Bazza, I'm not quite sure where you get your skills on carrying out a rational discussion from, but you do seem to be wandering far and wide. On 27th September Blue Phil posted: My reply was that the list of the poorest countries did not have a religious connection United Nations list of least developed countries and I invited him to co-ordinate religion & poverty from that list. You said No Bazza, I didn't imply it. I quoted from the link from the United Nations. (see above.) I didn't imply any such thing. Thank you. You have just proved the point that Afghanistan is not the poorest nation in the world because of it's religion, as Blue Phil said. Saudi Arabia et al are stinking rich. Their religion has nothing to do with it. But when it comes to Afghanistan their poverty has apparantly got everything to do with religion. Do try and form a cogent arguement.

I've just typed in "Saudia Arabi" and it's underlined to a link to a book. Is this my problem?

Hang on a moment. I was just suggesting to Blue Phil that perhaps the poverty of Afganistan was not related to the religion of its people. I just quoted UN figures about poverty. Maybe you need to discuss this with Blue Phil. I'm quite happy to sit out until you reach an agreed stance. Please feel free and enter the debate. Is Afganistan the poorest county on earth because of its religion as Blue Phil suggests? Or are there other factors at work. Certainly The United Arab Emirates & Saudi Arabia & The Gulf States seem to be doing Ok for themselves despite whatever god they beleive in. Cheers

Well you've got No 1 right. According to the United nations the 25 poorest countries in the world are as follows: 1 Afghanistan 2 Angola 3 Bangladesh 4 Benin 5 Bhutan 6 Burkina Faso 7 Burundi 8 Cambodia 9 Cape Verde 10 Central African Republic 11 Chad 12 Comoros 13 Democratic Republic of the Congo 14 Djibouti 15 Equatorial Guinea 16 Eritrea 17 Ethiopia 18 Gambia 19 Guinea 20 Guinea-Bissau 21 Haiti 22 Kiribati 23 Lao People’s Democratic Republic 24 Lesotho 25 Liberia Care to assign an "unbending culture/religion" to each of these and see what pops up at the end? Let us know if you find anything. I'd be interested. Cheers

I don't recollect that I said that they were from anywhere else. Now where's that roll eyes thing that seems to be mandatory? Got it

The very wonderful Julian Cope is back with his first general release for donkey's years. "Black Sheep" Highly recommended if you have the same musical tastes as me. Which is the exact point where this post hits a brick wall.

Find your name here I'm all Lancashire me

Agree on both points. The neighbours might not though..............

Anti Smith Fan Jailed For Pointless Carp It's been revealed that Anti Smith Pro Euro fan has been laughed at for posting irrelevant pointless carp about the relatives of premiership footballers. Let's hope that Anti Smith Pro Euro fan was referring only to football on the pitch and not referring to sickening behaviour off the pitch.... Paul Ince is black.

Indeed! Anyone else spot the drummer? One young Bobby Gillespie, later of "Primal Scream." One for Adopted Scoucer

Nothing to do with being invaded by the British a couple of times; the USSR; & then the Americans them? Just asking.

I thought that those guys were mostly Saudias. As is Osoma Bin Laden. There now follows a "Thread Diversion Alert" warning.

