dubai_phil

You are only as old as the Woman you feel. But having helped OldNick lift that Garden Chair out his van yesterday my back is telling me something very different. Still the pint he bought made it feel better Oh and a bit older than OldNick and a bit younger than EoA since you asked

Having spent 3 weeks back home I watched the telly and remembered all the things that made me dislike being home. Simply put what got me angry was some muppet female teacher bemoaning her lot in life. Oh dear, she has to work to 66 now. Hello, what happened to EQUALITY? Or the simply fact in the papers that the head of the Union running the strike gets 27k a year in Pension contributions, compared to the Teachers on 22k a year? Or the very, very VERY basic simple fact of life - Everyone I met in the Private Sector has spent the past 4 years being screwed on No pay rises or in most cases pay CUTS, their Pensions have massive holes in them so they have to work until they are 90 or so IF they can keep their job OR their employer doesn't go bust. Hell, there is a recession. You lot were all guilty with your big mortgages and credit card billls and stupid Fire Station Centres & Aircraft Carriers you couldn't afford and that moron raiding the pension funds and selling off your Gold for peanuts. Don't go on strike, go find that Scottish imbecile and get HIM to pay your pension personally - HE's the one who fecked it all up

Having had the "delight" of flying back home with BA today I have to say that I think FF is actually better off out of there. Something like 10 years ago they seemedto care about customers and staff and made profits, and yet something went sour when they moved their local offices and went all Asian call centres and on-line only. I still wait for a reply to my 16 polite complaint letters about them costing me 4 grand (which they always acknowledged but never responded to - even IF itw as to say I was wrong) And today we spent an hour sitting on the tarmac with 280 people onboard a plane waiting for 3 passengers..... Who supposedly turned out to be BA Management who were going to a conference and had got stuck in traffic. FF It may be hard now but in reality you have the chance of a lifetime - go find something that is FUN for a change

I had far bigger fish to fry... I was in Poland getting engaged :-) (A story in itself that owes a debt of lolage & gratitude to this forum that I'll share once I fix my A/C here) Then I was in the mud at Glasto BUT - I have to admit I did spend 45 minutes in Poorsmuff on my way back from dropping off my Glasto Glamper Van. The few will be fine for a few weeks until the Carson Yeung earthquake settles down and then....

I watched U2 on Telly on Monday night, and from that I would agree. Think was if you describe it as concert then I'd say it was meh. But half way back with the sound & lights just washing over you while you sang along to all their greatest hits. At Glasto I just thought it was astonishing that Chris Martin could say oh feck it I've fecked that up and forgotten the words, stop (twang clang bang) let's do that again...No idea if that got broadcast but I'd expect that to happen at an Amy Winehouse gig, not Coldplay pressed the red button this morning before we went to Heathrow to fly home and caught Bellowhead again. Great sound and look forward to hearinga lot more of them (and Elbow)

Coldplay V U2? Coldplay at Abu Dhabi were the greatest gig I will ever see. At Glasto? Nowhere near as good and Chris forget the words in one song swore and started again. U2 was not a concert, it was an experience half way up that hill

Got back at 6am having left Van field at 4:30. Amazing weekend simply had everything, hypothermia on Wed night, the Rain, 1,500 or more different types of mud and then sunburns & heatstrokes. Best Elbow, U2, Bellowhead, 2 Door Cinema Club, The Wombats Worst QOTSA, Big Audio Dynamite, Anna Calvi (just meh music when not in the mudbath of the tent I guess) Special mention to - Yep the fecking Wombles, great daft moment and also a surprisingly pleasant afternoon with Duanne Eddy & the Pulp Guitar bloke And also to the Villa Fans with the Hate McLeish flag - lol GF & mate loved it can't believe gotta wait 2 years again Full report & some pics of mud next week

