FloridaMarlin

My Israeli brother-in-law laughed his socks off when I mentioned the OP to him.

Lambert, Lallana and Lovren all left. Nobody forced any of them to leave. At any point, they could have said to Saints; "I don't want to leave, I want to stay at this club." Not one of them did. All three of them jumped at the first chance. From that viewpoint, Lambert's fairytale move in the twilight of his career to his boyhood club is no different to Lovren's head being in Liverpool and Lallana's petulance. The only difference is that Lambert has been sensible enough to say the right things, and not do stupid things like putting adverts in the Echo to try and placate people.. Lallana really is badly advised by somebody. No doubt the intention behind his Radio Solent interview this week was to try and pour oil on troubled waters, but all it did was rake over the coals (great mixed metaphors there!). He really should keep hjis trap shut. I appreciate as much as any fan what Lambert did for the club, but I don't get the need for a love-in on his return. In moving to Liverpool he cut his ties with Saints. That was his choice and having done that, he can't expect to be welcomed back with open arms.

Toronto is a cool place. Peter Ustinov described it as "New York run by the Swiss." In fact a lot of movies about New York are made in Toronto thanks to generous grants from the Canadian govt to the Canadian Film Board. Highlights include the CN Tower. I'm not keen on heights but went up. Not far away is the Rogers Centre, formerly known as the SkyDome. Perhaps the first of the stadia with retractable roofs, but still an amazing sight. You might see a B:ue Jays game there, and hope it rains so they put the roof over. Toronto has a dinky little subway system (only a couple of lines) but it's good for getting you out into the burbs. Yorkville is the s****y area with lots of nice shops and eateries, but Toronto's amazing ethnic diversity means you will never want for variety of grub. I think they tarted up the harbour district since we went, but don't forget that Toronto's position on Lake Ontario. Until you see it from the top of the CN Tower, you cannot appreciate how big Lake Ontario is - and the rest of the lakes. The Toronto Islands are worth a visit and check out the Distillery district. Hire a car and take a trip to Niagara Falls. The town around the falls is tacky and cheesy, but the falls are worth seeing. The Maid of the Mist boat trips are a bit hokey and touristy, but you will regret it if you don't do it.

Hotel rooms drop considerably in price at weekends, and it can work out cheaper if you are going as part of a family group. Last time we went, we stayed the Hyatt Regency on 42nd St. During the week, it is very expensive, but bearable at weekends. There were four of us, including our two kids (who are adult age) who were happy to share a large double room (no jokes, please) and it worked out around $50 per head per night. The hotel groups put a lot of pressure on then-mayor Michael Bloomberg to protect their interests and maximising their profits and stop hostels undermining them. Most of the hostels in NY have been closed, apart from the YMCA, while the maximum occupancy rule now only applies to families. In other words, you can only have four people in a room (thereby making it cheaper per head) if they are all immediate family members. As others have said, it might be cheaper to look at hotels off Manhattan. The choice may not be great in Brooklyn or across the Hudson River in Noo Joisey, but the public transport links are good. In The States, I would normally advise looking for a hotel that does a breakfast. Some hotel breakfast deals may look expensive, but at least in a hotel you get coffee and juice included. Have breakfast outside a hotel and that's where they whack you. But in NY, we abandon that rule. There are hundreds of places where you can get a good breakfast really cheaply. And it's true, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Find a good breakfast deal, fill up, and that will do you for the rest of the day until dinner. If you are searching for hotels don't always go to places like Trivago, Travelzoo or Hotels.com. If it's a chain hotel (Hyatt, Sheraton, Hilton, etc) you often find they offer the best deals online. NYC is an amazing place. I don't think I have ever known anybody - even country birds who don't like big cities - who was not gobsmacked by the place.

My mother's parents were called Pearl and Dean. Or we kids called them, Nana and Grandpa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa.

Do they still play 'When the Red, Red Robin Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin' Along at The Valley? That struck fear into the hearts of the opposition.

