Huddersfield

The Krkonose mountains in the north or Sumava national park in the South are beautiful places. If you have the time you can walk what used to be known as the Path of Czech-Polish friendship (so called because they used to shoot people trying to cross by the mountain path) where you zig-zag back & forth over the border - the Czech side is mountainous, the Polish side flat so you get spectacular views across Southern Poland. There are chairlifts you can hop on to cut the walking time. Strakonice in the south is really pretty too & somewhere around there (I forget where but Google would find it) there's a castle modelled on Windsor castle that was built for an impressed Bohemian aristocrat. Edit: link for the castle - http://www.sumava.com/rec_beznswrdhd_detls.php?l=en&bez=kasteel_hluboka

Last time I was there I went here: http://www.theoldcrown.com/ Decent beer & a nice pub (speaking relatively, it's not the most salubrious part of the world) but I don't think it had Sky. It's one of the few places near the ground (probably 10-15 minutes walk) that would serve away fans but for a local derby like this one I'd imagine you might need to show a ticket for the home end. Birmingham City have an above average proportion of numpties but on the whole I've found it an ok place to visit. Other than that town centre will be fine by & large & you'll have no trouble finding decent spots for a curry. Also see here : http://www.footballgroundguide.com/birmingham_city/

I stayed a few nights at Avalon just outside Tarbert which was a great little spot & better value than either the Hebrides Hotel or the Harris Hotel (IMHO).

It's not far off & in the same IQ death zone.

You weren't round South Elmsall by any chance? They haven't got over scrapping the groat round there yet.

Up to a year or so ago I was up & down to Scotland all the time & forever had Scottish notes on me. Now the village where I live is not renowned for being cosmopolitan, outward-facing nor open to the possibility that there might be intelligent life beyond the Pennines but to be fair I never had any trouble using them at the local shops. They'd sometimes give a second glance but can't ever remember an argument anywhere around here over them. I have seen signs up though on occasions around the town saying Scottish notes not accepted but I think that's been down to forgeries circulating that they can't spot. It's Monopoly money I have loads of trouble with. I still can't get change for that 500.

The reason it's inadmissible though is that it's irrelevant. The offence was completed at the time, not modified in the days following. The only thing it could do is to mitigate the sentence (which it might have done). If he could show that she confessed afterwards to having given consent (the only thing that gets in the way of a conviction), then she'd be done for PCOJ (or at best wasting Police time) & he would be free. So we have to assume that no matter what she may or may not have mouthed off about afterwards it wasn't that she gave informed consent.

Yes you're right it's Brid. Currently ground-sharing with their arch local rivals!

I wouldn't necessarily disagree to be honest, but I've sat in MAPPA meetings looking at early release & I know that's never how it pans out. The thing is that you know they will come out sooner or later so the presumption tends to be let them out whilst still on licence so you have greater powers to observe their behaviour & recall if you spot concerns. It's not an exact science but to be fair works more often than not. If he did re-offend in a similar way there'd be what's known as a SFO (Serious Further Offence) Review & the learning from those down the years helps get most decisions right.

I think some of it is to do with how light the balls are these days (he says sounding a reet owd gimmer). Any clogger can hit it hard enough to make it mis-shapen for a split second & that makes it loads harder to predict. I was at this game (Scarborough v. Brighouse Town, English 7th tier) where the quality was dubious but the first goal live looked stunning. When you see the video it didn't even move that fast, just spun out of the keepers way. The double save at the end was quality though.

His sentence is 5 years, it is for his Offender managers/MAPPA, etc. to decide how much of that time is spent in prison & how much outside (his release is on licence & he can be recalled at any time without a reason having to be given). Remorse is a factor but there are lots of others as well. Risk is really the big one.

