Britbillsfan

A few replies to your questions. The F A Cup is the oldest tournament in Football, dating from the 1870s, and runs in a straightforward knock-out format. It is open to English and some Welsh clubs, including many amateur teams. The big teams do not enter until a lot later in the tournament (when they will typically dominate, although occassionally an amateur team will defeat a premier league outfit - part of the tournament's appeal). Until quite recently (probably the 1980s) it was considered the tournament to win by players. Since then it haws been superceded by the Premier League and the European competitions. The Premier League is the English league, which Manchester United won last year (again - they have been the real powerhouse of English clubs for the last couple of decades). The European Champions League takes the best clubs from the various national leagues (eg: England, Scotland, Italy, Spain, Germany, etc, etc) from the previous year and these play each other throughout the system in a hybrid league/knock-out format. Smaller leagues have less clubs, and again the bigger clubs do not enter the tournament until much later than the teams from less potent leagues. A top club can easily play 60 games a season, often two games a week. And finally, we do have other team sports. In winter there is also Rugby Union, the sport from which the American/Canadian form of football is derived from, well worth a look, IMO. A lot smaller than soccer, but plenty of people follow it and the top games (cup finals, internationals) can have 50-80,000 crowds. We also have cricket in the summer, although if you think football is boring you will likely not have much fun with cricket (I love cricket and do not find it boring, BTW. Cricket is also a great way of spending a day drinking beer. Or, in longer format games, the best part of a week drinking beer) and Rugby League.

This place has permanently damaged me. I knew that was going to happen and I clicked the link anyway.

A poor argument to begin with is further undermined by incorrect facts.

Defer always due to the crowd noise advantage. Mind you with the Bengals' attendance how much noise will there be?

Two sacks showing on that. I guess the Brad Smith option last week when he did not throw but made a -6 yard run now counts as a sack. Still a lot better position than any of us were expecting. NFL.com shows 2 sacks. The -6 yard run by Brad Smith last week I would guess is the second.

Kelso on the radio (who I love as a colour commentator) said the DB had a fistful of the receiver's jersey making it certain the receiver could not make a play for the ball (and if the ref sees that then you can feel pretty certain a PI call is coming). So that, at least, was a good call.

Currently I am getting into the stories written by Jorge Luis Borges. Great stuff, he was recommended to me by a couple of writer friends and I went out and bought three of his collections and am loving the stories so far. My brother wanted a book by Swift for Christmas one year. I purchased: 'The Benefit of Farting'. Seemed appropriate...

Radio said trainers were working on Stevie for cramp in both legs. Roscoe looks like he twisted his ankle.

+1

Funny. It is what the Sport does. The Sport has three things in it. Sports news. Pretty poor at that. breasts and asses. Lots of breasts and asses. Even on the Sports pages. Joke stories. Headlines have included: 'Double Decker Bus Found at South Pole' and "World War Two Bomber Found on Moon" (OR close to it). The headlines alone can be hilarious. So I doubt there are midget eating badgers roaming the English countryside...

Only getting to see highlights and listen to the radio limits my input. But it certinly seemed Bell was doing a pretty good job. One lineman who was called out a lot for good play was Levitre.

Very, very few criminals in the UK have guns because they are so rare. And because there is nowhere to learn how to use them (handguns are not allowed even at shooting clubs) their marksmanship has significantly declined since the ban. The number of shootings in the UK is tiny compared to many US cities.

Another One Bites The Dust. - Queen. Has the added bonus of being something you can play at your funeral as well...

Reunited with owners. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12960965

Yeah, while they are pretty honest the law in Japan encourages such honesty as well. I remember reading a pretty reliable reporter writing about lost property handled on their public transportation sysem. If someone hands in something of value and the owner is traced then a suitable reward, 10% of the value I think, has to be paid. There have been court cases where the 'good samaritan' has sued the owner for not paying their rightful reward. Also there is nothing left worth looting if anyone wanted to anyway. People on the ground are more interested in finding food, heat and shelter than designer labels, the poor sods have been reduced to a very basic existance at the mo. Quite horrendous.

Tastes like chicken.

I certainly hope not...

Speaking from experience? You have my sympathy.

The War on Drugs? Gets bonus points because it is governments being stupid, rather than just your normal loons. (Kind of like professional morons vs amateurs)

I remember a study on the autism which looked at all the reports and studies in the world on the MMR jab. They compared the rate of autism among children had had taken the MMR vaccine and those who had not. The level of autism was greater among those who had not... (((Although, to be fair, the difference was statistically too small to be significant - but it is a nice little thing to throw out their to the anti-MMR crowd...))) I don't know about Homeopathy being the stupidest crock of crap in the world, though. There are an awful lot of stupid beliefs out there.

Good grief. I had not looked much at the Off the Wall forum during the season and after all that time I really did not expect this bloody thread to still be going. Congrats (I guess)

An F-5 in WW2? I thought they did not start production until the mid to late 50s, a tad late for WW2. nice story. There are probably more like this than we realise, just most never make it into the news.

Do not like the fixed meme, but no - it is not everyone, but it is more prevalent in American sports largely becuase the authorities do not to rock the boat and really try to catch anybody. When I read about the football testing program and the remark it was one of the strictist in American sports I had to laugh. It would be one of the weakest, if not the weakest, if it was in the UK. It is a problem in all sports, but especially in America and in totalitarian countries (China mostly these days). When Flo-Jo's death was announced at the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpa (I think it was) there were cheers in parts of the athletes village (and, yes, I am aware at how awful that is). Seriously, do not underestimate the numbers of athletes who loathe cheaters and PED users. Dwayne Chambers is considered mud in the UK (as one example). And none of these ''no suspension - four games suspension - year suspension' programs like the NFL operates. You test positive and you can wave goodbye to that season unless something turns up to mitigate the problem. If it were not for international rules being a straightjacket for the UK (and being tested in court) in a lot of UK sports a positive test would otherwise lead to a life ban. Goodbye career, you cheating !@#$! And yes, the UK sports bodies have tried to enforce life bans only for them to be slapped down in court to lesser bans (say a year or two) in the law courts.