Happy Face

Christopher Hitchens, has given his first TV interview since he was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in June. It's encouraging to see that, despite his grave condition, he's lost none of his lucidity and wit. In the interview, with CNN's Anderson Cooper, he responds to those who are hoping (and praying) for a "deathbed conversion": If that comes it'll be when I'm very ill, when I'm half-demented either by drugs or by pain and I won't have control over what I say. I mention this in case you hear a rumour later on ... I can't say that the entity that by then wouldn't be me, wouldn't do such a pathetic thing. But I can tell you: not while I'm lucid, no. Elsewhere, he acknowledges that he had been, as puts it, "taunting the Reaper into taking a free scythe in my direction". "If you smoke, which I did for many years, very heavily ... and if you use alcohol, you make yourself a candidate for it," he says. He adds: "If you can hold it down on the smokes and the cocktails you may be well advised to do so." I'd also recommend reading Hitchens's remarkable essay for this month's Vanity Fair, "Topic of Cancer". It's an extraordinarily controlled and moving piece of writing. Here's one of a series of memorable lines: To the dumb question "Why me?" the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply: Why not?

Well done

Wankdorf Stadium? Kyah kyah!

The idea that thousands of Spurs fans are googling 'young boys' amuses me a great deal more than it probably should.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/europe/8888791.stm Let the entendre's commence

On an tenuously related note.... People are DIGGing this story so much that Alternet is running like a dog, but here's the link... http://blogs.alternet.org/oleoleolson/2010...digg-uncovered/

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_gr...ance/index.html

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_gr...lims/index.html

No wonder you need to do so much overtime if this is what you spend time on when you're supposed to be working

Alex Ferguson says Tom Cleverley WON'T be loaned out

34 page MQSeries primer to get through...this calls for Kraftwerk.

http://www.footballfancast.com/2010/08/foo...United_Blogs%29

Tsunami: Caught on Camera This was on channel 4 the other day. Originally aired in December but I never saw it then. I watched it 'On demand' last night and it was incredible. I never saw footage like this at the time. All I saw on the news when it happened was a few feet of standing water in the resorts and I couldn't fathom how it killed a quarter of a million people. This footage showed me how. The images will stick in my head for a long time. Like a bloke stood on the beach, not even trying to run away as the 30 foot wave crashes into him. Big boats being swallowed by the wave. A bloke trying to turn his van in the street as a trickle of water comes down the road, within 20 seconds the road is under 6 feet of water and the van has been overturned and submerged. Or an elderly couple holding onto a tree and reaching up to a man who's stretching and only a foot from grabbing them...before the force becomes too much and they're swept under. Horrifying stuff, made all the more poweful by interviews with survivors telling the story of their footage, the loved ones they lost and the guilt of surviving. http://www.channel4.com/programmes/tsunami-caught-on-camera If you haven't seen it, you should. In bed, 5 hours after watching it Mrs HF complained she couldn't sleep for thinking about it.

To be fair to Parky (if he has seen it) Inception hasn't had universal praise at all. I'd like to tell you just how bad Inception really is, but since it is barely even remotely lucid, no sane description is possible. Everything he (Nolan) does is forced and overthought, and Inception, far from being his ticket into hall-of-fame greatness, is a very expensive-looking, elephantine film whose myriad so-called complexities -- of both the emotional and intellectual sort -- add up to a kind of ADD tedium. It's obvious that Nolan either can't articulate or doesn't believe in a distinction between living feelings and dreams--and his barren Inception doesn't capture much of either. Overall Metacritic has avatar 10 points better.... http://www.metacritic.com/film/ Rotten Tomatoes says How To Train Your Dragon and Nanny McPhee are fresher... http://www.rottentomatoes.com/top/bestofrt...r.php?year=2010 I've still not seen inception, but I'm not going in with particularly raised expectations. The stinking reviews have made me cautious.

Deal 1 http://www.groupon.co.uk/deals/newcastle/getfitoutside/53282 Deal 2 http://www.groupon.co.uk/deals/newcastle/w...teeth-kit/53358

Couldn't agree more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Cav...eBron_James_Era In May 2009, QSL Sports of Hong Kong fronted by Kenny Huang bought a 15% stake in the franhise.[3] On June 25, 2009, 4-time NBA Champion and 15-time All-Star center Shaquille O'Neal was traded from the Phoenix Suns to the Cavaliers. The trade sent Ben Wallace and Sasha Pavlovic to Phoenix along with the 46th pick in the 2010 NBA Draft and $500,000 in cash considerations.[8] Isn't that like saying Phil Anschutz doesn't own the Galaxy, AEG does? The American sports journalist i was listening to on 5 live the other day tried to dampen that rumour... http://www.goal.com/en/news/9/england/2010...billionaire-but

I think Huang does have a better track record of sports investment than Moat or Uncle Fester.

Huang doesn't own any part of any sports club. He's been the middle man for some investments though.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/t...uth/8886009.stm

Pompey win!

Ruling was due at 3pm and still no news. Both QCs have been called in to speak to judge in private.

Couldn't imagine a more scouse name than Kenny Huang mind.

China buying up US debts? Strange how Football immitates life.