I'm in Poland Weather is perfect But feck it has got expensive compared to last year, reckon the exchange rate has chaged by almost 20% against pound & dollar. also having promised cheap smokes to mates back home they are now almost half the price of the UK which is a big jump. Oh and anyone going on holiday? Stansted Airport - I mean WTF? The whole Ryanair cabin baggage Nazi's pales into insignifigance compared to the dumb fooks trying to pass through airport security. 45 minutes it took, not ONE person in formt had taken their liquids out their bags despite being told at least 10 times... arrgggh not good when you have a 75 year old with you who is already stressed to hell about flying STill, the beer is good and I have discovered Zubrowca now make a Crystal Platinum Filtered Vodka. Oh that is nice, it is very nice

Well, I picked a ripper for my holiday.... Foocking Salisbury for Thursday - Sunday. WTF have you people done to the weather? What was Sunday all about? OK I know I said I was looking forward to getting out of the heat of Dubai, but really, It's fecking JUNE for fecks sake! Anyway now in Poland the sun shines you can eat proper unpoisoned food and there is beer, lots and lots and lots of beer

Oh thanks gang, brought a smile to my face this morning. Not having innernet access while on hols is pretty grim, so glad to see that there were 4 pages of even more classic this morning Snottrill off to Brum Charging their disabled fsans 4 times for tickets The Daily Snail article. Keep it coming peeps, helps the Zywiec flow down perfectly Nostrovia

45 minutes before head to the Airport to begin the long tour that will end at Glasto. Jeez these past few weeks have dragged on, now it is getting close. Really really cannot wait! oh sh1t better pack then.

Think I've been quite lucky. Both my boys were into Rock & "Indie Guitar Band" type music, youngest played in an Emo band for a while ARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHH, but they'd leave their CD's in the car, Blur, Placebo, Blink 182, Linkin Park, White Lies, The National, The Subways and would actually happily run around the town with all their mates in the car belting out Hall & Oates or Genesis's Greatest Hits if I left one of mine in the car. The middle son is always pinging me links to new bands, and in fact helped my DJ buddy create a new (finally) play list for the Dubai Rugby 7's about 4 years back as we all threatened to kill him if he ever played Amarillo/Delilah again so we had the tourists all singing Chelsea Dagger by The Fratelli's and all the old expats going WTF? Youngest's mates caught me & EoA in the Mosh pit at The Subways gig thought that was funny as fook - are they as good as the Punk bands of my day? No way BUT they were good and enjoyable to listen to. Again, middle son pinged an email across 2 weeks ago with a list from the Glasto sets for me to suss out. So I do maintain that there is great stuff out there, you just have to find it. (Oh and also I have noticed that a hell of a lot of bands at the moment list Joy Division, as an influence. Trust me that ain't no bad thing for an Old New Order fan!)

Dear Lord how to these people manage to even type?

So an old fart... Looks at this year's Glasto Line up. I've heard of about 8 bands out of 350 or so. So I started googling. I find to my surprise I had actually seen about 10 of the bands at Glasto. I do more and watch MTV for a couple of days, turns out I know around 30 of the bands/acts and they actually play really great music U2, Morrisey, Big Audio Dynamite, the Guillemots, Metronomy, Mike Posner, Coldplay, White Lies, Friendly Fires, Queens of the Stone Age, Kaiser Chiefs, The Vaccines, Noisettes, Foster the People, The Wombats, Pendulum, Elbow. Almost all of those have a new album out at the moment, but apart from Coldplay & U2 I reckon NONE of them get played on local radio down here. How fecking catchy sing a long is the Wombats "Tokyo" - nobody here has heard of it. When I last went 2 years back I found myself in a tent when a band came on and the crowd went totally nuts after two notes leaping in the air and singing every word to a song I had never heard before. They were La Roux. I came back told my Hypnotist buddy who used to be a DJ to get his mates to check them out - whoosh all over the radio & they were the local number one in days..... So basically the DJ's/radio stations have software now. Most of the software is made in the US. It creates automated playlist based on a either the Top 40 or Billboard 100. They have very little idea during the day what is being picked by the computer from the MP3 files. Want to listen to music? give up the radio, google, you Tube or go to Jango (or I think Spotify) type in the name of a band you like and it will give you music of that similar nature all day long - far better than listening to the sh1te on the radio

ratatatatat. Oh yeah remember that. I remeber being a complete mess by the time our bus got to the game. think we stopped in Gent (sp) Came out the bar at some obscure time as some sewage truck was emptying a tank - something like 20 of us chundered in unison at the smell. Remember the krap stadium & terracing stuck up by the corner flag Remember being searched for booze as we got on the bus & someone talking to the driver which ended up with us stopping at an off licence Think we played cards all the way across on the ferry. No idea what happened on the way back think I remember opening an eye & seeing Kent then sleeping again and finding it was time to drive back from the Dell Car Park or somewhere nearby. Or did the Bus go back to Salisbury? Ouch

