Weather: A turncoat day: lovely and sunny early on, but the rains arrive around 3, and it doesn't stop after. 19 before it wets.

Travel: No problems going out, but a lorry (driven by whom?) strikes a bridge around West Brom, and there are 20 minute delays all round. If I find out who it was, they will be getting a nasty letter.

Track of the day: I Wish (R Kelly, 2000) His new single, in the vein of last years "If I Could Turn Back The Hands Of Time," a soft, brooding, poignant ballad. Fabbo.

University Challenge: Rather a good game, nip-and-tuck between University College London and New College Oxford. It’s only in the last few minutes that UCL moves into its commanding lead, winning 265-150. Don’t let the score deceive you, this really was a close match. UCL will go far, I think.

Courtney
It's Sunday and I loathe Sunday's. It always seems like there's nothing to do. And then night creeps up and you're like...oh shit, school.
Sunday begins early. If you're only getting up at 10, you've blown it. Read the paper, take a long bath (these things combine) good walk, chart shows, crank up the steam wireless for NFL, and that's quite enough for one day.

Call me cranky, but nothing annoys more than posting a URL without an excerpt from the story. If it's worth sharing with us all, it's worth a moment of your time to extract the main point and letting us judge whether to follow the link or not. Saying:
Hot News! http://www.liquidnews.co.uk/s56a32ae.htm
isn't as informative as
Hot News! http://www.liquidnews.co.uk/music/spice/split.htm
or even
Geri Leaves Spice Girls! "I wanted to spend more time with my breasts," says the spice formerly known as Ginger. More... http://www.liquidnews.co.uk/s56a32ae.htm

(And if you think this is hot, or the links work, you've another thing coming.)

byron
because of the way the video encoding works (MPEG-2), anything involving a fair bit of motion doesn't look good at the "basic quality" 30-hour setting.
Welcome to the world of digital recording (: As the long-standing viewers of DTTV in the UK know, it's easy to over-compress the picture so that there's too much blurring. For the uninitiated, MPEG2 video works by throwing out a some of the detail of the picture when it moves. When it's done properly, it gives far better quality than analogue television. When it's done badly, it just looks crap. A little extra bandwidth (or, in byron's case, storage rate) makes the world of difference.

Weather: Just like yesterday, a day of two halves. Wet early on, then drying up just before lunch, with sunshine and a few showers afterwards. 18 is tops.

Travel: Not the best. Burst water main at Selly Oak means there are no buses for the final stretch. Then late running at Euston leads to the 1623 emerging almost an hour late. That's fine, but Wolverhampton decides to *unload* food from a train *on a station platform*. This is unspeakably incompetent. There is no excuse for carrying out behind the scenes operations on a public platform. No excuse at all. Virgin Trains to get a nasty letter.

Track of the Day: Swallowed - Bush (Sixteen Stone, 1996.) The one and only UK hit, featuring a video that remains an eye-popper almost four years on. Spotted on UK Play's "Connected" series, next to Beth Orton's "She Cries Your Name." Both also appeared on my last Christmas mix tape. Coincidence? Well, probably.

Lord Archer is charged with perjury. It's alleged he asked a friend to lie during a libel trial back in 1987. Archer was unavailable for comment, breaking the habit of a lifetime.

Speaking of massive frauds, Slobodan Milosevic claims a run-off in the Yugoslav presidential election. He claims to have taken 40.2% of the poll, against 48.2% to challenger Vojislav Kostunica. Supporters of the opposition leader say he's won nearer 55% and urge people to go out and vote for him in such large numbers that no-one can dispute he's won.

University Challenge: Redbrick Bristol takes on former-poly Sheffield Hallam, and the two sides trade blows through the opening rounds, but Hallam’s mature students pull away during the second quarter. Host Jeremy Paxman refuses to wait for an answer, the first time I’ve seen that in ages. Hallam pulls away slightly during the second half, but the damage has been done. Bristol rally slightly to the end, but Hallam wins 265-170. It might just be enough to bring them back as one of the highest-scoring losers, but I doubt it.

