dubai_phil

Bugger That means the midweek games will start at 11:45pm and go on until 1:45am......

Don't you DARE miss the opportunity to go there. And drag your woman screaming onto the plane. Do like DSM suggests and get a travel pass - Sydney, Hunter Valley, Daintree Rain Forest, Ayres Rock, Perth & Margaret River and finally Exmouth & Ningaloo reef. Aus is a fantastic place (just shame it's wasted on the Aussies) I did the same as you, made excuses, found reasons and never went until 7 years ago. Now I just love the place and have been down 5 times and use to scrimp and save all my airmiles from work. A lass I know from here was moving back to the UK, she decided to go down there, all on her own, she did the whole Backpacker hostel thing, took trainms and buses internally as well as flights and found she always had new friends to travel with and talk to. Buy a Lonely Planet and get down there (oh and Autumn - the weather will be great) and 3 weeks is nowhere near enough FYI you CAN take a flight down and have a one night stop over to break the journey and see some part of Asia. Singapore, Cathay & Emirates all do a special stop over and it costs about 30 quid a night (They are cheaper than BA & Quaintass as well)

As WS said, we can't. But of course, if the dearly loved Skacel HAD left, along with John, Euell & Thomas during the window then there is a strong probablility that we COULD have afforded Davies's wages. We couldn't cut down costs enough and we are lucky in many ways that KD & Surman didn't go. Financially keeping them was a bad as our situation is getting worse. from the footballing side, thank God they didn't go or it would have been even worse than it is now

Think you should have saved this for the 31st.... Oh you mean we should be ready before then... Ok -better go down the pub then

Our biggest mistake was not the fact of selling them. It was getting ourselves into this mess where we actually could not afford to pay their wages and the reasons for which we have debated to death since 2003. We could not afford to pay Davies's wages. It hurts. But we have to move on

When flying long haul a spray can of Evian OR a moisturiser is almost an essential, just to stop feeling so ****ty with the recycled dry air. Organised a mate's stag weekend in Bangkok and promised both him and his future missus I would set him up for something SO outrageous and shameful to him that it would affect him mentally for the rest of his life..... Yep - I booked the lot of us into a spa and we had Advocado Facials for an hour.... We almost had to tie the stag down - YOU AIN'T putting none of that sh*t on me... But afterwards he had to admit it was fantastic and we all looked about 10 years younger. Unfortunately the poor guy then let his defences down thinking the horrid shameful thing had been done already - lol

Occassionally when I want to play proper golf I've come across and stayed at the Bell Inn at Brook on the edge of the Forest. They did a great package with B&B, Dinner and a round on the Forest. Manor & Dunbridge courses each day over a weekend. Found Dunbridge a bit stiff upper lipped, no hats in the club house sort of thing, man that is not good when you are having a hot sweaty bad hair day, but otherwise nice. Trouble for me is always the hassle of bringing clubs back to UK, bl**dy Heathrow take an hour, and then here in Dubai they get carried into baggage claim by hand and again takes almost an hour - not good when you've flown for 8 hours overnight in economy, not slept properly and are gagging for a fag!

The fundamental problem we have AT THE MOMENT is what happened in the global money markets in the last 3 weeks. Nobody is spending anything at the moment, because if they have assets, they are plunging in value faster than our Goal Difference in televised games. If they have CASH they are spreading it around the world into as many guaranteed accounts as they can. for the next few weeks, even ASSUMING that the shareholders would give the club away for a quid, NOBOBY will come knocking at the door. (Even Federer commented on it - Roger Federer, the richest tennis player of all time, joked on Friday that a "big mattress" could be his salvation from the current world financial meltdown. Just two days after topping the all-time tennis rich list with a staggering 43.29 million dollars in career prize money, the 27-year-old Swiss revealed at the Madrid Masters that he keeps a close eye on the turbulence in the world money markets. "It's not been whole lot of fun for anyone," said the multi-millionaire who puts faith in conservative money management http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20081017/ten-my-money-s-heading-for-a-mattress-jo-9700fcb.html) So we then come back to the issue that staying away is a valid protest and is having an effect, but RIGHT NOW it actually drives the club closer to the wall. Again, even IF we went into admin (as some people wrongly hope) NOBODY will dip their hands in their pockets while the world is screwed, so we may never come out. There must be other better ways maybe something as simple as to get some T-shirts made up, go to home games with the "I'm only here to help my CLUB through the global crisis and up yours shareholders", then as SOON as things settle down and investors can start to spend money you can all stop going again. Whatever is done, our mess is just a sh*tty mix of everything going wrong at the same time and i worry we may not survive long enough for somebody to be able to pick up the pieces

Here in an Islamic Society, such a festival of Pagan traditions is of course frowned upon so Trick or Treat is only carried out by around 98% of the younger generation. Of course, as a result of wishing to feel culturally aware, we use AK47's on the Trick or Treater's rather than the more environmentally unfriendly acid approach. However this year the general feeling is that we may actually kill two birds with one stone and use some of the spare sewerage that is floating around the beaches and more lately suburban roads. Meanwhile we have Paul Weller in concert that evening so I'm working on blagging a freebie ticket, as I think it is well worth the effort needed to grovel and use up favours in order to see a legend.

