintsPlayer not working for me. Anyone else having problems?

So, let's go for the win, eh?!

Relax. Enjoy the run-in. I have to say that I've felt very confident about the situation for at least two or three months now. I anticipate a win now every time we're on the pitch. (Amazing, isn't it?!) Have to say that Adkins really does inspire belief in our success. Good to be a Saint!

Yes, we do!

This won't go tits up on us. There ...

A couple more goals, please! Guly and Barnard.

They're all "hippies"? Your world-view seems a tad simplistic.

"Hippies"? Could you be a bit more precise. Anti-nuclear campaigners? Anti-war activists? Pacifists?

Or some crazed member of HM armed forces? Jumping to knee-jerk conclusions can be problematic, eh?