dubai_phil

Maybe, JUST maybe, when all the crud flying around in the news stops, and when the game of pass the parcel of dodgy deals stops, the world of business will stop being fixated on "this weeks' profits" and start to look at longer term value. For anyone who tried to start a business in the past 10 years which was profitable and had a medium & long term strategy, the banks would, in general laugh at you. Why give you money when they could buy a piece of paper from a dodgy yank and make zillions in bonuses? Sure loads of people have made big bucks, but at the end of the day, 90% of them have come about by being the banking equivalent of Arthur Daley. A return to more sensible and sustainable longer term objectives may just help the planet and us survive for more than next quarters bonus cheques. And of course, by that I mean Saints FC amongst many others. But it won't and once the west gets hamstrung by all the new rules and regs, guess what? The Russkies Chinese & the guys down here will simply carry on (almost) as before and takeover the planet. There endeth todays economic rant, now back to muppets

Have we had the It's Crouchie's fault one yet? When he didn't take the ball into the corner and we would have had the points we needed? Otherwise, we had a policy of only buying players who were BETTER than we had (mainly during Dave Jones's time if I recall rightly) That somehow changed and we started to buy squad players. Who we then could not get rid of when managers came and went. At one stage we had something getting close to 35/40 players in the squad, and none of them any better than the players the season before. IF you never seek to improve yourself as a person or a business your competitors will and that's what we did.

In the light of the recent revelations by Eurosaint in the Lounge I now wish to retract my weekend. I wish to point out that any previous entries may have only been posted in the manner which they may or may not have been posted in order to add to the level of humour upon this esteemed global phenomenon best known as The Muppet Show. I wish to point out strictly and officially for the record that my weekend was as follows Friday Awoke at 7am and ran 10km around Safa Park. Had mueseli for breakfast and then worked out for 4 hours in the gym. In the afternoon I had a light green salad with no dressing. in the afternoon I swam 120 lengths of the local club pool while wearing factor 75. After a dinner of vegetarian pasta I continued my on-line Open university Course Saturday - see Friday. I do however confess to sitting down for 2 hours and watching football on the internet where I consumed a freshly squeezed carrot juice and ate a portion of freshly cut pineapple Sunday - see Saturday Monday - see Sunday I apologise fully for any inconvenience that any attempt at lighthearted banter may have produced. For those of you requiring further clarification please see the attahced link http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=3158

Now you've done it - I'm straight off onto my sat phone to the main man's cave in wherthefookishestan. Your name is now first on the list Expect your local bank branch to be visited by a suicide broker any day now

what you mean he hasn't signed yet??? doh but Leon promised he'd close the corners so Tiger could build the pitch & putt course

I noticed (scarily) that when I googled some stuff that was nothing to do with Saints (ie Zabeel Investments it linked back to a thread where the same name had been mentioned on here. It seems we may have to watch our p's & q's, you never know who may be googling us... we have been warned Big Brother is out there arrghh sh1t hope the ex-wife's divorce lawyers don't try and google the posts on the Muppet Show about my weekends ARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHhhhhhhh That means that Master Bates & his soap on a rope, and all you other weirdos are fooked

it is a prospective tax write-off is what you were going to say wasn't it. IMHO and I am no expert, I truly believe that we will not see any sign of any impending sale or investment in the club via the movement of shares on the LSE.

Now there's a story that one day will be even funnier than this thread. But not while too many of the "parties" are still alive:-) But FWIW we did ask and I did also ask Tiger Woods' manager last year He's a nice bloke and I see him at the Golf most years - he said that the idea was probably the funniest thing he'd ever been asked. He laughed so much he went straight over and told the man himself who also laughed and came over and bought us a beer (true story photo's and autogrpahs to prove it)

An interesting piece of marketing b**s - don't believe ALL the hype even the local mortgage market has tightened up and some projects are being quietly cancelled but it is not far off the mark (and HOW spooky that it was published today eh!!??) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/main.jhtml?xml=/property/2008/10/11/pdubai111.xml&page=2 On the racial minority points - yes but you see you guys have one weird thing that we don't - it's called POLITICS..... We're just the slave labour so we get the short end of the rub, and DON'T get us ex-pats started on the benefits for immigrants line... The PC classes are SOOOO scared of everything when in reality they should simply have the SAME rules that other places like here have - you come in, you work, you enjoy. You don't like, you break the rules, you don't have a job then fook off back home. There endeth the lesson (Oh except for my favourite politics story. Worked for an American Multi-National, Having dinner with a yank in Rhode Island. "How can you live in a country with no rights for it's people and no vote?" My reply "Well you got George W Bush, Britain got Tony Blair (and Gordon Brown) We got Sheikh Mohammed, a REAL leader with a vision for his country, his people and his workers... why would I need a vote?)

