Roman

Excluding misfits, madmen, trolls and toffs?

No, I don't do ****gy dog stories. EDIT: Alright then, sh(a)ggy dog stories...

Apparently I can volunteer to vote on foreign language films too so long as I absolutely promise to watch some. Will look at Orphanage - but I bet it will find it tough to beat off The Baader-Meinhoff Complex (by the producer who did Downfall). There's a special rule prohibiting any voting 'for all or any films containing the title "Sister Act", wherever they may be made, thoughout the universe, in perpetuity.' Can't imagine why. Dark Knight plays well with BAFTA people because they like to imagine it's a British film - so has a shot, although I would think it would clean up in the specialist categories (best director, actor, sfx, etc.). Now that the BAFTAs precede the Oscars in the awards calendar, there's a kind of pressure to pre-empt them - so I'd expect a more 'worthy' film to win Best Picture. Still a good movie though...

You're right of course, but only because of the utter dimwittedness and desperation of this little adventure embaked upon by L & W. Lowe appears to be an astute boardroom tactician with the social graces of a komodo dragon. However, he is what he is - and wouldn't be there at all but for what seems to be the reckless and panic-driven acquiescence of man-of-the-fans Wilde.

PIA would definitely cure anyone's fear of flying. Survive them and you can survive anything. It's the flying equivalent of those repulsive tasks they get to do on Get Me Out of Here, I'm a Celeb. Oh, and +1 on the going to Aus at any cost.

They would have to invent a new, super-powerful, detect-anything radar for him to fall off it.

…I give up. What is it? I’ve missed most of this year’s movies because I’ve been away in strange, exotic, slightly alarming places making some disposable TV. My problem is I’m a film-voting member of BAFTA and I’m supposed to give my ‘informed’ view at the end of the year. What I have managed to see has been mostly tosh. (Worst film by far is a worthy piece of utter crap called Blindness) The best I’ve seen is either Batman or Hellboy 2 – and no comic book franchise is ever going to win, so it would be a wasted vote. I suspect the ‘best’ films are still to come in the next few weeks – especially Frost/Nixon. Anyone seen anything they think is really great? I can probably get a screener DVD if I’ve missed something.

Well done and well said, St J.

So that just about sums it up really. This is not takeover thread - and the rumours of a takeover are so old and unreliable they're turned to dust. I've just spent a small fortune (which I could have invested in some desirable Southampton shares) on a dial-up from the wilds of Pakistan, only to discover that everyone here has been reading too much James Joyce. Thanks v. much.

Any relation to Kelvin?

So we all had a vote and told him to go? And since I don't recall his ever been in the dugout, how would he know how 'we' felt? A few messageboard moans?

What I love about the importation of the D0F role from Europe, and shunting the manager down to 'coach', is that we bring in the IDEA but graft on an English disease. Official 'laughing stock' award winners Tottenham and Newcastle both managed to bring in layers of questionable DoF and other bureaucratic bobbins - and managed to buy players the 'coach' couldn't make head or tails of, and sell the best ones. Ramos's baffled expression (and he's supposedly used to it!) and Keegan's apoplectic rage speak volumes. And it's all done with that national characteristic - the failure of anyone to talk to anyone else! Result: pure comedy.

So we've got hockey and rugby covered. What else is there? Oh, yes - football!

You mean a DoH. (Apologies to Homer.)

Excellent post, Um. The criticism that it was under Crouch's effective watch that the wages bill ran riot is plainly absurd.

Never mind. My guess is he missed a gear change because he couldn't bend his right arm.

I doubt I'm in that much of a minority here in thinking of Weston as a trusted and valued poster. Whatever the rights or wrongs of the SOS affair, it demonstrated how lethally poisonous have been the politics within the boardroom and among the powers that be. The only conclusion you can reasonably draw from the affair is: you parlay with these characters at your peril. SOS merely demonstrated how utterly powerless we are in the face of some self-obsessed geniuses breezing through executive offices of the club. If you want to point the finger, I'd start with Wilde, whose role in the downward spiral of the club has been, in my opinion, far more destructive than anything the 'revolutionary' Lowe could concoct.

Interesting, Um. I thought it was clear to pretty much everyone towards the end of last season that one of Pearson's achievements - whatever you think of his supposed successes or failures with results - was to get the coaches of the first team, the reserves and the Academy thinking and planning together. Could it be - whisper it - that Lowe nicked the idea? Either way, the course we're embarked on now was set out at least to some extent by Pearson last season. I hardly think he'd have billed at as a 'revolution', though. I would credit him with more honesty than that.

Not one to be persnickety, but I think you mean 'redandwhite-ibility'.

Well, NP did, so let's see if JP can. i certainly hope so. And your evidence for NP's bullying is that Surman didn't have such a great run-in to the end of the season?! Sheesh... FYI, Sundance, I am no longer going to sub your posts for you. There's only so much help I can give you.

You have any evidence whatsoever that NP was a 'bully'? And I'd drop the sneering, bully-ish 'bootboy' tag, if I were you - just in case you don't want to look too foolish. (Might want to consider the childish name-calling with 'McEnemy' etc while you're at it. It makes you sound like a character who never graduated from stealing lunch money in the playground) I don't particularly see any point in harping on about Pearson's leaving. But it seems a spectacularly myopic interpretation of his time here to deny flat out that he had anything to do with keeping us in this division. As the old saying about lies, damned lies and statistics goes, to simply quote his win/loss record misses a HUGE point - that the team was in freefall from the last bewildering games under Burley, through the desperate weeks with Dodd/Gorman. It seemed like everyone had simply given up. I remember saying at the time - as did quite a few others - that if Pearson pulls us out of the mire, it would be a hell of an achievement. Both JP and NP will be measured by their success or lack of it. So let's get to the end of the season and see who was right. To jump in now with your 'ray of light' nonsense is both predictable and feeble. As a judge in this particular talent contest, you do seem somewhat comically to believe that you can decide the winner in the first auditions.

The term comes from a piece of troll-art by our odd little friend scooby, who regards this forum as his 'installation'. He doesn't actually believe it, but he's succeeded because it's seeped into the consciousness of many on here.

Well I can't say that either (my son will kill me), so +1.

Doubly annoying for poor old Sundance then, because he thought he had a genuine ally.

Iiiiiitttt'sssss W E D N E S D A Y !!! *apologies to Jack Nicholson* Today is the day the Lords, flatcaps, dutch duo and insects are finally banished, and a new glorious era begins under infallible leadership of Alan Shearer. Fulthorpe ahead! Right?