Topics

I would probably have given the nod to Stevie G, failing him Frank Lampard. The last one i would have taken was Rio Ferdinand as i doubt he will play much to begin with.

Police officer arrested over 1989 murder
Twenty years after the murder of an 80-year-old woman in Belfast, UTV can reveal that a former police officer has been arrested in relation to the killing.

Wednesday, 27 January 2010
Tags: policeLocal News

Annabella Symington, 80, was found strangled in her home at Willesden Park in the Stranmillis area of the city on Halloween night in 1989.

A 58-year-old man was detained in Carrickfergus on Tuesday and is being questioned at the Serious Crime Suite at Antrim Police Station.

Police have been given a further 24 hours to question him.


Article Continues
UTV can reveal that the man is a former police officer who served with the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

As he was being questioned, police officers conducted house-to-house enquiries in the street where Mrs Symington lived in the hope of obtaining any new information which could help them in their investigation.

Former Assembly member for the area, Carmel Hanna said: "People knew her. She was out and about and people would have known her regular movements. But I think the big surprise was the two cups on the draining boards because very few people went into the house."

"It wasn't a political crime so it probably didn't get the same attention."



Detectives from a new police unit set up to review old cases are re-investigating Mrs Symington's murder.

I am amazed that with the winter games just three weeks away there is not a word about them anywhere. I love the winter games, I enjoy them a whole lot more than the summer games.
My favourite sport in the games is the bobsleigh and I also enjoy the downhill racing and the hockey.
What sports do you like best at the winter games?

I am thinking this thread will have about a hundred pages on it by months end, this is unbelievable stuff altogether.

Feck me, i went to bed last nigt and the driveway was bone dry, I woke up this morning and the ground was covered with 14 inches of snow, I proceeded to break the snowplough and have resorted to shovelling this hateful shite, meanwhile the Governor has the national guard out to help motorists in trouble, i hate winter here, we are going to have to move, i cant take it anymore.

The draw has just been made, some interesting pairings, especially United & leeds (if they past kettering)

Manchester United could renew their rivalry with Leeds United in the third round of the FA Cup after the two teams were drawn together on Sunday afternoon.

If Leeds defeat Kettering in a replay then they will make the trip to Old Trafford and take on their rivals from across the Pennines for the first time since February 2004.

In three all-Premier League ties, Arsenal will travel to West Ham, Aston Villa host Blackburn and Wigan take on Hull City.



Ties to be played on weekend of January 2   


Tottenham  v Peterborough 


Brentford  v Doncaster Rovers 




Middlesbrough  v Manchester City 


Stoke City  v York City 


Notts County  v Forest Green Rovers 




Huddersfield Town  v West Bromwich Albion 


Sheffield United  v Queens Park Rangers 


MK Dons  v Burnley 




Chelsea  v Watford 


Nottingham Forest  v Birmingham City 


Preston North End  v Colchester United 


West Ham United  v Arsenal 




Aston Villa  v Blackburn Rovers 


Portsmouth  v Coventry City 




Sunderland  v Oxford United or Barrow 


Wigan Athletic  v Hull City 




Everton  v Carlisle United 


Sheffield Wednesday  v Crystal Palace 




Tranmere Rovers or Aldershot  v Wolverhampton Wanderers 


Blackpool  v Ipswich Town 




Fulham  v Swindon Town 


Stockport or Torquay  v Brighton 




Scunthorpe United  v Barnsley 


Southampton  v Rotherham or Luton 




Bristol City  v Cardiff City 


Reading  v Liverpool 




Staines or Millwall  v Derby 


Plymouth  v Newcastle United 




Leicester City  v Swansea City 




Bolton  v Lincoln City 




Accrington or Barnet  v Gillingham 




Manchester United  v Kettering or Leeds 

This shit is getting old.

Orlando, Florida (CNN) -- Authorities Friday apprehended a gunman who entered an Orlando building where he used to work and shot six people, killing one of them, the city's police chief said.

Five others were wounded in the shooting on the eighth floor of the Gateway Center, Orlando Police Chief Val Demings told reporters. She said one other person had "chest pains." Authorities at one point had said that seven people had been shot.

"The information we have is that the victims were all employees of one company," Mayor Buddy Dyer said at a news conference.

Authorities said the victims were in stable condition.