Friday worked in afternoon as photographer for a mate who's MC'ing an all day Rock Concert then karaoke and free shots at Rock Bottom Saturday chill day then mates b'day party Sunday Chick round then my b'day party Monday Intensive Care awaiting liver transplant

That's IT! We've been thinking this through all wrong, appealing to Saints fans... We should be running special offers for Investment Bankers - they get a 10 quid ticket, a nice tour of the stadium and the chance to "do the deal of the year" by selling the club for us. Let's face it there must be THOUSANDS of worried bankers out there right now who have no idea whether they'll have a job next week or where their next bonus is coming from. We could even make it 20 quid with a return coach from the City..... Oh and plan B - quick, where's Roman? We should do a Reality TV show for Investment Bankers - Imagine the millions watching Rupert to see him say - you're hired. Oh sod it off for a curry and a birthday beer But BOY I wanted to be at the game Saturday

OK well TBH none of the above. But then, just to try something a little different I thought, well OK, a little Blue Pill followed by all of the above So that works or maybe I'm just getting old/too much sun

Grace Park & Katee Sackhoff from Battlestar Galactica (but Grace would have to wear her Maxim phot shoot outfit)

FWIW MB no I haven't But a long time ago this place had no actual DD law. They had no mechanism to stop you, the rule was simply IF you had an accident AND had been drinking THEN you were jailed. So in the old days when the roads were much quieter than now everyone used to lurch home in a horrific mess, and if the cops pulled you over - they'd drive you AND your car home. As the city grew, this policy started to cause carnage on the roads. It is one thing to be drunk and aware of it and stupid to get in a car and have reaction times shot to hell but quite another to be completely unaware of what the booze has done to you and to suddenly be superman in a $250k ferrari.... So they passed a new rule. There is now a ZERO alcohol limit. If you have an accident OR if you drive erratically then with ANY alcohol at all in your system it is an automatic US$1000 fine, an automatic one month in jail (which means shaven head) If you do it twice you are deported. If you do not have an Alcohol licence then they add an extra month And while it has helped, the number of "idiots: who blindly think "it is the same as the UK" still get caught and it hasn't stopped the Asian population drinking a bottle of Chivas Regal and driving home in their Mercedes.

Interesting = never seen the FT1 woods here, only the drivers. Bloody import agents.

FWIW Ben Hogan Steel Shaft Clubs & a Hybrid 4 which takes some getting used to but then is a wonderful club to have in the bag Had graphites for a while when I was learning but eventually found them too light and found I always swung too fast. Calloway Fairway woods which I usually leave at home & for Christmas bought myself a square head Calloway F1 driver, that has made a heck of a difference, I hit the ball further into the sh*t than I used to but also TBF it is a lot more forgiving and I actually hit a lot more fairways even with bad drives. That and Topflite XL "Straight" balls and I reckon I added a good 25+ yards to my average driving length and when I keep my head stays down it is much more often in the middle of the fairway.

Ah bless, dear old Nick, good intentions but why oh why did he have to get Leon Crouch's speechwriter to issue his rallying call... It doesn't work Nick, you and many others know that what you are saying is right, but the way it is said just zooms over everyone's heads and let's the more prominant political posters make more capital in all the comments columns.

As I posted on the UI thread. Even IF there are possible "tyre kickers" out there who may want to find a way to put a bid together, they will have eanred their money (or access to it) by being businessmen. So low turnouts because Fans won't watch the Youth team Fans don't like the owners/Directors Fans don't like seeing us play naive football Just makes it so much more difficult for them to actually invest. All they see is a sinking ship. Nothing to do with survival and avoiding administration. That concept is just plain not going to work because the club still currently has assets that could be sold before admin. Even IF the club was given away for a pound, the investors would look at the numbers and see problems with needing to cover the bank overdraft and pay the running costs until we get rid of the high wage earners and pay the mortgage. Investors AREN'T the social services, they need to see how they can get their money BACK. Oh and if the club borrows more against the assets or sells the best players in order to survive the season - it makes it even MORE difficult for an investor to buy the club so the stay aways actually make Rupert et al hang around for LONGER. Bloody shame but everyone has their rights to their opinions and their own problems in life at this time of doom and gloom

