dubai_phil

Like anyone is gonna care outside of the Arab world, as there won't be many real fans going to stay in the 5 Star Hotels at $500+ per night

I thought they were already under contract, and that the terms of those contracts meant that they were due a pay rise after completing so many games. What Poopey then did was to offer NEW contracts, without the pay rise clause and a lower salary figure in the hope that the two players would show loyalty. The two players effectively stuck two fingers up, leaving Poopey screwed. The contracts will remain in place and the players can sit there until someone comes knocking with an offer to pay them a decent wage to play football. My assessment is that nobody will offer them what they are currently on to sit around at home and so 1) Poopey have two wage earners they cannot afford to play and 2) if the players don't get a deal they like from someone else thay can sit around until the end of their contracts. poopey's only option is to cancel their contracts - which means they have to be paid up. Net result IMHO would be that they just destroyed ANY chance of getting a fee for the two. Any buying club would have to pay the remainder of their contracts (a lot I expect) and then take them on a free. Great news

Ah bless, let the p1ss taking begin

This. Almost an entrant for great movie lines "I can't believe I said Lesbian"

Oh NOOOOOOO! Don't tell me Pulis is BACK. FFS I thought we'd finally seen the back of him. What odds he's on the bench Saturday then - cover for AoC?

Cook is a no brainer. Anderson in runner up spot. Best bowling performance for donkeys years, kept to the plan and led the attack so well that nobody really noticed that we ended the series with 2 of our first choice attack not playing. The REAL tough question will be in the summer Tests Stuart Broad. Who do you leave out? Finn (probably) Bresnan? Has bowled superbly to stifle them Tremlett? Has he become a real Test Bowler? After all he hasn't had much to bowl at quality wise

Strangely you may be coming to the right place then. I quote a former Emirates Hostess "Men in Dubai are like Toilets. They are either full of sh1t or engaged" So yes, there are around 3,000 single female aircrew now with Emirates, all as fed up of the b**sters as we are of finding something interesting to talk to them about. The good thing about them is they fly so much their average attention span is around 3 days. I kid you not, the number one never fails chat up line when talking to them is "So what do you do in Dubai?" "I work for Emirates" "Oh what do they do?" Sorted. they can start to tell you all about their day and after 15 minuted of listening they'll tell you that you aren't like all the other guys in town and whoosh. Why does it work? Because all the rest of us just glaze over at the thought of hearing yet another load of "Tales from The Mumbai Turnaround"

No, it is The York International Hotel in Khalid Bin Waleed Street. A legend and a great night out. The Dubai Massive were last there en masse about 4 months back. It has declined slightly of late as they no longer have a live band on, but still worthy of a stop over on the tour Already indicated we will tour the Dark Side, and the York is but one small cog in that wheel. The York has the best all round fusion takeaway menu, Mariners Bar in The Seaview has the best Music (in the whole of Dubai) but relies on Chinese Cuisine and Rattlesnake (at The Metropolitan) has the best Compromise between dining out and music. Then there are the less well publicised parts of Deira where you can range from SE Asian takeaway menus at less than a tenner through to the delights of the more advance cuisine of the former Soviet Socialist Republic at the likes of the InterCon & Sheraton.

I just want to add one point to my "qualification" as a Saints fan. My Grandmother was from Southampton. So, although I was brought up in the arms of The Salisbury Saints Massive from the age of 8 and a bit, I do actually, under FIFA regulations, qualify as a fully fledged Saints fan. And I still think it is unfair to try and call some of us Non-fans simply because we used to have to stand at the front of the Chocolate Boxes in order to see anything from the age of about 13 when we were no longer allowed our Milk Crates.

Check you dates carefully. The stupid big Horse Race with no gambling (Dubai World Cup) is at the end of the month (26th). All very nice if you want to blow cash on Champers at 100 quid a bottle but the flights & hotel prices go up. My lad should be over at the start of March for 2 weeks so that should mean we can rummage up about 5 or 6 Saints fans for a tour of the Dark Side (and yes, GF's/Wife etc will enjoy it)

Ah, agent talk. Haven't heard that for a while.

This Think like many players (eg Guly & AOC) he has developed this season and will continue to do so. We have "finished articles at this level" in our team in Hammond, Butterfield & to an extent Lambert (so far this year). The players you ship out are the ones that do not improve with each game OR you know you have found better. Jaidi isn't gioing to get any better, he isn't going to get faster but he will continue to do a job in games this year. Seabourne has a long way to go yet but then so does AoC & Guly in terms of learning and becoming more reliable. But if we've found another Fonte then ciao Dan.