Video: Orlando suspect identified
RELATED TOPICS
Shootings
Crime
Orlando (Florida)
The suspect surrendered to authorities at his mother's house after officers looking through a window saw him there.

"He was arrested without incident," Demings said, adding the information she's received indicated that there was only one gunman.

Earlier, authorities identified the suspect as Jason Rodriguez, who formerly worked for Reynolds Smith and Hills, an architectural and engineering firm, in Gateway Center. A company spokesman said he had been let go two years ago for "performance issues."

Demings said authorities received a phone call around 11 a.m. ET about an active shooting at the 16-story office building.

Were you there? Send your stories, photos and videos

Shortly afterward, officers arrived at the building, which lies beside Interstate 4 and Lake Ivanhoe on the northern edge of downtown, and began searching it floor by floor, she said.

Meanwhile, police cordoned off the area and a sheriff's department helicopter circled overhead.

During the search for the suspect, I-4 was closed in both directions, but it had reopened by midafternoon Friday, according to the Department of Transportation's Web site.

Mike Bernof, a spokesman for Reynolds Smith and Hills, said the company's office in Orlando primarily does transportation engineering work and that Rodriguez did engineering with the firm. He did not offer further details.

Bernof said that as far as he knew, all the people who were shot were with the firm.

Public records indicate that Rodriguez filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in May and that the case was discharged in September.

A woman who answered the telephone at Price Law Firm in Orlando confirmed that lawyer Charles Price represented Rodriguez in the bankruptcy filing but would not offer details.

To me he should be held accountable for the drugging, sodomy and rape of a then 13 year old child. Your thoughts?


SHOULD Roman Polanski be extradited to the US over his statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl in Los Angeles in March 1977? It's an interesting legal question. But it's not the question that is driving the trans-Atlantic furore that followed the film director's arrest in Switzerland last weekend.

Instead, various prejudices and unresolved battles are being projected on to l'affaire Polanski, robbing it of its legal complexities and turning it into a proxy culture war in which clapped-out conservatives and disoriented liberals are hurling intellectual (and not-so-intellectual) grenades at one another.

Polanski, the Polish-French maker of some decent films (Chinatown, Rosemary's Baby, The Pianist) and some awful ones too (Frantic, The Dance of the Vampires), pleaded guilty in a Los Angeles court in 1977 to having sexual intercourse with a minor.

On March 10, 1977, then 44, he had taken Samantha Gailey, a 13-year-old child model, to the home of Jack Nicholson in Mulholland, California, where he said he was going to take photographs of her for the French edition of Vogue. After taking the photos, he gave Gailey champagne and a sedative and performed oral sex, intercourse and sodomy on her while she said: "No, I don't want to do this." The original charges against Polanski were "rape by use of drugs, sodomy, and a lewd and lascivious act with a child under the age of 14". As part of a plea bargain Polanski got it reduced to "sexual intercourse with a minor".

When he realised that even this charge could land him in jail, he fled the US.

But the newspaper commentary and feverish diplomatic activity that greeted his arrest in Switzerland have not been concerned with the facts of the case, the question of legal precedents or the issue of justice.

Instead, Polanski has been turned into a symbol. For conservatives, still convinced that the 1960s are the root of all evil, he is symbolic of the perversions allegedly unleashed by the naked, hippie, free-love liberations of the countercultural period, with his rape of a 13-year-old girl seen virtually as the logical end product of legalising drug use and encouraging people to be sexually experimental.

For liberals he is a symbol of tortured European artistry who is being victimised by an ugly and prudish America. For US officials, Polanski symbolises European degeneracy and they fantasise that returning him to an American jail will be a victory for Reaganite decency over French moral turpitude.

For French officials, meanwhile, Polanski is a symbol of Europe's gallant recovery from its dark past (Polanski and his family, Polish Jews, were persecuted during the Holocaust), who is being tortured anew by "the darker side of America, the side that scares us all".

Just as Mia Farrow's Rosemary was a vessel for the devil in Rosemary's Baby, so Polanski has been turned into a vessel for all sorts of political jibber-jabber today.

It is striking how quickly the discussion of what Polanski, one man, did to Gailey, one girl, twists and turns into a discussion about competing moral values and even clashing national standards. For 60s-baiting conservatives, Polanski has long been a rotting symbol of everything that is wrong with that decade.

