CHAPEL END CHARLIE

I have the same problem with a signed 2006-8 'Flyby' shirt with undecipherable signatures - fortunately players often tend to append their squad numbers to their illegible scrawls now to help a fan out !

Leaving the playing conditions to one side for a moment, I have to say considering their excellent run of results Birmingham probably showed us too much respect if anything given our 'nothing to write home about' away record. They sat back & surrendered possession so easily you'd have thought the game had taken place at St Marys instead of St Andrews.

If Chris Hughton had spent rather more time looking at the reality of our recent form, and rather less time worrying about our lofty league position, then I think Brum might have taken all the points instead of sharing them.

Perhaps Mike Ashley is a shrewder judge of horseflesh than some reckon.

I wouldn't say he's made any vital contributions, and I don't think anyone is saying that, what we're saying is that he's come back into the fold and is proving alot of us wrong.

 

He's made our midfield much more dynamic for a start, his ability to come off the flank, play through the middle and swap sides is making us less predictable - which we were when we had 3 central midfielders out there.

 

He's changed and improved the team dynamic for me, he's not personally made any key contributions, but his presence has improved the balance of the side - and his attitude for me, has been top draw.

 

Once he gets even fitter I think we're lucky to have a player like him for the run in. WHU and Blackpool wanted him as they felt he could add something extra to them.

On the contrary, some on here apparently think he's made a 'great' or 'outstanding' contribution it would seem - to my way of thinking such high praise should be earned and not just given away.

As for any supposed high demand for this player services from other clubs, I rather think the real reason (indeed the only reason) he is still playing for this great club is because no other club is prepared to pay serious money to sign him - I tend to place more faith in that professional judgment of this players real worth than anything I read on here thanks very much.

But it's in all our interests that he performs well while he is still here, so believe it or not, I'd like to see him succeed.

IIRC you have always had something against him, even before he went off on his strop. So excuse me if I don't read too much into what you say.

I call it as I see it, and you can rest assured your opinions seldom carry much weight with me either.

But if you can point out some vital contribution he has made recently then I suggest you do so.

'Outstanding' .... 'Great' .... 'Class player'

I'd say he's put a decent shift in alright since his return, but has he really done even nearly enough to earn the above descriptions ? If those who lavish such extravagant praise on Jason Puncheon would care to point out a single tangible difference this player has made to the teams results since his return then there might just be some basis in fact for their views.

When this player (or any other) does something truly out of the ordinary then I'll acknowledge that because I'm a firm believer in praise where praise is due. While we're waiting for that happy day I rather think some on here have either become carried away with on a wave of OTT enthusiasm, or maybe they are just far too easily pleased.

..... I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance - Luke 15:7

Bit of luck came our way when the officials missed a obvious pen when Fox upended a Brum player in the box, but we may have been due some good fortune.

A Dull game in the main but not a bad away point against this divisions in-form team I suppose. Keep this under your collective hats chaps, but I reckon the last two games where we have proved to be a match for strong opposition might just indicate that although we are still short of our best form we may - just may - have turned the corner performance wise.

As ever time will tell.

More consistent alternative? or consistently headless chicken-like?

Taking of decapitated fowls, I see Jason Puncheon is back ....... but that's another heated debate.

Q - Over 90 minutes, 46 games a season, is Guly do Prado a very good footballer ?

A - Although the stats my suggest otherwise, the evidence of my eyes tells me no he really isn't.

Q - Can he produce a 'magic moment' of class every now and then that leads to a goal ?

A - Oh yes

Q - Is that good enough to earn him a regular place in our team ?

A - Not if a more consistent alternative is available - in my view.

As often as not the public tend to vote against a PM they really don't like, as opposed to a selecting someone they truly admire. If a week is a long time in politics then 3 years must be a eternity, but my sense of the public mood is that I just don't get any 'vibe' that the majority of the British public are even nearly dissatisfied enough with the Prime Minister's performance to vote him and his party out of office. The voters are likely to continue to lay the blame for our economic woes at the door of the Labour Party, and lets face it, that is where it belongs .