List Number 10 The round-up since July 30th. The washing machine is on & I'm listening to an old Blur LP Recommended by Rebelmswar Just finished "The War of Wars" by Robert Harvey It is a great pacey narrative about the struggle between France and Britain from 1789-1815. Lots of in depth facts about the people as well as the squabbles and wars. If you have ever read the Sharpe series, Mr Cornwell rates this book very highly. Recommended by Rovermatt Taking on board Sidders's advice, I got stuck into Takashi Matsuoka's Cloud of Sparrows and found it to be excellent fun if a little cheesy. It's well constructed in parts (though the author clearly wrote it with a thesaurus to hand along with some sort of 'guide to writing like you know what you're talking about') but some of the forced creation of tension, ambience and coincidence is excruciating. Still, I enjoyed it enough to buy the sequel Autumn Bridge. Recommended by Ackroyd75 Just read "The Gone Away World" by Nick Harkaway. Mainly set in the future but also talks about how they got there, from a village to war with bombs that make people go away, with an awful side effect. Fantastic read. However if you are reading it on a sun lounger then do some weight training first! It is a heavy book. Recommended by Rovers In America I also got The Miracle of Castel Di Sangro which is a book about a small ragtag club in a town of 5500 people in the mountainous region of Italy called Castel Di Sangro. Talks about their rise from Serie C2 in 1993 all the way to Serie B in 1996. They're currently below C2 again, but should be an interesting read and I've heard it talked up as a great book on a daily footy podcast I listen to while at work. Recommended by Sparkspak spoke Read a few good books when I was in France last month. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy was excellent. Also read The Bedroom Screts of a Master Chef and Filth both by Irvine Welsh, both dark, twisted and very adictive reads. Recommended by Dinglebater R.J. Ellory - "A Quiet Belief in Angels" is a pleasure, one of them books you don't want to read to fast but savour the story, the characterisation, the messages & atmosphere it puts across etc. Written in wonderful prose and a sensitive, haunting book - a delight. Recommended by Bryan Just finished reading a biography of Percy Cerutty, "Why Die?" Percy was an Australian athletics coach in the 'fifties and 'sixties. Very interesting bloke whose ideas on training have now found more widespread acceptance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Cerutty As I say, an interesting bloke, you don't have to be a hardcore athletics fan to get something out of the book. Recommended by Paul Recently I've read "The Tenderness of Wolves" by Stef Penney which has come in for criticism because the author did her research in libraries rather than visitng the Canadian wilderness where the story is based. Apparently the book also contains a number of historical inaccuracies which have an impact on its value - e.g one character gives another a fountain pen which was not invented till 1884 and the book is set in 1867 - good to see there are pedants around in every walk of life!! The plot line is narrated by Mrs Ross who has discovered the body of a local trapper, at the same time her adopted son and some money disappear. Various people and groups set out to track down the missing boy and potential murderer. A very good and descriptive read which rarely fails to give one a real sense of "being there". & I don't know who wrote "Ladies of Letters Say No" but the audio read by Patricia Routledge and Prunella Scales is a scream. I think you'll find it in most libraries. It's basically an exchange of e-mails by two ladies already past being "women of a certain age" and moved into the batty zone (sorry to our lady members!). It's a hoot and needs listening to very carefully to get all the humour. Keep them coming. I've read some cracking books recommended on here.

Read the book. the answer is probably yes.

Just finished Michael Moore's "Dude Where's My Country" It's a great rant against George Doubu. And as you read through it you think "Good point, well made." Then you think "Another good point well made." Then: "Another good point well made." Then it gets all depressing as you realise that we are living in a world dominated by a moron.

If you like silly pictures of cats Mind you, the "Fail" button at the top of tht site is quite good for a laugh

Hello Theno It's just putting names to things really. Sausages, burger & cutlets are just shapes or formations of assembled ingredients A vegetarian friend put it gently & nicely to me recently. "Go and buy a pack of pork sausages in a polystyrene tray wrapped in cling-film from your local supermarket, then get a real live pig. Put them both in your kitchen and compare the two." "Vegetarian bacon" has nothing on that image Happy eating

Not much chance there. "The God Delusion" can't even get published in the USA. His hate-mail is mostly USA based. At the other end of the spectrum is More sksollob to alton towers click to go there Read, enjoy, it is a complete delight. It's set me off to the forbidden corner click to go there The Salt Museum in Nantwich is next. My daughter will kill me