Both Polanski's experience of a terrible crime in 1969 and his execution of a crime in 1977 are held up as evidence of the darker side of the 60s and why a diet of sexual looseness, rock'n'roll and drugs is a Bad Thing.

In 1969, Polanski's wife Sharon Tate, a beautiful actress, was brutally murdered by Charles Manson's cult, the Family. Family members stabbed to death Tate and four others at Polanski's home in California while he was away; Tate was 8 1/2 months pregnant.

That crime, carried out by a tiny cult of weird hippies, has been cited by US conservatives as the neat conclusion to a decade in which traditional values had collapsed under the weight of a new generation that was less respectful than its 50s forebears; it was the "dark side of the California dream", as one writer argued, a product of the "political, social and cultural turbulence of the 1960s".

The Manson crimes have been analysed more than any other serial-killing episodes in US history because they have been elevated from the realm of crime to the world of politics and morality, used by conservatives to absolve themselves of any responsibility for the collapse of traditional values in the 60s (instead it was all the fault of the Beatles, the Beach Boys, drugs and other things loved by Manson) and to depict sexual liberation and social experimentation as having necessarily brutal consequences.

Yet just as Polanski was a victim of alleged 60s excesses, so he was a rapacious product of those excesses, too. Any sympathy for Polanski dried up following his conviction for unlawful intercourse in 1977. This, too, conservatives argued, was part of the degeneracy of the American west coast in the mid to late-20th century; it sprang from a determination to "push back the boundaries of sexual liberation", as one report said this week.

Some American law enforcers and right-wing commentators seem to imagine that having Polanski returned to the US will finally end the odious influence of the 60s on society. Under the headline "Why we dislike the French" one conservative columnist asks how liberal Europe can "support a child rapist".

Yet if this attempt to write off 60s sexual liberation (some of which was progressive, some of which was solipsistic) on the back of Polanski's past is bad, then the defence of Polanski by European government officials and commentators is even worse.

They are motivated not by anything remotely related to legal norms or questions of justice but by a snobbish anti-Americanism in which Polanski (who is probably a bit of a creep) becomes recast as a paragon of European decency against hung-up America.

So determined are some liberal observers to use l'affaire Polanski to get one over on the US that they have even forgotten about their normal role of stoking up hysterical panics about pedophiles and have re-depicted Polanski's encounter with Gailey as just an over-exuberant heavy-petting session. European liberals rallied to Polanski's defence against what Frederic Mitterrand, nephew of the former French president and a friend of Polanski, described as a senseless and outrageous arrest that springs from "the darker side of America, the one that scares us all".

In short, Polanski is not merely being pursued under an old legalistic arrest warrant, the kind that exists for many fugitives, but is the European victim of evil America.

One French commentator says the US is "acting out some kind of prudish revenge" against a "great talent who never abided by American rules". Here, Polanski's actions in 1977 are presented as a bit of rule-breaking and anyone who thinks he should be punished for them is clearly an un-arty prude.

But whatever you think of the arrest warrant against Polanski and the motivations of US law enforcers, it is not prudish to think that performing oral sex and sodomy on a drunk 13-year-old is unacceptable behaviour.

The difference between the liberal media reaction to Polanski and to Gary Glitter - the big-haired glam-rock star who in 1997 was discovered to have child porn on his computer - is striking. Where Glitter has been turned by the British media into a symbol of the pedophilic evil that is allegedly stalking our land, Polanski is presented as the misunderstood artist who is the real victim here, of a "money-grabbing American mother and a publicity-hungry Californian judge".

So keen are some liberals to mark themselves out as Not American that they are effectively saying: "Polanski might be a pedophile, but he's our pedophile."

But perhaps the worst aspect of the Polanski affair is the competition of victimhoods. It is testimony to the domination of the victim culture in society that Polanski haters and Polanski defenders have used the language of victimology to make their case.

For many American and British commentators this is all about Gailey, whom they have transformed into the archetypal victim of the alleged great evil of our time, child abuse. "Remember: Polanski raped a child", says a headline in Salon online.

For European observers, by contrast, Polanski's actions can be explained by his victimised past, especially during the Holocaust. We have to understand his "life tragedies" and how they moulded him, says one filmmaker.

Anne Applebaum, a US commentator who spends much of her time in Europe, says Polanski fled the US in 1978 because of his "understandable fear of irrational punishment. Polanski's mother died in Auschwitz. His father survived in Mauthausen. He himself survived the Krakow ghetto." (Applebaum fails to disclose that she is married to Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, who is campaigning against Polanski's extradition.)

