galacticos…

while Real Madrid were building a totally unbalanced squad of superstars last time round, Barca were busy building a squad. When was the last time Real won La Liga or the Champions' League?

I fear the same may / has already happened at Man City.

Meanwhile I don't give a stuff how Manu do. Nor any of the other primadonna teams. It would be nice to see Burnley & Hull survive in the prem though

MOT

I went to Reading 20+ years ago.

Take wellies. and waterproofs.

nice one Burnley :-)

MOT

Transit

Canmore was lovely for the 5 nights we were there. Weather was changeable but what do you expect at that elevation?

The Drake is still there, although we didn't try it. Lots of new build hotels/apartments going up just off the Bow Valley Trail. Saw an elk walk across the hotel car park – that was the biggest bit of wildlife we saw.

Banff was lovely too, as was Lake Louise, but you know that, eh?

5 nights in Canmore, 2 in Calgary for a wedding, 1 in Kamloops (hot – 39decC), 3 in Vancouver & a long drive back to Lake Louise, making the final hop to Calgary airport for the trip home a nice short one. In hindsight I would've booked the return flight from Vancouver, but I did get to see a lot of a VERY big country on the way back. Loved it. Shame I didn't get to do any cycling. Maybe next trip* :-)

* Sister lives in Peace River, AB. We will be visiting again. Did I mention I liked Vancouver?

quatre-vingt-neuf points :-)

Vancouver was ACE. I could (and WOULD) live there given the chance.
Calgary was a bit dull. Mountains were unbelievable.

BTW I've just got back from a holiday in Canada. You British drivers suck. Sooooo aggressive.

Here's a disturbing observation. I drove from Leeds to Newcastle this weekend up the A1. There was a Ford Ka being driven by someone who could best be described as "possibly french" for no reason other than the driving style.

The car would spend ages in the right hand lane at 68 for most of the journey, regardless of the traffic (or lack of it) in the left hand lane; occasionally a left indicator would come on – usually for something up it's exhaust pipe – followed by 100 metres in the left hand lane. Then it reverted to the overtaking lane, despite the inside lane being empty

This went on for far too long. Sometimes I wish I was a traffic cop. Just sometimes though – I really wouldn't want that job

Our Audi has a setting that just turns the lights on when it gets a bit dark, I presume the above are the same.

don't be so presumptuous.

My BMW has a rotary switch on the dash – off, sidelights, dipped headlights. And the indicators do work.

nothing new here. move along

well I think I would too, in her position :-)

well done Jessica

bangers & mash with onion gravy (earlier)
aussie cabernet sauvignon/merlot
The Wick Effect

busy printing & cutting out CD inserts and burning discs

£350 you say. That rules out Vancouver then

I saw The Meteors once, in Chester.

Someone told me ureaic acid does the trick

yeah, great. Athlete's Foot or Gout, your choice. speaking from experience, I'd take the former any day

**** it man, go. Security will be tighter than a gnat's a*se on the island now, nothing will happen*
Northern Spain occasionally has these hiccups, business goes on pretty much as usual

Two of my four holidays in the last 10 years have been disrupted while I was out on holiday, due to terrorists. 9/11 was one, the "liquid bombs" was the other. In both cases I was nowhere near the scene of the crime (honest ossifer) but it still disrupted my homeward travel plans

* but don't blame me if it does – this is Spain after all

she dies in a hail of bullets

because disk is the american spelling

Are the Taliban in charge of Alton Towers?

I heard/read a story a few years back that a particular religious group wanted to book Alton Towers to themselves for a day. If anyone else wanted to go on that day they were supposed to "dress respectfully"…

I believe it fell apart at the last minute, after the red-tops got hold of the story

what grimy said

I caught a few minutes of this once.

surely a bounty hunter should have hair so short that it can not be used as a weapon against him (or her)?

I've got the G1 & I like it. beware the battery life though if you start going heavy on the internet, music player etc. I suppose one could get into the habit of charging it overnight, every night

Camera's poor though. point & shoot only. but then if you want a decent camera, I suppose you'd buy a decent camera, not a phone

nice

anyway, to all those that are more broken than me, get well soon :-)

I'm sitting in my chalet in morzine with a severely dislocated ankle

did you get that reduced before they let you sit around the chalet with it?

