ChezGiven

Hari may be a fat mincer but he is a good journalist and very prinicpled.

Brilliant. He makes more than just two points but he makes the two that are the most important for me. Firstly, Broken Britain is a fucking lie propagated by anecdote (the very lowest form of data) and secondly, the Labour party actually stand for something.

You can get Afraid of Everyone and Bloodbuzz Ohio off The National's new album for free on the blogs. The latter track is very good, will buy the album when it comes out

The thing is I was heavily involved in politics in my teens and was disenchanted basically by how firstly constituency parties are run and secondly the secrecy and obstructionism apparent in the daily grind of the commons. The whole machinery basically is set up to get in the way of the people. Now we have another tier of intellectual prevarication and mystification coming from the EU. There is a middle class elite basically getting a free ride right across the board where careers come before politics/conscience/change and that is completely wrong. This is why the political classes are so out of touch not only with people but the world in general. Tbf I'd rather have a middle class elite with some social mobility (witness Bridget) than a ruling upper class or aristocracy. And for all you complain about the political system, in general I have to say the UK is a pretty damn good place to live. Nah, the UK is broken, feral children run wild at night, you have a 1789% chance of getting knifed at Tecos and no one drives a new car, has a nice sofa or a decent TV.

Arent socialism and capitalism just sociological expressions of man's psyche? Depends what you do if there are only two choc puddings left in the fridge. Eat one secretly, then tell ask our lass if she wants to share the last one and give her the bigger half.

The King of Spain is lush. Never heard of him before but when my mate described him as the 'swedish Bob Dylan' i had to try it.

Arent socialism and capitalism just sociological expressions of man's psyche?

Bonobo - Black Sands (lovely) Broken Bells - Broken Bells (The Ghost Inside is fave pop song of the year so far) The Radio Dept - Clinging to a scheme (surprisingly uplifting) The Juan Maclean - DJ Kicks (Howay) Jonsi - Go (no Volcano references ) General Elektriks - Good city for Dreamers (Phoenix-like french pop) Local Natives - Gorilla Manor (someone on here with good taste brought my attention to it - thanks) Mademoiselle Caro & Frank Garcia - Left (West London Buzzin Fly House choons) Trafik - None But The Brave (Going to the MOS in London this saturday to see them) Joy Orbison - The Shrew Would Have Cushioned the Blow EP Gonjasufi - A Sufi and a killer (Flying Lotus type weirdness) Laurent Garnier - Tales of a Kleptomaniac (try No Music, No Life)

John Kay in the FT today on 3rd way social and economic philosophy. Whatever you think about Labour, they are the party who tried to articulate a philosophy that sits between socialism and capitalism. Unlike the Tories who dont have one and the lib-dems who should have one.

Think they may have backed us to go down last season too.

Go on mad walks. 6 is the most I ever did in one go, and that was the last time, was after Italy went out the WC in 2002. I left this lasses hoose about 2am and walked from Kenton to Bolam Lakes, was about 8am when I got there and wondering what the fuck I was doing. There's no such thing as good drugs these days, they fuck you up big time. One of my mates is a very very intelligent wealthy lad, great job, great humour, but he says he can't enjoy a night out unless he's on one or the toot. Took me years to get out of that mindset, its only been the last 2 or 3 years i've completely knocked it on the head. Although i did do about 10 last July over a weekend. One off though so it was fine. When i've had too many i tend to think i'm funnier than i actually am. I tell you what there is no hangover like that on a monday having been on it all weekend. Literally feels like you are wearing someone else face, someone who was kicked to shit over the weekend. Chemical taste in the mouth and an arse like a hot tap, cowering in a work toilet. Dont miss that at all.

Too much beer, shits himself. Too much weed, pisses himself. What happens when you've had too many cowies?

Anyone read Simon Bird's online article about us today? Apparently there was an apology issued in the Sunday Times yesterday making it clear that "Ashley did not promise to spend 25m on transfers as has been reported". Could mean anything but not encouraging. Anyone see the ST?

All means nowt though.

I think Guthrie deserves his shot too but from what i remember of Ambrose he unlike Guthrie was happy out wide and could play there, even if now he's playing through the middle so i think he'd cover more than one role in the team. True, it was more that if you were going to fit Ambrose into the current starting line-up it would probably be at the expense of Guthrie.

Too similar to Guthrie and he deserves his chance.

Anyway, do we think the club's comments are aimed at reducing expectations from 1. Spending 40m to spending 15 - 20m? or 2. Spending 15m to spending nowt? Its clear as day that reducing expectations is the communications strategy. Sorry for going off topic

A German sub? Isnt that referred to as a u-boat?

Isn't that the stuff that's the best part of £200 per bottle? Bet it's fabulous One of my mates dad has a bottle of this stuff Trouble is the seal isn't broken - can't so much as get a sniff of it Not tried it yet, am expecting it to be fabulous, so am going to open it after the girl is born in June. Its that price yes but i reckon that Balvenie would be more expensive. The 40 year old (one came out in January this year i believe) was 2000 euros so had to settle for the 30 year. I opened this Arran 1996 Peacock (limited edition) a couple of weeks back, had another little shnifter on saturday night. http://www.royalmilewhiskies.com/product.a...d=1000000000270

At the moment my hope is this: The club's ownership has demonstrated time and again they have little or no ability to understand the feeling amongst supporters. From the sacking of Allardyce, to putting the club up for sale at the end of last season (a PR stunt to manage a backlash that was never going to come), they react against what they think the fans think. My suspicion is that whilst we are reading the likes of Mick Dennis et al in the press thinking 'wtf?', the club's hierarchy are reading thinking 'really? oh shit'. Hence all the talk in the press from them about managing expectations. Maybe they are thinking that our expectations are for a return to the days of breaking the world transfer record, signing Owen, splashing 10m on a luxury midfielder. Since no one associated with the club is thinking like this, the messages are bing interpreted as 'we will spend nothing', when in fact what they are doing is saying 'we arent going to spend 40m'. Lets not forget, the club's owners are southerners whose friends in football and the media are southerners and we all know what sort of cliches they trot out about us. If they take advice from these sort of people, they will be thinking our expectations will now be sky high, cos that what geordies are like. My hope is that they have sought to dampen expectations because they feared that we would have over-inflated ideas about next season. Disappointingly for me, it seems that there may be an element of truth in that when talk of finishing 9th / emulating Birmingham is considered beneath us. Having 50,000 fans doesnt mean we can magically ignore the financial realities.

Economically speaking, yes. Politically, the 'project' of Europe will not be allowed to fail, so France and Germany will keep them in.

Its off Simon Bird's twitter from the 'CH presser', as he refers to them.

A few cans and get yourself on the green with the rest of the hobos.