This is nonsense.

Well that says it all, two scousers having a fight on this web site (well actually one sound like a token one) and the rest of SE London can't be bothered.

BD - straigh to the heart of the matter

Wir sind Millwall, das wir Millwall SuperMillwall von der H?hle sind
Me estoy sintiendo que el excedente alegre yo ha todo s? alegre todo terminado
Quando il pettirosso rosso rosso, va peso del peso che bobbing, avanti
(It's not rude)

As bitter as you might expect. That was Merseyside Police's official estimate. Or are dey dem reds**te as well, like?!

Oh get you two, put your handbags down. Is anyone interested in Merseyside football? The only thing of note is Tranmere Rovers.

There surely is nothing better in life than writing on the sole of your slipper with a knife.

BD, always looking on the bright side of life, with butter, milk, cheese and an equilateral chainwaw

It is still utter nonsense. Crowd estimates, especially for outside events (i.e. those not contained by stadia) are often wildly inaccurate and estimates made by police are no exception to this rule. To place into perspective how unlikely this figure is it is the equivalent of 9 out of every 10 people from the entire Mersey metropolitan area - not just the city of Liverpool - coming out onto the route.

There is a more telling point here though. You are prepared to be credulous about this unlikely estimate because (i) you want it to be so: you want to believe that your team are so loved that an improbably large amount of people come out to show their support for them; (ii) an 'authority', a part of the establishment, tells you that it is so. Contrast this, if you will, to your attitude to those who practice religion. They want and believe things to be true too. But you say that their reliance on belief, rather than reliance on logic and probability, is 'worshipping at the temple of stupidity'.

So, just to be clear: at which temple do you worship?

It's writing on the sole of your slipper with a biro. But you knew that anyway right?

ToffeeJim: never minding the horrocks, never trusting a hippy

Only just over half, actually. Not nine in ten. An example of people exaggerating because they 'want to believe' for you, there.

I don't 'want and believe' something to be true, I'm taking the word of the people who are paid to tell us about it. If you're making a tenuous comparison with religion, I'd be saying that there had been two million people there, even though nobody saw anyone there. Either way, there were loads. If they'd said it was nine people or three million I wouldn't have believed them. Do you see?

Were you there? I was, along with all my friends from those quaint little fjord-side hamlets of Walton, Bootle, Speke and Oxton. I don't think it's an unlikely estimate at all. Meanwhile, "The People's Club" were offering a free case of Chang to anyone who bought a half season ticket.

The only person saying it's an unlikely estimate is you. The only person making a tenuous comparison with believing in a sky fairy is you. Funny, that.

Anyway, we're inviting the wrath of baggydave for daring to support clubs from the city we were born in, not the non-descript but generally agreeable south-London suburb in which we've both ended up, so I suggest we move on.

And yes, it's a biro.

Conversely, there is nothing worse in life than washing sieves. With the possible exception of being Garth Crooks.

Damn, I;ve been quoting the wrong lyrics for years, but surely it is a knife as that rhymes with life, or at least on the John Peel (are you two plastic scousers like him?) session version.

And what ever went wrong with Brookie. It used to be so good. And then so bad. The story lines blew corrie and dead enders away. Almost as good as Crossroads.

By the Mersey metropolitan area I was referring to the Liverpool urban area (pop 816,000) rather than the even more enormous area of Merseyside (yes that is 1.37m). Either way the figures simply don't add up.

And I maintain my charge of selective credulity. My finger points unwaveringly at you Baboonery. I'll move on when I'm ready.

Kopite and a Wool. Enough said.

Why didn't you say that, then? Because you were jsut plucking a figure out of the air to support your great Evertonian lie and didn't expect to get called out on it?

OK, clever man, what would YOUR estimate of the crowds that lined the 18-mile route and gathered in the city centre on 26 May 2005 be(allowing for double counting)?

It doesn't matter to me how many were actually there. My point is simply that it's nonsense to claim that there were three quarters of a million. By doing so, you act with the kind of credulousness that you so disdainfully dismiss in others. Please don't misunderstand me. I'm unconcerned that you should permit yourself this piece of whimsy. But if you go about painting others as stupid for their beliefs you fall prone to similar attacks on your own.

I'm still standing and pointing at you Baboonery. I name you. I indict you. J'accuse.

What a pair of Sounesses. Why not settle your differences over a couple of pints of Higgies. Oh I forgot, the brewery has long since gone and there is no ale made in that part of the country.

BD, banging heads together

[odd thing is when you try to break up a fight, they normally turn on you]

Does the Robert Cain Brewery not count then? I will admit though that the city suffers from a surfeit of Carlsberg drinkers. 750,000 by official estimates apparently.

So it's 'nonsense' and 'credulous' to claim that there were x people at this thing, but the number that there were doesn't actually interest you at all? If that's the case, why is it 'nonsense'?

And I don't see any comparison at all between believing the estimate of the competent civil authority of the attendance at an event I saw with my own eyes, and believing anything anyone says about something they've never seen, solely because they're wearing a funny hat. But then you're an evertonian, so I'd expect you to be on the side of the fantasists.

So bitter. So, so bitter. So incredibly, gut-wrenchingly bitter.

Cain's, Wapping, George Wright, Canavan's...No beer brewed, no.

In fact, Higsons has been reborn as a microbrewery and is on sale again in some city centre outlets.

Ah you are now arguing with yourself Baboonery. Most entertaining.

As for Merseyside beer there was one wooly brewery that probably was the worst in Britain. Greenall Whitley. Does it still exist?

Now, now naughty Baggy. We all know that the worst breweries in Britain are of the Scottish persuasion. Nothing else comes close to their sheer dreadfulness. Except of course those that brew lager.

Well we're beginning to make some progress at least. You're agreeing that you're happy to accept the word of the local police based only on your belief (rather than any evidence) that they are competent in an area that really has nothing to do with them and because you saw a lot of people on the street one day. You're also becoming increasingly facetious about why people might hold religious beliefs: a sure sign of defensiveness.

Come on Baboonery. You know you want to. Fess up to your crime. You'll feel purer in spirit. But, until then, you remain fixed within my gimlet gaze.