Hamilton Saint

Thanks for that; I'll definitely seek it out.

Money?

Have to disagree about his live performances. Whether solo acoustic, or full band performances, they're always great. I saw him do a solo acoustic show in Toronto a few years ago that was simply superb. His guitar-playing is just jaw-droppingly great! I'm a huge fan of June Tabor, too! She is equally superb doing versions of traditional folk material, as she is doing covers of contemporary stuff. One of my favorite albums of hers is A Quiet Eye - and it features two RT songs (Waltzing's For Dreamers and Pharoah). One of the UK's great song-interpreters.

He's talking about Chamberlain there.

Been listening to the most recent Richard Thompson album, Dream Attic. It's a live album - all-new material recorded with a band. I wasn't bowled over by it. Some good songs. But not a stand-out for him. But maybe I get so familiar with an artist, sometimes, that I get a bit jaded.

After Arcade Fire won the Grammy this year for Album of the Year - beating out Eminem, Lady Gaga, and Katy Perry - irate and uninformed fans of the latter were all over the internet in the States bemoaning the fact. "Who is Arcade Fire anyway. Who's ever heard of them?" A few weeks later the Canadian music awards (the Junos) gave the Artist of the Year award to Neil Young (he also got a humanitarian award for his long-standing charity work), beating out, amongst others, Justin Bieber. Shattered Bieber fans were crying all over the internet too. "Who is this Neil Young guy, anyway? Who's ever heard of him?"

Well, the bit you quoted was McCartney's contribution to that particular song. That would explain it!

There is a restaurant just around the corner from where I work called Shatin Chinese Food.

My thought, too!

Hard to believe, eh?!

I see. Well, you did have the incomparable Eddie "The Eagle".

I thought it was strange that Capello said that he had taken Andy Carroll aside and "spoke with him, in private" about his drinking. "He's young", said Capello. And then he discusses in the media for the entire world to hear about. Does that help?

facist? biased against faces?

Bless. But our skiers and skaters have you beat!

Full of bright ideas and helpful comments, aren't you.

The soccer club I'm involved with provides divisions for kids (boys and girls) aged 4-15. Up 'til the age of 14, the divisions do not keep stats of the games. It's a season of friendlies. There are strict rules about coach and parent behaviour. No criticism of referees and refereeing decisions is tolerated. The whole culture of the club is focused on sportsmanlike behaviour, which often seems like an alien concept these days!

I made the mistake, yet again, of reading through some "reviews" of books on Amazon. What a depressing, irritating exercise! Many people think that a review of a book is nothing more than an account of how the book made them "feel". Or they think that if they've decided the author is a jerk, then all his books must be crap, too. Or they think that all fiction is nothing more than disguised autobiography. Or they think their opinion is valid just because it's their opinion. Don't tell me the book's no good because it made you sad! Don't make a sweeping judgment about a book and then say that you only read two chapters, FFS. Talk about the style; talk about the setting; talk about the narrative voice; talk about the language; talk about the plot; talk about the characters. As D H Lawrence put it: "Never trust the artist. Trust the tale. The proper function of a critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it".

Well, forget "mad" Hollywood; this is Disney we're talking about - the Great Satan.

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.)