Chindie

I look forward to your reaction to both.

It may not sound like much but the Note is strikingly larger when seen in the flesh. I have an S2, which is itself a big phone (I think, personally, about as big as you'd want in a phone, it's right on the edge of being so big that it's size begins to impact it's usability, for me), my brother's brother in law has a Note, and loves it. Even as an S2 user, it's huge. I don't even think of it as a phone really, it's a device that just so happens to have phone capibilities, you could make a call on it once in a while. Some people have started referring to it jokingly as a 'phablet' which as irksome as the term is, is pretty accurate. It's neither fish nor fowl. It seems to be made a device for more... comfortable/convenient/simple mobile web browsing than anything else, the extra screen real estate is very useful for web browsing on the go, you have less messing about resizing webpages. I don't mind that aspect of mobile web use (I use my S2 for web browsing quite a lot during the day if I think about it) but I can see the usefulness of not needing to zoom and swipe about pages as much for someone who is mobile browsing a lot. I wouldn't have one myself and I'm... somewhat surprised it's been as popular as it seems to have been, but it's not a bad device. I wouldn't have one as my main phone, certainly.

Pretty much. Rarely comes off his line too. Friedel is much better all round keeper IMO.

Yep, I've said as much tonight myself. Even in something as lowly as this you could tell he's still got it.

Seedorf took the piss throughout, he was jogging about and absolutely mullering everything ahead of him. He could still do a job in any league IMO.

Watching the build up to last nights match I loved how obvious it was that Gerrard does not enjoy Roy's presence. He seemed absolutely loathe to say a single good thing about him, and ever answer he gave you could tell he was having to think about first and gave some rather faint praise. Such a complete tosser.

I'm not sure I care if it's a problem more endemic among Asian fans or not, I see it as a problem for the clubs around the leagues generally - they're not bringing in 'virgin' young fans well enough, be they from 'the white community' or the 'Asian community', or any other 'community'. My experience of growing up in Birmingham was that the Villa fans came from Villa families, the Small Heath fans came from Small Heath families, and the Manchester United fans came from families that didn't care about football, that had no footballing connection and their children, coming into something as important socially at that age, chose to support success, no matter their race. Exceptionally few supported clubs that their mates did in my experience. Now, I think that that problem covers all the 'communities'. I don't think you specifically need to reach out to the Asian community. I think you need to reach out to Birmingham. At primary school, we had a Villa rep come to the school for a football session, I actually think it was one of the academy chaps, and as well as winning hearts and minds for being a 'football guy' who was going to tell us whats what (to this day I still have an excellent Cruyff turn thanks to that bloke when I was 7...it's the only footballing skill I have admittedly), he was Villa propaganda in effect, and a few kids in my class were swayed towards Villa a little by that. You need to get kids when they're young. Thats the important thing. the club being successful on the pitch will help immeasurably, but if you can capture their hearts when they are children it doesn't matter if dad came from Punjab and loved cricket or if dad came from Putney and thought footballers were 'pooves', you can have a heart for life that will pass things on to their children. The club does a lot of community work, all of them do, but they can always do more. Get Villa working schools, make it a truly regular thing, make... contracts with a few schools I guess, make it a regular event that a Villa representative will work with kids and encourage them to love Villa. Work harder to get family events out there, more offers for families in matches, more events around the stadium, encourage people to take Villa into a special place in their heart.

It's a problem for youth generally, not just Asian youths or any other race. I'm from, and still live in, a very traditionally Villa area, and it's depressing the numbers of pre-teens you'll see out and about round here with a Chelsea shirt or Liverpool/Manchester United, lesser extent Arsenal, top. Just the state of the game, I guess - success breeds support now more than ever.

I really like Froch so happy to see an excellent win. Bute was blown away, you almost have to give him credit for staying on his feet.

Froch has took him apart.

Massive round for Froch.

I want the Danish drummer to win. Just the drummer mind. She was just so enthusiastic.

Marisa Tomei has turned out for Spain...

As a fairweather boxing fan from what I understand Froch is probably, just, rightly an underdog. He lost his last fight, and Bute is unbeaten and apparently fairly tasty in all boxing departments. Froch has said he sees the fight having a cagey opening few rounds (which Bute will want) and he intends to turn it into a brawl as the fight goes on, which suits him. Froch has a couple of inch reach advantage and can take a punch, and has a slightly awkward style, and being at home potentially has an edge if a decision is required, Bute is probably the 'better' boxer and has a heavy punch, and of course has a good record (somewhat helped, it has to be said, by the Super 6 tournament Froch was in, meaning 6 good fighters in the division haven't had to fight Bute in the last couple of years). It has the makings of a good fight imo, I'm looking forward to it. I hope Froch can take it but I'd lean towards Bute - although because of the home thing, he'll want to have a convincing performance to ward off being robbed by swayed judges, and he can't bank on knocking Froch out.

