dubai_phil

New season. Prediction - this is easy, we're Saints. Lousy start, will drop what we think are stupid points in the first 5 or 6 games leaving us a mountain to climb and another year of moaning negativity & whingeing. Couple of loan signings in January will help cement a damn fine run to the end of the season where we will scrape into the playoffs but have hundreds of threads where NA has to go for only making playoffs and renowned posters will have posted threads about giving up on supporting Saints. See, it's easy, just cut & paste from the past 30 odd years

Nope. I am - my fecking a/c blew up again at 11pm last night 3rd time in a week - that's warm I can tell ya. The train of thought has to be more specific otherwise as Verbal says we really would go off into UFO land. The actual question is simple - why did this all come to light now? This mess has been (according to one report today) 11 years in the making, and the information went to the Police in January. All I do is look at who possibly benefits, it's a train of thought underpins each possible scenario. At the end of the day, all the other thought processes removed. Taken at face value it is great investigative journalism by the Guardian, and with a pinch of salt as large as the cynical questions I have posed, the timing really could have been simply down to the fact that the Journo had everything ready to go. So on this basis, we are expected to believe that the timing and impact on the BSB takeover is simply a co-incidence. Fair enough, that might actually be the case, although for me I think Bexy's Babe just landed on my balcony. There is to me, a simple and easy to understand conclusion to the why NOW question - "it APPEARS to have been leaked deliberately by someone to cause the maximum damage to the Gov announcement on the BSB takeover (the date for submissions was last week)". But equally as the story keeps unfolding I question my own opinion/assumption and look for other reasosn Was it a co-incidence) (who else could benefit) we are DAILY seeing other possible harm and benefits to many parties in the mess The fate of football hangs on this if News Corp goes pop? Don't be daft, outside of the UK there are many other Broadcasters who would simply LOVE to get into the UK market. Abu Dhabi Media Group have global aspirations, are opening a global Sky News Arabic operation down here, they'd LOVE the chance to pick up NI's share of BSB in a fire sale of assets? You'd have adverts for Etihad running every 10 minutes... Hmm another line of possibilities

Yes but they occured in the period 2003 - 2007 and WERE investigated. People WERE jailed Badly it seemed at the time and by the Police's own admission. Again Cynic - is this all an attempt to hide "someone who knew more about this than has been said" or is it all truly altruistic Pullitzer Prize winning Journalism. Just stay sceptical, that's all. So much more to come and so many new ideas to throw around

Ok for the simples. Here's another possible idea. News Corp leaks the information BECAUSE they know how bad it will be and want it all done and out in a few months rather than hanging over a multi-billion US listed company for the next xxx years. Maybe Large corporations try and run damage limitation exercises. Hell the UK media have a track record of being Outraged for days and sometimes even weeks, then they move on. This "scandal" could bring down a $35billion empire. Is it ot right to be at least sceptical or at worst cynical about everything that comes out? You guys are the big losers at the moment - share price in Billion dollar company plunges 10% - ha guess what - non Public sector workers just got ANOTHER hole in their savings/Pension plans.

Do you really think that someone With an Axe to Grind Financial benefit to be made In competition with them Hates Cameron Opposed to their takeover Did not instigate this? Again go back to the FACTS. NOWT supplied 11,000 pages of information to the Police in January 2011. It is now July. Why did the story break THIS month? Why did the story not break in January? Then look at the posts you so clearly have not read. Not ONE person has said "Oh this is obviously a plan to save money" People have used the words "IF" and "Thinking About" and "Cynic". They are ALL rhetorical QUESTIONS The reason we are in this mess is because of muppets who do not stop and wonder what the feck is going on when they read something in the paper. Jesus, are you denying that even the POLICE are questioning WHY and WHO is leaking this stuff and WHAT THEIR MOTIVATIONS ARE? So are we.

