Xela

Being able to relax tonight cheers me up.. as had a job interview today and had been fretting/worrying about it for ages!

Random thought.

 

Is there anything stopping a company producing a song and the buying enough copies themselves to get it to number one?

 

So for example, if I wrote a song about (as it's me) Land Rovers. Recorded it and made a video and then spent 30 grand buying 30,000 copies to get it to number 1.

That way I'd have what would effectively be a 3 and a half minute advert playing several times a day on dozens of radio stations and TV channels. Surely the cost of that sort of airtime for a conventional advert would be a lot more?

 

Plus you'd get some of the money back as you'd be the artist. Plus some idiots would buy the song anyway so you'd get money from that.

Are there rules about this?

I think it would be banned as I seem to recall a song being investigated years ago due to irregular purchasing patterns. Something to do with influencing/fixing the charts. 

Just out of interst, any of you guys renting in Birmingham? What are you paying per calendar month.

I'm not in Brum centre but I pay £525 for a one bed flat in Four Oaks (on the cross city into New St - trains every 10 mins)

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/property-41182088.html

If I had to move into the City it would be something like this. Slap bang in the middle of the financial district which has plenty of decent bars and restaurants. Also not too far to St Pauls Square for more eating/drinking options. Plus there, you are just far enough away from the cesspit that is Broad St

Man Utd couldn't have picked a team more likely to roll over tonight than us.

I just hope its not an absolute spanking

Watched the S1 finale of Person of Interest last night. Thought the whole series was superb. 

The Karate Kid remake. I'll say it... yeah, I quite liked it. 

If you don't want to live in the city centre then you could live anywhere on the cross city line. Most it would take you is 30 mins or so to get into New St and plenty of options. 

I just love the name of them - brothel creepers! 

Not a great days results, bar the Wigan, However, as 3 of our 5 games left are winnable (Sunderland, Norwich and Wigan) if we do go down, it'll be because we deserve to go down. 

Just look on Rightmove under Birmingham Snow Hill. There are a few apartments in the financial district around your budget

You lucky git  

Having an interview at 9.30 in the morning in a city over 50 miles away. Hotel it is.

Get up earlier?

I had a 9am meeting in Carlisle once and I live in Sutton! 

Just watching CBS... got a live video feed. People lying injured on the floor... lots of blood 

Talking of Cruise... Watched Vanilla Sky last night for the first time in a few years. I think it is absolutely superb. Haven't seen the original Spanish version but will source that out in the near future. 

I spent 3 days in Singapore and it was probably just about the right length of time, It's a lovely city, just not a great deal to do.

I went to Sentosa one day and the other days I just walked around the city... did the touristy stuff like a Singapore Sling in Raffles etc.

It's a good place to go out in the evening in, albeit a bit pricey. Just take advantage of the 'happy hours' in various bars to keep the beer prices down! Clark Quay has a lot of bars/restaurants. I remember a Cuban bar where they served great mojitos. I think they were $28 Singapore Dollars (about £14) but very nice. If you are looking for something a bit more 'adult' then Orchard Towers at night is an experience! Ipanema was the main club there.

Apparently she made some of those tweets about getting drunk, wanting to do space cakes and wanting to be **** when she was 15. She's probably more embarrassed than anything

Can't say enough good things about Etihad. 

 

Have done 4 flights (2 connecting journeys) with them recently and each one was fantastic. The food they serve is the best airline food I've ever enjoyed, by a distance. The chairs are comfortable and the entertainment is out of this world. Recent films that I've watched on their planes include: Django Unchained, Lincoln, Argo, Silverlinings Playbook, Life of Pi, and the list goes on.

 

That said, Dubai Airport is a state:

 

Flying into Dubai Airport from Birmingham required us to circle the area for half an hour before landing due to some unforseen delays.

Our flight out from Dubai was then delayed by half an hour due to congestion in the taxiing area.

Our return flight back to Dubai required us to circle around over Dubai for an extra hour because one of the runways was closed. We very nearly missed our connecting flight, and would have done were it not for a private golf buggy waiting on hand to transport us to the next terminal.

Even after all that, the departing flight was again delayed.

Etihad?

Or Emirates :-) If Emirates, then fully agree. 

Wow, even I'm not that lonely or pathetic.

That made me 'lol' 

I did wonder how long it worked out at.. 10.5 hours per day! Man... sore wrists.. and on an iPhone as well! He must have had to sit plugged into the mains all day to make the calls!

He sounds like a right word removed. I hope Vodafone don't back down and continue to request what is due to them.

I'm surprised he hasn't declared himself bankrupt. That seems to be the easy option for a certain group of people nowadays 

Gutted. I had £10 at Paddy Power that Madela would go first.

Re-watched a few De Niro / Pacino classics over the last two days. Casino, Heat and Carlito's Way. All fantastic.

I've said it before in another discussion on here but I do prefer Casino to Goodfellas. 

I've got Weird Al in our sweep - I carry a first fence faller, a second fence faller and three deaths in recent years - you might want to stay away from Al.

 

Also, am I right in thinking that the national is the biggest mug magnet in racing and that if you actually want to have a sensible bet you go with a sensible horse race, not a death or glory two lap fencefest?

Weird Al has failed to finish in 4 of his last 5 races so you may be right

I'm not keen on the whole PUA subculture either. I think some of them are more interested in the 'game' itself than actually shagging the women they pull. It's all about stroking each other egos on the forum.

Roosh's book 'A Dead Bat in Paraguay' is actually a good read. It was about his first travelling experience. 

Going off on a bit of a tangent, it upsets me that (in terms of natural beauty atleast) the the world seems to get better as you get further away from the UK. It's like we're at the centre of geological black spot, and we influence everything around us according to how close it is to us.

 

Travelling around the UK is pretty meh, and any nice spots are blighted by cold weather. 

European destinations are really all about culture, the beaches etc really aren't that nice in general, though there is some good mountain scenery.

Things start getting better once you get to North Africa, the red sea is a definite jewel in the underwater world.

The Caribbean is lovely, with some amazing scenery, coupled with rainforests etc.

Indian Ocean is out of this world for beaches.

Then on the complete other side of the world you have natural meccas like Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, The Cook Islands, Galapagos Islands, Thailand. 

 

This annoys me greatly, why can't we just have 1 paradise on our doorstep. 

I'm the opposite... I like the fact 'paradise' is so far away (and reasonably expensive to get to). It means when I go, there is less chance of it being full of annoying British drunks!

edited for spelling