Just had dinner at JJs in Colne - very nice

JJ's in Colne is very good - nice food, reasonably priced (about £25 per head) and you have the table for the evening if you want it as he does not over book. If you go. I really recommend the duck as well as the fish dishes. The vibe is very relaxed and not at all stuffy.

Understand your point but think that Barton is different insofar as he has had good managers at clubs prepared to help him and he has spurned the opportunities. I honestly cannot think how he could benefit BRFC as his City days are over, he was sacked by them despite their bending over backward to accommodate his "eccentricities". Definitely a "could have been" in my book. Apart from that, cheering him on in front of my kids would stick in my throat with him because of his behaviour off the pitch - it did not apply to Bellamy, Savage, Diouf

The fact of the matter is, without even going into the moral and ethical rights and wrongs of putting my hard-earned cash into that tossers pockets, unless he plays for free then it is a gamble too far. This club is not that desperate yet that we need to take such a gamble. I would like to think the above statement is the thought foremost in our manager's mind - I don't fancy encouraging my son & daughter to shout up for a player with his track record off the pitch. Less importantly, to me anyway, he is overrated for the short time he does actually manage to stay on the pitch, since he left citeh. Injury-prone with a dodgy temperament does not add up to good use of our limited resources.

Just finished reading "Trainspotting" - better late than never - and would commend it to you all as a good read. Am now reading "All quiet on the Western front" which is also a dmned fine story that raises all sorts of issues for us to contemplate

Bit disappointed with the new Verve album - living on past glories, methinks

He's done a good job for us He's conducted himself pretty well in my view - waiting until season end before moving on when he could have done earlier as he had clearly decided a new challenge was in order around about February I wish him luck (though not enough to do well against us of course) as he's going to need all that is going if he is to meet City's expectations which are as outlandish now as they have been for the last 35 years Like all the others he will be chewed up and spat out after failing because he didn't finish above MUFC I expected him to leave at some point over the next 2/3 years but though he had better judgement than to go to one of the two Premiership poisoned chalices of Man City & Newcastle where people are sacked before they've warmed the seat and continuity and effective management off the pitch is something they've read about or seen somewhere else Ah well, another one who thinks he can turn around a club with delusions of grandeur, he'll learn - maybe that's another topic for a thread, what is it that makes a club "big"? Attendances? Performance on the pitch? Expectations of others? How it is run off the pitch? Global recognition of the brand? History and tradition? Number of overseas fans? Shadow cast over rival clubs in the same catchment area? Any thoughts anyone?

I've been impressed with Ooijer - his class, positional play, team work and attitude have been excellent as well as his ability to perform both centre half and right back roles to good (prem standard) effect. He is neither the fastest or slowest but his professionalism means, in my view, that what pace he has will last longer than, say, David Dunn's. Although not high profile, Ooijer is a top player in my book and we should only let him go when someone better comes along and I don't see such a person on the horizon at the moment.

Get sorted - get a mac! Your problems will be no more and you can even run XP on a Mac if you really have to.

I understand that next season the drummer may well be otherwise engaged - let's hope all you "anti's" are up to proving how right you have been all along and that the atmosphere improves immeasurably.

I believe he's in Italy

Bobby Robson didn't look well did he? Read his book a year or so ago - nice bloke

I never got a free ticket either - I don't believe the current people get a freebie, but could be wrong What do the club know? There's a topic for a separate thread!

WELL SAID THAT MAN - I've given up debating this topic on this MB as it is a circular discussion that ends up with personal abuse and people competing to be the "cleverest" in describing what they would like to do to the drummers, yet they never never create an atmosphere that renders Billy and his ilk redundant I was one of the first drummers some ten years ago but only did it for a year as it was, in effect, a commitment on one of my only free days of the week, it put an obligation on me, I had a cool seat at the back centre of the BBE and did not want to be moved around the ground or to the front. In other words, the day is no longer your own and it's almost a job on the one day when you can have a blow out or at least bot be constrained by obligations. Please consider the commitment being made by these fellas. Finally, the club asked two blokes who turned up with bhodrans for a Sheff Wednesday match to start the drumming due to what they described as the "funereal atmosphere" around the ground and the difference they made at the Wednesday match - it's in the hands of those of us who are able to get to the ground to change those circumstances.

