Patrick Bateman

Fords are complete sh!te. I owned 2 Mondeos and the other half had a disgusting C-Max. Awful cars. Never had any inclination to own a Vauxhall. Surely though, a "British" car is now a Honda Civic (Swindon) or most Nissans (Sunderland)? They on the other hand are good. Uninteresting, but good cars. Build quality wise, the best I've been in is probably a Volvo now - solid, quality. Mercs and Porsche are obviously good too.

He is a massive penis.

As far as I'm aware, they are UK based, with 1 office, in the UK. The man sounds like a penis.

I have a Qashqai - fully loaded with all the toys they are fantastic value! Very comfy, solid and cheap to run. If you can pick one up for your price, then do! Whoever suggested the C-Max needs shooting. Vile looking, plastic and absolutely hideous to drive. My other half one before getting her Golf.

I think it's a real shame. It'll probably be crap and soulless. Upton Park is a great ground with a lot of great history.

EX SOUTHAMPTON XI * FROM:- Paul Jones, Jason Dodd, Francis Benali, Claus Lundekvam, Paul Williams, Ian Baird, Nicky Banger, Andy Cook, Mark Blake, Tommy Widdrington, Steve Baker, Adi Aymes (Hampshire wicket keeper ), David Howells, Leroy Whale, Rod Wallace, Jo Tessem, Marcel Cullers, Greg Llewellyn, Neil Heaney, Bill Beaney, Glen Cockerill, Jimmy Case, David Hughes, Les Cleevely, Barry Blankley, Jeremy Stagg, Gordon Watson Not meaning to be rude, but, who are half those names in that list??

Considering the amoun of goals we've scored, surprised not to see a few more names in this list http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/eng_div_2/top_scorers/default.stm But then, perhaps it's a good thing as it shows we have plenty of goals coming from all different sources!?

As much as I do enjoy watching Top Gear, some of it really has got silly. I think the 3 of them should stick to doing silly specials (like the US trip, or the Vietnam trip etc) as they are genuinely funny, so long as you don't mind it being totally staged. As for the main program, I agree, I'd probably get shot of Hammond, he really is annoying. I like May as a presenter, he's erudite and can be interesting. He also plays the "Captain Slow" act well. Clarkson is, as soneone said above, Clarkson. A Marmite-man, but I like him and find him funny. They probably should bring Tiff out more. Mind you, the "old" Top Gear failed once Clarkson left and they tried various other presenters who were just completely dull. Quentin Wilson, the guy with the beard, the fat guy ... all ZZZZZ. 5th gear would be better if they got rid of the fat one. Has anyone ever seen the User Car Roadshow? Christ ...

Well, it's actually my other half's birthday. Which you might think is a win-win as I only have to do the meal thing once a year. But no, it just means that I can't book anything or do anything for her birthday because all the mongs "celebrating" Valentine's Day have booked everything and pushed the prices up. F**k-nuggets.

haha

Exactly, I said that this morning; should all Audi drivers complain for being labelled as c*cks by them??

Well I'm a moron and I picked up on it ;-) That was the funny point, he knew what he was doing and kept "digging", on purpose - that's what was funny. Not the fact that Mexicans are lazy, work-shy or whatever. It could have been about anyone! Sigh. But yes, let's give them some compensation/money to make them feel better ... Jesus!

Oh for f*cks sake. Does NO ONE in this country (world?) have a sense of humour any more.

Southampton is hit and miss, sometimes they are really friendly and you can have a laugh and a joke, other times, they are the rudest on earth and far more rude than ANY other airport I've been through. Guess it depends who is on duty and whether or they are sexually frustrated or not.

Thumbs up!

What the hell? You penis.

I realise that last post is littered with typo errors, I was typing/ranting too quickly to proof-read my typos!

