Ditto.

Does this mean there has been a batch sent out that should have included STs and didn't or have they remembered half way through that they said we should keep hold of our existing cards ?

I've emailed the ticket office for clarification, but I'm not expecting a response.

We have just received our new packs. Amongst all the promotional stuff was a new plastic wallet for the season ticket but no new card - as i was expecting.

Ditto.

Does this mean there has been a batch sent out that should have included STs and didn't or have they remembered half way through that they said we should keep hold of our existing cards ?

Click

I didn't realise until I saw the stage show on Saturday, but the fantastic "The Internet Is For Porn" song used in that clip is actually taken from the truely muppet-tastic stage show "Avenue Q"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avenue_Q

Next time you're in London I massively recommended it (despite the muppets, it's not for kids ... oh no sireee. teenagers yes, kids no).

Here's an extract from Blackburn Rovers - The Official Encyclopedia by Mike Jackman

(By the way does anyone know if I infringe copyright terms by doing this?)

Probably, but given we are forever promoting just how good the Jackman book is and the fact it's out of print and if it wasn't we could happily shift dozens of them, I'm hoping the publisher won't mind a short excerpt detailing just how bloody good a book it is.

IF ANYBODY HAS A COPY THEY ARE WILLING TO PART WITH, PLEASE LET ME KNOW. I CAN'T GET HOLD OF ONE FOR LOVE NOR MONEY.

Two developments in the banking world: current accounts without fees even for those always in the black may soon be a thing of the past and using cheques as a means of paying for goods in the shops are on the way out as everyone is forced to use plastic. Cheques are now banned in many stores in the US and Asda and Sainsbury to name two have started to experiment with a ban here.

Cheques are another bugbear. They invlove massive amounts of manual processing (compared to a debit card), so why should I, as somebody who hasn't used a personal cheque in years, be forced to subsidse those people who are unwilling to use a debit and/or ATM card ?

Would thoroughly recommend First Direct by the way.

I've yet for find a First Direct customer who ISN'T a big fan. It seems odd the First Direct have such a good rep and HSBC have such a bad one :S

My argument with bank charges vs bank profits is that if traditional high street banks make so much money then surely there must be enough profit margin for someone to operate an online only* bank that can offer me a better rate of intrest becuase they don't have to pay for high street permises, counter services etc. It would seem not.

* HSBC, Smile, Egg etc don't count because they are all simply fronts for bricks and mortar establishments and don't seem to offer me anything the high streets don't.

OK, Long rant coming that is going to upset a lot of people.

WHY THE HELL SHOULD PEOPLE WHO CAN READ, UNDERSTAND AND FOLLOW THE RULES THE AGREE TO END UP SUBSIDISING THOSE WHO CAN'T ?

I don't sign a contract and I don't understand and when I break the terms of that contract I expect to get the penalties it lays out. If I think they are unacceptable or "unfair" I won't sign, simple as.

So why the hell should people who either haven't understood what they have signed, or simply don't care, get refunded fees because they are unhappy with them ? And when they do, who makes up the shortfall in the bank's bottom line ? Is it shareholders (which for includes the staff at most banks) or is it the poor saps who actually choose to manage their account in the way they have agreed ?

That's not to say I don't incur charges, I do and when I do I pay them. Also I'm not saying bank shouldn't quickly jump to it and refund any charges (and further charges resulting from those charges) when THEY are the source of the problem, which happens worryingly often it seems.

Is everyone happy to pay more on the highstreet to subsidise shoplifters ? Is that still the shops fault or the shoplifters ?

I also don't see why I have to subsidise those people who use counter services, but that's another rant for another day.

A big Thank You to Scotty for the following

And so it begins again.

It was still very, very hot at kick-off and the pitch was hard, bumpy and sandy, so it was never going to be a classic. Both teams were only playing at half pace and there was hardly a meaningful tackle in the game (with one or two exceptions), so it's difficult to make judgements on players. In addition I thought Accrington were very poor and offered very little up front.

After saying that though Gallagher did impress in the first half. He started wide on the right but kept switching with Bentley in the centre and drove forward at every opportunity. It was his shot that was parried by the keeper for Roberts to finish. Roberts looked dangerous as well and it was a shame when he went off injured after about 35 minutes - hope it's not serious. However, there were no signs of Roberts and Jeffers developing a partnership during that time but it's obviously very early days.

