A continuous series of data including a five year average trend line from the English midlands since the seventeenth century. The downward blips coincide for the most part with particularly dirty volcanic explosions vapourising vast amounts of rock and projecting it into the stratosphere. This sort of graph dramatically highlights that something out of the ordinary is going on. Given the massive resources the US Government has at its disposal, the failure to produce convincing science that contradicts the manmade global warming theories has tended me to think that the US Government is wrong.

When Roberts came on against West Ham was it? he hustled to great effect but never once looked like scoring a goal. Benni was disappointing last night but got into four goal scoring positions in his 30 minutes including being put clean through the first time and wrongly called offside (not the second time when he patted it to the keeper when called offside- ref waved play on when the keeper got it but I saw the flag go up again that time and he was off side) Now Santa has hit a rich scoring streak I would play Roberts for his muscularity against Chelsea because in part its needed to counter our patsy midfield but ordinarilly Benni should always start ahead of Roberts.

OK, I'll put here what I wrote on the Nicko/Niko thread. Benni's Rovers career stats are 65 appearances 32 goals 2 assists. That includes this season. Where are the goal every other game strikers to replace him with? Roberts averages a goal every 5 appearances for Rovers by the way. Benni's problem lies in our midfield players collectively not being good enough which I also think is a reason for the sudden catastrophic collapse of our defense.

Rio's party without Ronaldo for those who want to read it.

Mind numbing that RFW allowed Rio to organise that party! How on earth the WAGS gave night passes to an officially sanctioned bordello with hot and cold running floozies is an interesting question as well. BBC name Johnny Evans

Stories linking Benni and Anelka to Chelsea today. I find it amazing that a forward who has scored 8 goals before Christmas is getting this much flak. Is Roberts' total haul for Roves 5 goals?

Frankly, it is little to do about forecasts, American. It is the trends in the factual data over the past 50 years which are scary. Can you point to anything in the data which shows it stopping or reversing? It is all pointing to something that is bad at best and catastrophic at worst. All the rest is bushshit. Picking up on dropping temperatures in Europe, it is worth noting that Europe sits at latitudes which elsewhere in the world north or south of the equator suffer from far harsher climates. IF one effect of global warming is a weakening of the Gulf Stream then Europe's whether will revert to type associated with its latitude which will mean very much colder in winter whilst the lack of moisture will result in arid hot summers in the south of the continent. People in the UK tend to think of New York as being roughly as far north as London- it is in fact on the same latitude as Rome and some of those places having ice crippling storms recently are as far south as Malta is. Talking of which, the skies looking north were full of typical snow clouds with a gorgeous red hue as the sun set. We then got some pretty chunky hailstones for a few minutes. The temperature here at the moment is 16 during the day and 10 at night- the sea temperature is still around 18 which keeps things pretty temperate despite the northerly winds. It needs a strong north easterly to drop the temperature to around 4 which is as cold as it gets. The weather office has a picture of the only recorded frost back in 1987.

That the climate is warming DRAMATICALLY- incontrovertible fact. How much warmer how faster- debatable but it will get warmer inevitably by virtually any method of calculation on any hypothesis The impact on life on Earth and how quickly- estimates vary from bad in our life time to civilisation-ending catastrophic by the middle of the century Non-man made causes- some solid evidence, shaky science in most cases Man-made causes- increasingly convincing mass of evidence with the shaky science being shaken out Sensible approach- accept that the world is getting warmer and man has something to do with it. I think it is pretty intuitive that if you release millions of years of stored carbon over less than 150 years, all that energy and residues are going to go somewhere and do some damage. Now comes the tricky bit- do what? I am struggling to whole heartedly embrace any of the "big schemes" knocking around as unambiguously good or helpful. Oil tars, biofuels, wind power, hydro-electric, nuclear all have big questions over just how beneficial they are on balance. The approach I would immediately take would be to focus on human behaviour and quit all our energy inefficient bad habbits. In the '70s when fuel started getting expensive, best fuel consumption went from 30 mpg to 50 mpg. Now we should be looking for the national car fleet to AVERAGE 40+ mpg in a very short period of time. Walk or use public transport where feasible. Energy efficient lighting should simply replace what we have and conventional bulbs removed from sale. Switch off when not in use when it will make a real saving. Install photo-elctric panels and water heat exchangers. Use electronic means of communication where possible. These are all things we each can do and I do. I don't know by how much this has cut my carbon footprint but I am sure these pretty easy to do, not particularly disruptive or time-consuming changes would make a very significant contribution to meeting the intial targets.

Interesting question. I doubt the Wigan players would have had such a clear run through from midfield to set up goals 1 and 2 if the Axe had been around. I suspect a return to the relegation-avoiding 4-5-1 is on the cards in which case the Axe will get a run in the team before heading off to Ghana. At least this time, we have a 1- Roque is a bit of a step up from Stead or Dickov up there.

Benni is Benni's best friend probably. Going back a while, Hughes was saying it was remarkable how there weren't cliques and how everybody sat with everybody else. That is probably under pressure now and I would tend to think our press boys are getting the goss right, albeit amplified and distorted somewhat, about three 30+ year old players being unhappy and disruptive. Let's see what the team atmosphere is like against Arsenal on Tuesday.

