Verbal

I've been there too - while the LHC was under construction. While I was down in one of the caverns the Spanish constructors managed to tip over a three-storey crane. Someone or something really doesn't want that thing to fire up!

You're going to poke someone's eye out with that pointy head of yours.

Don't bring your hippy trippy stuff into this. This is a thread for real men in plaid shirts who tear up to a Welsh choir singing the Times crossword.

Yes, Bexy, that's exactly what happened.

More randyoldgit then? I always find the stress worse while listening to a game on the radio than actually being there. But yes, it's good to feel smug...

Are we just keeping this thread going to embarrass Eric?

They're searching for, among other things, the Higg's Bosun, a particle that only ever existed at or very near the beginning of time. Worries about what would happen if it were in effect re-produced led, for example, to the book version of Flashforward. Just a piece of clever science fiction of course - but some scientists seem spooked enough to have considered it to have some basis in science-reality.

While my mind is truly boggled by your lecture on posting etiquette, I don't see any problem with Matt-Le-Non-Existent-Deity's lists. You can, after all, pick and choose...

So every month we're going to have a 'guess whether the players get paid' competition? And someone, surely, is joking about the name of the solicitors, Fuglers - it just sounds like a name designed to avoid the swear filter.

How long is your nose right now?

They will thank you for wishing them well.

I think it's a false dichotomy. Any properly thought-through atheism does not depend on proving or disproving the existence of a god. 'Proof' is a scientific concept. You can't apply science to faith. (Not that it hasn't been tried, as the creationists and their close relatives, the intelligent designers attest.) The idea of a god is simply - to an atheist - uninteresting.

But talk of breakaways are back on the agenda among the big clubs too, some of whom see bigger pots of gold elsewhere. And in any case, the actual and unprecedented collapse of clubs in the Prem will surely focus a few minds this time around.

Phil Gartside, the Bolton chairman, is about to upset the apple cart again by proposing a two-tier premier league. The reason is that, outside of the top four or five, the costs of competing in the league - and the Sword of damocles that relegation has become - have wrecked the finances of clubs like Hull and Pompey, and will wreck many others to come. He put this idea up a couple of years ago, but suggested then that there wouldn't be any relegation to or promotion from the Championship. Now he's dropped that idea. But he's proposing that any club with enough points to be promoted from the Championship must also prove that it has a big enough supporter base and good enough facilities to actually qualify for promotion. That last bit is good for us, I'd have thought. But do we really want a two-tier league? http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/nov/06/premier-league-two-division-gartside

It's all but irrelevant. Religious texts, by definition, can be read any number of ways. You can be an axe murderer and claim religious motivation, or you can be the most altruistic person, and argue that your moral convictions stem from religious faith. I personally believe all religion is twaddle, but that doesn't give me the license to decry people who believe. But what is demonstrably wrong - and immoral - is to declare that anyone with a particular faith as inherently evil because of that belief. In the end, it's their actions and the consequences of those actions on which anyone should be judged. I think we can all agree that Osama bin Laden, because of his belief in mass murder as a fund-raising tool, is a particularly evil individual. And the child-snatching gangs in East Africa, under the influence of a fundamentalist Christian leader, are hardly sanctified by their loud profession of faith. Not, of course, that lack of faith is necessarily the road to enlightenment either. It's easily forgotten that Stalin and his brand of state-religion communism killed far more than Hitler.

OK Obi Wan.

(A non-religious) Amen to that.

Well, it does I think. Can you think of any other party or organisation that is made up of such a bunch of violent, no-brows? It's that 'branding' that attracts a very good number of BNP supporters, as EDL demos and BNP rallies have all well illustrated. In any case, I saw that first membership list, and discovered that there was a BNP member three doors from us. Once he'd left, our house and those of other families in the street stopped being targets of racist vandalism. Coincidence? Probably not. I also found that he'd written violently racist posts on extremist websites. He, by the way, was a 'typical member' - not a BNP apparatchik. 'Greg Hill' is making a 'bet', based on sweet f**k all.

