chrisp65

the new Manic Street Preachers album, not played it yet,

that's actually a really bad idea unless the chilli is mixed with sand and glue it will have no benefit whatsoever

Well, self assessment is a wonderful thing, but I have soul.

I heard the police were worried there was a sleeper cell within the Villa squad.....

Less convictions than Merle Haggard too!

It's an odd story and certainly nowhere near black and white. When I was in college I knew a couple of people that knew this bloke that had legendary status locally as some sort of jolly cannabis pirate. One of my lecturers was a relative and would tell tales of midnight visits back to mum's house (organised by the police) to have a cup of tea, catch up with the news, drop off some cash and be whisked away again. All very romantic and somewhat far fetched. I decided to stop believing the stories when I was told he'd been released from court for threatening to tell tales about MI6 and the CIA if prosecuted. I think at that point I decided it was all a bit silly and clearly made up. It was years later I realised the stories from college were all based on 'fact'. There had been a bloke with the same name as my lecturer that was from Bridgend like my lecturer and was a cannabis smuggler with links to MI6 and the CIA and all sorts of others including south american drug barons and the IRA etc.. Those stories about the americans facilitating vast drug deals to raise money for black ops, well who knew! They were apparently true. Anyway, years after that, this bloke is back around, is buddies with local groups like Super Furry Animals and Catatonia. Whether you can ever 'condone' drug smuggling, or going in to partnership with a tory Lord to run a brothel, that's a whole debate right there. But this guy clearly lived a very interesting life, mixing with lots of people on both sides of the good / bad divide. I've been to a talk come power point presentation he gave and it was entertaining and fascinating. I haven't read the book. It's a complex world, where people castigate the PM for vague tax set ups in his previous life, but celebrate the life of a convicted cannabis smuggler. But hey, we're complex people, we can handle it.

Log on to your account, somewhere in the pull down menu you'll be able to query your service / ask about faults and they'll do the equivalent of a switch it off switch it on again ping test.

Howard Marks

So it looks like two americans might be about to take a controlling interest in Swansea City for £100 million. The Supporters' Trust will retain their 21% stake in the club. The buyers are Stephen Kaplan, NBA Memphis Grizzlies and Jason Levien, of MLS DC United. If only there had been some way we could have networked with americans interested in sports teams. I guess we had nobody here with those sorts of connections. Nobody that wasn't incompetent and disinterested anyway.

I try, but I'm still not as PC as I'd like to be. No way as this story developed did I think the hairdresser that couldn't park an Audi TT might actually have been married to a woman.

Agreed, he dragged it out 4 days longer than necessary because he didn't want people questioning his dad's tax affairs in Panama? From someone with a background in media, someone that has previous spoken about other individual's tax affairs, a politician, a millionaire with millions of pounds worth of special advisers around him, tax question evasion turned out to be a very poor tactic.

It really does make you wonder why he made such a pigs orifice of trying to carefully word a 'clever' vague suspicious sounding none answer on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

Did you or anyone vote for Samantha Cameron? The key thing is she has a public money budget for advisers because she's married to someone. I thought we had royalty so we didn't have that first lady stuff? Perhaps we could reduce the deficit by only voting for single politicians that promise not to get married. Up to £53,000 per year. It's a stupid and crass waste of money when they are making other people redundant to try and save money.

So, it turns out that Samantha Cameron has a P.A. and fashion adviser on a salary somewhere between £26,000 and £53,000 paid for by the state (or as I like to think of it, me). Who is this public employee advising Sam Cam on wardrobe? It's the grandaughter of a former tory MP Lord Elliott of Morpeth. I guess she just gave the best interview for a very necessary job? Just remember that, when your job centre has a recruitment freeze and your library asks for volunteers. The government are using your tax to pay someone to advise the PM's wife what to wear. Nothing to see here, nothing but snouts in a trough. Rosie Lyburn just one of £8.4Million worth of 'special advisers' we pay for each year. and before any deflections, it would be equally wrong regardless of the colour of the tie

If he's got any last strand of interest I'd like to think he'll be present today. You know, as the owner that has just made a little bit of the history he is so proud of. Then after the game, over to E4 to be on an episode of Tattoo Fixers. 'yeah, I got drunk and I had this sort of football lion done, but now I'm more in to jigsaws and staying home...'

No idea to be honest. It was slightly more complicated than just getting on a plane. I was keeping it brief! I needed to set up bank accounts, help set up a joint business with a local firm and get a flat and a car. Maybe I could have done all that regardless, don't know. I also know that trying to work in Nigeria and Libya proved blissfully awkward to arrange visas and export credit guarantees etc.. Awkward enough for me to have ended up not going, but having had the credit for saying I would. I wouldn't really have gone, but I just trusted in others to blink first.

Well we're trying to get a reunion organised at some point, so I couldn't have made too many Maltese cross. Anyway, most of the management level were Brits or Germans and most of the site labour was north african. Quite a few locals moaning about foreigners taking jobs, whilst lots of middling jobs were difficult to fill. Reminded me of somewhere, I just can't quite put my finger on where it was....

I'm a bit late to the party with Bert Jansch, but yeah, good stuff.

The easy travel around the EU is something I've personally benefited from, having both worked and had holidays in France, Germany, Ireland and Malta. Not a massively impressive list compared with some, but yeah, I've had a phonecall on a Sunday and got on a plane to Malta on a Monday to pick up a new job.

always work for the company with the slackest stationery cupboard security protocols free biros

digital now, ripped on to CD for the car in 2 hours time, proper play with the big speakers this evening... The Lovely Eggs. It was a close call between this and some Nils Frahm, but Nils lost out because he appears to be one of these £18.99 for a record artists. He can remain a youtube thing for a while at those prices.