Agathe played at right-back and looked good going forward, but he also looked very shaky defensively. He did brilliantly for the second goal though, beating at least two players before getting to the by-line and delivering a peach of a cross that Jeffers couldn't fail to convert. It was really the only outstanding moment that Jeffers had in the game (he was subbed shortly after his goal) but I guess he's that type of player, doesn't seem to do much but gets on the end of things and, hopefully, scores goals.

The other plus was Derbyshire, who scored one (a real poachers effort) and could have had a couple more. He still looks very small, but there's something about the lad - he's got a touch of class when he gets in front of goal. Our other debutant Brown had a solid second half in goal and made at least one decent save when called upon.

The only real negatives were Friedel's kicking, which was awful (although the pitch was bobbly), Robert's injury, Bentley and Pedersen's poor performance, and seeing that Kuqi's first touch hasn't improved over the summer. Also both Reid and Nelsen were missing, presumably injured.

All in all it was a decent workout against poor opposition. We controlled most of the game and deserved the win, but we never really got out of first gear. Nice that 3 of our strikers got goals though, can't hurt their confidence going into the bigger challenges ahead.

Both pre and post match discussion for the game can be found here.

SAS' pictures from the game can be found here

I think next time we need a 14yr old to try this text commentary thing, my ancient digits can't text quick enough.

I've got

The Beatles - Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Kraftwerk - Trans-Europe Express

NWA - Straight Outta Compton

The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds

The Clash - London Calling

Prince and the Revolution - Purple Rain

Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of the Moon

The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses

Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath

The Ramones - The Ramones

The Who - My Generation

Massive Attack - Blue Lines

Radiohead - The Bends

Michael Jackson - Thriller

Run DMC - Run DMC*

The Smiths - The Smiths

Primal Scream - Screamadelica

Nirvana - Nevermind

De La Soul - 3 Feet High and Rising

Although, I think only Stone Rose, Nevermind and Raising Hell* would make it onto my desert island disks list.

(* Run DMC - Run DMC ? WTF ! I'm sure they must mean Raising Hell, that was Run DMCs BIG breakthough album).

Late this afternoon a vulnerability in the forum software was exploited by a hacker in Russia. The hacker then used the forum's mass mail function to send a link to a trojan file to our users and also modified the forum itself to attempt to download the same file to visitors.

Within minutes, with the help of the owner of the server we are on, we'd stopped the mails being sent, denied the hacker further access and taken the forum offline.

The file it's was trying to get you to run is know as Downloader.Harnig and has been around since 2004 so any half decent anti-virus program will have caught and removed it.

We've now re-secured the forum , but we are going to be performing further upgrades over the next few days that may mean the forum will be taken offline at short notice.

We'd like to take this opertunity to aplogize for any inconvience this has caused and rest assured we are doing everything possible to stop things like the happening in the future.

PS. For those of you who did follow the link and don't have anti-virus software, we will no doubt be offering further info on removal via the forums.

Party time!! A record amount of loo rolls will be flying about I bet!! blue and white balloons everywhere, I know I have just bought twenty or so.

I tell you what we need down at Ewood- a tifo.  Now we are to become a firm fixture in european competition its time we started acting like it!  The club, or BRISA should sort out the coloured card for each seat in the Blackburn End to be held up at kick off perhaps making a EU flag with ROVERS RETURN underneath?  Its long been a thought of mine that Rovers need a more visual support that would add to the occasion like in Italy or France or the Kop at Anfield. What better time than when we are celebrating?!

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Something like this through BRISA did go through my head, but there simply wasn't time to sort it.

Talking of banners, does anyone in the family stand (as that's one of the few good places to hang banners from) want custody of the BRFCS.COM flag for the day ? We'll need it straight back after the game because I imagine it's going to the world cup (and then the UEFA cup).

I could've thought of a few better names for it. I think the name alone would put a few people off buying one.

Although I'd doubt they'd do it for such a mainstream product but has it not been the case in the past that products have been renamed in different countries? I'm sure there was one console but I can't think of the name off the top of my head.

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(Super) Famicom ((S)NES)

Genesis (MegaDrive)

But yesterdays announcement did imply that Nintendo where calling it wii worldwide.

We're working on a new version of the site and this which has a major impact on this (we'll explain more later), but it hasn't been forgotten and developments are afoot.

I think Glenn's point is clubs are possibly creating membership schemes to boost income from away fans rather than benefit home fans.

If a club puts the price up to say £40 from £30 and announces a membership scheme where tickets are still at £30 the objective is obvious.

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However, it would seem I've fallen into the trap of believing what others tell me rather than checking out the facts myself.

