Juju

But (and don't quote me exactly) wasn't Wagner dead 30 years before the Nazi's came to power? So is it the heavy handed, ponderous, over long and loud nature of the Ring Cycle something that fitted Nazi ideals? Think of Speers plans for Germania? Of the very idea of creating lebensraum, (living room) and the pomp of the uniforms and regalia, along with the semi mystic nature of their idealogy somehting intrinsically "German" and of "german character" given that Wagner predated them by so long. And wasn;t the last Nazi broadcast "Siegfried" as the Russians entered Berlin - a sad opera based on a hero's death or some such nonsense. Where as you think of Italians, think of their cars, think of their food. Much lighter, much freer of spirit. Think Rossini, such as the ultimate fiat Strada ad - from BArber of Seville... and doesnt that bring back the 1980's ?

I notice the Rev mentions our own villa supporters fiddling. And therein lies the joy of classical. That it is "the four seasons" (and its not a bloody pizza), do you actually "hear" the seasons in the piece? Especially bearing in mind it's Italian, and not english. For example, I hear winter, and yes, the piece is eminently reminiscent, in that falling "cascade" of the main "riff" of say sleet or snow blown blown across land in driving gusts. And in "Summer", doesnt the violin seems to be "struggling in the heat", a much heavier, more oppressive tune, whereas spring is much more spritely. Thats perhaps how you explain classical music to a beginner. Once you see it, your halfway there. When you can get a few versions of a favourite piece, and suddenly appreciate how different orchestras with different conductors, make the piece sound their own, and find favourites, your halfway there. For example - this is a funky little version of "Arrival of the Queen of Sheba" - and compare that fun little outing to a more traditional rendition - But its odd that on an "english" forum, theres very little "english" classical. Certainly my funerals going to worth turning up to - just for Handel's Zadok the priest (more usually at weddings and the like - it was the coronation music) but I like it.... it builds so slowly and gently, to the rousing corale. And of course, on the english theme - sometimes I find this sad, and certainly reflective, Bet you can't help but think of Ralph and Ted fromt he fast show listening to this... And of course, if you like this sort of thing, then organ music probably appeals... who doesnt love a huge organ eh rob? and thats not the best rendition by a long way... So, 2-3 of the "top ten tunes of old England". And note how there isn't a big "tune" in any of them, in the way of the weightier Germans or Russians. No canons going off - no Wagner overlarge orchestras. Its about the emotion.

Or do what I do, if I fancy a change from tomato. My favourite pizza, is to make up a white garlic sauce, simply by melting butter, (i prefer the taste to using olive oil) and when its hot, adding crushed garlic, and then some flour. Cook the mixture through for a min of 30 secs, but usually closer to 2 mins, til you get a thick golden paste. Then slowly add milk to thin, until you get a garliccy white sauce. Then I tend given the "milder" taste of the base and sauce, to add a cheese like say gorgonzola or dolcelatte, something soft and blue veined, to give some bite to the dish, rather than mozarella, and finish with black olives, peas and thinly sliced leeks or mushrooms - the green on white gives a great colour. Or you could slice a tomato and have something very "italian" green white and red ! The best 2 tips for any italian food, is to firstly :- use the best quality ingrediants, when more strongly flavoured food like thai or indian dont call for them. Say on a pizza, a cheap block of industrial mozarella wont have that delicate flavour of a fresh buffalo milk cheese, and wont melt into luscious pools on top in quite the same way. Same with sun dried tomatoes. By fully dried, and rehydrate them yourself, marinating in decent olice oil, black pepper and basil leaves. Nicer than the rubbish in a jar marinaded in sunflower oil you can buy. Dont get cheap packet ham, get a smaller quantity of nice ham, say. The difference is worth the sacrifice. You said Pizza was not as cheap as you thought - trust me, the topping s put on by big chains are pretty ropey in general. Secondly :- Dont cram too many flavours together - a really good dish will have fewer than four "big ticket" flavour items. Like pizza, one with a huge crush of toppings, will rarely stand out. Decide what flavours you like and that work together, and just add a few of them. If you like say a pizza like me, I have sun dried tomatos, black olives, and say, sometimes mushroom. Really on that tomatoey/cheesy goodness, even 2 flavours is enough - let them breathe! A Pizza with 2 toppings you really like will always be nicer than one with 3-6 that dont work or make it too "busy".

