Ken Tone

As I said .... significant section that was prepared to forgive him virtually anything, because, with a tolerant chuckle, "well, that's just the way Boris is, isn't it? Look at Italy and Berlusconi. Buffoons do get elected,and re-elected.

I've been at a relatively small conferecne where Johnson spoke, and indeed I asked him a question from the floor. In short he is all style over function. A charming buffoon, with, on that occasion at least, absolutely no idea what he was talking about .... at all. The audience reaction was fascinating however, ranging from "what a pillock" to "what he said was silly, but isn't he lovely". Nearly everyone there thought he had talked complete drivel, but there was a significant section that was prepared to forgive him virtually anything, because, with a tolerant chuckle, "well, that's just the way Boris is, isn't it? "

Absolutely this, but as with everything portsmouth related, it is not clear cut. I very much want to see them start L2 with new loans to service and no investment, as will be the case under the Trust's proposals, and with -10. If they sneak the -10 this season in spite of them being relegated anyway, that will mean they've "got away with it" yet again. After all , if morals came into it, they'd be using the extra £4million in parachute payments to give a bit more to the creditors they've shafted, instead of using it to underwrite the extra debts the Trust is clocking up to buy the club because the bestest fans only rasied £1.4 million of their own money.

Which exactly why Coventry can take the moral high ground. When they ran out of money, they used the novel tactic of stopping spending it .. an innovative approach that apparently never occurred to Portsmouth.

when is his 18th birthday?

The brighter ones have been studying at Peter Symonds College in Winchester for much longer than the Chichester link, in fact since immediately after the 1982 conflict. Many years ago, many of the older members of the community remember being sent to board in the UK at various schools, at age 11, in the days when that meant not seeing their parents for years at a time, because it was too far to travel home in the holidays, before the present-day regular flights began. Now they have a decent primary and secondary school to age 16 but come here for A levels and BTECs etc, and for any degree study (which they pay for as overseas students) As it probably pretty obvious from my comments on this thread, I have quite a few personal contacts with Islanders, and have visited there a couple of times. They are very British, and would be infuriated by Pap's trolling remarks about Argentina's claim and about oil money. Even without any eventual possible oil money, the community is already completely self-sufficent financially apart from paying for defence. If it weren't for Argentina's constant bullying, they would need no UK help at all. But they would still keep up the links and would still very much want to be attached to Britain. They are very grateful for the sacrifices made on their behalf in 1982, and do a lot for veterans. There is even some purpose-built accommodation in Stanley, provided by the community, for visiting veterans to stay in. Quite a few follow Saints btw!

Yes, but don't forget he's moved with his family into this area. (Winchester?) Reading is commutable. Leeds, although a better job, is not.

Not that old one again! 1. Isle of wight is, what, 2 mles of the coast of England. Falkands are well over 200 miles from Argentina. By that basis, the UK should be claiming most of France and Belgium, and bits of Holland 2. Argentina have never held the Falklands as undisputed territory 3. The only "Argentinian" occupation of the islands only lasted about 15-20 years , consisted of a very dodgy 'free enterprise' and ended in piracy afer they murdered the 'governor', till the Americans threw them off for attacking their whaling ships. And actually that happend before Argentina as a country existed really. It was the predecessor state. Plus, when it happened, Britain never accepted the legitimacy of their occupation, having claimed the unoccupied islands decades before and having had several temporary settlements before this incursion. 4. The only real legal basis for the Argentinian claim is that the Pope in the 15th century 'gave' that whole area of the world (largely at that stage undiscovered ) to Spain, and the River Plate state that preceded Argentina was a Spanish colony, so they claim they 'inherited' Spain's rights in the area 5. The current population includes some whose ancesotrs have ived therwe since 1833 ,with no Argentinian presence in all that time

It's the classic Machiavellian strategy of covering up problems at home by uniting agianst a common enemy. Argentina is in a mess. The Falkands is an issue that will stir up emotions every time, and turn attention away from their failing economy etc. The Pope as an Argentinian, will a) presumably be as indoctrinated over this issue as most of them are, and b) has in his previous roles been seen to support their claim. I'd have been very surprised in Kerchner had not 'surfed' the publicity of his appointment to gain more publicity for the claim. I would hope though, that now he is pope and in a position where he should be more objective and measured, he will simply politely ignore this.

