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Centro-Matic - Redo The Stacks Magnetic Fields - Get Lost Guided By Voices - Bee Thousand Songs Ohia - Didn't It Rain The Legends - Up Against The Legends The Handsome Family - Through The Trees Grandaddy - Just Like The Fambly Cat Alejandro Escovedo - A Man Under The Influence My Morning Jacket - The Tennesse Fire

Ziggy is at number 35. I remember being put out at how low The Kinks & REM were the last time this was posted but when I saw Kink Kronikles as their top album I ceased to care.

We're live on SKY on the opening day, away at Luton. We're useless on live tv.

Can a twee band still be anthemic?

I feel really sorry for Bjorkman right now. He's just managed his third game so at least he's avoided another love set.

Thank god for that. I've never been so pleased to see France win.

Exactly. It's simple isn't it? Just a bit of common sense and the rewards can be so great. High quality stuff tonight and very enjoyable. The 'beautiful game' is still alive and kicking. It was nice to see Italy so positive for the whole game and they deserved their win. Maybe they learned the hard way after their self-inflicted exits at the last WC & EC.

I agree about Hoddle, it's ridiculous and annoying when his time in charge is referred to as some kind of awful disaster. It was nothing of the sort but a lot of journo's must resent him because they seem increasingly fond of voicing that opinion in recent years.

They definately missed Deco. We struggled again with the 4-5-1 formation and only looked dangerous at the start of the second half. Main plus was our defending and very good performances from a few individuals. Rooney knew what he was doing and it cost us. To me it just looked like he left his boot in and pressed his weight down on it. Portugese players were hitting the deck with increasing frequency and desperation up until then and what happens? Rooney offers them the cheap way out they were looking for on a plate. Penalties - We've actually got worse. It's one thing losing against five perfect German spot-kicks but continually blowing it in winnable shootouts where the other side miss a couple as well (Argentina, Portugal twice) is quite another. You could always rely on Shearer, Gascoigne, Sherringham, Platt etc to stick one away (why was Southgate taking one alongside that lot?) but there's hardly been anybody in recent years you would throw your hat on scoring one for us. Now we've failed so many times we're shit scared of them and don't have the belief we can win one, just like the Italians to a certain extent and especially the Dutch. Getting paid to talk the same old shit for two weeks.....at the World Cup ? Sounds like a Scottish man's dream job. If Scotland manage to qualify for anything again in his lifetime then i'm sure Alan will be there for you and abandon us like a shot. Absolutely. Crap choice. I can see there being more pessimism in the air regarding England in the next few years (maybe even the tabloids will tone it down just an insy winsy bit) and this doesn't help. Sven was like an old fashioned mid-table Seria A coach who didn't have a flexible enough game plan or tactical nous to outwit better managers such as Scolari. Anybody but Portugal. Don't be surprised if they lose it like Argentina did if they get knocked out. Remember Euro 2000 gainst France? They haven't changed much.

)--> QUOTE( @ Jul 1 2006, 06:48 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Damn, that sucked. Can't say we ever looked like we deserved to win the world cup though. We never looked convincing at any stage but we didn't deserve to lose yesterday. We were getting well on top before the red card and we even came closer than them to nicking it with 10 men. Portugal never looked like breaking us down all game. They outplayed us a couple of years ago and we were lucky to take it to pens but we more than matched them yesterday and can count ourselves unlucky the way things turned out. Wasn't a good game and but at least we went out fighting instead of with a whimper like 2002. We're bad enough at penalties without having to take one twice. Should never happen. He's always been way too prone to error ever be a top class keeper but Ricardo definately knows how to save a penalty. Owen Hargreaves - Great game. Hanson & Wright were still calling him at the interval despite him being our best performer in a dull half. Responded by playing even better for the rest of the game and even stuck a penalty away. Gave 100% and was top man. Ashley Cole & Ferdinand were very good as well. Ronaldo - If he ever drops the silly 'attitude' he'd become twice the player he currently is. He worked it to his advantage yesterday but it's been holding him back for a couple of years now. Anyway, back to proper football next month!

Kristin Hersh suffered from an illness which made her hallucinate badly back in her Throwing Muses days. You can particularly hear it on those first few albums like you pointed out. Much as I like the Muses i've not got around to getting anything else she's done, and she's been one prolific songwriter in the last decade or so. I'm pretty sure i'd like 50ft Wave as well. Do you know what her solo stuff is like?

He won't make it out of the group stage with that performance. Maybe he's half scottish.

They will in the next round.

I see 'Spider' Kalac is still terrible then. Played just three games for my local team over ten years ago and played so badly that he's still considered about the worst keeper we've ever had.

Embarassing draw for Mexico and Angola last night. The biggest no hopers in the tournament are still hanging in there!

