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Purrington is a good player but gets easily distracted when a ball of wool is thrown on the pitch.

Poor bloke. Still, alcohol will do that to you...

"I think so, do you want to bet against us?"

She lives in France according to her Twitter profile. Seem's she's spent most of the past 24 hours dealing with the fallout from that tweet too. Anyway, that's not why I quoted you, I saw something on Reddit yesterday which kinda addresses your MOBO point. It's from a guy who is in America who's directly addressing the Alt Right and is more geared to the USA where a lot of people are still old enough to remember Jim Crow and a lot of white people still look romantically at Europe but there's enough in there to apply to this thread too:

For me extreme manifestations of political correctness seem to be going on at university campuses across countries like the UK and US. Ridiculous things such as 'safe spaces' and the worrying trend of 'no platforming' are particularly poisonous IMO. I simply do not agree that if enough people disagree with an individuals views that they should be shouted down and out of existence - which is basically the NUS trump card these days. I think stupid and even dangerous ideas need a platform precisely so that they can be debated and exposed for how ridiculous they are, rather than be pushed underground where they become more attractive to like-minded people. 'Political correctness gone mad' gets over used but I am concerned that there's a generation of individuals leaving university with no debating skills or capacity to reason but rather their stock response to things that they do not like is to shout and cry.

Turned the engine on this morning and on comes WM. 'We're making a transport manifesto for the West Midlands' says the presenter. Oh, this is interesting, I thought to myself. Isn't this what local radio and media is supposed to do? Encourage civic leaders towards sensible solutions for local political issues? And aren't you always saying to people how much you'd like more devolution in this country? 'I have three ideas, one national, one regional and one local', said the first caller. 'My national idea is, I'd make standing up on trains illegal. I'd make it so everyone had to sit down on a seat. That way trains would be more comfortable and more people would want to travel on them'. I can't report on his regional and local suggestions, for I quietly turned the radio off and sat in contemplation instead,

Oh good, two Gabby threads.

What a guy.

Parklife!

From the club: We are trying to raise the profile of our Ladies team, who, even though most have full time jobs outside of football, spend time several hours per week training to the same standard as the men's first team, for nothing more than the love of the shirt, but sadly don’t have the following as other large ladies teams, such as Man City. We have filmed some rare footage behind the scenes at the Ladies first ever game at the Aston Villa ground, which was also their final game of the season, which was won 4-0 by our ladies. The footage shows the emotions involved in playing at the ground for the first time, hard work, dedication that goes into the team, but also it contains the half time manager talk, which is rare to see on screen in this way. We want to share this as widely as possible as a nod to the team, and in advance of a community based scheme we will be doing to engaging more girls in football in the new year. As valued supporters with a strong audience of your own, we would really like your help to share this and support the club. Our hashtag is #girlsplaytoo, and we’d love to have you on board to support this, all we are asking is that you share this link to your channels and social sites. We hope that you can participate.

"Oh all this shiny new vinyl, some of which is still wrapped in the cellophane? No, I've had these years. Just found them in the loft."

God rest ye merry, Villa men Let nothing you dismay Remember, Xia our saviour He came one summers day To save us all from Lerner's power When we were gone astray O tidings of Xia and joy, Xia and joy O tidings of Xia and joy

...but keeping your options open it seems

What has Gollini done wrong lately which has led to talk of him being replaced? A senior goalkeeper who can push him for a first team place is a great idea but I wouldn't be actively looking to replace him. Seems rather unnecessary.

Is that the one with the carpet bombing ?

Well in fairness there isn't much Jim Davidson stuff on youtube .

I don't think I've bought many albums at all this year. We had too many DIY projects on to be wasting money on music. Maybe the new GOAT album, but even that was a present from a business acquaintance, that had some spare copies. Incidentally, my wife is currently sat next to me.

Yes, I disagree re. the pace too. There was an incredible amount of exposition in the first couple of episodes which I think was to be expected as they had to cover a lot of ground, but that's thinned out as the show has progressed. I think it's been a very good case of showing just enough each week to keep the intrigue and just enough to keep us guessing where the whole story arc will end up. Personally I think it's been a triumphant piece of TV and roll on the second series.

That quickly though? Pretty much as soon as he came in the late goals just stopped. I do think psychology plays a big part in it. Not only did we know that we'd concede late under RDM but the players probably knew it as well and that affects performances.

I have to disagree with that. I don't see all the games (just the ones on the tellybox) but earlier in the season our midfield was just non-existent. Gardner and Westwood might aswell have not been on the pitch, although not helped by the bizarre 5 up front tactics of RDM. We couldn't control the tempo of a game and we couldn't stop the opposition from dominating the middle of the park and that led to inevitable losses and draws. Villatalk's obsession with possession percentages bear out the fact that we just couldn't keep the football and control the game. We couldn't take the pressure off when we needed to. Also the I agree that our finishing was poor but I don't think that was the main reason we weren't winning games.

