Lord Duckhunter

Why give the guy a load of abuse, if you don't like his thread don't comment on it. Much as I loved lawrie, those type of signings belong in a bygone era. The only ones worth signing are a giggs , scholes, or carragher and they can choose their moment to leave the game safe in the knowledge they don't need one more pay day. The managers who have tried it lately are redknapp and pulis, but people like Owen & Ryan nelson are just a waste of money. Look at fat frank or John terry , 30 years ago Chelsea would have binned them, now they can manage them through squad rotation and when the time comes to go , they'll go to the middle east, USA or retire. I would love a jimmy case, kk or a Peter Osgood, but the games changed .

I thought it was a Stoke training session.

Leeds played in blue and white, then blue, before Don Revie changed it to the all white we now associate with them. This looks like the one from about '85, not one of my favourites but better than some of the striped efforts we've had over the years. Last years grow on me and I hope this one will as well. At the end of the day, the thing that ****es me off, isn't the kit design but the price and the constant renewing of kits every season.The design is just opinions and the sales figures will indicate popularity in the club's eyes not a poll of people signed up on here. There will be 3 groups; People who don't like it, but buy it anyway. People who like it and buy it, and people who don't like it but would have bought it had it been striped. Until the third group outweigh the first two the club wont give a ****.

1. Abbey Road-The Beatles 2. The Band-The Band 3. Shotgun Willie-Willie Nelson 4.Down by the jetty-Dr Feelgood 5. Mad dogs & Englishmen-Joe Cocker

Real ale

Damn nuisance these election results aren't they? In future how do we assess whether a government has any business being in power. My suggestion is the party leaders pop round yours for a cuppa and a chat and you decree who forms the government.Much more legitimate than bothering with counting votes ,and in this age of austerity a lot cheaper.

It is a fact that money purchase schemes need less employers Contibutions than a defined benefit one. That's why they are dying out in the private sector. As the taxpayer is the employer of public sector workers, closing defined benefit pensions and starting mps will save the tax payer money but still leave public sector workers with an equivalent pension to nearly all private sector workers.

No drama, provided they are not called "self funded". Do you accept that if defined benefit schemes in the public sector were closed it would save the tax payer money, whilst giving public sector workers similar pension provisions as the vast majority of tax payers have ?

My son has a private pension. That is self funded. Mine is funded by myself and my company so is not self funded. Yours is funded by you and the tax payer so is not self funded.

The tax payer will always have to contribute to Public sector pensions, I cant see how any normal person could disagree with that. However, surely it's a legitimate question as to whether they should continue to fund a defined benefit scheme or move to a money purchase one which will save them a lot of money. It is also incorrect to call them "self funded" .

Do these companies you quote offer their employees a defined benefit scheme? Perhaps they closed them to keep their costs down and make the business more profitable. This is turn has meant they can keep the cost of your shopping lower. And , to go back to Bazza's earlier point. If you don't like your money going towards the Sainsburys pension, don't shop there. How does Bazza do the same to public sector pensions? If they put the price of a loaf up 50% to help fund pensions, you could walk away. If Bazza's taxes go up to fund a defined benefit pension in the public sector, what can he do?

Of course it makes a difference. My employer decided that they couldn't afford to continue to fund a defined benefit pension, so pulled the plug on it. There are a lot of people that believe the country (your employer) cant afford to continue to fund a defined benefit pension, but woe betide the Government that tries to pull the plug on them. I get the need to honour the pensions people signed up to (despite the fact that a huge number of private employers, including mine, didn't honour their commitment) but they should be closed to new entrants. Still at least I learnt something today. "Self funded" in public sector speak means funded by the employee and the tax payer.

But who funds it. You said it was self funded. My lad has a private pension, he pays in . I have a work one, i pay in and my company pay in. My wife has a NHS one, she pays in and the taxpayer pays in. I would be really interested in who pays into the local government self funded ones.

Or the people (IE the unions) that keep banging on that they are "self funded" could take them over. Who would you want in charge of your "self funded" pension, a wicked uncaring Tory party hell bent on stealing it, or a union whose sole purpose is to protect its members? I've no doubt that governments of both colours would.love to hand over the liabilities of these "self funded" pensions to the unions , in fact id wager that they would pay the unions millions to do so. Everyones a winner, the unions protect their members final salary pensions, the members keep their final salary pensions and the tax payer doesn't think they are funding them anymore, so can't be misled by the wicked Tory press.