It's over 100m Euros now. Release clauses are meaningless.

I'm still slogging away on Forza 4. That game desperately needs a track pack or two released, but its never going to get any. Theres a fair few tracks and numerous layouts on them but it don't half get tiresome doing lap after lap on the same 5 tracks for a lot of the later events. The Porsche Pack is a decent add in though - 30 Porsches added in, a few too many race 911s with differing paintjobs but the series has always suffered with that, but a lot of nice cars from 40 years of Porsches, even stuff like the 914. And, in a nice touch, a few models have options to change bumpers and other trim which, particularly for the 70s/80s 911s, lets you effectively make models that aren't fully featured in the pack, which is nice. Adds in some new Porsche inspired events to the game too, which is nice.

A considerable amount of Hulk's fee amounts to 'Dealing with Porto tax'.

The released media hasn't knocked away my doubt it's going to be a weaker film than that that preceded it, I must admit. The first big trailer's big moment, the football field collapse, looked like it was half finished SFX, and an awful lot of the posters and so on have looked quite low rent, particularly the latest ones. I'm hoping that they've held back a lot (and if it's 3 hours long right now, they must have) and the released media is just not doing the film serious justice. Regardless, even with my excitement for it, I don't think it's topping TDK for pure spectacle. Hoping I'm wrong, though you'd have to say that it's not a massive slight if it can't match the previous film. A lot of footage was shown at CinemaCon a month or so back, that hasn't been released in the other trailers, that apparently showed what seemed to be a lot of action setpieces, 'very explosion-y' being one description... so perhaps it'll be a rather more straight action film than what Nolan has done so far.

Angel was the best player in the MLS for a couple of seasons, hence pretty much universal love, IIRC.

I'm hoping that the full version will be released at a later date on Blu-Ray. I'm drooling as I type this... I'd have nothing against an extended edition (assuming the movie isn't silly long to begin with), but I would worry what the pacing would be like - for all it's excellence, TDK lags in a few places, it's one of it's small flaws. To be honest I'd be worried about pacing if they've ended up with a 3+ hour film to begin with. But regardless, it's increasingly exciting me. I've got my worries... but I can't wait.

No no, the fight in the train. Bruce was wearing his suit during that scene, doesn't that count? Been a while since I've seen it admittedly but I don't remember that fight being much of a fight, really. Perhaps I'm misremembering it. Anywho the point I'm making is that no-one who can really hurt Batman, threaten him physically, has gone toe to toe with him. I'll have a gander at Batman Begins later just in case that fight had more to it than I'm giving it credit for. Having just rewatched the ending of Begins, it's more of a fight than I gave it credit for, but it's not like Ra's really is an equal - Batman batters him for a considerable amount of the short fight. I think Bane will be a different story - Ra's never massively threatens Batman, Bane's whole character is based around the fact he is more than a physical equal (and in the comics he's a mental equal as well, be interesting to see if Nolan follows that aspect to a tee).

I can't imagine it being a patch on the game. I think making that into a film will fundamentally alter what made it great, since nobody is going to allow an adaptation that plays the game's plot and style straight. It'd be a bloody... different watch if they did though, a film with 2 human characters, one of which is effectively dead, and a horse, next to no dialogue, desolate landscape... ...no, I'd rather they left it alone.

The suggestion appears to be that even if Martinez has been offered the job, he's not taking it instantly and will hold further talks next week... therefore it's going to rumble on a bit longer, which is annoying if it has any bearing on our search. At very least you can guarentee that it's going to mean he's still going to be murmured as a target for us until he signs on the line.

... as they were sleeping inside them at the time #ChineseStylee. Also #IsraeliStylee. They aren't there this year to approve though I don't think...

No no, the fight in the train. Bruce was wearing his suit during that scene, doesn't that count? Been a while since I've seen it admittedly but I don't remember that fight being much of a fight, really. Perhaps I'm misremembering it. Anywho the point I'm making is that no-one who can really hurt Batman, threaten him physically, has gone toe to toe with him. I'll have a gander at Batman Begins later just in case that fight had more to it than I'm giving it credit for.