CHAPEL END CHARLIE

The income streams coming into this (and other) PL clubs now are enormous, and as player wages seem to be coming under some kind of control at long last club profitability is likewise rocketing into the stratosphere. Baring those facts in mind, can screwing even more money out of this club's less well-off fans really be justified at this time? For that matter, why do you place the financial interests of big business above that of your fellow fans?

Indeed - this membership malarkey seems little more than a (voluntary) tax on non ST holders - very often exactly the type of fan who can least afford it by the way. I've been a ST holder in the past but can't afford it any longer - this doesn't make me 'plastic'! A poor effort from the club this.

Talking of supercars, did anyone else make it to the (rather wonderful) Wilton House Classic & Supercar show near Salisbury last weekend? I did and what great fun it was to get close to so many utterly fantastic cars that you otherwise so seldom see. Ferraris and McLarens by the dozen (including a stunning 'Enzo') no less than four Bugatti Veyrons, three Jaguar XJ220's, a single Porsche 918 Spyder - you name it and it was probably there. Best of all at the end of the day these magnificent cars did their final parade around the grounds as they left and - with suitable encouragement - many of their owners would floor the throttle so that we mere plebs might enjoy the sound of a monster motor in action for a few seconds. For any true motoring enthusiast is there a better sound than a Audi R8's V10 engine being revved to the red line? Needless to say I'll be back there next year and if you really love cars you could do worse than to do likewise. PS - littleun was more impressed by the computerised dashboard you get on a 'Tesler' electric car that some fool let him play with ... there is no hope for that boy!

What is going to happen here is that many non ST holders - such as myself - are going to end up having to buy into this membership thing just to have any real chance of getting tickets. For me and nipper that will in effect be £40 down the drain for next to nothing in return. Obviously I would willing pauper myself to help out our poor cash stricken club, but there is a limit to even my sense of generosity!

It is my sad duty to inform you all that the reason Sarnia Saint did not issue his habitual rebuttal of any implied criticism of violence levels in the United States last night is that our Canadian friend passed away peacefully in his sleep a few hours ago - he was shot 15 times in the head while avoiding arrest on a charge of excessive liberalism. I think we all know that he wouldn't have wanted to go any other way. Donations can be made to the new ''Sarnia Foundation'' - a charitable trust that has been established in his name with the aim of freely distributing firearms to underprivileged children everywhere. RIP mate - we will never see your like again.

http://www.autoblog.com/2015/06/05/top-gear-finally-films-season-ending-episodes/

That Zen would need a personality reboot before I could even consider bidding and after dumping us into the bloody Europa League surely no Saints fan would ever employ someone called 'Vila' in their crew.

A old friend once told me that while enjoying a convivial evening in a top London restaurant many years ago, no less a celebrity than Frank Sinatra sent one of his many 'heavies' over to tell him to keep the noise down or else ... oh and Shakin' Stevens and Don Warrington are complete tosspots apparently. I choose not to believe the Ronnie Corbet story as this challenges my whole belief system.

I quite like the unambitious, but nevertheless entertaining enough, fly-on-the-wall series 'Demolition' (BBC), although looking at some of the (perfectly sound) structures being destroyed here you do have to wonder whether refurbishing the old, rather than destroying it, would often be a better option for our built environment. Those 60's tower blocks we hate so are actually highly efficient users of precious space on this overcrowded island and they can with care be transformed into attractive and decent places to live. Apparently many of the new structures being put up to replace what we see being pulled down here have only a guaranteed 25 year life span apparently ... I also can't quite resist 'For The Love Of Cars' (C4) but feel the second series is markedly inferior to the first because instead of focusing on the restoration process itself, the producers have decided instead to broaden the programme out to included all kinds of vaguely related material that I'm far less interested in frankly. It may well be that those with the attention span of a Goldfish may struggle to follow all the painstaking effort and craftsmanship that goes into top class vehicle restoration, but the trouble is that process is exactly why this viewer watches this series in the first place. For the first time ever I was forced at gunpoint (by my all-powerful sister) to watch 'Britain's Got Talent' (ITV) the other day. Now please understand that I normally avoid this type of thing like the plaque, but I must admit this bizarre amalgam of genuine talent mixed with something akin to a 'freak show' did start to worm its way under my skin after a while - damn it. However, how and why the eternally pubescent 'ant & dec' remain so very popular with the British public is still something of a mystery to this reluctant viewer.

