chrisp65

the office e-mailed me today to tell me the e-mail server was down

I'm not that hot on Aussie Politics, but Gillard gets my vote. We asked her for a letter of support for our local footy team that was under threat and she sent us a really supportive letter. She wished us well, asked to be kept up to date and mentioned that whilst she wasn't a big football fan in our sense of the word she did have a fave Aussie Rules team and they'd been through struggles so she sympathised. Had the feel of a genuine letter and was on official paper.

Similar story to the Fashanu one: I was in a bar in a hotel where a Mr P Weller and his band were staying after a gig. Weller was 'in the chair' and asking people what they wanted. On getting around to somebody or other (I usually say Mick Talbot but it might not have been) they asked for an Irish Whiskey. Ha! announces Weller, you can't trick me, there's no such thing as Irish Whiskey. We all assure him there is and it's not a piss take. So he walks across to the bar and says...... Can I have two cokes, a bitter, a lager and an Irish Scotch please. It was at that point I realised he was just a bloke. Later the same evening I produced my 12" copy of 'you need wheels' by the Merton Parkas and asked Mick Talbot to sign it. That's how old I am.

Did he wrap it in gift paper? No. Thats ok then. but why a Monaco top? Did he: a) see it, think you'd like it, buy it, no further thought process, or love the colours, like the cut, appreciate the material and picture you in said top and speedos, insist you try it on there and then? because when I did my mate got all unnecessary

webcams w e b c a m s I'm not condoning it, I'm just raising awareness of an issue.

Had a conversation with John Fashanu at a sort of informal business meeting thing that went along the lines of: me: John, can I get you a drink? JF: No thanks, I don't drink. me: Well it doesn't have to be alcoholic. JF: oh, ok, can I have a Baileys with ice please? me: what the **** are you on? rest of room: spontaneous laughter

o.k. agreed You've only got to drive into Liverpool to see there is something bat shit crazy going on with empty housing. It doesn't have to be new build, frankly they can re fit empty office blocks and business parks as apartments or seize dormant housing. Just increase the stock by whatever means. Being of an urban bent, I'm all for the fun of planning and building 6 new towns. All built with new roads and a big fucku wind turbine in areas where country types will have a seizure. I'd give each town it's own theme. I get really bored on the green field scenery bits of train and car journeys.

yeah, it wasn't supposed to be a direct comparison, I think I was broadly trying to say there are lots of groups that can lay claim to a need for subsidised or priority housing, coupled with soldiers knowing they were going to be soldiers. Admittedly my limited experience is via RAF, they were moved over UK and Germany many times, but knew all along that one day that life style would stop and they had a big house problem looming on the horizon. I will concede all 3 RAF families in my larger family were relatively well paid astute guys and had the finance and acumen to plan ahead. My main point would be let's not start a bidding campaign or points system for limited housing that has already lead to a property bubble and 4 years of shit. Let's build sufficient housing. It's surely a no brainer. It get's Britain working, it actually makes a product rather than a service, it will lead to innovation, it will house people. Don't pick who gets the house, build another house.

I read the article in the Indie, I almost told someone 'I know her' and then I realised I don't actually ! You came over really well in that article, a sort of grounded sporty celeb, good for you kiddo.

Can I just mention at this point I am currently rocking my own unique style of, er, relatively skinny m&s jeans, a tweedy checked brown jacket BUT prescription glasses. So that's your stereotyping blown out of the water. OOooh Shostakovich, just plain fantastic. it's 4, 5 and 6 for me, but strangely far less 5 this season

'kin 'ell that is some awesome artwork Makes my picture of me with a coffee down Barry Island beach look a little lame. I have now stolen it. Chappy, you are allowed to say you listened and it was just a load of someone else's crap you know.

Is Henry Kelly still on there? Couldn't be doing with the adverts for me. It's bad enough on freebie spotify.

