I think that's beyond the council ;-)

JOKING!

the late film producer Derek Jarman lived in the area for many years

what did he die of?

right. I'm off to BC. Any IT jobs in Vancouver?

all will be equal and live with the dignity they deserve

I wish. Sadly this f*cking country is too full of "me me me" types for that to ever work.

apparently socialist

there you have it in a nutshell, S&J

hey Neil – I think you're not far off the truth, and it can only be a bad thing for the bin men (and any other service that LCC – or any other council – decides to privatise later).

Can you honestly see Acme Refuse Inc paying more for the job than the council were / are hoping to reduce their wages to? I can't.

Imagine you're a bin man with 25 years experience, and no experience of doing anything else. Leeds City Council privatise the refuse service, Acme win the tender. Acme have no staff with experience. The former employees of LCC are now unemployed & have no way – especially in a recession – of getting a job doing anything else. Acme write to the (now unemployed) bin men offering 80% of what they would have been on at LCC if they accepted the pay cut.

Take a job, any job, or sit on the dole, lose your house etc etc?

Rock & a hard place, poor bast*rds

speaking of skulls, I need to do a NMD ride soon…might even drag Shaun along

what we need to sort issues like this out is the support from all sections of the community – bosses threaten to cut refuse workers pay etc. workers strike and communities mobilise bosses get the message

didn't the witch make that illegal?

I remember walking through Wakey at 5am one morning in '84, past the back of my old school, and seeing the convoys of black marias setting off from the police college on Westfield Road(?) towards the mines.

"two nations under one flag, divided more & more, in our own sweet green and pleasant land, in 1984" – NMA "1984"

can you be a bit more specific?

for example – what instruments? tempo? rhythm?

stAn – I couldn't agree more with you – sorry but I didn't press the sarcasm button hard enough.
This is what LCC are doing – you only have to listen to Radio Leeds of a morning. The poor sods who do the sh*tty job are shagged left right & centre.

I think (nay, know) the vast majority of Leeds residents are with the binmen on this one, but they're well & truly ****. Take a pay cut or else…

the absolutely soul destroying bright fluorescent lighting is not reserved for antipodean ale houses.

nooooo.

There's at least one of these in Bratfud, The Waggon & Horses in Thornbury, for which I had the pleasure of spending one season warming the substitutes' bench in the vain hope of getting a game of footie. Food? "well we sell crisps". Beer? "Tetleys or Tetleys?"

But having said that, The High Flyer across the road was even worse. Thankfully now gone – or at least closed as it has no roof…

It's only frequencies that have been shifted to help Ch5

funny that. Before I retuned I (think I) had Ch5. Can't find it now though.

But do I care? I don't think I've ever watched anything other than footie on Ch5. And even then Jonathan Pearce gets on my nerves…

so, IMO, no great loss. Besides, I have SkyHD so anything I can't get on Freeview I'm already paying for – and able to see – anyway

Vesuvius will blow, and quite soon, if previous history is anything to go by. Depend if it's a dribble like it was in 1944, or a proper Plinian eruption like in 78AD.

either way, I wouldn't fancy being on holiday in say Amalfi, or Sorrento, at the time. Can you imagine the traffic?

sod the military. Let's get some contract binmen in & use the wages we're not paying the strikers, to pay for it.

Oh and BTW, the whole refuse service is up for tender in November. Do we think the in-house bid stands a chance? No? neither do Leeds City Council. "The in-house bid is shot" was the phrase they used…

Thank the lords of refuse I live in Bradford district ;-)

Migraleve pink tablets work for me if I take them at the very onset of the visual disturbance. If I wait untikl the aura appears (that's a pretty good artist's imptression btw) then I'm fubar' for the rest of the day

and finally from me, may I blow my own (20 year old) trumpet?