I had to check that out but he is still at a Premier League club. He has made a fine career out of being a No.3 goalkeeper just checked his stats and his 2nd most appearances at a club was for Villa

Move on with your lives. The club already has.

Righty ho, as it's now December and the year is drawing to a close I thought it was time for the annual album list. I always find this interesting and I always seem to read a couple of recommendations that have managed to slip under my radar. ***NOTE*** No **** 'honourable mentions'! Stick to 10 albums and that's it!...please Here's mine: 1. Helms Alee - Stillicide 2. Whores - Gold 3. Regina Spektor - Remember us to Life 4. God Damn - Everything Ever 5. Dinosaur Jnr - Give a glimpse of what yer not 6. Gojira - Magma 7. Rival Sons - Hollow Bones 8. Primitive Weapons - The Future of Death 9. PJ Harvey - Hope Six Demolition Project 10. Nick Cave - Skeleton Tree Honourable mentions to... i'm just **** wit ya

Where has this thing come from that Westwood makes a lot of mistakes? He's been especially tidy for the majority of his time here. Ineffective through a lot of it, but tidy and lacking mistakes.

Some people are just too quick to take 'offence' and, as MMV rightly said, social networks give them a public platform to do so, which the media then use to fill column inches: "People took to Twitter to express their outrage about the offensive comments". Some comments are mindless - Bristow is a good example - but other stuff, it's not so bad, but some people almost want to be offended (and what being offended actually means or does to a person is a different debate). Dr Matt Taylor: a great scientist who should have been enjoying a wonderful achievement was reduced to tears and had to apologise because he wore a shirt with scantly clad women on it. Forget the fact that he'd just achieved one of mankind's greatest feats, let's castigate him on Twitter because of his 'sexist' (!?!?) shirt. Ellen: posted a photo of her getting a piggyback from the fastest man on earth, who enjoyed the photo himself, but others said it was vile and racist. Protein World: tried to promote a healthy lifestyle product, but were forced to remove their adverts because fat words removed said they were body shaming. FFS. It's a protein company; they're not going to use Adele as their poster girl. Whilst I think the company sells a lot of shite, I give PW a lot of respect for not backing down and taking the sensitive idiots on. It's examples like this that so called "snowflakes" need to get a grip of reality on.

You are right we are not scoring enough goals that directly is the strikers responsibility. but there are some indirect issues too, like midifeld. However, let me mitigate. With a more dominant midfield, will come a more composed front line.....at present their work is being rushed and they get snatchy also our MF is too deep leaving the numbers short in the opposing box. The paradox is that most folk think we have the best forward line ( squad) in the division, but that statement is not reflective in our goals for column as you allude to. An Interesting incident with Arsene Wenger (a while back) after a 5-0 win when a presenter said to him " I see your strikers have their shooting boots back on Arsene" (after going through a bit of a goal drought).....Arsene replied " Teams score goals". I kinda get that .....Strikers take the final responsibility.

Don't think we currently have the midfield to go on any long winning streak. Unbeaten yes, but winning, not so sure.

The Ramones were pretty instrumental in my musical evolution, musically my taste went down a particular avenue, I liked the village people, then abba and then I obsessed over Frankie Goes To Hollywood (none of this is a joke), my walls were covered in FGTH posters, collected their records across all formats. One night in 85 or 86 I mistakenly tuned in to John Peel, for the first time and I heard The Ramones. This literally happened, the next day I tore down all of my posters and gave away everything I owned that was FGTH. From then on in The Ramones was my new obsession. In 1988 All of my records were stolen, the only ones from then I replaced was The Ramones.

I saw this quote today from Molly Ivins. Seemed apropos to the current climate.

FTW - Ferment terrible wind? Force trouser wafts?...

Just got back from seeing Brian Cox in Guildford tonight and he kinda said the same thing I'm paraphrasing but ... Our universe is 13.6 billion years old but to use Carl Sagan to get your head around this think of that as the 1st Jan on a calendar , earth was formed on the 28th September "life" began sometime late October .... more advanced life in November ....humans arrived on the 31st December ... there are 200 trillion galaxy's in our universe , lord only knows how many stars that equates to but roughly there is a chance that 1 in 10 of those stars would have a planet that could support life .... now on one hand there could be life but it's just too far away that we'll never hear from them but like we've sent probes and broadcasts into space , equally there is no sign so far not a squeak from anywhere else An interesting theory he put forward was that potentially there could be life that evolved a billion years before us but its just possible that every advance civilisation technologically ends up wiping itself out .... for example nuclear fusion is almost inevitable within any advanced civilisation ,would we be around had we split the atom 5 years earlier than we did (as a very generic example ) We've had computers around 80 years (if you took the z1 to be the first modern computer ) ... when Einstein put this theory together we thought the universe ended at the end of the Milky Way , now with the aid of computers we've been and seen the cosmic microwaves (I think it was ) from that explosion 13.6 bn years ago ( if you want to be precise we can't see the first 380,000 years after Big Bang ) and produced a model from it that predicts wave formation of galaxies within our universe , that we have now mapped and proven the computer model ( from Durham no less ) was correct ... mind blowing stuff

