Jenjie

the english commentators were quite witty last night. Gareth Southgate was on form, a couple of times he had me giggling away!

I ended up screaming at him at one point. Joe Cole was kicking the ball in that direction, and Beckham was just stood statically on the sideline.

not even that. poor kid has to go to school tomorrow, and she'll be getting all the playground taunts "you're mummy doesn't love you" "your mummy hates you" your mummy didn't want you" "your mummy's a murderer" depending on what slant the kids pick up on it/ overhear from their parents. the article has a picture of the kid with her mother, so everyone who knows them will know its her. you'd have thought that in the interests of child protection, they would have to keep this case anonymous, as they would with any other case involving a child.

grrrrr, am on late shift tonight & tomorrow which means Ian will watch the Lost episode before I get home :cry:

that was a very nasty looking. poor fella. with the FA saying its only a twisted knee, sounds like they haven't sorted him with strong painkillers either. I know they need to show these things, but I really didn't need to see his knee popping quite so many times

it was absolutely fantastic!!

dunno about him needing potty training. think Rooney needs to grow up a bit!! its harsh being taken off but he needs to think about the bigger picture!!

not much worse. we only have 3 strikers left. Owen's likely to be out until sometime in 2007. And Walcott still hasn't had experience of a big match!

they do film in the cinema though. we were going into a film in Stockport, and we saw the police headed into an adjacent screen to pull someone out. We heard the cinema staff saying it was because someone was illegally filming

Talk about a game of two halves!!! I spent almost the entire second half hidden behind a cushion!!!!

A mother seeking damages from a health authority has claimed doctors breached a "warranty" by failing to abort one of her twins. Stacy Dow, 21, is claiming £250,000 compensation to cover the cost of raising the one child which survived the failed attempt to abort twins. A court heard doctors effectively give a warranty that the abortion, at Perth Royal Infirmary, would work. NHS Tayside denied liability in the case at Perth Sheriff Court. Miss Dow was told that she would be having an abortion and would no longer be pregnant, the court was told. 'Breach of contract' Her lawyer Andrew Smith told the civil hearing she had not been warned that the procedure might not work and assumed it was guaranteed to be successful. He said: "The big issue is the question of whether you can bring a claim for breach of warranty in a case where there's a promise to achieve a result - an abortion - and that fails. "We are saying that if no warning is given then there is a breach of warranty." Ms Dow, who had her daughter Jayde when she was 16, made the claim against Tayside University Hospitals NHS Trust, which has since become part of NHS Tayside. She say the trust failed to properly carry out the abortion at Perth Royal Infirmary in January 2001, constituting a breach of contract. She said she did not realise she was still pregnant until it was too late to have a further abortion of the surviving foetus. 'Statutory obligation' But the health authority stated that doctors did warn Miss Dow about the possibility she could still be pregnant. Advocate David Stephenson, representing the trust, said Miss Dow was wrong to suggest there was a legal contract between her and the hospital. He told the court that because the NHS was a public body it had a statutory obligation to treat patients, but there was no "contract" between the patient and the doctor. "What she is saying is she had a contract," Mr Stephenson said. "NHS patients don't contract with health trusts or health boards for medical treatment." Sheriff Michael Fletcher, who is hearing the case, will decide later whether it should go forward to the next stage - a proof with both sides giving evidence. http://www.bbc.co.uk

ace!! I can imagine the spanish being better commentators.

