Steve K

On the footballing theme... There was bad news this week for West Ham when the team bus broke down. Fortunately, it was only a flat battery, and the AA man says it'll be ready to play in defence against Swansea at the weekend.

The DJ Campbell joke is quite funny, but... it is also probably libellous. This place is just as public as Twitter, in its way. Just saying...

I don't suppose "flippin' heck!" is of much use? Sorry, but that was the first thing that came to mind.

Not sure what the FA have done in regard to that match to earn the title of "nincompoops". I mean normally, yes, but they haven't had time to say much about it, right or wrong. Now I'm a Chelsea fan, so disregard the following if you wish... West Brom's second goal - foul on Ivanovic in the build-up? Poetic justice? Ramires no worse than at least one player from every PL team? Discuss!

That top picture looks as if it belongs in "TRON"! I'm only joking, of course (although the lines show up VERY blue against the brass) - this is coming together very nicely, and as ever, I admire your skill and patience.

Well, I think it's a given that top-flight club football is almost always of a higher standard than internationals, since the players don't play together enough. If England actually played in the Championship (or even the Prem)for a season, you'd expect them to do very well... eventually! I agree with Colin that Cahill was the only one who came away with much credit, and even that was mainly because of the last-ditch clearances he was so often forced to make.

I can see the smiley for "funny", but not the one for "nicked from Tim Vine"...

Yes I was thinking the same thing. The word we're looking for rhymes with "juggling", I believe...

As a rule of thumb, I reckon if no-one's got it after a week, the next clue needs to be really easy to solve!

I think you've hit the nail on the head. Much is made of the sportingness (is that a word - it is now!) of the situation where one team kicks the ball out for an injury, and then the other team gives it back to them, but most of the time, it's nonsense, as you say. The player in question is rarely, if ever, seriously injured, and the lack of sportsmanship in the rest of the game makes a mockery of the concept, in any case. Teams should go back to playing to the whistle, unless it's clearly a very serious injury which the referee has somehow failed to spot. Further to that, the players who roll and writhe to bring about such situations should be booked for simulation, as in the case of Birmingham, above. Anyway, as to this weekend's Premier League, wasn't it rubbish? Where are all the goals?

Very nice, Brian. I don't comment much on this thread, because most of the time, I have nothing to say other than "great work". However, I'm often to be found taking at peek at your pictures, and there's always something new and interesting. As a non-expert, I'm always fascinated to see well-built models of unfamiliar prototypes. So keep up the great work - I look forward to seeing what you tackle next!

I like little snippets like that. In some ways, their very transience, their blink-and-you-miss-it nature, makes them all the more fascinating! Did anyone else catch the (two-legged) final of the FA Youth Cup on ITV4? I decided to take a look because Chelsea were involved, but it was actually a pretty good game. Norwich came away deserving winners over the 2 legs, but in many other ways, it was just like watching the real thing! Chelsea were missing Nathan Ake, the Ruud Gullit lookalike who's recently been promoted to the senior squad, but there can still be few complaints about a 4-2 aggregate win for the Canaries. Of course, there were quite a few less desirable similarities to the senior game, too - stupid haircuts were much in evidence, as were coloured boots, and there was a lot of diving and play-acting, though perhaps not quite as much as in the PL. Oh, and there was the usual preponderance of players who weren't quite as good as they clearly thought they were... these boys will obviously go far in the English game!

Apparently Chelsea are now the only team to have held both European trophies at the same time (which will be true for all of a week!). Not sure if it's also the first time that a team has won two European trophies despite being outplayed for most of the final, but right now, who cares?

I do feel sad that Wigan have gone down, but it was bound to have happened in the end. Even so, it was a shame they couldn't have pulled off a result last night, as it would've guaranteed Chelsea 3rd place... Martinez seems a genuinely great bloke, as does Whelan, so I wish them both all the best for the coming season, but the moral of the tale, surely, is that you can't launch your survival bid with 8 games to go, year after year, and hope it'll be enough.