Next step - make your own tomato sauce, that will improve it 100% - really. Slash a decent glug of olive oil in a pan, put on the heat. Chop up an onion, pretty finely, and start to fry it. Add a couple of cloves of garlic, crushed. Clice up a chilli, just the one, and add that. Just looking to booste the tomato taste, not add "heat". Before the onion starts to brown, add a carton of creamed tomato (rather than chopped - sometimes also called "passata". Warm through, and just mill in a bit of black pepper, and tear off a couple of bits of basil from a plant (theyre £2 from sainsburys and are reuseable if you keep watering them). Once its warmed through, coat the doughy base. Much better than that puree - which is too strong, and not flavoured enough. And its seriously foolproof.

Dowie might have now found his level, but rememer he delivered miracles at Oldham, and Crystal Palace. Arguably he didnt have long enough at Charlton, and from the point with West Ham, and Newcastle/Coventry his personal stock has fallen so players dont/wont belive in him anymore. If you signed the Crystal Palace Dowie, Id guarantee we'd have stayed up. But its why I maintain MON walked, as with no funds, and the logical slippage down the table, players would lose faith in the "myth" of his excellence, and might not exceed themselves. Thats why he walked. It might be inconvenient, but was caused by Lerner, not MON, and MON isn "a fan" but a manager with a reputation to protect, for his future ambitions. If MON began to fail, he's not get a crack at another top club. Now, he might.

I like the Houllier Out banner someone brought. A few more next game might really get us heading in the right direction. Ie waking up the board that this bewildered confused and befuddled old fart isnt up to it.

Snowy old chap, I don't always agree with you, either in presentation or tone, but you did put this one splendidly on this occasion...

To be honest, it would be fine to field Bannan with a proper first team whilst he gets up to speed. When he's one of the oldest people on the pitch, thats when you have issues.

Hi General. Happy Birthday, and its nice to see someone not treating the fans with comtempt. Would you ever have led a depleted inexperienced army into battle when you have hardened soldiers available in barracks? If not, Would you follow that General into battle? I would have thought a General like that would be "relieved of his commision" by the Field Marshall. And how closely does football mirror military life. Can you estimate how much goodwill Mr Houliers midweek actions have cost the club?

This is a seriously weak team that french tosser has put out tonight. Players did well last week after ignoring his directions and going to fast direct attacking football, after a poor first half of Houlier style. So to ensure theres no momentum, he puts that first 11 out. To ensure the season is now effectively over, fields kids and reserve players, when we had an opportunity to win something. I am only surprised Friedel is playing. We have 6 players on the bench who did so well at the weekend. In my eyes, this is the biggest disrespect to the paying fans Houlier has so far done. Forget Liverpool, forget the terrible games lost so far. Fielding a weakened team in the only game left that means something, is just two fingers to those who travelled tonight. I wouldn't be upset if the FA ask what Houlier is doing. I only hope Lerner is going to have some serious words, ending with handing him his notice. Of course, this is only an opinion, and there will be some who "mysteriously" see what he is "trying" to achieve - so let the debate commence. But its 25 mins in and 0-2 down to a side who struggled against 2 lower league teams so far in the competition.

The AA. Just sent my new membership card for the year with a note that the renewal was £60.04 I've never been organised enough to look into these things. But if I was a new customer, the same cover is £28 online! Needless to say I have cancelled. Should I even bother to ring them to tell them why?

But don't authors have "pen names". J R Hartley was probably called Basil Peasbody or something in real life. He could even have been called Dave Lately, or whatever your getting upset about.