Defeats for Man United, Barcelona and Bayern Munich at the hands of their main competitors. 1999 champion Man United lost 3-1 in group G at PSV Eindhoven, while their runner-up Bayern Munich lost their group F fixture 1-0 at Paris St Germain off a last-minute Leroy strike. In a repeat of the 94 final, hosts Barcelona (H) succumbed 2-0 to AC Milan. The Catalans won 4-0 in the earlier match.
There were some one-sided wins: (H) Leeds beat Besiktas of Turkey 6-0, (G) Dinamo Kyiv downed Anderlecht 4-0, (F) Rosenborg of Norway beat Helsingborg of Sweden 6-1.
(E) Juventus and Deportivo la Coruna drew 0-0 and remain joint top, with Panathaniakos downing Hamburg 1-0.

Weather: Very sunny at dawn, but clouding over quickly after. It threatened heavy rain, but it was a lot more showery than torrential. 17 C.

Travel: Generally on time, though the 1649 suffered a five-minute hold outside New Street.

Track of the Day: Sunset (Bird of Prey) - Fatboy Slim (2000). Another new release, this one treads a similar path to much of Moby's 1999 Play album, though with that slight twist that Norman always puts in.

An upset loss for Lazio might just be the week's big news; the pre-tournament favourites lost their group B match 2-0 at a vastly improved Arsenal. Another one-sided wins: (D) Monaco hits Sturm Graz for 5-0, replicating Rangers' scoreline of two weeks back.
The rest of the results:
(A) Defending champion Real Madrid overcame a 2-1 deficit at Bayer Leverkusen, winning 3-2 off a Roberto Carlos double. Spartak Moscow beats Sporting Lisbon 3-1.
(B) Sparta Prague over Shakhtar Donetsk 3-2.
(C) Valencia continues to grip the group, downing Lyon 1-0. Olympiakos beats Heerenveen 2-0 in that group's other match.
(D) Rangers' winning run ends, losing 3-2 at Galatasaray.

Weather: The odd shower, but mainly sunny. 17.

Travel: Less than fab coming back, the 1642 and 1649 from Longbridge are cancelled following a lorry-bridge incident near Lichfield. Over 20 miles away. This line has no resilience. But the 1702 gets in just in time to catch the (slightly late) 1720 arrival from London, and that gets into Wolverhampton just in time for me to run to the 1745 bus - the 1742 was 15 late.

Season 4 of Buffy begins. Shame about Sunday, that could have been a great regular character. Ho-hum.

Any excuse to catch up on new music with some chums leads to Ten For Today (Even Though Three are To Avoid.)
* Kylie has a new album out, it's rubbish.
* Mariah. Westlife. Shoot 'em.
* Radiohead has a new album out, and it's something of a grower, just, like, don't expect it to be an *easy* listen.
* Sugababes, "Overload," reminds me of Imani Coppola, well worth a download.
* All Saints "Black Coffee," aptly named. The sort of thing to clear a tired mind.
* Everclear's "Wonderful" is on the shelves on Monday, and it is *so* fab. Their "AM Radio" is making it in the US, and it is even better.
* The Cuban Boys follow up the *original* hamsterdance song with "Oh My God, They Killed Kenny," which has lost its South Park samples, but includes the motif from the 1975 top three hit "The Bump." Dr Pop laughed his socks off when he figured why.
* Vertical Horizon, "You're A God," slice of heaven.
* "Gettin' In The Way," Jill Scott's "I Try." Raved about her last time.

Weather: Sunny spells, cloudy spells, the odd shower, 17.

Travel: The 0635 leaves a couple of minutes early, and turns out to be the 0611 running late. So get the London train into Brum, and on from there. Back: just miss the 1649, and 1702 leaves 2 late (no excuse) then held just after Northfield for 4 more (no explanation.) Lucky to catch a delayed XC to Edinburgh, but find the 1804 is held behind the Shrewsbury train. Useful gen.

