dubai_phil

At least when I posted that yesterday afternoon on the England Germany Thread I gave credit to the source for it

FWIW my eldest son went to Bristol to study Chemistry. He enjoyed his time, enjoyed the city and got a decent 2:1 degree. First year he was in Halls and then shared Student accomodation in the city. His words "The kids from British Schools were all very slow meeting people in the first weeks and spent a lot of time alone in their rooms and stuff, (the expat brats seemed to get going socially much faster) but there was lots to do, the city was great with student pubs gigs and stuff". So he went, enjoyed it, did Chemistry which he enjoyed and two years on he has a darned good job in Europe from it all. Me - I went once to drop off stuff for him at the Hall just after he arrived all I can say was the bits I saw seemed secure, comfortable and "in a way" homely, although I was a littel concerned at the long walk across the common to class in the dark winter evenings. In his 2nd & 3rd years he shared student accomodation which was large houses with about 5 or 6 sharing, pretty much falling down and seemed a bit like The Young Ones but with girls sharing. But point was it let him have fun, work hard and get his degree without becoming a Trotskist Dope smoking drop out, so I guess it worked.

Once Again Into The Breach Cry England For Harry & St George So .... the French surrender early, the USA arrive late and England are left to take on the Germans .. sound familiar ? My thanks to the email I received this afternoon for that one

Sweet. Today is Friday - takeover day historically on here but down here is our Saturday so off to the pub for family brunch. The pub will be full of ABE's, but this morning Oh wow, what a tough choice. What to wear? The England Cricket T-Shirt? The England Rugby T-Shirt? The England Football Polo Shirt? or the Bruce Willis "I love that bit in Armaggeddon when Paris gets Nuked" T-Shirt? Tough call, only have a few days left to antagonise the local masses, HAVE to make the most of it. Hmmm OK have got GF in the kids old England Footie Shirt and I have the Cricket one on just in case there are any Aussies. What a great morning, walloped the Aussies at Rugby & Cricket and watched the French & Italians fly home and.... AFTER ALL THOSE HOLIDAYS - How lovely to see the Spanish get a dose of what we always get when we go down there - Squeaky Bums

Beating Argentina in 2002 was amazing. The entire City of Sapporro went nuts in a party that lasted all night, the locals dancing on bus shelters and conga'ing as madly as the England fans. Bars were drunk dry, even Sky camera crews stopped filming to join the dancing. It seemed to mean so much more than beating Germany. They are (and were) a better team and the history on the pitch with the Beckham incident seemed harsher. I still have a framed photo of the scoreboard showing Argentina 0 - 1 England which will be the score this time Losing to them would feel like losing to a team of CHEATS. Losing to the Germans would be meh, remember the 5-1. In this Wold Cup though, IF we had to lose to one then it would have to be the Argies as it would mean that the interest in the WC had lasted a few days longer. But we won't, it'll be the Brazilians that will puncture the over the top hopes of "The Nation" Which would mean we've beaten them both

You're goin' home in economy class, economy class, economy class..... Lol we flicked between watching us wallop the Aussies & the game. Really enjoyed the finish. Lol at the Italians teahcing the Slovaks how to time waste and feign injury commets above. Frogs & Italians out before it got serious. Am happy now, que sera sera with the Krauts on Sunday we were BAD but we weren't a national disgrace. Enjoy the recession you members of PIGS

I am a British Passport Holder that confers the right of travel to me in different nations of the world. Britain has helped to "save the world from tyranny" but has also historically enslaved parts of the world in tryanny. Being British I can support an England Cricket Team with it's Irish & South African players. I could have been ruled over by a moron Scot that I never voted for if I resided in The United Kingdom. But I am not British I am an English Citizen of The United Kingdom. When you land in America you aren't British, your citizenship is United Kingdom. When you shop online your nationality isn't British it is United Kingdom. The Jocks and The Welsh have their own Parliaments and even in places their own language, they have chosen to abscond from the United Kingdom except when it comes to getting tax benefits out of London. If they have chosen to abscond then why can't I? Why can't I come home and vote to be ruled over by English People in an English Parliament. Why can I not have an English Passport? Why is there no Bureau De Change when you get those weird Notes? People (including Immigrants) who chose to live in England for a set number of years should, by law, and like Cricketers, become English. If they don't wish to then they can stay as "residents" or they can go back home to The Valleys or The Highlands, rather than sittinga round my Country moaning, being an ABE and ordering me around. I've been here 17 years, I am not and never will be an Emirati, so I don't get a passport or all the benefits, but I'd rather be English

I did read it FC. And yes in context it all made sense and of course we played like a bunch of Germans named K....tz in the Algeria game and we are in a mess of our own making...... But as many have found to their cost over the years, context is always lost when you talk to the press (as the first summary paragraph says) So, at this moment, an ex footballing legend is "insulting" us in the press - stupid, burnt out hoofballers is how it will play on the front pages of the more Xenophobic tabloids in the run up to the game and the average fat bald bloke down the pub will be giving it large back at Franzy. As for motivation - well, whatever was tried for the first two games sure as hell didn't work so maybe they DO need something more in the amateur psychology way. The shenanigans of the last week with JT's revolt may have been cringeworthy and may have had nothing to do with what happened but the empirical evidence shows that the squad "got ruffled up" this week and suddenly played better. Now to get that Better up to the next level to beat Germany, if it needs Paul Mckenna in the dressing room or Franzy's out of context statements pineed to the wall then - hell, let's not leave anything to chance. We need to improve again and then we could beat them and all the rest (yeah, as if)