So I'll risk a whole £1 and predict that David Cameron will win the next general election, and win it with a outright majority I reckon. His coalition partners on the other hand may well be facing a electoral disaster.

As for the Labour leadership, the unions (with all their customary incompetence) block voted for the wrong Miliband brother in my view - a grave error of judgment that will surely cost Labour dearly at the next general election.

It not iust a question of the number of fit Centre Backs we have, if you look at the record it will show that for a top two team we concede too many goals - if memory serves there are 5 or 6 other teams in this division with better defensive records than us.

This game is nearly always a uphill struggle when you concede (re Cardiff) so a classy defender and a medium term replacement for Kelvin might well have served us just as well as signing Billy Sharpe this transfer window.

He deals the cards as a meditation

And those he plays never suspect

He doesn't play for the money he wins

He don't play for respect

He deals the cards to find the answer

The sacred geometry of chance

The hidden law of a probable outcome

The numbers lead a dance

I know that the spades are the swords of a soldier

I know that the clubs are weapons of war

I know that diamonds mean money for this art

But that's not the shape of my heart

Art.

Thanks so very much for posting Jonah's video, I must say I too found it brutally honest and immensely moving. I can only hope this young lad can find the strength to overcome the ignorance surrounding him and find his own way through life.

I wish him well.

Based on what I can remember of him I'm not too sure he's really all that 'quick' a striker to be honest, but I'm looking forward to finding out for sure. A goal every other game leaves little room for doubt about his finishing ability however.

Admirable show of ambition from the club I must say - the Don truly is as good as his word. My customary note of caution is that I only hope we can afford this expensive squad we assembling in the long term if we don't get promoted ......

Guly's days are numbered. That is all.

Yep, can be very good on his day, but a pretty bloody awful footballer when he's not having a good day. A 'bit part' player from now on methinks.

And I must add that I wouldn't be the least surprised to see Jonathon Forte, Lee Barnard, and David Connelly all out of the club by the end of the summer. Football is a brutally harsh business that leaves precious little room for sentiment I'm afraid, even when at least two of those players have made significant contributions to getting the club where it is today.

Flaming flowers that brightly blaze

Swirling clouds in violet haze

Reflect in Vincent's eyes of china blue

Colors changing hue

Morning fields of amber grain

Weathered faces lined in pain

Are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand ..........

How does Mao fit into your collection of royal mugs?

Oh I only collect communist mugs, with so many to choose from it'll take me a while to amass them all.

How are your remedial history studies coming along by the way ? I know you made a shaky start with early Athenian Democracy, 20th Century History & Constitutional Studies, but the secret of success sometimes lays more in perspiration rather than inspiration I'm told, so keep plugging away and you may get there eventually.

He's a good source of quotes I hear ...... although I prefer Chairman Mao.

I must confess I have been an incorrigible bibliophile seen my early teens if not before, mostly historical subjects. It has gotten so bad I've bought books I've never read just for the pleasure of possessing them in my collection - the storage of which is a near insurmountable problem.

But the internet has taken a lot of the fun out of it. There's a certain hard-to-explain pleasure to be had from calling into a decent second hand bookshop, having a good old rummage, and finding a title you've been seeking for years/decades perhaps that only someone suffering from a bad case of the true 'collecting mania' could possibly understand.

You can find almost anything you want now with a quick internet search - it's just not the same somehow.

Have you any idea how far you've strolled off the reservation here, sir?

This from a man who gets his knickers in right old a twist just because someone dared to employed a scenario in debate without his written permision !

Oh please.

Ahem, Constantine, comrade, Constantine! Never mind; you clearly can't face it. And so sorry that US intelligence, based on official German reports, and the FBI are not credible sources for you - or perhaps the elephant armour is obscuring your vision.

