Match of the Day vs The Premiership

but they didn't look like Premiership material until March 2004, and entering the top flight as the play-off winners, they were always going to be favourites to go right back down again.

I am sorry about my spelling. From now on, I will call him Gary L.

PF, I once saw Souness behind the chip shop on Great Western Road next to Kelvinbridge underground station in Glasgow. There's like a little alley behind it which cuts all of thirty seconds off your journey. He was sitting in his car with somebody else while someone (presumably) went in to get his chips. He looked at me in a very unpleasant way and I was a bit frightened. Of course, he was King of the Castle then, but now he's not. So his glowers are less powerful.

I liked the way that Strachan wore his shirt untucked.

Strachan is so lovely and cute, I just want to tuck him up in bed with a hot water bottle and read him a story. Does anyone else feel the same?

I am sending Chiles to do a report on your workplace, Mooro. You can hang around in the background making wanker signs.

Were you in bed in time, Mike?

I don't know about weeping, just resigned chuckling at the thought of ever having had a chance against mighty Liverpool, really.

NB: They talk about *it* there, I should have said.

Chiles would make a bad Have I Got News For You guest presenter, I fear.

I am sorry that you wasted your time on Liverpool wins, Mike: that does sound unfortunate.

Can't you multi-task, Mike? I was sadly googling Liverpool scores and watching MOTD2 at the same time.

I have said elsewhere that I would like Strachan to be the Scotland manager just for the press conferences. He is the reason I watch MOTD2 (that, and being too much of a cheapskate to get Sky Sports)

There's a wall in the way. Or ten feet of hallway and a right-angled turn if we're talking about the telly in the bedroom.

I should make clear that only my choice of subject matter was appalling, not my partners in banter.

I missed HIGNFY entirely. We may have been skirting Tarporley on the A54 at the time, or eating curry at Moreton Cross.

Do you like it when the camera doodlebugs the stadiums before matches?

Do you mean in a drifting blimp stylee or the crash-zoom from space? I like 'em both. There's a touch of ITV about the latter but, being the Beeb, I'm sure those aerial maps are meticulously researched.

(Mark C: the last LP I bought was the first Bee Gees album on cassette for 35p so we could listen to New York Mining Disaster 1941 in the car. So, no.)

Porkpie, do you listen to 'Duelling Banjos' to get you in the mood before fishing trips?

I think Mike has been playing 'New York Mining Disaster 1941' at the wrong speed. 70mph in a built-up residential area.

What I really can't understand - when sometimes the person talking is in normal speed, the people walking past their elbow and gurning at the camera are speeded up! This is unnatural.

I hope I don't spoil your taped MOTD PJ by revealing that it did not feature either Lineker nor Hansen. Lineker's replacement was bespectacled (very unusual these days) but competent and animated. he should probably be doing MOTD2 rather than Chiles.

Pougatch has Ukranian roots - his autobiography would be called He Came From The Ukraine on A Donkey, because that's what his grandad did. Perhaps he should concentrate on writing a biography of his grandad first.

Farewell My Lovely isn't very good, five stars or not. It's just a load of people acting. All the good stuff is Chandlerisms, which can be better enjoyed by READING.

i was bemused and impressed by Pougatch - you could sense he was going for it, taking the opportunity with all the relish a man can muster, which as we all know can often be a lot.

I've never been to Anfield, though. I did once pass it in a taxi - hair turned white, fingernails fell out, went blind, etc.

*to see an international match, so perhaps it doesn't count

Unhappily, he likes Snow Patrol.

JtN: I see your Matt Smith and I raise you Gabriel Clarke.

I hope HIGNFY have the good sense to employ Elton Welsby as a guest host next series.

Portman Road (of course), Withdean 'Stadium', Molineux, Loftus Road, White Hart Lane, Highbury, Selhurst Park, Upton Park and Chelsea's shithole (worst ground ever! - for away fans at least)