Who knighted Fred Goodwin, who devised the tripartite banking regulations, who sold our gold at rock bottom prices, who taxed millionaires at 40% whilst putting up ordinary workers ni, who decimated peoples pensions with a tax grab, who expanded off balance pfi agreements that ourchildren and grandchildren will be paying back, who left us completely and utterly unprepared for the bust? Your Mr Wren-Lewis may be called a professor in economics, but then George burley is called a football manager. The notion that the labour party ran the economy fantastically but the bankers ruinned it alone is laughable. This bankers were courted, knighted and praised by the labour government, labour were part of the problem, not victims of it.

But Labour left us badly exposed to the downturn by spending too much money during the boom years. This in turn meant that there is no money to expand the deficit during the bust years. Of course Gordon Brown had abolished boom and bust and Labour had managed to create a goldilocks economy that ushered in a "golden age for the city of London".

Bazza, If I turned up at my local tonight and announced I had bought a lorry on HP and was going to set my self up in the removal business despite never having done it in my life. Some people would say to my face, "what, you ****" and the polite ones would wait until I visited the John before taking the **** behind my back. Obviously, there would be exceptions, but as a general rule the reaction to an ordinary Joe taking a chance and trying to better himself is more positive than in the UK in my experience. It is often said, although I don't know if it still stands, that Americans are against soak the rich tax rates, because they all think they or their children could be rich one day

If you didn't need a passport to visit the EU and had never needed one , how many Brits would have one? Add in the fact that the USA is so vast and diverse that you can have most types of holiday staying within the country. If you live in Boston, you can have a beach holiday in FLA, if you live in Texas you can ski in Colorado, want a city break, New York maybe. If you want a British Salou experience as a teenager, then you can do Daytona or other spring break places. So ask yourself this, if Disneyworld/land etc theme parks were in the UK, if you didn't need a passport to travel to France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Malta, ect how many Brits would have a passport? What is this "worldly" you talk of. Does staying in an all inclusive "Holiday Village" in Turkey make you "worldly", or is it just transporting British culture and Butlins mentality to a hot country? If you narrow it down to Brits who take in the culture and sights and sounds of foreign countries outside of the EU, I bet the % is pretty much the same as Americans who travel. A lot of Brits (including me) go abroad to relax and get some sun in whilst staying in a different state/country, we need to leave the Country to do so, Americans don't.

If it's his first, second or even third offense then maybe the sentence is a bit harsh. But this was his 28th conviction, it's about time he was locked up for a reasonable length of time. Personally, I'd put him in Parkhurst or Wakefield and let him wander around naked in there. It may just make him decide to get another hobby and spare the public the sight of his meat and two veg.

My point was the reaction to his gamble(and it was a gamble) from his friends and neighbours.

I agree completely, I spent 4 years working there in the 80's and found them to be polite and sincere . Some Brits love to take the **** out of this "have a nice day" culture, but I found that Americans really do mean it, when you think about it, what a nice way to say goodbye to someone, yet for some reason it's used as a stick to poke fun at them. The big thing I noticed was the optimism and the can do attitude most had. My neighbour was a Geordie, and despite never having done removals before, bought a van on HP and decided to try and do removals. All the neighbours and guys we knew from the bars were all "great idea man" and said they would recommend him and pass the word on. In this country it would have been "you daft ****, what do you know about it". I know that's a bit of a generalisation, but I really was struck on how positive they were about his venture and how much they wanted him to succeed. Generally, they don't know a lot about Europe, but always seemed keen to ask about England when you first meet. The only thing that used to **** me off was half of them thought I was Australian.

If I was an Arsenal fan and wanted this guy to sign, I'd be pretty ****ed off if he went to Southampton.

Bearing in mind we failed to win any of the 6 "winnable" games against Norwich, Sunderland & West Brom last season, I'd rather the skipper kept his mouth shut.

lol

Anyone on zebra finance who wants to change the dd date its really easy. You have to wait until June payment goes out and can then change subsequent dates by calling them. I called them a minute ago and sorted it, with me they took Junes payment by debit card and changed payments from 23rd to 1st of month, but you can wait until first payment has come out if you want.