There do seem to be fewer drummers thereby making it easier to keep in time and respond to the crowd rather than drowning them out - this may work! Marked improvement in atmosphere this season so far - whether this is down to one (better) drummer, the quality of football, us in the BBE, a good away following or the positive results, I don't know but long may it continue.

I was very sceptical when he was signed up again and kept thinking we had done Bolton a favour in keeping one of their sick beds clear for another player. But, after yesterday's virtuoso performance on top of his season to date, the new sharper, fitter (and thinner) Dunny is looking very much the part IMO and he may even put himself back in the reckoning internationally. Once again, proof as if it were needed, that I am not a good Premiership football manager despite my occasional delusions in that direction.

Is there another but that's excessive?

Perhaps a little excessive, especially as we need all the season ticket holder we can get?

I believe they are represented on the Fans Forum and it seems opinion is strong but far from unanimous. To be honest, I'm glad I'm not too near to them myself due to the apparent "just bang it hard" tendency. What they add and take away is debatable as I seem to recall the BBE being far from a hotbed of outpourings of wit, repartee and massed choir, hence why they were invited to try to drum up atmosphere in the first place. Maybe it's worth experimenting with an unaccompanied BBE for a few games to see whether you are proved correct?

In short, no. As an observer/participant in the BBE experience since 1974, I feel it is sometimes easy to overstate what it used to be like. Whilst passion has never been in short supply, the BBE has never been the most extrovert of places.

So (takes own life in hands) were somebody to be contemplating a first read of an author about whom he knows opinion to be sharply divided, which of his offerings would be deemed his best work? And we're talking Welsh here, not Hitler. I would assume Trainspotting, but accept that a good book does not a good film make, or vice versa.

I've just finished "Pies and Prejudice" by Stuart Maconie - a nice, reasonably jaunty stroll through the North and northerners. It made me smile rather than laugh but he has got the scousers and the mancs well and truly sussed out! Recommended. In anticipation of forthcoming holidays, I have just started "Something Happened" by Joseph Heller (his follow-up to Catch-22) and am enjoying it so far. Apparently, it is something of a hidden gem - I'll know better when I get further into it. I've also gone and bought the Campbell diaries There you go, that's my reading for the next few weeks - should keep me busy. p.s. I've tried reading "Mein Kampf" a few times just to try to understand what the hell it was all about. I have to say, it is a VERY difficult read in the Viennese style of writing favoured by the pseudo-intellectuals of the early 20th century, with a tendency to being overtly self-conscious, vain and repetitive whilst always looking for the most awkward prose. It is badly written, badly structured, ill-conceived and a flipping bad read. After three failed attempts to read the thing, if any of you have completed it from beginning to end, I doff my cap to you - at least Marx is readable!!

I saw him supporting The Fall at Burnley Mechanics a year or two ago and he actually did that rendition but tried to tell everyone that he really meant Haslingden but couldn't get anything to rhyme, so stuck with Burnley!! He also remarked on how pleasant Burnley was with it's wide variety of take away establishments. At this point, I think the pennty dropped that he might have been extracting the urine somewhat.

Just bought "Icky Thump" by White Stripes and damned fine it is too! I'm also looking forward to seeing John Cooper Clarke in Blackburn on Friday

The telly companies were all there for Kenny Dalglish's first game in charge - we beat Plymouth 5-2 and SG scored a couple of classics. There'll be footage of that somewhere if we can get hold of it. Or what about the thrashing we gave Man City when SG scored all five - that was on telly as well because City were a big club and promotion was theirs by right.