clearly wins the ball

I think a defender and a midfielder be enough business in January and we need add quality not quantity at moment. while a bit premature but if we were to bounce back up we need do add to quality of what we have. at moment the following are whoI think could hack it in Premier League Grealish Kodjia Amavi Jedinak Chester maybe Gollini, Adomah and Baker could do a job as well

think psychological side of our performances are being slightly overlooked at moment. a crucial one for me is that the latest we conceded under Bruce is 72nd minute compared to RDM when we were throwing away goals regularly in last 10 minutes

"I already have intelligence, it's the biggest, best intelligence, believe me. I know more about ISIS than the generals...and I love our veterans, they're tremendous people, beautiful people...and what's happening to our veterans, who I love, is a total disgrace. "

The idea that it's racist comes from her point that a black family can't represent 'our traditions', and are therefore harming 'my culture & country'. I mean, of course it's her opinion and she's saying what she thinks, but it's pretty clearly racist. She's allowed her opinions, but of course we can address them for what they are.

So they are showing Leeds v Aston Villa followed 3 weeks later by Aston Villa v Leeds?! Bit weird but i'll allow it!!

I trained as a teacher. The idea is solid. Some children will never put their hands up to answer a question and some will want to answer every single question. I banned putting hands up for some lessons, just to get every child to have a chance to have their voice heard. I even had a little pot of ice lolly sticks with their names on. However, it simply isn't practical all of the time. I'd forget, the kids would forget. Some kids aren't going to answer whether you force them to or not and some will put their hands up anyway and they aren't doing anything wrong so it would be silly to punish them. But, that has absolutely nothing to do with political correctness. It's a teaching method promoting inclusiveness. Not entirely practical, but still. It's silly to label, what is a good idea in practice, as political correctness with a rolling eyes smiley. it simply isn't an example of PC culture and it dilutes the phrase, much like being offended too easily does on the other end of the spectrum.

You can't get offended at anything anymore without someone getting offended.

Looks like DK82 will never get his fleshlight delivered in time for Xmas

You can't even confuse child molesters and homosexuals, or insult people who don't partake in vigilante justice without the politically correct brigade biting your head off, what's the world coming to. I think freedom of expression is absolutely sacrosanct. Anything short of inciting violence should be fair game, IMO, but I think that freedom of expression extends to having the right to call people out as the dickheads they are when they say something so uninformed. It used to be that when people were critising political correctness, it was based on nonsense stories like renaming Christmas, which was a view I could at least understand, but there's no "PC gone mad" here.

IF we should get promotion this year and Moyes gets relegated I will LOL.

I agree. I am happy with 9 wins and 1 loss.

So I'm flying out to Minneapolis on Thursday and driving to Standing Rock from there. The ND governor said today that they are blocking commercial vehicle shipments of food and supplies. We'll see if that extends to private vehicles. I've been asked to bring food, basic medical supplies and hatchets. I'm bringing hatchets to the Sioux in a standoff against the government. Sounds about right.

I think most of my favourite quotes would be from Homer Simpson; "You tried your best and failed miserably. The lesson is: Never try." "To alcohol! The cause of, and the solution to, all of life's problems" "I believe children are our future. Unless we stop them now" "All my life I've had one dream; to achieve my many goals" And then a few I'm not sure where they come from; "If at first you don't succeed...give up before you make a fool of yourself" "Pain is temporary, losing is forever" "You can't be happy if you've never known sadness" "The past has gone, the future never comes. Live today." And then a few other million quotes from Blackadder, Friends, Monty Python, Red Dwarf, movies and everything else. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever had a completely original conversation with anyone. Yes, I'm that guy; Worst. Quote. Ever.

Technically, the word "wealth" should probably be omitted since the downtrodden proletariat don't really have any wealth to be taken. They can have other things, like their labor, spirit, etc. taken from them.

I'd rather see us continue developing Gollini, he's shown enough for me to warrant it. That said, if an opportunity comes up to buy a quality player then you shouldn't pass it up based on sentiment.