Ya Bezzer!

The Eagle Someone got me this as I'm interested in Roman history. The first half of the film is tolerable although Channing Tatum has about as much charisma as wheelie bin. In the second half it really starts to unravel. The photogenic Scottish highlands aren't really a substitute for a realistic storyline or unconvincing relationships between characters we don't really care about. Strangely the indigenous people are portrayed as bone through the nose style savages rather than people who constructed sophisticated stone buildings and possessed iron age technology as the archeology shows. Perhaps when Channing Tatum crosses Hadrians Wall he also crosses some kind of worm hole in the fabric of the galaxy and is transported back to the neolithic age. Without giving the ending away it is fairly formulaic when perhaps the movie could have been saved with a different ending. Watchable, once, for the scenery. 5/10

I've always loved Keep The Aspidistra Flying because I'm basically Gordon Comstock. Coming Up For Air is probably one of Orwell's least know novels but I think it is underrated.

May have already mentioned this but I'm trying to read a book published in every year from 1700 to 2012. The aim is to get one a week finished. In the month since I started I've managed the following.... 1764 - Horace Walpole 'The Castle of Otranto' 1771 - Henry MacKenzie 'The Man of Feeling' 1891 - Karl Jorisl Huysman 'The Damned' 1938 - Evelyn Waugh 'Scoop' 1964 - Saul Bellow 'Herzog' Currently reading E. T. A Hoffman's 'The Life and Opinions of Tomcat Murr' (1819). Have a blog reviewing the books as I read them, although I've not updated over the Christmas period, will do so tomorrow.

All sketch shows are hit and miss but The Limmy Show is one of the few programmes being broadcast right now that I make a point of watching every week. You never know what you are going to get and in the age of generic programming that is something in its self. My theory on sketch shows is it is a bit like first and second year at University. You are studying three or four different subjects, you have lots of essays to write on diverse topics and you can't really give everything your best shot so you write one strong essay, an OK one, and one's that's a bit shite but you have to hand in something. Writing a non sketch show is like third and fourth year, you are studying one subject and that's when you can really concentrate and produce your best work because everything you write, even if it's for different classes is related somehow to the general subject. What I'd like to see is Limmy write a non sketch show. He's got the talent to produce something really memorable.

Reading this made me google Maxim Tsigalko, the greatest striker in Champie Man history. Retired at 29, what a waste!

Keep the Aspidistra Flying is probably my favourite Orwell novel although I am a fairly ridiculous Gordon Comstock type so that figures.... Coming Up For Air is also a underrated Orwell novel and there is a Penguin compilation of essays that's worth reading, I think it's called 'Shooting the Elephant and Other Essays'. I love the one on working in a book shop which has a couple of laugh out loud moments, maybe not something you generally associate with Orwell! At the other end of the scale the essay about the execution of the prisoner is pretty powerful stuff.

Marquis de Sade was a 100 years prior to H. G. Wells so I don't agree with your assessment! I'd bet even today most readers wouldn't be able to finish his more extreme works.

I do like a mad over ambitious project so I've decided to read two books from every decade from 1700 to the present day. The first two are Daniel Defoe's 'The Storm' (1703) and Jonathan Swift's 'A Tale of a Tub' (1704). I reckon I can get to 2012 by 2015!

Radio 4 (and Radio 4 Extra) is great. Listen to the following.... Museum of Curiosity (prefer it to the similar QI on televsion) News Quiz Unbelievable Truth I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue Great Lives Desert Island Discs Moral Maze So Wrong It's Right Richard Herring's Objective Unreliable Evidence I've Never Seen Star Wars Comedy Controller Plus older repeated comedy on Radio 4 Extra such as Ivor Cutler Beachcomber The 99p Challenge Hamish and Dougal I'm Sorry I'll Say That Again Hancock's Half Hour Yes Minister Goon Show Lots of Armando Ianucci stuff Not all currently in rotation but there are usually at least 3 or 4 good things to be found on iPlayer every week.

Season 1 was great but season 2 (after a period of adjustment because it's quite different from season1) and season 4 are the best ones. Season 5 is the poorest. I don't have a problem with the newspaper guys but the way they link it up to the police via the McNulty story line and the way that story line is resolved is pretty poor. You'd think they would have thought of a better way to examine press ethics given the amount of political corruption that goes on in the series. Oh and I hate Stringer. He's a scumbag. It's no accident that the 'gangster' Avon is a better man than the 'money man' Stringer.

I'm guessing that it might be one of the 'destitution' walls built during the potato famine. The idea was it was immoral to just hand food out to the poor during the famine and that they had to work for it. So they had them build various public works which served no actual purpose other than to provide them with work, paid for with food rations.

Pierce.

I agree. There is no way they will liquidate at this stage in the season. It only adds to their problems.

Just hypothetically if Rangers did refuse to allow to release players for the national team I reckon suspension from the Scottish Cup would be an appropriate punishment.

Rangers fans - be men, stand up and take your punishment and stop acting like spoilt children. Remember all this IS YOUR OWN FAULT.

Wycombe v Colchester Bust two coupons. On one I had Wycombe and on the other I had Colchester. They drew 0-0. I still had a pretty successful weekend three out of five lines came up but for those guys I could have had a clean sweep. Oops forgot about Falkirk, Partick. Same deal

You are wrong. Rangers and Celtic aren't really built on sectarianism, bigotry and hatred, those are just flags of convenience. Rangers and Celtic are built on tens of thousands of sad little scrotes who attach themselves parasite like to something which is successful to give their pathetic lives some sense of achievement. The problem with one half of the duo failing is that it virtually guarantees a monopoly of success for the other side. I don't believe for a minute that if Celtic were aiming for a 10-in-a-row, which they surely will be, Celtic Park will be sitting half empty. Back in the 80's and 90's Celtic attendances struggled around the 10-15,000 mark but across the city, you couldn't get in to Ibrox, despite long periods when Celtic were barely a force. As long as Celtic are successful, they will have a lot less problems than any of the rest of us.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Bsl44gJAPY

Does no one drink pints any more?

In the real world you are suppose to be an authority in your area of expertise more than 6 months after you studied it. Is it a 12 block honours programme? If so, I hope you are in your final year because its not a good idea to 3x2 plus the dissertation in the final year.

I went to Glasgow and neither did I. I even knew people that had two honours exams in the same day. I never really worried about exams themselves but I still have dreams/nightmares about getting the date/time/place of my final exams wrong and missing them.