When the Fifa presidential election goes ahead - and it will at some point - then Blatter will probably win because he has instituted a system of patronage and kick-backs that insure that is in the direct financial self-interest of many delegates to vote for him - why would they want to derail such a profitable gravy train? In effect Fifa is run like some unholy mixture of the Mafia and North Korea. The system reeks of corruption of course, but as Fifa reports to no higher authority then the only way to stop Blatter is for the US authorities (God bless them) to convict Blatter and his cronies of the corruption charges they have been successfully dodging for years - which would obviously take many years - or wait for nature to run its course with a 78 year old man. Everyone wants to see their country compete in the World Cup, and the financial implications here are huge, but Fifa is so rotten to the core that you have to think the time is fast coming when our FA should consider withdrawing from this organisation until it is fundamentally reformed.

Swiss police have arrested a number of Fifa officials in your stereotypical 'dawn raid' in Zurich this morning at the behest of the US Department of Justice. No names have been released as yet, but I understand that unfortunately the egregious Sepp Blatter - the man responsible for running this notoriously corrupt organisation - was not among those led off to the slammer. The Presidential election is due on Friday. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32895048

Churchill was indeed a complex and flawed old imperialist who badly misjudged the mood of the British public and ran the '45 election campaign terribly. However, I though this was a rather questionable programme conceived to promote a anti-Churchill agenda, rather than tell the story of Winston and that election objectively. This election was I think as much about voting for the Labour Party and the novel idea of a 'Welfare State', as it was a vote against Churchill and what he stood for. If Winston was indeed as widely unpopular with the British people as claimed here, then his subsequent election victory in 1951 is hard to explain, and when the programme implied that Churchill (as Chancellor) was solely responsible for the great (international) recession of the early 1930's ... well that is utter nonsense.

I wasn't even 'talking' to or about you! Despite the unending torrent of 'LOLs' I doubt somehow that you are really finding this 'forum war' you have chosen to enter into to be a very humorous experience - indeed you seem to be becoming ever more overwrought with every passing day. As the mods apparently refuse to lock this thread - for some reason that escapes me - it seems to me that the wisest thing for you to do would be to drop it before you stress yourself out completely. Naturally, nobody on here will for one moment expect you to do that.

Being a fan of the series I couldn't resist seeing 'Mad Max: Fury Road' and what a agreeable way to waste a dull Bank Holiday afternoon it was. The script is notable mostly by its absence, the character development was sketchy at best and this film is badly in need of an injection of the wry sense of humour that would (occasionally) interrupt the mayhem in the earlier Mel Gibson films. As for the cast, I really can't say that Tom Hardy made much of a impression on me as 'Max' but Charlize Theron is certainly a competent actor and young Nicholas Hoult did seem to make the most of what the script gave him. None of that really matters however because the action - magnificently staged - is so utterly non stop you hardly notice this films flaws. As far as I could tell the lavish action sequences were mostly 'old school' physical stunt work, rather than the unconvincing CGI you so often see now, and the film was all the better for that. I should add here that the production designer and his team did great work here making the all various modified vehicles employed. So leave your brain behind and settle down for a couple of hours of dumb fun - you won't regret it I think.

This is definitely 'Stat of the day' on here. I never realised that being a dustbin man was such a dangerous occupation - although this might explain why they are always in such a rush to finish their work ...

It has been a fine season overall and the last five years have proved to be a great time for this club and its loyal supporters. However, another FA Cup triumph at Wembley would mean far more to this fan than 7th place in the PL and a chance of a European competition that I don't give a damn about frankly.

It's obviously a exceptionally difficult and dangerous job to do, but from afar you have to say that at least some US police officers appear to be at war with the public rather than attempting to serve them. This situation seems to be escalating dangerously and unless effective measures at taken to address it PDQ then you can see some kind of renewed race relations crisis my well reoccur in the USA before too long.

It's been some time since I last saw a team foul up a top driver's race quite so disastrously as Mercedes did at Monaco today. If it wasn't for the fact that they had just given Lewis Hamilton a new 3 year - and highly lucrative - contract, you'd almost suspect some kind of pro German conspiracy was at play here. Almost but not quite I think because that was just a monumental c**k up. Not for the first time those responsible for race strategy at this team look distinctly 'amateur hour' - not good enough. Massive shunt for young Max Verstappen that in a previous era might well have taken his life, or at least very seriously injured him. Great to see this freakishly gifted teenager walk away from it uninjured. If one day he does become F1 champion - and he may - I hope he looks back on that incident and thanks his lucky stars that he was born in the 1990's rather than the 1960's. Daniel Ricciardo is still my favour F1 driver by a mile - that smile and carefree sense of humour is just brilliant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Choizr91OCk