Well, at least there will be no need for a rousing team talk from fabio to motivate the players. Beckenbauer seems determined to do it for him! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/world-cup-2010/teams/england/7850966/England-burnt-out-and-stupid-to-be-facing-Germany-now-says-Franz-Beckenbauer.html C'mon Franzy, get some more insults out into the media, you know you want to. How about something cliched about das Rost Bouef or something

You identify the true issue in your own reply. PFC lodged documentation with the PL in January to PROVE that they were trading solvently. The FACT is that from the moment Al Jokke & his shadow came on the scene you were NOT being run Slovently as Gaydamark had pulled his funding. You ENTERED the PL in 2009 under false pretences. IF you had 100mil of debt where were the assets to cover that? You were insolvent at the start of the season, the PL have changed the rules because of you and others. You aren't legally entitled to the increased parachute payments as you shouldn\t have been in the League in the first place. The TV revenue comparison is irrelevant, the REASON you are getting the stick is because you at BEST misrepresented your financial position (maybe even downright lied) to sign players you have not (yet) paid for. You did NOT follow Corporate Compliance - ie you cheated.

Lol They have given us much pleasure making the Italians look average but can The Slovaks wake up and do something to hold the Italians while Paraguay & NZ play out a happy all qualify draw... NZ in the second round at the expense of the Italians, would give us much to laugh at in coming years and no doubt make your banter at the Tri-Nations even more ascerbic! And as for that anti-rugby shirt twirling thing from 80 minutes onwards - lol at all 20 of the NZ fans at their last game

The Germans seem to have two great players who will cause us problems. Lahm & Klose. If we can close down Klose and keep Ozil quiet up front and keep the ball on the other side of the defence from Lahm we could do this. 3 teams struggled to get out of their groups so far, Germany, England and Italy. One of those 3 on previous is likely to make the final (seems to me teams that always struggle in the group stages = winners last 3 or 4 WC's) Oh and lol at the kids - their flight lands at Heathrow at 2:30pm Sunday. Anyone know anywhere in Arrivals or Departures that shows the games in Terminals 1 through 3?

Let's put some of this nonsense about debt from the skates to bed shall we. 138 million boys. Read that again 138 million. HOW much of that is your CVA repaying? How much are you stealing from suppliers? Now you argue about SMS and the mortgage. In 2009 the forecast debt to Aviva was 24,150,000 and the agreed arrears 1,230,000 making a total as stated on here of just over 25million. The commonly held settlement figure in cash terms was 7,000,000. So on that basis SLH "stole" 18million. Now how does that figure compare to the total the skates are NOT paying? BUT it is also quite possible that is not the whole figure as through negotiations, Aviva were expecting that future performance based bonus payments were paid on promotion to CCC & PL. Whether that ever came to be cast in stone we will never know. Barclays Overdraft was 4,000,000 give or take 172k of which they will have settled for around 25%. So. We went into admin because a bunch of clowns took over the club and in 2009 ramped up expenditure on salaries so that we were forecasted to lose 8million in that year on top of a loss of 4,000,000 in 2008. So we did NOT pay back 21million of debts. The clowns ran up 12 million of losses through their ill fated spending spree. One year of allowing lunatics to run the asylum. Now, when the Dark Lord returned and destroyed the club, he CUT our expenses by 30% in a desperate attempt to AVOID going bust - you hear that skates - WE TRIED to save OURSELVES. We didn't blame the PL for not raising Parachute payments to 3 years we TRIED to save ourselves. And YOU did what? You gave a statement to the PL in JANUARY that you were TRADING SOLVENTLY so that you could sign NEW players and pay NEW loan fees (that you haven't ACTUALLY paid) so that you could try and CHEAT your way to staying in the PL. ONE SEASON OF MADNESS, NOT 10 12 MILLION IN LOSSES IN 2 YEARS and yet we only shaved 21 million of the debts to large banking institutions. Cut the "Oh you were as bad as us cr*p" It is like your club, a joke

Ah ha Our Breakfast show is Hayley McQueen with Scott Minto, the studio is Angus Scott & Rhodri Williams (WHO?) Al Jazeera fired some female presenters for wearing low necklines on their news channel and the poor lass Hayley turned up in a short skirt yesterday and must have panicked when she had no desk to sit behind - spent the whole show with her knees cemented together and her right hand trying to hold her hem line over her knees - lol Oh and we seem to have Graham Poll available at the drop of a hat as well. The "News from the World Cup" section is presented by some really really fit smiley chick (no I CAN'T do a Rule 1 screen capture from TV yet!) and we already know in our own minds what (who) she had to do to get the job). Looks like she'll have a long career ahead of her dating celebs

Looks like Peter Reid has been replaced by Ian Dowie down here. Reidy was on for a few days but seems to have vanished again. (probably finding the Chateau Musar hard to come across in Doha). I have no idea who the two presenters are, will have to do some digging, had thought they were refugees from Sky but future son in law doesn't recognise them. One nice thing is that we get a Commentator. (Gary Bloom is the only name I recall at the moment as he spends all match talking about consequences rather than the action) and we DON'T get a summariser which is actually really cool. Long time since I've just been able to listen to commentary instead of some has been's opinions during the game. Much better idea, leave opinions in the studio!

