pap

Hear hear. I know that there is an element of "once you take the Queen's shilling, etc" with you Forces types. I'd also imagine that a good deal of you sign up because you genuinely love and believe in our country. Our forces deserve a damn sight better than being turned into bad guys by huge feck-off lies.

Yeah, but devil's advocate again, why do we REALLY give a f*ck about the Falklands? Got bugger all to do the islanders, imo - and all to do with the strategic placement plus the oil windfall we've just found.

Saddam was an amateur in the butchery department compared to the "shoot anything that moves" 2003 invasion force. The highest estimate of deaths attributed to Saddam over his entire tenure is just shy of 200K. US and UK intervention caused five times that number in three years.

Playing devil's advocate for a bit, would anyone be particularly happy if the Isle of Wight was loaded up with Argies?

Can't we just give them the Isle of Wight and call it quits?

He didn't have any at the time of the invasion. This was known, confirmed and corroborated ahead of time. Governments knowingly lied to get us to go to war. Leaving aside the huge death toll ( well over a million dead as a result of this war ), another huge problem with the aftermath of the invasion was the emergence of sectarian groups. Then let's not forget all the crap we've caught in the West as a result of surrendering any moral authority. Sorry, the "he was a bad man" thing doesn't square it for me. There are plenty of dictators that we have no problem cosying up to. Saudi Arabia, one of our biggest allies in the region, is a shockingly oppressive country. Their answer to the Arab Spring problem is to shoot protestors. We're not going after them, are we?

For the first 20 listens. Then it's sh!te

Getting into the Middle East has been on the agenda since the Iron Curtain collapsed, for tons of reasons. First off, we can't be approaching world peace. You people need an enemy. We can't really pick on anyone that can actually beat us, that'd be no fun either. It's also well worth remembering that a sizeable proportion of Bush Jr's government signed up to Rebuilding America's Defenses, a paper produced by right-wing think tank Project For a New American Century. Their stated aims were to get the US into multiple, simultaneous theatre wars and prevent any rival superpower ( e.g. China ) from emerging. Date of publication? September 2000. http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf

In news that'll shock no-one, the security services of both the US and UK were told by top sources that Iraq had "virtually nothing" in the way of WMD. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/18/panorama-iraq-fresh-wmd-claims Tonight's Panorama will focus on the issue. This just adds more fuel to the "Bush and pals wanted to invade Iraq before 9/11" argument, imo.

I dunno. I've worked with really positive people before. Can work out well on a short term basis, but can be bloody grating over the long term. As long as Poch balances it out with credit where it's due, don't see a problem.

We have let in an embarrassing number of embarrassing goals, full stop.

March 30 Chelsea Win April 6: Reading Lose April 13: West Ham Win April 20: Swansea Draw April 27: West Brom Draw May 4: Tottenham Win May 12: Sunderland Lose May 19: Stoke Win

Can't fault the blokes' timing or reasons. Easy to savour the victory in hindsight, but I'm sure I wasn't the only Saints fan unsure of whether we'd hang on to the lead at half-time. As he points out, needless too.

It's all explained in Star Wars. Cortese is like the Sith Lord. Darth Pochettino is his lethal apprentice. There are normally only two of them. The benefit of having a Sith Lord as chairman is that we have no 'leccy bill to pay, which I am sure MLG will confirm, and I'm sure is already reflected in the latest patch of Football Manager.

Still looking very tight on that last spot. We are by no means out of the mix. Wigan can get within a point of us if they win their game in hand. Teams above us could easily get pulled into that final relegation spot. Have to say, Reading were f**king mental to get rid of McDermott. After the way he pulled the Championship out of the bag last year, he's the only bloke I'd bank on to get them onto the sort of stupendous winning run required for survival. I think they are doomed, as too are QPR.

We only beat big teams these days. Easy is the problem

I'm getting really tiresome at this one joke, but I can't resist. Essruu has to scrimp and save. Poor bugger gets mugged off every time he buys technology

If only we knew someone who was 1) amazing at scoring goals from distance. 2) talking to the club We might have a good mentor for our Ads

I'm glad that this thread has been bumped. It's entirely justified. Once again, Boruc has done a great job between the sticks. What I like Boruc is that he's the perfect mix of "give a f*ck" and "don't give a f*ck". You can see he's passionate about winning. He really doesn't give a f*ck about who the opposition is. Kelv = superb servant and all that, but looks almost wracked by paralysis compared to Artur's "who are ya" attitude.

NA was in thrall to Liverpool FC. Check out this "Ask The Boss" interview. Start at 1:56, but I'd recommend checking out the whole video (the embedded bit is part 2).

I reckon they took that photo as he was reading one of his sets of predictions after the fact.

This fixture was huge for me when I lived in Southampton. It takes on extra significance when the missus is a scouser and one of the kids is an LFC fan. I thought we got battered in the away game. Liverpool hit the woodwork twice, iirc - the eventual scoreline really didn't reflect their dominance in the game. There can be no complaints about the scoreline today. Sat and watched the whole spectacle with ms pap, who is now not talking to me. This suits my "**** about for the rest of the day and read glowing appraisals of Saints' performance" agenda quite well. Excellent result, and if I may suggest, perhaps the best illustration of how MP differs from NA. The team had zero respect for Liverpool today, believed in victory from the start and as they often do when everything clicks, made an in-form team look ordinary.

Oi. I'm not constantly wrong. I admit when I'm wrong. There's a difference

They say you get more right wing as you get older But I agree.

It's called ransomware. Basically, they overwrite the boot routine on your PC, put a scary graphic up saying they've caught you downloading bombs on the internet ( or something similarly scary ) and say that of all things, a small fine will make it go away. It's a load of crap. My daughter's machine was infected this way. People who make this sort of software are scumbags, worse than the scam artists who phone you up to tell you that you have "numerous errors" on your computer.