Cos that's what did for my leg, only in my case the Fib fractured as well, just to complicate things

can I join the club?

broke my leg 3 years ago & never really got my mojo back, and I've piled on the weight (even more of it) since – I reckon I need to lose at least 4 stone. The crap summers we've had have not helped.

But I've just returned from a fab non-biking holiday in the Canadian Rockies & I can hear the bike calling me

Jimmy Saville
Harold Wilson
JB Priestley
Joseph Priestley
Kiki Dee
Robert Palmer

all from West Yorkshire

may meet you on that road trip Plum. Calgary tonight & tomorrow night; Kamloops Sunday night; Vancouver for 3 nights, then Lake Louise Thursday night, ready for a short trip back to Calgary Airport & back to sunny England

I'm in Canmore, Alberta, right now on holiday, and while it's lovely right now I think I'd struggle to live here.

The weather at the mo is ver "british" – peeing it down one minute & then the sun comes out & it's 26deg, then it clouds over again – but I suppose that's to be expected here in the mountains

As said above everybody in the shops & cafes are really friendly. It's not cheap – but maybe that's because of the weakness of the pound; petrol is 87-94cents a litre ($1.70ish to the pound) so that's a pleasant surprise – a tankful of gas coming to less than £25.

But the four seasons – Summer, Nearly Winter, Winter and Still Winter might take some getting used to.

My sister emigrated to Edmonton in '82, came back to the UK about 6 years later; within a year she was back in Alberta, and is still here now. In fact she's getting married on Saturday & we're off to the wedding – which is why I'm in Canada in the first place.

father in law has just had a pulmonary embolism (clot on the lung) as a result of an undiagnosed DVT. It nearly killed him.

However, he did survive the PE attack and is now on warfarin; the clot is in his thigh end he is also being given a drug to break down the clot. Do a google search on Pulmonary Embolism, that will tell you (probably more than) everything you need to know.

The fact that she's under treatment means it's a good thing.

All the best

carved timber 2 blade props would more likely be WWI if that's any help

1982 Renault 5 TL :-)
1989 Renault 5 TR :-(
1992 Renault 19 Oasis
1996 Alfa 146 :-)
2002 Alfa 156 :-)
2004 BMW 3 series Touring :-)

right now:

drinking Old Hooky
listening to new demo CD
riding tomorrow? nope, on a plane to Calgary

cheers Burts. that's good to know :-)

I went into Currys to buy some adaptors. Twin packs, "Europe" or "Worldwide". Except the "Worldwide" had one "worldwide" & one "Europe". so if I wanted 2 worldwide adaptors, I would have to buy 2 packs. The Europe ones are superfluous as I already have some of those.
So I went next door into Comet. The only worldwide one they had was a "universal" at £15. Not likely.

So I then went to Argos. 3 USA plug adaptors for less than £7. That's more like it :-)

when they were using Flappit, it was a case of "we know where they are and they're not somewhere else", but sadly I think there have been a couple of deaths or major injuries lately, so the H&S bods got involved.

We were on an evening ride about 2 weeks ago & found some MXers in the woods at the bottom of Shipley Glen. Not sure if it's related, or more to the proximity of the local estate…

I'd rather they were up at Flappit TBH

on drums – me (of course)
on geeetar – blutac
on bass, vocals & t'other guitar – Shaun

It's a crap thing, this lack of a rhythm to the week. Every day is the same and you can never escape the noise of pointless activity.

have you never worshipped at the Saturday altar of commercial bladder chasing? There is a rhythm to the week, outside the Barclays FA Premiership.

"When Saturday Comes", I think it goes…

ok I'll take my tongue out of my cheek now, but millions of people do exactly that

I think I just spotted a 19yo me right down the front, right at the start, in front of JS. Black hair, black jacket with a splash of white on the back

[edit]sorry, on the Tube footage (ai caramba)

FKING great – let's hope that's backed up with a massive tour.

they're always on tour somewhere. September this year is North America, October & November Europe; more in spring.