Dr Gloom

to say my north eastern twang has faded is an understatement. but i never had much of an accent tbh. neither of my parents are from the north east so i always had a slightly posher voice at home and adopted a rougher accent at school in an attempt to avoid getting beating from the local hoodlums. i didn't have a high success rate. welcome back alex btw.

i did, aye - did you?

where did you live cath? i was in the rough part of oxclose, near blackfell. couldn't get out of the place quickly enough. it's like a milton keynes of the north. no high street or soul - the galleries ffs. and the road/district system - wtf? the majority of kids in my school were rough as fuck. moving to ponteland was like a different world.

decent point tbf. we were under a lot of of pressure for a fair bit of the game but defended well and looked dangerous on the break. colo had a game to forget. we'll miss him. we missed tiote today. need both of them back in the side at the same time. cisse needs a goal, not one off his arse. disappointed in the end not to walk away with three points after leading for so much of the game. would have taken us up to 6th.

Can only see a home win.

I lived in Washington for a few years as a boy. Horrible place

butch wilking aka the crab. i thought he was a massively over-rated player too. king of the 5 yard sideways pass. first player to get sent off for england in a world cup too iirc

It's closer than it should be.

obamacare was a massive deal in the states. it doesn't seem that revolutionary when you're used to state funded healthcare but it was huge over there, the race might not be so tight if he'd saved it for his second term. i think we see a more liberal agenda if he's re-elected and hopefully no more wars. hurricane sandy will be good for obama.

Obama care is quite a big deal over there tbf. Romney will likely reverse it if he gets in. And the right wing bible bashing nutters in the states accuse Obama of being a socialist. Shows how the definition of liberal changes as you cross the Atlantic I suppose.

pwned

Both our clubs have had problems with owners in recent times, and I know Mike Ashley was a hugely unpopular figure not so long ago? Has the recent success of your side since promotion meant that the ill feeling towards him has somewhat diminished? not from me. like most, i can't stand ashley. i hate him because of his lack of respect for the club, the history and the supporters. he's trying to turn us into another branch of his tacky high street shops. some people say he's running us like a proper business for once but he's swung too far the opposite way to freddie shepherd, who was reckless chairman and spent beyond our means, shelling out stupid fees on a load of over paid crap that didn't even want to play for us. micky owen springs to mind there. this summer is a classic example. we had a great opportunity to build on last season by buying a couple of top class defenders, an area where we have no depth. our only major signing was anita, a midfielder that can't get into the side. St James Park? Sports Direct Arena, Wonga etc? What's going on with the name of such an iconic football stadium and how concerning has that whole issue been to fans? Do you care what the stadium is called or do you look more towards the finances that naming rights brings? of course we care. imagine if anfield was rumoured to be renamed as the wonga arena. you'd be up in arms too. seeing all the hideous sports direct adverising tarnishing our stadium is one thing. renaming it was the last straw for me. it was particularly galling when the likes of sky and the beeb started towing ashley's party line. not that anyone else called it the sports direct arena. Alan Pardew, he was brought in to replace the popular Chris Hughton and like Mike Ashley, he seemed to be unpopular. From the outside looking in, he seems to have done well. What are your opinions of him now, and how would you describe your style of play? he's ashley's wet dream because he's happy to be here and work under the financial constraints. ashley is a billionaire don't forget and while running a tight ship is admirable, he does have the resources to give the manager more to play with in the transfer market. pardew's done well, beyond anyone's expectations. the football hasn't always been pretty but no one expected us to finish 4th last season. you can't deny he's got the team playing with an excellent spirit, even if he's not always sure what our best 11 or formation is. Let's talk transfers. After a few years of your club having a bit of a nightmare when it came to transfers, you seemed to have done really well in recent years by acquiring very good players for seemingly small fees. Who takes the credit for this and are you worried that some of your players may leave if some Champions League clubs come knocking? Graham Carr takes most of the credit. we only started unearthing gems for next to nothing once he started in the job. the previous scouting team wre hideous - see xisco, gonzales et al. "who?" you might ask. you'd be right. How would you describe your season so far? Has it met expectations? about what i expected. we flew out of the blocks last time around and it was always going to be difficult to repeat feat with added european fixtures and little investment in the first team squad. plus we're drawing those tight games that we tended to win last season. we finished 5th last time around but only looked really convincing in the back end of the season after cisse arrived. Speaking of expectations, what where yours for this season? Did your success last year possibly make expectations a bit too high amongst the Geordie faithful? before the season i predicted we'd finish somewhere between 6th-9th. still think that'll be the case. and it's probably what most of us think too. we're a pretty realistic bunch tbh, despite what sky will have people believe when they interview the half wits that hang around outside st james. dampened expectations come from years without winning anything. I'd like to ask you some questions about Liverpool if I may. What are your thoughts on our new manager Brendan Rodgers, the style of play he is trying to implement at Anfield and how Liverpool have started this season? haven't seen a lot of your games this season but doesn't sound like it's clicking just yet i found swansea tedious to play against last season. they had 70 per cent possession in one game against us and next to no shots on goal and we won the match because when we did get the ball we used it goign forwards. it's all well playing ticky tacka or whatever it's called, but why bother if it doesn't lead to any chances? that said, all english footballers should learn to cherish keeping the ball more than they do. Andy Carroll, you sold him when he was riding the crest of a wave. After a poor start at Anfield, he seemed to finish last season strongly, and he played well for England in the summer. How do you feel Liverpool handled the situation with Andy, and what were your thoughts in the summer when he was linked with a return to Newcastle? opinion was divided but i'd have taken him back in the summer. i still think he's a top player, when used correctly. bit of a dying breed in the modern game though - the traditional target man - because i don't think he's suited to playing up front on his own. still can't get over why you lot paid all that money for him then tried to use him like he was torres instead of getting balls into the box for him to attack. if you're going to spend all that money on him, play gerrard out wide pinging balls in and he'd score 20+ a season. his best season for us was when hughton moved barton out wide for that exact reason. Seeing as you got the better end of the Carroll transfer, how about repaying the favour? Fancy buying Joe Cole? In fact, can I pay you guys to take him off our hands? swap him for dan gosling? Let's concentrate on the game itself now. Are there any of our players that worry you ahead of Sunday's game? suarez; still dangerous, despite being one of the most hated players around How do you see the game panning out? home win. we're still not finding any fluidity and we never win at anfield. plus we're missing tiote, one of our key playersi think you'll be surprised at how shit we are this season, unless we raise our game. we've been playing some dreadful football of late. you're probably due a win too. What side would you expect Alan Pardew to pick for the game? krul, simpson. colo, taylor, santon, cabaye, perch, guthrie, ben arfa, cisse, ameobi Finally, fancy making a prediction? 2-0