This spat in victimology confirms that the politics of victimhood dominates debate on both sides of the Atlantic, but in the Anglo-American sphere it is the victim of child abuse that is most sacrosanct, while in Europe it is the victims of the Holocaust who enjoy the most unquestioned moral authority, to the extent that Polanski's fleeing of the US can be excused as a latent reaction by a tortured man to the horrors of Auschwitz.

L'affaire Polanski has become a culture war that dare not speak its name, a pale imitation of the debates about values that have emerged at various times during the past 50 years.

As a result we are none the wiser about the legal usefulness of 30-year-old arrest warrants or contemporary extradition laws, as observers have instead turned Polanski into a ventriloquist's dummy or a voodoo doll for the purposes of letting off cheap moral steam.

Brendan O'Neill edits online magazine Spiked. His satire on the green movement, Can I Recycle My Granny and 39 Other Eco-Dilemmas, is published by Hodder & Stoughton.

Your Comments:0 Comment(s)
Story ToolsPost A Comment Share This Article Email To A Friend Post A CommentWe welcome your comments on this story. Comments are submitted for possible publication on the condition that they may be edited. Please provide a screen name and suburb/location - these will be published. We also require a working email address - not for publication, but for verification. Read our publication guidelines.

* Required fields
Screen Name:* Required   Location:   Email Address:* Required   Your Comments:* Required     Remember my details (So you don't have to retype your details each time you send feedback)  Email me if my comment is published   Share This ArticleFrom here you can use the Social Web links to save The war for Roman Polanski to a social bookmarking site.

del.icio.us Digg it Furl Netscape Yahoo MyWeb StumbleUpon Google Technorati BlinkList Newsvine ma.gnolia reddit Windows Live Tailrank Slashdot Email To A Friend* Required fields
Recipient's Name:* Required  Recipient's Email:* Required  Your Name:* Required  Your Email:* Required  Email Format:* HTML Text Only  Your Comments:* Required   
Information provided on this page will not be used for any other purpose than to notify the recipient of the article you have chosen.


Ads By GooglePrepare to be Shocked
Millions have already taken this amazing test. What's your RealAge?
RealAge.comArtery Clearing Secret
Hugh Downs reports on breakthrough artery clearing secret.
www.bottomlinesecrets.comStress Relief - Dianetics
Free selection from Dianetics, the bestseller by L. Ron Hubbard.
Dianetics.orgLatest Opinion
Brendan O'Neill: The war for Roman Polanski
Henry Ergas: Bad economics not harmless
Christopher Hitchens: Pig-ignorant officials slaughter swine
Peter Sutton: Let's not shut our eyes to truth
Peter van Onselen: Leader can't just ignore his MPs
Tony Makin: Debt monster that will feed on itself
Your Vote

The Australian's Online Poll
Do you think Australia has adequate systems in place to warn of a tsunami?
Vote | Your details
Special reports

In-Depth sections
The Australian's in-depth sections cover a range of news topics, including Budget 2009, Swine Flu, the Victorian bushfires, and the global financial crisis.
Follow The Australian on Twitter
Digital editions of The Australian

   
Subscribe to our digital editions. More Digital Editions

RSS Feeds
Opinion The Nation Business Sport Media Travel Higher Ed Defence The Arts Aviation Property Mining & Energy More Feeds & Explanation
In The Australian Today
Business
Tighter rein on short selling
Andrew Main SHARE investors will be forced to disclose their short-selling positions to the corporate regulator from April next year.

Shortage of detail on turmoil
US lead sends shares tumbling
Australian IT
NEHTA releases strategic plan
Karen Dearne THE National E-Health Transition Authority has released a strategic plan repositioning itself as an implementation agency.

NBN Co to buy telco assets
ANZ to offer free internet
Media
Gillard biographer review slammed
Caroline Overington THE publisher of Penguin books in Australia, Ben Ball, has accused the new editor of the Melbourne-based literary magazine The Monthly o...

Editor remembered as driving force
Hoges' win on tax secrets
Higher Education
Universities face academic exodus
Andrew Trounson AUSTRALIA'S academics are disillusioned by corporate management cultures, threatening to drive many away from the profession.

