trousers

Beckham for next England manager. No, seriously. Here's hoping that England are the only team who spectacularly fail to match their pre-competition hype this year....*cough* SAINTS *cough* ;-)

Yep, audacity would do the trick. Might get chance to do it at the weekend and pop it online if I get time

One letter from one reader out of 3 million? Yep, conclusive proof if I ever saw it.

Good to see Alan Pardew looking fit and raring to go earlier too

Yep. Pure coincidence.... ;-)

Just seen Alan Pardew suited and booted having a mooch around Borough Market in London. That is all. Oh, and that Greg Wallace masterchef bloke just walked by too

Fair point

Indeed. And it was a rhetorical question afterall.... ;-) Pub beckons.....COME ON ENGLAND!!

Well, I ordered the Pentax k-x and it arrived yesterday. £427 - body and two lenses - bargain. And on first usage it looks and feels like a cracking (re)entry level DSLR. Very happy with purchase. Now to ponder over why I spent the last 10 years or so cursing over the inflexibility of compact digital cameras!

Which is a neat way of avoiding the question: "Do clubs with no direct admin/booking fee include an indrect (aka less transparent) admin/booking fee in their ticket prices?". Just because 'club A' has cheaper face value ticket prices than 'club B' doesn't doesn't mean that 'club A' hasn't included a fee to cover their costs. Their running costs may well be cheaper than 'club B'. IMHO of course....

I respectfully disagree with your analysis.

I agree that it was a somewhat strange move by the police given the inability of some human beings to walk from A-to-B without getting involved in some aggro but it's a sad indictment on 'Great' Britain today when some people appear to be looking at the police as the root cause here when in fact the root cause is some human beings being incapable of avoiding conflict.

Perhaps they thought that football fans were clever enough not to start fighting with other football fans.....oh....

Neither direct or indirect 'fees'?

I'd rather read Sue's balanced 'impartial observer' view of the situation rather than the polarised views of most others. Not sure if that's 'allowed' though.....perhaps you could adjudicate on my view of Sue's view? Thanks. ;-)

Jeeez....what makes you think such a reasonable common sense view is appropriate for this forum...? :-)

No, I think your replies are cleverer. Just my opinion mind you.

If we draw 0-0 I would venture that the impotence of our outfield players may have played a smidgen of a part in getting us knocked out too...

But that's my point. I was asking Stu what level of deterent (aka punishment) he would put in place rather than, as you rightly point out, the inconsistent malaise that we have now. So, yep, totally agree but my question was seeking a solution to the existing problem

The police "aren't interested" because they know the scumbags will get a slap on the wrist and let back out into the community. Again, if the deterent was high enough there would be less crime in the first place. In my example, rhe deterent for someone throwing stones at Stu's car will not be high enough to prevent it happening, or at least significantly reduce the likelihood.

Why would raising deterent levels across the board increae the prison population? The greater the punishment the more thought people are likely to give before committing the crime in the first place? Using an extreme to illustrate a point, if the punishment for driving over the speed limit was having my gonads removed by a meat cleaver I can assure you that I would studiously drive everywhere at 20 mph.

They "supported" the 'Liberals' at the election as a side effect of falling out of love (temporarily) with Labour. I doubt they support them with as much passion post-election... Does the Telegraph, for example, rely on "sensationalist half-truths" or did you sneak in a cheeky apples vs oranges comparision there...? ;-)

It's debatable whether the 'tit for tat' posting links to left and right wing articles offers a balanced view per se, rather it offers two polarised views. What would be good in this game of 'my link is better than your link' would be people referring to articles that are not written by publications or authors with a political agenda. But back in the real world....

Exactly