Yeah, he could be a solid addition but I reckon he'll be off to a League 1 club where he'll be more of a regular starter. The article in the local rag mentioned Brighton, Millwall & Forest. We might yet get Decemberists praising/slating him on here next season.

Great time to get one back. Should be a good half. Van Der Vaart is coming on. Glad to see him playing.

I think Noel-Williams had a good season for Stoke the other year come to think of it. He just seems to have been around forever and we have De Vries (hooray!) as a big guy option upfront already. It's always better to see a young lad break through to feature instead of a journeyman who probably isn't going to get any better.

We're being optimistic? I'll go for 10th. What? This is after hearing we're looking at Gifton Noel-Williams.

Like a whole group of sports that the rest of the world doesn't know or care about? Yeah, pretty much. Football and baseball are our games, and we like it that way. Tough shit; we don't need to validate our existence by beating Peru in a soccer game like you guys do. To most people, soccer is just what everyone wants 8-year-olds to play so that nobody can feel bad about losing, inasmuch as you only need to run up and down with everyone else to feign participation. Hockey has basically the same "chase the item around and get it in the goal" premise as soccer, but at least it has the element of good old Americanadian physicality, and even that's being ruined by all the Floppy McFakehurts coming into the sport from--you guessed it!--soccer countries. I watch a soccer match, and I'm not sure if it's an athletic competition or a tribute to the life and times of Curt Hennig. You bump into a guy and he flies halfway across the field, writhing in pain. Art Sandusky - What's the point? That Argentina game actually cheered me up a bit. England can be deeply dull and infuriating sometimes but we're too solid to ever get spanked like that, even on a bad day. It's called 'staying positive'.

I think the VU version is superior. It's more successful in setting a mood than Big Star's version, which sounds laboured and somewhat lost, more like an uninspired demo track than the tight little song VU make it. Maybe it's a song that was more suited to a female vocalist but Nico seems to capture key lines like 'see the way she walks/hear the way she talks' exactly right. The backing vocals on the chorus are also 10x more effective. I'd go with you on the other two. I often have the same bias for an accoustic cover. Mark Lanegan's Carry Home over the Gun Club.

This prediction thing is a piece of piss! Damn it! Didn't even have time to post. Fucking Aloisi, you Cov reject!

I went for the same score but it's not looking good right now....still 1-0 to Japan.

I agree. Crouch was one of the best players on the pitch in the first half and nobody should be blaming him for what happened in the second half. So what? The opening match of Italia 90 against the Oirish was god awful and yet we went on to reach the semi-finals and play in the best three matches of the whole tournament. I'm not expecting similar great things this time around if i'm honest but it shows how a side's performances can dramatically improve, no matter how unlikely it seems earlier on. Argentina's run in 1990 and Germany's in 2002 proved that sometimes you don't even need to improve on mediocrity to go far. I've done a World Cup prediction thing my local pub is running. Predict the scores of all 48 group games and score points as follows = 2 points for the correct outcome and 5pts for a correct scoreline. Germany 4 Costa Rica 2 (Prediction: 3-0) I wasn't banking on the German's being so suspect at the back. Ecuador 2 Poland 0 (Prediction 0-0) Sat on the fence with this one and paid the price. England 1 Paraguay 0 (Prediction: 2-0) Nearly right. Sweden 0 Trinidad & Tabago 0 (Prediction 2-0) Hislop ruined this one. Argentina 2 Ivory Coast 1 (Prediction: 2-1) Get in! First spot on call. Holland 1 Serbia & Montenegro 0 (Prediction 1-0) Two in a row! I'm on a roll now. Mexico 3 Iran 1 (Prediction 3-1) THREE IN A ROW!!!! Portugal 1 Angola 0 (Prediction: 4-0) Looked more like an 8-0 early on but Portugal pissed about and Angola dug in well. Not bad so far. Still plenty of time for it all to go wrong.

Yet another Wilco list 1. Being There 2. Summerteeth 3. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot 4. AM Not heard Ghost Is Born. Sparklehorse 1. Good Morning, Spider 2. It's A Wonderful Life 3. Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot Mark Lanegan 1. Whiskey For The Holy Ghost 2. I'll Take Care Of You 3. Field Songs 4. Bubblegum 5. Scraps At Midnight 6. The Winding Sheet Eels 1. Electro-Shock Blues 2. Blinking Lights 3. Daises Of The Galaxy 4. Beautiful Freak 5. Souljacker 6. Shootenany! East River Pipe 1. Shining Hours In A Can 2. Mel 3. The Gasoline Age 4. Poor Fricky 5. Garbageheads On Endless Sun 6. What Are You On? Teenage Fanclub 1. Grand Prix 2. Bandwagonesque 3. Songs From Nothern Britain 4. Man Made 5. Thirteen 6. Howdy 7. A Catholic Education Richmond Fontaine 1. The Fitzgerald 2. Post To Wire 3. Winnemucca 4. Lost Son 5. Miles From 6. Saftey