Weather: The rain arrives at 830, and stops around 4. It's heavy rain, and it comes with a cold wind. 11 is top temps.

Travel: The stopper to Wolverhampton is late leaving New St, so I get to catch it. Everything falls into place behind.

Track Of The Day: Bugs - Hepburn (1999). Whatever happened to these girls? They were meant to be the future of rock 'n' roll, but vanished into the ether? This was the second of three fantastic singles.

Kris
Life has been suckin' lately for me, but out of the mists of the crap...The Raiders beat the Forty Niners!
My life isn't so bad after all.
Yeah, but I seem to recall clucking over a 44-9 defeat for the self-same 44-9ers, at Candlestick Park, three whole years ago. Back when beating the 44-9ers actually *meant* something. Anyone can do it this season. Even Carolina.

Besides, let's see who is smiling at 9pm Sunday, after Oakland has made its annual pilgrimage to Arrowhead Stadium. Tail, meet the space between the legs.

For the record: That final... Oakland 20, Kansas 17

Weather: The rain holds off again, just about, though there's a strong wind. 13 is top.

Travel: The 0649 from Wolverhampton vanishes into the ether, owing to "staffing problems". Not a problem, just stay on the train I'm already on. Coming back, shoot to catch the 1710 stopper, it's delayed 5 to let a late Walsall train out. Then find the display boards are out at Wolverhampton, and I have to make enquiries to find the 1742 home is running almost 20 late. Double carp. Shoot like a rocket to catch the bus, miss it at the bus station, but storm up Lichfield Street, overtake it at the top and board outside St Peter's. Only the driver is a snail, we're almost 6 behind at Birches Bridge and - oh look! - there's the blinkin' train. Grr.

Track Of The Day: Tonight And The Rest Of My Life - Nina Gordon. See last Saturday.

Colleen
Hey all, I'm back.
Bienvenue.
[Welcome back.]

The weather was horrid up north. Snowing, sleeting, raining, hailing, cloudy, and a sunny 27 degrees F. And its October!
Mon dieu! Vous avez les temps Brittanique.
[How terrible. It's been pretty horrid here, too.]

Anyways, being in my second year of french, I was suprised to have understood every word of this. I'm getting a b or so in french, so I guess it's cool that I knew that.
Excellent!
[er, sorry, haven't a clue.]

J'esp�re donner un peu d'�ducation, un peu d'amusement, et un peu des renseignements.
[I'd like to be the BBC.]

Ask me one word in spanish, and I couldn't tell you for the life of me. I barely know hello.
Ah, zees is pound, zees is euro, and zees is slap in the face. Do excuse him, he's from a 25-year-old comedy. And don't mention the war. I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it.

Weather: Rain stops around 8, get caught by a sharp shower over lunch, sunny home. 13.

Travel: Not too bad until hit New St coming back. The 1710 is accessible (good), but needs engineers to give it a kick (bad.) The 1657 to Glasgow is in (good) but pulls out as I hit the platform (bad.) The 1718 to Edinburgh follows (good) and I get on this (better) and isn't being held up by the stopper, which is still stopped at the platform (better still.) With the train from Grimsby delayed somewhere, it's the bus. Which promptly takes 15 minutes to travel Horden Road - normally a 4-minute job - owing to traffic diverted off the Stafford Road. Moral: Wolverhampton Council must get round to installing lights at Lowlands / Sandy / Codsall / Lower. Their absence will cause accidents.

Nieske
Well, if our matches match, we must match too. Or whatever :)
Care to discuss this further in the bushes?

if she's meant to look like an alien (which, I think, the vid makes pretty clear)
Does it? I thought she was meant to look like an over-ripe tomato wrapped in cling film. Or two.

she *has* done a pretty good job.
No, Birtney hasn't had *any* jobs done. Especially not to increase the beefiness of the tomato.

I just can't help liking that shot of Britney. She must've put a spell on me! Just like [spoiler?] :)
Hocus pocus, apples and peers; make Nieske lust after Birtney Spears.

On The Weakest Link
I've been hooked on this show for weeks now! I can't help it, I keep finding more and more stuff on BBC that's worth watching.
Well, there's (er) and (er) and (ah).

I now regularly watch The Weakest Link
I suppose it could work as after-supper entertainment. The CHOICE repeat at 7 clashes with "Connected," which doesn't help.

(although that lady who presents it really reminds me of my former maths teacher - ew!!),
Ew, indeed. To be taught maths by Anne Robinson. Yuck.

Buffy (of course! :))
Of course.

For some reason you sound like Mark Lamarr to me. Oh my gosh, now I'm even writing about British tv people!
That's no good, I'm trying to sound more like Paul Merton, or (at a pinch) Alan Coren.

Am I the weakest link or what?
Have to ask the audience, I think. Oh, sorry, wrong show.

Giles!! :) For some reason, he's suddenly become my second favourite Buffy-er (Buffy-ist? Well, whatever). And I don't even go for older men! :)
He's good, but he's not Spike. Or [other characters deleted for spoiler space]

Weather: The perfect autumn day. A little patchy fog early on, clearing to a dewy, sunny day. 14.

