stu0x

If you had even half a clue how performance measurement worked for the Police, you'd realise what an utter load of old **** this is. I'm sure the chief officers love taking a beating from the Home Office every time for 'allowing' another bout of football-related violence to occur, not to mention diverting their own budget and resources away from actual worthwhile deployments to deal with it.

I love the way this ridiculous anti-logic keeps perpetuating itself. It's akin to saying surgeons want as many people to get shot/stabbed as possible, as it keeps them in a job.

Who won the title last year? I reckon QPR would give just about anything to swap places with Norwich or Swansea right now. And Brighton would give anything (including their L1 title) to swap places with us. The title is a nice-to-have, but it pales into utter irrelevance compared to promotion.

I was discussing this story relatively briefly yesterday with a good acquaintance of mine. As an indication, he is now semi-retired, having worked his entire career as CFO or Finance/Ops Director in FTSE100 level organisations, including a stint a few years back with a Top 6 Premier League club. He currently 'helps out' with a L1 club. So he knows more than a small amount about 1) corporate accounting and 2) football club structure. Anyway, his opinion was that the whole loan-to-shares thing made a lot of financial sense, and was a positive (rather than negative) indicator in terms of the long-term intentions of the owner. We chatted about the P&L figures that were released, and he said from his limited (!?) knowledge Saints are considered to be a very astutely and prudently run club. Yes we may play with sums that his current club and most others can only dream about, but it's all relative to income and investment streams, which in our case absolutely dwarf most other clubs, and the statement was absolutely nothing to be concerned about. He then utterly bamboozled me with some financial terms. Anyway, what I took away from it was that if someone who actually understands what this accounting malarkey is all about seems to be unconcerned, I'm not going to get too worked up about the half-arsed 'analysis' of some people on here who have absolutely no professional understanding or experience of it.

My wife's cousin currently lives in Doha, she has been there about 18 months since her husband got a job there. Although she is English, her husband is Australian and they have lived in Australia since they were married (about 10 years ago), to the point where she now has an Aussie accent. They have 3 kids, 7, 4, and 10ish months. I don't think they particularly enjoy it. For a start, everyone leaves during the summer months, as it is simply too hot to stay, so the place is a ghosttown June-September. But even during the other months, they find the heat oppressively hot, and that is after living on the east coast of Australia. Like most westerners, they live in a purpose-built 'compound', and it is soulless. Their accommodation is much smaller than what they're used to in Australia. They have also encountered a not inconsiderable amount of racism. They have stopped going to the local park with the boys as within 5 minutes the local Police/security will pitch up and tell them it is no children allowed or that they are not allowed to ride their bikes or kick a football (in a park??), whilst the local kids do exactly that 20 yards away. I think they feel quite lonely and isolated out there. As far as they are concerned, the main advantage is that they are now much closer to the UK, so get to see her family a lot more often. But I get the impression that, even though it was only ever going to be a 5 year thing, it will likely be less than that now. If you don't have any dependents, have a definite short-term timescale, and there will be a considerable monetary gain, then I would say go for it, but do so with your eyes open. It certainly won't be the most exciting time of your life, but if it serves as an enabler for the future then I guess it would be worth it.

Crack a bottle of champagne and start planning that amazing holiday you can now afford

You're missing the point. Wages were 93% of turnover for 2010-2011 (ie League One). Turnover since then has increased 70%. Assuming wages have not increased (of course they have, but we don't have accurate figures and in any event it certainly won't be a 70% increase), that makes a wages-to-turnover of 54%. In addition, that figure includes 1.4mill of one off payments that will further reduce the ratio. The very high figure in L1 terms was planned for and expected. The substantially increased revenues of the Championship, and subsequent massively increased revenues of the PL, will more than compensate for it. But even if we don't get promoted, that figure will reduce considerably as a result of the turnover increase from L1 to CCC.

whilst I disagree about Oyster (but then I dont have to use it ), this is going to be a massive problem. The very last thing they should be doing is engineering in *more* choke points/queues. They wont be able to go completely cashless (the only way it would actually speed things up as a whole) as there will still be people without the smart cards that need to pay with cash, so it will just add to the overall wait.