It's a great question Bexy. I've been very "cynical" about this for some time. Jeez. back in 93 I left home and came to this weird place with censored media and no Sky or Beeb in those days. It was almost 6 months before I came back home. I went to the pub and the lads wanted to know what this place was like so I told the tales. They then started to ask me questions - what did I think about Charles & Diana? They mentioned celebs I had not heard about. It seemed weird - we actually had a falling out about it. Over the years on my trips home I noticed a couple of really weird traits about "Brits" that I honestly never noticed before. First of all many (hell most) conversations seemed to be about "other people", there is a fascination for Gossip. Very few ladies talked about what they were doing in their lives but talked about "other people". It was really weird going to the pub and being asked for my opinion about what some (celeb I had never heard of) was doing. I had a real row one night when I said who the feck is Jordan and why the feck are you all talking about HER? What about YOU? what have you done these past 6 months. Is it that the Brits have become SO obseesed with Celebs? Has the Nation really become E! focused? Who caused this? Big Brother? Was it's success because society in UK were only worried about what other people were doing to the extent that they stopped having their own lives? Was it because life in UK was so dull people needed an escape? OR was it the media that fed that sea change in society in the past 18 years? Could anyone imagine what life could have been like if you had NOT worried about who was snorting Coke or ****ging someone & you got headlines about "News"? Well the simple answer is - there would be no papers as nobody would read them Whatever it is, the "Public" wanted gossip, the media gave it by whatever means they felt necessary. I've posted before that the scandal says a great deal about society in general. I got pasted by many for that. But if some good comes out of this then the media will change, impose the existing laws, jail the wrong doers. What they shouldn't do is gag the press.

Thanks for your valued input into the thread. Also Specsavers are quite helpful, may assist you to read the word Cynical questions in all of the posts about this. Anyway go back and do some research. The documents were handed to Police in January. They relate to events starting 8 years ago. It is now July. Just ask yourself why this week? Don't need an opinion, nobody can know what the hell is going on, just have a question in your mind and show you have a brain.

Post 417. I didn;t want to use the T word but FFS if we get evidence of treason on Day TWO of the "Worse to come" era, what the hell else is coming out?

Think the basics of the story are that Barry had a backer. It was supposed to be a Middle East Sheikh working through a front company He contacted some (used to be prominent) members of the old TSF about his backers. Perhaps he was trying to cultivate public support, possibly trying to get Rupert's phone number. More likely in hindsight he was trying to set up another fake sheikh story. Anyway, the lads were suckered in and posted all of their updates live on the old TSF forum. The whole debacle when it was discovered to be Barry was embarrassing as hell for the lads, but other events then moved to reduce the abuse & possibly their pain & we ended up with a coup anyway. Somewhere in the middle of all of this, Paul Allen came along. Turned out (after a bit of research from Saints fans over here) that the company he was claiming to represent in Dubai didn't exist. The guys were drummed out of the world of Internet forums forever and Saints went bust anyway. Strangely, these revelations tonight start to make that whole story have a small amount of reality. Could it really have been an attempt to stitch Rupert up? Back in those days he was "somebody within the FA".... Nah surely that stretches cynicism too far........ But lol wonder if he recorded the conversations? Were the lads at that time hacked? - there's an idea to PMSL to sleep with

I can assure you that from my position as his close friend, personal advisor and bodyguard that Tiger is not there this week. He's booked for Karaoke on Friday down at Rock Bottom, a couple of Bullfrogs then off to the York Hotel for relationship counselling. As you all know he is a huge Saints fan following his time walking with the Sash Shirt, but felt his sore knee couldn't cope with the training regime this year.

Music is simple. You are hip cool trendy and in when you "have a moment". Then if you try and make that moment into a career then you are first mainstream then arrgh Dinner Party. Take Lady Gaga - she (hmm) had a moment at Glastonbury couple of years back and became wow. Heck even my Indie Son & Emo Trash Metal Son loved her. Now - arrgh run away burn the witch, she was on American Idol FFS Wanna know what is right & cool? It's the music you would play if you had a country road to yourself, on a moonlit night, with just you & your stereo playing and no speed cameras or worries about other cars and could just drive and drive and drive to glorious music that you love. Sod being trendy. Oh and the whole being buggered thing at the end - no problem - whole range of choice of music, starting from The Village People through to well loads of cliches

And a cynic would wonder where the hell David Cameron was all day today.... Supposed to meet the Dowler parents, Questions in the House........ And would probably come up with a damned good guess Perhaps time for Ed to don a tin helmet methinks - OK Rupes we'll help out with the deal let it keep bubbling away you just do this. Oh, and as a favour, could you.... you know re-aim some of the artillery shells by any chance? Oh that's great thanks.

