dubai_phil

Fact is we have enough basic cover. But, the moaners have failed to take one point into consideration. We did actually TRY AND BUY A CENTRE HALF on transfer deadline day..... A 20 something to be fair but again fairly well rated. So we have enough cover for the moment compared to last season, the management/directors/scouts did notice the issue and did TRY and do something about it. The loan window is STILL open for a month and still gives a chance for us to sign Gerrard on loan until January "with an option to buy" providing both parties agree the right price. I would EXPECT that "price" would be better determined AFTER Killer and the Saints physio have met with Killers' surgeon in Sweden on Monday. but hey, why wait until you have professional information on his condition before making a financial commitment

It's all just a cunning plan Come on out you Iranian bstds you're surrounded...... Is how I think it goes

Yellow card for that one Bates, your punishment will be to send out a new bewbs pm to all your friends

Although they ARE building 5 star hotels and looking for Tourists up in the North.... although probably not a good bet for a honeymoon, more for the new mother in law....

Ah ha = the return of tommac. He WILL be busy with all those "one careful owner" second hand airplanes hanging around looking for someone to sell them:-)

Friday - recover from Thursday night (which is sort of our Friday) shopping at Carrefour in a minute Saturday - catch some rays at the pool watch 3 episodes of Season 4 of Battlestar Galactica on DVD with a nice Cab Sav Sunday - Date with new Cute Polish chick, tough call, is the date down the pub for a pie and a pint with ericofarabia & goodfellowsjay to watch the QPR game or do I do it properly romantic restaurant with no telly and get laid?......hmm actually piece of cake, we're on Sky so romance it is then

A small suggestion.... iPod & talking books?

An organised tour of Vietnam. No argument. Spend 2/3 days in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) and do a tour to the Mekong Delta (good German Brewery there BTW) Spend 4/5 days at Hoi An. There is a Swisshotel Beach Resort there with a beach to die for and the old town is a living museum with small craft shops and restaurants Drive up to Hue City for a day before flying up to Hanoi for 3/4 days. While there do the whole city tour and shopping, find the Belgian Brewery and take a long but fantastic day trip to Halong Bay (If on honeymoon try and get your own boat for the trip) Hot. sunny, beaches to die for, sort of rough and ready and not quite perfect in a cute and trying hard sort of way - no chavs, VERY few Americans and when you get there it is REALLY as cheap as chips. (And the local beer's pretty good too) (There's loads of info on the web, a sort of mix of cheap online airfare and local internet tour programme is as good as any "package hol" (but pay with credit card XL style!) Their Gov sort of insists on putting you on a type of "communist controlled tour programme", but it is just great. Do it before it gets discovered, but better buy your dollars as quick as possible as it's getting expensive for you Sterling junkies)

Ah the never ending Brit obsession with getting everything as cheap as possible and never mind the quality has been exposed again. It's one big change I've noticed over the years - a sort of inverse snobbery - letting everyone know how you managed to get something 10 quid cheaper but not really noticing that in fact what you got was a piece of sh*t. It's a horrible shame for all those who are stuck or have lost out, but sooner or later the concept of the law of diminishing returns, scarce resources and just poor management always comes together and Joe Public gets screwed. And the worst thing is that it is ALWAYS the people who needed to save that 10 quid who get screwed, not those who wanted to pay a bit more for quality of service or reliability. Unfortunately, there is a reason why it is cheaper to fly to say Orlando with XL than with say a "proper" airline, but people tend to forget that when they can boast that they saved money compared to the fools who went on a proper plane..... I once flew Air Atlantic or something to Austria skiing, it saved me 25 quid. The next time I spent the 25 quid and reckon it added 2 years to my life in return for the lack of hassle, stress, queuing, squashed seating, awful re-processed garbage classed as food and general worry that the 30 year old plane would fall out of the sky. Mind you, those complaining about XL's service and aircraft - think yourselves lucky, could have been on a proper Airline like Alitalia = yikes or even worse = Biman Bangladesh Airways.........

