dubai_phil

FWIW when I used to travel a great deal I always changed currency when I got abroad, never in UK and rarely in Dubai. As an example back in Feb, a visitor changed pounds to local in UK, got 5.0 at the airport and 5.1 in Thomas Cook. Over here she got 5.7. It seems only you Brits who have this whole "commission" on top of a bad rate thing (Of course we NEVER try and change our money in UK - they charge about 18% for "weird money") The golden rule is to NEVER change money in a hotel lobby or on a campsite! And only use credit card IF you pay it off when the statement is due One other trick if going somewhere cheap (ie not Euroland at mo) then take virtually nothing with you and buy stuff locally on credit card. That way you can save on travel insurance and just get medical cover - is close on whether the cc costs meet the insurance cost but saved quite me a bit on one trip, what's more both the airline AND the credit card insurance paid up - woo hoo!

Anyone who ha followed Stachan's career and read his book would understand that he is not the sort of person who "takes a job" simply because "he hasn't got one". His whole ethos is different. He managed the Best in Scotland, his home nation, does ANYONE really think that he would be interested in managing a "run of the mill" English PL club? It just is not his profile, he made good money in Scotland and from his punditry and other interests. Our League position is actually in our favour. This is not a managerial job, this is a crusade. IMHO his decision is more based on whether he feels we have the opportunity and resources to get back to the PL. He's 52. A 3 year contract with a degree of job security will see him to an early retirement age. He would not have to prove himself here, it would not be an Allardyce half a season, it would be a proper plan that the new board have bought into. All those factors make it more probable than possible. IMHO again about the only things better than us at this time would be Scotland or one of the Top 4 or Villa/Man City. Anything else I would expect would be just a job for him now, and probably not worth losing out valuable time on the golf course for

It's interesting that Cortesa already made a clear statement that they will take time building the boardorrm structure. He seems to be a part of a transition team working on getting the whole club re-organised. Oldknow comes out with a statement that clearly follows on from that. They ARE new to the job, they are taking time, talking to people and looking to make the correct decision. And yet fans moan... A decision that will totally set up the entire ethos and structure of our club for the future, and we want to do something about it yesterday. That is SO much one of the reasons the UK gets itself into such a mess - the whole "Something must be done" metality, rather than spending a day or two and working out "What NEEDS to be done". Good to see you are still interested in what goes on. Maybe you could help find out just where these guys got their business plan? They sure hit the ground running. bet it was a good one with lots of pretty photos and research

Tough one really - thought about mailing my cv to nohumanresourcedepartment@saintsfc.co.uk, but it was only almost one full line long - I'm a Winner. Thought about giving them a call, but that would sound too much like a couple of other managers out there grovelling for jobs in a recession. Thought I'd got the nod yesterday when I had a missed call from a UK number I didn't recognise while putting out on the 10th green. Turned out to be the divorce lawyers' secretary chasing a bill. So I guess I'll leave it to the more conventional approach - via here - Dear Andy, I'm available, have my backroom staff sorted, will be avaliable for interview around 25th or earlier if you send me a ticket. Please contact my UK agent, Ottery St Mary via TSW

Plenty of flights availability Not so many Brits there because of the exchange rates Great golf courses Not as hot as this stupid effing place. Am coming back for meetings (conveniently timed for the FP final at Lords) and was wondering where to spend a day or two - honest No idea otherwise, ask Ponty

I hear Malaga is very nice this time of year

It occurred to me driving back from golf today I've felt for a long time that we had seemed to be cursed. Maybe that is too harsh, but we seemed to get more than our share of bad luck. It happened in matches, near misses, dodgy decisions against us always seemed to outweigh the ones for us, it happened with injuries (Killer in the warm up at Portsmouth, Neimi in the cup final) It just seemed, looking back over the past 6 or more years that things were always going against us. In some ways even the failed "takeover" by Mike Wilde & Leon seemed to be met with a shrug of the shoulders and a well we're Saints that's what happened. Then, when we finally fell off the edge of the cliff and went into admin, it seemed (from here) that we had again been hit by the bad luck wave, we get the Essex boy in and thinsg don't go smoothly, and then Pinnacle.... People keep saying what goes around comes around, you make your own luck, but suddenly, the emergence out of almost no-where comes the fact that despite Fry, MJ, Pinnacle, Seymour Pierce et al we get a billionaire owner. As a Saints fan it simply doesn't happen, we aren't this lucky. But I wonder, just wonder, is this the year that our luck really has turned? Suddenly the dodgy decision start to go in OUR favour on the pitch? Our key players stay fit and healthy and don't fall over their toothbrush or something. Maybe even the Sky curse has gone with it? We spent 6 or more years in hell, wow, if people are right about this karma thing, we're just starting 6 or more years of heaven

lol It's all done. Let the FL conduct a review by all means but 1) they ain't gonna undo the deal now and 2) they won't change anything even if they do lesarn lessons. As for Fry, I posted I had stayed with family friends, they told me what to expect, I commented on it during the months of pain and you know what? I'm bored with it now, it doesn't even deserve an I told you so - all I care about is that he's gone back to his mates in Essex pushing his barrow of second hand office furniture out onto Southend market where he really belongs.