Eight golds. Eight. It's the greatest British showing at the Olympics since 1924. So says David Coleman, who was there at the time.

The Danes vote nej to the Euro. That's kinda gonna screw up everything St Tony's been planning. Ha ha ha ha ha.

Sara
the sad bit is that mainly I was just looking for a tube station!
A specific tube station, or would any one have done? Coz if it's just access to the underground you want, keep walking in a line and you'll find something useful reasonably quickly.

either that, or I was walking in circles.
That would not be good.

it was really rather good that I suddenly found the place right when I was meant to get there!! :)
Not luck, fate?

>Try Marylebone to Warren Street in 22 minutes. Easy when you know how.
sorry, I don't where either of those streets are... is taht how far you have to walk then?
It was last year, and the places are about 1.5 miles apart. Take the tube, change once, it's often 30 minutes. Walk, it's 22 minutes direct, 26 minutes down the scenic route.

I really like it that way - it took some getting used too (I kept adding 5% tax, and was surprised when it didn't come up) but its nice that way :)
The Price You See Is The Price You Pay. It's not rocket science!

at home its a lot easier to add it on though, as its always a set rate - 5%. and of course, 0% on food :)
Ah, but what about where it's 7%, or 17.25% (as in PEI.) Far more difficult to work out.

the tvs at home don't have this extra cost.
PBS pledge drives? The cost of the commercials factored into the price of the goods you buy (whether you watch tv or not)? It all has to be funded from somewhere.

and the BBC still has commercials..doesn't it?
Rupert Giles splutters:
No, the BBC does not have any commercials. It is an ad-free zone. There are no sponsors, no co-presentations, nothing but programmes.

(Cheers, Giles. Coffee?)

Weather: Sunny for most of the day, 19.

Track of the Day: Mountain High, Valley Low Oleander Adams (Mountain High, Valley Low; 1999) It's gospel, it's R&B, it's soul, it's not fitting into pigeon holes, it's dashed good.

Angela
People! Listen up! When you get those offers of free credit in the mail - don't just dump 'em, shred 'em. When you throw out catalogues- rip off the address and name!
If you're getting junk mail, write the senders (once), stating that you are happy to proof-read their mail for errors, will charge $100 per hour, minimum charge one hour per mailing, and sending any further mail will be deemed as accepting these terms. It's worked a treat, and might help prevent this kind of identity larceny by reducing the amount of junk mail.

Mark Viduka and Alan Smith scored twice as Leeds continued its goal-scoring barrage with a 4-3 win at home against Tottenham in the Premier League. All four goals came within 12 second half minutes. Goals all around as Aston Villa beat Derby 4-1, a loss that pushed Derby into last place and left the Rams without a victory this season. Villa moved into a fourth place tie with 12 points. In other matches: Charlton 2, Coventry 2; Everton 0, Ipswich 3; Manchester City 0, Newcastle 1; Southampton 1, Middlesbrough 3; West Ham 1, Bradford 1.

Weather: Foggy start, wet later, chilly. 16.

Leicester takes over at the top of the Premier League, after drawing 0-0 with Sunderland. Man Utd loses 1-0 at Arsenal, the sides are now tied for second. Chelsea beats Liverpool 3-0 to ease relegation fears.

The Charts...

 1 (1)  Mariah Carey & Westlife: Against All Odds =====):
 2 (2)  Kernkraft 3000: Zombie Nation
 3 (3)  Modjo: Lady Hear Me Tonight
 5 (8)  Anastacia: I'm Outta Love
 8 (10) Sugababes: Overload (:
 9 new  Architechs: Body Groove
11 new  Melanie B: Tell Me
16 (21) Sisqo: Unleash the Dragon
19 new  DJ Luck & MC Neat: Ain't no Stoppin Us Now
28 (37) Christina Aguilera: Come On Over
29 new  Beautiful South: Closer Than Most (:
35 (47) Everclear: Wonderful (:*
41 (50) U2: Beautiful Day (:
54 new  Placebo: Slave To The Wage (: