Huddersfield

The road can be a total bottleneck for sure & pollution is affecting the monument I believe. And the people who get stuck in the traffic jams on a daily basis probably vote Tory.

I remember seeing this on 'Arthur C. Clark's Mysterious World' on TV many years ago & like you been fascinated by it ever since. It's a stunning piece of technology. I always thought probably used as much as a work of art as science, but who knows. I thought I'd read somewhere that someone tried to reconstruct it from the x-rays at some point (off to Google that one). It's interesting I think as well for where it sits alongside theories of history; the Ancient Greeks had various technologies using steam for example that were of little use to their economy or their military so were lost for centuries until Capitalist-type economies created an imperative to trade goods and move people more efficiently & widely. Interesting stuff.

You were doing OK until you compared us to t'bloody Lankies. Still, ask them who this year's County Champions are & you soon wipe the smile off their faces. To be fair, it's a fine art to be able to give out your address in a deadpan voice when you have road names like Slack Bottom (Heptonstall if you're interested & well worth a visit). Joking apart though it's interesting to see the comments on here. I think Yorkshire humour is very dry & self-deprecating, in some ways unique & not always understood. You still bump into lots of professional Yorshiremen as well who love to trade on the image. I have to agree with Grumpyauldgit (surely a closet Tyke with a name like that)...there are some total backwater villages, but the history of them is often one of neglect, no investment & destruction of whatever infrastructure they ever had so I have some sympathies. They also provide brilliant entertainment on the world's greatest football phone-in; Radio Sheffield's Praise or Grumble where the combined caller IQ is about the same as the number of decent teams in Sheffield. Anyway Charlie, thanks for the kind words & I hope your experiences of God's Own County improve...if you pay a visit & in the area make sure you stick to the good bits.

I'd be interested if there are figures on what is & isn't designated. As far as I know, every (professional) football match is automatically regardless of the risk profile but undoubtedly all sorts of corporate days are fine. In fact I aren't sure how many (if any??) non-football designated events there are where restrictions would apply beyond the vicinity of the ground.

It's a bit of a sore issue for me this one. I was at a long-distance (& fairly low-profile) away match a couple of seasons back & came out to find that a bottle of fizzy pop I'd had in my bag had leaked everywhere, damaging a load of my stuff. The coach driver told us the Police had been & had "a bit of a nosy around"; so I'm pretty sure they took the top off, had a sniff of it & put it back not fastened properly. I just got laughed at when I (calmly of course) asked the Police in the vicinity what they'd been up to. Still p*sses me off every time I think about it.

I think the letter of the law says that it's illegal on any vehicle hired purely for the purpose of going to a designated event & as far as I know without reading it in detail doesn't specify days; plus allows for events outside the country to be designated. So the trick seems to be to book it as a weekend in Dublin, during which you might take in a football match. The legislation is here if you have time to read it: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1995/39/part/II(Scotland specifically) http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1985/57/contents(original UK law)

No, the correct definition is those values that it is politically expedient to pretend you believe in when worried about losing a General Election.

I'm basing what I say on reading a lot about this stuff rather than practical experience, but that includes cases in Scotland. I'm no expert though hence my advice to consult people who are. I think expert witnesses would be called if there was a challenge for example to the timing of the lights. If the defence is just "I didn't do it", then he has to prove it...which begs the question how? Police are required to record all stops in their notebooks so should have done, yes. The recording will have been about what they saw, & whether you agree or not with the principle, that's a significant piece of evidence in any legal case. It's up to the defendant to challenge that or prove something to the contrary.

The evidence of Police, especially if validated has a greater weight & an assumption of credibility by & large. What you have to bear in mind is that they will have recorded the incident in their notebooks at the time, you're going from memory. Unless you have something good, just saying "I'm sure I didn't do it" will get you nowhere. They will also be able to cite all sorts of data about the thinking time you will have had in the situation (traffic lights are statutorily required to stay on amber for at least 3 seconds, which at 30mph gives you a fair amount of stopping distance; 127.6 ft at 30 mph, and 170 ft at 40 mph). If you challenge & they produce an expert witness, you carry that cost if you lose & it can be eye-watering. As I said get to Pepipoo & see what the advice is there but a pound to a penny they will say take what you've got & cut your losses.