I read that Scudamore said he was "surprised" by the size of the deal. Does that mean Sky and BT over-bid in their own p*****g conterst? They are closed bids, licked-down envelopes, etc, but it seems to me they might be paying over the odds, and the PL is giggling all the way to the bank. Expensive way to get people to sign up for broadband, which is what is at the heart of this. BT want people to sign up to their broadband which is why they (currently) provide PL football free to subscribers and they're running PL coverage as a loss leader and a come-on. It's all because none of us will be watching TVs in 10 years time (maybe less) and we will all be streaming stuff on our laptops, tablets and phones, along with Netflix and the successors to Breaking Bad. BT are taking Sky on for the hearts and minds of broadband subscribers. The weapon with which to do this is PL football. I pay about £70 a month for the full Sky package (movies, etc) and around £16 a month for my BT Broadband (plus i think, about £18 for my landline, which also includes my telephone). So I'm contributing around £100 a month towards PL coverage on TV, not to mention by TV licence for the highlights package on MoTD. That's more than £1,000 a year and I really hadn't thought about it in those terms until just this minute. I think if the letter from Sky lands on my doormat announcing the price rises to pay for this, they can shove it. Interesting to see that Sky's share price fell this morning on the back of the announcement of the PL deal. The problem is when this sort of money is on offer, it makes football clubs go all greedy and Smaug-like. The gap between the PL and the Football League grows ever bigger, and how long before the PL clubs vote to pull the ladder up and scrap relegation? There's also the question of how long the top clubs will want the small PL clubs hanging on their coattails and syphoning off money that could go to them? My feeling is that the next deal will see the end of the collective deal, and the top six/seven/eight clubs will try and go their own way. Sky and BT will be happy with that. It's not as easy to sell Burnley v West Brom to the Far Eastern masses (or anybody really) than it is several SPL-style meetings between Man Utd and Chelsea.

A website you can really trust. So much so, it doesn't even trust itself to identify its journalists. I'm not sure in what instance their particular brand of aggressive, investigative journalism would have been carried out. It would not have been in a one-to-one interview, and if it was in a presser, others would have picked up on this line. I don't recall seeing this on any reputable website or in any newspaper.

Not the first time. Won't be the last. Always jump the gun, trying to be first and often end up getting it wrong. I somehow never entirely trust Sky Sports News.

Don't turn your nose up at The Louvre. You might not be an art fan and even think galleries are boring, but the Louvre is just mind-blowing. It's not just paintings but the vast array of all sorts of artwork. It really is worth a visit. However, if your dislike of art is enough to put you off the Louvre, don't bother going into the Pompidou Centre. It's modern art (unless that's your thing). Take pictures from outside and move on. The climb up to the top of L'Arc de Triomphe is a good test for the knees. The lift only goes up so far, then it's a narrow spiral staircase, but the view from the top is worth it. If you're the sort of person who likes to mooch about this place is a goldmine. http://www.lagalcante.com/CMS/ I literally stumbled upon it a few years ago. It's up a side street off the Rue de Rivoli and it's a magazine and newspaper archive. They have thousands of newspapers and magazines (not just in French) and if it's a crappy day, you can wile away a couple of hours in here easily. The owner expects people to browse, and there's no pressure to buy anything. Having said that, I came away with a bag full of classic French footie mags, vintage copies of L'Equipe and Foot. Paris is a great place for wandering around doing very little, browsing in shops and sitting down at little cafes for a coffee and the best place to do that is in Le Marais. It's one of the oldest areas of Paris and full of winding streets and alleys. It is a big Jewish area and since the Charlie Hebdo attacks, the police presence is likely to be heavier than it usually is. There's also Pere Lachaise cemetery. It's not morbid to look around and it's not just about Jim Morrison's grave. Those buried there include Oscar Wilde, Marcel Proust, Edith Piaf and loads of other famous dead people. Possibly the most famous cemetery in the world. I used to think Paris was a place to avoid, a place full of arrogant, metro-centric French snobs - and it is. But you can avoid them and I realised a few years ago that it is one of the great cities of the world. I go back every year for a weekend and I always manage to find something new.

I think it's OK if you can produce your ID to prove you are a member of the Swiss armed forces.