Norway is starting construction on a "doomsday vault" in the Arctic which is designed to house all known varieties of the world's crops. Dug into a frozen mountainside on the island of Svalbard, it is hoped the project will safeguard crop diversity in the event of a global catastrophe. More than 100 countries have backed the vault, which will store seeds, packaged in foil, at sub-zero temperatures. Prime Ministers from five nations helped lay the cornerstone on Monday. Premiers from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland attended the ceremony near the town of Longyearbyen, in Norway's remote Svalbard Islands, roughly 1,000 km (620 miles) from the North Pole. Secure facility Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg told the Norwegian news agency NTB: "The vault is of international importance. It will be the only one of its kind; all the other gene banks are of a commercial nature." Fenced in and guarded, with steel airlock doors, motion detectors and polar bears roaming outside - the concrete facility will, its backers say, be the most secure building of its type in the world. Norway's Agriculture Minister Terje Riis-Johansen has called the vault a "Noah's Ark on Svalbard." The vault's purpose is to ensure survival of crop diversity in the event of plant epidemics, nuclear war, natural disasters or climate change; and to offer the world a chance to restart growth of food crops that may have been wiped out. At temperatures of minus 18C (minus 0.4F), the seeds could last hundreds, even thousands, of years. Even if all cooling systems failed, explained Mr Riis-Johansen, the temperature in the frozen mountain would never rise above freezing due to the permafrost on the mountainside. Ultimate back-up The Global Crop Diversity Trust, founded in 2004, will help run the vault, which is planned to open and start accepting seeds from around the world in September 2007. The bank is eventually expected to house some three million seeds "This facility will provide a practical means to re-establish crops obliterated by major disasters," Cary Fowler, executive secretary of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, said in a statement. Fowler, who led a feasibility study on the project, said crop diversity was also threatened by "accidents, mismanagement, and short-sighted budget cuts". Already, some 1,400 seed banks around the world, most of them national, hold samples of a country's crops. But these banks "can be affected by shutdowns, natural disasters, war or simply a lack of money," said Mr Riis-Johansen. While Norway will own the vault itself, countries sending seeds will own the material they deposit - much as with a bank safe-deposit box. The Global Crop Diversity Trust will help developing countries pay the cost of preparing and sending seeds. http://www.bbc.co.uk

gee thanks missus!!!! :P can't be corrupting you with swear words now, can I? you watching tonight?

The Namibian government is to invite singer Britney Spears to give birth in the country following Angelina Jolie's decision to have her baby there. Deputy tourism minister Leon Jooste recently told reporters Spears was considering having her baby in Namibia. Spears's publicist denied the story and Mr Jooste said he may have been hoaxed. But he will now "call and invite them to see if they would like to come", he said. He added: "We have a little niche tourism market that we are developing." Last month, Spears, 24, confirmed that she is expecting her second child with husband Kevin Federline. Last Monday, Mr Jooste received a phone call from the US suggesting Spears had "shown interest" in visiting Namibia, which was "a definite possibility". But a poor connection meant he was unable to take a name or contact details. When the singer's US publicist denied the statement, Mr Jooste conceded that a hoax was "possible". The minister, who is currently on holiday in South Africa, said he would look into the matter when he returns to Namibia next week. Actress Angelina Jolie gave birth to daughter Shiloh Nouvel at the coastal resort of Walvis Bay in Namibia last month. The government of Namibia helped Jolie and partner Brad Pitt in their quest for privacy by only allowing reporters wanting to cover the birth into the country with the couple's written permission. Last week, Spears complained that the media were taking "cheap shots" at her family, saying: "We just need privacy and we need our respect." She told NBC's Today show her second pregnancy had transformed her into an "emotional wreck". http://www.bbc.co.uk

A device that could foil movie pirates who covertly record films in cinemas has been developed in the US. The prototype is able to locate the position of a digital camera, before overwhelming it with white light to render any recorded images useless. The Georgia Institute of Technology team says the invention could also prevent clandestine photography. However, the device is unable to block conventional film or the SLR cameras, preferred by the paparazzi. "We're at a point right now where the prototype we have developed could lead to products for markets that have a small, critical area to protect," said Professor Gregory Abowd of the Georgia Tech College of Computing. In particular, his team is looking at ways to prevent photography in government buildings or at trade shows, where industrial espionage could be a problem. The team is also working with the motion picture industry to prevent illegal copying of films, which has become a particular problem in parts of Asia. A study released by the Motion Picture Association (MPA) said that movie piracy in China cost the film industry $2.7bn (£1.5bn) in 2005. White light The technology works by looking for the digital camera's image sensor known as a charge-coupled device (CCD). These silicon sensors are retroreflective, which means that they reflect light directly back to its origin, rather than scattering it. Some road-signs and vehicle licence plates are also retroreflective. The prototype uses two cameras, linked to a computer, to look for this reflected light from a target camera's CCD. As the reflected light is travelling in a straight line from the CCD, it allows the computer system to accurately pinpoint the location of the camera. Once found, the system floods the CCD with white light from a projector to "blind" the camera. "The biggest problem is making sure we don't get false positives from, say, a large shiny earring," said Jay Summet, a research assistant at Georgia Tech who helped build the device. "We need to make our system work well enough so that it can find a dot, then test to see if it's reflective, then see if it's retroreflective, and then test to see if it's the right shape." Big losses In the future, the researchers believe the system could use infra-red lasers and photo-detecting transistors, rather than cameras to search for CCDs. They also believe that a real-world version would probably use a laser to "blind" the image sensor. At the moment, the team is close to developing a commercial system that neutralises still cameras. Still cameras are easier to spot than camcorders because their CCD is closer to the lens and there is less interference with the reflected light. However, the ultimate goal is to develop a system to combat film piracy. The movie industry is particularly keen to clamp down on this because of the billions of dollars in lost revenue blamed on illegal copying. At present, the industry mostly relies on the alertness of staff at cinemas to spot people filming. However, Disney took this one stage further in 2003 when it issued security staff with night vision goggles and metal detectors, ahead of screenings of the animated movie Finding Nemo. http://www.bbc.co.uk

