Hope Blue Phil and Gordon don't read this page. I've got two books on the go at the moment, The Modern history of Hong Kong by Steven Tseung and A history of Modern Britain by Andrew Marr. Both are interesting, and readable history books, and both are worth buying if thats your sort of thing.

I thought Sin City took itself too seriously, and everyone in it was trying too hard to be cool. The whole black and white cartoon thing was brilliant though. I'd put it in the same group as both Kill Bill films and the Matrix sequels-great to look at, but too much navel gazing and unecessary claptrap. I like my violent action films to be like Die Hard or Battle Royale-more fights, less postuering and philosophy.

I've just used a christmas amazon voucher to buy The Dark Knight and The Lives of Others.

So the Spirit is as overhyped as the frankly rubbish Sin City?

If Benni carries on the form he's shown last Saturda, i'll almost be like having a new striker.

Keep it up Benni!

I read what you are saying Waggy. I was with you when we greeted Paul Ince and spoke of our hopes following his appointment as Manager.

It all seemed to be going so well at first. Rumours came out of Brockhall but we dismissed them as just rumours, and there was constant denial that anything was wrong.

The first result at Everton seemed to seal the matter. An excellent three points. Then doubts began to set in. I baulked at the signing of Robbie Fowler, a man I have little time for. I was willing to give Andrews and Robinson a chance, and I felt that Ince was not to directly blame for Friedel and Bentley leaving - although Friedel's departure nearly broke my heart - there was something about seeing Big Brad between the sticks that seemed to epitomise what Rovers were about and I missed him badly. Players were played in strange positions and the excuse was that injuries left the Guv'nor with no choice. Goals against us began to escalate, but the fans stood steadfastly behind the team and sang their hearts out at matches. However, it began to dawn on some that there was indeed something very wrong happening. Lack lustre performances, still more goals, and Rovers began to slip down to the bottom of the League Table. Eventually enough was enough, and John Williams and the Board had no choice but to act in the hope that our Premier League status might be preserved.

In the summer I hoped for Ten Cate, I did NOT want Sam Allardyce for many reasons which were stated on another thread. However, having supported Paul Ince and hoped that the rumours were wrong, despair began to overcome me as the half season approached. We seemed unable to get even a point, there was little leadership from the touchline and substitutions became even more bizarre. Towards the end, as Paul looked close to tears, I did shed a few myself. I feel sorry for Paul as the dream shattered, but it wasn't just his dream, it was the dream of several thousand loyal fans. Paul, I wish you every success in the future, but you have to work and prepare just as much if not more in the Premier League as elsewhere, a squad of Premiership players, talented as they may be, cannot run themselves.

Now to Big Sam. He ruled himself out of the running in the summer, fair enough. I was glad. I saw him around on tv, and at Rovers occasionally watching the matches from the stands. There was suddenly a decision to be made. Rovers were managerless at a crucial point in the season. Should it be Souness to return as the Saviour? I wasn't sure. I love the guy and thoroughly enjoyed his tenure at Rovers until things began to go wrong and it was quite a relief when he went to Newcastle. The fitness of the squad was a worry at that time and I didn't want that history to repeat itself. I looked at Sam's record, particularly his years at Bolton and there was no doubt that he had done rather well there. However, there was still the question of brown envelopes - although, I reasoned, nothing had ever been proved. There was the alleged long ball football - well, looking at some of the stuff we had been serving up recently, a long ball with someone on the end of it actually scoring a goalbegan to look rather enticing.

And so, Big Sam came to Rovers. The delight of the man as his appointment was announced enthused me. I had seen many smiles from Paul Ince, but this was something different. The Press Conference was refreshing in that the Big Man made it quite clear what he was about and I began to warm to him. I now find myself looking forward to matches once more - and even if we do have the misfortune to go down I feel quite clearly that Sam is the man who will get us back to the Premiership again, a feeling I did not have with Paul Ince.

Waggy, most of us were very sorry that things did not pan out for Paul. However, he is young, the experience will be good for him and he will learn from it.

Things were happening that could not be allowed to continue and the Board had no choice.

Please don't give up on your Rovers because of this. You love the club, and it is the club you support. If that is not the case, and it is Paul Ince that you support, then no doubt you will be able to follow your football at his next club. I don't believe that is the case though and I hope you will reconsider your position and join us as we support our new Manager and enjoy the ride ahead.