Easy to track down? Well, yes actually. David Enderby, BNP councillor in Redditch, West Midlands, was found guilty of three counts of assault in January 2007. Kevin Hughes David Enderby's agent in the elections sentenced to three to months in prison for racially aggravated common assault in May 2006. 

· Brian Wainwright The BNP Parliamentary candidate for Hull in the May 2005 General Election pleaded guilty in January 2007 after a campaign of hate mail against the local mosque, a Muslim councillor and a local anti-fascist activist. A letter in which he claimed, "Muslim blood will be spilt" included 'SS' skull and cross bones imagery. Mark Bulman BNP activist in Swindon sentenced to five years in January 2007 after attempting to firebomb a local mosque using a BNP leaflet as a fuse. He also daubed swastikas and racist graffiti on local shops and businesses that he believed to be 'ethnic'. Brian Turner Burnley BNP councillor In June 2006 he was found guilty of a racially aggravated public order offence. Turner had previous convictions of common assault and police assault after he was convicted of beating up his wife. John Laidlaw In February 2007, he told police he was a BNP member and wanted to kill all black people, was convicted in February 2007 after terrorising London's tube network with a series of shootings. 
 Nick Griffin (Party Chairman) Received a two-year suspended sentence in April 1998 for inciting racial hatred. His magazine The Rune carried obscene anti-Semitic and Holocaust denial material as well as crude racism. Tony Lecomber (Group Development Officer). In 1985 he was convicted on five counts for offences under the Explosives Act, including possession of homemade hand-grenades and electronic timing devices. Sentenced to three-years imprisonment. 
In 1991 he was sentenced to another three years imprisonment for unlawful wounding for his part in an attack on a Jewish schoolteacher whom he caught trying to peel off a BNP sticker at an underground station. He has a total of 12 convictions. Colin Smith (South East London organiser). Has amassed a total of 17 convictions for burglary, theft, stealing cars, possession of drugs and assaulting a police officer. John Tyndall (founder of the BNP). Six convictions. In 1962 he was jailed for organising a paramilitary organisation. Four years later, he was again sent to prison for possession of a loaded gun. In 1986, he was convicted for incitement to racial hatred under the Public Order Act and sentenced to 12 months imprisonment. Warren Bennett (Chief Steward). Supposed to keep order in the party yet has convictions for football hooliganism. In 1998, he was deported from France with over 50 other Scottish hooligans, including several BNP members. Steve Belshaw (East Midlands BNP organiser. Was convicted in 1994 for assaulting a lawyer in his home-town of Mansfield. At the time, Belshaw combined his BNP membership with Combat 18 activity. Kevin Scott (North East Regional Organiser). Was convicted in 1993 for hurling a glass at a black customer in a pub. Alan Gould (Waltham Forest Organiser). Was convicted in 2000 for racially abusing people in a local pub. He told the court that it was the drink getting the better of him. Robert Bennett. A leading activist in Oldham BNP during the 2002 elections campaign, Bennett has served five years in prison for the gang rape of a woman. He has also served seven years for armed robbery and has over 30 convictions in total. Mick Treacy. The Oldham organiser has five convictions for violence, theft, and handling stolen goods Darren Dobson. Found guilty of racially aggravated assault at Oldham magistrates in November 2001. Fined £300. Connected to football hooligans in the Oldham area, and has links to the nazi terror group Combat 18 Darren Hoy. April 2002, the BNP supporter was sent to prison for 3 months for racially abusing people as they left an anti-fascist rally in Oldham. Care to reconsider?

The clue is in your last sentence.

YDRC.

I bet it was a transfer.

Next week's lottery numbers please.

Socialist Workers' Front. Delldays is a Trotskyist. Surprised?

We also beat Tottenham 1-0 at White Hart Lane - my first game. Ron Davies scored the winner, and we made a team with Alan Gilzean, Martin Chivers, Pat Jennings and (I think) Mike England look quite ordinary.