The Arctic Monkeys bass player Andy Nicholson has left the rock band for good after pulling out of their North American tour last month. "We are sad to tell everyone that Andy is no longer with the band," his former bandmates said on their website. "We have been mates for a long time and have been through some amazing things together that no-one can take away." Nick O'Malley, who replaced Nicholson in May, will continue playing with the group for the rest of the summer. The bass player's initial departure last month came days before the band were due to start a 17-date tour of the US and Canada. Festival schedule At the time, his absence was attributed to "fatigue following an intensive period of touring". The Sheffield-based four-piece will be in Germany on Friday to play at the Hurricane Festival in Scheesel, near Hamburg. That will be followed by appearances in France, Spain and Italy. The Arctic Monkeys' album Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not became the fastest-selling debut in UK chart history when it was released in January. http://www.bbc.co.uk

A huge TV screen showing England's World Cup games in the centre of Birmingham has collapsed in high winds. The digital screen made up of LED cubes at Millennium Point's Fan Park - one of Europe's largest - was tipped over on Tuesday afternoon. No-one was hurt. It was designed to fall backwards so the LED cubes did not smash. A smaller screen has beeng brought in by organisers for the Sweden v England game, which is expected to attract thousands of fans. The larger screen, measuring 6m high by 10m wide (20ft by 30ft) is held up by scaffolding and the area surrounding it had already been cordoned off because of fears about it collapsing in the high winds. 'Twisted scaffolding' David Nelson, who was filming for the council at Fan Park, said: "I was setting my camera up and everyone was looking at the screen and thinking 'that is going to go'. "There were groans around the ground when it fell. It is all twisted scaffolding now." Officials said the screen had been lowered to the ground on Monday night as high winds were forecast. Just minutes before the accident 20 workers had been working on the structure but the area was evacuated just before the screen came down. One of the workers at the site, Ashley Clarke, said: "I was standing at the side and the engineers said 'That's going to go in a minute, it's swaying in the wind'. "We watched it going forward and back and it just fell down and hit the floor." Safety concerns Birmingham City Council, which is operating the screen, said workers were in the process of securing the structure but before they could act a "freak gust of wind" toppled the screen. Two thousand people had already bought tickets to watch the England v Sweden game on the screen. Kevin Brown, head of events at the city council, said: "It's business as usual and obviously we want everyone to turn up and have a good time. "We did notice some movement in the screen earlier in the day but before we could take remedial action it toppled over. "Safety is our primary concern and we will be working closely with technicians and safety officers to ensure the continuation of what has been a great success so far." Sponsors T-mobile said fans attending the England v Sweden game will be given free tickets for both second round matches on Saturday and Sunday to be screened at the park. The city council decided to limit the screening of England games to the Fan Park site because of fears of violence. Trouble erupted at open air screenings in the city during the Euro 2004 tournament. Last week nearly 3,000 football fans turned up to see England's match against Trinidad and Tobago. Fans are charged £3.50 to watch England games at the park. See the video here

its on at midnight this time because of football

sick & twisted

Bourne Supremacy, Ocean's 11, Ocean's 12, Good Will Hunting. Ben Affleck's mate.

Morning, Jack is very weak this morning and is taking oxygen almost constantly. There appears to be no pain and, dressed in his Tigger jumper, looks every bit a happy and loved little boy. On behalf of all of us - thank you for the love and energy you send and please take time today to tell the people that matter, that you love them. Gordon

and get them to update their book lists every year instead of relying on ones which are 15 years old where half the texts are out of date.