trousers

The NHS is exactly the same - nigh on impossible to sack anyone by management discretion. My sister in law is a senior matron at our local hospital and comes home on a daily basis exasperated by the amount of staff working for her that are lazy and/or incompetent but the number of hoops she has to jump through to get rid of them is simply crazy. In the private sector if you're crap you get slung out. In the public sector management get dragged down by an avalanche of beaurocracy designed to protect incompetent employees in the name of "human rights"...

Labour haven't because they're in the same idiolistic camp and the Tories haven't because they'd get left wingers moaning at them and going on strike. (and there's only so many left wingers you can get away with annoying in one parliamentary term) ;-)

Yep. We have a winner (my arse)

Paragraphs 6/10 ;-)

Heskey?

How many days until it's announced? Same day we sign Skacel, or sooner than that?

Smokescreen

Owen?

Cat's bottom

CoL ! (chuckle out loud)

Shane

Visited the stadium today. I see the new car park barriers and pay machines are now in situ

Details of the away kit were going to be announced "within 2 weeks" (aka 'soon') according to the OS article that was subsequently deleted, and that was over three weeks ago. If you were a guessing man, what would your interpretation of 'soon' be in terms of number of days? Guesstimate? One? Two? Yours probingly, Trousers

Without revealing details, do these guys know when these major change are due to happen? Within days? Weeks? Months? Cheers

Is it the realisation of the monkey chicken zoo dream?

Moss

Was he with a local football club CEO?

Alas, not quite so conspiracy theory inducing...he was having a mooch around Borough Market, sharp suited, crisp white open necked shirt and a well tanned face. He then went into a bar/club/restaurant for what I assumed was an invite only screening of the England v Algeria game.

I saw Pardew in London last week

But, just to clarify....by "booked" do you know for sure that contracts would definately have been signed more than "a few weeks ago"? What if "99%" of the arrangements and agreements were in place but the actual master contract hadn't been signed? I must admit, it seems more unlikely than likely to me too but I'm endeavouring to rule it in or out as a possibility

Anyone....?

[video=youtube;kXqi2P-bcMI]

Ok. I've worked it out. Cortese is a closet Pompey fan who, on seeing SFC was for sale this time last year, phoned up Markus to hatch a wheeze whereby they buy the club and gradually turn it into a laughing stock. To disguise their fiendish plan they bought the best players in the league in various positions as a smokescreen to their underlying aim to destroy the club.

Does anyone have the exact wording of the Echo piece? Did it say (words to this effect): "the contract was signed, sealed and delivered" a month ago or that "the preferred venue had been selected and contract talks were ongoing"?

How do we know when the contract was finally signed? They may well have been in discussions with the resort for ages but, knowing Cortese as well as we all do... , he may have either been playing hardball with the venue to get the cost down or indeed locked into a price war with a.n.other club(s) who were also in discussions with the venue. No-one would have secured exclusive rights to the venue until the contract was signed, and I have no idea when said contract process was completed.