I don't read this thread on a regular basis so apologies if this is old news. I just finished The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards. Very good and very insightful.

Just a passing observation, more than 30,000 at Elland Road on Saturday. The fourth highest gate of the day....I don't know what yesterday's attendances were.

Yes, it used to come free with BT broadband. I can't say it made any real difference. For free I had no real objection to running it but I think one would have to be pretty desperate to pay. At some point I had to delete it, can't remember why, and was unable to re-install the programme. I made a number of attempts to contact Customer Support by e-mail and phone with no success. I'd say the CS was rubbish especially as this was at a time when they were clearly trying to build business through BT. On the whole speed thing, I have no idea what speeds I have but they generally seem adequate. When I stay at Premier Travelinns there is a wireless service which is supposed to be somethging like 8-16Mb. It is noticeably faster but hardly life-changing. Had someone from Roversworld trying to sell me a subscription yesterday (the fact I already have an account didn't seem to register). I explained the online video doesn't match the advertised DVD quality and I wasn't happy. It's true the quality has improved from the Subutteo level but it is not DVD standard on either my home PC or this laptop. Have tried using two different connections in different areas. Is this connected with speed? Roversworld is the only online video I find has this low quality, I can watch other stuff at a very acceptable standard.

Current highest bid on ebay is £930. Only a couple of people selling though - much to my surprise. BTW if anyone has spare tickets for Springsteen - London or anywhere easy to reach in Europe - please let me know.

Connected to this is something I've mentioned several times. I know a lot of young people who are die-hard Rovers fans, thanks to Dads who have taken them season after season, but have moved away from the area and cannot attend any or only a few games. There was a time when I took myself, my three kids, somethimes the good lady plus another lad to every game. Now we are down to myself and one of my sons at every game and one of my lads to some games. Over the last three season our match day group has dropped from 5 to 2 at every game plus 1 more at some games, a drop of at least 40%. I feel this does explain some of the tail off we've seen at Ewood in recent seasons, but it rarley gets discussed. Once these young people have moved away it's doubtful if they will ever retrun to the area and become ST holders again.

Top bid was £255 but this didn't meet the reserve price

So we think these are real words rather than just random collections of letters - eastern European by any chance?

I came across this quite by chance has anyone any idea what it is about? Just click a selection in any of the cells in the table and see what happens.

Agreed. 5.15pm is great if you're a home supporter not so good if you come from Southampton

Had a great afternoon at http://www.lakelandmaze.co.uk/ on Saturday. Kep the kids occupied for hours. Don't believe the "you should complete this in 2 hours" stuff!!!! ............and you can go here afterwards!!! Hmmmm Excellent cheap day out, in the fresh air

It's just like getting a DVD and watching 5-6 episodes back to back. Nothing wrong with it but no better or worse than TV. Certainly not worthy of the pre-relaeas hype. Made me laugh and the kids enjoyed it - don't leave the moment the credits start to role.

Set off for Cornwall 3.00am Saturday morning. Heard about the problems on the M5 so followed the obvious diversion down the A435 / A46 to Evesham Stopped in Evesham for breakfast around 9.00am and buy a copy of Harry Potter (no queues in Evesham!!). Took a while to get out again but eventually got to Cornwall after 370 miles took 17 hours driving. At one point I realied I could have cycled to where we were faster, 110 miles in 10.5 hours.Helicopters, boats and fire engines tearing around all over the place but at no point did the radio indicate how serious things were. In fact some information was misleading. Having seen the TV pics I know realise we were about 500 metres from much of what is now on the TV.

I think I have some very early ones in the loft. I'll have a look and let you know.

Nice thought but it's the Jet Stream forcing low pressure further south than in most years. This time of year our weather is usually influenced by the Azores High but because the Jet Stream is misbehaving the low pressure is dumping rain on us instead of Iceland. Bazza - it's hard to believe but average temperatures were only 1C below the norm. It's the rain whcih make sit feel cold..................here speaks a man whose living relies on the weather Going on our first UK holiday in 27 years next week....the last one as well!!!

Best of luck Andy Todd. If the next £750k player gives equal service we'll all be happy. Some felt him erratic on occassions but I never worried if Todd was at the back. You knew he was going to give it all.

So did you all put drought resistant plants in your gardens this year? .........and how are they doing? Out on the bike this morning and got caught in a rainstorm so heavy I had to stop as I couldn't see the road.

best reason i've heard yet for going wireless

Andy Cole

Ah that makes more sense I'd agree McCarthy / Roberts for the Chelsea game could be the combination to upset Chelsea, I'm not sure Derbyshire will prove much of a threat to Chelsea over 90 minutes but he might prove a match-winer in the last 20 or so as a sub. I haven't talked about lazy players. McCarthy is a player who just disappears for long periods, I'm not sure he's lazy. I haven't suggested we need "pure effort" players what I have said is bellamy is a player who makes things happen, McCarthy is not, he feeds off what others create for him.

I don't quite follow that one theno.

