Ken Tone

My god! Have you got a hidden camera in my room?

Don't tell Turkish there is not much of a dress code, or he'll set one up. He's obsessed with clothes! (Personally, as I write this I have on a rather nice satin velvet smoking jacket in an understated midnight blue.)

It's not always easy to get work back in the UK after a long spell abroad. Don't underestimate the effort you'll need to make to sell yourself.

Depends on whether any of the quoted figure takes tax into account this time! PFC has a convenient habit of forgetting details like that.

That he's just a ****ing patrician, who already knows his place ?

An interesting approach. Killing makes the few survivors healthier! It's a bit like saying we should kill lots of people in Africa to reduce malaria, which it probably would do, but I doubt that this would be seen as a sensible or humane way of achieving this. (I am not of course suggesting that badgers are as important as people, merely drawing an extreme analogy to make the point)

Another link worth reading http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jun/25/badger-cull-high-court-challenge?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487 As I said before if there is clear evidence to support a cull as being effective, then fair enough, but it would appear that there is only opinion, not universally accepted fact. Also intersting that the Welsh goverment has changed from a planned cull to a policy of vaccination, citing 'scientific evidence' as their reason -- though of course those in favour of culling, dispute the evidence and sayinit was realy a political decision. As I said there is no universally accepted fact.

The early season home game against Leeds when we walked all over them and their arrogant, deeply unpleasant, fans started singing 'what the **** is going on?' is still a sweet memory.

The debate here is surely whether or not a cull will actually achieve a significant decrease in bovine TB? If that were universally accepted, I think nearly everyone would say go ahead. But there is no accepted fact here and indeed much (most?) of the scientific evidence suggests that a cull will not be effective. Some evidence even suggest it will make matters worse as it will cause movement of the remaining badger population into fresh areas .It is a political decision, not a scientific one.

From where do you get this idea that badgers are rare in Scotland? The only live ones I've ever seen were in Scotland! http://www.snh.org.uk/publications/on-line/wildlife/badgersanddevelopment/biology.asp DISTRIBUTION AND STATUS Britain is a stronghold of the Eurasian badger, which occurs from Ireland and Iberia in the west, through continental Europe and Asia, to Japan in the east. Although Scotland does not support the high densities of badgers that are to be found in the south-west of England, the species is quite common particularly in the lower-lying, more fertile parts of the country. While the Scottish badger population overall is probably stable, there are areas where badgers appear to be on the increase. There are no accurate figures for the total population in Scotland, but it has been estimated to be around 25,000.

Lol. Ah, "the fundamental interconnectedness of all things." (Douglas Adams this time!)

Beliefs in coalition that they didn't have in the Lib-Lab days? A pact to help a minority goverment for the short term would have been a far greater brake on Tory policies than this coalition has been, because every extreme policy would have been subject to review, but of course it wouldn't have given Clegg the trappings of power as deputy prime minister- nor perhaps lost his party 4 million votes?

What would you know? You're just a pleb!

What I felt the LibDems should have done was to help form an interim government for a short time not agree a formal coalition fixed for 5 years regardless. In other words, to do more like they did in the days of the Lib-Lab pact. Without the LibDem part of the coalition we would not have had a conservative government is the point. They did not have a majority.

(very much snipped) I've met quite a few government ministers and shadow ministers, including Clegg, in my job and of course nearly all of them come across as decent and interested. That's how they get elected! I'm afraid being in politics corrupts morally. They all end up making so many compromises and having to pretend they believe in stuff that they don't, that after a while they either get out because they can't take it --- or they go on to become very convincing liars!

Of course he only said that about being sceptical well after the event.. not at the time.

Well I speak as someone who was previously a fairly regular LibDem voter..... As far as I am concerned, Clegg sold the country, and his party, down the river for a 'mess of potage' in the form of a ministerial car and a bit of reflected glory as Cameron's lapdog. Has no credibility whatsoever. I cannot see me ever voting Lib Dem again whilst he is in charge --- if ever, in fact, because I don't see that many of the others who've enjoyed playing at being in government, at the cost of all principle, are much better.

Just realised that at least Dickens learnt from his time in Portsmouth..... It's no satisfaction to be done by two men instead of one. One's enough. A person who can't pay, gets another person who can't pay, to guarantee that he can pay - Mr Pancks, the rent collector, squeezes the residents of Bleeding Heart Yard in 'Little Dorrit'

Too busy trying to get my posts through on there! Only had 3 or 4 so far!

it wil be interesting to see how he tries to mend his relationship with chainrai after portpin take over. He has rather stuck his neck out lately. Will the News want to keep employing a reporter who is not allowed anywhere near the club?

It would be such a pity if they were then copied on to POL !

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.