Kitman

12 points clear of the play offs cue Accadaccaspacca

Jingle bells!

Zis thread is most irregular

One bloody golf glove and a 1 wood. Tiger: "What makes you think it was me?" One wood in the bush? Better than his missus slicing a ball with a 3 iron

Population of NZ is 4-5m actually You're right about being 30 years behind (at least) but that's actually part of its charm - quality of life and family values are still all important here and it's relatively unspoilt; people here don't tend to be the greedy money obsessed arseholes I came across in the south east of England, squashed into tiny living spaces and consumed by jealousy of other people and the idea of missing out. It's also an insignificant country in terms of world politics but again that's a plus. Unlike the UK, there's no chip on their shoulder about their past and their standing in the world, the armed forces are non existent (I expect their soldiers run around with wooden rifles making firing noises), and they're nuclear free, so our tax dollars don't go on supporting any of Donald Rumsfeld's companies or the Yanks madcap military campaigns. I quite like that. I also happen to like the Dutch, Amsterdam was a favourite place to visit and I met quite a few Dutch people on courses and the like. I actually found them hilarious, strange blend of liberalism and conservative values and they loved to drink. The main thing I've got against Holland is it's very boiring to look at by and large (unlike NZ which is spectacular ). I suspect the path between the real Dutch and the Boers diverged about 3 or 4 hundred years ago. Probably like comparing the Amish people to the Dutch. I haven't met a Boer that I've liked, but I haven't met that many truth be told. I haven't met any Zulus so I'll have to take your word for it

One bloody golf glove and a 1 wood. Tiger: "What makes you think it was me?"

Oh yes I'm sure. But, but....I wasn't talking about the Boers. Oh well. Actually they were kidnapped from their homeland by malicious sprites and dumped in NZ. Since then they have plotted in secret to return to commit further racist outrages and crimes against humanity. The bastards. Shoot them all. It's the only langauage they understand. Better Mr P.?

Boro beaten 3-0 in front of 18,000 home fans. Strachan's been a failure so far. If they don't get back up this season, I wonder how long Gibson can afford to support them with low crowds and no PL/TV money.

The OP's way too long. Anyway I wouldn't tar all white South Africans with the same brush. As I understand it, South Africa had/has a white population with 2 different cultural heritages: the Boers and the English. The Boers were the political ruling class up to the abolition of apartheid, owned a lot of farmland, and were responsible for apartheid. They've been in South Africa since the 17th century I think. The Boer mindset is one of siege - the threat to the Boer values and way of life borne out of historical struggles with the English, black people, the great treks etc. iirc the English actively colonised South Africa in the 19th century especially around Natal. I've met a lot of South Africans in NZ. Since the end of apartheid there's been a lot of emigration out of South Africa, particularly down under - the security situation has deterioriated in recent years, economic prospects have declined etc. The Boers here keep themselves to themselves by and large, I haven't met any but they have a bad reputation here amongst Kiwis as people to know and do business with. They tend to speak transvaal when they're out and about in the shops. The English type South Africans are also quite numerous, without exception those I've met (here and in the UK) have been really nice, not remotely racist as far as I can tell and have left South Africa with a heavy heart and out of necessity.

I imagine the powers that be may think that Butt, Barton and Geremi are sufficient back up

Be interesting to see which Stevie G turns up to the WC finals, assuming he's fit. The ineffectual, diving, reckless 2 footed tackler; or the inspirational, surging forward, score from outside the box workaholic. As I'll be supporting Engerland, and knowing my luck, it'll be the former.

I've been surprised at just how shit this division is, we are strolling it despite rarely at any point looking impressive. Theres some games where i watch Enrique and think he could probably get a result on his own! But i've been really surprised at the fact pretty much no teams have been tough/hard or got in our faces and roughed us up as everybody said they would. I'd say in most games we've dished out more than the opposition if anything. So not only is it a shit division it also seems to be a nice one as well! How much do you think SJP is a factor? ie do visiting teams freeze in front of a 40,000+ crowd and show us too much respect?

