Most pubs around the ground are fine, even if your wearing colours. Many MBers head for The Arkles (with the away end turnstiles behind you, turn right, it's about 500 yards away) but it's normally rammed solid. My favourite is The Sandon (turn right at The Arkles, head through the houses, look for a petrol station, it behind that), a huge, mutli-room place.

.... and at a guess, how much of that 1.12% is you Lee (I know I used to be pleased with the number of linux based visitors this site got .... until I filtered out my own IP).

Firstly, I like many others will not be attending becuase I feel the event won't justify the cost. However, I'd got to take all those "protesting" by "boycotting" to task ? Are your actually protesting or are you simply not attending because of the price, which is fair enough, but doesn't constitute a protest. Likewise if you only attend three or four away games a season, and even then miss some "cheaper" ones, you're hardly boycotting this one. The question to ask yourself. If I laid on free transport from Ewood to the gate of Stamford Bridge, would you travel and then protest with me outside the ground or would you spend the morning in B&Q and then listen to it on Radio Lancashire ? Choosing not to go because of the cost is one thing, claiming you're not going out of protest is another.

Because none of the intrested parties thought it was a viable enough option to put money in.

Actually I think the club would happily turn a blind eye. When I've tried to purchase tickets for matchday "special events" at Rovers (which include tickets) I've asked about a reduction because they can resell my ST seat and I've been told "nope, can't you sell your seat on to a friend."

Oldham used to have a player called Lord-Kangana N'Diwa

One minor, but I felt significant, sign I noticed from OT at the weekend was the non-presence of the traditional fan-made banners from the Stretford End (on the front of the top tier). I don't know if this is club inititive or wether the banners now adorn FC of Manchester, but the Stretford end without the X number of games since City beat United and "Republic of Mancunia" etc looked very odd.

A bunch of us are planning on doing the same too.

One heading towards Manchester ? To be honest I don't pre-book Leeds->Manchester as it's no cheaper. However, this time I'll make sure I'm on the Picadilly train, not the Victoria one. The Smurf is on a hen-night the night before, so I have a feeling how early the train is will depend on how bad she feels

I thought I was going to miss kick-off. I left Leeds at 5:30 and pulled onto the Albion Mill Car Park at 7:50 ! I couldn't believe the huge queue outside the BBE ticket office at 5 to 8 though.

... which is why <insert deity here> created Sky+ Seriously though, I'm knackered enough already. ET & pens would NOT go down well.

We tend to do Deansgate as pubs closer to the ground don't tend to be away friendly (and to be fair, a lot of places around Deansgate won't let you in wearing colours anyway).

I've been told (I don't know if I should have been, so I won't say by who) that so far we've sold around 8,000.

Huddersfield are only taking 2500 acording to a Town fan the Smurf works with.

He knows and whilst he has been guilty of breaking the guidlines he's supposed to enforce, as far as I'm aware he (or any other more) has never made use of the extra mod features just to win an argument.

I'd like to finish my wasted lunch hour by not pulling this bit apart. If the delay wasn't intentional, then a whole chain of folks screwed up big time. As for the politics of it ..... that's not something I feel is needed for discussion now, however I've not seen anything to convince me that if Gore, Kerry or even Ralph Nader had been in power, things would have been any different.

Every day, 10,000+ dead, several 100,00 made homeless ? No I don't. Sure, I'll be the first to acknowledge that US owned companies things are doing some appauling thing in countries they can get away with it in (Coca-Cola turning farmlands in India in deserts through water extraction and executing union leaders in Mexico is something I've campaigned against). But, no you don't see this scale of deverstaion every day. As for looting, there was a fine line between survival and opertunism and many crossed that line. However I doubt that those loading dozens of pairs of Reeboks into trolleys in Walmart did so as a statement against capitalism. They did it because they are theiving scum.

I don't know if you're being serious or not Don, assuming you are, then why the hell not. I used to have an alias I'd rant under, but I figured if I can't join in there is no point me being here. I would however be worried if people responded differently (or didn't respond at all) because I'm Admin. Likewise it would be out of order if I used the admin privs to my advantage in a discussion (i.e. edit/remove posts when it suited).

Speak for yourself. I was hoping more minimal devastation too. I don't get my jollies from watching people periously close to the poverty line loose everything they have. ALL government property is far from fine, the stuff located in the Central Business District if more or less fine, but that is an accident of geography not conspiracy theories. As for tourist attractions (and as someone who has never visited NO), other than boubon street what were they ? Any A-Level geography student (or Sim City player) will tell you they dangerous or undesiable land results in cheap housing, therefore it was a given that any impending fire, flood, or nuclear disaster will always hit low cost housing worse (because the folks that can afford to live elsewhere do). No where else in the world is any different.

I'm struggling with this one. Is your point that American press is influenced by outside sources ? If so, then I whole heatedly agree. Certainly the Internet was a powerfull tool in this disaster, just and the worlds press was concentrating on Biloxi and saying "New Orleans escaped the worst", it was plainly obvious to anyone reading the right places this was far from the truth. It very "National Enquirer" but These Guys are worth a look. Ceratinly, over the last few years I've learnt to view CNN/FOX etc with a healthy dose of sceptacism. If your point is that part of American have a huge rich/poor and black/white divide, then it's hard to argue. However to tar the entire popular of the country with the same brush is moronic.

How can you say a single death is deserved ? Let alone 10,00 plus. This is a completely outragous statement. Did the German citizens killed by the allies in WW II "deserve it" ? After all, they voted a madman into power, just as the US did (as despite my misgiving about Bush, I'd would still class Hitler a bigger problem).

Before I tear the rest of that apart, can I just point out this is grossely incorrect (and has been sensationalised by many bloggers already). Halliburton have been CALLED IN (not given a new contract) to repair the NAVY BASE (not all of NOLA) under and EXISTING CONTRACT for such maintainence signed in 2001 (renewed in 2004). So, no big conspiracy here. In fact, even the distinctly anti-halliburton guys at Halliburton Watch give a more accuarte account the most of the net. http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/news/hurricane_katrina.html

No, it's because adding an entry to poll part way through generates dozens of "Hey, I want to vote differently" posts, which is nearly impossible to do, it's easier just to do another poll. I actually think this would have been a good one to include (personally, I feel it may have helped you realise what a minority you are in, but I could be wrong), but sadly it wasn't thought of when the poll was created.

May I suggest you go back an re-read my posts then. I have done little for over a week with my spare time other than try to raise awareness of the suffering that was going on (both on UK forums like this and through a bit of helping with scanner/cam transcribing and posting info to www.nola-intel.com). Sure, I've ranted about the bureucracy that has prolonged the suffering, but I don't think that is Anti-American.

My point is "America" does have enough money, but how much of it will filter down to those that need it ? Also, two people died in the Carlisle flood, NOLA could reach tens of thousands !