CHAPEL END CHARLIE

I disagree. Do you remember the story before the last General Election when Gordon Brown wrote a handwritten note to the parents of a dead soldier and made a spelling mistake? Well the right wing press made a big play of it hoping to damage the PM as you would expect, but the British public refused to jump on that particular bandwagon because it was a blatantly unfair attack on Brown - who is dyslexic of course. You obviously hold a different more cynical view of our people, but I think the British have an innate sense of fairness that on occasion can override the message the gutter press are trying to sell them. It'll be interesting to see the next set of opinion polls - I suspect this nonsense will have done Ed Miliband no harm at all.

Well Wes, I would like to think that the clear majority of the British public are a sensible enough bunch not to hold the politics of a long dead father against his son. What I will remember about this story is not some sinister suspicion re Ed Miliband's closet attempt to impose a hard line communist regime on a unsuspecting country, but rather a crass attempt to smear the leader of the Labour Party by the Daily Mail. So no change there then.

In commercial terms a highly successful author to put it mildly - mainly in field of naval fiction. I have read a few of his books over the years, but after a while the constant celebration of US power and technology became a bit too much for my tastes.

The more you think about this story the worse the Daily Mail's stance looks. They say that all publicity is good publicity, but it seems to me this blatant attempt to smear the Leader of the Opposition could turn out to be a spectacular 'own goal' from the Mail's point of view. Just two weeks ago Ed Miliband looked a fairly hapless figure who seemed increasing out of his depth, the wrong Miliband brother many would say. Tonight however after a (very) successful party conference and his principled and dignified response to this disgraceful attack in the Mail he's starting to look for the first time like a proper statesman in my view - a potential Prime Minister even. But back to the Daily Mail. Firstly you have an attack on a dead man who served in the Royal Navy during WWII and obviously can no longer defend himself - this looks bad frankly. From the little I know of him Ralph Miliband does seem to have been a left wing radical of the type that is a anathema to this particular newspaper. But (needless to say) holding lefty/republican views does not itself amount to evidence that he 'hated' of this country. Far from it. But much worse than any of that is the stunningly cynical assumption that their own readership is such a prejudiced and ignorant bunch that they will blindly accept the idea that a son must inherit his fathers political views as if politics could be passed down via paternal DNA! Judge a man on what he says and does, not on who his bloody father was for pity's sake. Freedom of the press is a very important principle of course. That same press having something intelligent and relevant to say about the state of our politics wouldn't be a bad idea either methinks ...

Yes!

As for the hateful 'Bedroom Tax' I'm with VFTT on that - a ill conceived and badly implemented policy brought in by Government that either didn't realise the damage it would inflict on the poorer elements of society - or just didn't care. The fact that both Houses of Parliament endorsed such an abomination of a Act is a disgrace. Re the unemployment benefit matter, it seems to me that hardly a year goes by without the government of the day - from whatever party - taking some action to make life more difficult/unpleasant for the unemployed. I seriously wonder how much longer this process can continue before those on the dole are considered to be a antisocial/pseudo criminal class? I haven't personally been out of work since the last century, but I'm familiar with someone who now is and I must tell you that claiming unemployment benefit today is not the relatively straightforward process it once was. The policy changes introduced by successive governments means it has become a difficult and deeply stressful experience for a great many of our fellow citizens. Remember these are people who have committed no 'crime' other than to lose their job. I can only hope and pray I don't find myself back in their situation myself one day because you can take it from me that so stressful is the process now that it is leading the more vulnerable unemployed into metal illness or, in extremis, causing some to even consider suicide. Yes the unsupportable scale of the welfare state and the very real problem of our dependency culture needs to be addressed. However the way government is going about doing that lacks the degree of compassion and common decency I expect British citizens to receive from their government.

He was certainly very funny in Hot Shots Part Deux

Well you are technically in breach of ground regulations - but there again so is everyone in the Northam who stands all game and I don't see them being ejected from the stadium. To my way of thinking the club have behaved in a 'heavy handed' manner to put it mildly - this may be a case of a bored/overzealous CCTV operator trying to justify their employment. You'd like to think that someone in authority at the club would employ a bit of common sense and return your ST with a note advising you to not repeat this incident. In modern Britain I can say I'm entirely confident that will happen. Please keep us informed of developments.

Good knockabout stuff. But let's remember before we laugh too loudly at the folly of football punditry, that at its heart football is indeed a simple game and not a problem that rivals Fermat's Last Theorem. It seems to me the game is so simple that there really is only so much that can be said about it. Offside decisions, goalkeeping mistakes, referee's inconsistency ... you try making a career commentating about this stuff for years/decades on end without resorting to cliche or repeating yourself. As for getting predictions wrong, well I'd say the beauty of our game is its unpredictability. Indeed, hands up please anybody on here daft enough to claim there can call a weekends worth of football scorelines right more often than not.