Pretty much sums up what I think. Well put.

Terminator is going the same way as all those 80's horror films like Hellraiser and Nightmare on Elm Street. A good, but dated original being swamped by 200 increasingly rubbish sequels, spin off TV shows and so on.

Is it the original line up? They were coming and going over the last few years, so I am not surprised that they ceased to exist for a bit. Hope they do come back as I'm sick of the bum gravy that is on Channel 4 and the other music channels. It's so overplayed and middle of the road.

The Human League are OK. Not sure about the others. Better than Nickelback by miles though.

Four players arrested over shocking gay sex attack in the showers

It's been reported that four players at a Coca-Cola League One club have been arrested after a depraved sex gang attack on a youth team player in the showers.

Initial horseplay in the showers apparently turned sinister when the players allegedly pinned the 17-year-old lad against a shower wall and forcibly inserted an object into the quivering lad's anus.

The youth team player was treated in hospital for his anal injuries on Tuesday afternoon and is reported to be highly distressed by the shocking and outrageous sex attack.

The League One club - which cannot be named for legal reasons - have said in a statement: "We are aware there has been an alleged incident. We will assist and communicate with the relevant authorities."

Three of the four arrested players have been released on police bail until next month.

Link: Shocking sex attack in the showers

I wish someone would pull the big stick out of your quivering anus.

I know what you mean. Part of me wants to walk up to them and shoot them in the foot and say "There! now you have something to roll about for"

With the way Rovers are playing, the local dealers must be making a booming business!

There is talk that Will Smith and Steven Spielberg might make a US version of crazy Korean kidnap film Oldboy. I think President-elect Obama should move to stop this as it'll suck so much it hurts.

Vile Rooney hell-bent on becoming a pariah in Merseyside...

What a sickening provocative gesture it was. On his former ground of Goodison Park last week Wayne Rooney showed his absolute contempt not only for Everton fans but also for people throughout Merseyside as a whole.

To me the disgusting inflammatory gesture seems to sum up this shaven-headed lout. He knew that kissing the United badge whilst on Merseyside was the one gesture guaranteed to be like a red rag to a bull for the scousers.

Both Liverpool and Everton fans understandably despise United. Everton supporters remember the incident in 2005 when the disgusting Gary Neville was sent off at Goodison Park and went on to wind a young schoolboy in the chest by stupidly belting the ball into the crowd.

"Once a blue, always a blue," said Rooney when he was younger. How false that statement turned out to be. Rooney has shown that he treats his fellow scousers with complete contempt. Indeed a couple of years ago it was reported that Rooney joined in with Man United fans at a pub singing an infamous anti-scouser song: "Build a bonfire, build a bonfire, put the scousers on the top, put the city in the middle and burn the f_____g lot".

That's what Rooney seems to think of his fellow scousers. He thinks it's funny to put them on a bonfire and kill them. His repulsive provocative gesture last week has certainly lit the flames of anger on Merseyside and I fully understand the disgust and acrimony that scousers now feel at the way in which Rooney has betrayed the city of Liverpool.

Could you imagine the Red Manc Gary Neville joining Liverpool and then kissing the Liverpool badge at Old Trafford ? That is the equivalent of what Wayne Rooney has done and he should be utterly ashamed of himself.

Rooney previously angered and upset the city of Liverpool by giving an exclusive interview to The Sun newspaper - a paper reviled on Merseyside for their coverage of the Hillsborough disaster. Rooney doesn't seem to understand or appreciate the distress and anger that his selfish actions have on people.

It's been reported today that Rooney has been cautioned by police for spitting at a photographer as he left a restaurant. Rooney received a caution for common assault for the incident in Oxford Street, London in July.

This is a man who along with his chavette wife Colleen, was happy to sell pictures of their wedding to 'OK' magazine for £2.5million in the summer and they are also reported to have signed an additional deal, worth another £2.5million, for the first pictures of their first child. They haven't yet had a baby but already both of them are looking to cash in by getting a lucrative deal in place to sell pictures of their first baby.

And yet despite being perfectly happy to flog his wedding pictures and forthcoming baby pictures for millions of pounds, the disgusting Wayne thinks that he can go round spitting on photographers in the street. That to me shows the type of character Rooney is. He's a loathsome individual who is now rightly despised throughout Merseyside.

