Article here on Hughes at the PFA website Recent form would suggest Hughes and Blackburn can make a significant improvement on last season's finish

OK, how about this one? Which eight cities (and I think this is right) have had more than one team in the top flight? They don't have to have been in the top flight at the same time. Oh...and name the teams too. Try to do it without Googling.

Former Rovers player and Accrington lad Mike Duxbury by any chance?

Andy Payton, where else would he hide when the plod come calling? Good to see Rovers winning three in a row, is this the first time since Stead was on fire eighteen months or so ago? Annoying though that just as we are running into good form we are interrupted by the internationals.

Quite true, some people on here keep saying that Kuqi isn't a 'Premiership striker' but even if he isn't he would still be a better Championship player than Stead. Stead got lucky, had a good scoring run for a few months and ever since we keep saying he is being unlucky. Let's be honest...you need some serious amount of bad luck not to be able to make it into the current Sunderland starting XI.

To be honest I thought this policy had begun under the Conservative government so I hadn't thought of it that way. Prescott took the class war a bit too literally by smacking a farmer one, certainly brightened up an otherwise very dull election in 2001.

Isn't he out of contract at the end of the season? No wonder he'd like to leave and get a nice new long contract somewhere else. Maybe Man Utd and Arsenal will be sniffing around him this time like they allegedly (haha!) were last time.

After the Lord Mayor's Show... This has to be a draw (or even a loss!). It's happened so many times in the past that Rovers have followed up a great result against a top team with a poor display against an average side that it simply isn't funny anymore. Actually, it never was funny in the first place. Just typical Rovers! I'll go for 1-1 while hoping instead that we do manage two wins on the trot. When was the last time we won two league games in a row? Did we do it last season?

Finally read Dan Brown's 'The Da Vinci Code' and must say I preferred his other novel, 'Angels and Demons'. The latter book seems to have some slightly less convoluted codes to break or maybe I'm just getting a bit weary of his writing style. There are only so many cliffhanger chapter endings I can put up with to be honest. Still, I devoured it in pretty quick time so it certainly did the job. Other than that read "All Quiet on the Orient Express', a very understated tale of guy in a British holiday resort who sometimes becomes embroiled in the local community despite wanting to bugger off pretty quick sharp and catch the train of the title. The authour, Magnus Mills, was a London cabbie until a few years ago before his first book was nominated for a Booker. A nice tale but a bit too lacking in any excitement for me, also not up to the standard of the first one. Maybe of interest to any who particularly the very understated, very British-style of quirkiness/humour that can be taken for eccentricity. Seems to remind me slightly of Last of the Summer Wine/Heartbeat/Born and Bred, those type of English country pubs and tea places kind of scenes albeit with a bit of a darker heart than those. All in all though, preferred the airport-Lit of Dan Brown. A thriller with some rather interesting (sometimes of dubious accuracy) history thrown in to.

Actually I was in Kowloon for a couple of days last month. Everywhere I looked I saw masses of people on the streets and not only was it ridiculously hot but there was a real downpour as well. You can soaked wet just crossing the street in the rainy season. The island of Hong Kong is like that as well, just masses and masses of people with high-rise buildings being the norm. If this is the future of English cities then they have lot to be hesitant about. The urbanisation of the global population keeps going on at a fast pace and the pollution will get worse and worse. It's unlikely to happen in England really as we like living in the suburbs too much but that brings its own problems. The English countryside is famed the world over but if we aren't careful we will lose a lot of it to make way for more Barret homes and mock-tudor houses.

Whoops! double post

Yes but a lot of that is there down to being massive provinces in the west of the country (Xinjian, Inner Mongolia and Tibet) which generally have a population density of little more than half a yak per square mile. Eddie is correct - The major Chinese cities (and there are loads of over 1 million population) are far more crowded than anything in Britain. Having lived in London, I can assure you that the scale of overcrowding there is nothing compared to the really big Chinese cities, like Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hong Kong. There are so many people there that going far is tiring and walking around can be a hassle. Indian cities are supposed to be even more crowded though. It's a bit like Britain though...the south east is ridiculously overcrowded yet parts of Scotland, Wales and even parts of Northern England are deserted. The problem the UK faces from immigration is that most people want to live in the richer areas (just like in China, India, anywhere in the world really) meaning that the south east is just becoming one huge, sprawling metropolis which will swallow up all the countryside if the government isn't careful where to build all those new houses they keep telling us we need. Not too sure why neglected urban areas can't be renevated instead more personally. Maybe more problematic than just building on a flat greenfield site but surely of more benefit to the enviroment and local community than having yet more commuters in what was once countryside.