Night Of The Living Dead or The Bogeyman by Seven Dead Americans. NOTLD can be found here: http://www.myspace.com/johnhoomusic

and you could camp it up with pretty much anything from The Rocky Horror Show

and while we're on with The Damned:

Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde; Twisted Nerve; 13th Floor Vendetta & Curtain Call, all from The Black Album

Claudia (The Dog) – from Strawberries

or how about The Meteors:

My Daddy Is A Vampire; Graveyard Stomp; Mutant Rock; The Hills Have Eyes; Night of The Werewolf – and many more in that vein

New Model Army – Green & Grey

PD – you're not thinking of New Rose are you?

not 'rock' in the sense of the above, but this one gets me every time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aaLr1FLgj0

Let's hope you don't get the howling gale and rain off the Irish Sea that we got last year

Neither of my debit cards worked in Canada earlier this year. Credit cards were fine though. Except at gas stations…

pampas grass in the front garden, apparently

and no that is not a euphemism ;-)

ay caramba!

that's soooo not necessary

My sister went to school with Carmen Gentle

and we had a Randy Rogers in our Tampa office until quite recently

yeah, AFAIK flickr has always* been part of Yahoo, so you need to sign up to a Yahoo email account to use Yahoo

* as long as I've been using it anyway

Today it's left over lasagne wot mrs_drummer made. Plus a yoghurt & some fruit

I spent 7 weeks in plaster from below the knee to toes on my left leg, following a fracture-dislocation.

Stairs are a pain in the ar$e when on crutches. Cars with manual gearbox are also a PITA.

Ditto the advice about the rubber things on the bottom of the crutches.

If the loo is upstairs and your mum is downstairs for the best part of the day, that will be a problem. If the house is elevated from the roadside, that will also be a problem for getting out & about – but it can be done

one other thing – when the cast comes off, anything painted with the yellow goo they use before surgery will flake off in a BIG way. Think of the old (sick) gag about the leper in the cinema with a bag of crisps…

no, that about sums it up

All the best Mark & Meg. I can't add to what has already been written, so I won't try.

but if you want a band at your stag do, let me know

kilometres? When did the roads go metric?

yeah, I went into Aldi earlier & they were putting out the Mince Pies.

I bet the sell-by date is November…

Autumn Equinox & we're already preparing for the Winter Solstice :-(

So what's everybody getting for Xmas?
a couple of satsumas & some socks/boxer shorts, probably

and a #1 single would be nice :-) but I can dream

Never had bread & butter pudding

A couple of years ago I called in at Duxford on my way home from one of our factories. Did the museum tour, and as I came out of the American Museum, I saw a glint of light over the big hangar.

It was a 2 seater Spit and it proceeded to do the full airshow workout, just for me :-)

Well it was probably practicing actually, but it felt like it was just for me :-)

Bradford at that time was a great place to be NMA, 3 Johns, The Southern Death Cult, Skeletal Family, The 1 in 12 club.

Not forgetting the Manhattan Club (near BCFC), the Bierkellar and The Spotted House

oh yeah.

And close enough to Leeds to go see the posers in cowboy hats if you felt the need ;-)
But in the mid-late 80s Bradford Uni was very big on the college tour scene – just about everybody played there.

I even saw The Housemartins just after Happy Hour went to No1 but they'd been booked months earlier as a "local" band so it was free to get in :-)

I played at the 1 in 12 a few times between 82 & 90; also did a lot of gigs at the Queens Hall cellar bar & the Uni. Supported (among others) NMA, Psychosurgeons (a few times – RIP Willi), Chumbawamba, UK Subs, Dr & The Medics…

I once went to Amsterdam in my clogs.

We found a bar called "you can't dance in wooden shoes", so I had to prove them wrong ;-)

no idea where my wooden shoes are now though

anyway, back on topic. The new album is very good, heavier sound than previous, but I guess that's down to Marshall (the new guitar player, not the amplifiers). I love the reworking of Ocean Rising especially

Always a good night out.

Get 'f*ck Texas…' for a flavour of what they're like live these days.
It was recorded on the last Europe/N.America tour

scary man is still there. Stuart quit in '85 & Rob died in 2004. but I think you know that & are just trolling ;-)

only 6 UK dates in November – I might do Manchester or Gateshead. More to follow in the spring of 2010, apparently :-)

I've played it twice now, but just been listening to Carnival in the car.

not a "nice" thing to do but I believe Auschwitz-Birkenau is not far away. "Lest we forget"

"climbs like a homesick angel"