I think the Daily Express website has had a Skynet moment and become a being in its own right. We better find nuclear bunkers quickly! And avoid people who look like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

me?ow

Sorry Abs, you were the first person I thought of who USES BLOCK CAPITALS WHEN THEY'RE EFFING ANGRY AT SOMETHING JUST LIKE I AM NOW !!!!!!

Nowt personal, and you're nowhere near as bad as that, even when sending e-mails to Oakland fans. Whoever that person is, they're quite mad.

If you think Abbey can be mad and angry......................

Should I try to carry it on?

Nelsta, do not diss the pound shop DVDs. You can probably get some laughably bad films there that could keep you entertained. You could start a thing with a friend where you try to outdo each other every birthday or Christmas and buy the worst DVDs. Two of my sisters friends at uni did that with CDs, both building an impressive collection of David Hasselhoff and Foster and Allen CDs, amongst much else. They stopped when one bought the other a compalation CD of German Oompah band songs. How can you top that?

Anyway, anyone going to see The House Bunny? Thought not. I hope Mark Kermode is reviewing it today, I can hear him sharpening his tongue now.

We'll be recommending soup kitchens by Christmas if this economic crisis carries on at this pace!

I've seen John Lydon advertising butter. The world has gone mad!

Dean Saunders is Wrexham manager? When is the town going to be renamed Mordor then?, Will there be Orcs and trolls marching to take over the world?

1998=Stockport, Blackburn, Oldham etc. Quite a few around Bedfordshire/Milton Keynes too, which would have included me.

1881=Oldham, Bolton and Devon.

My name is about 98% English in terms of nationality/ethnicity. 0% Jewish. No wonder i hate Spurs so much.

My Fiancee's name is almost exclusively English, and from Devon/Dorset.

Click on Best act ever and vote for Rick Astley!

Well all the others are crap, so we should have a laugh.

I can't think when that dusty crap hole had a great civilisation. It may have been part of the Persian empire and Alex the great's empire, but it was either a route to India or some desolate corner that just got taken. I also don't know of any solid, coheirent state that covers Afghanistan in any way. As far as I have read, its always been bandit country. There are parts of this world that totally lack resources, charm and are too hostile to live in, n a settled way. Such awful, wild places can breed awful, wild people who have nothing but a desire to live a brutish, hard and violent life. It's like the wild west before the USA matured into the state we now know it as.

I'd be all for leaving the place, if it wasn't for the fact its a training ground for Islamic nutters who can come back here and bomb us, and the drugs that fuels this episode. I'd also include Pakistan as part of this 'uncivilised' armpit of Asia.

The Colombian military, government and the AUC have been involved in drugs too. However, more and more of the nose sherbet is being grown in Bolivia and Peru, as Colombia gets tough on drugs with the US led Plan Colombia (which started off as a Colombian attempt to make peace with the FARC).

As for the FARC, they started off being a guerilla group fighting a Conservative government that was killing any Liberal Party supporter they could find in the 1950's. The FARC members supported the moves of the assassinated radical Liberal leader Gaitain, who was not a communist but more of a social democrat. Anyway, once the Conservative/mililtary government fell, and the right wing AUC came about, the FARC lost its way, and basically became a terrorist group that got involved with drugs tofund there violence. The FARC have no real aim now no other than to survive.

I don't know what that has to do with the price of eggs, but it might be useful information for some.

Maybe the logic is that Afghanistan is a strict Islamic society that shelters all manner of dodgy characters like Bin Laden. They buy weapons with money from the drugs to fight Western soldiers over there. Therefore some Muslims are seeking profits from drugs.

Anyway, I find it odd how people get hold of drugs. Dealers can't exactly advertise on ITV or anything. Same with guns, how do kids get hold of them? Stop people in the street and ask if they have a Colt for sale? I guess I've led a sheltered life.

Mabe its to do with the fact that Afghanistan is a haven for the type of muslims who fly planes into buildings, and Al-Queda and that sort of muslim are probably profiting from the trade. Coca has traditional and shamanist uses for some who grow it, so some people are probably not Catholic. The Catholicism of your average Colombian is probably not as important to their identity than an Afghan's Islam.

I hope that made some sort of sense.