The EU question is a extremely complicated and difficult one - the really important questions very often are - but a matter that nevertheless can be 'boiled down' to just two simple proposistions: > Do you think that the peoples of these islands are better governed from Brussels or London? > If you choose the latter, can we really 'go it alone' without damaging our economy significantly? If you are retired, or in receipt of some secure income that would not be much effected by the UK leaving the EU, then you may well favour our departure from this inherently expansionist, bureaucratic and rather unpopular international institution. On the other hand, if you work for Airbus (for example) and your livelihood depends to some extent upon our continuing EU membership, then I suppose enlightened self interest demands that you should oppose that idea. Right now I find myself stuck ''on the fence'' re this difficult question - which is always a most uncomfortable position find yourself in. I instinctively don't like being dominated by Brussels (Berlin in reality) because I'm far more emotionally attached to our uniquely British history and institutions than I am to any euro substitute, It seems to me that our influence in the EU will always be a marginal one. The further away the seat of power is from the people it is supposed to represent, then the less responsive it becomes to their needs. For now I'm hoping that the PM can indeed secure a new deal from the EU that maintains our freedom from foreign domination in these islands while securing the crucial trading advantages membership of what was one known as the 'Common Market' grants us. If he fails in that endeavour then the British people face the most important vote of their lifetimes.

Well you might be surprised to learn that I agree with you in so far as there certainly is a strand of leftist opinion in Europe, and elsewhere, that despises the USA and all that it stands for. However that (rather outdated I think) ideological based opposition to Americanism and its unapologetically individualist/capitalist ethos should not be confused with a far more widespread feeling expressed by those (such as myself) who actually admire the US but nevertheless feel that their attitude towards firearms specially - and law and order in general perhaps - is highly damaging. This of course is not a feeling restricted to Europeans only because many US citizens (including their current President I suspect) feel likewise but find themselves trapped within a culture that refuses to recognise its own folly and a dysfunctional political system designed to place the concept of individual liberty above that of the wider interests of society as a whole. Surely there is something very amiss with a nation where innocent school children can be slaughtered in their classrooms with such appalling regularity, and yet the political class elected by the parents of these children seems not only utterly powerless to address the problem but too often refuses to even accept that there is a real cause for concern here anyway. The thread title is unhelpful, but where you have gone wrong I think is that you have confused a widespread sense of concern re gun violence in US society, with a crude anti-American attitude that I suspect few on here probably hold. Think of it this way, the USA is akin to a old friend whom you love and respect, but at the same time recognise is far from perfect.

I don't know why you assume it was the Republican side that requested this visit. I also see no reason to believe that Prince Charles was under any form of coercion from HMG to meet with Gerry Adams or indeed that he didn't sincerely mean everything he said - quite the opposite in fact. What you find so hateful I find rather admirable. Clearly the Sinn Fein/IRA did not achieve everything it wanted from the 'long war' - if they had then Ulster would be a part of Eire today would it not?

The history of Ireland's 'troubles' is a long and bloody one and it is far too soon I think to take peace for granted. While you might find the sight of Gerry Adams conversing with Prince Charles to be ''sickening'' experience, I'd say that vision is not half as repulsive as all those bloody and butchered British or Irish bodies this child of the 1960's and 70's grew up watching on the TV news almost every night. It is in the nature of any peace process is it not that you must deal with your enemies, rather than your friends.

Well I think this latest Royal visit by Prince Charles has materially assisted the ongoing peace and reconciliation process in Ulster and therefore proved to be a worthwhile event. Indeed, this is perfectly clear is it not?

It seems clear enough why those with a republican agenda to promote will seek to attack Prince Charles at every opportunity - afterall HM the Queen has not exactly given them very much to 'work with' over the course of her long reign has she? This story really doesn't amount to very much (if anything) does it? For that matter the recent publication of his correspondence with ministers had little impact with the public I feel - indeed what a 'damp squid' of a story that proved to be. So critics of the monarchy and Charles will have to fall back on the right royal mess his first marriage became I suppose - although as a sizeable proportion of this nation's population have experienced their own matrimonial difficulties even that old avenue does not seem to offer all that promising a opportunity from their perspective you'd think. On the other hand his trip to N Ireland this week has proved to be a worthwhile and brave effort considering the circumstances and the very personal loss he suffered at the hands of the IRA. Time will tell of course, but it seems to me likely that Prince Charles will prove to be a perfectly acceptable king when the time comes - assuming he outlives his mother that is.

I too sometimes enjoyed his various contributions on here - I even agreed with him on occasion - however ''a bit too far'' may be your way of putting it, but not I think the choice of words I myself would employ. Thinking back on it, the notorious 'crisis actors and Lee Rigby' thread, the ludicrous claim that Israeli children are all brainwashed fanatics, even that NASA = NAZIS business that I remember so well, all when way beyond going a little ''too far'' methinks.