Ted Max

"You sit and read, alone, by the fire. Coals cracking their dry heat. Just as you leave, a group of people stumble in. You remember once ..." No. Perhaps not.

Presumably all you Liverpool fans have seen this - youtube vid of a punter doing surprisingly good impressions. Was on the Guardian's YouTube thing yesterday. Gerrard, Owen and Crouch are the best for my money.

I fancied Seanmg 'till I met him Oh Sean.

Seems an unlikely situation. Even so, umpires are still in control of the match, can enforce spirit of the game etc. Pakistan delayed and delayed vs England in Karachi (2001?) and ended up fielding in total darkness because of it.

Yeah but it leaves the opportunity open for the players to manipulate the game. I don't see how. They're only asking for a second opinion.

Brendan, it's the same as tennis really. You think you've got a stinker, you appeal. You won't make frivolous appeals because then you lose your chance when you really need it. It's all over quite quickly and it was seen as diffusing dissent in recent trials. I think there is merit in telling players the umpire's word is final, and to get on with it on that basis. And at all other levels of the game that is what does, and should, happen. But when you get a situation where within 30 seconds of a decision everyone in the ground, and watching on TV, knows it's the wrong one, then there is a problem. No system will get every decision right. But I'd argue you want to try and get as many right as you can, whilst keeping the spirit and flow of the game alive. EDITED for spelling and to add a missing "other"

Playlist at this years Bankers' Christmas Ball: Move over Darling - Doris Day Gimmee Your Money Please - Bachman-Turner Overdrive Lose Your Money - The Moody Blues No Money Down - Lou Reed Crash ! Boom ! Bang ! - Roxette Hey Mr Taxman, this is isn't the time to drive us deeper into recession by balancing large public sector borrowing with punitive taxes, you need to help people spend their way out of this mess, just like last time - Ruth Lea (Institute of Fat Directors) LOL:)-Dlol!!arf:)!!elevnty>:D

Would you care to name that time, SimonM? Cricket's always been full of selfish, cheating hypocrites. It's part of its charm. David, batting and bowling teams can refer any type of decision they disagree with - up to three unsuccessful appeals per innings. The third umpire will then use slow mo repeats (but not other gadgetry such as Hawkeye, HotSpot or Snicko) to give a decision. It was used in the recent Sri Lanka/ India series. Sri Lanka seemed to be much better at judging a dodgy call than India, from memory. There were 48 referrals in three tests.

Aladdin could surely feature in Lisa Simpson's "Unthreatening Boys" calendar? You'd have more fun rubbing the Genie's lamp.

Finally, the idea that middle-class, career women, who want to have it all, are selfishly putting of having children knowing that they can always fall back on IVF, is total nonsense Good stuff. You forgot this though, "And even if they were, it'd still be none of your feckin business."

fantastic, if the foursome involves those three and Nicola Stapleton, then sounds marvellous So where are you in this, you despicable pervert? Behind the curtain with the nitrous oxide?

Top Cat for a bit of fast-talking rough. Not one to take home to daddy, though.

Back from work on the 185. You decide to get off a couple of stops early and walk the rest. Northcross Road and he?s sitting outside The Drum. Tanned fingers, curled round a perspiring Coca-Cola glass, loosely scissor a cigarette. A tattoo disappears under a white cuff. He greets you, indicating his handiwork from Saturday with his eyebrows. ?Alright?? he says. You see yourself stop, chat, sit drinking Coke outside, smoking. The other you keeps walking, heading for the safe embrace of crimson velveteen, the soft knock of a full glass on polished mahogany. The clothing charity whose flyers litter the shared hallway hasn?t collected. The bin bags still queue at the end of the path. One of them has a slash near the bottom, a smear of brown cotton spilling out into the street. You stuff it back, but leave the bags on the path. They can?t come back inside now. You don?t always reheat the beans, or toast the bread, but tonight you do. Wide awake, you lie on Mum?s old, sheetless bed. Just before the alarm goes off, you creep back to your own room. You meet your Coke-drinking self coming in the front door. The shame is mutual.

I sort of, you know, I was young... http://disney.go.com/vault/archives/villains/cruella/cruella2.jpg

Caramel Bunny is looking good. Jugged Hare was a disappointment.

Either you're not getting any at the moment, HonaloochieB, or you're drowning in it. You're right, though.

