Verbal

Well, I suppose you could ask the individual yourself, since he's no longer in jail, and has remained in the UK. You could also ask the hostages themselves - who've spoken quite openly about how they protected him, rather than someone who wasn't inside the embassy at the time. In any case, my point is: nothing is at seems when it comes to Middle eastern politics and terror. The Lockerbie story has a lot further to go before we know what really happened - IF we ever know.

Actually, that wouldn't be very interesting, but in any case it's extremely unlikely that anyone would be so dumb as to think that. Aren't you even a little bit curious as to why many of the families of the British victims see his release as an opportunity to prise open the truth? If it turns out that Megrahi was 'the' bomber, there are still large questions to do with motive, who ordered the bombing, etc. And questions- of course - about why the hell, in that case, he was released. If Megrahi was indeed dying - and we'll know soon enough - why was he persisting with his appeal? Why was the appeal brought to a halt? It was clear that pressure from government sources here were brought to bear to do something - anything - to stop it. Even if that meant invoking the ire of the Americans, to whom the UK government has always been so obeisant. And frankly, the 'release-for-oil' argument is pretty thin, given the fallout from this whole affair. There are way too many questions lurking behind this whole affair for us to close our eyes, and rage, Colonel Blimp-like, at the injustice of it all. Here's something to consider. For more than twenty years now, a good friend of mine, a journalist, has made regular visits to a certain inmate in one of our jails. That inmate was the sole survivor among the attackers of the Iranian Embassy in London - the one the SAS famously recaptured, live on television. (In fact, his life was saved by the hostages - the SAS were clearly on a wipe-out mission.) Everyone has assumed what the motives of the attackers were. But all those assumptions are wrong. When my friend's work is made public, you'll see what I mean... I'm sorry I can't say more, but what I would say is that if we make pat assumptions about Middle East politics and terror, we're likely to end up looking a bit foolish. Sometimes, if we're interested in the truth, we have to look beyond the rage.

It's a computery thing, hypo. A bit smaller than your ZX81. (Although it's more commonly known as a ipod touch)

Nick, stop it. Stop it now.

It always comes back to that. P*mpey's existence depends entirely on the very thing they cannot have - a season in the Prem next year.

Brilliant! The kids deserve a bit of recognition for that.

You're a cheery fellow. I bet you're fun down the pub.

Are you any relation to Comical Ali? Or have you just stolen his schtick?

Only semi.

Good news. The Evening Standard is predicting a Brentford win. And it is ALWAYS wrong.

Bizarre. So you think two relegations, admininstration, minus ten deserves 'not being blamed much'? But I resent the frankly insulting suggestion that Lowe's problems are down to his class and our allergic reactions to it. Class war is really, REALLY, not the point - and there is SOME legitimate complaint, even to you surely, in his horrendous and hubristic mismanagement. And would people stop ending with 'let's move on' as a way of trying to shut others up?

Doesn't need a job. He'd just been given a year's contract and told to leave about five minutes after that. I'd be amazed if he wasn't paid up in full.

Best insult of the day.

I'm with Topcat on this one Frank. I think you have a mistaken idea of what 'balance' means. I think it's Liberal-Democratically meaningless to say: X did some good things and he did some bad things, therefore he should get SOME credit and SOME blame. What you should be doing is saying: did the good things outweigh the bad, or vice versa. And it seems to me at least, that Lowe would have had to been a one-time football genius for his 'achievements' to outweigh the brutal facts of two relegations, administration and -10, regardless of wherever else you might choose to apportion part of the blame. These terrible events - which all but destroyed the club - happened on his watch, no one else's. So, no, we're not unlike other football fans at other clubs - and besides, I can't think of a single football chairman who's presided over a screw-up on this epic scale, with the possible exception of Ridsdale. The Portvliet/Wotte affair is revealing in one sense above all, at least for me. And that's that the many posters on here who predicted disaster and who saw in this the malign influence of a meddling know-all (aka know-nothing), were right all along.

We'll win, and Hammond to score on his debut.

Some comments defy any response at all. So I'm saying nothing...

trousers is the resident expert on this, but I distinctly recall a very long prediction thread - and a play-off place was certainly suggested by a quite few. Remember, there were a couple of blazing performances by the kids last year that raised the hope - as good results tend to do - that 'total football' would sweep us up towards the top.

Déjà vu all over again. This was said quite a few times last season. I'll take a long succession of narrow 1-0s - much better proof that we have the staying power that's been clearly absent ever since the first relegation.

Me neither. What was I talking about?

I'm sure more players will come in, Robbie, but I don't think the players already here are rubbish - not all of them anyway. Their confidence as players and as teammates is shot to hell, certainly. But there's some talent out there which has simply forgotten what it's like to win, or how to be part of a winning team.

Okay, I'm lost. Could someone do a family tree of who was what in the Eagle's Nest? There seem to have been an awful lot of secretive lieutenants buzzing about.

Evidence? Really - I'm curious.

I think there's a rule against claiming to be the winner on your own thread. Sorry.

Don 't worry. If you PM your musings to me before posting, I'll proof-read them for you. You're welcome.