jeff leopard

Well, according to the people who brought you The War on Terror, Gaddafi is one of our closest allies in the Middle East. Yeah right. And whilst the Lockerby bombing was most probably the work of Iran, you can’t ignore the human rights violations that take place in Libya, unless you’re BP of course then you can hop into bed with the Gaddafi’s before an American energy company does. So whilst it seems absolutely fine for our government and our largest industries to bow down to Gaddafi, I wouldn’t want him touching the team. So to answer the original question, I think my reaction would be ‘goodbye football’.

I completely agree with you, this is a massive distraction to our season. I posted before how beating us (which 9 times out of 10 they will do) would do them a lot of good and potentially turn their whole season around, and this is because of fan-power. Their club is in tatters at the moment and the only thing that will really save it is their fans (and a few million quid of course). Beating us would increase interest in the club and raise the numbers through the doors on match days for a few games at least. If they back it up with good results in the league they’ll be out of trouble before you know it. And yes, if we win it will hurt them, but it won’t relegate them or kill them off financially. Saints fans are focusing far too much into this game, if we win, well good for us but it won’t change anything that matters (the league and the paint trophy). As VectisSaint says, the players will feel the pressure, and if we lose it could have a negative effect on the rest of the season. And anyway, we played them twice in the FA cup in the last ten years or so, so it’s not as big a deal as it was when we got drawn against them back in 1996 (now that was f**king exciting).

got a thing for the silver fox, eh?

Absolutely agree, and I’ll go further…how can you judge the worth of Saints fans? How loud they sing, how they behave on match days, or how they react when their local rivals are on the brink of the same financial ruin/relegation cycle that they’ve recently gone through? Yes, to see them struggle and squirm is hilarious and we all know that they need to come down a division or two, but to want them to completely go under, to have zero empathy, or at least to fail to recognise how important their rivalry is to Saints’ identity is pretty damning. Continuing my ‘fly in the ointment theme', I think this is the worst possible draw. They’re strong favourites to beat us, which could turn their season around. And our recent success has been built on a fairly fragile state confidence, getting spanked by the skates could ruin our season and save theirs. Of course I’d love to see us win, but at this point in the season, I think we’ve got more to lose.

There’s a sci-fi writer (whose name evades me) who releases all his books as free downloads, and he says that it’s not really affected sales of his actual books. Obviously though, and like our friends in Radiohead, it’s easier to do this when you’re an established name with plenty o cash in the bank.

i love merrington (in a rugged manly way, you understand) during the really dark times it was just his silky, calming tones, and a drug habit worth breaking and entering for, that kept me going.

gotta love the guardian's saturday clockwatch

Wow, this is the loudest cry for help I’ve ever heard. Stu, its time you came out of the closet and admitted to the world that, at heart, you’re just a repressed student (nothing else could explain your unhealthy obsession with them). Put all the years of self-hatred, hopelessly displaced onto students, behind you. I’m sure lots of people will think more of you, not less. You can start with watching a few episodes of Open University, or reading a book. Then, when you feel a bit more confident, join an evening class or a writers’ group. Before you know it you’ll be putting traffic cones on statues’ heads, or getting a hilarious kicking from some footie fans. And p1ssing tax-payers money against a wall, cheers!

A friend's sister worked as a make-up artist for the beeb a few years back and the golden rule amongst them was 'watch out for Gary Lineker and John Lesley' as both were famous for having wandering hands and generally being total slime-balls. And I think we can all agree, being put in the same class as John Lesley, for anything, is not a good thing.

i hate gary lineker too he's a sex pest, and not in a good way.

Yeah, this is ace, free to download too. I also recommend the Kemper's Wintervals ep. Tortoise – Beacons of Ancestorship It’s a grower. Crikey! A blast from the past.

fair play, that's gotta be a tough gig. so far so good. my seniors and kiddies are both top of their leagues, although my seniors are far from world-beating at the moment, with several key players under-performing and languishing in the reserves (who finally get to play a match tomorrow night). who's your top scorer at the moment? one of my home-grown midfielders, who usually averages 10 goals a season, has already got 8 in the league and cup. i'm hoping he's going to step up in the couple of years he has before he hits 30 and starts the slow down-hill slide.

Vernon God Little A moody 15 yr old Texan goes on the run after being accused of a high school massacre, and hilarity duly follows. After reading The Road, this felt a bit light-weight and silly, but it succeeded in putting me in the mind of an American youngling, and it gripped me more and more as it went on. Worth a f*cken read.