The past tense nearly saves this thread. I think, as a young 'un, I would have been very ready to defend the honour of Mavis Cruet. http://tinyurl.com/4ltuyg

Sunday lunch. Busiest time of the week for most pubs. But not for yours. For you, only the smell of cheap meat frying in the live-in staff flat upstairs, the midday pint pulled with weary pity. You like to see how long you can stay hungry for, before the beer takes over. Usually it is long after the blinds and big screen have been lowered in the front bar for the football. You?d taken Mum out for lunch once, soon after Dad had gone. The large, bare dining room of a large, bare pub fronting up to a busy junction. An hour?s wait not-hearing the language from the kitchen, not-noticing the stained table. An hour that had fragmented your mother?s hard-won appetite. You hadn?t ordered pudding. And now. Four labeled bin liners by the front door: dresses + skirts, blouses etc, coats, shoes + bags. None of the bags is full. Lying on the bed are two yellow plastic boxes. In one, a few framed photos and two photograph albums, labeled 1967-1973, and 1973 - . You?ve kept one frame back. A Christmas Day shot of Young Mum, a sherry simper under a teetering beehive, holding Dad?s arm. Mum?s looking at the camera, but Dad is looking at Mum, a thin curl to his lips. In her belly, the secret source of their pride. Welcome to Super Sunday on Sky Sports.

They've spelt Independant wrong.

This thread is currently operating at a staggeringly low 10% EDF thermal efficiency (ETE) rating. It is breathing in Crocs, unruly children, gifted children, children in buggies, Bill actors, claims to ED longevity, Foxtons, and Claphamite reverse-snobbery at a record rating, but generating a very low-heat output. This is proof that some fuels just can't be re-used, once spent.

The third pint swills in your stomach as you stand to leave, an ominous slop of bilge water from below decks. You?ve made the short list in your mind. Bin liners. Tape. A couple of plastic boxes with snap-on lids. In the hardware shop the lady on the till is calling everybody darling, and you get yours too as you hand over your money. The shop has about a dozen types of drain clearer on its shelves ? designed to lodge years? worth of impacted soap powder, cooking fat, hair and skin from East Dulwich's furred arteries. No handy point-and-shoot, leave for 30 minutes and rinse, solution for Dad, just a lingering, breathless end. The doctor had checked your levels, and told you your ?bad? cholesterol was likely, genetically, to rise as you got older. He gave your Mum a dietary leaflet, which she had looked at in bewilderment, its five-a-day cheerfulness confirming in red-on-green 14pt Comic Sans her role as vital accessory in the murder of her husband. You got your levels checked a year later, without telling Mum, and hadn?t been back. Neither of you had mentioned the leaflet again. The P13 passes the old chip shop opposite the Police Station, a petrified pot plant still visible through the dust-smeared window. You hug your shopping to your chest as if for warmth, and remember that you?d overheard a nature programme on the pub TV once, about desert plants that can lie dormant for years until it next rains. ?This miracle of nature,? the voiceover had said, ?brings new life where none had seemed possible, raising the...? ?Turn it over, Dave, results are on,? a voice had said from the front bar; and in the Crystal Palace Tavern, on a late Saturday afternoon, the miracle was postponed.

Rainbow drinks thread is that way =======>

Anyone nicking IDs in Redhill needs their head examined - unless it's a Wetherspoons loyalty card they're after cloning. The rest make sense, though.

Lunchtime. "Medallions of Lincolnshire Pork, prune and ale sauce, creamy celeriac mash - ?13.95" reads the menu in the window of the old Lord Palmerston. You eat your bacon roll (Danish Pork, also with a brown and fruity sauce, you note) as you head back up Northcross Road. You can feel the wind about your collar, where the barber's number two grade has exposed your neck. You remember a few tiny flakes of dandruff, no more than is normal, surely, falling onto the dark nylon cape, and not being able to decide whether to shrug them off. Perhaps doing so would draw more attention. You weren't going to go for such a low grade, but hadn?t objected. Staying on the opposite side of the road from Clippers, you look over as you walk on. Two in the chairs, four more waiting. Probably three customers an hour, dozens of heads in a day. Hundreds in a month. Step into the pub at 12:45, newspaper in hand, and you smell furniture polish, disinfectant, recycled dust spumed from an ageing hoover. Saturday morning smells. Mum humming a tune; Dad studying the form. "Got your hair cut?" she asks, reaching for a glass. "Yeah. Got a haircut. Had to be done." You rub your neck in apologetic explanation, noticing afterwards the forgotten, familiar smell of talcum powder on your hands. You decide it?s time to do something about the back bedroom.

All good points HonaloochieB. Make with the Award, losers.