I was told that Bolton's scheme was just £5 and they'd stiffed non-members (i.e. away fans) for an extra £15 last time we went. However a few minutes reserach has shown that memberships are in fact £30.

I'lll reserach the other clubs later.

Glenn is this happening already? If so can you say where as I'm very interested to know it. Someone suggested Utd fans paid less than us for the semi at OT if they were members?

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Bolton have done it for a few seasons now and I've been told that both Man Utd and City do it.

With regard to unbalanced charging due to membership schemes, I'm waiting for the next club to do this to us a I intend to obtain a membership for the club in question and then attempt to purchase a subsidized ticket in the away end with it.

I'm expecting the clubs to make it as hard as possible, but hopefully documenting and publicizing the anticipated objections will bring this underhand tactic more to peoples attention.

The balanced pricing rules was brought in for a reason (Bates didn't want ANY visiting fans at the bridge so threatend to price them out), I think it would be very wrong for Rovers to abuse the same loophole (and I'll have no qualms encouraging visiting fans to become members at Ewood).

Or indeed if you want a PS2 torney.

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I could probably manage a PS2 tourney (although I'd get my ass kicked, I suck at PES).

How are laptops for games, generally?

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Mine plays World Of Warcraft (the most CPU/GPU/Ram intensive game I play) at a comparable speed to my desktop, even with a crappy on board video card. Screen refresh speeds are no longer a problem.

The only problem I had was the finger-pointey-mouse-pad-thing was rubbish, but when I connect a real mouse it now seems every bit as good as my desktop.

Isn't the biggest type of benefit fraud undeclared earnings (aka cash-in-hand payments) ? Surely the number of people using someone elses NI number is far less than those using none what so ever ?

Unless of course you started making cash an unviable alternative to electronic payments and started linking the National Database into Bank and retail systems. Banks and retail of course could already be tied into the system because they'll need access to the info for "fraud prevention" reasons. Thus making it possible to track every monetry transaction in the country.

OK, so that's a little far fetched ..... but only a little. I'll get my coat tin foil hat.

I think for some reason the authorities had had word that there would be trouble as unusually there was more police about and it seemed there were security guys in black bomber jackets in strategic positions.

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Nah, I'm sure they've been here for every game where we've given the Darwen end away for.

I also resent being tracked on databases, which is why I don't have loyalty cards and try to pay cash when I can - maybe I'm just being narky.

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Oddly enough. I don't actually mind this. The important thing is I have the choice NOT to have a loyalty card and the choice to shop elsewhere.

It looks like I won't have a choice about wether I have to have an ID card and I won't have a choice of how it is secured (short of amputating my finger and gounging out my eyes).

Glenn mentioned Air Traffic Control and "disaster waiting to happen" in one post (shudder). The bloody morons used a hard-to-read font on the ATC screens, so that sometimes ATC's have directed aircraft towards each other.

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That was only a tiny part. The IT press has been screaming about Swanick since the mid nineties. 6 Years Overdue ! 1 year to fix 1400 known bugs ! Cost was £600m, more than double the initial buget !

... and that's a tiny project compared to a national records database.

And I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned this weeks hot topic of the CRB failing to difereniate between someone cautioned for looking "non-UK-legal-porn" (i.e. against the OPA, but "acceptable" in the vast majority of countries) and a convicted kiddie-fiddler, along with the fact that the "human" secondary check made on this info is left to a politician rather than an expert.

Now, if the LSE has updated it's esimate from £300 to £500, you can bet the "charge" for a card will be around the £35 mark. So is the short fall going to come from a tax increase or by selling access to the database to 3rd parties. Oddly enough, I'm not in favour of either.

the more input from the fans the better for the club, and no matter how it is writtren, feedback for the club is better then having no feedback at all, so keep up the good work and keep on writing.

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I know I keep harping on about this, but to me the point of the exercise isn't to acuse the club of not doing enough and offer dozens of ideas to do better. The point is to make public answers to questions several of us has been told privately (something the club shouldn't need out intervention to do).

Sure, if the club finds a single idea that could improve things, then that's a major added bonus, but to me the real value of this is that for the first time we can publically explain WHY some of the ideas in that document haven't been possible and even some that have, but nobody knows about.

Click

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Seen that a few times now, but it still makes me laugh.

I got horribly addicted to WoW and probably still would be if it wasn't for my current hectic work schedule. It's a very very very fine game and worth every penny of the subscription. It's up there with Sky+ and my dyson as "things that I used to live without, but wouldn't give up now I've got them".