It is a very tricky issue. Any dissent from the help our brave boys line and you are tarred as sympathiser with al qaeda or some such. If being brave is the threshold for housing, let’s add in miners and fire fighters. If serving your country is the threshold, let’s house nurses and bin collectors. If it’s being shot at, add in the Met….and on it goes. If I considered joining the army I would include in my consideration that there is shit pay and people will try and blow my legs off. It’s horrible, but it surely surely can’t be a surprise to new recruits can it? They don’t really think they are going to practise marching and be a back drop on Top Gear do they? I’ve lived in and around a number of RAF camps in the UK and Germany. Some of the people there (who would consider themselves a cut above the average squaddie) really didn’t deserve decent accommodation. You do presume people born and bred in the UK understand the basics of community living. My personal ‘fix’ for this situation would be to kick off a massive council housing building programme. We have nurses and soldiers without homes, we have mad house prices, we have a flat line economy. **** your quantitative easing. Grow a back bone, forget your Thatcherite back story and build six new towns (with heat pumps and electric car charging whilst you’re at it). It’s what government is actually for, the big stuff. Not dicking about with family tax credit tweeks and re branding schools.

ooooh, that looks like a proper mix Cooper Temple & Sonic Youth have both been on my 'to do' list for a while good man

could anyone tell me which side of the list is the artist and which is the song title? thinking about it, it was a bit off of CI not to ask that formatting question a bit earlier in proceedings

I've taken to having a little notebook and pencil (from a christmas cracker no less), next to the radio to jot down titles to then order (from an olde fashioned shoppe in town. Costing me a fortune.

When i read the above post, for some reason, i thought it was concerning the return of Roy to the Premiership and replacing AM. Don't really know whether to be sad or overjoyed that its not? Would anyone consider Roy Keane as a replacement for AM? At least with Roy Keane you'd know that like him or loathe him he'll throw a moody in 9 months time and never been seen again. Only to pop up occassionally and slate some behind the scenes aspect of our club. Nah, not for me, other than it would jolt us out of the current slo mo train wreck.

it really is rather grand... I'm sure we've had a 6 music thread before, but it was probs along the linbes of 'save 6'. Anyway, my Sunday's have been somewhat enhanced by the likes of Cerys M and Huey M. Today I've also had John Cooper Clark's music playing away in the background. He's played some Tenpole Tudor, PP Arnold, Eddie Cochran. Sublime.

I know plenty of people that have been made redundant, from many different walks of life. Invaraibly those that have re found work have done so on inferior terms to their previous job. Many that have stayed in employment have seen wage cuts and inferior terms. There will always be good stories and bad, good experiences and bad, it isn't a black and white thing. That's best illustrated with the fact that this month both the number of unemployed and the number in work both went up. I think for many, there is a feeling that they are surviving, but are one duff order from a problem.

Between all three of the main political parties there is a distinct lack of desire to take on this mythical british saviour 'the city' and an eye for an easy target 'lazy sickies'. Perhaps somewhere between tory desire to make the disabled work and nulabour desire to close down Remploy their could be a sensible compromise.

as BOF says, what you don't appreciate is that poor lorry driver is trying to cook beans on a camping stove. is getting a £30 special off a nice Wolverhampton lady and texting his missus. Then some idiot wants to pull off the motorway.

It was pure coincidence, I re discovered the photo so took a copy and shoved it in. I've even still got the Aston Villa franked envelope it came in! I'd written to the club as a kid and asked for autographs and that's what they sent me. Made me wonder what the club would do now if a kid writes in asking for autographs? I might carry out a test on that, see how things have changed 34 years later.

the 10% appears to be discretionary / random. A Director in our company was done at 53mph at the overhead sign a mile or two away from the Severn Bridge. 53, in a 50 zone on a motorway. A few months back I was stuck on the M4 outside Bath for a few hours. When the traffic was eventually released the police had clearly kept us all waiting so they could get their nice plain cars in place. Over the course of the next few miles it was like a game of tag with about a dozen cars pulled over for speeding. Nice to know there is so much police resource available for emergencies.

If Rangers are allowed into the english pyramid, will it be Newport County that have to make way for them?

with respect and in honour of all those stars that died tragically early