I'm currently ploughing through "The God Delusion" by Richard snikwaD. (it's backward to hopefully avoid the sweary filter) It's a step by step rebuttal of all kinds of religion, So, if like me, you're an atheist, it's a good read. Even if you beleive in a god it's probably worth reading just to test your belief. I like it just because it debunks so much of the sediment and accepted belief that religioin holds on or lives. It's a real eye opener. It's reasonably easy reading, if you take it a bit at a time but he puts forward some very salient aguements. I particularly liked the bit (and I am going to horribily misrepresnt snikwaD here:) Where he (maybe ) talks to the Archbishop Of Canterbury (AOC) snikwaD "Do you believe in the Muslim Allah" AOC "No." snikwaD "Do you beleive in the Jewish god Yehway?" AOC "No." snikwaD "Do you beleive in the god Thor?" AOC "No." snikwaD "Do you beleive in the gods worshipped by the Egyptians?" AOC "No." snikwaD "Do you beleive in the gods worshipped by the Romans & the Greeks AOC "No." snikwaD "We're quite similar then. I don't beleive in any of them. It's just that I've added another one to my list." edit not sure why "D*a*w*k*i*n*s" has been obliterated Have we been taken over by Christian fundamentalists? Is Ste B now selling "The Watchtower?" Or is it possibly that "snikwaD" has an anagram in it?

We were incredibly lucky to have a benefactor like Jack. Matthew Harding at (pre- Abromivich) Chelsea was similar as was Jack Hayward at Wolves & as is Steve Gibson at Boro. Despite all the rubbish you'll read elsewhere Jack put a lot of his money into rebuilding Ewood Park & establishing Brockhall as a world-class facility. He didn't spend tons of money on "buying the title." KMD did that with some astute buys. OK, he did splash the cash a bit, but nothing like the big spenders do now. Just an aside, and it's a bit of an obsession with me: The fifteen players who played the most league appearances in that season that we won the league (in brackets) are listed below, along with their transfer fees) Alan Shearer (42) £3.3m from Southampton in 1992 Henning Berg (40) £0.4m from Lillestrom in 1993 Chris Sutton (40) £5.0m from Norwich in 1994 Graeme Le Saux (39) £0.65 from chelsea in 1993 Tim Flowers (39) £2.0m from Southampton 1993 Colin Hendry (38) £0.03mfrom Dundee in 1987 Tim Sherwood (38) £0.5m from Norwich in 1992 Stuart Ripley (36) £1.2m from Middlebrough in 1992 Mark Atkins (30) £0.04mfrom Scunthorpe in 1988 Jason Wilcox (27) £0 from the youth team Ian Pearce (22) £0.3m from chelsea in 1993 Paul Warhurst (20) £2.7m from Sheffield Wednesday in 1993 Tony Gale (15) £0 from West Ham in 1994 Robbie Slater (12) £0.3m from Lens in 1994 Jeff Kenna (9) £1.45mfrom Southampton in 1995 That's a total of £17.87m over roughly three years. Please feel free to copy & paste into anywhere you think needs it. It is correct. I was there at Anfield. I don't think I've ever been so happy for both myself and someone else (Jack.)

Wow, someone else has discovered them/him. I thought I was the only one in the world.

LeChuck, actually the opposite, you go up a bit to get in. There's a Chinese all you can eat buffet place next door which is based in the basement. Grand Buffet is opposite O'Sheas if that makes it any easier to picture. At certain times you get a free ice cream, but I've not seen fruit., so probably you're not thinking of the samr place.

For the Mancunians & those who might just visit. Have a go at "The Grand Buffet." Corner of Whitworth St & Sackville St, (just downhill from Chorlton St coach station.) All you can eat for £5.50. OK it's not haute cuisine, but every now and then it does the job.

I know, but it was a 12A film and I watched it with my daughter, and we smuggled in the chocolate & drinks (you know how they say "no food or drink to be brought in" and then they try and sell you enough rubbish food to fill Ewood) and we had a laugh. Well, we thought it was quite funny & we enjoyed it. I suppose it depends on the circumstances. It wasn't "One Flew Over The cucko's Nest." but it fitted the day. Cheers Colin

As said, blooming enormous! Blocking off public footpaths & applying for a licence to have outdoor drinking until 02:00. That is severely cheesing-off the locals especially since they have had to put up with the previous load of building & conversion which came to nothing.