I don't know if it makes you feel better, but I have a tiny suspicion that gaming related fraud is going through the roof. I am looking for a new job in motor claims, and looking to specialise in fraud, and a couple of searches on job sites trawl up a huge number of fraud analyst positions at the moment. Of course the industry is expanding itself, but with online, you never see the customer, you can't build a personal relationship. Its just transfers in and transfers out. And even if you lose on the bookies online, if you are depositing sums in - and then withdrawing sums out, even after losses, its still potentially an eficcient money laudering process.

Not that impressive, but I like to make smoothies for myself. But sometime get a bit bored of the same old - and don't have time for extravagant multi fruit ones often. Or the fruit. Nor do I always want a "healthy" drink, but one to "enjoy". But this simple recipe worked. Banana, (a couple of small ones), lo fat probio "basics/value" yoghort, apple juice (which are pretty much the basics of any dairy smoothie. Then 1 simple ingredient - custard! A small pot of ambrosio custard - made it much "richer" and almost like a drinkable banana custard - unsurprisingly. Ok, its really simple, but in several years, rarely come up with a new flavour I havent tried before. Usually with banana, I use cinnamon or maple syrup if I am out of other fruit.

And they paired him with Robbie bloody Savage. its like they *want* to lose listeners? does anyone actually, really thing Mike Parry has anything to bring to sports commentating. The only sport he's ever taken part in is the 10 yard dash to the buffet. I despise him more than even Alan Brazil, who at least achieved something before he turned into a bitter bald fat drunken Vogon. Imagine Parry, Savage, and the odd whinge from Alan Green! Jezus, thats a recipe for total unlistenability....

Yeah, he keeps going out and interviewing Billy Connolly in a horrific nepotistic fashion with an awful yorkshire accent..

I do have at least 4 different Villa teams since 1974-1985 when I was collecting.... Always used to be no 74 in the catalogue... which are becoming collectable on ebay...

No. She's dead. But on a lighter note, there's a woman at work (girl seems no longer appropriate at my age) who's dated some real clearings in the woods over the years. Last one dumped her whilst she was pregant with twins. Seems to have had a bit of a self confidence knock. Now, she's a sweet girl, and attractive, just not my type, but I was thinking of an anonymous card, just to cheer her up. But do people respond well to anoonymous cards? Or would it be better not to bother?

You do know that Villaajax is 45 don't you...

Sorry mate, that Dennis Mortimer is a "lightweight". Everyone should be playing subbuteo with either classic or early heavyweights....... And polish the bases with Mr Sheen. Took my set up to poly back in the late 80's and my original green baize pitch was the only thing I ironed in 4 years! Religiously, every sunday morning. And for the first couple of days after ironing, the pitch was so fast, it was almost unplayable. By the saturday, it was so slow it was like playing in mid winter. The thing about subbuteo, is if you play a lot, and I do mean a lot, then eventually, it stops being that really slow difficult game that it seems. Get past the learning curve, and eventually you can make those little fella's do almost anything, from really short 180 degree changes of direction round a player whilst touching the ball, all sorts. I even pioneered a long ball style of game, humping it up the pitch quickly in one or two flicks, and scoring, before an opponent who had lost posession could get back to goal. Subbuteo at adecent level becomes really manic, running around the board, and I frequently broke sweat on a 15m each half game. I have about half a stadium, about 30 teams, a mounted pitch and lots of variously broken bits and pieces in my dads garage waiting for suitable recipients!

I imagine looking at attitudes to women displayed on the Darren Bent/Steve Bruces daughter thread, most of the keyboard studs here will be celebrating it by a hand shandy into a sock over a card from their mums. They will of course, pretend to be "bashing in the back doors" or whatever, of some wonderful girlfriend or other. Is it half term or something?