Think most of Woy's problems stem from the big signing of Paul Konchesky. Bit like us selling a Crouchie & getting a Fuller. But he inherited rubbish and didn't do enough wheeling dealing in the summer to get even the beginning of a balanced squad

He was playing against West Ham. Reading the match reports their defence seemed about as focused as an Aussie batsman. Best scored 3 goals - well done to the lad. The reports also say that he was "completely unmarked" for all 3 of them. So either he developed a superhuman talent to shrug off markers in the box or he had a good day at the office. Likewise with AP. He's gone, good luck to him. Other managers have left/been fired don't see so many debates about Dave Jones, 'Arry and others. AP is a PL manager. If he lasts longer than 18 months he will have done a good job up there. But he isn't going to win the title, and Cashlessly doesn't have the funds to take them into the CL. For AP in their first season back up, staying up and keeping hold of Carroll would be a success. Next year the muppet fans up there will be demanding his sacking beacuase they aren't challenging for 4th place. And Best will be back on the bench having had his moment and being a Squad player, which is IMHO all he ever will be at that level

Will be up there with the "Dominant" footballer of BTL as all time legendary posts

Wow, that was a nice way to start the day. Cup of coffee, turn on telly and Tremlett gets two in two balls, to see Aussies struggling at 170ish for 7 - then look to the side and see the trails by figure. Brain goes WTF, starts to try and do the math and suddenly says we got 600 PLUS? Massive lolage then for the final half hour as the Aussie taters trying to find SOMETHING positive to say. Squashed like a bug, no wonder the Barmy Army were singing. Great effort boys. Highest England Score in Australia and Anderson & Tremlett make the ball look like a Boomerang on the same pitch. Think the Aussies should stick to playing Kenya & Holland in Test matches for a while until they get some confidence back in order to give us a game

http://www.keylimesailingclub.com/ Acoomodation is a bunch of converted outbuildings & old garages, but the one I stayed in was 2 bedrooms with kitchenettte & bbq. Each pad comes with a 20 something foot sailing boat and you can book lessons - was zipping around like an Olympic Yachter within a day. Great American Diner at the top of the lane for Breakfast and Publix up the road for beer & muchies and then all the whole chillaxness. But this is THE best chillax place I've found on Phuket, small bungalows on the side of a cliff each surrounded by forest. http://www.centarahotelsresorts.com/ckv/ckv_default.asp But Miami is 9 hours and then an hour for immigration, Phuket is 15 hours away and 7 hours of time zone change. Key Largo is a 7 day trip, Phuket 7-9 days with 3 days in Bangkok to get the trip out the system, which is NOT what the OP really wanted. Dubai this time of year does have it's good side now that the Daily Snail crew & Property Luvvies have all run home to mummy crying about how they've been stitched up by buying property here. A mix of Al Aqha & downtown Bur Dubai will be a great trip. (Which is why I was outta here most of December)

Lol AP puts the final nail in Avram Grunts' coffin Blackburn can turn Woy over without Ronaldinho, perhaps Comoli was looking at a new CB - Fonte

Key Lime Sailing Club in Key Largo, about an hour's drive away. If I was in UK and wanted a chill out winter sun holiday I'd go back there in a shot

On the subject of Male Grooming. Dennis Healey. The man that inspired all of us to get our ears waxed, eyebrows trimmed and have facials. Legend

Well, he had PL experience playing for us. Everton away wasn't it?

Totally distracted, was yacking with the GF about a Stephen King book she should read, went onto Wiki to try and find it and somehow it seems almost all his titles fit our story. My apologies. Won't happen again. Un til my New Year's resolution gets broken & I get back on the Cab Sav) Wow so the swear filter now blocks a word that means "up to the time that or when"

You may think that BTF, but I could not possibly comment

Local telly here has a summary show with McAffrey & Chris Cairns (who talks a lot more sense than the main commentators) Couple of points he made - when the Aussies were in their prime they intimidated the opposition and also the umpires, they (NZ) felt they were done by 10 bad decisions to 2 in one series. The Aussie's have become so used to everything going their way, that now the decisions are pretty much even they don't like it. 2nd one was about the SCG pitch, he made the point (again) that it really does tend to do weird stuff on the last day of tests and that batting for 2 sessions and facing 150 has seen many teams turned over. He reckons we've got enough about our attack to turn them over already especially as Watson (& Mitchell with the one that got Bell) managed to get a small amount of reverse swing going, thinks our attack will exploit it far better, BUT we shouldn't be complacent and should take as much time out the game as we can while adding more runs.

Oh we love to do it. You can't take it slow and careful though, you've got to give it everything. Hell even Clarkson loves it