Chindie

That I may be alone in thinking it is what it tells me. Should it tell me anything else? for the record I don't like Young's actions in diving and whinging so much either, it just so happens that those aren't quite as scummy in my view as kicking out petulantly at the opponent. Still, lets not waste the bandwidth, eh?

I'm not sure you rebuffed them but it's nice to have something to cling to I suppose. I'm also in awe how not being supported by the majority is somehow a bad thing. I don't give a **** if no-one agrees with me. I'd rather Aston Villa were a paragon of fair play rather than slumming it with activities worthy of the knuckle draggers we played today. If I'm alone in thinking that, so be it, I couldn't care less. And thats before you get to thinking about not being terribly happy with a player not being able to control himself in such a way that could see him off the pitch. Still, we're not going to agree and thats fine.

I'd have said the same if Paul McGrath did it. I don't want to see our players doing that. So no I'm not on the wind-up. I'm not embarassed about him playing better either - though I think the amount that he's 'playing better' has been exagerrated enormously by people looking for exoneration of their thoughts of him - because I'd rather see Villa players succeed because that means Villa succeeds. But carry on in your assumptions , they're easily rebuffed.

It's inspiring, isn't it?

I don't think I can pick a MOTM. Friedel - 7. Wasn't really threatned and looked confident when called on. Young - 7. Solid. Dunne - 6. I don't know why he's paying. Theres always a mistake waiting there, he cocked up a simple pass back first half leaving Friedel in the muck with a clearance. Hmm... Collins - 7. Not overly threatened, solid. Warnock - 7. Good, solid in defence and offered options forward constantly. NRC - 6. Should have been sent off. Mardy arsehole performance. Sidwell - 6. Hardly noticable, put in ashift and put himself about. Clark - 7. Better than I thought he might be but got a bit lost at times I felt in the role. Clearly skilled but I'm not sure he'll shine in this role. Downing - 6. Started sharp, fell into drudgery, bleh. Young - 6. Bleh. Couple of clever balls aside, bleh. Heskey - 7. Hard work, not a great deal to work with though. It's hard to say that the ratings I'd give there really reflect what I thought of the match. It was dreadful. There was nothing inspired about us, we looked utterly impotent and for vast periods of the first half we were outplayed by a pretty run of the mill SHA side. It simply isn't good enough. Even excepting injuries and whatnot, that is not a good enough display and it's just been the story of the last month. We've not played well for any length of time. I also think we missed Petrov massively as we looked a little lost in position, especially during Blues dominance first half, and couldn't put a foot on it, slow down and build something. Just not good enough at all. NRC's kick out should be worthy of a fine and stripping of the armband imo too. I don't want to see Aston Villa resort to that, especially from what the armband wearer. That belongs to the scum of the league, not us.

BBC4 do some cracking music documentaries. Watched one dedicated to Sabbath (particularly Paranoid era) and one called 'Heavy Metal Britannia' about the rise of British metal from inception through the 80s. Both great watches, and nice to see a properly Brummie focussed doc, given how much the region has given to metal it's hard to ignore mind I suppose .

No.

Dreadful match. Dreadful. Lacking in... well, anything. Not surprised. He gained a bit of a reputation at West Ham for, in private, being some what of a cock.

Looks like it's the radio for the second half for me too. Damn. It'll make this dour spectacle even worse.

Completely tepid from us. We've had a few brief periods of being on top but doing little with it and otherwise it's been the dirty Heathans with the impetus. And thats not really saying much as they're hardly setting the world on fire, but still looking to have more about them than we do.

This isn't good at all.

Nearly as good a finish as when he knows what he's supposed to be doing there from Nige.

Clark on the left can't be right, surely. Oh well... COME ON YOU LIONS!

Bizarre team. Dunne starting is a dissappointment (again). Got no hope for this match whatsoever, gonna be a horror show and not pretty whatever happens.

Nobody takes freekicks anywhere near where the incident happens. Especially goalkeepers, they always try to gain a few yards.

Clattenberg dropped a clanger in not giving the handball however. It's Gomes and Clattenberg's failing there.

Mancini just isn't that good. He was at best their second choice when they got him, and the moment it starts to go wrong for any length of time I think it'll go tits up for him. He's not a bad manager but he's not someone I'd rate up there as one of the best. Also, surprise surprise at no Tevez, no result.

The Penguin is a problem because you either have to play him incredibly straight (in which case he's just a funny looking gangster) or really camp and kitsch, in which case you may as well just cut in scenes of Danny Devito from Batman Returns. Just further highlights the problems with the Batman villains. He could do what he did with Begins, where he picks a a villain nobody's heard of and neglects the more extreme parts of their characterisation (Ra's Al Ghul in the comics is effectively immortal for instance), but I'm not sure which ones you'd pick which aren't so defined by their outlandish gimmicks that they'd be fairly pointless putting in. Honestly though, check out the full roster of Batman villains, they're largely bollocks.

Nolan's expressly said he won't film it in 3D. It even says so in the article. He believes 3D ruins the picture (which it does) by dimming it, so won't indulge the current false desire for it on a solely technical level.

In an ad for some French beer () atm, thats the full version. Available to download on Kronenbourg's site, and it's pretty good imo.

Zsasz is simply a hackneyed serial killer. Not the kind of thing that is going to make a Batman film wow audiences. I feel they might struggle for a villain though. The notable ones won't work in a realistic setting, and the ones that will (to an extent) are shit or no-ones heard of them. It's funny actually how many superheroes have bollocks enemies outside of a select few.

Zsasz has already appeared in the Nolan series and would be a spectacularly boring villain. Unless Nolan wants to turn Batman into a police procedural film and really challenge himself to make that something special.

No idea where to shove this really, and any thread will be dead by the time the thing comes out, but since the last one was so popular... Link So, it's not in 3D (yay!), it hasn't got the Riddler (yay!), and it's called the Dark Knight Rises (er... cynical connection to Dark Knight that seems overly pointless for me but hey). Tom Hardy isn't a bad addition to any cast but, if he is playing the villain, **** knows who they're going for. At least it isn't the Riddler who was always a bollocks Batman villain, who unless done perfectly ends up being Joker-lite. 2 years to wait!

Dynamite causes a medical condition called 'bang head' - sustained handling of it gives the handler a banging headache, leading to the belief that the chemical constituents in dynamite may also have some relation to the chemical trigger for migraines.

How dare he play a CB out of position.