Meh why not Triangles? - nobody else has tried that.

Wow Great results today. The match - lot to do to be competitive in this WC but we had better shape and Milner was a huge improvement on Lennon on the right. At least we made it through, the work starts now. The engagement went to plan - yes was on top of Burj Khalifa Jillyanne & .com thx - was in a blind rush earlier Got them to the site on time Daughter still had no idea until the bended knee - lol and (thank fook) she said yes so now have an Insolvency Practioner in the family to help the Skate thread I had a panic trying to find SOMEWHERE to watch the game, got stuck in road works, diversions and then the hotel wanted 5 quid an HOUR for parking, so had a brainwave for a plan B and made it to a pub in time for the kick off. Then made it to the dinner venue and HOORAY they had a telly so we watched the second half before eating (could've scored 3 more but still squeaky bum time) Trader Vic's - famous for Mai Tai & Tika puka puka's we had a blow out meal and ****tails and the (specially ordered) engagement cake arrived. GF cut into it and found a tiny piece of plastic arrgghh - so another result - a 400 quid dinner & drinks bill on the house! Jeez hope I haven't used up ALL our luck in one day. Well done Milner & Defoe for the goal. Wake up Rooney - it's getting there but it still ain't much above a mobile home Gotta say it - well done James - would have been a wreck IF Green had been in goal thought he looked solid keep it up. We can get better We HAVE to get better, but we are still in it and the Frogs aren't. Probably the BEST part of the day that last one ouch OK no sorry 2nd best part of the day Darling Oh and yes, the kids got a Media.Com home karaoke kit as an engagement present and they were over the moon. They'll never be short of friends wanting to come around now!

Oh, and how comne you didn't buy my returned tickets from FIFA.Com? they've been on there for 3 weeks now!

Yep 99.999% of the times I'd agree.... Except this one is different, Daughter is being proposed to this evening and it is being done in a special place (On Top of the World) that could only do it at a certain time on a certain day. And of course although they've been together 4 years she doesn't know this is coming. We went through the cold stark choice moment when we discovered the time slot they could do the "special moment" It was an arrrgghhh but unfortunately. Mind you, there WILL be words about making sure the Big Day is not eventually on a Cup Final of ANY sort day!

Really worried about tonight. Have to go out to a family celebration dinner and the restaurant does not have a tv. Will I be able to make my excuses before the England Team and sneak away to a nearby pub to watch without offending someone. Tougher decisions than Cappello faces that's for sure.. He gets his wrong he'll get sent back to Italy to grow Turnips while Rooney et al move into their caravans (how prophetic was THAT advert eh?) I get mine wrong I feck up the whole secret moment surprise party when my daughter gets engaged....

He should not infract himself for sarcasm. He should however be banned for a month mentioning the name JW in full and with the context of him returning to SMS. What a horrible, horrible thought. Doesn't he realise that many of us are still in therapy after those horrendous evenings spent sitting suicidally at our computers listening to Radio Hampshire explaining what happened to his passes/tackles etc.

I know we don't need one now but I thought the Honduras Left Back had a good game yesterday had pace passing and tackling ability and a bit of a brain to close Navajas and Villa down to only the two goals.. Expect to see him pop up somewhere Izgagagaerre or something like that

Al Jazeera are doing a decent job, now they have solved the hacker problem. So far in the Studio we have had Terry Venables, Craig Brown (lol at Scots) Gus Poyet (very good and funneh) Big Sam Allardyce, Ray Wilkins, Mark (nobody else will get a word in) Hately, Trevor Francis. probably a couple more I'll remember tomorrow when I recover from an evening singing on the home karaoke to celebrat Les Frogs getting their butts kicked - (economy class all the way home tonight lol) Elsewhere in the world who have you got? Oh and BTW Hateley & Wilkins have been having WAY too much sun - Wilkins looks like a Solatren Warrior from Dr Who & Hateley just needs a Matt Gloss he is Soooooo shiny

Nope, don't care, we may get knocked out and have been bad but we haven't been a laughing stock

I just wish to take this opportunity to Thank the French football team for saying to the French Nation what I wanted to say to the French fookers that took over my happy multi-national and would have done if I hadn't wanted to get the redundancy. Feck you, you French fecks The movie version of SA 2010 will now become my second favourite movie behind Bruce Willis's Armageddon (where Paris gets zapped) Serves you right you CHEATS. Now may the Good Lord look down the same way on the skates