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Tbf, my brothers new wife is actually from Bari. We’ve been discussing the possibility of winter weekends where we could do Bari v Milan/Juve etc then possibly squeeze in one of Puglia’s lesser lights like Lecce or Foggia so my sudden interest is purely self interest

About 2.

That's the dilemma. As part of the closure negotiation we've got a 'retention bonus' on top of the redundancy. I'm just trying to clarify if I'd be better off taking the hit with the holidays or not but the lad I want to talk to is the factory cat and was probably blobbing last night so don't want to wake him up in case he doesn't have his phone on silent. (I'm nice like that). @wykikitoon I'd be fucked at your place..... HR: "I see t'HMHM is off with t'evil shites and rotten gut." Wykiki: "Fook all wrong with lad, wa playing five a side yesterday then out all day on piss. Not for me to say, like, but I'd be tekking lad off sick pay scheme, giving him final warning and giving him all the shit jobs for next month if I were you. But like I say, it's not for me to say."

Aye, there's only one Ciaomanheyman roond'ahere.

tremendous by the way

There will be mourning by the Italian gammons today. Think I've told the story, but the one time I went to Venice and we did the horrendous touristy thing of hiring a gondola, with a dutch family to save money (still a rip off). Before kids for us. Anyway, the gondolier acted like a complete prick during the boat trip, being lecherous in front of the wife, and worse, the circa 15 year old dutch daughter, being openly racist, and just a general nazi prick. But he kept on banging on about Burlosconi, boasting about the cunt's virility whilst literally thrusting his hips and saying how he likes to get "jiggy jiggy". It's one of those moments I wish I'd done something different and jut pushed the cunt overboard but, being the coward I am, the worst thing I did (and the Dutch Dad) was to not tip him. I hope he's gutted today the twat.

There was some Scottish lad on twitter and his name was Silvio Tattiesconi and it still makes me laugh.

Feyenoord. Although saying that, how many places could he go that didn't have some historical MLF connection? There's very few out there that haven't been touched by the hand of a marra.

Give them a stethoscope, and they'll try anything.

Proper romantic Renton, fucking ride-sharing a gondola.

Not to mention that the only reason the poor fella is laid up with the shits is because Wyki came into work while sick and spread it round the place.

One trip to Bari and suddenly you're driving round on a Vespa and sipping an espresso while reading La Gazzetta dello Sport.

Geology rocks, but Geography is where it’s at, man.

Near Carnac in Brittany. Quite nice, all told.

I mean 1) He wasn't in when I went back in Thursday 2) I like the kid so have said fuck all. If he was a cunt though, then that's another story

I went on a day trip to Venice with grandparents, my sister, cousin and aunt. I was bored shitless waiting all day to get back to the hotel in lido di jesalo although what sticks out was the miserable gondolier cunt whinging his tits off in Italian as I Geronimo'd into his gondola. I was almost 14. (I'd love to go back as an adult and have a proper look around though).

@PaddockLad is your kid's wife the one in the crowd with the tremendous arse? Delizioso!

Mamma Mia!

I got nine as soon as the online shop opened mate.

Tell me you're rattled without telling me you’re rattled

Botman is class but I’d probably say one area of weakness is he isn’t lightning fast. I can’t see Maguire being a target as that would only exacerbate that. Plus he’s fucking shite

Half backs were a function of the 2-3-5 system that was commonplace in English football up to the 50s/60s (and we won our primary school league with it in 1981 so I have a bit of insight here ) 1: gk 2 right back 3 left back 4 right half back 5 Centre half back 6 left half back 7 right wing 8 right inside forward 9 centre forward 10 left inside forward 11 left wing Your 8 & 10s were basically attacking midfielders, especially so In time when the defence gained 5 & 6 as new ideas for tactics and formations became commonplace. Stones, and this is a purely personal POV, is doing what Beckenbauer did, nominally a defender but more often than not in midfield dictating play. So although Pep has rightly been lauded in the press in the last few days for his current and former teams, it’s all variations on a theme. If your other centre backs are good enough to play as a three (and that’s what we’ve done last season, the difference is Tripps is the playmaker) they can take care of teams with one only main attacker who play on the counter against decent teams like us. Whether any of that applies to Maguire I have absolutely no idea (as an aside, it looked to me as Inter’s main tactic on Saturday was to leave two up front more often than not, meaning Stones was a bit restricted to defensive duties more often than he’s been used to lately, probably why Inter gave them a hard time for over an hour….until Lukaku came in, obvs )

I didn't notice this sneaky edit but for the record, I would have been up alongside him showing how THE ENGLISH thrust. The front of that gondola would have been like an Olympic row boat, jerking forward about ten feet every time I put a power thrust in.

