The trouble is, continental-style drinking requires continental-style people, who sit quietly drinking away at cafe tables, not standing up shouting at each other in crowded bars trying to consume gallons of beer at a time.

I would not have got to make my first film and I would not have been able to set up my second film.

The situation is already grave, if not grotesque, ... And to facilitate this by making drinking facilities more widely available is close to lunacy. It simply means that our towns and city centers are abandoned every night to tribes of pugnacious, drunk, noisy, vomiting louts.

That's a first line many have heard, whether or not they've read the book.

The ballot did two things. One was to indicate teams that you thought ought to be considered - 1 to 100 or as many as you thought ought to be considered. Another was teams that you thought ought to be in the tournament, period.

We actually got a lot of grief one year when we left out one of the Big Ten teams and took Miami (Ohio). That was the year Miami (Ohio) knocked off Arizona in the first round. So suddenly you feel vindicated.

The reasons most often given are that lists are arbitrary, and reflect the tastes of the people putting them together - or that they are elitist with rankings.

It was pretty smooth. They were really helpful. I thought it was going to be a combative thing. I was ready to put on my shield. It wasn't like that at all.

What you try to do is be in a position by 2 p.m. on Sunday so that if you're the chair, the rest of us can quiz you on why Minnesota is in or why not or why Georgetown got picked over Rutgers in a given year so that when Billy Packer is asking you those questions, you've at least had a trial run of answering them.