Fair play for popping up NSS, nobody will ever know the full details of TL (or MJ's) real moneymen, and it should stay that way. Unfortunately I'll keep my view that the posts you and others made on here contributed to a planned and professional PR management campaign that swung public opinion. Whether completion was ever realistic or not, the fact is that TL will NEVER be able to convince us that his bid was better than the bid he nearly destroyed. Whether you understood it or not, you played a role in helping Pinnacle with their moral high ground position when Fry had to act in desperation (due to his own poor handling of one conference call to be fair) I am happy my involvement was always about - when there is nobody else around. You I think were honest in your endeavours, just think you, like MLT were a little (maybe un-inentionally) used. Enjoy your season, and just remember that Al Fahim doesn't actually have any real wealth himself to compare to our man. Maybe you really have His Excellency Sheikh Ahmed behind him. Wonder how he came to get interested in football in the South of England if it turns out to be him :cool:

Sounds like we should find somehwere to meet up for beer - think our blags are in the Grandstand upper tier debenture area. Last time we made the final a mate got us a good deal at the Charing Cross Thistle - about 50 quid including full English (no idea if it would work today) - anyway it let us have a decent dinner and a big night out after the game, but also we made the booking on a "just in case it gets wet" basis as we went to the rained off Gower final many years before and are still scarred by that wasted day and ticket! Will do some research & let you know Ron, otherwise it'll be the long slog on foot from Baker Street, but hell 3,500 miles to get the chance to walk a few miles in an English Summer - bring it on!

Now you know this IS funny. If ONLY they had given me a call after they spoke to Zabeel investments last year they would have had their 30mil takeover. But oh no, they were typical dumb Brits when it came to understanding how this part of the world worked. THEY decided to post a press release on a Friday. I posted at that moment exactly what the consequences would be. When you deal with these guys you leave your ego at home, say yes bwana and let THEM do the talking, but oh no they had to do things THEIR way - hahahahahahaha - MORONS! DP 1 - Charlton 0. Hope we get the same result this season on the pitch x 2!

Wasting your breath. I and others tried this before the train crash that hit the club this year. You simply state what many sensible fans, and many wiser than average journalists have been trying to say for some time. About the ONLY thing Lowe gets any credit for from my perspective is agreeing with Michel Platini's similar feelings on the subject. The simple truth is - nobody is going to vote unanimously for change. Real have gone beserk this summer, Abu Dhabi are playing look at the size of my wedge with Man City that will kick off the rest into a feeding frenzy to keep up. Arsenal tried the other way and how happy were thier fans this year? Turkeys don't vote for Christmas. Last week I was on your side. This weekend - hahahahahaha - it's COMPETITIVE sport, not some pseudo left wing all equal exhibition - we got ourselves a billionaire - up yours the rest of football! (although for the record, I actual believe AND hope that our man will run this club sensibly and sustainably and will invest wisely when needed for competitive reasons that he can see will bring him a profit in the future (which is how it SHOULD be done)

lol - I trust the hometown boys celebrated the takeover as well as we did down here yesterday. Lallana is still very young in footballing terms. He will get better, if someone can name a global superstar who has been consistent every game in his first full year I'll be really impressed. Even Shearer got moaned at in his first season when he didn't get hat-tricks every week after his debut - what IS IT about Saints fans?! Adam needs to stay, he isn't ready for a big club yet and will have more games this coming season where he makes a difference. Do his work and remain the "big time Charlie" in his home town instead of just another squad player trying to have a fun night out in Sunderland or Nottingham Of course we could always replace him with another Steady Eddie L1 Paul Wotton. I saw MLT play in a pre-season friendly at Victoria Park against Salisbury - he was garbage, missed three one on ones. Nobody expected him to be a world beater in his first two seasons, in fact we were horrified when he got near the first team that first full season. How good was Kevin Phillips when he was young and with us? How many years did it take before we moaned about losing Matt Oakley? How many threads have we had over the years moaning about players we should have kept? He is young, it takes time. He would be a fool to leave now and we would be fools to let him leave, he has a spark, it wasn't enough for the CCC last year, but it will grow into an L1 flame

He lives in DUBAI!!!! lol ONLY the best down here! Why the hell didn't someone tell us that earlier - he could have joined us for brunch and the takeover party yesterday could have solved all the Tony Adams worries over a Bullfrog!