The greatest moment of a football supporting career generally blighted by misery & despair was Peter Clarke raising the play-off trophy at Wembley in 2012 with Paradise booming out around the stadium. Never liked the song before, cry whenever I hear it now For reasons largely connected to being a sad old git, the chorus here would be mine:

Maybe 20 years ago, but pretty much urban myth these days. It's known as the hip flask defence. You might just pull it off with an expensive lawyer & a well qualified scientist in your corner but Google it & you'll struggle to find many recent examples of it being used successfully. The problem is that you are dealing with presumptive law. As a bare minimum you'd need a toxicology report demonstrating the variance on your blood alcohol levels from the drink you claim to have taken in the few moments between arriving home & giving a sample, & the law presumes that any detected levels reflect what was already in your system. It's the same basic law in Scotland as well as England & Wales: http://www.roadtrafficlaw.com/services/hip-flask-defence

There's loads of mythology around this (a similar argument exists around people who think that once they have gone in their home they can't be arrested or prosecuted) but in the circumstances described above (ie blue light following you as you cross the border) then that would generally be seen as 'hot pursuit' and you'd have zero defence. In the real world what would happen is that the evidence of the copper would be that they had reason to pursue you (if the blue light is on you've done something to attract their attention), on stopping you they found you to be over the limit for Scotland but under for England then all they have to prove is that you'd driven in Scotland (probably caught on their cameras but even if not their verbal evidence will generally hold good) & were likely to have been over the limit at the time (very provable in reality).

Although there's plenty of macho posturing around these days about driving in snow there's a difficult reality about it these days which is that councils just aren't gritting the roads. I grew up & learned to drive around the Pennines so have plenty of experience of steep hills (there is barely a flat road for 10 miles in any direction around here), ice & snow. But the council here have cut £300K from the gritting budget. They deal with this by only gritting main roads, refusing to stock up the local bins, plus are (I understand) using a lower quality product that tends to wash away more easily. From what I see around here it's the ice as much as snow that is really scuppering people. While I can accept it probably does tend to catch people out in warmer, flatter places there are also plenty of us that find we can't beat the laws of physics & get stuck.

Honestly about both. The brothers played for us & every time they get a mention there's a chorus of "ooh aah ya".

We had Nathan & Tom Clarke. I can hear the 'oohs' & 'aahs' from here.

Can I dumb this thread down at this point & say Paddington was brilliant. Loved it

If you are interested in history, Kilmainham Gaol. It's where the leaders of the 1916 uprising were held & executed & uses actors to tell the story of the place. On the other hand if you're feeling childish try: http://www.leprechaunmuseum.ie

I think this is absolutely right. Under UK law if a child is judged to have been put at risk through being left home alone then that's potentially an imprisonable offence. NSPCC guidelines, upon which most UK prosecutions for child neglect tend to be judged say "babies, toddlers and young children should never be left alone, even if it’s just while you pop down the road." A quick Google of anything around unattended children shows dozens of stories of women going to prison for leaving kids alone to go to the pub, buy drugs, meet blokes, etc. I don't see anything in the guidance saying that if you're wealthy & in a tapas bar that it's not quite as bad. Further to the point, again if that happened to someone on an estate there's a very high chance their remaining kids would go into care. So the law for negligent doctors isn't the same as the law for negligent scruffs.

If they had lived on a housing estate somewhere & their child vanished whilst they were sat in a pub across the road, would the media have been as sympathetic?

I haven't been that often this year, but for me it would be Pride.

Trick question? Scotty can help here but I reckon nowhere in the Bible does it say how many wise men there were; it just says something like 'wise men travelled from the East', then that they were bearing gifts of gold, frankincense & myrrh which is where the 3 comes from.

Wallace has generally been OK when he's played but always had stronger & more experienced players in the queue in front of him. He had a decent game yesterday though & I like the way he plays. He can certainly handle himself at Championship level. Not sure what's happening with Paul Dixon though. I can see us shipping him out soon as defensively he looks shaky & won't get a look in with Jack Robinson playing. He came on as a (very) late sub yesterday although sat on the left side of midfield.

I'm currently going through a bit of a long-winded process to deal with a cough I've had for over a year, so my advice to you would be to keep pestering your doctor. In my case I went through various changes of asthma medication (which I've had all my life), antibiotics, steroids, etc. before a range of formal tests (x-ray, spirometry, samples, etc.) to finally get a formal diagnosis of what's the matter & a prognosis for treatment. After 1 week you'll get little sympathy from the medics unless you're coughing up blood (or you might have been in contact with TB) but if it persists just keep asking. Not all surgeries have them but sometimes asking for a senior nurse practitioner gets you further as they can do peak flows to assess if it might be asthma or worse. Chances are it will clear up soon enough-cough medicine by the way is proven to be largely ineffective, but can relax the muscles & help a bit.