Daily commute for me these days, Bedroom - Kitchen - Spare bedroom = office - bless But... There is a commute story here - many Brits move out and notice that Sharjah and Ajman are much cheaper to live in than Dubai, and are only about 10 or 15 miles from their office so they assume move there, save money and a short drive each day. What they don't realise is that the planning and infrastructure develop here is non-existant and so we simply don't have enough roads for all the cars and have designed all the offices with spaces for 10 cars but they have 30 people in them... The commute from Sharjah to Dubai takes at least two hours each way, and on many evening (because of the muppet driving here) takes 3 or 4 hours.... Makes a daily commute into say London seem like a cake walk. Because of the multi-cultural nature of Dubai we have - Lane Hugging Brits (I'm in the fast lane why should I move)... Italians - nuff said...... Indians who are taught to ONLY look at the front bumper of their car when they drive (what car/traffic queue oops splat), Lebanese ladies who drive while putting on their lip stick and eye-shadow, while somoking and arranging their night out on the phone, Middle Eastern men who spend all day on their mobile phones (but talk with their hands even while driving), young Gulf Arab's who simply own the place and this traffic jam does not apply to them, and of course the religous zealots who wish to be closer to their God who looks out for them and will make sure they are safe while they go through a red Light at 90 miles an hour, taxi drivers who are forced to work 16 hour shifts, Lorry drivers from mountain villages in the Indian Sub-continent who live 20 to a room with no a/c or water and who drive 30 year old lorries with bald tyres and a top speed of 30 miles an hour and who work 20 hour shifts.... It's not a form of racism, more that we develop a form of Driverism... Out of the lot of them the Brits are actually the worst, they jam up the fast lane at 1kmh below the speed limit and cause all the rest to zip around them So the commute here has to be honest become probably THE #1 reason why most people want to get out of here, (that and the number of funerals we go to because somebody else was taken out by a muppet driver) Oh, and the FUNNIEST thing - the Police use speed cameras to catch speeding motorists, so it is REALLY weird hurtling past a cop car at 100mph in a stretch of motorway where you know there are no cameras.

Ah so you answered your own question then - can't sell the "organically surcharged" pies because demand has fallen because everyone shops at Lidl's... Now there's an idea - give Aldi a call if it's that good a deal :-)

After watching the Blackpool game, and reading this thread (good grief a thread with more than 10 posts for a change!), I'm afraid that I take a (short term) anti-Alpine position here. It's GOOD news that we have an injury issue at the back approaching these games. Killer & Perry have great experience and positioning sense, but against Blackpool were caught out time and again - my neutral mates' comment - jeez you're crap they're tearing you apart - the number of times Blackpool went straight through the middle of us (as well as down the sides) So, in our OLD days we would have been demanding a CHANGE at the back anyway. Keeping ONE of Perry/Svennson as the wise old head and bringing in a younger player with PACE seemed pretty obvious at the time. Now I HOPE Blackpool was a blip, I HOPE the injury s just as the OS says - a minor twinge through overdoing it, and I HOPE that the two will get their act back together soomer rather than later, BUT, the pairing was off FORM in our last game so change IS needed anyway. I don't buy the lack of cover line either. we have THREE experienced center halves at the club at the moment, and Wotton who can play there who is also an experienced pro along with at the moment 3 youngsters. How on EARTH could any CCC team keep more than those three players in any semblance of match fitness? FFS football isn't like FM on the computer, players need to play and we can ONLY have 11 out there every week. With 6 players available at center half, how would we keep them all match fit? we cannot, so when one of these so called "cover" players comes in having not played first team for 5 or 6 weeks and is off the pace, not mentally sharp enough, what would be the reaction on here? Donkey, waste of space, journeyman, get somebody ELSE in on loan.... We don't have a strong squad but we have a better squad than many in this league, we are a CCC team, and for the first time our squad is starting to be built to THAT premise. If we hadn't been so stupidly arrogant in the past 3 years assuming we DESERVED to go up, we would have built more depth, we didn't we're screwed now so we get used to it. We have FAR more cover at CB than we did last season. Even my 3 legged cat was more likely to play a major part in our season than dear old Claus last year. And LAST year we were already booking our travel plans for the Play-Offs at Wembley BEFORE the first home game vs Palarse, so why the doom NOW? Sure I am not (yet) a fan of the midfielder at FB plan, but then in my old local league playing days I was a midfielder and played a heck of a lot at FB so it isn't THAT exclusive an idea!

