Verbal

Thank you, Mr Coming. With regard to your point 3., Mr Canteen did indeed miss this entire period, as he was born on 25 08 09. I hope that clears up any confusion in your mind (which in no way would I imply is unsound). Yours, etc., Verbal, Esq.

That is breathtaking. It's like the club was taken over by the pod people.

trousers, I think the repeated references to 'zero' suggest that the rot set in ages ago. If the scouting system had vanished during admin, it would have been relatively easy to revive it. But it's clear that AP has had to rebuild it root and branch.

Is that a request?

Right back at you. Either it is trolling or it isn't. And you should know. If it is, then you should surely ban him. If it isn't, then we should engage with him, surely - otherwise what's the point of a message board? And don't you really think that his latest fixation - the trashing of MLT - deserves some sort of comment?

Please tell me his name is tommac. *although I'd imagine you'd have to substitute 'nice bloke' for 'demented idiot' - but still...P*mpey and tommac, a marriage made in heaven.

Or a good loss with a poor win?

Hmm. I suspect it was MLT's none too complementary remarks about His Lordship that has prompted this tirade. One of the really quite weird aspects of this particular poster is his clear desire to imagine himself into RL's way of thinking and to try, rather sadly, to be his representative on earth. It seems the fixation has just taken a turn for the worse.

FF isn't speaking to anyone any more.

That sky page suggests he's out of contract.

I'm confused, 9. Are you talking like a posh git as part of a bid to be FF's replacement as source of all wisdom?

For some reason, I'm reminded of those utter t!ts who go onto film review sites and post opinions of movies they haven't seen. Can't think why.

As Jean-Paul Sartre should have said, hell is other people's puns.

Go ahead, be an annoying tw*t. But leave Saintsweb Forum out of this.

I think you're your avatar in real life.

Skate.

Very funny.

And how do you know you know what I know?

Oh dear. And what do you know, Westy?

And why would that be, oh wise one?

I predict the return of Long Shot.

Interesting to see that Tottenham have insisted that the design of their new stadium incorporates seats that are as close as possible to the touchline. No doubt they had the Emirates in mind, which has about as much atmosphere as Barnet public library on a Tuesday morning. But if there's anything above all to miss about the Dell, it's the idea of striking fear into opposing players from extreme close range.

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.