Sheaf Saint

There was never a character called Master Bates in Captain Pugwash. Neither was there a Seaman Staines or a Roger The Cabin-boy. HTH.

It is thanks to Brown's enormous borrowing and wasted public spending, and over-reliance on the banking industry (if you can call it that), that this country now finds itself in such a desperate level of debt that will take decades to get out of. So I'm curious - what is it about their management of the economy over the last few years do you consider to be successful? Serious question.

Exactly. Back in 2004 Vince Cable raised the concern in parliament that the UK housing bubble combined with irresponsible lending and unregulated banks would ultimately lead to financial disaster. Brown (then Chancellor) dismissed his concerns as alarmist nonsense. When the recession bit, Brown claimed that we were 'uniquely well placed to ride out the economic storm' which everybody else except him could see was not true. His positive boast about the whole situation is that he came up with the idea to bail out the banks on the condition that they start lending again, which was then adopted by all of the major governments that had been affected by the financial crisis, but it didn't exactly take a genius to come up with that and it is certain that other governments would have come up with the same idea if he had not done so first. Labour are supposed to be a socialist party (I know they're not exactly but you know what I mean), yet his big idea when everybody started losing their jobs and having their homes repossessed was to give £billions of public money to the banks that caused the crisis in the first place, who then reneged on the agreement to start lending again and continued paying massive bonuses to the greedy ******s that put entire banking system in jeopardy due to their reckless speculation and irresponsible lending. for that reason, I cannot bring myself to vote for them. Gordon Brown loves to take the credit when things go well and is quick to pass the blame when things aren't so good. His blatant evasion of Nick Robinson's questioning about the NI increase on BBC today was cringe-worthy - almost as bad as the now famous Paxman interview with Michael Howard. He is a lame duck PM with about as much charisma as an anal wart and the UK is emerging from recession despite him, not because of him.

Please tell me you are being sarcastic. Please.

He was outstanding last night but why does he need to cheat so much? Every time an Arsenal player so much as came near him he would roll about holding his ankle. Such a shame that officials seem to turn a blind eye to this stuff in Spain, and even fall for it and book opposition players, instead of clamping down on it. Watching Sergio fall over holding his face after an Arsenal player touched him on the shoulder was cringeworthy and though I'm no lover of Arsenal it actually made me quite angry.

No doubt Hammy would try and claim that, but it's blatantly obvious that his weaving was designed to prevent Petrov making any kind of move on him. Hamilton strikes me as too ambitious and a little bit unsporting. I have no doubt whatsoever that if he was ever in the situation where taking somebody out would hand him the title, such as was the case with Schumacher and Hill in 1994, he would not think twice about it.

Just been updated on the Echo site with their names. As sad as I am for their families, I am hugely relieved to discover that a friend of mine who works out of St Marys station was not one of them.

Is it too late to add an 'undecided' option to the poll?

Well it's certainly going to be interesting watching all the main players bigging themselves up and slagging off their rivals over the coming weeks. I haven't been able to watch any of the campaigning so far but I get theh general idea from snippets I have heard on the radio etc... I don't think I could ever bring myself to vote for David "Call me Dave" Cameron, no matter how well he presents himself over the election campaign. when he first took the Tory leadership I thought for a shorty while that he might actually be different, but it didn't take him long to descend into petty point-scoring and sniping at the government. Gordon Brown lost all credibility for me when he claimed that Britain was uniquely well-placed to ride out the economic storm over the last 18 months when it was quite obvious to anybody with even the slightest knowledge of financial markets that the opposite was in fact true. Which really only leaves the Lib-dems as a credible alternative and on the face of it I can't see how they could make a worse job of running the country than the current lot.. I'm tempted to vote for them on the basis that Vince Cable, who seems to be the only person involved in politics who understands the global financial crisis and actually has some ideas on how to resolve it, would become Chancellor if they won.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/ufo/7555431/Unexplained-sheep-attacks-caused-by-aliens-in-UFOs-farmers-claim.html

Indeed. went to the Tranmere game a few weeks back and I was embarrassed at the fact that we now seem to have more anti-pompey songs than pro-saints ones. what's that all about?

That's priceless. I especially like this bit... Does this muppet really not realise the hypocrisy of his statement?

Not malicious Alps, just confused. You state with absolute authority that promotion is 'critical' in order to keep hold of players like Lallana, but if you are unconviced (sic) by him then why do you think keeping hold of him is so critical? Is he not replaceable? Just a simple question.

You're unbelievable Alps. First you state it is 'critical' we get promoted to ensure we keep players like Lallana, then you go and say you are unconviced (sic) by him. Which is it?

Does living 'up north' qualify me as an ex-pat?

The stupidity of the british public in this respect is seemingly endless. Last year I was doing some temp work for the Environment Agency while I was between jobs. For two weeks solid I was doing callbacks to people who had called in wanting to set up a direct debit for a fishing licence and asking them for their bank details. I must have called hundreds of people and the number I was calling from was withheld, but only one person during that time actually refused to give me his bank details and said he would call back. Everybody else just gave me their bank details without question. Idiots, the lot of them.

IIRC last year at Sepang the race was stopped because of monsoon conditions and half points were awarded.

Yeah watching the TV replay it was the most blatant handball you'll ever see and on another day the defender may well have got sent off for it.

TBF, I don't think I will pay much attention to a debate between a hamster and a dog about which food is best.

Simple answer... get your own cat.

Shutter Island Off work for a few days after a minor operation and decided to watch a hot copy of this film that a friend furnished me with last week. I'll start by stating that I really used to hate Leonardo Di Caprio. He was really annoying in Titanic and completely ruined The Beach for me, but my opinion of him has changed somewhat over the last few years after seeing him in some really good roles, noticeably Blood Diamond which I thought was brilliant. I had no idea what this film was about so went into it completely blind if you like. That's always good I find because otherwise you may have certain expectations which may probably never be met. So it starts off as a seemingly simple detective movie with Di Caprio playing the part of a US Marshal in the 1950s sent with his partner to investigate the disappearance of a patient at a mental institution on a remote island only accessible by a ferry. As it goes on it becomes evident that He has a personal interest in taking this case due to past traumas that he has suffered, and it soon becomes obvious that the staff at the facility are not being entirely truthful with regards to the disappearance. From this point, I can't really say any more because it will totally ruin the fantastic story which unfolds thereafter. Suffice to say that what ensues is very unexpected and that LDC plays the part superbly. This is a film that will confuse the hell out of you for a while but keep you totally engrossed until you finally realise exactly what is going on. 8.5/10

No doubt they would demand special dispensation from the PL about it, and then complain that they are being treated unfairly when the PL refuse.

Crikey, is this what passes for optimism from Alpine? Must have been a good night!

Well that's me convinced!

Decided to have a go at Homer's The Odyssey (Penguin Classic transaltion) for a bit of a change of pace from what I was reading before. Beautifully poetic, even if it is not in its original form. It's great to read such an ancient story and appreciate just how differently the world was viewed in times gone by.