Here's one I heard tonight. The weather in the UK is now strictly muslim Occassionally Sunni but mainly Shiite

THIS MAN MUST BE BANNED FROM ALL INTERNET ACCESS NOW! Mods - how can we allow a poster to spread such nasty solicious LIES? WOMEN MIGHT FIND OUT! Good grief man, get a hold of yourself oh

An Escort Agency of "NICE GUYS" for women here in Dubai The number ONE thing you always hear in a bar in this town is "why are all the men in Dubai like toilets - either Engaged or Full of Sh*t" Not one chick I have ever met here has found a Nice Bloke in this city.... Would make zillions Oh and the staff would get to meet lots of hot 23-32 year old Air Hostesses.. Anyone see a downside?

Our pre match routine USED to be Max;s fish 7 chip shop down near Debenhams... those were the days. Over here our two local chippy's have both shut down, one is now manky Thai takeaway and the other has been demolished. There's one left that does Cod & Chips but it is right the other side of town and in the rush hour takes 90 minutes to get there and they are really inconsistent A local pub does great Hamour & Chips with Mushy Peas but has gone up from 30 Dirhams (about 4.50) to 60 about 9 quid.... Do miss it though and the Chippy & a pint of Real Ale are the two first things on my list when I come back to Blighty (after servicing the missus of course) so the BIG question Mushy Peas or Tartare Sauce?

Not really the right place to discuss shopping, but it is a place you have to rummage and work hard at and depends on the time of year whether they have the current UK season in stockl at half price. The whole going there thing as many have said brings the true tragedy home. That day will always live large, getting home, watching Sky/CNN in disbelieve and actually crying a bit when you saw the towers come down. Living here and running the local office for an American Multi-National was also tough in the days following, an employee was on one of the planes, he was taking his fiance to Hawaii for their wedding, the other guests were all in the air at the time. Very sad. (The company set up a special trust fund and raised almost a million US$ in donations in the first two weeks from employees friends, family, suppliers and customers) Also the tales of lucky escapes and people marooned in the US and New York especially for a week with no communications to tell their loved ones they were ok For us it caused huge worry and an outpouring of support for my people that we never had before or since for our business, suddenly the fear of retaliation or "bands of crazed fanatics" ransacking offices became a real worry, we spent hours making plans to evacuate staff, get emergency visas for something like 20 nationalities to relocate to Ireland. The Irish Embassy in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) and British Embassy in Dubai were absolutely fantastic, and although it sounds a bit kitsch these days, the email strings and messages of sympathy and support were amazing. (Shame the French bought the company and threw all that history away - ho hum) I consider myself lucky in some ways to have felt both sides of the argument, visiting the tribal lands in Pakistan and Ground Zero. Both sides have been very wrong, and for nothing really, the average Joe is no better off just the power hungry a**holes on both sides who felt better

It would be really unkind for someone to forward that to lls and his mates. Any nasty s.o.b. that did that would have to be based abroad so that he couldn't be sued...... luckily as he hasn't got any mates left at the moment it doesn't have to be done, but the thought was nice.

ditto

sure, just don't take luggage or cameras. Not an easy place to find anything to eat though, a nation that thinks "The Hereford Beouf Stew" (sic) is their best restaurant should be avoided

blast I'd been looking for months toi get my Danishism out in the open, we'd had a thread with people being swissist and thought it was time... Interesting concpet though, as the bloke concerned who tells the story was the stag, and explained in a lot of detail what happened to the extremely ex best man after he had been taken to court and made bankrupt for all the damages......

Been about 3 times now, first was about a year after. Just hits you as you get to the chapel on Broadway and the whole experience is just very sad BTW for those heading there the other reason to be there is Century 21, probably the best outlet shop in the world

www,howtogetintoguantanamobay.com

Fookin hate Copenhagen. Caught a bloke walking out of the hotel I was in with my laptop he had just smashed my hotel room door to nick. Then some while he was being nicked, some **** came up behind me with a knife, slashed the strap on my Cannon camera and ran off with it in front of the cops. bstds

Well at LEAST wait until after the Rugby 7's at the end of November, would be a hell of a shame to miss out on the best party in the world Apart from mardi gras, Glastonbury, Sydney's gay Mardi Gras, Kip's stag do, my 50th etc