Ah, the new world order exists, but just on one small and interesting legacy pops up this afternoon..... Remember the stick last season when we made our big signing? The story of who helped to get him across? lolage our despised and maligned (rightly so) former SFC Ltd Director was pretty much all over those press releases - oh what stick we gave.. Welcome Jack, good luck for the season ahead

It's a good question. ML has made all the right noises about the reasons behind his purchase. I'm ecstatic that our future is secure and we have a proven wise owner with the funds to build a sane and sensible football club. But, I don't believe in luck in M&A's. I find it a little hard to believe that ML read a Swiss paper one morning over his Alpen and decided to buy Saints. I think there was a process here. Maybe he was interested by something he read. Perhaps, more likely, somebody spoke to one of his advisors and was asked to put together some ideas - an investment appraisal package. It could well have been Oldknow, it could well have been somebody got through to Cortesa. (Didn't I see he has links with Bahrain? Where esle does he have contacts for example?) In a proposition like this you need to get the idea through to the man, it's often called a middleman in football or a project sponsor in the proper world. These guys hit the ground running. I think they had help, either they came across a sales pitch by luck or some people (Nicola/Andy) worked their socks off to get him to see the light. Once he'd seen the real opportunity, he was never going to want to do anything other than buy us

This is so weird, so much to agree with Alpine about these days! It's been a hell of a ride, but now that it seems to have stopped then I think we all really need to step back and reflect and, for the first time in a while start to think with our brains not our d*cks before we type on here. Habits are damned hard to break, I know - I can't give up smoking or partying and I made a good career out of trying to drive "Change Management" - kept getting called back for more as it never seemed to work - lol This forum has evolved from it's predeccesors, over time it developed a life of it's own that scared other sane people away and hounded any attempts to create rational debate as posters spouted their bitterness at what was happening to their club and in some cases no doubt their lives. It is a new era. Someone suggested a new forum should be set up, that IMHO is not the way to go, perhaps a slight nudge now from the mods, less tolerance of stupidity, trolling or hounding of opinions, and then, with the "many" watchers gradually feeling more confident about stepping into our world and making valid points the evolution can continue. Personally I think it needs a nudge and it is interesting to see so many of the "senior citizens" on here are thinking that way. The forum should now grow as should our crowds, we will have ups and downs, the new guys will make mistakes - hell even Fergie makes mistakes! and we won't be playing Champions League football next season so let people LEARN from mistakes, that is what NORMAL, SANE people who AREN'T called Rupert Lowe do - we need to get used to it again! Opinions are what this is about. The monster raving looney party and the closet skates do not belong here anymore, the pitchforks need to be put back to rust for a while and we need to grow up a bit.

Just an interesting link from another thread by Sue suewhistle Full Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Italian Alps - best snow melt for years! Posts: 386 Whoosh. Tone has just fallen of a cliff, but I did rather telegraph that pass...:smile: Incidentally, in the Swiss press release I thought "how true"... the club has a modern stadium, good training possibilities and a first-class new generation department. It is guessed/advised without own being to blame for into the misery: “There were too many groups, among themselves fought each other.” First of all why would they be silly to appoint Adams? Like I posted elsewhere, what are the criteria? what position are they even talking about? Could somebody show me the statement or advert where we are looking for a MANAGER? We do NOT have 2.5bliion pounds to spend this season or of course EVER. We will have a salary budget of somewhere around the 5million pounds mark. Let's sign Jose up - oh not enough. Let's get Sven in - oh whoops no money for players. There are too many criteria that we do not know about at this point in time. We have a couple of emotive NotW type comments, no information, no facts. I'm with you Ron, it is fair to state an opinion "I do not think Tony Adams would be a wise choice for PR or Footballing reasons" (see I can do it) however, the emotives on here need to understand one thing - Crouch has gone so "decision making by wanting to be seen to be nice" is out the window Lowe has gone so "decision making by Ouija Board or temper tantrum" is out the window. Make a case people, you just look immature and stupid otherwise, and just continue the stupidity of the past years into a new era

wow that's a great help for us johnny foreigners - thanks MB! No doubt we can read the 4 line precis online in an hour or so :mad:

Have to see about Milwall - it's tough, I got a corp gift ticket for the FP final to see Hants - had a fantastic time few years back - this is a reciprocation. So trying to spin out to stay two weeks isn't easy, Saints home games (even allowing for the new era) come along most weekends but Hants at Lords - only missed one.... will see how work goes

Actually - getting any "still 100% Brits" into a day like that is what causes many of our "Beach problems".. It isn't about stamina or staying power, it's actually about pacing onceself - a marathon not a sprint! Also it's helped by drinking Amstel Light for much of the early part of the day (although EoA stuck religously to Kilkenny) If we make it across for the opener, trust me, two pints of Real Ale and we'll be incoherent!