Travel: The 1723 from New Street is MIA. Again. The bus steps into the breach. Again.

Henna
And yes, Finland draw against England...But we played better!!
That didn't take much doing. A side of stuffed scarecrows would have provided tough opposition.

and then the goal is taken away from you' But it wasn't a goal it hit the up-post, there the ball came down to the goal-line, but the rules say that ball must be completely over the line before it is a goal, not just in the line.
Well, the finest scientific minds suggest that the shadow of the ball *did* cross the line, and did so by around 20cm. Even accounting for Schrodinger's Uncertainty Principle, that's a goal.

Buffalo sports fans will remember being swizzled twice in recent years by wonky line calls: the "winner" in the 1999 Stanley Cup final game 6 that was illegal (even the refs said so); and Tennessee's Forward Pass in the wild-card game last January. This is going to rank similarly in the scale of Blown Calls.

England would'nt have deserved to win, and they didn't!
I've no candle for the game, didn't shell out �10 to see it live, didn't care to listen to the commentary, but I got the impression that a draw was scant reward.

However, if it enhances the prospect of England not going to South Asia the summer after next, I'm all in favour of it. And I seem to recall tipping Finland to cause an upset some months ago.

We'll see what the result is in spring when they're playin' in England! :)))
3-1, probably.

Jing
the game between England and Finland, i watched some highlight.
More than those who tried to watch it live got. The picture kept freezing during the game, and they didn't get to see the match till the late-night repeat.

England really let me down,
You and all their fans (Sid and Doris Bonkers of Neasden.)

i haven't watched them play great after the World Cup,
Neither has anyone else.

they have great players, well developed league, but what the hell wrong with the national team!!!???
The problem is that the great players are being kept out of the national side by a bunch of clapped-out journeymen, whose time has come and gone. Of the current first team, only Beckham and McManaman can argue for a place in a World's Best squad. The pundits are suggesting that the new manager does an Anne Robinson on the rest of them, and bring in the youngsters from the '97 Under-21 squad.

Weather: Sunny spells and 15.

Travel: Not today, the cold wins.

Enrique
I can see what you mean with Mariah, but Whitney's voice is pure talent!
Don't get me wrong, Houston is a huge talent. I just don't think she could possibly give as good a performance as Gordon on this particular track. It requires notes to be held perfectly, without a trace of variation. That's not something gospel-trained singers in general are good at.

BTW I'm a really, really big Whitney fan (sad I know!)
Is it? Oh. I was surprised to find just how much of her greatest hits album I rated, more than I'd thought of before.

Nina Gorden, never heard of her, where would I be able to hear some of her stuff??
"Some of her stuff." Cuh. "Tonight..." picked up a play on Paul Gambiccini's Radio 2 show on October 7, he *may* play it again on the 21st or 28th. I'm not aware of any other radio station in the UK playing it, and the album won't be coming out in the UK until the new year. It's Napster (for the track) or amazon.com (for the album), I fear.

Weather: Rainy spells, cloudy the rest of the time. 14.

Football: Manchester United returns to the top of the Premier League, winning 3-0 at deposed leaders Leicester City. It was fun while it lasted. Arsenal moved level on points with MUN, beating Aston Villa 1-0. Sunderland upset Chelsea 1-0; Coventry, Leeds, and Man City also won. Liverpool downed Derby 4-0 in Sunday's match, Newcastle won 3-1 at Middlesborough on Monday.

Jing
i think communism, according to Karl Marx' theory, is really an ideal society. but IMHO, we can't reach that stage, so it's only a dream, or good will. maybe human can achieve that, but not in my time...
I agree that Communism (as per Marx's definition) is highly unlikely to happen, but I also think that saying "never" eliminates the possibility of surprise.

i think the only thing china keep communism is the party still take charge, which causes some problems, like corruption.
As I understand it, and correct me if I'm wrong, Communism as defined in China bears a closer relationship to the market economy than Marxist Communism. Corruption is a side-effect of an over-powerful ruling class. Followers of Marx suggest that this provides the seeds of the inevitable revolution. Other thinkers might suggest that evolution might prove more beneficial than revolution.

this is very serious in china, i do hope that the party will do something about it.
It's also a problem in the West, where Big Industrial Concerns *appear* to be able to ride over the wishes of The Public. It doesn't matter so much whether Industry *is* over-powering Public, the mere appearance of that may be enough to stir up trouble and resentment.

i do think that china need some changes.
Everywhere does, I think. Some places more than others.

Weather: Cloudy, threatens to rain but never does. 14.

From UK Millionaire: #223 Bav Patel... burns three lifelines by �4000... guesses all the way from �2000... �Horse... or antelope. I haven�t the foggiest� ... �I think it�s Scotland� ... ��8000 is a lot of money, �16,000 is a lot better. I�m gonna take the - Polo, final answer go go go!� ... �You�ve got �16,000, please don�t play any more� ... �I don�t have a clue� ... �You haven�t had a clue the whole show!