There is a lot of utter garbage being released today IMHO. But there are also a huge amount of really great songs and artistes as well. Think it depends what Radio station you listen to. If I had to judge on "UAE radio" I'd agree wholeheartedly as all they play down here is R&B Hip Hop & Justin Bieberesque stuff. But when you go deeper there are some good songs even in that genre. And House comes in many forms and even at our age in the right place at the right time with your mates after beers getting your hands in the air and dancing like a dad to House can be great. Just IMHO that stuff shouldn't be on every radio station. The 60's and 70's used to have one hit wonders as well you know :-) Just need to be selective How long have Coldplay been going? Kings of Leon even? Beyonce (arrgh) has actually been going for ages (and should have known better than her latest garbage) Madge has been out Madged by Gaga and she ain't going away in a hurry, her new album is a really good mix of styles Please note, the post was an intense attempt to avoid sounding like my Dad in the mid-late 70's, which the OP managed to do.

So think I mention some time ago was getting IP advice on stuff from future son-in-law. Found out today what really "important" job a good industry mate of his is now doing Must buy extra beers when I see him next week

So, what could be happening down the road. Analysing the fact that the Russkies are Bankers, what is most likely to happen is that somehow the Russkies would pay with some form of Bank Instrument - can't see it being cash, they wouldn't need to move that. So Chinny gets some form of paper that he can then place into a bank and have converted maybe a Bond? he gets a piece of paper, gets that turned into his money then steps back and walks away thinking "that was a close one". Maybe that paper has some time line on it, certain things have to happen in certain order - no idea but watching the Banks send us all boobs up I'm sure it's all paper to start with, so maybe Chinny keeps his hand on the mortgage deeds (more paper) Anyway the thing is some bank moves a piece of paper to another bank and Chinny gets the equivalent of a loan fully guaranteed by the piece of paper. (ie walks away with cash no questions asked) Move a piece of paper worth 30 mil out of Russia. Not that hard for these experts I would guess. 4 weeks later sell the club for 3mil cash to a scrap dealer. Perfect. They've turned a piece of paper into cash thank you very much and can afford to fill their McLaren F1 motor up with gas for another year. Won't be how it is but won't be far off conceptually. All we need now is someone on here who understands global banking systems and tradeable papers.

No it wouldn't be funny at all it would be the final straw Why? because it would leave the lot of us on here in need of extensive medical & psychological help. Do you have ANY idea how much damage banging your head on a computer keybaord in bouts of hysterical laughter can do? And what about the water damage to our laptops from the floods of tears? No please, this week has been crazy enough, PLEASE we can't take it anymore!

Got the info on it today it's a Fiat Mooveo based on a Fiat Ducato only the 3/4 berth so is 6m x 2.2m ain't no Winnebago! Again thanks for all this guys will leave EoA to google them all - I got packing to do (THANK FOOK! At last out of the sweat box! tomorrow night)

Nah, course not - you have ANY idea how much being a golfing legend pays for 5 days a year? Feck All:-)

Cheers for that looks promising Hopefully the plan is for 21st but still working on it!

Hi guys help I have to buy EoA a pint of proper English Beer for lunch in a couple of weeks. He's gonna be based close to Southampton International, & I'm bringing my Glasto Wagon up from the rental place up the fishy end of the M27. Not knowing that area these days, anywhere that does lunches, easy to get to by train from Eastleigh station (he won't have wheels) and from the M27 for me that has a decent sized carpark ? cheers And yes Hammy I'll buy the 2nd for you.

George Lawrence was described by the coaching staff at the Dell as "The Greatest Footballer since Pele................. from the shoulders down"

Yep Unfortunately Deppo got the URL ownership first