My one and only foreign holiday with my parents was SW France, near Biarritz. By coach. That was bad enough. I do remember a coach of Irish people arriving the second week we were there, fuck knows how long that took. But what I most vividly remember was their skin colour, not even white, I swear to God these paddies were universally varicose blue*, getting off the coach to scorching mid July South France UV, at a time when people weren't so aware of sun block. * Have Dulux patented this colour? They really should, along with Howmanheymana'veshitmeself brown.

Seems unlikely 🙂

Guaranteed Renton was in full on hicky and boob-mashing mode while this poor 15 year old Dutch lass was mortified. The gondolier would have been standing behind Tynemouth Berlusconi pointing down at him and doing the jiggy jiggy thrusting. That's what happened here. "Heeyah! Jean-Claude Van Dafty. Divvent get on a gondola if you divvent want to see some romance."

Agreed, see update.

If it was I may have introduced this esteemed forum to her “sparkling personality” before now 😆 they’re on honeymoon in Japan at the moment …

Hey man, it was still a fucking hundred euros! Venice is ridiculous. Edit: can I just say, me and Mrs Rents (even then married more than 10 years) aren't particularly the romantic types, just wanted to tick something off the bucket list I guess. But can you fucking imagine if you were a romantic couple having this Italian prick hip thrusting with his groin at your eye level going "let's get jiggy jiggy" and spending 300 euros for the pleasure? You would be exactly the same Gemmill, nervously feeling uncomfortable and looking at your feet.

Do you want me to actually answer before fish shows up?

FYI, there’s a coup afoot, brace yourself Davide 😑

9th favourites for the champions league

All a cunning ploy to make me listen to it, gotcha. Back on track. Mackem's are smelly inbred tramps. SMB.

aye, I made the last bit up. well apart from bohemian rhapsody being shit!

I was purely referring to AC/DC. But I can honestly say I can see no sembalnce at all betweem "Geordie's lost his liggie" and Bohemian Rhapsody. To the extent I'm thinking I'm being whooshed? Not sure May, Rogers and Deacon need to worry about litigation tbh. And yeah, you're on thin ice now like. I quite like Queen, especially their earlier Prog Rock stuff. There, I've said it. I might stick on some Marillion now.

I'm not sure I'd put 'geordie's lost his liggie' in the metal genre to be honest! did you listen to it? it's a version of the folk song 'geordie's lost his penka' a geordie folk song of unknown origin, or so says wiki. however it's widely recognised that when it speeds up at the end for the last few seconds was what inspired queen to do the same when they wrote their abysmal dirge 'bohemian rhapsody' a couple of years later. it remains one of the greatest travesties of the musical world that mercury and his mates scored a huge hit despite the blatant plagiarism.

That's bad craic like, and a bad arse crack too

Have you gone blind recently?

Northern Iron on t'ferry? Luxury. My parents made me go fucking YOUTH HOSTELING in Scotland. You were supposed to be on holiday but slept in concentration camp style unisex dormitories and actually had "duties" (chores) to do every day like cleaning the fucking netty.

First time I went to Venice we caught the ferry across the lagoon from Lido di Jesolo (where we were staying). This was back in the day of coach holidays. If you think the Costa Brava is a canny way by bus, fuck me, Italy is some journey

It's fucking brilliant like, one of the wonders of the World. As Alex says, its possible to get off the beaten trail and get reasonable drink and food in some of the quieter bits. Sipping wine with your loved one as sun goes down by a venetian canal is definitely worth doing (although I'm going back more than 10 years here). Thanks to the functionality of Google photos now, it's very easy to find old photos. This is the cunt I am referring to.

Reading my reply back I know that sounded like a dig at you and your lass but it wasn’t meant to be. All bar one of the times I went to Venice it was just a day trip from staying nearby or on a Ned cruise. You can actually find some good, reasonably priced places by bothering your arse to walk about 200 yards too. The crowds around St Mark’s square though. And the pricks paying 25 euros for a coffee with some bellend playing the violin in your face

HMHM, if you're ill on your a/l, make sure you get HR told, becauseit needs to be classified as illness and for you to get your a/l back. Hope it goes as well as it can for you anf your family tomorrow, at least the weather is good (even here).

Christ, a review of Newcastle 1980s pub tribute bands. Niche.