not yet, but for the first time i can see why it happens to some people

That video is hideous. Who is that guy?

Perhaps on reflection this thread should have been less about money and more about yearning for the freedom you have in your youth - in my case a period that extended to early 30s. That time in your life before work and home life become hard graft. It was a golden era for my generation. I do feel a bit for the kids coming through their 20s in this decade though. Good jobs are going to be harder to find, and perhaps those years won't be as much fun a my lot has it because of that.

It's an image that's hard to forget, not for want of trying

Pipe down dipshit; you don't know me or my mrs. Insults aside, It's not just about going out with the lads, though that freedom you miss once you have a kid is part of it, sure. in general life is just more like hard work now, despite it being more comfortable in many ways. Yes, I've got a lot to be thankful for but our generation was a pretty selfish one. We all enjoyed our twenties and had kids late. My parents had me and wor kid at 22 and 26. They would have had to grow up fast and wouldn't really bang on about the good old days in the way I am now. This thread isn't meant to be a boast btw, more a reflection on how life unfolds. Life isnt always easy or fun anymore. It's the flipside of having a proper career and starting a family. Often it's a lot of hard work both at the office and at home. For the first time I can see why people have mid life crises, walk out on their responsibilities and shag their secretaries or whatever. The more settled and secure you become with career and family, the more challenging life can be in many ways. I'm not about to do that btw, just saying.

i hate the steroid boys that admire every bicep curl in the mirror. almost a bad as the twats that moisturise themselves head to toe, with no towel around their waist, then blow dry their pubes and armpit hair.

man u chelsea is a decent game tbf

i'm guessing this was a former career. don't know of many cabbies that make 50 grand, let alone get bonuses of that amount.

anyone trained using crossfit methods before?

at the end of the kettlebell class tonight we had a 'bonus' 10 minute crossfit kettlebelll circuit. 10 kettlebell squats, followed by 10 over head press then 10 mountain climbers. 10 sets in 10 minutes. the idea is to do each set as fast as possible - around 25-35 seconds giving you about half a minute rest before the next set. that was following a slightly shorter version of the circuit above with alternate lunges and no cean and jerk or figure of eight. the crossfit thing absolutely mullered me. dropped down to a 20kg bell after the first circuit. i could hardly stand, let alone walk, by the end of it. trainer reckons you burn about 600-700 calories in the 45 minutes class.

Another rancid turd further tarnishing the original trilogy beckons, I fear. Particularly if Lucas is involved in any way

slightly off topic but i've got one mate who organises what he calls a 'blag do' every year with his old mates from home. they all tell their birds that an old mate they don't know is getting hitched. cue a free pass to a weekend away to amsterdam or berlin.