pulphack

that's a good point - when american football/gridiron/whatever was briefly big in the uk in the 80's, and we could finally understand the rules as opposed to just getting brief glimpses of it on movies and tv, it suddenly made sense. kind of chess with thuggery. i think cricket has something in common with it: a complex game that seems baffling to those who weren't brought up in the culture that spawned it. i think i'd prefer baseball if i was living in the usa; it looks a fine game from the little i've seen. basketball is kinda cool, too - i used to play it when i was at school. they'd send groups of london schoolkids to the michael sobell centre in finsbury park, where they had a resident american basketball coach who grew more exasperated each week - 'bounce the ball, man, it's not f****n' netball!'

christ - reading through another thread i just hit a link to a different krankies site from the one i saw the other night... wee jimmy in a frock, dancing like ginger rogers (it said underneath) and then being hugged by ally mccoist... who is the more hideous? i suppose at least ally foun someone shorter than him, but... curse you, mary, for bringing all this up! i won't sleep for days... i daren't... nightmare visions of ballroom dancing with ally mccoist while jimmy krankie plays no9 for scotland and scores a hattrick against england... ian in drag, as well... oh the horror, the horror....

ah. i thought it was going to turn into a debate about the subject matter of the book. funny how the odd mis-spelling can drive you nuts, though - i confess i feel the same about some mispronunciations. the shameful thing is that i didn't notice it was mis-spelt until you pointed it out... spot the careful reader...

exactly. we don't want any of that creeping in here. good heavens, it'll be camel and hatfield&the north before you know it!

he will - he's a local hero, and he's got to remember the shabby way rochdale treated him - while he's still on the ascendant he'd be mad to leave.

would you care to expand on that?

that's typical inglethorpe - he walked out on orient to go to exeter and promotion to manager... er, well, maybe that one WAS a good move... i've got a barnet fanatic mate who felt exactly the same when mad dog went to brentford... and they ended up getting promoted the next season, so maybe it's a good thing.

very blessed indeed. sorry, arnold, i misread the post earlier re. 'poor sod'!

let's look at englands chances realistically. rooney not match fit, just like the last euro finals. owen - looks good so far, but very prone to injury (just like rooney - is it something to do woith them being pushed too much before they've finished developing physically?). crouch - good club striker, but not really international material, is he? a hat-trick against a jamaica who played the first half like they'd been toking in the tunnel is not a decent indicator - and god help him if we go to penalties. goalkeeper and defence are sound, and the midfield is strong on going forward and scoring IF sven's system doesn't have them running into each other. so the keys here are: a) keeping clear of further injury up front; b)partly as a result of this being able to net enough times; c) hoping robinson doesn't get seamans disease and stray off the line too much (or get injured and let in james, who's a decent keeper but psychologically suspect on the big occassion). we all know how it'll end: quarter-finals, lose on penalties, probably to germany. especially as they aren't fancied so will come good at the last. and then everyone will stop getting over-excited, and we can get back to the serious business of preparing for the league season. a gorgeous young hairdresser asked me to explain the offside rule to her today. that's not on! (especially as, like everyone else, i have no idea how it works now)

don't bring up prog rock - look what happened last time, inthe buster bloodvessel thread!

just had a look at the website (well, one of them) and was very disturbed by that picture of her wearing an evening dress and showing cleavage. unholy. the book - fandabidozee - should be worth picking up from a charity shop or remaindered shop, though i haven't seen it yet. a lot of john blake titles end up this way, as he relies on the odd winner to bolster the failures (ie he has both jodie marsh and jordan on his list, but then there's the krankies...). i note that they've had successful tours of australia (lucky australia) and they also have a cd of kids stories about th krankie detective agency for sale. tempted, anyone? i only wanted to check out what they looked like these days but became fascinated by the semi-delusional world they seem to inhabit, like all tenth-raters (myself being a perfect example). say what you like about the chuckle brothers, but at least they still get re-commissioned.

you need carling? i can do it without alcohol... although the quality does decrease exponentially (or whatever the inverse is) with scrumpy jack. i can also write complete bollocks when sober (exponential inverse??)

arnold is certainly what you'd call a selective poster. but what's wrong with will hay? a god amongst men! and better, let's face it, than cannon and ball (ok, bad example).

it is nice to see bruno back, although a little spooky that he was so comprehensible. bhb - if gin makes you cry like an actress at oscar time, then drink a helluva lot, and you may have a way into brinsworth house - you could always claim to be deborah kerr.

which is exactly what max splodge's manager tried to do a few months back - and look where that got him! where's that thread now, and where is max? this site is hardly a career boost.

