Hamilton Saint

I always use loose tea, not teabags! I like English Breakfast Tea, Irish Breakfast Tea, Earl Grey and Darjeeling. Yorkshire Tea is good, too (loose, of course!). There are a couple of specialty tea shops in Toronto I go to every few months; they import lots of excellent teas from all over Asia. My favourites so far - a Darjeeling variety, and a black tea from Sri Lanka. When I can't get into Toronto, I'll buy a Twinings tin of loose tea.

And thanks to you for delivering the messages.

I find this and other so-called "funny" comments by WGS highly overrated. People go on as though he's Tommy Cooper. Not even remotely close.

Where's that? I went to Hythe Primary.

Indeed, but they like to be consistent in their inconsistency.

That sounds painful.

... and the lady said, "Not my Schnauzer, my mini Schnauzer!" To which the pharmacist said ... By the way, djharvey, I don't think it's a mini Schnauzer - the legs look too long.

Did mine in rural Shropshire in 1966. It had a lasting, salutory effect on my bicycle riding: I treat bike riding as being in charge of a vehicle - staying off the pavement, following the rules of the road, signalling my turns. What irritates me are bicycle riders who will change instantaneously, with no advanced warning or logic, from being a vehicle on the road, to being a toy on the pavement.

Nice dog! Last weekend I planted four tomato plants: three plants that will get large, "beefsteak" tomatoes (2 "Whoppers", which mature in about 70 days, and one "Early Girl", which takes about 50 days to get ripe fruit). The other is a "cherry tomato" variety. Also put some herbs into large, clay flowerpots. It's good to have fresh herbs for salads and cooking! It now gives me the opportunity to stroll judiciously around the garden checking out their progress.

And I've been listening to Paul Simon's latest - So Beautiful and So What - constantly. It's brilliant! Even better than his last (the collaboration with Brian Eno). Here he co-produces with Roy Hallee - who goes back to the S&G days. One of the songs on here - The Afterlife - is superb!

I'm listening mostly to his recent stuff now. The album that documents his separation from Daryl Hannah, I'm Alive is excellent - a great collection of songs. I think it's his best of recent times. Of the early stuff, my favourite song is Something Fine (it's from his very first LP). It's the combination of guitar work, singing and song. Perfect!

Brilliant? An interesting person who combines several of the following traits: clever, intelligent, creative, funny, articulate, thoughtful, hard-working ... I think he fails on most counts, don't you? BTW, weird to call someone elitist (note the spelling) right after praising a person like PP.

Happy Birthday, Ron. You were my childhood football idol. I've just been looking at my set of 10 Saints programs from the 1968-1969 season. Ron Davies is featured as the cover photograph in seven of them (six with headers). [The programs back then cost a shilling!] P.S. My oldest program is from the 1961-62 season. It's from Saturday, October 7th - Saints at home to Brighton & H.A. At that point in the season we were in second place, just behind Liverpool. Also in that year's second division: Huddersfield, Notts Forest, Leeds, Charlton, Derby, Swansea, Middlesbrough, S****horpe, Norwich.

Glyn Johns (engineer) worked really hard putting together an acceptable LP from all that material. He presented at least two versions of the album to the band. They couldn't agree on either. The project was left incomplete for several months until Lennon took charge of getting the thing done. He gave the tapes to Phil Spector. The original concept of Let It Be (the album) was to record the band as they used to play in the earliest days - live and without overdubs. Perhaps Spector was unaware of this idea; anyway, he overdubbed orchestra and choir on a few tracks. Paul McCartney was appalled at what Spector did with The Long and Winding Road. But to be honest, the band had pretty much washed their hands of the whole thing and Spector was given cart blanche - or. at least, left unmonitored as he put together an album.

I particularly liked this comment from Jaidi: "I don't know what is happening, there is something strange going on in my mind because I am already thinking about next season, and how we are going to achieve promotion to the Premier League. I haven't even started my holidays yet and I am thinking about next season already and I think that is the same for all the players, we want to get going already.

I can't stand the arrogant swine.

By the way, my version of Anthems in Eden is from a mid-70s re-release on Harvest Records called Amaranth.

Another gem of hers (Shirley Collins) is No Roses (1976), an LP she did with the Albion Country Band and a host of guest musicians from the folk/folk-rock scene of that period.

Over here our local libraries have quite a good selection of audiobooks available. A couple that I've particularly enjoyed: 1) The Old Man and the Sea (the Hemingway novella) read by Donald Sutherland; and 2) Dubliners (a set of short stories by James Joyce) read by a dozen or so Irish actors. I commute almost an hour to and from work every day; I often switch from listening to music CDs to BBC Radio 4 podcasts and to audiobooks.

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.