Did none of the other strikers take penalties?

The Guardian guide to grub in the Ribble Valley. The Guardian also asks which town has the best food in England and cannot quite bring itself to say Ramsbottom

Thirty odd years ago, the Spread Eagle was the number one restaurant in north Lancs. Glad to read it is still going well even though overhauled by the Michelin starred chefs.

Drugs won the War- New York Times

Apparently Lucash is on his way to Citeh on a free.

Maybe I have misread something somewhere but isn't 31 year old Chimbonda being hawked for £3m? I'd rate ucash above him in terms of reliability and professionalism.

Lucash has looked at what West Ham are offering and the situation they are in and concluded he's much better off as a free agent in the market place. My guess is that if he were under contract, he would still command a transfer fee of £4m in all likelihood. So as a very proven PL full back, he thinks he can command a "normal" wage of say £30K a week plus pocket most of the transfer fee he is not costing any cub he joins. West Ham on the otherhand might (and I stress might) be extremely grateful not to be even paying him the 20% reduction in pay they offered. It depends what RBS are saying to them about their own £48m bank loan. (That is seperate from their soon to be liquidated owner's debts).

Don't know whether it was just London hype but Lucas seemed to be a large part of the reason on field West Ham went from strugglers to Europa challengers.

I wonder what line up Ferguson would go with if Rooney ronaldo tevez Hargreaves giggs and Carrick were all unavailable against Barca.

Hopefully quite a few Prem managers learnt from watching that game. Incidentally Evra had a stinker last night- where was he for that first goal? Ferguson will be smarting knowing Hiddinck was way better than him in handling Barca.

RFW completely got that one wrong. Mancs were never at the races tonight. Certainly nowhere near the level of football played by Barca.

Mancs are clueless compared with the way Chelsea handled Barca.

Went on your recommendation 'drog. Quantity is such that at least half the tables including me took doggy bags. The clothing worn by the clientelle was colourful to say the least. Plenty of Rovers shirts whilst the Asian ladies present ran the gammut from burkahs through head scarves to glorious sahris to casual sort and jeans to microskirts. Incidentally being non-alcholic makes it extremely safe for driving, a great chance to drink a superb mango lashi (sp?) and keeps the price right down.

Called in Bukhara on the way home- thought it excellent. Lamb succulent and the spices perfectly balanced. Brilliant value compared with London as well.

Andre Ooijer confirms his departure. On the whole, Andre has been a class act for Rovers and been an excellent player for us with real class. Sorry to see his time ending with us. Was proud to have the Dutch skipper playing for Rovers and being our representative at Euro08.

New York Times op-ed: Legalise it and Tax it

Hmmm. Nextright, a right wing American think tank/pressure group has started working on how to make the Republican Party electable again by breakingout of its elderly/white/rural/southern ghetto. Of it's ten recommendations, number one is: 1. Legalize Drugs - You have turned a corner on this issue. All evidence and economics indicates that prohibiting anything for which there is a demand causes black markets. The black markets in drugs mean the costs of doing business are higher—but that means so too are the profits. These profits (and turf) are protected violently by gangs and drug cartels. Gang culture is built around said profits. Remove the profits through legal competition and the gangs fade away eventually (just as they did after alcohol prohibition was repealed). Yes, there will be secondary social costs. Yes there will still be petty crime due to addicts—despite lower-cost drugs. But you can offset those social costs by taxing the product to build rehabilitation centers, which are preferable to building more prisons and morgues. You get credibility points for admitting that people have a right to do what they like with their bodies. Freedom is freedom, warts ‘n’ all.

The troubles at Tampa Bay Buccaneers suggest the Glazers are in financial difficulties Man U are not in any imminent danger but the folks holding the senior debt of £425m are selling it off at 70p in the £1. In otherwords, they reckon there is at least a 30% chance of repayment default.

Yes that's right- absolutely superb!

As far as I can recall, whenever Berbotov's stats are shown, he has covered more ground than the United team's average. Berb is an extremely deceptive player- looks languid but is in fact extremely quick. All that drifting past people is done at very high pace. Certainly Benni was playing too deep on several occasions against Portsmouth but given Grella's limited range of passing he needed to be behind or level with the midfielder in order to receve the ball. But otherwise Benni was absolutely superb yesterday and did a huge amount of tracking back saving the legs of the generally less mobile Samba. I wouldn't quibble with Benni's MoM award.

Sane comment on Barton The guy would be a monumental waste of money even if he signed for free.

Chelsea can think themselves very unlucky not to have been rewarded with a place in the Final for superbly executing their game plan nullifying Barca. Piqué's handball was as certain a pen as you are going to see but at the end of the day, Essien made a mess of an easy 93rd minute clearance and Drogba fluffed two extremely easy chances. You don't do that and get to European Cup Finals. Two dodgy sending offs will have a huge impact in Rome. Even if Puyol is back, the Barca defence will be far too weak to cope. Whilst Scholes will be a red card waiting to happen.

Barton a big hit with the Newcastle fans who are dreading Allardyce bidding for him because it would make Sam so popular at Ewood. Or perhaps I completely misread this NUFC web site.

Got a feeling that if anyone were to push Arsenal out of the top 4, this was the season to do it. Villa messed uptheir opportunity big time. Just shows how quickly we have grown used to English European domination again. Arsenal lose in the semi-final to the defending champions playing a team of kids and there are folk on here posting that they are a busted flush. I'd love to be a busted flush with that squad available.

Sorry, I stand corrected- it is Senior's. Wonderful stuff! Especially the sole.