UWA takes IP dispute to High Court
Melb Uni, MBS merger plans canned
Also in The Australian
The World
Women free after Shalit video
Correspondents in Ramallah NINETEEN Palestinian women prisoners were released last night in a breakthrough swap for a video of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Iran's nuclear deal prompts doubt
Obama Olympic pitch is Chicago's hope
The Nation
Drought in funding for basin plans
Siobhain Ryan THE nation's grand plans for Murray-Darling infrastructure upgrades have hit their own funding drought.

Reinado's widow misses her rebel
Top court eyes joint care
Opinion
Bully sermon rouses dissenters
Peter van Onselen MALCOLM Turnbull is fighting his way out of a tough spot over the ETS, but this tactic will probably come at a cost to his leadership.

Chris Sarra: Positive not punitive the best approach
Lenore Taylor: After the storm, a deluge of debt
Lifestyle
Backlash looms on smoking, drinking
Christian Kerr AUSTRALIANS are overwhelmingly opposed to government plans to tell them to drink and smoke less and cut down on junk food in the wake of...

Tangled web
Fish sauce converts Thompson

So we are on the move again, why must we constantly be moving around like vagrants when this site is nice and cosy and does this mean ziggys post count will be back to zero?

Hungary remembers picnic that cracked Iron Curtain
          SOPRONPUSZTA, Hungary – It was a picnic that changed the course of history.

Twenty years ago Wednesday, members of Hungary's budding opposition organized a picnic at the border with Austria to press for greater political freedom and promote friendship with their Western neighbors.

.

Hungarian President Laszelo Solyom and German Chancellor Angela Merkel were taking part Wednesday in festivities Wednesday marking the 20th anniversary of the "Pan-European Picnic," which helped precipitate the fall nearly three months later of the Berlin Wall.

One of the key factors allowing the Germans to escape: the decision by a Hungarian border guard commander not to stop them as they pushed through to freedom.

Lt. Col. Arpad Bella and five of his men had been expecting a Hungarian delegation to cross the border at Sopronpuszta by bus, visit a nearby Austrian town as a symbol of the new era of glasnost — or openness — under reformist Soviet leader Mikail Gorbachev, and return to Hungary.

Instead, at the planned time of 3 p.m., Bella suddenly found himself face to face with 150 East Germans marching up the road to the border gate, which had been closed since 1948.

"I had about 20 seconds to think about it until they got here," said Bella, 63, during an interview where the gate once stood.

"Had the five of us confronted the Germans, they would have (overwhelmed us)."

Once the initial group got through hundreds more East Germans joined them. Still vivid in Bella's mind was the reactions of the Germans, including many young people and families with small children, once they were on the other side.

"They embraced, they kissed, they cried and laughed in their joy. Some sat down right across the border, others had to be stopped by the Austrian guards because they kept running and didn't believe they were in Austria," Bella said. "It was in incredible experience for them."

Laszlo Nagy, one of the organizers of the picnic, was startled by the East Germans' actions, who left behind hundreds of cars and other possessions near the border for the chance to make the short walk to a new life in the West.

"Some of them were waiting for this moment for 20 or 30 years," Nagy said. "They left behind everything ... because freedom has the greatest value."

Dirk Mennenga was one the "Ossies," a nickname for East Germans, who made it to Austria on that day. He had come to Hungary from Dresden.

"We had planned beforehand that we would try to cross the border through Hungary," Mennenga said. "We didn't know how easy or difficult it would be."

After seeing flyers promoting the picnic, Mennenga thought the event could provide an opportunity to escape West.

"It was a very emotional situation," Mennenga said. "There was a sole border guard. A young Hungarian man kept pointing the way and before we knew it we were in Austria."

While Bella was unaware of the East Germans' intentions, behind the scenes the Hungarian government had already decided that it would somehow let them go West.

Miklos Nemeth, Hungary's last prime minister of the communist era, said the picnic and the East Germans' breakthrough on that day was one in a series of steps that brought democracy to most of the Soviet bloc within a year.

"It was a planned process on behalf of the government, but it was a transition where everyone was also seeking to secure their own future," Nemeth said.

With 80,000 Soviet troops stationed in Hungary, Nemeth said it was difficult to know how Moscow would react to the unprecedented events.

"In my mind this was an important event, a test," Nemeth said. "And fortunately, Arpad Bella ... although he did not get any information, he decided in the right way."

