Just the usual Saturday then?

We can kiss goodbye to winning the Ashes back for another year then. All that pre-Match bluster for Pieterson and co is starting to look a bit damn silly. And when is that bu99er McGrath going to retire?

I flipping well told you lot! Did anyone listen? Non. If we lose 3 more wickets or more today we're up the Khyber.

Not too soon, boys, remember 47 all out in the Caribbeann?

Just read on the Beeb that more than 25k civilians have died since the US went in - horrendous.

I don't think there was any morale aspect to Tony Blair committing to the war, otherwise, we would've found WMD, wouldn't we? Personally, my suspicion is that something happens when you get into office that means any idealistic notions (if you ever had them) get chucked out of the window.

Just one comment I'd like to make after what I'd said earlier about Islam ... I still remember some of the stuff I read about the civil war in Yugoslavia ... specifically the cellar the UN(?) found and all of the implements of torture within that had been used on Muslim women and children. It sickened me to the core. How can human beings do this to each other? Aren't we supposedly at the top of the evolutionary chain? Without in any way devaluing what has happened in London it should be remembered that this has happened on a much larger scale in Iraq, yet another car bomb has gone off there. Why is the dichotomy always "good" guys versus "bad" guys (as defined by country/ religion etc)? It's simplistic and to me is the new opium of the congregation. Perhaps people are fed of of watching WW2 movies and need a new war to be conducted on TV to satiate their desires. Or maybe that's Tony Blair's perception as he makes his latest attempt at Churchillian oratory, with just the hint of witheld tears just for the readers of women's mags, just to give us an emotive gee-up and stop us from thinking about what's really going on. I feel more commonality with the suppressed people of Kosovo, Iraq, East Timor, than I do with the leaders of my own country. A better characterisation would be those who want to live in peace and those who are happy to let others die to feed their own twisted religious/ political aims. Why can't Mad Mullahs/ Tony Blair/ George Bush/ Thenodrog fight their own wars, and let the rest of us live our lives in peace?

Whoah! I hope you're not insinuating that the Israelis are a peaceful bunch who only draw arms when one of those horrid suicide bombers leaves the utopian sanctuary of the West Bank, that the Israelis have magnanimously let the Arabs have the use of, and blows himself up in Jerusalem?

Reading the 'paper (the Mail for what it's worth) yesterday, rather interesting interview with a muslim ... he was stating that "mainstream Islam" is too moderate, and "real Islam" is practised in private, in people's front rooms. He also said that life was made so intolerable (?) for muslims in the UK that they wanted to commit suicide bombings so that they'd go to heaven, which is obviously a nicer place to live. Not his exact words, but the exact sentiment, believe me. Sorry to trivialise, but I'm not too enamoured about where I live, but I'd rather s0d off somewhere else on planet Earth than meet my maker, plenty of time for that afterwards. He also said he had real respect for the bombers, and would carry an attack out himself if he wasn't a coward. Now I know that this newspaper is hardly the 'paper of record, but the interview was conducted by Imran Khan (used to work for the Beeb), and it didn't come across as a hatchet job. All in all, a bit scary.

I only found out this morning that Islam (apparently) means "peace", so it must be distorted in some way in order for people to believe in it, and to also go around blowing people up. N'est pas?

In an ideal world, free speech would reign. But given that the apparent nature of Islam means that it appears to be easy to inculcate youths with the ideal of giving up their own lives to kill as many innocent by-standers as possible, to go and meet Allah ... well, just for the safety of the majority of the population, these people shouldn't be allowed to spill their bile. It would obviously be better if Islam were self-regulating, but it appears that isn't the case. What I would like to know is why it is that if you blow yourself and others to smithereens you go to heaven with 70 birds, why everyone's not doing it? Why doesn't Captain Hook do it? You never see an elderly suicide-bomber, wonder why this is? Perhaps because the fools that do it have been cynically manipulated.

Too late for it now, of course, but isn't there a law being brought in, something about incitement to racial/ religious hatred? I think it's just been brought in, and if I'm right, then surely it should apply equally to all, not just BNP stormtroopers.

What wonderful testimony to those that have died this thread is. Why not just have an insults thread and be done with it.

According to the Mail, ol' Souey is getting ready with a 6m bid for Distin. If true, then I think it's persuasive proof that he has gone stark raving mad. I wouldn't trust him with a fiver.

So it's OK for Douglas Hurd to meet, David Mellor to meet him, (as Mr C points out) Donald Rumsfeld to meet him, but not old George, who is the odd one out on that list as he didn't try to sell him arms? I don't quite follow your logic(?)

Of the comments I have read attributed to George Galloway, I have to say I think he is right.

The bank, I should imagine ...

Did David Copeland wage war against this country by planting bombs in London? Sorry, I just don't see it, you may as well say muggers are committing treason. Rather than ripping people's beards off, we need to look at a more peaceable approach to a solution in the Middle East, rather than going in gung ho and watching the rubble bounce.

Er ... would the perpetrators actually be guilty fo treason though? Would've thought they were more likely to be guilty of mass murder?

It's this "size" thing again! It must be why some blokes go fishing, it's comparing penis sizes without being accused of being a poofter, except fish size is used as a proxy. "How big is your club?" blah blah blah. Pathetic. Were Villa "bigger" than us when we won the league?

Said it before, will say it again, this is the phoney war, and counts for absolutely nothing when it comes to determining who wins the Ashes. If England have a good first day of the First Test, I might start to get excited. Until then, I'm wary.

Perhaps downstairs was full, in which case, that was lucky (in a sense!)

Are you going to stop wailing like an old woman now? "EEEEeurgh Rovers, what are you doing?! Sort it out, board!" Now that you've stopped panicking about signings, you'll probably start worrying yourself into a state of collapse about season tickets. N'est pas?

"Hong Kong Grooby"! Quality!

Not sure who this thread is for, to be honest. I doubt anyone who's suffered as a result will be reading. It just looks liek a mud-slinging contest, with some call-to-arms rhetoric and right-on credentials thrown in for good measure.