I didn't know that Elmo Phillips was still around.God, I find him irratating.

I had a nice conversation with Damian before the gasyard show, just catching-up small talk and I met his wife. If any one is interested, the film in which some of his music was used was Hamlet (2000) starring Ethan Hawke. The Gasyard show was great with Paul's vocals the best I've heard them. Julie Ocean was a standout. Lots of familiar old faces there and Mickey's song introductions were very funny. When they were waiting for the repairs to Damian's guitar Mickey quipped "I bet King Rat never broke strings", a reference to a 70's Derry band beloved of the old rockers who frequented the Casbah when they began to play there. The crowd was a good mixture of young and old and there seems, at long last, to be an acceptance of the band's talents in their home town. I'm working on swinging the Dublin trip might arrange to meet a contingent from Derry. The Hustler is a great film but I'm getting very tired!

Wilke, I know a promoter who's keen enough but it's how keen the band are to come over here again thats the question.Maybe they're planning something through another promoter if we're (very)lucky, or maybe they've decided to keep it simple from now on and play closer to home.

During the gasyard video you can see the crowd and there are lots of youngsters.The concentration and intensity on Billy's(DTU)face is incredible.

Before anyone asks - I'm watching the film, not "reading" the magazine.

October 12th is a Friday.

What happened to Cov today Hugh?

Cliff, They got carried away after humbling the mighty Stockport away.

Anyway I've got nothing to shout about, we've lost 2 out of 2.Can we have Hughsie back please?

London Stansted - Derry October 12th - 14th....£59.98.hmmmmm tempting.

Re: VCDs - You dont actually need a DVD drive a CD drive is perfectly acceptable its just that the DVD drives come with some more accessible software i.e PowerDVD or WinDVD. Windows media player (and I dont recommend this without a gut wrenching) should cope with it - as should any stuff you got with your graphics card. Unfortunately as with most techie things doinf stuff over phones is not easy. And to think the VCD format was meant to make things easier. Hope its all worth it.

U2? You gotta be kidding? And Billy- you've changed your tune!

Adrian, I was at the U2 show on Saturday night - up in the gods mind you, and with a pillar obscuring the band, well, it may have been the band not sure! Any way there is no way that U2 can be compared to the boys live. I thought the sound quality was cr@p, couldn't understand a word Bono was saying between tracks, and didn't recognise some of the songs until well into them. Maybe it was because of where I was, but thge acoustics were awful and I was certainly expecting better sound quality from the worlds biggest live act - Bono is a great showman though, and as for F@rty Nelly Turdo (Ithink it was her!)- 2 out of 10. I tried to get flights to Cork for the December gig last week - £200 plus from Birmingham! Not decided whether I can afford that or not yet.