Tens of thousands of East Germans had traveled to Hungary as expectations mounted that the more moderate Communist country might open its borders to the West.

They lived in makeshift shelters in Budapest on the grounds of the West German Embassy and at a tent city set up by a Catholic parish.

In the weeks after the picnic, East Germans continued to make attempts to cross the border, although many were still turned back. Then, on Sept. 11, Hungary began allowing all East Germans to travel West.

Bella continued his career as a border guard for several more years before retiring in 1996, later even working as a consultant on developing aspects of the Schengen agreement, which now allows for borderless travel within 25 European countries.

"I didn't think of myself as a hero. How could I? I wasn't even sure I'd be around for another week," Bella said. "If the Russians had wanted to come, they would have swept us aside like nothing."

For Nagy, the significance of the events of Aug. 19 has grown over the past 20 years.

"At the time, we didn't feel like we were making history," Nagy said. "It was the world's greatest garden party."

I remember this full well, remarkable stuff altogether.

The wife and I went to see the new Star Trek movie yesterday afternoon, I didnt know what to expect as some of the trek movies have been shite, this one was probably the pick of the bunch, a young vibrant cast, great special effects and great entertainment especially since i was able to pull a fearon and get two comped tickets which included free popcorn and drinks. 

What did youse think of the movie?

I was cutting the grass today and an obscure name popped into my head for some reason and it made me laugh out loud given it's randomness. It has been at least a quarter century since I thought of this guy and why his name came to me I have no idea why it did.

the guys name................................................................











Keith chegwin!   

I was thinking about this in relation to Armagh and the best i can come up with is me aul mate Miko McAleavey who played for Armagh for the first time aged 29. I am sure there are older than that but I would be interested to know who the players are that had late starts in their intercounty careers.

Benny O'Kane cant have been a spring chicken either when he finally got a run.

I am sorry to hear of the passing of David Carradine, star of the hit series Kung f* and the hit movie series Kill Bill. I always liked him as an actor and he died aged 72. Bummer.

It gets worse:
BANGKOK - Actor David Carradine, star of the 1970s TV series "Kung Fu" who also had a wide-ranging career in the movies, has been found dead in the Thai capital, Bangkok. A news report said he was found hanged in his hotel room and was believed to have committed suicide.


A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy, Michael Turner, confirmed the death of the 72-year-old actor. He said the embassy was informed by Thai authorities that Carradine died either late Wednesday or early Thursday, but he could not provide further details out of consideration for his family.


The Web site of the Thai newspaper The Nation cited unidentified police sources as saying Carradine was found Thursday hanged in his luxury hotel room.


It said Carradine was in Bangkok to shoot a movie and had been staying at the hotel since Tuesday.


The newspaper said Carradine could not be contacted after he failed to appear for a meal with the rest of the film crew on Wednesday, and that his body was found by a hotel maid at 10 a.m. Thursday morning. The name of the movie was not immediately available.


It said a preliminary police investigation found that he had hanged himself with a cord used with the room's curtains. It cited police as saying he had been dead at least 12 hours and there was no sign that he had been assaulted.


A police officer at Bangkok's Lumpini precinct station would not confirm the identity of the dead man, but said the luxury Swissotel Nai Lert Park hotel had reported that a male guest killed himself there.


Carradine was a leading member of a venerable Hollywood acting family that included his father, character actor John Carradine, and brother Keith.


In all, he appeared in more than 100 feature films with such directors as Martin Scorsese, Ingmar Bergman and Hal Ashby. One of his prominent early film roles was as singer Woody Guthrie in Ashby's 1976 biopic "Bound for Glory."


But he was best known for his role as Kwai Chang Caine, a Shaolin priest traveling the 1800s American frontier West in the TV series "Kung Fu," which aired in 1972-75.


He reprised the role in a mid-1980s TV movie and played Caine's grandson in the 1990s syndicated series "Kung Fu: The Legend Continues."


He returned to the top in recent years as the title character in Quentin Tarantino's two-part saga "Kill Bill."


The character, the worldly father figure of a pack of crack assassins, was a shadowy presence in 2003's "Kill Bill - Vol. 1." In that film, one of Bill's former assassins (Uma Thurman) begins a vengeful rampage against her old associates.


In "Kill Bill - Vol. 2," released in 2004, Thurman's character comes face to face again with Bill himself. The role brought Carradine a Golden Globe nomination as best supporting actor.