Oh I'm greedy - I want us to be rock solid defensibly and attack like Real Madrid on steroids. I'll grant you this may not be an entirely reasonable ambition

Three good, three bad. Good: Osvaldo's first goal means I can now call him the 'Divine Ponytail' without fear of contradiction. Rickie's free kick a minute later was a thing of beauty. I'm not sure I'd swap Dejan Lovern for any other centre half in the PL. Bad: We still haven't quite recaptured last season's attacking flair. The away fans were superb today - pity they don't have a better team to support. The chip shop made me wait ages for a fishcake!

#like. The first time I saw Lovren play he didn't make much of a impression on this fan to be honest and I thought that VW would probably be the star addition of the summer. But first impressions are very often wrong, because the defensive performances Lovren's been putting in recently are so assured anyone can see this lad can play. I should also say that playing alongside him may well have elevated Jose Fonte to another level too. My MOTM today by a distance.

Ah! I'm glad you asked me that. My current avatar is a small tribute to 'Stuffy' (how he would have hated the informality) a man who has long been a bit of a hero to me. I admire him not just because of the way he led RAF Fighter Command through the Battle of Britain, but also because he was in large part responsible for creating the sophisticated air defence system that made that crucial victory possible in the first place. Outmaneuvered and sacked by his service rivals just as the battle he did so much to win was ending, I think Sir Hugh deserves to be remembered better. Indeed, as far as I'm concerned his name should be ranked alongside that of Montgomery, Cunningham, or even Alanbrook perhaps. The fact that he was a socially awkward "unclubbable" old bugger who was never afraid to speak his mind, however unpopular it made him, also appeals to me for some reason.

Very interesting. By the way, do you know how we planned to control our Nuclear Missile submarines had the UK been destroyed in a devastating nuclear attack? Well if the sub's skipper couldn't communicate with Fleet HQ at Northwood (conveniently located within the greater London target area) he was instructed to tune his radio into the BBC and try to find out what was happening from them. If the BBC was no longer broadcasting (for obvious reasons) he was then, as a last resort, supposed to open the special sealed envelope every nuclear submarine carried containing secret instructions from the Prime Minister of the day. It is speculated that this letter would have authorized him to use his best judgement!

Time for politics to raise its ugly head I'm afraid. I suspect it may want to, but Football can no longer exist in a vacuum separated from the rest of the economy. The leader of the opposition made a big play yesterday about how living standards in the UK are now falling significantly as years of wage stagnation takes effect - and he's right. It's no bloody good clubs putting up their prices every season and expecting fans to find the money from this years pay rise as they used to, the fact is many of us just don't get a annual pay rise anymore. Clubs can either choose to adapt to this grim new reality or carry on as per normal every summer - and watch attendances shrink even further.

With yet another utterly straight forward win for Sebastian Vettel in the Red Bull today, this driver and team look set to be on their way to a 4th successive joint Driver and Constructors title. The combination of a gifted young driver in the prime of his career, a car conceived by Adrian Newey (clearly the best designer in the business) and Christian Horner's superbly organised team looks unstoppable. Nothing lasts forever of course, but I see no reason why this situation should not continue for years to come frankly. Now I actually warm to Seb far more than I ever did to similarly dominant Michael Schumacher, and Red Bull are a admirable (British based) team who deserve everything they get. But the dismal failure of the rest of the grid to come close to matching them is now starting to seriously reduce the sport as a competitive spectacle in my view. I understand the crowd in Singapore actually booed Vettel on the podium today. So unless the other teams can find a way of breaking this Red Bull/Vettel domination of the sport PDQ methinks the sport will have to start thinking about introducing a handicapping system as other forms of motorsport have - or watch both its TV ratings, and income, disappear up its own exhaust pipe. Or do you disagree?

Aye. The magnificent bloody effort Adam puts in every single game seldom receives the recognition it deserves. What a player. PS - OMG I've just reached the 4000 posts mark! I didn't know you could pile sh1te that high

Oh Wanyama can play alright, and he's as keen as mustard with it. I think the problem may be he's trying too hard at the moment to impress himself on both the game and his manager. If you can't win the ball cleanly then it's often better to just track your man and force him to play it backwards/sideways, rather than jump in rashly in a give away a free kick as you can see him doing recently. Right now you could say he does not match the measured level of composure on the ball that Jack Cork offered our midfield last season. But once he calms down a bit and plays more with his head rather than his heart, I'm sure he'll be a big asset for us because he's got it all.

I'm intrigued to learn that Danni Osvaldo is apparently a "colossal waste of money" because I had thought there were times last Sunday when he looked 'different class' to everyone else on the pitch. Indeed, far from him not being good enough for us, I thought the reverse of that situation was closer to the truth. I'll be surprised if this lad doesn't score us 15 goals this season.