If this is a direct comparison of Bellamy and McCarthy the answer has to be No. Bellamy was far superior to McCarthy in every sense. Give Bellamy the ball in the opposition's half, under almost any circumstances, and you could sense the buzz in the crowd, he was always likely to create real danger. McCarthy has been missing in action for at least two months. Yes Benni's a good player, he has ability, class, lots of tricks but he seems to lack either motivation or the desire to win. I don't think you can compare the two players. I only saw MOTD briefly last night but don't know if McCarthy played or not, I can't recall his name being mentoned in commentary, you would never say that of Bellamy. If one is talking about the team in this context then we have more options up front and players more likely to score from other positions. So possibly Yes Hughes has at least replaced Bellamy, "more than adequately" suggests we are doing better and we aren't, as Rev says we'll finish 10-12th and we are still 12 points worse off than this stage last season?

http://vinjaysbrfc.proboards57.com/

I went to this game, my second ever England match, the previous one was a summer tournament at Elland Road. I decided Tom would enjoy it, got three tickets in the Family Area (NE Stand opposite corner to the tunnel). It was an interesting evening. Generally I don't really care what England do, a pretty average team with little to excite the uncommitted, if we're in a tournanment and doing OK I watch. I viewed all aroud me from a dispationate view. Arrived at Pomona Way to park, as I always do for OT, and got charged a stunning £10 to park- it's usually £5 for Utd/Rovers. Now I've always wondered about the legality of charging the public to park on the public highway but decided against arguing the toss in view of the three very large men stood a few feet from the guy collecting the money. Settled for a few choice words in his direction. The crowd was a real disappointment from the off. I understood watching England was a great experience, good atmosphere etc. etc. It was rubbish, the crowd was flatter than a pancake. Ewood last Saturday had more life. At the far end of the stadium was "the band". People complain about our drummer but never mention this bunch. They were awful, they've got one tune and when the band didn't play the bloody drummer just carried on bang, bang, bang - give me Billy and his mates any day. Lots of people started to leave with 10-12 minutes to go, why bother in the first place? Still it cleared the traffic early for theose who left later! Half-time entertainment was a complete non event. Nothing at all. A big thank you to our sponsors etc and happy birthday to some kid whose Dad obviously new someone and that was it. Very poor, I expected more. Old Trafford itself. I'm usually to involved in the game to look around but I've always had this feeling it's not all it's cracked up to be. The rows are very narrow, I'm short and my knees hit seat in front. The concourse facilities are very basic, nothing compared to Ewood. When we arrived the stewards were allowing people to stand on and around the steps which allow entrance to the seats. this nade it very difficult to access the seating through the very narrow entrance. As for the stadium? Well frankly it really isn't that good. The lower bowl looks good and if they'd stopped there it would be fine but then there are lots bits tacked on to cram in the Utd support. It looks what it is, a hotch potch of stands and designs tacked on to each other. What about a big screen? A replay of Spain's excellent goal would have been nice - I clapped, well for a moment till i realised I was getting attention. It's only a friendly? The view is excellent and at £40 for three tickets represented real value. England? I quite enjoyed myself, the game went quickly, nothing inspiring but I wasn't bored. In the second half the first time I noticed the clock there were 13 minutes left. Not an absorbing match but one that passed quickly. It was clear Spain have far better technique than any of the England players on view. You have to wonder how some England players even match the word international - we are simply not very good. Anyway that was my night at OT. I won't be making my way to Wembley to watch England, done it now and won't bother again.

Well I'll moan about this I don't like processed pies ( never eat them), I rarely drink beer and have to drive home anyway, the TV cameras always concentrate on the lower tiers! There you go Fife. In all seriousness I think we will reach the stage where clubs have to subsidise tickets from TV money. Sky et al will not tolerate empty stadiums for long. I appreciate many who do not agree with my view of the PL and I can only say this. I know 10 households in our village that have stopped going to Ewood on a regular basis (STs) if they go at all. Personally I'm close to not renewing, my eldest can sort himself out these days, the youngest isn't desperately worried about going or not, but for our Tom it is the highlight of his week. Now Tom leaves home September 2008 and will only come back every 6 weeks or so. This pretty much leaves me on my own........

I could be way off the mark with this. Over the Christmas holiday I got a phone call purporting to be Rovers (I suspect it was Premium TV) asking if I would renew my subscription. I'd forgotten I was a subscriber so without the phone call I would have had £34.99 debited from card anyway. I said I wouldn't be renewing as the video quality was so poor it wasn't worth watching. She told me "Rovers" were aware of this and there would be great improvement during January. The lady gave me a "Special Offer" of one month for £3.99 ( I didn't know there was a monthly subscription). To cut the story short, changes were being made in January and defnetely for end of January. I've logged in a few times and found the quality no better until this morning. After USA's post I checked again and the quality is much improved. I'd say it has moved from very poor, not worth watching to OK but not brilliant. I'd expect quality to be similar to a TV picture, it's not quite that, still fuzzy round the edges and filmed from so far away 50% of the action looks like Subutteo. The pity is I cancelled my subscription a few days back to make sure it didn't get processed ahead of time as the service hadn't improved as promised in the initial phone call.