ChezGiven

Angling for the Newcastle job by the sounds of things.

Like the copper off Allo' Allo'.

I live in Paris but when am home I tend to go to M&S if i am buying. Majestic have a Louis Latour 2012 Burgundy for 12.99, i think that would be very good. Bouchard Pere et Fils are another top producer for Burgundy. Your local merchants should have something like that. I find its best to set a budget and if your in a small retailer then chat to the staff and let them know you want to get to know a particular wine region, get them to chat around the choices then choose the one closest to the budget. Works well for me anyway.

Love a beer too, only really drink wine when am eating. Which to be fair is basically all the time. Where do you shop for it?

You will get pulled on it but you can at least console yourself that i will get most of the grief. I really don't see the difference between liking and drinking decent beers instead of cheap mass produced brands and spending a bit extra on a bottle of vino. Barolo is complex, it's made from the Nebbiolo grape which is thin skinned but produces a lot of tannin and due to the temperatures in Piedmont also a lot of fruit. Good to try one that has aged at least 3 years in oak before bottling. It's closest cousin in France is Burgundy red wine as that's made from Pinot Noir which is a similar grape. Get an entry level (generic burgundy) from the supermarket for around £10 and you can drink it with anything from pasta to roast meats. Pay a little more (you might need to go to Majestic) and get a 'villages' which instead of being called 'burgundy' will have the name of the village on it. This is only step one on the journey

Another poster who won't get invited out with Gemmil and his mates for being a limp-wristed wine drinker.

Barolo is my favourite Italian red. I also don't think just getting into wine is 'snobbery'. Appreciating a good game of football doesn't make you a football snob. Being a dick about it does. There's loads on here who appreciate a fine whisky but it's only snobbery if you turn your nose up at a blend and go on like you 'couldn't possibly' drink it. Learning about and appreciating wine is no different to preferring a craft beer to carling. French wine is the best like

Liberté, Égalité, Get out of my way, as they say in Paris.

I didn't know, congrats!

Andrew Hussey's take on events is worth a read too. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/10/paris-attacks-horror-france-andrew-hussey

5 hostages apparently. Fortunately its on the other side of the city to us, we are just north west of the centre and this is all going on in the east side (Porte Vincennes) and the 2 gunmen from weds are holed up in a town near the airport.

Full terrorism plan in place in all schools (the 'vigipirate' plan). Cant enter the school to get my 4 year old from class this afternoon, have to wait outside whilst they are brought out one by one. Same across the whole city, not sure about country but quite possibly.

It's kicking off. Helicopters all over the place.

That should clear the mystery up for Howay then.

His son is wearing our shirt too.

Stupid premise, the fact that New Labourites made a shed of cash post-power is standard for ex-politicians everywhere for over a decade now. Being being fabulously wealthy all your life and then fucking the working class when you come to power for ideological reasons is a very different proposition to doing loads for the working class in power and then becoming fabulously wealthy afterwards by exploiting lobby-hungry bloated clients.

Aye PL it was your lass who got the pronunciation wrong.

They were picked up by the x-ray scanner He didnt pull them out, unfold them and give the elastic waist a little tweak, he was asking what it was as he was pulling them out saying the machine had picked up a material like a t-shirt or something. This story makes less sense to me, dont worry. I'm the one standing red-faced in my socks claiming to have a pair of knickers in my bag that are clearly a bloke's jockeys.

No one gives shit i nearly died in an air crash. Bastards. The bloke didnt understand the word 'underwear' when he asked me what it was, i then tried to think of the word in French and used the word for 'knickers' instead. What a div

Security at the airport pulled my underpants out of my briefcase and inspected them this morning. My flight then pulled up sharply and aborted the landing about 100m off the ground in thick fog. Not sure which was more traumatic. Eventful.

Rather listen to Shearer than Merson and the band of cunts on Sky.

Is that the guy you met on Tinder?

Remarkably none of my colleagues got it so i doubt the mandarins spent their last week of the year on the bog. It was at epidemic levels over here, our lass went to the pharmacy and explained the symptoms. The pharmacist said loads of people have been reporting the same and she got given a medicine for the cramps, among other things. When she explained it was the medicine they normally give women for period pains i think i sunk to my lowest moment of the week. Just to kick sand in my face she goes 'now you know how we feel every month'. If i'd been well enough, i'd have handed in my rusty sheriff's badge for the town called 'man'.

Weight loss was one of the positives. A semi-permanent arse like an angry baboon on heat was definitely one of the negatives.

I was canny ill before christmas, been having colds regularly from the kids who pick up everything and i was on loads of flights, late nights etc. I had one last trip to do on Monday 15th Dec and then i was meant to be on holiday from 17th. I flew to London having felt shite all day Sunday, did meeting near Heathrow then went across to Whitehall to meet some chaps from the govt, had 2 hours with them getting grief and then took a train back home. Started shivering just as we left London, managed to keep it together for a couple of hours, got in a cab and ran upstairs to the bog. I then spent the next 3 days in bed with the following routine: wake up with stomach pains, pains turns into excruciating cramp, cry out in pain, decide to go to bog, arse literally like a hot tap, stagger back to bed, fall asleep, wake up 2 hours later in excruciating pain. For 3 fucking days. Tuesday and Wednesday were hellish, the Thursday my head cleared a bit but i was shiiting blood on the friday morning I didnt eat from the Monday lunchtime till friday night and that was just some rice. Fuck couch to 5k man, get the gastro from hell and watch the pounds fall off. The kicker being i didnt shit again for another 5 days.