Couple of responses.... The sex on the beach thing is actually quite simple, like I mentioned before they have rules that don't get rigourously enforced, but there is ONE thing that the UK doesn't do these days that they DO get upset about down here - it is about RESPECT. They respect our rights to get rat-ars*d but they then expect us to respect the society by getting quietly in a taxi and going home to sleep it off. What they do NOT want is to see the city centre covered in Bling clad chavs vomiting in the middle of the road and shouting abuse at 3am - unlike most English towns these days. The tw*ts on the beach forgot that basic rule and mouthed off not just at the time but also afterwards. Up until then we could nooky on the beach, but QUIETLY, now we are concerned about holding hands in a shopping mall - not because of Mullahs but because of two p*ssed arrogant Brit t*ssers.... QUOTE=saintwarwick;76734]That's why they have made it a massive tourist attraction with everything on offer, this to offset the loss of the oil which will dry up soon. I suppose they didn't bank on the credit crunch... Just to answer the general point, Dubai itself never had much oil in the first place. (Abu Dhabi has the most). Currently oil is ONLY 1% of Dubai's GDP. The leveraged debt in Dubai is primarily for the local property market where they produce 70,000 housing units per year. The population is already about 6 times that of Iceland and unlike that place, they actually produce things here other than fish, volcano spas and dodgy banks:-) But to answer Window Cleaner - I've been here 15 years and everyone has been waiting for the bubble to burst...... the property bubble WILL burst but then it's seen 300% inflation in the past 4 years (42% increase in property values in the first quarter alone) so even if the market plunges 200% it was still a good deal for those who got in at the beginning. BUT it won't happen like that or like in the West - why? Because after 9/11 Dubya passed new laws on siezing foreign assets in the US. As a result US$1.6 TRILLION was pulled out of Western Investments by Islamic based investors. Dubai came along at exactly the right time with new rules that allowed overseas investors to pu their money into sound (and Islamic Sharia based) investments. That money is what funded the whole boom. It is just the foreigner speculators who will get burned and who have leveraged heavily, they have been in trouble for some time with masive construction cost inflation burning their development profits. Even at $40 a barrel Abu Dhabl makes a LOT of money BTW Just they DON'T want to rush to invest in the West - THIS week

Moaning is probably the number one British past-time these days.... Being distant I blame the media TBH, - I was watching Sky News yesterday and there was some report about some "dreadful atrocity" that was at the Old Bailey and for the first time I noticed how the presenters carefully emphasised key words like "appalling" "devasted" "atrocity" when in fact it was actually a shoplifting case... Whingeing Bl**dy Poms

Well actually this 29 year old chick has decided to use me as a sex object for the past few weeks...... I think it's apalling, awful, degrading, distressing and disgusting That I never thought of being one before woof woof WOOF!

lol at this thread Nobody's interested in England..... Another 3-1 away from home by the sounds of it lucky me I watched American Pie "The Naked Mile" instead Well I could have watched a bunch if PL tits on the internet or....

BUT......... For the record, there is a lot of interest in this region about buying English Soccer Clubs because of what Abu Dhabi did with Man City. So there COULD be truth in the rumours. (After all even LLS found a Dubai investor....) :-) People from Investment Trusts to Private Individuals here are looking at a range of opportunities and clubs (as seen by the Charlton announcement). However in the past 7 days more than US$150 billion was wiped off the value of the stock exchanges in the GCC (that's the oil producing Gulf States) In addition, because of the huge amount of property and speculative development projects down here, a huge amount of foreign capital has been tapped by issuing Bonds, not to mention LOTS of companies and people in Europe investing in Buy to Let. That process has dried up causing a double whammy of liquidity. The big projects have been leveraged against the oil wealth. Leverage is this week's BAD word. Dubai may well be facing a problem of short term liquidity and Abu Dhabi have already injected about $20billion into the banking system. So basically the big investment houses that are thinking of football are REALLY worried about the wider implications for Uk PLC economy. I spoke to the CFO of a top 10 Saudi company today and the word is that they have stopped EVERYTHING that they can and are delaying payment on everything else. Cash is being hoarded "until things settle down". They will not even look to buy bargains with low risk. But again the BAD news is those people who are staying away from the club. The possible investors in football in general are as worried about Sky TV profits AND the drop in attendances as the recession bites. Remember anyone who INVESTS in Saints is looking to get us BACK to the PL and make a PROFIT, they will NOT be a charity or a pseudo feel good co-operative. They look at NUMBERS and guess what - our numbers are TANKING far worse than the Football industy in general. And guess what. Good old Saints fans are boycotting the club so our figures are the worst in the UK. It ain't gonna help us get rid of the three amigos guys. I know you think you are doing the right thing and I applaud your position, but there are more consequences than you imagine when outsiders look. Sundance is a complete a**e most of the time in the way he speaks and posts, but the REALLY sad thing is that he is right, with that league table of attendances - which means INCOME, then anybody - Fullon or others who look to bring some money to the table are REALLY getting a hard time. Wanna sell the club? get 30,000 in the ground for the next 6 weeks. They'll be queuing up across the Itchen Bridge.

I know nothing about it because everyone over here laughs when we talk about Saints HTH

Man that was cold and wet, I never thought I'd be happy to find a JW Marriott Champion's Sports Bar, but after the walk back from the ground, it was heaven