Gloucester Saint

Tewkesbury Winter Ales Festival yesterday. Some cracking beers - Chocolate Marble from Manchester was my favourite. Couple of good Milds by Bradfield in Yorks and Moor in Somerset. Brew York’s Clementine Chameleon was great in breaking up the darker beers and bringing some freshness. I usually like Clavell & Hind stuff but wasn’t sold on their stout.

That’s a shocker https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/czrl25k748vo Nothing will be done though, any more than Steve Dunn against us in the quarter final in 1996 there which Fergie said ought to have stood. It’s either pure negligence, poor eyesight or closet supporting for Utd. VAR is not the issue - our officials are and have been for 20 years. This was supposed to stop when they were allowed to go full time but it’s just getting worse.

If there’s interest in him, it means Saints and SR are doing better, which can only be a good thing. Shields was a bit of an outlier, that seemed to be driven by the Lavia transfer, because the other imports from City were terrible (Bazanu), invisible (Larios) or at best average (Edozie).

Financially but Ipswich more than kept up with us, Leicester and Leeds. Birmingham shouldn’t have gone down in the first place and with them and possibly Wrexham, momentum and owner investment could go a long way. It did for us in 11/12 too.

Bitcon was singing 🎵 We’re going down with the Leicester 🎵 as his pen hit the paper. And probably missed.

Correct on income, although possibly not on spending assuming Brum and Wrexham go up this season. It’s what the club does in the market this time which hopefully is where Spores is the different variable. Last time we bought a semi-retired striker and a £15m DMC Russell Martin didn’t like or particularly use. Fortunately they did decide to let Che run his contract down and AA hit gold which saved the bacon. Selling was good on prices - Lavia, Tella, JWP - but the buying remained poor. Loans were used well - Downes, Brookes, Rothwell which will be important again.

They didn’t always prevail though - Big Ron’s last act as Utd boss

Wrong end of the country unfortunately and trying to slim down items rather than take more on but very sorry for your loss Kev and thoughts with you and your family.

Something to look forward to then…

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/musk-doge-techies-young-what-we-know-1235256687/ Seeing what similar young whizzkids with quantitative skills but no life experience or common sense did to the financial sector and its products in the 2000s, not difficult to see where this is heading. Headed up by a guy with serious mental health issues and a known absence of human empathy.

This is also what tripped Boris up as much as Partygate and will trip Farage up around the NHS. Easy to lie about £350m contributions on buses, much harder to actually make fiscally sustainable policies which can attract votes. Farage’s position on the NHS is as untenable politically as Labour’s was in the 1980s around nuclear disarmament. Once the wheels really come off the Trump car their bubble will burst. We want the same public services as pre-2010 but don’t want to fund them. We want economic growth but don’t want to be in a Single Market designed by Margaret Thatcher which made our economy 6% bigger than now and our businesses are tangled up in so much more red tape than before. We don’t want migration but our society is ageing. Or, we’ve decided Polish plasterers and Czech dentists are OK now having had a tantrum in 2016 but we don’t like ethnically diverse migration. You’d have to be mad to be a politician. No wonder people claim they are disillusioned with politics, their outlook is one of unicorns.🦄 Public are idiots.

A lot of it is being driven by gang recruitment of terrorists and assassins via social media https://www.politico.eu/article/sweden-bombing-gang-violence-wiretap-children-teenagers/ Some of the cherished openness of their society will have to be compromised to deal with it https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2024/10/15/swedens-homicide-rate-linked-to-gang-warfare-is-one-of-the-highest-in-europe Mind you, it makes a mockery of Zuckerberg and Musk’s claims that SM doesn’t need policing and cleaning up. Organised crime, Islamic extremism and White Far Right running riot on X, Facebook and especially Telegram.

The parachute payments taper away though and after about three seasons you find that you’re not competitive any longer. Just ask Norwich, Swansea, Stoke etc.

Mo is a great lad and very fine bowler but the pace attack needs the age to come down a bit, plus it looks like he’s available for 6 games late season being part of the Pakistan national set up https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/articles/cd64pq1g0vjo

Virtue signalling for the evangelicals who voted for him, forgetting about the lying, bankruptcies and sex scandals/criminal record.

Public spending cuts. 15% off NHS England which is a lot of money (and caused a rumpus when the Tories did it) and other Depts being asked to find further significant savings - some essential R&D infrastructure delayed. Although early retirement and deleting of posts for people who basically sit in meetings is broadly fine with me, as long as some of the saving diverts to the frontline and non-clinical activities closest to the frontline. Unfortunately the universities financial position means that nursing programmes are closing which rather defeats some of the object. Simple way to fill the black hole - rejoin the Single Market. The UK has lost 6% of its economy since leaving it and that more than covers the difference. Instant boost to growth. And now supported by the majority of the country bar the bloody Red Wall. Madness from Labour, Tories and Reform. Lots of bollocks about freedom of movement but there’s been more of it since we left and the type that Reform voters hate the most. Turns out Polish plasterers weren’t such a problem after all (I’d just be glad to find some again!).

That side shouldn’t have been relegated but in many ways similar to the complacent decline from 2016. Quality sold (Bridge, Mane, Pelle) or injured (Svensson, Pahars, Dodd) replaced by significantly inferior quality players in key positions (Nilsson, Jakobsson, Bernard, Redmond, Austin) which didn’t help the remaining quality (Beattie, Tadic). Redknapp played his part but most of the above wasn’t done by him bar Beattie’s sale and Bernard. He didn’t appoint Steve Wigley and Paul Sturrock, and dilute the quality of the squad in such a short space of time trying to be a clever arse. Stand up one Rupert Lowe. I hate politics on the main board but it’s an important reminder for all football fans of why this country never wants him anywhere near positions of responsibility.

https://www.itv.com/news/2025-02-06/itv-news-uncovers-multiple-claims-of-inappropriate-behaviour-by-gino-dacampo

Treasury Red Box would be replaced by Guy Askham’s boardroom biscuit tin.

Good point on Premier, thanks, need to have a look at them. Will look at Magnet after Winner’s recommendation.

The Military Industrial Complex is alive and well, despite what was said on the campaign.

The reverse gear has been located by Marco Rubio. Significant sections of the GOP, especially the isolationist/America First segment don’t like this suggestion any more than Trump’s original outburst https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g9xgj2429o

That’s not too bad. Bar Udoh, who might be useful for doing Kelvin at Eastleigh a favour but can’t see him playing for Saints first team unless we are going down the Frankie Bennett route (did score V Chelsea at least). Actually Torquay’s form has stalled a bit, send him there and help out Paul Wotton. Spors has one busy summer ahead, hope he’s not planning a holiday….

Pure senility that transfer and the joke will-they won’t they on sacking Pellegrino, when the guy was clearly having a nervous breakdown on the touch line by November 2017. Pathetic from the club to keep him in post until March 2018.

Rupert Lowe 😂 Left Southampton Football Club at its lowest ebb for 70 years and people think he’s a credible politician.