The chances of you winning are spectacularly small, but you'll spend a fortune finding that out the hard way. What you'll find arrayed against you is a raft of technical evidence about the timings on the lights, reaction time, etc. Try posting your case at Pepipoo (www.pepipoo.com); there are some real experts on there including Police & lawyers who can help you make a reasoned judgement. 99/100 times though the advice is don't turn an annoyance into an expensive disaster.

The other factor now as well is the debt on Wembley...they play every bloody game they can there now.

They probably wouldn't get bigger crowds as nowhere has the capacity of Wembley but it would make the games more accessible for sure. I sort of promised my lad throughout his childhood we'd try to get to an England game but cost has always been a massive issue & Macclesfield away in the rain always seemed a more attractive proposition truth be told. Most clubs in the North have a handful of lads that get to most England games. I lost interest when I moved away from London.

I'm still here but I don't know if I even count as a fairweather fan. The last time I saw England live Trevor Francis & Peter Withe scored. Withe's career highlight was of course to come later when he made 30-odd appearances for Huddersfield Town in the 89-90 Third Division season.

Amongst the tourist attractions of Lewisham is Millwall FC; should tell you all you need to know about the place.

My theory was always that he was murdered, but it's plausible that he was blackmailed by Gregory. I interviewed Peter Tatchell in the mid-80s as part of my dissertation & he was familiar with the case (his selection story was very similar). Tatchell's theory was that he was gay (& some contemporary writers refer to him as being "attractive to men & women"), which would have given the secret service the material they needed. One way or another though you have to conclude that Gregory, & probably Lloyd George had a hand in his disappearance.

My first choice would be a guy called Victor Grayson who has fascinated me since I studied him as a teenager (http://spartacus-educational.com/TUgrayson.htm); the first (possibly only?) person ever elected to Parliament with the word 'Socialist' on his ballot paper...& who disappeared in mysterious circumstances. I'd love to know what he knew that apparently made him so dangerous. Also: Beethoven, but not for his table manners Oscar Wilde Jack London Richard Dawkins

If you're at all interested in politics, particularly labour/trade union politics then try the People's History Museum. http://www.phm.org.uk/

I heard about this place when I was visiting Calum's Road a couple of years ago but never got chance to look for it. http://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/skye/screapadal.shtml Also not sure if it's totally abandoned as I think some of the houses might be let out as holiday cottages but there's Scarp (home of the rocket mail experiment), just off Lewis.

Better football historians than I am can probably answer more accurately but I think German football was largely amateur until after WW2?

Hopefully this story might interest a few folk, but Saturday marks the centenary of the first professional footballer killed in WWI, a Huddersfield player called Larrett Roebuck. His story is here & is an interesting story in itself of the life & times of professional players around that time. http://www.westernfrontassociation.com/great-war-people/brothers-arms/4112-larrett-roebuck-the-first-footballer-in-the-english-football-league-to-be-killed-in-the-great-war.html

I regularly get called by Barclaycard querying 'unusual activity' on the card...usually big purchases or away on holiday & it's always a pain when they put a temporary block on the card. So I got the call a couple of months back on holiday; I complained to anyone who would listen (which was nobody really) about ringing them & then found I'd had over £1K spent at a department store & on fuel in New York. Credit to them, the money was reimbursed without query (other than me saying I didn't recognise the transaction) to my account before I even saw the next statement & had a replacement card within a week. On the one hand I was impressed how smoothly they dealt with the problem, but on the other hand I thought it felt like credit card fraud must be ridiculously easy to carry out...for all they know I could have just passed the details on to someone in New York & taken a cut of the profits (I didn't, but wonder how they can be sure I didn't).

My son was there a couple of years ago; apparently it has the highest Irish-owned pub in the world: http://www.paddysirishbarcusco.com/ He reckons that general area of the town is decent for nightlife.