Barfy

On the subject of things wrapped in pastry (does suet pastry count?), I would like an honourable mention to go to the Bedfordshire Clanger. A rather pleasant invention consisting of a main course and dessert in one suet pastry wrapped bundle: http://www.gunns-bakery.co.uk/bedfordshire_clanger.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedfordshire_clanger

I share mine with Saddam Hussein, Terry Pratchett, Jay Leno, Jessica Alba and Jennifer Palm Ljunberg which also has possibilities. Though I'd swap any one of those for Gloria Estefan!

I like the skirmish option. You can set up a multiplayer game for yourself and any number of AI players, really helps get to grips with the maps, and game modes.

Completed the single player game on the easiest level, and that was tough at times! Multiplayer is a bit confusing, most people who had a mic seemed to be asking whoever would listen how the scores are calculated! Overall the game is excellent, and now more than ever before, I envy those with a HDTV:(

'tis ****ing hard indeed, and I'm only playing one of the lower levels! hope to try and have a look at the online play tonight

I'm up between 5.30 and 6 am every weekday morning, walk the dogs for a few miles. Then after the usual morning routines head off for work at about 8.30am. Usually finish work at 6pm, get home, have dinner then settle down to do some work for my degree (yes I work and am a student!). Weekends, up by 6am to walk the dogs, then usual weekend stuff, plus studying. For the record, none of this makes me feel better than anyone else, and just leaves me tired, grumpy and envious of those that can and do stay in bed for most of the daylight hours

As much as I like Freddie and what he potentially brings to the team I often wonder whether his body is up to the job of test cricket. Obviously over the years, he has been at the core of the team and vital to some of England's successes (Ashes 05 and the subsequent celebration ), but equally he seems to recover from one injury only to to suffer another during the first half of a test. I have absolutely no idea whether or not this latest injury is related to his ankle problems, and I know that injury could strike any player. But it seems Freddie is more susceptible to injury than most, so can England really take that increased risk of losing Flintoff mid way through a match? A fully fit fifth bowler would probably have been enough to have won the test (it certainly wouldn't have hurt England's run total!) instead of a mildly disappointing draw from a very strong position. That said, well done to the WIndies for a solid 4th innings performance, hopefully England have picked up a few tips on how to occupy the crease from that!

Not being able to get to games, I've felt that my enthusiasm has probably waned somewhat quicker than others. Last season, I had pretty much convinced myself I didn't care about the results... Until the end of the season when I felt I had been catapulted back a decade or so to the nervous excitement of last ditch survival and in a kind of twisted way I enjoyed it. This season has been like watching a train crash in slow motion in that it's difficult to watch and you know that, barring a huge miracle, the outcome is going to be catastrophic. I'll rarely go out of my way now to catch up with latest scores/results, but not because of apathy, but because I don't want to see the inevitably depressing information. The passion is still there, but the realist in me won't allow any optimism to fuel that passion!

Just one of them out would give them an end to work on. Though reading the BBC live text, it doesn't sound like we've caused them much trouble so far.

Another hour after lunch. Get as close to 500 as possible. Should be enough for a declaration surely?

For some reason I get a bit nervous when we don't enforce the follow on. I just wonder whether we could have got through last night without using Harmison or Flintoff, and brought them back fresh this morning. If all had gone well, we may not have had to bat again, and they could have had a day or so extra rest before the next match. As long as we don't spend too long scoring too slowly, we might be ok.

At least the Indians still have a healthy respect for test cricket, something that Stanford never had. From the bit I've read about him, I get the impression that he wouldn't have shed any tears had test cricket been dropped. Personally I'd agree with Bungle here. Twenty20 just doesn't light my fire!

Sod trying to find them at a farmers market. The way forward? http://www.handmadescotcheggs.co.uk/franchise.php

At 12 or 13 all it took was the sight of a bare ankle, and I'd be off in search of the kleenex. Made P.E. a tough hour and a half each week f'sure.

JohnnyDinloPants? Greater use of the word could be just what the economy needs as a kick start. We've tried everything else - bailing out the banks, banning dodgy foreign politicians. Maybe all it needs is the re-introduction of old fashioned insults.

It's prompted me to use the word more often too. Especially at work, where it attracts more confusion than offence at the moment, and offers less risk of disciplinary action than random use of

got two kit kats from a secret admirer, and mother-in-law ended up in hospital with an allergic reaction to something. So all in all could be better, could be worse.

You'll be glad to know that the word dinlo is alive and well in Bedfordshire as it appears to be my neighbour's kids favourite insult.

Drop Bell, Sidebottom and Panesar and bring in Shah, Anderson and Rashid (who can also apparently hold a bat!). Don't get me wrong, I like Panesar, but he doesn't seemed to have developed at all since breaking into the team. He needs a bit of mentoring to improve (wasn't there talk of Shane Warne offering to help him?).

What about bakeries in supermarkets? Sainsburys do a rather fine pain au raisin which often sustains me on the commute to work.

I've deep fried pancake batter before. Rather pleasant with some thick cream. I'm not sure the appearance would meet that of the standard pancake though.

Maplin have currently got a Maxtor 1TB for £89.99 and a 1.5TB for £129.99.

MS Office 2003 with the English (UK) dictionaries installed correctly allows me to start sentences with both 'and' and 'but'. I was never any good at English at school, so had no idea until now that this was a big no-no :confused:

It's all very well pointing the finger at individual performances, but as far as I can tell there is no real quality test batsmen coming through the ranks. Are Shah or Bopara better than what's there already? They probably deserve a chance to cement themselves a place in the team, but what's beyond that? Key isn't really looking to the future, though may be needed this summer!! Also the old cliche still stands, you have to take 20 wickets to win a match. How come the WI bowlers seemed to get so much more out of the pitch than ours? Was Anderson injured, or just randomly dropped? and why is Sidebottom in the team? Sadly I think England's troubles stem from the obsession with the shorter forms of the game which produces too many slow/medium one day bowlers and big hitting slogging batsmen with no real technique. It's all very well using Twenty20 to get more people interested in cricket, but it needs to go beyond the gravy train that it is and support the development of players at the highest form of the game - test cricket. I'll shut up and go away now.

I downloaded the demo for this last week, and although I like a game to be challenging, wtf is going on with the axeman & chainsaw man? are you supposed to kill them? and how are you supposed to do that when you run out of ammo in under 10 seconds? I'll probably save my money on this one and buy a new angle grinder instead.