Ken Tone

And for example that idiot Corp Ho (banker on POL) denied vehemently that Sol Cambell was being paid as much as £100k a week ,and it turned out he was actually on £120k. Why else would an England centre half sign for such a small club? But where was the worried noise from the pompey fans? As for the hero worship over Mandaric, when he was the one who reneged on his ground improvement promises and sold them for a fat profit to the first of the blindingly obviously dodgy owners, I just don't understand it. He is the one who is most to blame in many respects.

Same here. Evening games are difficult to get to in time after work for me at best, and it's the little things that tip the balance in deciding whether to go to a cup game -- in particular that my car park season ticket only covers league games, so i'd have to get down to Southampton earlier than usual to find somewhere to park etc. A bad piece of marketing that. If they'd charged me a few quid more for the car park, but included cup games, that would probably have tipped the balance in the apathy stakes.

It depends whether or not you remove your trousers first.

Ok, if you disagree with my interpretation, why do you think the media is focussing on the word 'pleb' more than the the swearing as such ?

But with office and rank comes the responsibility to be civil. When you were in the Navy, you surely would not have expected an admiral to call you a ****ing pleb and tell you to know your place , especially if his reason for doig so was because you were eg making his car stop at a security checkpoint at the entrance to a base ?

Well ...sort of yes, actually, though maybe not with those particular words because many consider them so offensive, and you are taking your point to the extreme. But had he said eg '****ing git' rather than '****ing pleb' and not made comments about how the policemam should 'know his place', then of course there would still have been a fuss, but it would have died down quicker than this. The media are making such a fuss becasue this they are taking this as an indication that top tories are out of touch with the ordinary people of the country -- middle class as well as working class.

Read what I said Wes. I didn't say anything about proof, conclusive or otherwise. I said 'implication'. Nor did I say anything about the police being lilywhite. You are still missing the point. I don't give a damn about the policeman being offended or not, and indeed nowhere has anyone said he was offended. The reason why the media are focussing on this is because of what his choice of insult says about the attitude of the chief whip of the tory party to ordinary people, not from his social background and class. It showed he considered himself to be superior to them. If you disagree with that, why do you think it is the word 'pleb' is that is in the news, not the swearing? And am I not entitled to refer to the UK as my country then?

My view .... he's given up on getting his £14 (18?) million back straight away. That was scuppered by the FL limitingthe amot of debt that can be carried forward. so he plans to carry forward as much as allowed ..£5 million.. which is more than he'd get from the trust for his claim on Fratton Park. He then is forced to turn the rest of his debt into equity, but ends up with the club ,the ground and still being owed £5 million. Since he is the main creditor apart from the football ones, and their debt can be covered by the remaining parachute money, it will only actually cost him about £500,000 net, to buy the club He then plans to get as much as he can from the situation, bleeding what is left of the corpse drier still, or if he can, ideally selling the club as such to the trust and renting the ground to them for c £ 1 million a year. This gives him a better return on his money than any interest from a bank etc, and he still has the £5 million debt, and FP. If it doesn't work, plan B if/when the club goes bust again, is to build on Fratton park, and get some money that way. He wouldn't make £18 million, but it is damage limitation for him. Whatever happens he is better off than just accepting £2.75 million from the trust.

Admirals do. HTH

Never .. move direct to Radio 4, or 4 Extra if you crave exciting variety in your life. (Let me know if you also want advice on where to buy the picnic blanket for covering your knees at matches.)

So 61 votes in the POL poll. Wow! And most of them apparently don't actually go to games. Best fans in the land.

With respect, I think most of you are missing the point here. The issue is what using the word 'pleb' says about the person saying it, not any offence caused to the police officer ...who didn't say he was offended by it btw. The reason why the media have focussed on the word 'pleb' in the phrase "you ****ing pleb", and not the generally more offensive word '****ing', is that it indicates that Mitchell still has the mindset and attitude of a spoilt public schoolboy -- he thinks he is above the rest of us , and we mere 'plebs' should recognise that he is more important, and that he is above the rules that apply to mere ordinary people. Bear in mind that most of the cabinet went to public school and are independently wealthy, and that they are continuously desperate to prove that they do NOT have this mindset , and you can see why this is news. Add to that the implication that Mitchell has since lied about what he said, and he doesn't come out of this incident as the sort of person I want running my country for me

Indeed, but Forester has been bettered by Patrick O'Brian now IMO.

Thanks .. presumably they top that particular league? It woud be fitting if the guiness book of records had an entry for it! (Sorry about the double post. Thought I'd deleted the first one. Am obviously a technical incompetent)

Thanks .. presumably they top that particular league? It woud be fitting if the guiness book of records had an entry for it!

No -- they only smashed up half the town!

Can anyone remind me please btw? I am trying to remember how many times they have been in administration, in total, as opposed to just recently?

It's at times like this I wish I hadn't blown my cover on POL. Must be hilarious over there at the moment. Frattoniser and co must be apopleptic with rage by now. They've spent so long trying to convince everyone, in the face of all common sense, that the £167,000 of pledged money that they have in the bank was enough to buy and run a football club, that they'd really started to believe it themselves.

No idea about the Alfred, maybe the police stirred them up? But by the time I got to the ground ...shocking traffic on the A34 and M3 .... there were far more 'loose' groups of away fans walking along Belvedere Road than usual, and some were definitely looking for trouble, with no noticeable police presence. Saw one throw his drink across the road at a harmless family group of Saints fans for example. Assuming the 'fat bastard' was the one I saw being led along in front on the Northam, he had got a bit carried away celebrating their goal. Ran down to the front but didn't actually go onto the pitch, so it was a bit harsh to eject him. Clyne -- Again no idea about the steward, but IMO he was bloody silly to get himself booked for celebrating. If he'd got himself sent off for a relatively innocuous second booking after that ......

Gosh ..someone who still tries to use the OS! Didn't think anybody looked at it any more.

Seems rather an expensive way of boosting a few egos!

And above Liverpool

Not so pap I'm afraid, or at least the net cost to society as a whole outweighs the tax See ...[TABLE] [TR] [TD] A report by the Policy Exchange in 2010 estimated the total cost to society of smoking to be £13.74 billion. This includes the £2.7bn cost to the NHS but also the loss in productivity from smoking breaks (£2.9bn) and increased absenteeism (£2.5bn). Other costs include: cleaning up cigarette butts (£342 million), the cost of fires (£507m), the loss of economic output from the death of smokers (£4.1bn) and passive smokers (£713m).8 [/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] [TABLE] [TR] [TD]The Treasury earned £9.5 billion in revenue from tobacco duties in the financial year 2011-2012 (excluding VAT). 16 This amounts to 2% of total Government revenue. Including VAT at an estimated £2.6bn, total tobacco revenue was £12.1bn.17 [/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] oh and [TABLE] [TR] [TD]Cigarettes and other smoking materials are the primary cause of fatal accidental fires in the home and have claimed the lives of 1200 people in the UK over the past ten years. In 2010-11, smokers’ materials accounted for 96 deaths in Great Britain - over a third of all accidental dwelling fire deaths [/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] So it may be wise not to live too near to a smoker !

I have no problem with smokers choosing to damage their own health -- hugely increased risk of cancer, heart disease, emphysema, chronic bronchitis, impotence, kidney failure, macular degeneration blindness, gum disease, asthma, etc, -- and the law over smoking in public places has improved things for the rest of us signifcantly, so the risks from passive smoking are much reduced Of course smokers do still stink, but I suppose the rest of us just have to put up with that! (You may have guessed by now that I'm a non-smoker btw)

Didn't know there was anyone trying to do this. How far has she got? Why no publicity?