 

Let's agree on this. Return the Duchys to common ownshership, chuck out the present lot - you're surely not so childish as to argue for the divine principles of accession are you...or to argue that they're anything but a useless breed? And let's have a version of the bicycle monarchy in Holland. Give them the average income of a British worker, an expenses allowance - and be done with that. We could also include some compulsory donor insemination to ensure a modicum of intelligence.

 

There. A plan.

Me again, and I hope this reply is prompt enough for you so that you haven't missed me so much this time.

Obviously the defiencies of your North Korean education has left you unaware of what does, and does not, constitute primary scource evidence. Although educating you seems a full time job that I'd be hard pressed to fullfil in all honesty, a primary scource would be written (or otherwise recorded) evidence of the very serious conspiracy or plan you alledge, not some hearsay -he said/she said- 'evidence' provided years later from a secondary scource.

Something on official headed Furher Hauptquartier notepaper with a Nazi eagle on it would do just fine, or even a signed confession perhaps from the erstwhile Edward VIII. Although I should add that I am always interested in the opinion of that fine body of men that is the US Navy.

Thinking about North Korea, that vile regime (not any modern constitutional monarchy) is by far the closest thing we have today to the medieval kingdoms you despise so much. Given your leftish political views yet another irony that has probably escaped you.

Thanks for this, comrade. I can't help noticing that the gaps between your replies are getting ever longer as you furiously try to google some sort acceptable, common-sense veneer on your quite funny argument. I notice you STILL avoid my King Constantine point. I wonder why? I'm sure it's nothing to do with the fact that it makes your proposition that monarchy is a bulwark against tyranny ludicrous. And aside from the fact that pap has already rather elegantly expressed the absurdity of that particular brainwave of yours with his elephant armour analogy, you should consider this. Let's assume Edward hadn't fallen for Wallis Simpson, and had remained on the throne in the lead-up to and during the Second World War. What a spectacle it would have been to have had a Nazi-saluting, Adolf-admiring King on the throne at a time when the very independence and freedoms of the country were at stake.

 

Re: your suggestion that I am trying to argue that monarchy TODAY is a source of tyranny - don't be so silly! Read what I actually said and take those

Alpine purple rage spectacles off. These were the words I used: You, on the other hand, decide to strain credulity by claiming that the monarchy is some sort of last bastion against tyranny, when the role of monarchies historically is to be the source of tyranny! As for the fossilised relic of an institution that it is now, of course it can't be that.

 

 

 

And as for Hitler's dealings with Edward, are US naval intelligence reports good enough for you? They recount the details, lifted from a confidential report produced at a conference senior German officials in 1941. This states: When he [Edward] was in Germany he had contact with Hitler and he is the only person with whom Hitler would confer in any negotiations of peace or armistice when it becomes necessary.

 

"Hitler well knows that Edward at present cannot work in a matter that would appear to be against his country, and he does not urge it. But when the proper moment arrives he will be the only person capable of directing the destiny of England."

 

Fraternal greetings from the Socialist Republic of Fulham

Thanks so very much comradski verbal.

The forum will note that despite much Googeling the Rt Hon' member for Pyongyang South has produced no primary scource evidence to support his slander against Edward VIII. Of course dead men find it difficult to defend themselves.

In the light of this failure a honourable man would withdraw the claim - needless the say I not expecting any such display of integrity here.

Good grief you're getting desperate. Everyone else I know who defends the monarchy in Britain is happy to leave it with some waffle about being good for tourists, and how foreigners love the 'Windsor'. You, on the other hand, decide to strain credulity by claiming that the monarchy is some sort of last bastion against tyranny, when the role of monarchies historically is to be the source of tyranny! As for the fossilised relic of an institution that it is now, of course it can't be that. But nor did monarchy remotely get in the way of the junta in Greece (funny how you keep avoiding the subject), and, worse than that, was browbeaten (no worse) into signing away Greeks' democratic rights and instituting a vicious reign of terror (of which I can only assumer you must have approved, since it was all signed off by one of your beloved monarchs).