Why NOT? Just what ARE the selection criteria? What is the Job Title? What is the reporting structure? What is the salary package? What is the budget for player acquisitions and salaries? What is the playing strategy? What is the situation with the backroom staff? We have NO idea what the criteria are, as Art indicates, there are a lot of people on here who seem to think it is all very well to hide behind a keyboard and continue to make emotional demands and orders to everyone else in the world and to call for boycotts and the like. Utter cr*p. Tony Adams has a track record of lower league football management and larger club support staff work. That is a factual point and there will be evidence to support that. Tony Adams was a successful footballer playing at the highest level Tony Adams had highly public personal issues Tony Adams failed as a manager at the highest level Tony Adams appears to have a lack of support amongst the customer (fan) base (Badger - I'm with you of course but it will take a while for ML to really understand the difference between fans and customers - so to make a BUSINESS case right now you have to use what he would understand while leading the explanation of the difference mate!) Now making a rational post that Adams is not suitable, or that in our opinion he is damaged goods or even IMHO is not competent to do the job - that is fine, but this wave of emotive one-liners and boycott statements and aggression is just trolling at it's worst. We DID that before with Hoddle If the selection/interview team truly believe that Tony Adams IS the best manager for us then maybe they know just a few more details than we do. I won't go off and celebrate his appointment, in fact I'll be unhappy BUT i will not go off on a divisive rant about it before it has even happened Personally, I actually have every confidence that he will not get past that interview no matter what political strings he wants to pull, simply because the new team are showing high levels of WISDOM instead of WUMDOM or self-benefit than we have had in the past.

Good grief, don't some people EVER learn from mistakes? We've spent the past 10 years or so demanding this, boycotting that AND WHERE HAS IT ACTUALLY GOT US ON THE PITCH!? It's THEIR club now, it is THEIR money that is at risk from the decisions that THEY take. It is not some bloke doing a job and hoping for some stock options in a PLC. They made the decision to buy us - that seems to be a good one They made a decision to sell the ST's really quickly - that seems to be a good one They made a decision to take their time to build the right structure - that seems to be a good one They made a decision to keep KD - that seems to be a good one They made a decision to release Wotte - that seems to be a good one You know, even IF it is Tony Adams, I am sure it will be done for the RIGHT reasons to do with what needs to be done with the squad on the pitch, not because of sentiments or feelings. You don't get to be a billionaire by making BAD decisions, even if at the time others may think they are.

Journalistic licence. What they meant was that Strachan was top of TSW's shortlist. These guys seem wise and they are professional businessmen with International Experience. I am pretty certain that they will have a great deal of experience in interviewing and selection of senior critical staff. Which means that they have nothing to prove, they have no need to bring their ego into the equation are not "long term fans with their own ideas of what has gone wrong" and what should be done and will not being trying to impose revolutionary new systems. They will simply use proven existing HR systems and experience to create a short list, professional Top Grading style interview techniques, will seek out references. And then see what the customer wants

meah blear blaarp splurg We went out surely not, I don't recall anything, I'm at home on a Friday morning as usual waiting fro takeover news? Oh :mad: Computer problem - try replacing the F5 button. Budgie's "Hippy Hippy Shake" was a quality moment - was there an obscure WGS omen in that? As for how did I win? - well it's obvious - when you KNOW you can't actually sing, you just make sure you pick a real but unusual sing-a-long track and then mime:cool: Think the big intro also helped - shame the DJ seemed to mishear and described my visit to Glasto as being a performer at Glasto, where did he get the scoop on me going by helicopter from? (I wish) Great bit was that once we said a sheepish Hi to Budgie (more to see what his reaction was to the takeover news and if he still had any feelings for the club) he simply grabbed us and almost marched us across to join his throng, buubly chatty and just a bloke having a great night out and really did think the Shearer debut was one of his great career moments And oh yeah, I remember the Robert Palmer chicks - mama they seemed younger than in the video as well. That tall one who popped out her frock for a good few minutes :smt007 - all coming back to me now - Nurse - sedative!