Meenzer

I suppose you read about this in one of your fancy "books"

"with free delivery". You'd hope so!

Took the ball on and scored from a "pass the ball back to the other team after a 50/50 ball" scenario: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXdLKwaeIv8

Benitez would be nice.

Chelsea just sacked Di Matteo.

Well that worked pretty decently. Refried beans didn't quite have the right consistency, but I suppose it hardly matters when you're shoving it all in the same tortilla. So to speak.

As it should be. I was on my way back from a night out with The Fish at the time, anything might have happened.

Won't be up until early January, more's the pity. New Year's resolution really needs to be to get to more home games.

Haven't seen it. Seeing what the stage show did to Michael Ball was enough to put me off:

Aye, that's one of the main problems. I like Abba, but if I want Abba I'll listen to Abba, not bloody Pierce Brosnan.

Got an itching for something Tex-Mex-ish tonight. Idly formulating plans for burritos with turkey mince and refried beans, chucked in the oven with some salsa/sour cream/cheese on top.

If it wasn't for Coyote Ugly, Mamma Mia would be basically the worst film I've ever seen.

We urgently need to define whether a "Christmas film" has to be set during the Christmas period or whether it's merely the kind of thing that tends to be on the telly at Christmas. This thread risks descending into anarchy otherwise.

The Portuguese lass in it had a far more illustrious previous career:

This'll apply again. Well, even less so, since the pictures haven't gone back up yet even though we moved in in July. The telly will be an adequate substitute.

Cheers gang! It's been a suitably lazy one.

Was in Nashville for 6 days or so in 2010 for a country music festival, so didn't necessarily get to see a great deal of the place beyond the main burn (other than a weird fake version of the Parthenon they have on the edge of town), but the city itself is well worth a few days of your time if you like bar-hopping and plenty of live music. Can fire restaurant/hotel recommendations your way if needed, nearer the time as the case may be. We had a vague notion of getting across to Memphis for a day but it never happened.

Stop trying to butter me up.

Team Jacob!

CT'd your post

You leave your stuff at the start - there's 20-odd double-decker buses lined up along Claremont Road for dropping off your bags etc. - and pick it up again from the same bus at the finish. It's all very efficient, as you'd expect after all this time I suppose.

You'd better not, since last year my legs did exactly what you described in your initial post and stopped working at around the halfway point. A not very noble 2:37 after 1:10 at halfway, with a "must train better" badge for next time - Jill must have passed me at some point, since I know she started in a later group, though she was good enough not to issue a Nelson-style "HA-HA" along the way. Anyway, getting back at the end really isn't all that bad. The buses (not free, unless I allowed someone to take a couple of quid off me for no good reason) are frequent and, once they get past the initial crush at Shields, pretty speedy. I finished at 2pm or so and managed to queue up, board, get to Haymarket, call my old man, get ferried back to Gosforth, shower, change and get to Central Station in good time for the 4pm train to London and a friend's wedding dinner the same evening. No need for emergency bean-smeared naans along the way.