Pugwash

With the FA Cup tie coming up, there's a chance for us all to take stock. Hopefully Nigel will look at a few of the fringe players as well. Why is it that everyone else's youngsters can make debuts and earn MoM awards and ours don't seem to progress beyond a 5-minute cameo? It was tough on Ben Reeves today, but perhaps he should get a start on Saturday. Also, whatever happened to Ryan Doble? Couple of loans and an injury, but he seemed to be making progress earlier in the season.

Really? If true, then yet another incompetent decision - no doubt listening to the crowd, rather than watching the game.

The thread is about D'Urso's performance as a referee. Agree what Lambert did is a red-carder, no doubt born out of frustration of AGAIN being on the receiving end against the most cynical side in the Championship. However a decent referee would've known what Brighton were about and been keeping an eye out for their constant niggling pushes, holds and snide kicks and nipped things in the bud a lot earlier. D'Urso is too far up his own ar$e to notice.

No width and a lack of fight, worrying.

Same old Brighton, always cheating.

golf

There's a South African Deli at the bottom of Athelstan Road, by the traffic lights on the Bitterne Road junction. Might be worth a try?

German

I've got Buccaneer (of course) and my brothers got Pirateology (naturally). Another good old game is 'Go' the travel game. Best game in more recent years has to be Scotland Yard from Ravensburger, producer of many fine games: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotland_Yard_(board_game)

Drink

Yep - absolute nightmare. I did the Celtic shorts thing as well..

I remember the world cup goals and the two sizes of football. The beginner's ball was about 6ft diameter in scale to the players. Very quickly graduated onto the small ball about half the size that you could really get some power behind. Before the 'spring' goalies, there were two types of static goalies: the standard 'diving' one and a 'crouching' one that I think was a better shot stopper. There was also a pocket football game similar to Owzat, with hexagonal metal dice, played on a small green plastic pitch about half the size of a handkerchief.

Actually it can stream photos and other non-movie content, including music, but as I have a media server setup it seems a bit pointless. So I just use my phone to do the remote controlling of it all instead. Yes, I can mirror apps to the TV as well, but after tinkering with it for a while and doing the 'wow' thing, I don't bother much any more. Apple does produce some nice looking and feeling kit and does an outstanding marketing job, but it's not always as cutting edge as they'd have you believe. Still, thanks for calling me clever .

That's easy. I've been able to stream movies from my HTC to any device on my network for the past 18 months. But it's old hat and, frankly, a bit pointless. Oh, and the WDTV has already got Youtube, BBC Iplayer, spotify and all the rest of them built-in.

If you can push the budget up a bit, I'd recommend a Synology DS211J (about £140, enclosure only). Reasonably fast, but the real plusses are the facilities and applications that make it so easy to set up for everything. Plenty of reviews online.

An alternative that I've been running very satisfactorily for a couple of years: WDTV Live with a nice big Synology NAS, free and quick ripping software to 1080p MKVs from Blu-rays and standard res from DVDs; plus a load of net channels. Can be modded with alternative software, but can't be bothered as it does everything I need already. Works well and it's simple.

You must be home by now - where's the piccies?

The easiest way for the League to get themselves out of this awkward situation would be to take the current opportunity to slap them with a hefty punitive points penalty. That way they slide down the divisions and become less and less attractive to that type of owner in the future.

God decided the French deserved it more.

Narrow boat sinking, Hammy?

It's Janu-hairy, so get started on those pony-tails guys.

Now Sold.

Mrs P brought home a book for me a while back. I was in one of those moods when I wanted something easy and well-paced to read. This one was a novel about a Knight Templar returning to his home in Sweden. I expected it to be a bit formulaic, but was very pleasantly surprised. Well written (translated from Swedish), absorbing and intelligent. Then found out it was the third of a trilogy, so bought the first two volumes and thoroughly enjoyed them. Look out for them - usually cheap on ebay: Jan Guillou - the Knight Templar Crusades trilogy. It was also made into Scandinavia's most expensive film a few years ago. Also worth a look - multiple languages used - English for 'Frankish', Swedish and Arabic (both subtitled).

Player Whisperer! Like it - and he's managed in the UEFA cup...

Imogen Heap - Ellipse. Played it a few times going up and coming back from Doncaster. Every track is brilliantly different, if slightly wacky in places. Note Spudgun saw her at Glastonbury 2010 and rather liked her.