Lucca. Not far from Pisa and Florence for day trips. Very near the coast and the beaches on the Versillian Riviera (Viareggio, Marina di Pietrasanta, Forte dei Marmi). Lucca is one of those old medieval independent republics and also has an identity of its own. It has an amazing set of walls around it, and at the heart is a piazza built on a Roman amphitheatre, and retaining the shape. I'm not an opera buff by any standard, but Puccini was born in Lucca and they stage open-air operas in the Piazza Anfiteatro on summer nights - amazing. I've been lucky enough to go to Italy quite a lot, but Lucca is my favourite place. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucca

Certainly the best pair of English full-backs in the country. You have to wonder why Roy does not make them both first choice for England. If there's a better right-back in the country than Clyne at the moment, answers on a postcard, please. And I also think Bertrand is the best leftie at the moment. Baines has gone off the boil in the middle of Everton's crap season, and Shaw has not been the player at United that we saw at Saints

Fernandez might have said that but it wouldn't stop Harry setting up the deals behind his back and then start pressuring the chairman through the media until he gets his way. He's done it at every club he's been at, it's his modus operandi.

I think I'd rather be playing Citeh on the last day of the season with the prospect of a Champions League place on the line, rather than our Premier League survival.

For your Friday afternoon delectation. Not directly p****y-related, but another indication of what a nest of thieves the club attracts. http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/sport/pompey/assistant-steals-4m-from-ex-pompey-owner-balram-chainrai-1-6551852

There is so much 'wrong' with that goal which makes it so sweet. Firstly, a great pick and pass by Frank Worthington with his 'wrong' right foot to David Armstrong. What the hell he was doing down the right hand side, nobody knows. He was usually only found on the right flank if he was heading off the pitch. I've spoken to Spike about this and not even he can explain how he was there. And what a cross by Spike with his 'swinger'. He usually only used his right leg to stand on. I wasn't there that day. I was playing. And as much as I love watching Saints, nothing was better than playing. I even missed the 1976 semi-final to play. I had a ticket for the game, but passed it on because we had a game that day. The League had issued a three-line whip that all fixtures had to be played that day, with dire consequences for those clubs that didn't. We turned up to find the opposition were not there. They couldn't get a team up as all their players had buggered off to Stamford Bridge.

How does that pitch get like that? I mean, where there is no grass, how has it worn away? You might expect the goalmouths to be worn, and even a bit of wear and tear down the centre of the pitch. But what happens on those patches to make the grass wither?

Tru dat.

Chiles isn't the only one talking to BT. They are going to chuck an obscene amount of money at sport in an attempt to blow Sky out of the water in the battle for broadband customers. It's all about getting the broadband market, as none of us will be watching TVs in 10 years time (maybe less), everything will be streamed on to laptops, tablets and smartphones. BT can afford to use sport as a huge loss leader to capture the market. I'm a BT broadband customer and I get loads of lovely sport for free (at the cost of paying my broadband subscription, of course) yet I pay £70 a month for Sky. Of course, it will put more pressure on the government's Dept for Media, Culture and Sport to scrap the protected national sporting treasures list as the pressure heats up, and Murdoch calls in favours and starts to put pressure on his tame MPs. The upshot it that the long term future doesn't look good for the terrestrail broadcasters sports coverage and those elderly and poorer sections of society who can't afford or cannot engage with modern technology.

You think they won't find it? By hook or by crook, or a cook of the books, they can always find money to splurge on the team.

I'm sure the royal family would be even more disturbed if he had sex with a miner. How frightfully working class.

Er....yes you can help it. You fund a training ground with decent pitches with proper drainage or run the risk of them flooding like Riverside Park.

If you need proof of that look no further than Swindon v Chesterfield today. Swindon's best player was John Swift, on loan from Chelsea, and described as the next Frank Lampard in a gushing Daily Mail profile this week. He's 19 and on loan at a League One side. He's never going to break into the Chelsea team because if Hazard or Oscar break down, they'll just lavish £25m on another player. If he was at Saints he would have got a chance by now. He must look at JPW with envy. Like our little midfield gem, he's also from p****y. Incidentally, Jack Stephens scored Swindon's first goal today, playing out of position in the centre of midfield.

I'll have a shiny shilling with anybody as to who scores the most goals for their resepctive new clubs between now and the end of the season.