The Hurt Locker So far this is the only Iraq War films which has been a success with audiences and critics, primarily because it says very little about Iraq (beyond a throw-away comment in the first 15 minutes, as a taxi driver is aggressively hand-cuffed and led away by US troops, an American remarks ‘if he wasn’t an insurgent before, he will be now’). It’s probably unfair to compare a film to a tv series, but after watching Generation Kill, The Hurt Locker feels two dimensional and generic (like watching The Shield straight after The Wire). As an action film its exciting stuff, and has a couple of powerful moments, but if this really was the best film of 2009, then 2009 sucked. For my money, it’s way too soon to make a great Iraq War film, and the only War on Terror films that have really worked are ones which address the subject by looking at a comparable period in history, namely ‘Good Night, Good Luck’ and ‘Waltz with Bashir’, even ‘District 9’ had more to say on the matter. 7/10 Double Indemnity The first and last word on how even the perfect crime will eventually unravel and send all the guilty parties ‘on a one-way tram ride to the cemetery’ . One of the greatest of the film noirs, sublime in just about every way. It’s also a wonderfully Freudian and genuinely heart-breaking tale of suppressed man love, a good 50 years before Brokeback Mountain and bromances. 10/10 The Big Sleep In terms of the quick-fire dialogue, on-screen chemistry, and double-double entendres that would make Caligula blush, there are very few films that can go toe-to-toe with The Big Sleep. The plot is insanely complex, but only because in the noir world, no one ever sees the big picture and no one gets out alive. The doomed lovers, Bogart and Bacall, are drop dead cool whilst being as hard as nails. Pretty much perfect. 10/10 I Spit on Your Grave Don’t ask. Cheap, laughably bad and very very nasty. 0/10

Not a great series as far as England's performance, but as entertainment, I thought it was brilliant from start to finish. More proof, if proof be need be, that test cricket rocks. Its almost a year until the ashes, but the aussies must be licking their lips at the thought of giving us another good hiding

Slaughterhouse Five Timetravel is a great subject for cinema but too many films get tangled up in the mechanics of timetravel, others get lost in a mess of multiple parallel dimensions. Slaughterhouse Five does neither, instead using timetravel as a device to explain the book's fractured non-liner narrative, as Billy Pilgrim, held captive in a kind of zoo on a distant planet, is allowed to 'time-trip' back and forth, from his harrowing youth as a POW in WW2, an unsatisfying domestic life in the 60s, and his future as a celebrated sci-fi author. Whilst it could never match the impact and black humour of the book, Slaughterhouse Five is a charming and fascinating portrayal of life, death, war and peace, made back in the 70s (pre-Jaws and Star Wars) when Hollywood produced some truly odd, counter-culture cinema. 8/10

This is from an article on Richard Bacon's new slot on Five Live, "Setting a trap for David Cameron on his debut show he allowed the Tory leader to pretend he was one of us by prattling on about Dancing On Ice before asking if he was a Doctor Who fan. He was, of course, although in typically fogey fashion claimed "I'm so old I'm John Pertwee country." "Well, Doctor Who's not a fan of yours," piped Bacon, before repeating David Tennant's remarks that Cameron was "a terrifying prospect for Great Britain". "He described you as a regional newsreader who will jump on whatever bandwagon flies past," said Bacon. "He thinks you're worse than the Master." :smt081 :smt081 :smt081 :smt081 biggest t**t in the country? until Cameron is PM, let Clarkson and Moyles share the honour.

F**k Buttons – Tarot Sport It’s alright, a bit too bombastic, and you can’t really dance to it beyond some shrugging and air guitar, closer on the rocktronica spectrum to Chemical Bros than Holy F**k. Make of that what you will. Or don’t. It’s your call. Flaming Lips – Dark Side of the Moon The first half works well because it sounds little like the original, the second half gets a bit lost but it all ends well. Covering Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety could have been a huge bag of arse, but this is the new look Flaming Lips, and like Embryonic, it has a pleasing gritty and fuzzy live feel. Not as much fun as the Easy Star All-Stars’ dub version though. Tortoise – Beacons of Ancestorship I saw them playing this live a few months ago and it sounded like a stone-cold classic. On record, it’s nice without really melting your face off, which kind of sums Tortoise up. Tortoise – TNT It’s nice enough, and would work brilliantly as a modern film noir soundtrack, but strays a little too much into ‘dinner party music’ territory.

If anyone else needs any world-class cricket punditry, I’ll be here all week.

If bell or prior can stick around and make a 70/80, and if the tail can wag with a few cameo’s then a score of 300 isn’t impossible, and it should essentially guarantee a drawn match and series win for England, if there’s enough rain. So it’s not all lost yet.

Well, that will work wonderfully until a white UK born citizen boards a train or plane with exploding pants on. This notion of picking out people from suspect countries wouldn't have stopped the london underground bombers or the attempted shoe-bomber, all of whom are british. If you want to wage war against the entire Muslim community for the sake of British security, then the EDL awaits. Knock yourself out.

As the film's budget was only about £5 million, i made a conscious decision to go along with the models, i'd rather have those than cheap cgi. I agree that Spacey's performance wasn't much to write home about, but i liked the computers facial expressions, especially the 'oh sh1t, you've discovered the truth' setting. It didn't plumb the emotional and philosophical depths of the likes of 2001 and Solaris, but then again, and stating the absolute obvious, very few films do.

Absolutely agree.

*inhales helium* "The Taliban is a legitimate political party...your tone is antagonistic and you're making me very angy." Fair point. Lets not forget far-right organisations, the murdoch press, white van drivers, people who phone in to Five Live and other sub-sections of the mentally ill

knowledge that would crush the skulls of mortal humans? can you tell us where th WMDs are as well then, please? this Choundry character wants you to think they exist so he's some kind of political force, and not just a lone nut-jub. and the far right depends on them existing, in order to justify their existance as defenders of britishness and not just out of control racist c**ts. but in the minds of normal folk, they don't exist.