Sheaf Saint

Well having just watched MOTD2, I think it's fair to say that we can kiss goodbye to any hopes of getting near the European spots, or even a top half finish, if it becomes necessary for Fox to have a prolonged run in the first team. Every single chance that Swansea created came about as a result of him standing off, putting no pressure on the ball or the attacker and just inviting crosses to go over his head without doing a thing about it. His positional sense and awareness of the positions of attacking players is woeful and he is a total liability. With a semi-competent LB in the team today Swansea would never have offered as much threat as they did and the whole balance of the game would have been different. We were lucky to get away with it today, thanks mainly to Boruc, but the Guardian summary is correct: he is an accident waiting to happen.

From the BBC Sport match report page.... "Southampton have conceded two goals in their opening seven top-flight games. The last time they did that was in 1983-84, when they ended the campaign in second place, behind Liverpool." Make of that what you will

Yet another Sebastian Vettel bore-fest in Korea today. But that's not the biggest concern. It's the Pirelli tyres they are using this year that has had such a negative effect on the spectacle. For the last 20 laps you had Hulkenberg, Hamilton, Alonso, Button and Rosberg all bunched up fighting for 4th place as a result of two safety cars, but they were all being instructed by their pits to take it easy and keep the tyres cool. So where we should have had a dramatic showdown with these guys using DRS to pass and re-pass each other all the way to the end, we had a completely dull procession instead.

No you clearly don't. The two situations are nothing alike. Maggie Thatcher was PM for 3 terms and drastically changed the face of Britain during her tenure. Some would say for the better but many, such as those who lost their livelihoods as a result of her policies, would say for the worse. Her economic ideals destroyed entire communities and therefore any criticism she received was genuine (to those making it, at least) because it was a direct result of her actions. Ralph Miliband, on the other hand, was effectively a nobody. He may have had some political leanings that many find distasteful, but he never reached a position of power where he was able to implement those ideals. The public outcry against the piece in the Mail is not based on the notion of respecting the dead, it is centred on the fact that this was a blatant and calculated attempt by the Mail to smear the name of the current Labour leader by implying that he shares his father's Marxist beliefs. We know you're not stupid delldays, so why do you insist on making out that you are by pretending that you cannot see the difference between the two situations?

I make it with pretty much the same fruit/booze/sugar ratio as sloe gin. Fill your bottle up to a bit less than half with blackberries, fill to near the top with vodka and then add as much sugar as you prefer but make sure you don't overdo it. If you don't put enough sugar in you can always add more after it has brewed and been bottled, but obviously you can't take some out if you have added too much.

Been a bumper crop round my way this year. Already got a 3L load on the go and fully intend to go and find some more tomorrow. I've also made some blackberry vodka and cherry brandy from wild fruit so far this year. The cherries were ripe and ready in july so that's bottled already, and very tasty.

All of which might just about be understandable, if not for the glaring fact that they have refused to apologise and have repeated their 'opinion' when challenged about it. The man's son has come out publicly and said he did not hate Britain. A former Conservative cabinet minister who studied with him has stated publicly that he did not hate Britain. Have the Mail responded to this by saying "well you can understand why we thought he did, but fair enough - you knew him better than we did and we happily accept we were wrong"? No. Instead they have repeated their claim and are standing by it despite not having any actual evidence to support it. You can try and defend it all you like, but there is not a shred of doubt that this was a deliberate and calculated attempt to smear the Labour leader, rather than just a poorly-judged opinion.

Ah, I stand corrected. I was always under the impression that he gained all of his insights into military hardware from having served himself. He obviously carried out some very thorough research before writing then.

Reade and Toynbee may well have been fiercely critical of Margaret Thatcher in what they wrote. I'm not aware, however, of either of them printing outright lies about her and refusing to retract them when corrected.

Doesn't really matter where this story was published really. It's a direct quote from a former Conservative cabinet member who knew Ralph Miliband personally having studied with him.

Nonsense. The outcry would be the same if the article appeared in any of the other nationals. But that's beside the point, because none of the rest of them would have had the indecency and poor taste to print such a 'story' in the first place. The fact that the Mail published it only serves to reinforce the reasons why so many people find it to be such a disgusting rag.

I wouldn't know the first thing about submarines so it's good to know that somebody with experience of the subject matter thinks that. I guess because Clancy himself served in the military and that accuracy and attention to detail was important to him.

Read a few of his books in my younger days, and enjoyed the numerous film adaptations - most notably Patriot Games (I even enjoyed The Sum of All Fears despite it starring Ben Affleck as Jack Ryan.) Took me months to get through The Bear and The Dragon (I read quite slowly!) but it was well worth it... An epic story on a grand scale. RIP Tom.

Wow! That's a lot of strawmen for somebody who only last week was complaining about himself being the victim of stereotyping and generalisation.

They ruined it by bringing Gus back from the dead and turning everyone into zombies though. Too far-fetched IMO.

While we are at it, can everybody point out to the fans singing that moronic "we've got Pochettino, Pochettino" song that his name is pronounced "po-cke-tee-no". If we are going to sing songs about our manager then the very least we can do is pronounce it properly.

That's a very good shout. I've made sloe gin and blackberry vodka before (got some of the latter on the go at the moment from what I found in my garden) but I've never considered combining them before.

I fail to see how the club could even consider withholding your ST without any physical evidence. Even just CCTV footage of you sipping from a hip flask isn't conclusive. If they didn't even confiscate the flask then they cannot prove there was alcohol in it. You could just claim it was Ribena and they can't prove otherwise. If you argue your point on these grounds then I think you will be fine. If they still ban you despite that then there is something seriously wrong with the world.

I'm well ahead of you there. The black cherry tree near me was giving ripe fruit back in july...

He had a point about the penalty decisions though to be fair. The one given against them was very soft and would not be given 9 times out of 10, and the handball at the other end was so obvious and really should have been a pen.

Crap highlights from the beeb. They didn't show J-rod's disallowed goal or Davis' effort that went just over. It's as if they have some sort of anti-Saints agenda

Thought he was harshly booked today which might have affected his game a little. He wasn't as effective as he was at Anfield last week but he still put in a decent shift.

It's that time of year again. After the disappointment of only managing to find enough sloes to make about a litre of sloe gin last year, there's a bumper crop of everything available this year following the hot summer we had... Gonna make some hawthorn jelly and some rosehip syrup. Got some apples from my mum's garden so will probably make a crumble with the blackberries. Not decided what to do with the elderberries yet. I've never tried making wine before and a friend of mine has some wine-making kit that he no longer uses, so I might give that a go. Will probably need to pick some more first though.