 

You've googled yourself into a deep hole with this one and made yourself look a proper Charlie. The Comintern wasn't an ideology; Edward not only discussed reinstatement with Hitler himself but gave him -and was photographed doing so - a fulsome, enthusiastic, bolt-upright Nazi salute; and your reading, if that's the word, of Hitler's relationship with the Wehrmacht defies any historical account I've ever read. But worst of all, you've put yourself in the embarrassing position of appearing to argue that the monarchy - defanged, reduced to waving stiffly at 'subjects' prepared to give them the time of day - is some kind of bulwark against the forces of anti-democracy. That somehow, after centuries of undermining democratic advances, it is revealed as something it has always been: a shining beacon on the hill of modernity and reasonableness. What utter, utter nonsense.

 

Tom Paine had it about right: Of more worth is one honest man to society, and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.

I do indeed think that our constitutional monarchy might just prove to be a useful safeguard against the forces of tyranny (in extreme circumstances) one day. Not only do I think this true, I'm also quite happy to repeat it. You plainly disagree .... oh well 'take it from whence it comes' they do say.

I think it is generaly accepted that Edward VIII was a fool, but if you really think you are alone in knowing of his infamous meeting with Hiter at the Berghof then so are you. However if you can produce so much as a single shred of primary scource evidence of the sinister 'plan' you see concocted between him and Adolf Hitler to retake the British Crown from his brother, then I'm sure the forum would be MOST interested to see it.

I await your proof with interest - if with precious little expectation of success.

As for your assertion that monarchy's are the primary scource of tryanny, this (in the modern world at least) is a ludicrously sweeping statement that I would expect to see laughed out of a primary school classroom, let along a discussion between what I had assumed were grown adults. Sadly it is however so very typical of your outdated dogma based view of the world.

But to make what may well be the grave error of taking anything you write seriously lets look at the evidence then. Did for instance, King Jaun Carlos I prove to be some type of roadblock on the long road to Spanish democracy after Franco's rule, or did he help enable it ? Indeed, since in the end of WWII just how many examples can you think of of constitutional monarchys staging a coup d'etat against their elected governments ? Perhaps you see the Windsors harbouring a secret ambition to sieze real power back from Parliment in your twisted version of reality.

But keep on posting comrad Verbal, because you are doing a far better job of undermining your own argument than I could ever do.

But not all scenarios actually happen, do they?

 

While it might be mildly diverting to assess something that has actually happened to derive its sources of invention, it's hardly relevant to your argument.

 

Let's recap. You made up a story to illustrate how the Queen's powers might be useful, if such events occurred. Using that kind of logic, pretty much everything becomes justifiable, which is precisely why it's no kind of logic at all.

 

Your objection to the perfectly reasonable employment of scenario as a debating tool to explore constitutional questions seems overstated if not bewildering. At the very beginning of the constitutional crisis scenario I presented I did actualy write in plain English for all to see that the situation I described was quote: "very unlikely" did I not !

The Queens role in the constitution and what just might happen one day in theory if her legal constitutional role every comes into conflict with her sacred coronation oath seems to me a perfectly valid matter to raise in a thread such as this.

As for what can and cannot happen over time, I'm quite old enough to remember a time when the fall of the Berlin Wall seemed hopelessly unlikely as well.

How very odd. You give a hypothetical scenario and I respond by showing historically how that's not been the case. And you simply ignore it - for the very good reason, no doubt, that Constantin vs the Greek junta did not end well for the royal, who was forced into the humiliating position of having to sign the decrees that undermined the Greek constitution.