Well done to Man Utd for another title - they have been the only team not to have really slipped up at any point this year. My lot (Chelsea, that is) started brilliantly under RdM, faded, shone, faded again... basically about as consistently bright as a set of hazard lights. Totally unintentional use of the word "hazard" in Chelsea context, as it goes... never mind, doesn't mata... Yes, you can hardly say that luck played a part when Man U will almost certainly win the league by a double-figure margin - I could whinge and moan, spitting feathers about Arsenal's insane decision to let RVP go to their strongest rival, but there's really no point - fact is, he's a Red now, and he's had a fantastic season, doing what Wazza seems to struggle to do for more than a few games on the trot. So, congrats to SAF and his boys, the best team won. Let's just hope that, whoever wins the league next year, their rivals have the decency to take the fight to the last couple of games!

I'm kinda the opposite, I guess - simply beating my club's main rival in the league wouldn't satisfy me when there's so much more on offer. I want my team to do well in everything they enter, which has been a bit frustrating for me this year. As a Chelsea fan, I've seen my team enter (and fail to win!) the Community Shield, the Premier League, the UEFA Super Cup, the Champions League, the Club World Cup and the League Cup. That's 6 down, and only 2 left... Thinking about it, has a club ever been in so many competitions? 8 in 1 season seems crazy! The 2 remaining ones are actually interesting, inasmuch as Chelsea must be among the favourites for the Europa League (which, by rights, they shouldn't even be in, IMHO, but still...) and the FA Cup, too, so it may not be an entirely trophy-less season. Even if the Blues win nothing this year, it won't completely eradicate the residual warm glow from last year's Champions League!

A completely empty gesture, IMO. Of course Milliband would have been leaving the club & off to the States to his (presumably highly-paid, or at least high profile) new charity job. It just seems like he couldn't help making a political point, however daft, before leaving. If I were a Sunderland fan, I'd be far more concerned about his unstable character than the unlikelihood of his voting Labour any time soon...

Is that widespread on YouTube? I had no idea about it either. Yes, Croatia v Serbia doesn't exactly come under the heading of "friendly rivalry", does it?

Good Lord. A box - £95? Lots of lovely photos of it on the page, though. Presumably, sellers of items like this one must be hoping that somebody doesn't read the description right?

No, it was done deliberately, as everyone knows that chipped locos are worth more...

Another classic Chelsea performance. They mixed it up this time so, instead of taking a 2-goal lead and then blowing it, they let the other side score first. Very sporting, chaps, but once you do eventually get in front (and yet again, I bow to the supreme talent of Juan Mata, surely one of the top 5 footballers in the league in the last 2 seasons), STAY IN FRONT! Grrr... still 3rd (just), I still don't blame only Rafa, but even Petr Cech is now joining in with the inept defending. It's not good enough. The sooner the season is over, the better. At least then, people will be able to save themselves the embarrassment of referring to Chelsea as European Champions! Hope Demba Ba will be OK. All right - next 4 games: Wigan, Sparta Prague (twice) and Brentford. Anyone else share my confidence that Chelsea might get a few wins under their belt before Man City away on 24th Feb?

Even with 7 years to go, I'd rather see Beckham distance himself from the stench of corruption coming from the whole Qatari World Cup farrago.

You could buy about a third of a full-sized one for that (although the parts would presumably bot be bagged): http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/list/64/bug/

Really? Maybe it's because I don't live in London, or because my liking for Chelsea is much greater than my dislike of other clubs, but I just don't get all this anti-Benitez fever. I quite like the bloke, in fact - he comes across as honest and unflappable. Yes, I'd have liked Di Matteo to have stayed longer, just as I'd have liked to have seen Ancelotti, Hiddink or Mourinho given more time, but I know by now that's not how it works at the Blues. I certainly can't blame Chelsea's present woes (and pinch yourselves, fellow fans, but we were still 3rd, last time I checked!) on Rafa alone. Too many players are either misfiring (FT) or dozing off at critical moments (various central defenders).

Indeed, and his little paragraph at the bottom about Ebay's rating system is very telling, too. What king of world is it where 4/5 is effectively a terrible stain on the seller's character. I had no idea that sellers with less than 4.3/5 get temporarily suspended. Is that really true?