Well yes and no. Delayed gratification is best. Besides, by that time the FL will have no possible excuse to take the points off this season if the trust are successful, and surely will have to make them start in L2 on -10?

I'm impressed that she checked her inbox before she jumped. Shows a real commitment to tying up loose ends for those left behind. Bet she'd done the washing up at home too!

Extracts from a 2012 article based on an interview with the head of the FI police (who also runs the prison, which is actually part of the police station) "The prison is located below the police station and at the time we spoke there were four prisoners, all serving lengthy sentences for child abuse.Mardsen explained: “People think we only tackle child abuse and we don’t tackle anything else. The reality is we don’t have murders, burglaries. . . we don’t have extreme violence and we don’t have robberies. Not in recent times. So therefore the reason why our prison population consists of people convicted of child abuse is because we don’t see the serious offences you would see in another society." “The reality is that very little anti-social behaviour happens in Stanley or whether it be out in Camp (places outside Stanley). There isn’t actually very much need for us to go out to Camp because not many crimes are happening. The only times we tend to have to deploy out to Camp is when there has been a traffic collision or if there has been an incident where someone has hurt themselves.” "In fact the people of the Falklands Islands are so peaceful they very rarely lock their doors! We were told about a bicycle that was thought stolen and reported but it later turned out that the owner may have simply forgotten where he left it."

Some serious crimes would be tried in the UK, and indeed long prison sentences served here, so this makes their own tiny prison population very unrepresentative, but nonetheless, they do indeed have a few problems that I understand are quite common amongst island communities. (Ring any bells?!) They have a surprisingly large police force for the size of population too. It is also a very hard-drinking (and smoking) society compared with modern Britain; many offences are drink-related, rather than for example premeditated theft.

I'm still waiting for the "absolutely definitely pre-arranged -- he's really only on loan to us" transfer of Schneiderlin to Arsenal to take place as predicted by so many. Must be about 4 years overdue now? As to Ramirez, interesting that Solent today ran an interview with Pocchetino on Gaston, saying basically that he is a potential world class player, and that he is still adapting.

This. Transfer fees are only half of the story nowadays -- in fact probably less than half.

Even you must get tired of your own trolling comments sometimes, surely? Adkins has a contract. He is entitled to see its conditions honoured, regardless of your opinion of him as a manager. If Saints are not paying him what the contract says he should get, then he is perfectly right to take us to a tribunal. If, on the other hand, we are paying him what the contract says, but simply not being more generous than that, then tough, he'll deservedly lose his case. It's a shame that a manager who served the club so well ends up in dispute like this, but none of us know what went on out of the public eye, any more than we did with Pardew, or for that matter than we will when Pochettino eventually leaves.

The one spoilt ballot was a surprise though!

Maybe they sent us a false Forren imposter and kept the real one? After all, if we can be sold horse as beef , presumably we can be sold a donkey as a CB ?

On the 'Argentina upping the ante on Falklands' thread I predicted 3 ''no" votes. Can I have John Snow's job now please?

Hadn't heard there was any postal voting in this? And the few mobile polling stations have to cover an area of land equal in size to Wales, with few roads in the remote areas, plus a fair bit of the area is made up of lots of small separate islands some of which have only a single farm settlement on them. In some parts ,it can take an hour to travel a few miles even in a good 4x4 Make no mistake, some islanders will have had to make real effort to vote. They really care about this issue.

There are also one or two Argentinians and other South Americans eligible to vote. It is a genuine democracy, unlike Argentina's own history. I expect about 3 votes against and the rest for remaining British. The main interest will be the turn out. Even with mobile polling stations , some parts of west falkland or some of the outlying islands in particular are so remote that it will be a real effort to vote

I can't anything in that article to suggest that the FA are even considering action. Is there any information to the effect that the referee has reported anything ? Or is this just a reporter making a story up?

Well I think he has been the bargain buy of the season, albeit far better as a CB than as a RB, but even playing out of position today , he made 2 goal-saving interceptions.

I with Birtles. Obvious time for puncheon rather than Guly

it'll make our winning goal in the 89th minute all the more pleasing