just been reading through this thread, and isn't it interesting the way things have changed over the last 20 years. once upon a time, it was a thing to keep secret, now it's an excuse for more photoshoots in hello,etc. back in the late eighties my mate bill (whose actor dad i mentioned on the deborah kerr thread) met this dental nurse who he was 'seeing' quite a lot of; her boss' clients included freddie mercury and frank zappa, and i remember him telling me in hushed tones about their illnesses (cancer in zappa's case, but the point remains) years before they went public. it was something to keep quiet either through expediency or privacy back then. she pillow-talked it, but didn't flog it to the NOTW, as she would now - that's if she could beat the celeb's publicist to the punch.

oi, mary, watch it - being a recording 'artiste' was no shame - it was the poor buggers who bought the records that should be ashamed of themselves. anyway, if my critics are anything to go by, my writing career is much more shameful. i suspect they're right... but don't you go blabbing any more secrets, remember i know where you live now - and it looks very nice, too.

i know it's not exactly a death, but... bloody hell, iain, what's the matter with you? i thought you'd decided to bugger off? if you're not, then at least LOOK for the right bloody thread, or to see if there's an appropriate one! then people won't have to moan! it's not that hard - if i can use the board and make sense of it, then i'm damn sure you can! sorry, it's just been a hard day...

imagine if you were a record company exec in september 77, and you had just signed a new supergroup comprised of ex-T Rex members, and you had to explain to your boss why steve peregrine took and mickey finn were a good bet... and then had to explain to the DHSS (as was) how you ended up there. do hav a legit reason for posting though. not a buster thing, but referring back to the old-punk-health twist this thread took a while back. i posted that i'd heard a rumour that mark perry had lukaemia. spoke to a friend who knows him, and not only is it untrue, but mark hadn't heard that one! so mark p can carry on sniffing glue for some time yet, i'm glad to say (though maybe not, considering where i am).

that was jack docherty, who seems to have vanished after his attempt to become the david letterman of C5. the question of doherty's fame is an interesting one as it raises a lot of questions about the state of the media today. when he was in the libertines they were heavily tipped as the new clash, etc, but their appeal was limited still to the nme/q muso fan sector. profile increased a bit when he got done for breaking into a bandmates house and robbing him (tip for you, pete - not on your own doorstep, son). this alerted the press to a rock casualty they could build from the ground up, and so he began to feature in the tabloids as the latest accident waiting to happen. then he started dating kate moss, and it became a feeding frenzy. interestingly, his output (in terms of live shows and recordings) has decreased in an inverse proportion to his fame. he's gone from a smidgeon of fame for being an up and coming but troubled talent to being immensely famous for - er - being infamous. which sums up the cycle of celeb culture these days? discuss.

postgate - near-genius. all of that from tiny studios, with a completely distinctive style that has transcended generations. i hope the old chap (who seems rather sound in every way if his autobiography is accurate) carries on for a good few years yet before meeting the soup dragon. although haven't you noticed that bagpuss is alive and well, and managing portsmouth? i'll get me coat and go back to the football thread...

westminster gossip, fresh from someone who works there (and was burning my ear off last night). prescott is in danger from the sun - he's always shagged secretaries, but had a 2 year stint with the one before this - she's now being doorstepped by sun reporters waving £150k at her. she's standing firm (ooo-er) so far, but her neighbours are also being questioned, and they must have got the story from some source, so it may only be a matter of time. tony has got a problem with getting rid of fatboy. if he sacks him as deputy pm he has to have an election within the party for a new deputy pm, which lays him open to stalking horses and challenges, etc. he could get round this by abolishing the post altogether (face it, it wasn't in use pre-new labour). but if he does this, then he loses the go-between he needs to communicate with brown. their relationship is so bad that eveything seems to be channelled through fatboy. and then there's the fact that prescott is apparently well-known in westminster circles for dark mutterings about the secrets he has gathered over the years. he could take the whole lot down with him. which would be nice. but not what mr squeaky clean hide the skeletons (possibly) blair might want.

should have thought that was obvious - i was demonstrating the difference between mere post-whoring (like this) and the fight thread, in response to a poser a few posts above. read it in context, for gods sakes. F**k me - some people... oops, i mean 'stone me' of course, in a hancockian sense.

of course they do. think of the possibilities! all those celeb criminals you can pool, plus all the regular inmates. it'd make suicide watch a tempting and risky business, though. for someone.

he was incredibly young in the nazz, about 16, and still insisted on doing everything. back on the road again with the new cars, who seem to be half-cars, half-utopia, and a drummer who's played with todd before and not with the cars... so that'll be the runt taking over again, then. wonder if he'll produce bat out of hell 4 (it's inevitable - hang on, they have done 3, haven't they?)? if he does, you can bet a baffled meat will be standing outside the studio wondering why he's not required, next to an equally baffled steinman wondering why he has no songwriting credits on the new album. not that i'm saying todd's a control freak...