Nah not really. It's the Jaeger Bombs that kill you. Other questions Officially there is a "municipality housing fee" which is 5% of your annual rental charge and is added monthly to your electricity and water bill. Having said that, last time I paid it they elec co just gave me credit on my bill.... As for traffic no it is one he** of a lot worse. From my place to Deira (the opposite side of Dubai Creek where the Irish Village & Tennis Stadium/Airport is is 18km. If I leave between 5pm to 8:30pm it will take a MINIMUM of 1 hour and normally 1.5. They implemented a ZERO tolerance on ANY alcohol in your system if you drive so to go out you need a taxi. You will NOT find one between 5 & 8:30 either and it is normally a 45 minute wait Jebel Ali is now about 4 times the size it was 6 years ago, Internet City, media City etc are all built at the same end of town. The cheapest accomodation is in Deira & Sharjah which is 38 & 45kms away. So every day the entire population drive back and forwards (some with split shifts do it four times a day). They have put up toll gates which just puts huge traffic flows onto residential area roads as people try and avoid paying US$6 a day just to get to work. As for public transport hahahahahahahahahaha On infrastructure - Greed Greed Greed. They have carried out astomishing amounts of construction. So first they build the accomodation because they get paid for it. Then IF they have some money left they MAY build an access road to your tower block/villa. Possibly a couple of years down the line a park or a supermarket may open. But Main traffic arteries, new power plants, new sewage treatment plants.... The current issue is that not ALL the city is on mains sewerage. many places, especially the labour camps have cess-pits or simply sewage tanks. Three years ago one tanker driver could empty 6/10 tanks a day at the Al Awir sewage plant. today it is taking TEN HOURS of queueing to empty one tanker. As a result the lowly paid drivers are dumping the tankers into the storm drains. Everyone here goes - told you so, locals can't really do anything about it as it will be a year until the new treatment plant is built. That is typical though. This place has MANY faults. If you come here as a whingeing pom, nimby or concerned politically motivated person you will HATE it. BUT if you come here and accept that it IS different, respect the people and the traditions and ignore the muppets then it is fantastic and the faults are FAR less serious than the UK. Just remember the biggest culture shock.... You WILL become a racial minority

Sounds like a caption competition to me..... It's amazing what old farts will do to try and show they still have a 6 pack when a young chick in a bikini walks past (thus speaks the voice of experience)

Lots of questions need to be answered before you come down. Is it a local or a multi-national company What will your visa status be Will they pay housing allowance After that I can help out no problemo. 70k tax free sounds an awful lot when you are over there, but CURRENT 2 bed apartment rentals are around the 20k per year mark IF you can find one. It also depends on where you will actually work. Many "newbies" come down thinking a 30km commute to work is a piece of cake as they do that in the UK, then you find yourself spending 5 hours a day in the worst traffic outside of well anywhere. So in general advice to everyone who gets one of these. Get your employment contract FIRST, be VERY clear on the terms and conditions and whether THEY expect to keep your passport. be VERY clear on "who pays for temporary accomdoation" while you find an apartment and finally, work on the basis that local owned companies may not quite be the same standards of process and ethics and legislation that you are used to. IF everything is ok on this side, it is a great place, not as good as 10 years ago but still a crazy town if you have the right attitude. But you have to come with open eyes, it ain't blighty. And this may help understand the construction biz http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/08/middleeast.construction pm for specifics, I charge one Bullfrog per hour consulting for paid up TSW members

I go back to the comment I made about that book. I went on a golfing holiday to Portugal. 2 weeks - 7 days for me on the course with wife on the beach and 7 days touring around. I got the book at the airport and read it over the flight and the first couple of days. Amazingly the simple tenet it advocates is to simply walk up to the ball aim it and hit it. You have hit clubs on the range so you know how far they will go so just take the club out the bag and hit the ball. End of. During that week, while playing on championship courses I had never seen before, my WORST round was 3 under handicap and I shot my best ever, an 82. One of the "greatest" movies of all time - Happy Gilmour had it spot on. "Just tap it in the hole". The minute the brain thinks about anything at all on a golf course you are finished. (Mind you when playing match play against a mate, it's always useful to start to ask them questions about work, the journey to the course, the weather, the family, works every time!)

can't be arsed to rep

well at least SOMETHING interesting happened on here over the weekend..... but lol like robsk ii

Friday plans went out the window chick came round, watched Blazing Saddles on an old Video Saturday went to supermarket couldn't get a parking space went home watched footie on the Internet for the first time Sunday chick came round and made plans for my b'day party next week Monday my ex contacts me to say she wants to come and stay over for my b'day ****** that is way too complex for me 1/10

BTF pull yourself together, this is no longer a loose thread, you need to draw a line under this and accept that your posts were net good enough to win the prize

wow that's interesting - the swear filter removes the name of the greatest movie hero of (almost) all time. obi wan kenobii - never saw that before - lol at George Lucas

Unfortunately, it would now appear that the Fulthorpe consortium should be renamed the Norwegian Blue consortium. This now means that following the sad demise of LLS, the abject failure of Seymour Pierce, and the decision of Zabeel to invest into Charlton, we now have only one person left onto whom all our hopes of finding investment have fallen. Trousers - it's you mate. Enough bumping and trolling - go find us some money, help us obi****enobitrousers you're our only hope It's a tough job but someone has to do to it

:-)

nah had my brains sh*gged out earlier and just flicking between internet sites before bed:-) And trying to come up with plans for the double header birthday party at the weekend. Was SUPPOSED to be in the UK for footie on Saturday and then the big five oh with mates, but the recession has delyed the trip so now back to googling for ideas and trying to avoid going out and drinking Bullfrogs until I vomit. Best idea so far involves a bottle of baby oil for some strange reason.........

And a very big hangover from that overspend is also the fact that big salaries were paid to players on long contracts. A double whammy of money being gambled on the siging fees and then on the running costs. At least 2mil a year we cannot afford on wages for players who we could not move which is then added to the reduced crowds. A double whammy

Big assumption there You assume we'll still be in a position to sign players come January.....

:-)

Allegedly that chorus sounds JUST like one of GB's half time teamtalks..........