Andy78

Happy Birthday Cia

Ricky (from Castaway) is one of my all time favourite characters from GA-land. Everyone should read Castaway at least once - even if you only read the first book in the series. I still re-read Castaway, especially on long train journeys, and I still enjoy it as much as the first time round.

Congrats

I think this punishment is a little harsh

I'm not surprised we only got 5 points, but I'm absolutely shocked the host nation got nil points. This was the first time ever that the host nation has scored the dreaded nil points.

This is my all time favourite that never won

Not sure quite what UK are thinking

I can't believe I'm losing to the care bear

Happy birthday Myr

Happy birthday

Happy birthday Graeme

I love the book. I was given It as a birthday present when I was 11 - about a year before the TV movie came out. The first time I read the book, I read It in a weekend. Even now, nearly 25 year later, I still read it a few times a year, and I still have that same battered well-worn copy from when I was 11. The novel was so much better than the TV movie. I've seen the TV movie a few times, but there was just so much cut from the book that some of the things in the movie don't actually make sense unless you've read the book. There were also a few inconsequential things that were altered around for some unknown reason. For example. right at the start of the movie the child who is killed was a little girl but in the book that exact same child was a little boy (and the murder doesn't happen at the start of the book, Georgie's murder happens at the start of the book). In the book the timespan between them as kids and them as adults was 26 years but in the movie it was changed 30 years. In the book, Beverly has a mum and a dad but in the movie she only has a dad. It never really made sense to me to make changes like these. The remake actually stands an excellent chance of being far better than the original. They would have to get it seriously wrong for me to have my usual opinion of the original being better than the modern day remakes.

Happy Birthday Hope you had a great day.

Happy birthday Comsie

At least my other picks are still in

Happy birthday

The prevailing GA opinion seems to be against the Flames - we have a very sensible crowd here

I love Vlista's Shane but the first half is a really tough read as it deals a lot with abuse. Probably my favourite shorter story is Viv's Days of Silence. The story contains the bare minimum of dialogue, but it is probably the best anthology story I've read here on GA. The stories I read and re-read though are BillW's The Castaway Hotel and Comsie's GFD. You should also check out the story that brought me to GA - GhostRyder's Kombat Kids - it's heavy on the sex scenes, but the story is well worth the read.

Just one of the perks of living in the UK!

Pleads the fifth

Thanks for the great review Cia

Round One winners Montreal Canadians Detroit Red Wings New York Rangers New York Islanders St Louis Blues Chicago Blackhawks Anaheim Ducks Vancouver Canucks Round Two winners Montreal Canadians New York Islanders St Louis Blues Vancouver Canucks Conference Finals Winners Montreal Canadians Vancouver Canucks Stanley Cup winner I have to rely on the knowledge of Teal'c from Stargate on this one. The winners will be Vancouver Canucks

Actually most (if not all) TV shows were released on to video cassette. Not with the same speed they get released to DVD these days - it used to take a year or so from the end of a season until it was released on cassette, but they were extremely popular and sold in their tens of thousands. Most people also owned a cassette recorder, and simply taped the episodes themselves as they were shown on TV. Since you could buy a pack of 10 blank cassettes for £5, nearly everyone had large collections of TV series and films that they had simply recorded themselves - many of which still haven't been released on to DVD. X-Files season one was such a rare thing on video cassette here in the UK (as it was limited to about 400), that by the late 1990s on line sellers were charging over £500 for it and fans of the show were paying it!

I will Steve. I've enjoyed the couple of rounds I've taken part in. I always used to lose because for some strange reason I kept on picking the Flyers to win it. At least I can't make that same dumb mistake this year