SimonM

>>Does this one belong to Linda? Think i recognise it from come dine with me!!<< Sorry, my mistake. This is Ms Barker's house, on the market for almost ?1 million through Foxtons. She's also selling the second house along the road too...

Have had long-tailed tits very occasionally here....1 day last year there were five of them. Great and blue are the usual ones though, plus some coal. Saw a nice male chaffinch on his own by Peckham Rye Park lake today, and a coot sat on her nest in the middle of it: then a robin in Dulwich Park. It was still quite wet out (although the rain had been stopped a while) so there seemed to be fewer people around, which of course is always good for seeing birds! :)

Freud certainly was an all-rounder of sorts. He was a raconteur, celebrity chef (decades before anyone acknowledge the concept), droll comic actor (in dogfood ads anyway) and politician. I can recall two television interviews with him long ago that were very different:- When I lived near Sheffield one of the local hotel restaurants made a big thing of the fact that their new manager was only aged 26. The local TV news (Granad ain those days) reported this and thought it'd be a nice touch to interview Clem and the manager concerned in a somewhat self-congratulatory, we-northerners-can-do-it-too manner. Unfortunately noone had told Freud the script, and he was livid, completely up in arms that the entirely serious job of restaurant manager could be given to someone so young and inexperienced. He really tore into both this guy and the hapless interviewer. Rattling out whole recipes and challenging the manager to do better. Around the same period Eamonn Andrews was compering what was essentially the forerunner to "Parkinson". Freud even then was a regular on this kind of programme. On one appearance he told Eamonn he wanted to tell a joke. Andrews loooked a bit alarmed and pretended not to hear, rattling on about something or other for some minutes. Freud then says "Now about this joke...". Most of the "joke" was cut from transmission. It was a jewish joke and it was years later before I could fill in all the gaps, and marvel at what Freud had tried to get away with on a popular TV show. All I will reveal is that the punchline of the *un*censored version was "What would you have me have? pickled prepuces?" - and you see why Andrews was in such a panic...

Freud certainly was an all-rounder of sorts. He was a raconteur, celebrity chef (decades before anyone acknowledge the concept), droll comic actor (in dogfood ads anyway) and politician. I can recall two television interviews with him long ago that were very different:- When I lived near Sheffield one of the local hotel restaurants made a big thing of the fact that their new manager was only aged 26. The local TV news (Granad ain those days) reported this and thought it'd be a nice touch to interview Clem and the manager concerned in a somewhat self-congratulatory, we-northerners-can-do-it-too manner. Unfortunately noone had told Freud the script, and he was livid, completely up in arms that the entirely serious job of restaurant manager could be given to someone so young and inexperienced. He really tore into both this guy and the hapless interviewer. Rattling out whole recipes and challenging the manager to do better. Around the same period Eamonn Andrews was compering what was essentially the forerunner to "Parkinson". Freud even then was a regular on this kind of programme. On one appearance he told Eamonn he wanted to tell a joke. Andrews loooked a bit alarmed and pretended not to hear, rattling on about something or other for some minutes. Freud then says "Now about this joke...". Most of the "joke" was cut from transmission. It was a jewish joke and it was years later before I could fill in all the gaps, and marvel at what Freud had tried to get away with on a popular TV show. All I will reveal is that the punchline of the *un*censored version was "What would you have me have? pickled prepuces?" - and you see why Andrews was in such a panic...

That's another ?5 million for us then! >:D

That's another ?5 million for us then! >:D

I have to laugh hollowly at these complaints. The Park these days is a blissful haven....as almost anyone who recalls the days when cars were allowed in and packed the perimeter road as a car park will attest. *Usually* the hire bikes stick to the perimeter road or wider paths, as do the roller bladers. I'm just glad these little tykes have somewhere safe and traffic-free to let off steam: ditto all the little pink, tassled barbie bikes around the playground. It's a park and there's lots of it dammit!

I have to laugh hollowly at these complaints. The Park these days is a blissful haven....as almost anyone who recalls the days when cars were allowed in and packed the perimeter road as a car park will attest. *Usually* the hire bikes stick to the perimeter road or wider paths, as do the roller bladers. I'm just glad these little tykes have somewhere safe and traffic-free to let off steam: ditto all the little pink, tassled barbie bikes around the playground. It's a park and there's lots of it dammit!

>>Annasfiedl - not sure of your age or background, but do you have any idea , first hand( not based on B&W white films etc ) >>what attending a football game was like in those days ?<< I several times stood at the Leppings Lane of Hillsborough when young to watch Sheffield derby games. Even on crutches aged 12 (with my father) I stood there and had a great time. And the supporters weren't even segregated then. In the 70's and 80's Hillsborough was a regular venue for FA Cup semi finals and was always full. What people who attended would always tell you was how clueless the police were. When the disaster occurred the immediate reaction from people who had attended previous semi-finals there was a strong suspicion that police incompetence would be a major factor, and the more we learned, the more this suspicion became justified. Bradford was caused by a fire and was totally different. I am not a Liverpool supporter but given the reactions from certain parts of the Media afterwards - in particular the indescribably loathsome outpourings from the "Sun" - I am really not at all surprised that a deep sense of injustice still lingers on Merseyside.

Butbutbut.....The Guardian has "Doonesbury!!!

Just so! >:D

He wears wigs - it's never his own hair. For this and other pricelss info see "Tearing Down the Wall of Sound", by Mick Brown, a rattling good read.

In his defence, Morgan is neither Gary Bushell nor Richard Littlejohn...

Clearly you're just no gentleman! :))

Thanks! Kind offer! This was the USA so the authenticity of the breakfast did not extend to either black or white puddings, but the sausages were wonderful... Today I am mostly supporting Charlton Athletic...>:D<

I still cherish that edition of HIGNFY where Hislop & Merton gave Morgan such an exquisite going-over. His face was a picture (best kept in the attic)

"Gentlemen prefer blondes but they marry brunettes" - Anita Loos SimonM (who has an OU Creative Writing thingy he needs to finsih this weekend...)

No I watched it at home. The only time I have watched us in a bar was the FA cup replay against Hull City, which (he said smugly) I watched in the Playwright Sporting Bar in Miami Beach, the day after watching Real Madrid v Liverpool there: the bar does a great Irish breakfast, and even imports HP Sauce!. It is easy to say with hindsight that winning at Reading was always on the cards, but I was afraid we might draw or lose. And Reading were so good in the first half of the season too. Another Blade in ED eh?! Blimey... Yes, if we go up the West Ham games will be....interesting. There's a (thankfully small) section of the Blades support who will always think of WHU as cheats, just as some WHU supporters will be always be similarly scathing about us. It's the sort of grudge that can survive 20 years or more I think! Steve Gerrard is quoted in today's Guardian and is very eloquent on the subject of Hillsborough. I do wonder how much this has contributed to his staying at Liverpool? Brass Neck award goes to "The Sun" which, if its website is anything to go, says all the expected things about the disaster but somehow omits to mention its own disgusting role in the aftermath.

>>MMM Simon I think i will let the great man respond to you << Do you seriously think Parkinson came badly out of that exchange? I was also the biggest fan of Ali but that interview was unbearably sad.

I always found Belair a rip-off and overrated too. But I also knew some people who adored it (admittedly they were on expense accounts...)

I may not get another chance to say this this season, so I will just whisper it: Sheffield United are now 2nd in the Championship...>:D

Michael Parkinson was an excellent sporting journalist before he went even near the Beeb. Then when he started his chat show he had this novel idea of shutting up and letting the guests speak. Mohammed Ali, Hollywood Greats like Niven & Stewart & Astaire, and great raconteurs like Kenneth Williams and Robert Morley. And I will treasure him forever for that first interview with Billy Connolly and the "bike" joke....He never set out to be John Freeman and "Face To Face"

>>(shhh, they will probably tell me off because it is before noon).<< And on Good Friday too! What on earth will Father O'Shenanigan have to say?!

Firezza 1st, Domino's 2nd (if you like the "traditional" pizza menu...):)

Now if only Hadley Freeman lived in ED...B)