Ditto

More lies and propaganda I'm afraid

"Hitler's concept of concentration camps as well as the practicality of genocide owed much, so he claimed, to his studies of English and United States history. He admired the camps for Boer prisoners in South Africa and for the Indians in the wild west; and often praised to his inner circle the efficiency of America's extermination - by starvation and uneven combat - of the red savages who could not be tamed by captivity." P. 202, "Adolph Hitler" by John Toland

It has become a modern orthodoxy that Europe's 20th century was the bloodiest in history and that atrocities must be recorded and remembered by society as a whole. But while a Black Book of Communism has been compiled and everybody is aware of the horrors of nazism, popular historians have been surprisingly uninterested in the dark side of the British Empire. There are exceptions, such as Mike Davis's powerful Late Victorian Holocausts, but much else still lies buried in the academic literature. Davis and others have estimated that there were between 12 and 33 million avoidable deaths by famine in India between 1876 and 1908, produced by a deadly combination of official callousness and free-market ideology. But these were far from being a purely Victorian phenomenon. As late as 1943 around 4 million died in the Bengal famine, largely because of official policy. No one has even attempted to quantify the casualties caused by state-backed forced labour on British-owned mines and plantations in India, Africa and Malaya. But we do know that tens of thousands of often conscripted Africans, Indians and Malays - men, women and children - were either killed or maimed constructing Britain's imperial railways. Also unquantified are the numbers of civilian deaths caused by British aerial bombing and gassing of villages in Sudan, Iraq and Palestine in the 1920 and 1930s. Nor was the supposedly peaceful decolonisation of the British Empire without its gory cruelties. The hurried partition of the Indian subcontinent brought about a million deaths in the ensuing uncontrolled panic and violence. The brutal suppression of the Mau Mau and the detention of thousands of Kenyan peasants in concentration camps are still dimly remembered, as are the Aden killings of the 1960s. But the massacre of communist insurgents by the Scots Guard in Malaya in the 1950s, the decapitation of so-called bandits by the Royal Marine Commandos in Perak and the secret bombing of Malayan villages during the Emergency remain uninvestigated. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/jul/23/congo.comment

Yes, there are no reports of a Pot Noodle shortage

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Irish_Famine

Parky's probably busy browsing his Gordon Ramsay cookbook for ideas

River Cottage is quite relaxing, but honestly he can't cook for shit! He had some lettuce leaves on a BBQ the other day... I don't care he does potted rabbit and can carve a lamb carcass. I like River Cottage. There is zero chance that I would ever forage in a hedgerow for salad ingredients or brew my own hooch, but it's nice to believe someone somewhere is mad enough to do it. Is this Good Life type of shizzle catching on in the UK? It's a sure sign a country is fucked when men start incessant babbling about cooking and ingredients. I blame whoever started this thread

I think you should stage a dirty protest, preferably in the reception area. Wear your trainers and flee before the police arrive. That'll teach 'em!

River Cottage is quite relaxing, but honestly he can't cook for shit! He had some lettuce leaves on a BBQ the other day... I don't care he does potted rabbit and can carve a lamb carcass. I like River Cottage. There is zero chance that I would ever forage in a hedgerow for salad ingredients or brew my own hooch, but it's nice to believe someone somewhere is mad enough to do it. Is this Good Life type of shizzle catching on in the UK?

I can't stand Jamie Oliver, from his faux cockney patter to his oversized lispy tongue to his ceaseless sermonising about healthy food. We get him a lot here in NZ, along with overpriced Jamie Oliver kitchen gizmos that nobody buys. I recall his crusade for healthy school dinners was undermined by some ladies from Yorkshire pushing huge helpings of chips through the school fence to their chubby offspring. How I laughed as these porky kids defied his agenda to eat themselves into an early grave

It's a conspiracy by the supermarkets to sell stuff nobody would eat otherwise. Like cous-cous.