stevegrant

His sources are very reliable, I've heard Lukey's weekly rants against Jack Warner and Peter Storrie are always good value.

As some of you may be aware, I've been working on a major upgrade to the whole SaintsWeb site for most of the last year or so. In conjunction with a new major version of vBulletin, the software we use to power the forum, the new site is not far from going live - probably a week or two away. To go alongside this, we want a new site logo/banner. This will not be a forum-specific one, as the new version of vBulletin allows us to integrate the forum with all the other areas of the site (the existing Prediction League and Podcast features in addition to new user blogs, a comprehensive stats database and a revamped news section). I'm therefore throwing it open to anyone on the forum to design a new site banner. The specifications are as follows: The image must be no more than 400px wide by 100px tall The image should feature SaintsWeb prominently The image may optionally feature the strapline The number one independent Southampton FC website The image should feature some part of or all of the Saints crest (preferably the "normal" one, rather than the 125-year special, but that's up to you) The background of the image should be transparent where possible, in order to enable the banner to blend in with the header block background (see the sneak preview below for an illustration of this) - as a result, submitted images should be in either GIF or (preferably) PNG format. There is a (rather nice, if I do say so myself!) prize for the entry that we choose to use (although we may request slight alterations), and in exchange for that prize, you agree that the image becomes intellectual property of SaintsWeb Ltd. An initial deadline for entries is midnight on Friday 4th June, and entries should be sent to me at banner@saintsweb.co.uk Any questions?

Funny you should mention the logo... watch this space

We were beaten by the better team, no argument there. However, some of the decisions were disgraceful, really. The one time we got a 50/50 decision in our favour, we had a 3-on-2 break but the ref a) refused to play advantage, and b) then stopped us taking it quickly. Strangely, he let you take as many quick free kicks as you liked all evening.

"Rule Britannia..."

To demonstrate the retardedness of the officials last night, you got a free-kick for that

Seems a very sensible decision. Given that a lot of sides in the lower leagues struggle to find enough players to fill the first team subs bench, it stands to reason that games against their "reserve" teams aren't going to provide any benefit to us other than perhaps injury recuperation.

I assume that's basically the Blackberry Internet Service - previously, they used to charge an additional monthly fee for all the internet services like push email, web browsing, Blackberry Messenger, etc. Now I think it's all bundled in. You'll get internet access, definitely. I've not owned an iPhone though, so can't really say whether it's "like" what you get on there. Much better battery performance The newer Blackberrys have UMA technology, which allows you to use any available Wi-Fi signal to boost your mobile signal If you end up cracking the screen, you can still use the phone... Nowhere near as many apps available, not as much built-in storage space.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't YouTube use Flash video? Something of a flaw on the iPhone... Disagree. Particularly if you're in a 3G area, the connection speeds are very good. Also, the Blackberry battery doesn't degrade after 6 months meaning a day's usage runs the battery to empty like the iPhone does.

Concourse will be open for food and drink, not 100% sure how much beer they'll have in though.

Yep, both car parks will be pretty much empty, so take your pick.

Yeah, I'm quite happy with the light drizzle, to be honest! That said, could get a bit murky late in the game again - will have to check if we can have the floodlights on!

Still could have used up the 12 overs before the bonus point cutoff, I reckon. Puts ourselves in a bit of a vulnerable position, I think.

It would seem so, but that's not an Echo-specific gripe, really. All newspapers globally are struggling to come to terms with the spontaneity of news these days, people get so much of their news from free sources that are more up-to-date. However, there is still a significant proportion of the population who first read their news from the local paper. Interesting that today sees the launch of The Times' paid-for news website - I'm expecting it to fail miserably, but it'll be an interesting test case to see if news is actually worth paying for.

I'd say that's probably a fair assessment, actually, particularly with 24-hour news, instant access to news on the internet, etc. The printed press are, 99.9% of the time, behind the times in terms of when the news is actually reported. In the past, you often only heard about something once it had been in the papers.

Which newspapers aren't trying to increase circulation, just out of interest?

OK then, Mr High and Mighty... what would you do to fill the pages of empty space in newspapers (not just the Echo) when there isn't anything you deem newsworthy to go in them? Printing fewer pages is not an option, by the way, for economic reasons.

Believe it or not, there is a world outside this forum I heard the £125 rumour months ago, long before it appeared on here.

To be fair, they've sold more than us at this stage... :mad:

Why not? They've got to write about something, given that there's no news at all right now. Top story on the OS is how Lee Barnard will be watching the world cup. Wow.

Completely different conditions to what he's been playing in for the last 3 months, to be fair. I expect he'll need a few innings to get reacclimatised.

Bowled them out for 415. We were going along nicely at 49/0, but Carberry went c&b to Rashid and now Lumb's gone without scoring...

Today, in fact, in a one-day game. Three-day game to come later in the week.

A surprisingly entertaining game for a friendly. Don't think we learnt anything particularly new. Things that we already knew but were reinforced tonight: Defensively we look pretty ropey Michael Carrick is crap Theo Walcott looks decent enough but then lacks the intelligence to play the right final ball Jermain Defoe isn't good enough against half-decent international opposition Peter Crouch's goalscoring record for England is mental

Ta-da Bit earlier than expected, should have checked the scheduled task list really