No, surely not. FF get your act together we need that new recent history book written! Doesn't know who Barry the Briefcase was :lol: He's as legendary as Paul Allen, Yachts & Earlobes

UK Gov will not kill NI. Wall street will kill it. Post Enron days means that all US registered companies are tied in to Corporate Responsibility & Processes. One rogue operation breaking those rules could really burn the parent. The only out for them is that a lot of the allegations relate bck to 2003 before SOX became fully implemented. UK Gov will be like a small annoying Mosquito bite. Wall St & US Corporate Legislation - now that is where to go after them. Start to look for the articles on Succession Planning - when Analysts really turn against Rupert's Choice the battle lines will be drawn. Wall Street wants Independent new Management in...

Hey I got stick for the concept, but needed to find some links that show this could still be about money. Meanwhile - won't have to worry so much about all this soon, looks like Italy are gonna go bust thanks to Silvio's dabbling (Oh there's another high level paragon of virtue). Kaboom

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1310691/Smuggling-plot-man-disappears-from-court.html Long history by the looks of things Have to wonder about the corporate oversight that allows such a man to be retained by a major publication or of course this could be a big co-incidence

No, I have never said that, it would be libellous. In fact your post may be libellous as well. I have always advised the readers that the group owned by Antonov have a long track record in sport in Russia & The Baltics. In fact I pointed out that when Bompey rejected their bid last year, they used that budget to invest in the sponsorship of an F1 Race Team. All I have ever said is that the Net Wealth statement is co-incidentally close to the loan figure. 400 mil Euros 350 mil pounds. Why don't you ask your close contact at the club for a copy of the CSI Corporate Powerpoint Presentation so that you can see the information for yourself?

And of course totally co-incidentally, the BSB share price has now dropped well below the last offer value. Saved Murdoch around a billion. Damned smart piece of business that, hell if this runs on for a year before he is cleared (with that much money involved anyone want to take a bet?) he could be billions in the pocket. No not an opinion, just another thought that a cynic COULD come up with.

Just a technical point of note. All this DID arise under a Labour Government... As in everything so far relates to 2003 - 2009 ish. I said it earlier, glass houses and stone throwing right now is just moronic from all sides, this crosses all party boundaries, the utter lack of any moral standards in the search for "The Story" seems to spread across much of the media as well as well as seeing how simple it is to corrupt people. let's all just stick to the "outraged" and "horrified" to watch the train wreck. Where it will stop and when, nobody knows. Again, if it was SO easy to obtain confidential information on a senior Government Minister, what the HELL do we pay our Security Services to do?

So the Editor of the time had information. That information came from where? And yet she had no knowledge of it's source? This keeps going then Rupert Murdoch could be in real trouble for so publicly backing her. That leads to contagion in News International and into Wall Street. There was worse to come. No sh1t Sherlock

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/phone-hacking/8630482/News-of-the-World-scandal-deliberate-campaign-to-undermine-inquiry-say-police.html OK so my version of a leaking on purpose conspiracy was off target (obviously) but now the Police say someone is deliberately leaking information to screw up their investigation......

It's been one of my bugbears and standard defences in the past few years that the UK is as corrupt as any potential Banana Republic. But the story that really worries me today is this one http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/phone-hacking/8629461/News-of-the-World-closed-down-July-10-as-it-happened.html This just asks So many other "Cynic in me" questions, not least of which is who else has been "bought". Surely, if a close member of the Royal family security service can be "bought" for so little money then what the hell could other agencies or God forbid, Foreign Intelligence Services have bought access to over the years? Oh and the Internal Business Process. Been waiting for evidence of that one. Again it had been bugging me (oops) as to how low level Journos could have run around with thousands of pounds in brown paper envelopes that belonged to a Large Multi-National Corporation - either they filed forged or false receipts or somebody HAD to sign off on the spending.... And somebody MUST have put receipts into the system to get past end of year audits. Or did they pay off the Auditors as well?

There are some on here who will rejoice tonight at having upset Hypo...... But not me of course

Ah ha I have cracked it! It's quite clear now from his perfectly constructed re-writing of history by focusing only on one small snippet of information and ignoring the other 475,652 snippets. I know where Corpy used to work. Clearly he is a former NOWT executive

What is obviously needed is a mechanism to take the kids on from Academy level until they are ready for the first team. Some kids develop mentally & physically at an early age, some don't come into their own until they hit their mid-twenties. Oh wait we had someone special brought in for just that job ages ago. Whatever happened to him?