Granted

I think it started as a joke Mozzer. Reasons to be gloomy- Sparky ran out of ideas spectacularly at the end of his time with Wales. Reasons to be positive- if Sparky wants a stellar career this has to be a very good season because of all the hype and attention he has attracted. If Rovers tail off in the Prem and don't win a cup, I doubt Roy Keane will spend the next £20m transfer money at Sunderland as badly as the first lot and Keane would overtake Hughes as the best up and coming British manager around leaving Hughes in a Coppell-type limboland. I also think the Trustees and the Board will back Sparky 100% if he goes asking for support.

It's a tap-up if they were talking transfer. Got a feeling that when/if MGP moves on, we will look in horror and ask why couldn't he produce match winning performances when he was with us for the past n months. I think a far more plausible explanation is that MGP is sensibly looking for helpful input from wherever he can get it. SGE has a certain amount of experience of meeting people where he shouldn't so I'd guess he is more careful about where he does the business end now.

There was a 30 yard through the eye of a needle directly forwards pass by Mokoena that set up the equaliser at Spurs.

Transfer to whom pre ANC 1864????

Looks like Capello will be unveiled this afternoon as the new England boss. Hope David Bentley and Steven Warnock are brushing up on their Italian!

Talking to a colleague today who told me a little boy turned up at school with a new soft toy called Jesus. The Priest immediately renamed it Aloysius!

The numbers are daft but do you think Capello is going to be earning next to nothing? The FA even contrived to pay McClaren "only" £2.5m a year. Capello is a disciplinarian by all accounts which given the nature of modern football will create its own bullets for the FA. How can he enforce discipline in a national team context?, by not picking otherwise favoured players- not much else by way of sanctions. Mourinho brought risks but he is young enough to have a massive stake in not failing, he is close enough to the current English game to have a very detailed knowlege of all the players and has a very clear view of where to take the FA and England set-up. The FA has bungled another chance to give themselves and the national team direction.

Mourinho has just ruled himself out of the running for the England job. Another great what might have been screwed by the lumbering FA. I an sure talking to John Tossack was more important than talking to Mourinho. I wonder how Brian Barwick's Italian is for talking to Cappelo or Lippi?

In contrast to Bevington, everybody reading the papers today knows the next England manager is Jose Mourinho. Mourinho has played the press like a violin and the momentum he is building for his candidacy is blowing all the other contenders out of contention with a force that the Soho Square ditherers are incapable of resisting. Even to the extent that Shearer is being killed on the not fit to manage Newcastle angle (which he isn't- his appointment at St James' would be good news for clubs like the Rovers for whom an Allardyce-organised Newcastle when his technical changes work through will be a big threat). The other non-British candidates are being made to look like distant pygmies whilst Martin O'Neill's bashfulness is simply being steam rollered. Mourinho manifesto, or everything for everyone who has a stakeholding in the England manager decision. Funny thing is, he'll probably do what he says he will.

Young people develop physically at different rates. What is lost sight of is in many ways the development/growth process continues to around 21 even though height gain stops earlier. The fact somebody was wow at 17/18 is sadly meaningless. What is increasingly happening is that players are breaking through later as their muscle memory training, techniques and above all strength and stamina necessary at Prem level are finally being attained in the early 20s. Even absolutely exceptional teenage talents like Walcott are being nursed into Premiership football. Putting it into perspective, Brett Emerton is commonly accepted to be the fittest (in sporting terms) Australian athlete in the world today. Given that Australia is so sports mad and has so many naturally gifted sports people across so many sports I find this an astonishing fact. Yet on the park playing for Rovers he is definitely not a stand out specimen for physical ability or prowess. They are all within fractions of a per cent of each other. Drop down to Academy level and you are talking of very very good footballers but they could well be 10% or 20% short of what is needed at Premiership level. Quite apart from whether they have the brain and aptitude to make the leap, they might physically not be blessed with enough base material to be developed into a Premiership footballer. I think this is the case for Donnelly and any number of other highly promising youngsters who slump off the radar when the adult game is being played. Finally, yes there is subjectivity involved in selecting players and I think there are problems around Gary Bowyer at the Rovers Academy although I have no first hand knowledge. But, the Rovers will not be spending £2m+ per year at the Academy without having those youngsters highly scientifically monitored from health, fitness, diet through to Prozone and everything else. Those scientifically derived statistics are probably blocking the advance off youngsters into the Prem first 16 at Rovers as much as at any other club because the kids simply don't come within an acceptable per centage of the senior pros in terms of giving them a go at the top level.

and he fails to qualify on three out of the four criteria

A younger than 30 year old goal every other game man for £8m to £10m on £40K a week? This is my list of potential candidates Rovers should pursue:

There seem to be more concerted rumours on the Chelsea pages that: Bendtner is moving from Arsenal for £12m, and Lulinha is moving from Corinthians fir £8m, and a Ronaldinho deal has been done The Benni story appears to be of the journalistic 2 + 2 variety whereas there are alleged quotes linking Kenyon and Arnesen to each of the above. There is also the 16 year old new Zlatan for £300K.

Being totally objective Newcastle got the result they deserved on Saturday and tonight could easily have lost as well. That said, Saturday and tonight were two cracking matches and the barcodes were extremely effective in disrupting the Arsenal slick passing game. I don't think it is a given (ho ho) that Brum, Wigan and Fulham will be pushovers for the mags- new management and all that.