Bill was a complete contrast to his TV character Kwai Chang Caine, the soft-spoken refugee from a Shaolin monastery, serenely spreading wisdom and battling bad guys in the Old West. He left after three seasons, saying the show had started to repeat itself.


After "Kung Fu," Carradine starred in the 1975 cult flick "Death Race 2000." He starred with Liv Ullmann in Bergman's "The Serpent's Egg" in 1977 and with his brothers in the 1980 Western "The Long Riders."


But after the early 1980s, he spent two decades doing mostly low-budget films. Tarantino's films changed that.


"All I've ever needed since I more or less retired from studio films a couple of decades ago ... is just to be in one," Carradine told The Associated Press in 2004.


"There isn't anything that Anthony Hopkins or Clint Eastwood or Sean Connery or any of those old guys are doing that I couldn't do," he said. "All that was ever required was somebody with Quentin's courage to take and put me in the spotlight."


One thing remained a constant after "Kung Fu": Carradine's interest in Oriental herbs, exercise and philosophy. He wrote a personal memoir called "Spirit of Shaolin" and continued to make instructional videos on tai chi and other martial arts.


In the 2004 interview, Carradine talked candidly about his past boozing and narcotics use, but said he had put all that behind him and stuck to coffee and cigarettes.


"I didn't like the way I looked, for one thing. You're kind of out of control emotionally when you drink that much. I was quicker to anger."


"You're probably witnessing the last time I will ever answer those questions," Carradine said. "Because this is a regeneration. It is a renaissance. It is the start of a new career for me.


"It's time to do nothing but look forward."


___


Associated Press writer Polly Anderson in New York contributed to this

I was wondering what peoples favourite thread ever was on the board, there have been some tremendous threads over the years and I was just wondering what you all thought the best of the best were.

Mine was when Fearon started the Biggles thread and half of OWC ended on over here, I was crying I was laughing so hard.


The Holly, aged 8 from kent thread was a cracker as well.

Told your boss exactly what you think of him and given him stick during a meeting?

I just resigned my position and will be leaving a job I have had for eight years, my last day is the first of June, yer man was a mate of mine but turned into a corporate arsehole and he has been abusing his position for 18 months, what came out of my mouth was unreal but I meant every word and he cried ffs!

I feel great about getting it off my chest however I need to find a job in the next four and a half months but I am glad I did it.

Have any of you had the opportunity to tell the boss a few home truths about what you think of him or her??

Chelsea have started their search for a new manager after sacking Avram Grant on Saturday.

 
Grant, who replaced Jose Mourinho last September, was expected to be removed from his post following Chelsea's failure to win a trophy for the first time in three seasons.


The 52-year-old Israeli found it hard to come to terms with being thrust into the spotlight and although he guided Chelsea into their first Champions League final, the penalty shoot-out defeat in Moscow last Wednesday paved the way for his departure.

After two days of meetings, Chelsea confirmed their decision in a statement.

It read: 'Chelsea can confirm that Avram Grant has had his contract as manager terminated today.

'This follows meetings over the last two days. Everybody at Chelsea FC would like to thank Avram for his contribution since taking over as manager last September.

'We will now be concentrating all our efforts on identifying a new manager for Chelsea and there will be no further comment until that appointment is made.' Grant joined the club last summer from Portsmouth to take up the post of director of football.'

Then manager Mourinho, whose relationship with the board was already fractious, was unhappy with the appointment.

Mourinho was later dismissed after their 1-1 draw with Rosenborg at Stamford Bridge in their opening Champions League game.

Grant, who had never managed a club in England, was asked to takeover and later given a four-year contract.

A close friend of the club's billionaire owner Roman Abramovich, Grant's brief reign was tainted by reports of anti-Semitic abuse but remarkably he equalled a nine-match winning run set by Mourinho's side two years earlier.

Grant brought in Henk ten Cate as his assistant as well as new fitness and goalkeeping staff.

But his appointment was never really accepted by the fans, who steadfastly refused to chant his name until the final game of the season, and his sour-faced demeanour did him few favours.

He was also criticised for being tactically inept but guided the club to the final of the Carling Cup in February only to lose 2-1 to Tottenham.

But remarkably, Chelsea pushed Manchester United to the wire in the race for the Premier League and earned a place in their first Champions League final against Sir Alex Ferguson's side.