Liebherr was an intensely private man (a trait not uncommon amongst Swiss businessmen). He never gave interviews or made public appearances, he never weighed in with his opinion, and when he came to matches he wanted the focus to be on the pitch, not on him. This is probably why the family don't like the flag coming out. It's also the reason why a statue would be an inappropriate gesture. Honouring him in the new training ground is far more fitting.

Electric Six - Gay Bar

Not in these circumstances.

The police.uk domain name seals the deal, you can't just go out and buy one of them, for obvious reasons!

Forensic evidence on the *exterior* of a crime scene is not decent evidence. It is worthless. Reminds me of Jack and the Beanstalk... that one was made up as well.

Come on, let's not let the facts get in the way of a good whinge!

I'd like to hear the background to his Japanese naturalisation. When/why did he move, and does he consider himself now more Japanese than Korean?

From the Coventry article... "As part of the accounts submission process we have to be able to show committed funding out for the next financial year," chief executive Tim Fisher told the club website. "We could not do this as we are still in the process of agreeing and negotiating budgets with the owner." He continued: "There is nothing untoward about this and it is perfectly normal to be negotiating funding with the owner. We would hope to secure funding commitments in the very next few weeks.

Not really. They can't provide a realistic projection of their funding next year due to their owner's precarious legal situation overseas. So they can't publish results. Publishing or not publishing has little/no impact on the actual financial stability of the club. That will be down to whether Mr Yeung gets prosecuted/convicted or not. If he does, the club will likely instantly go into administration. If he doesnt, it won't.

Where's this from? It has all the hallmarks of classic hearsay nonsense, very light on fact and heavy on conjecture, and makes no logical sense at all (the FL has discretion to impose points penalties, so if they wanted to 'punish' Pompey further they're just deduct further/additional points).

Well not really, as the solution for Sky is perfectly legal, probably even (slightly), profitable, and neatly sidesteps the issue. Who'd have thought a court that takes years to issue judgements on even the most fundamentally basic cases would be so out of step...

Relatively old news. The european rights are small potatoes compared to the UK ones. Sky will simply buy those as well, and get round the issue contractually.

I can say with 100% certainty that your mate is being set up. There is absolutely no reason for her to need *his* financial or ID documentation to obtain a visa in this country. At best, UKBA would require *him* to provide them (probably bringing them along to a face to face), but this would be much further down the line and obviously would be done over here. Your mate probably won't listen to you, so tell him to call UKBA and ask them. They will tell him in no uncertain terms that he is being ripped off. If he has already provided any of this stuff, he needs to act ASAP and get his passport cancelled/reissued, and change his bank accounts, otherwise he will be held partly liable to the fraud/ID theft related offences that are almost certainly about to follow. Edit: If he has sent any ID information he also needs to tell the Police, better they know now than when they find cloned passports with his number/details on.

99% of the time, you will be absolutely fine. However, if the 1% happens, ie if something goes wrong and insurance companies get involved, then you will be ****ed. Bear in mind that, contrary to what many landlords think, you have obligations as a landlord beyond just taking your tenants' cash. If, for example, you have a problem with your gas/boiler, and you haven't had the correct inspection certificate issued, your insurance won't cover it. If, for another example, you don't properly protect your tenants' deposit, you could be liable for 3x the amount. Personally I think that sort of thing is worth £90 a month. Or, more accurately, the risk (ie potential total loss) is not sufficiently offset by the reward (£90). But ymmv.

Let me tell *you* something David. I believe in basic maths. Get this. 365 days in a year. A lot more than 365 professional football players in the world. So each footballer is bound to share a birthday with several other footballers.

There's a relatively easy way to deal with these people. Just answer, and say 'that sounds really interesting. Can I just put you on hold for a second?'. Mute phone. Do something else. After two or three times, they get the message.

The number of logical fallacies you've employed (in fact, almost the full set) indicates that you're so entrenched in your opinion, you don't have any interest in actually discussing/debating the issue. So there seems little mileage in continuing the thread, n'est pas?