The Kraken

Sir Keith is a knight of the realm and seemingly an absolutely top swordsman. 😎

It's so hilariously transparent 😄

Factless Alfie

I didn't watch the game either and I definitely think it's season over.

Even with Ryanair on short haul you can pay as low as £2 or £3 per person for a seat. The most expensive I’ve seen from them is £19 and that’s for front row seats. I fly with Ryanair a lot as they go from Bournemouth and always pay for a seat, usually no more than £5 or £6. The prices you’re being asked to stump up are absolute daylight robbery, scandalous.

Take Corbyn the personality out of the question and read his manifesto, a lot of the policies within it were very attractive. However it quickly became apparent that, while there were plenty of good ideas (and some bad ones), the chances of them actually coming to being were questionable. Basically one couldn’t be sure at all if the finances stacked up. Throw in Corbyn the man, popular to some but a massive turn off to a large majority of others. Then add in his blundering performances such as on Andrew Neill where he got absolutely eviscerated over finance, particularly how he would fund WASPI (wasn’t in the manifesto, wasn’t costed in budgets, but Corbyn said he’d find the money). The manifesto wasn’t the main problem, it was the ability to deliver it than undid him for many.

Sense of humour bypass confirmed.

Fish supper up there isn’t it?

Grammar Notes: Fragment: This is a sentence fragment—it lacks a subject and a verb. Grammatically complete sentences usually need both. Tone: It’s informal and could come off as sarcastic or mocking, which may or may not be your intention. Suggested Revision (Grammatically Correct): Optional Softer Alternative (if you want less bite):

The BBC live ticker seems to think so too. Personally I thought it was brilliant entertainment. More of that please!

This is absolutely hilarious. Brilliant stuff!

The keeper smashes it out of the stadium 🤣

Aside from the top bins one, these penalties have been absolutely woeful.

Our keeper seems like an absolute liability. Just doesn’t seem to have any sort of awareness of where she is.

Fairly sure the controller on the left is for a PlayStation and the controller on the right is for a Nintendo.

I believe that it immediately came out that Celtic did actually played a game on the very same day that he said he was there, and that game was indeed against Inverness. But the lineup was published online and Hooiveld wasn’t in it. After that Bullshit Pat claimed that the game that he attended was actually a behind doors friendly that he had been especially invited to, a Celtic XI vs an Inverness XI (coincidentally the same day as the other game was played), and Hooiveld did indeed play, give away a penalty, score an own goal and get sent off. Such a silly man.

It had been a nice while, to be fair.

Patred 🤣 the infamous Inverness game that was immediately exposed as complete bullshit but the silly sod carried on his lie for years. Forgot about him, what a sausage.

Definitely. I learned the hard way via the Woodford fund collapse (that HL backed to the hilt) that their recommendations are to be taken with a massive pinch of salt. Thankfully I’ve just had a small financial return on all that unsavoury business via a settled court case, but I still took a decent percentage haircut on the whole thing (thankfully it wasn’t a big amount for me overall). So, yeah, HL have their own interests in mind. As you said, there is a wealth of information out there and many many reviews of managed funds. And again as you say, past performance is no guarantee of anything, but certain fund managers and companies tend to build themselves something of a reputation. I now stick with established companies with known entities behind them, and a lower risk profile. Maybe egg is right, maybe an IFA could get me better returns, but I’m not necessarily sure. In fact I actually sat with a very good friend of my folks in the past few months who has been a financial adviser most of his life and co owns a company with around 50 staff. I showed him my HL and said I wouldn’t be averse to moving to him if there was a compelling case to do so, he was very honest and said he couldn’t guarantee it and my investments looks pretty sensible.

It’s a fair comment, but Turkish sounds like he’s got a couple of mates who know what they’re doing so he can get some good advice from them. The nature of funds is that they’re very up and down. The best IFA isn’t going to make zero mistakes, or pick the best funds all the time. Sure, they’ll avoid the big mistakes that an amateur will, but no guarantees of future performance. Finance is a personal thing, so you’re right to point out that me saying that what is good for me should be good for someone else is not a global statement to make. Fair point. But Turkish seems to be along that path of thinking already, so maybe just a bit if positive reinforcement 😉

It depends what the IFA does with the money. If, as many do, they’re just putting it into a managed fund for you and charging 1.5% for the privilege, it’s not offering great value over self investing. There’s more of a risk by doing it yourself, I suppose, but as long as you’re using well recognised managed funds, the risk is minimised. And there’s no guarantees that the funds the IFA picks for you are going to be the best out there. So long as you don’t mind keeping a track on your funds, how they’re doing, and switching up if underperforming, I think HL is the way to go personally. Admittedly I haven’t used an IFA for some time now, but when I did all they did was put my cash into managed funds and I got a review every year. Didn’t offer anything that I couldn’t do myself, and take the risk out of it by opting for well reviewed and backed funds. The I did get fucked over by the Woodford fund debacle mind. So swings and roundabouts. But I have no qualms whatsoever of my annual returns over the past decade or more.

I find it really easy to have all mine in the same place. And to feel like I’m in control of what’s happening. With managed funds you’re taking a good amount of risk out of it. It may well be that your previous investments are doing ok. But I found with one from my old work that the management fee per annum was higher than what I’d have been paying via HL and the fund(s) and the performance had been pretty shoddy, so it was well worth my while moving.

I did this with my pensions quite a few years ago. I use HL for my SIPPs and my ISAs. HL are very good but their platform fees are a bit higher than other competitors so it’s worth shopping around. The front end is super simple though. Im fairly risk averse and usually have 5 or 6 managed funds on the go at any time, I review them fairly often and end up switching if a particular one is underperforming. I wouldn’t pay too much attention to performance in the past two months. Depends what type of funds you’re in (uk only, Europe, USA, worldwide) but when Trump went tariff happy a few months ago my funds lost about 20% within a week. I’ve just about clawed that back by now. So if you looked at a two month performance chart you’d say my funds have gone up 15%-20%, but in reality the market has just reset itself somewhat.

The second link points out the very obvious fact that 15 year olds playing for an academy are likely to be stronger and faster than the women’s side. A very basic comparison is sprinting, the times that top women in the world set in the 100m these days is comparable with those set by some 14 year olds and quite a few 15 year old boys. Top women footballers *may* have a skill advantage but the speed and power disadvantage will outweigh that quickly. So it’s not really a controversial statement to point it out, it’s just biology. As the interview shows, the USA player says herself: “Haha. They should beat us. Bigger, stronger, faster! Boys always gave us a run for our money! It was great prep.”

This. It’s a bit of a reach, unless you want it to be.