hutch

You hate them why? Because they're, um .......... Scottish? BTW, to avoid any doubt, I am very firmly in the ABUSA camp. Call me racist if you like.

A uniquely Scottish trait, apparently.

I can remember a lot about last night's game this morning. The noise from the vuvuzelas isn't one of them. The horn-blowing competitions between the cars in the long traffic jams at the highway toll booths on the way to Rustenburg were quite good fun. Loads of England fans joining in. Get down to Sainsburys and get yourself one. You won't regret it.

But I think I recall that Griffins were appointed in the past by HMRC as a replacement in one of AA's previous dodgy admins where he was booted out. So there is previous track.

And the very interesting question is which of those categories of debt have priority if it comes to distribution of the assets to creditors (in a time-related kind of way)? I think I know the answer, but it would be nice if somebody who actually knows would confirm.

Just got home from the game. Not often I can say that on here. There's nothing I can say to make it any better. You all saw it (well bits of it) on TV. Here's my summary anyway, FWIW: Great start. Job done. After the goal England decided to play out the last 85 minutes. With the exception only of Rooney, no England player wanted the ball during the game. It was one of those games where they seemed to have at least 4 players more than us on the pitch. It pains me to say that our best player in the first half was Heskey. Johnson was OK, but A.Cole is scary, in the wrong way. The trouble with our overlapping fullbacks is that you end up with 4 wingers who can't cross a ball, and no defence. Whatever you think about John Terry, he is an immense defender, and the timing of his tackling is perfect. I don't know what happened to King at HT. He didn't do much wrong in the first half, but he didn't have to do much. Carragher got skinned by pace every time, and very nearly cost us the game. We had no creative midfield. Stevie G gave the ball away with dangerous sloppy passes at least 3 times, but I forgive him for the goal. At least he tried. Lampard? Every time Lennon got the ball, he looked behind him to see who he could pass it back to, WTF? Milner was lucky to stay on long enough to be subbed. SWP looked OK amongst a poor lot when he came on. The only time ANYTHING happened in midfield was when Rooney dropped back. Rooney tried up front, but it was one of those nights for him. Heskey was the only one who could read the flight of the ball in the air. Crouch wasn't on long enough to have any real impression, but in similar circumstances in other games he's done better. With what we've got, I would have gone radical and played Crouch/Heskey up front with Defoe, dropped Rooney into forward midfield and dropped Lampard down the nearest local Platinum mine shaft. Find somewhere in that line up for Joe Cole as well, and we just might have a future. Green? Unforgiveable (and I haven't seen it again yet on the telly. I smoked a fag between his first touch and it rolling over the line). Must have been something to do with the "special relationship". He MUST not play again in this tournament. No second chances at this level, not with what they earn. Despite the pre-match hype, everybody EXCEPT Rooney got booked. F*ck knows why. Milner deserved it, but the rest? But I would have booked that USA No 17, whatever his name is (I didn't have a programme, they were sold out when I got there 2 hours before KO, or maybe they were withdrawn) who took about 20 minutes to get off the pitch when he was subbed. And their keeper, who took 15 minutes for every goal kick in the second half. Not impressed with the ref. I was going to say officials, but I think the linesmen got just about everything right (apart from sending Ashley to the sin bin for picking his nose). The USA are not a good team, but they try hard. If we were a good TEAM, we would have put them to the sword. They came for a draw at best, and won their "world series". Their fans are the pits. Four "neanderthals" shoving everybody out of the way in the queue for the park 'n ride bus to the stadium, draped in the US of A's finest Stars 'n Stripes and top hats and dribbling Budweiser or saliva (or both), shouting "all you f*cking South Africans are a bunch of assholes" set the scene. If I had an AK47, I would gladly have shot the c*nts. It went downhill from there. On the other hand, the England fans were fun. A bit inebriated, and boisterous, but not offensive. A bit like the Barmy Army. Times have changed. In conclusion, I think Capello's having a "Burley" phase. Just pick the f*cking team, let them do the job and get back to the hotel for a few beers.

They've already contested the football creditor's rule. They've started proceedings against the PL and the FL. You have been away a long time.

Plastic

Not rumours of the "football fans internet forum" type, but of the "press widely quoting a HMRC source" type, to be fair. It was "leaked" by HMRC for a purpose.

I haven't read the UHY CVA offer paper, I haven't got the stomach for fiction. But the reported figures are that HMRC are at c.£35m, including image rights and penalties, out of c.£105m, so on face value, yes. However, after it came out that HMRC would not support the CVA, AA has hinted that some of HMRC's debt is disputed, so I expect it to be below by the time it comes to a vote. Unless AA toes the line, which is unlikely IMO, it'll be back in Court in due course.

Let's kick it off early. The most important question - wardrobe. Does anybody know whether England are playing in white or red tonight? And the weather forecast - I'm confident that it will be dark. And cold. Bring it on.

He can't. They've got an embargo. I understand that it's thrown a bit of a spanner in the works on the Riquelme front as well.

