Ken Tone

Putting aside party poitical allegiances, it is fascinating that a man who makes a thing of projecting a persona as a bit of a buffoon has developed such a strong following. He has good academic qulaficatins and use to edit a major serious magazine, so is presumably intelligent, yet seems actually to try to appear daft at times. The only time I've ever come across him 'live' was when he gave a speech to a fairly small group I was part of. He talked in a very charming manner but with content that was frankly absolute rubbish, displaying a frightening level of factual ignorance of his topic, as opposed to stupidity, yet many in the audience just chuckled and said ... "well that's Boris". He is forgiven things that no other politician could get away with.

I can't see any other explanation. My interpretation is that Birch 'went native' and favoured the trust bid for the sake of the club, over the creditors, even though it does not really add up, and when chainrai threatened legal action, the rest of PKF said 'what the hell is going on?' and moved him to one side.

Re their current wages..... The budget they have for a squad of 25+ players is currently being spent on 20, or less, players, meaning they can pay more per head. Similarly they are paying monthly, which means no commitment to pay for the summer. In effect they can pay 12 months worth of wages over the 9 (?) months of the season. So in the short term thay can pay players some 50% more than they could with a full squad full year, without increasing their annual budget. I suspect that PKF understand this, but clearly Appleton does not. When he whinges about not being allowed to sign more than 20 players, or to sign on a normal contract, he does not grasp that to do so would mean paying less per player and therefore losing most of his current well-paid squad, in order to achieve for the first time ever, quantity over quality.

thanks . Was hoping for an URL, so I could post it on, and i can't find it on line. Presumably not in internet version

got a link for that Sun story please?

ITV is contractually limited to fewer minutes of advert per hour than the satellite channels are. Sky etc are even worse. Like many things many people in this country slag off -- NHS, state education, etc --- the BBC is actually bloody brilliant by international standards. To have no adverts at all is just so much better.

Any attempt to answert this will be jumped on by the usual suspect posters, but I'll stick my neck out...... There is no one single reason. There are lots of little reasons, each of which in isolation seems trivial, but together add up, and no one at saints seems to be very good at customer relations. The success of the GB cycling team this year was attributed to attention to detail, lots of small, detailed improvements. We could do with a simlar attitude at saints

What the OP says actually is that this person has left their ST in Brighton, so presumably they either need to get it from there (which is the help she's asking for, perfectly reasonably) or pay for a duplicate (ie a permanent replacement) , which is indeed £25.

Thank God! I was getting really worried about that old dear on her mobility scooter in the picture ... where would she ride if the land was sold?

Who is this Pritchard bloke? He represents Portco doesn't he? Are they serious bidders? Do they have pot to **** in ? And what is their motive? Answers on a postcard please ,to ....

Tough one isn't it? If they are sure he did it and sure he knows where the poor kid is, and it's not just that he has some sort of record so is an obvious first choice suspect , with no other proof. Seems very odd that they've released this bloke's name and picture so ealry in the process. If he turns out to be innocent, like that weird landlord bloke in the Clifton/Bristol murder case, his life will have been ruined anyway. I'm not saying the family are to blame, please note. No family should have to plan their lives around preventing a possible abduction. It's the bastard who has abducted the child that is to solely and wholly to blame .. and for whom I would break my usual principles and bring back the death penalty if guilt is beyond doubt... but I do wonder why this 5 year old child, with cerebral palsy what is more, was playing on her bike some 250 m from her house, out of sight of the family, after sunset, with no adult supervision.

I hadn't heard that rumour Mr Allen, but thanks to you publicising it, I now have!

Well actually, you have to go back a step earlier than that. Before all this started PFC had £0 in the bank, then they were given £30k to use for the benefit of their fans and had £30k in the bank. Now they will allow people who otherwise would not have gone to Fratton (ie not theirfans) to go, at no cost to the club, and will end up with £30k in the bank (plus a few bob from selling programmes and food etc) , which they can spend on things which are still not to the benefit of their fans, such as PKF's fees for 3 or 4 days. It all makes perfect sense.

I never thought I'd say this, but I'm actually gettting a bit bored with this now. Nothing is happening! What on earth are PKF doing now? Is Birch still around? When will they announce a preferred bidder, or liquidate, or whatever the next step is? I feel a bit like a child waiting to open his Christmas presents, who keeps being told 'not yet'.

Would make a shocking mess!

Blimey! All I was doing was pointing out that Adkins had chosen to bring on Reeves as sub at Everton instead of using Fox or Shaw ..... Didn't realise I was going to start a major controversy !

Well he brought him on for Clyne at Everton... and he started his career as a LB, even if he has converted to more of a midfielder lately.

Solent this morning were reporting that portpin had met with the football authorities yesterday , and that if they convinced them that they were 'fit and proper', PFC could come out of admin this week. I think at least one national paper reported this meeting yesterday too, though I've not heard of any outcome. Meanwhile, where is Birch? There is deafening silence from PKF, and rumours that Birch has been quietly removed from the scene for 'going native' and following threats of legal action from Chainrai. Some posters on the News site say he was not in his usual place in the directors box for their last game The fun could be hotting up!

It appears that Nigel prefers Reeves to both Shaw and Fox

I always thought they were practising a new formation -- never mind 4-4-2 or 4-3-3, let's try the Roman Army 'testuedo'.

Hard to tell the difference isn't it?

this ... Any city centre car park, except of course middle brook street itself ,where the market is.

And they conveniently overlook the fact that of the FL had been strict enough to stop Chainrai and the other dodgy owners taking over, they'd have gone bust years ago --- and they'd all have been bleating on about the FA and FL killing them off

What? ... You mean they're going to all get together and call Chainrai a pleb?

The issue there is, when does a child have real free will, as opposed to being unduly influenced by an adult placed in a position of trust and authority over her? -- debatable. Btw ,for others who've focussed on the age of consent on this thread, the 'position of trust' aspect applies regardless of whether she is 16 or not. A teacher who has a sexual relationship with a 17, or even 18, year old student in a school or college will certainly be sacked nowadays, and very possibly prosecuted too. The law was tightened up a few years back. Interestingly, the infamous Chris Woodhead (who has made a lucrative living out of his brief spell as chief inspector of schools) would almost certainly have been prosecuted and banned for life from teaching, had he behaved as it was claimed he did when a young teacher, under current rules and laws.