I have to say, customer service in this country simply is dreadful, from call centres to shops. That program on C4 last night was brilliant and sums up my experience when I go in to most high street shops. I already do (as I'm a miserable, grumpy, impatient old git) exactly what she said and it normally ends in my dumping what I was going to purchase in the middle of the shop and leaving. If they can't be bothered to show some politeness and common sense, then I can't be bothered to spend my money there. It's not difficult. But then on the program last night, the Manager bloke summed it up; he wasn't bothered either! His training was rubbish, he didn't show his face, the shops looking in need of repair so just how nice is that to work with? He suggested that they were "no worse" than other shops, which is another issue, people are generally too lazy to raise the bar and exceed customer expectations. Waitrose are a great example. You ask nicely if the assistant knows where an item is, not only does that assistant tell you, they take you to the item and then ask if they can help with anything else (sadly I used to work in Hythe Waitrose 20 years ago whilst at college). Go in to Tesco or Asda and you get a grunt as they try to run you over with their goods cages and a begrudging (try aisle 3). Shocking. As for call centres, I don't like phoning overseas call centres when it's to do with something UK-based, i.e. TV, phone, mobile etc as a lot of the time, the staff their don't have first hand experience or access to the right systems (especially for TV) and that's what makes it hard. Also, especially Indian workers are very efficient and are more likely to stick to a "call script" during the call, which can be annoying for those of us who know what we're talking about. But I have to say, I don't find understanding overseas call centres any more difficult that getting through to one in Glasgow or Liverpool! At my last place of work, I was studying business process improvements, so listened in on thousands of customer calls. It has to be said, quite a large portion of the public who phone in are complete d*cks. They start of rude and swearing, are hard to understand sometimes, expect instant resolution and don't explain the problem properly. That means by the time those of us (obviously everyone on this thread) phone in, the agent on the phone is probably a bit p*ssed off, expecting more abuse and generally itching to get home. Some agents I (remotely) listened to at said company weren't good and polite though. Anyway, generally I'd agree that customer service is getting worse and a few people need to raise the bar and start pulling their fingers out.

You are absolutely obsessed with politics!! Which is no bad thing, but why not stand for an election one day as you are obviously passionate about it?

Totally agree mate, as brilliant as Alex is, he's being brilliant at League 1 and has not been scoring week in, week out, in the Premier League for a good number of years now.

Obviously I don't want people to lose their jobs, but cutting senior management and renegotiating contracts is always going to be a winner with the public. It's a shame it has to get to that level before people take action, bit everywhere is the same, especially in the private sector. Companies inplement a recruitment freeze, then fill up on a shed load of contract staff. Generally, people/management need to PLAN better, well in advance.

July probably wouldn't be the best time to go, it'll probably rain more days than is sunny, if you want to go to the Maldives, go from October to end of April, maybe May. June to September are rubbish in comparison, weather wise. There are many nice islands to choose from, some more busy than others. Last time I went, I stayed at Cocoa Island which had less than 30 "rooms" (they are all Dhonis, over the sea) and it was very very very quiet, bliss: www.cocoaisland.como.bz/

No, because most of us don't have time to wade through pages and pages of posts so have no idea if it's been posted or not. Thread Police.

As good an idea as it is, they wouldn't have got away with. You dictate the bonus of one paricular, small group of people without affecting others. As Pancake said, what about all the hard grafters at the banks who keep it ticking over daily, in IT and the customer facing staff. Should they be limited to £2k as well? What if the "bankers" appealled and the Judge then said that for this rule to apply, no one would get a bonus of more than £2k? Just hypothetically speaking mind. Great idea, but flawed. And yes, it does annoy me that my bonus is halved. But what can I do? Not a lot.

I know it's all bluster and speculation anyway, but the bit in bold makes me a little bit cross. I wouldn't really put him in this bracket, raw talent and moulding?? Surely someone like Kenwyne Jones more fits that category - i.e. discovered when older and turned in to a decent footballer? Ah well, pretty sure he'll be here next season, well, hope so anyway - fed up with losing decent young players so early in recent years, however, I guess it's an indication of where we are now in the footballing ladder. Like it or not, we're still 3rd div currently.