I can only agree with the OP. Before the start of the season I'd have thought that Maya Yoshida (another fine player) was most likely to partner Lovern at the heart of our defence. But Fonte has the place now and will take some shifting judging by our transformed defensive record this season. It may be slightly unfair however to single out any one player, because the entire back line and keeper are playing like the type of rock solid defensive unit this club hasn't had for a very long time. You build teams from the back of course - so it only remains for our forward players to start to convert more of the chances we continue to make and we'll take some stopping methinks.

Tutankhamen: the life and death of a boy king by Christine El Mahdy. I suspect that the title of this fascinating history was a (commercially attractive) one chosen by the publisher rather that the author because this book is much more than yet another examination of the 'boy king', Harold Carter and a famous archaeological discovery. For in order to tell the story of 'King Tut' in a evidence-based and objective manner the author decides to take a fresh look at ancient Egypt's 18th dynasty in its entirety - especially the key role the 'heretic' Pharaoh Arkenaten and his royal consort Nefertiti played at that time. As you no doubt already know Tutankhamen's ("The Living Image of Amun") tomb is the only virtually intact royal burial to be discovered in the Vally of the Kings to date. But for all the unparalleled splendor and richness of the finds unearthed by Carter and Lord Carnarvon there was actually remarkably little hard evidence found that sheds much light on who Tutankhamen Nebkheperure really was. For instance who were his parents? Why was his 'Great Royal Wife' Ankhesenamun apparently absent form either the ceremony or her husbands tomb? What was the relationship between Tut and his immediate predecessor the deeply mysterious Smenkhare? Above all, was in reality Arkenaten's religious revolution quite all that it is often made out to be? Casting aside the mistaken interpretations of past Egyptologists and getting to the bottom of these ancient mysteries is kind of like a complex detective story - and just as exciting. The author comes to a series of conclusions that may well be controversial, and recent DNA testing has certainly improved our understanding of the period, but El Mahdy knows what she is taking about and it is hard to resist the thought that her conclusions are probably close to the truth of the matter.

A working definition of abhorrent might be 'Inspiring disgust and loathing' which nicely sums exactly how I feel about this question. It should be quite clear by now I would have thought that all forms of Antisemitism disgust me - I say it should disgust all right thinking people. Now you and your chums on here clearly find low level antisemitism to be a trivial matter of little or no consequence - a bit of a laugh even. I however grew up at a time when mainstream society was painfully aware of how awful the consequences of that wicked philosophy could be and decent people would just not tolerate it anymore. That was a wisdom born of experience. Now I've been on here long enough to know better I suppose, but I still find it depressing to see quite so many of the younger generation apparently incapable of understanding the importance of the issue. Finally, the problem with this fatuous 'sauce for the goose' argument is so bloody obvious I'd have fought it would hardly need explaining. For example, while it is apparent that some black people choose to employ the 'N' word that does not grant you 'carte blanche' to insult every black person you meet! Has it not occurred to you that just because Rap music stars and certain Hollywood actors (who really should know better) are happy to use that vile word with monotonous regularity, it cannot not be implied from that that they have authority to speak for the entire black population!

Oh come off it. I'm well aware of the etymology thanks, but in reality a non Jew doesn't call a Jewish person a 'Yid' in this day and age and intend that to be taken as a warm and friendly form of address, say broadly equivalent to calling a Welshman 'Taffy' or a Scot 'Jock'. To be frank, anyone seriously suggesting such nonsense is either incredibly naive or attempting to mislead. Very obviously the word is loaded with antisemitic meaning, and as we're discussing here its use in a football stadium, the hate filled atmosphere you commonly encounter at football matches is proof of exactly what is in the mind of those aiming that kind of language (and much worse) at THFC fans. Anybody who has ever attended a match where the rivalry between the two sets of fans is intense must know the truth of that. As arguments go this; 'it's okay for me to call a him a Yid because some Jewish people use the word' is to be found at the fatuous end of the spectrum. Some Black people employ the 'N' word in conversation, does that entitle you to call the next Black person you meet in the street a N****r and expect him not to be offended? That is a perfectly fair analogy by the way. You see the problem with accepting that the 'hissing' behavior is vile (and of course it is) but then maintaining that calling someone a 'Yid' is somehow the acceptable face of antisemitism is that there is no acceptable level of antisemitism. History teaches us what lays in store for societies that head down that path - never again.

You can rest assured that all the opinion's I take the trouble to express on here are genuinely held ones, whether you happen to agree with them or no. As for my lack of intelligence ... well I'll take that 'from whence it comes' shipmate. But should you tire of insults, then please tell me how many Jewish THFC fans do you know for a fact actually engage in this abhorrent behaviour? Precious few I suspect, and doubtless those who do are from the younger element who have little or no personal experience of true Anti Semitism - as countless millions of their less fortune kin certainly have over the centuries.

Oh I don't think anybody should employ that type of language at any time. Please note however that I have not suggested that such vile behaviour should be deemed a criminal or civil offence. Now why don't you explain to the forum why you approve of anti sematic language - if that is your view.