 

I was trying not to bring Hitler into it for precisely the reason you mention. However, since you've wandered aimlessly into that territory, you should surely know that Hitler's rise to power, while predicated on undermining the Weimar constitution, required that he subjugate the will of the upper echelons of the Wehrmacht. Once he had succeeded in that, all else followed. (I know books bring people out in a rash on here, but try reading Ian Kershaw's superb and authoritative biography of Hitler for plentiful evidence of this) The constitution, whether republican or incorporating a useless monarch, would have made no difference. And Hitler is your worst enemy in other ways: as he planned the invasion of England, he planned to re-instate Edward VIII as a puppet monarch. So I suppose in that sense, monarchs have their uses - they can be herded around to legitimise even Nazism.

Oh I believe you were the first person on here to mention Hitler.

But as we are on that subject, Hitler rose to power via a unholy combination of factors. Economic woes led to electoral success, add to that weak coalition politics, financial support from the German upper class - the so called Junkers - and other historical factors all playing a much more significant role in the rise of the Nazi Party than the military ever did prior to 1933. The Wehrmacht was little more than a marginal factor at that time with many of its senior officers regarding the Fuhrer as a ghastly little Gefreiter they could easy manipulate to their own ends - a misjudgment of epic proportions. Having read Kershaw I really would have expected you would have gained a better understanding of the crucial importance that the swearing of oaths can have to the military mind, and the grave constitutional implications of soldiers swearing absolute loyalty to any politician.

Now I'm happy to debate this unhappy subject (or outdated Communist ideology like the Comintern) if you like but if you want to set yourself up as a expert on Nazi Germany for instance then lauding Hitler's planning abilities seems a poor choice of starting point. To seriously claim that Hitler "planned to reinstate Edward VIII as puppet monarch" is to confuse speculation with fact, and any assumption that a grand master-plan to invade the UK existed before the fall of France is pure fantasy - read 'Hitlers Armada' by Geoff Hewitt. Adolf Hitler was most certainly not a strategic planner in the conventional sense, he was a opportunist with all the nerve required to push his luck to (and way beyond) its limits.

But to return to the matter in hand, it is abundantly clear that the real reason you failed to mention this most obvious of examples of how a non military based threat to the democratic process can exist, is not because of some overly fastidious show of respect towards Godwin's Law, but rather because it was inconvenient to your 'the army are the major threat to democracy' argument.

And for all the time you were composing this missive, one simple problem with it didn't occur to you? Dictators that overthrow democratic governments tend to be the MILITARY. For example: the Colonels in Greece, Franco in Spain, Salazar in Portugal, Pinochet in Chile, a succession of animalistic generals in Argentina, Brazil, etc, etc. Greece is interesting for your supposed counter-example. King Constantin - a relative of the Queen - tried for weeks to intervene. In the end, he not only failed, but was forced by the Colonels into a humiliating accession to all their demands, and the constitutional guarantees of democratic and other rights were simply abolished, with the King signing all the necessary paperwork.

 

So clearly, on your own assumption of the paramount need to protect the constitution and the rights therein, it's by far the best thing to do to boot out royalty and replace it with deeper democratic structures like a properly elected second chamber and an elected head of state.

 

And what's the garbage about 'comrade? If anyone, I'm an admirer of that dangerous Trotskyist Tom Paine. Try telling an American constitutionalist that Paine was simply an evil revolutionary and he'll take you for a tiny bit of a twit.

The depressing fact that you would try to aviod the issue rather than address it, should have been all too predictable I suppose - I'll bare this in mind for future referance citizen.

All course anyone with a basic grasp on history could tell you that that threat to democrachy is not only a military one, even if we accept as reality some semi-fictonal division between the twin worlds of military and political power.

I know you should never mention Nazi Germany in any internet discussion, but it's unaviodable here. I know that given the rudimentery level of your historican knowledge I should expect you are unaware of how Hitler came to power, but you can rest assured it was not a million miles away from the scenario I have outlined above. Of course the Weimar Republic was another one of these automaticly superior republican constitutions so many on here seem romanticly attached to as if they alone were the answer to mankinds problems ...... oh and the question of oaths became rather important in that matter as well for your infomation.

You should take a step back and try to understand that our constitution has been put together by people who were a hell of a lot cleverer than you are.