But his entire spell in charge was littered with speculation that he was just a stop-gap appointment and that he would leave in the summer.

Chelsea consistently denied they had plans to change their manager but the deafening silence from the club's board after Wednesday's defeat by United, told its own story.

Both chief-executive Peter Kenyon and chairman Bruce Buck paved the way for change by insisting that Chelsea's performance this season was simply 'not good enough'.

Buck said: 'We have very high expectations at Chelsea and a couple of second place finishes is just not good enough for us - so although we never would have thought in September when Jose Mourinho left that we would be able to make it into a Champions League Final as we did - and that is fantastic - Chelsea are here to win trophies. So although it was an excellent season, we are still disappointed.'

A series of discussions finally resolved Grant's future and it is understood the Israeli said his farewells to the players on Friday - telling them it had been a 'privilege' to manage the team.


Personally I think the guy did very well however he was always going to be a short term replacement after Jose M left the fold.

I wish him well.

Keane: Blatter would have put me in prison

Sunderland manager Roy Keane admits he would have gone to prison had Sepp Blatter's demand for some tackles to be made a criminal offence come into force while he was a player.


FIFA president Blatter wants those who deliberately make dangerous challenges to face legal action.


Keane was one of the finest midfield tacklers of his generation but there were occasions when the former Manchester United captain went over the top.

Most infamous was a knee-high lunge on Alf Inge Haaland during the Manchester derby at Old Trafford in 2001, which Keane later revealed in his autobiography was a pre-meditated revenge attack for a spat that began four years earlier.

Speaking ahead of his side's Barclays Premier League game against Everton on Sunday, Keane said: 'I have to be careful with this subject. I would have been doing a bit of `porridge' myself!

'People in the media have been saying some of the tackles have been horrendous.

'I've heard before that if it happened in the street then you might be charged with assault.

'I know there's been one or two court cases over the years. You're opening a can of worms there - I think you'd have to be very careful.' 

I was wondering what you lot thought of Blatters plans. For me if it was pre meditated I would say then yes, it should be treated as asault an the decision should be to go to court, if not I think the courts should stay out of it although it might be hard to prove one way or another if it was a deliberate attack or not.

Dimitar Berbatov wants to leave Tottenham if a suitable offer from a club 'which matches his ambition' comes in during the January transfer window, according to comments attributed to the Bulgarian star's agent.

The striker has rediscovered his stunning form for Spurs in recent weeks and fired four goals in the 6-4 win over Reading on Saturday.


However, his agent Emil Dantchev claims the player is keen to join a team with greater trophy-winning potential than the north Londoners.


Spurs chairman Daniel Levy has insisted they are not a selling club, but Dantchev is reported to have told The Sun: 'I have already spoken to the Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy and told him that if a club which corresponds to Dimitar's class and ambition comes in with an offer which suits his current club in January, he would like to be allowed to go.


'I would like to stress this is not about money, this is about sporting ambition, nor has it anything to do with the new manager Juande Ramos. Dimitar is perfectly happy with Ramos and the way he is working but after Tottenham's bad start to the season it is unlikely they will have the chance to do something big this season.'


Manchester United have been linked with Berbatov in the past, but Spurs have always been firm in stating he is not for sale.


Dantchev added: 'Dimitar is OK at Tottenham. I would not say he is happy but his performances for the club are a testament to his commitment to the fans and his team-mates. He has never stopped trying and scoring goals to help the team.


'Fans must understand Dimitar is 27 next month and time is running out for him to play for a club which can match his ambition.


'It is a long-term plan for Spurs. Dimitar wants to fulfil his potential and win trophies now. He would definitely consider a move outside of England, that is not the issue. What matters is a club which matches his ambition and his level, and therefore there are only five or six around Europe. Two clubs outside of England and one from the Premier League are interested in him.'


Levy said yesterday: 'Once again for the record, we are not a selling club, rather we are building for the future. When we have players on long contracts we have no need to entertain offers.'

If he signs with the arse I fear that tone will jump off a cliff somewhere. they are ket with him but without him they would be relegation material. 

The spuds come back to destroy Reading after being behind three times, Berbatov has scored four and the game isnt even over yet.

Surely this win will wrench the spuds well away from the relegatiion zone they have been hovering around all season.

In other news. Keanes Dunderland managed a win against bollocky Bolton and I am sure the Roy worshippers on here will be delighted with that result.