Thoughts? You completely missed the point of the Australian system. They have forgone their right to sue each other for losses caused as a result of another driver commiting the tort of "Negligence". They have a system of non fault compensation, which is state funded, so essentially taxes, rather than premiums fund the system. So you are spreading the burden of paying for care, future losses, ect through taxation on people who dont drive, cant drive, rather than limiting it to those who directly cause the losses, ie motorists. The reason why insurance is so expensive in the UK is that our system is adversarial, and there are no "set" limits for compo, only guidelines which solicitors and to an extent, courts, are always keen to see exceeded. They also have much loss of a compensation culture there. Here, it really is noticible that certain segments of the population, such as the asian community, or people from certain postcodes (generally poorer ones) are so suceptible to "whiplash" these days. honestly, I have dealt with 2 claims today where the damage is trivial scratches or very modest dents to a single panel on the rear near sides, where the taxi drivers of a certain origin have suffered terrible whiplash which will last for a year, so alone have paid out probably 20k in *very* dubious claims. However, courts are self funding in the uk. The govt does not provide enough money to keep them open, and so solicitors are now "good customers" of courts. So "good customers" get looked after. A handful of firms issue the majority of court proceedings, and usually out of Birkenhead or Liverpool County Court. Its long been known how essentialy "dishonest" these courts are. Judges will over ride expert testimony from qualified motor engineers about "whiplash" caused by trivial knocks, if enginees feel its unlikely, and the judge finds the claimant in his own personal opinion to be truthful. It is virtually impossible to plead someone cannot have been hurt in accidents - all the bent GP's who get instructed by solicitors ensure every claimant leaves with a report giving a good, lengthy prognosis, to ensure solicitors get their legal costs (claims need to settle over 1k to ensure costs are recovered by solicitors, and so surprise, experts always find injuries last long enough for this - despite medical opinion suggesting this sort of injury ought to be the exception not the rule) So GP's are generally "dishonest" as their status as qualified experts mean they are largely beyond critisicm, solicitors tend to send hundreds of claimants to these GP's everyyear, meaning the GP is reliant on the volume of work - typically a whiplash GP "expert" will be doing 8 reports a day at over £230 each. If you were a GP, you wouldnt jeopidise this by writing reports meaning the instructing solicitor loses out would you? Solicitors and accident mangement companies will coach claimants in what to say to the expert, in order to get a long enough prognosis, and therefore recover legal costs. We also have thanks to our courts, the second highest court awards in Europe, behind only Eire. There is plenty of evidence to show people from eastern europe are actually coming to England to stage accidents as they get 5x the amount you'd recover from an insurer in say, Poland, where volumes of whiplash claims are very much lower, as the population dont have the same "expectations" of the financial outcome of an accident. Add into this, all the companies who will provide a "like for like" non fault hire car for a few days at massive expense, if you had a non fault accident, including an outfit who advertise at Villa park (scumbags). If you take say, a crappy mini to a dealer, they refer you to an outfit who hire at say £80 a day, and the repairs always mysteriously take longer, rather than give you a little courtesey car for the duration. Now, thats fine, if you want/need easy compo and expensive temporary cars, then as long as you realise your paying for it, by using solicitors and accident management companies, thats fine. The australian system naturally puts a break on these things, as the Govt is the law maker and in a postion to control costs that private citizens sueing each other for ever larger court awards cannot. Insurance co's might take the piss, in which case, complain. But the real people taking the piss are people who claim for studd they dont need like hire, or for injuries they dont really have, but have been told that its free money, that they should claim. Its a recession out there - who couldnt do with an additional £2k?

Aha. Once upon a time, the family owned a fish shop up there. IT then became a car showroom in the 70's and is now a trendy wine bar. I'll look out for it, its only 12m from Croydon...

You know what, seeing how crap the league has been at the top this year, had he stayed, and ergo MON stayed, and Lerner gave MON the Bent cash (ok its speculative), we'd be in the top 4-6 again, and Milner would be playing week in week out. Word removed indeed.

Did anyone recognise some word removed on the citeh bench? Sat all game, didn't do anything...... You know, the one with the huge rolex sitting on a bench of gold cushioned with bags of £50 notes... He looked familiar...but no.. I just can't place him somehow..... I'm sure it will come to me shortly.... Bet he'd have loved a kick-a-bout though... Who ever the hell he was or used to be....