leicsmac

Yep. Although in the final hand, in the round I won, I was the large blind so i went in with a 3 and a 2. Two 3s followed in the next three cards, then the last card was a 2!

Nice stuff. Sometimes you've just got to go for it!

Now you've got me hankering to play 'The Game' again...need to get up to Dusk Till Dawn soon I reckon!

I just edited that last post...

It can be indicative of something more sisister but in a normally healthy person who has had prolonged coughing episodes it may be nothing more than tiny ruptures of blood vessels in the airways/lung. If it was persistent over a few days or acutely worse or the person is a smoker, or has a history of respiratory illness like asthma, then it should be checked. Age may be a factor also...

You learn something new every day, Cheers.

How much is a bit? Flecks? Bright red or dull? Is it frothy?

Not necessarily.

Then I bow to your superior knowledge on this matter.

I always thought coughing up blood = bad news regardless of circumstances, but then I'm a massive hypochondriac.

Won the first round so I was always in the black lost third on the last card.

Came home with more than I left so happy overall.

(Drinking didn't help my poker skills)

Top bombing.

Did the advice help?

Still coughing up crap from when i was ill earlier in the week, a bit of blood in it though

Doctor. ASAP. Coughing up any level of blood is something that needs to be checked out.

Congrats Paddy.

Leicsmac - Ta. I'll tell you how much I've lost

And congrats Paddy!

The small print always gets you!

I'm heading down to a mate's later to play poker. I'm terrible at it so I'm viewing it as a philanthropic visit

Hold 'Em? Start by following the blackjack rule - only play hands that have a value of 20 or above in blackjack (pair of face cards, face card with Ace etc) or pairs above 9's. As you get used to what everyone else is doing you can start playing a few more hands if needed.

What course do you study that lets you fly a plane?

Masters in Astronautics and Space Engineering. The flight stuff is supposed to teach us practically about dynamic control systems with 6-degrees of freedom (whether in air, or in space).

Got to do one of my two free flights as part of my uni course today, so I went up in this:

Was brilliant. Did some decent aerobatics and learned a bit about control surfaces too. Had control for a fair part of the flight too, then the instructor deliberately put us into a downward spiral and told me to pull out of it.

Must admit having to put on a parachute at the start did sh*t me up a bit too.

But it was great. Provided a welcome distraction from upcoming exams and assignments, and already looking forward to my second flight.

Edit: this is an archive photo, by the way - we don't actually have cool military jets at our uni too.

Federer powering away with this now...Murray let losing that first set tightly get to him. Still some work for Lendl to do in that respect.

All things considered, not a bad year for Murray though.

Fed takes the first set on a TB. Nothing really between the two of them.

Murray started strong, Fed coming back into it now.

Murray-Federer in the second semi-final just started. Murray with the early break.

This is going to be interesting.

No but I am waiting to see the response to how people think about zero tolerance to the traffickers . I am willing to change my mind if I see a clear well thought out argument that nullifies my own but so far on this page I have seen nothing of the sort.

Ah right.

Well...my twopennyworth is that zero-tolerance approaches work...but only if you are willing to spend gross amounts of money on policing it. Also countries with big borders - either land or sea - will have a lot of trouble preventing smuggling due to the sheer amount of area required to cover. Also from what I can tell most states that carry out a zero-tolerance approach are either politically or religiously conservative anyway, and that belief in the majority of the population helps dissuade drugs from becoming widespread.

For me though, the biggest threat to zero-tolerance approaches is the sheer economics of the thing. By the very virtue of its illegality, the drugs trade is insanely valuable, and that money naturally breeds corruption, even amongst the most hardcore conservative governments. To make sure no one profits from drugs in your country, you have to have law enforcement that is next to incorruptible. Again, with small countries this is possible, but bigger ones?

So for smaller countries, I think zero-tolerance can work, but for bigger, more populous ones I don't think it can. And for most bigger countries, they instead adopt a half-arsed approach that benefits no one.

Back all square in the second set...sensational point at 0-30 on the Murray serve there.

Ok Ok . But what do you think about zero tolerance of traffickers and pushers any sympathy for them ? because remove them and you no longer have a future problem with vulnerable people getting hooked on drugs that are no longer available. ps I think I have already made it clear what I think of so called expert reports / articles .

So your view on this is utterly absolutist then...you will accept no other point of view than your own?

So, so polarising. Incredible. Hilarious too.

Djokovic safely through, Murray probably about to join him. Beating a very disinterested looking Tsonga to a pulp right now.

Made my day, what a wonderful woman.

The Falklands is still British and Communism is still dead, she must sleep so easy at night knowing the joy she brought to so many.

Foreign policy - spot on. Domestic policy...left just a little bit to be desired IMO.

Incidentally, as a microism of society on this site I still find it really amazing how people can view the same person (who did the same actions) in such different ways.

I guess some people are just as polarising as Marmite. And that's something of a tribute to the variation of humanity in general. It'd be a fvcking boring world if we were all the same.

Into a decider we go. Nothing between them.

Murray one set up on Nole but a break down in the second...interesting stuff. These two always seem to throw up classics these days.

Anyone who participates in or condones honour killings / beatings.

This. This so many times it's unreal. Absolute scum.

He did well.

Sunday, the final has been moved to Monday for some strange reason this year.

That's interesting stuff, didn't know that. Very odd. Well, I think my point about Murray in the evening SF is still valid, hopefully you'll get to see him play Federer as you want.

Expect Murray to make it to the SF's now as I can't see him losing to Tsonga on this surface/format. Mind you, he did go out in highly interesting circumstances in 2009 having won two matches when the Federer-Del P match ended in one of only 3 possible exact scorelines that put him out on percentage of games won.

lol So many of these knocking about it's incredible.

I'm going to the 2nd semi final on Sunday forward to it, bagged a front row seat as well. Hope it's Federer.

Saturday, right?

Reckon as long as Murray is still involved he'll be in the evening SF...I'd say it's pretty likely he'll be playing Federer, assuming that he loses to Djokovic in the group stage and Djoko tops the group. Otherwise you might get Murray-Del P.

Good gritty win for Murray today - traditional slow start but was well on top by the end.

Time to resurrect this thread as the season finale is here - the World Tour Finals in London, beginning today.

Top 8 players in the world (sans Nadal who's still broken) are there, and the group format adds a little extra intrigue to the tournament.

Group A has Djokovic, Murray, Berdych and Tsonga. Group B has Federer, Del Potro, Ferrer and Tipsarevic. On paper Group A certainly looks like the toughest group, all with players who can beat each other on a given day - more so than Group B, at least.

Murray plays Berdych first up today at about 2pm...given the layout of his group he really could do with winning that one, as he wouldn't really fancy having to beat Djoko and Tsonga in straight sets to stand a chance of qualifying for the semi-finals. He's got a losing H2H record v Berdych, but two of those losses were on clay so won't really have much bearing here. Murray's first serve needs to be firing, and he'll need all his on-court guile to negate Berdbrains booming serve and groundstrokes...it all comes down to which Murray shows up, really.

Djoko plays Tsonga this evening - this one could be interesting too. Obviously Djoko is the favourite, but if Tsonga turns it on he can make things very difficult for anyone.

Group B play their first matches tomorrow.