Police and the banking community are concerned about an armed robbery at the ASB Bank in Grey Lynn, which follows what a senior bank manager has described as "probably the highest number in history" of such robberies across New Zealand last year. Owen Loeffellechner, BNZ national manager security and fraud, said 84 armed robberies had taken place last calendar year. "For the last nearly three years we have seen a trajectory upwards." http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10635026 Maybe they would be better off going for a quiet weekend in the Lake District?

Not if he's put sprinklers in. And UV lamps. Give the lad some credit.

3 down. 4 to go.

I've just finished cleaning my keyboard. I followed the link above, and ended up on one of their boards. I noticed on there that every time they post a reply, it adds another re: to the header. Lucky our board doesn't do that on this thread.

The 4 "newest" 777s, which I think are already in service, are the standard -200s. The next 6 due for delivery are -300ERs. It's one of the dilemmas the airlines face. If they think they can fill, say, 2,000 seats per day across the atlantic, do they go for 4 x 500 seaters or 7 x 300 seaters? As a business traveller, I prefer the option of 7 flights a day to choose from, but clearly that costs more. Different airlines target different markets. I'm sure there is room for both, but BA have a LOT of issues to deal with before they can be competitive, not just the "Heathrow hosties".

In a nutshell, that's the difference between the two proposals. Both propose paying all the football creditors from the parachutes (£19.6m according to AA). Griffin is proposing that 100% of what's left from the parachutes, and 100% of what's realised from selling the team should go to the creditors. AA is proposing to keep 54% of what's left from the parachutes, and 88% of what's realised from selling the team, to finance another spending spree. I think I'm repeating myself a bit here.

I don't think that helps them much either. They've got about 10 players left, and half of them want to leave. They can't sign any new ones while they are still in admin (AFAIK). All AA's talk about signing up his wonderful new team of "frees" that nobody else has noticed is all scheduled to happen AFTER the CVA is approved .

It also takes a very "flexible" imagination to get from the anonymous League spokesman's quote: 'The suggestion we will deduct points from Portsmouth if they do not get a CVA in place before next season is categorically not true. The club has already faced a points deduction last season for going in to administration - we can't punish them twice for the same offence.' to the News journalist's interpretation: League sources say the club will not be docked points at the start of the coming Championship season whatever happens. But I don't speak Skate.

As I see it, they can still be penalised in the coming season for: A financial irregularity Any other irregularity Exiting administration the wrong way and the one after if they are still in admin. And they still have no squad and no money. AND I think they're still under a registration embargo. Nothing's changed.

I'll choose my words carefully here. Yes, you are right. But there are rare occasions where unscrupulous Companies or owners attempt to abuse the administration process in order to write off all of their debts, sack a few of the staff and carry on as if nothing had happened. I'm not suggesting that that's the case here though By the way, do you have double glazing?

For some reason, in my experience liquidators don't like the words "in full". I recently reached a settlement with a liquidator on a long-running dispute. The Agreement is at 99p in the £ (well 99c in the R actually, but you know what I mean), but the "Without Prejudice" (i.e. non-binding) correspondence from the liquidator's attorney says that the liquidators are hopeful that there will be a surplus after final distribution. That means that I expect to receive more than 100c, but the liquidator will only sign up for 99c.

Phil, Emirates (and the other growing Gulf carriers) have a huge geographical advantage for a lot of the Europe/Far East traffic, where a refuelling stop is required. That will be eroded as range increases. It won't be long before London/Sydney non-stop becomes a reality. However, their regional focus is impressive and understandably popular. I am not a Heathrow-lover. I lived in Milton Keynes for a couple of years recently (hardly a million miles from London), but generally used Birmingham for long-haul (transit in Amsterdam or Paris), and Luton for short-haul European. That virtually ruled out BA as an option. BA's policy of ignoring the regions is costing them, and will continue to do so. Emirates haven't quite got it right with the fleet. They operate both A340s and 777s. I've yet to travel on a comfortable A340, and I've been on a lot, including Emirates. BA's reluctance to jump in quickly with the A380 is in some ways understandable. History has shown that the launch version of any radically new airliner quickly becomes obsolete. BA is, and has been for a long time, the world's biggest 747-400 operator and it still has a lot of legs in that fleet. They're still living with the King/Marshall "BA will buy anything but Boeing over my dead body" philosophy. But the 757s are now pretty much gone, the 737s are on the way out quickly and the 767s will go soon when the new 787s arrive. They're still bringing in new 777s but they are very flexible and have a long future. At the end of the day, however, it's the customer experience that prevails, at least for the frequent traveller, which is where the airlines make their money. On small example - while BA/Virgin and the others are still running up and down the aisle furiously making sure that you've turned your mobile phone or blackberry off, Emirates are telling you that you can leave it on, and feel free to use it at any time during the flight. It's little things like that which make the real difference.

In reality I doubt if Gaydamak is overly worried. I would imagine that all of his (read their) assets in the UK are now "out of reach", including the land surrounding FP. These type of charges are notoriously difficult to prove. As I see it the worst case scenario is that he won't be able to spend his holidays in London. As for the fake Sheikh, if you believe the conspiracy theorists and Storrieteller, he was brought in behind Storrie's back by Gaydamak to prevent Chainrai from getting his claws into the club. Al-Fahim was brought in through the back door by Gaydamak, but Chainrai sneaked in through a skylight in the roof when nobody was looking.