McEveley goes back to Turf Moor tonight to the club playing for his current loan club at his former loan club. Be nice if he pops up late on with the winner...

Think it was knocked back to Amo and not so not a goal directly from a free kick.

Cheers Ozzie...

Eh?? When did Garner ever play Man U?

Two Rovers to face each other today as Jay McEveley's Ipswich travel to play Jonathon Douglas' Leeds United. In other games Plymouth (with Matt Derbyshire) travel to Southampton which isn't that far to travel and Stoke, with Gallagher in goalscoring form recently, host Glenn Hoddle's Wolves side.

Wow! After being criticised for charging too much for their Champions League games Chelsea have decided to refund 187,500pounds worth of gate receipts to their season ticket holders. Admittedly they have to KEEP buying tickets to get the refund (more like a future discount then) but at least they are acknowledging their shockingly high prices. True they can afford it...but they could just have ignored the complaints like usually happens. Alright, it's not much but hopefully it is just the start...one day the working man may once again be able to afford to go and watch the "working man's game". Chelsea pledge ticket refund to fans of 187,500 pounds

True...but it was ultimately Jack who pulled the plug on the deal, explaining the reasons personally by allowing himself to be interviewed on TV and I've heard (which may be unfounded) that Dalglish wasn't too happy about it. Jack's money to do with as he wishes and he was proved right when we later brought in the likes of Batty. Always thought that was the first breach in their previously perfect working relationship but it might just have been gossip.

I'd say Geoff Thomas as he wasn't the best but...Dalglish wanted him, Jack refused to pay their asking price and unfortunately it seemed the first breach (however small) in their working relationship. I'd have accepted a crappy Geoff Thomas if it'd meant keeping Dalgish interested enough for another season or two.

It only applies to the Han Chinese majority who make up 95% of the country. The exceptions are the ethnic minorities. To be honest though...farmers often get away with it as they need larger families as do the rich who can have their kids born in Hong Kong (or wherever abroad) and thus they don't count. By the way...I'd have said birth control would be an authoritarian act not facist as such. Similar words but also a wee bit different. Left/right, both are authoritarian when taken to extremes. To be honest with China currently officially estimated as having 1.3billion but in all likelihood being somewhere around 1.6billion it's no surprise they retain the one-child policy. I've talked to many Chinese about it and most think it's a good thing as there are simply too many people.

Not totally sure but I think he may have scored in all four divisions as well in the one season.

I'd say it was pretty unlucky to be in a road accident! Certainly I've never thought of as those who find themselves in a coma as lucky! However...I wasn't referring to that at all. The "unluckiness" I mentioned was being called up to the England squad, getting injured/ill and then not getting back near the England squad again.

Quite right. Bellamy is no target man so why punt long balls up to him? Reid isn't a winger so if we play him on the right then really in essence we are playing with four (?) central midfielders, albeit one playing more like an old-fashioned Inside Right. As for the game itself...did Hughes smash a mirror AND run over a black cat on the way to the game? Unfortunately it shows how a couple of good strikers always gives you a chance.

It's true, after Hughes took Wales to an excellent position at the top of their qualifying group the other teams worked them out and their one-dimensional approach failed them. Hughes was blamed as having no Plan B and played a 4-5-1 with Hartson as the man alone up front in the vital match at home against Russia, this despite having Earnshaw on the bench. The midfield could rarely get close enough to Hartson and so knocked long balls up to him. Admittedly Earnshaw did come on but many Wales fans believe Hughes must shoulder plenty of the blame for blowing their best chance of qualification for a decade. We've seen Hughes can get us to play negative football but does he have a Plan B? 4-5-1 at home to a team below you? Newcastle may only have had three chances but at least they were good chances. We didn't have many. It's early in the season but still there are some worries. On the plus side however we have a better side and squad than last year. Just need more positivity, especially at homes against poor sides that are there for the taking.