Lord Duckhunter

Press bloke on Talksport at 7am this morning. Said Redknapp misjudged the England situation and ****ed Levy off by even going so far as to approach people about working with him during the Euro's, he was that sure of getting the job.Said that he has changed his agent and the new one is more combative. Also said that the interview he gave to Sky Sports last week, in which he claims the uncertainty is affecting the players (funny how he claimed it didn't affect them during the England talk), was the final straw for Levy and he'll be gone. Said Levy wants a DOF and a young Manager.

I presume you feel the same about the English cricket team.

What ruined my wedding day was Mrs Duck turning up. All my old mates were there, from my old football club, old work mates,mates I'd met in the pub over the years.It could have been a right good booze up, but the new Mrs Duck kept me on a tight lead that night.

And the next one will be a European phenomenon. Not that it will stop the ridiculous Ed Balls claiming it was "made in Downing Street". It's funny how all Labour's busts are global and nothing to do with their policies and all Tory ones are "made in Downing Street". Labour left us in a bad position to deal with a global bust, when it came. They can not wash their hands of everything, particulary banking regulation. Only 3 politicans were named and criticised in the report into RBS, Gordon Brown, Ed Balls and Tony Blair. Labour benefitted from the ERM fiasco, despite the fact they were enthusiastic supporters of it, and would have taken us in with the same result that cost the Torys so badly. They were in opposition at the time, so the buck stopped with the Tory's even though their policy were the same. Same with banking regulation, they were in charge and didn't regulate correctly so the buck stops with them.

I've always found the Scots and Welsh more anti English than the Irish when it comes to Football. I was in Dublin during England's first visit to Croke Park.I watched the Rugby in a pub in Dublin, surrounded by Irishmen and there was not any annimosity or trouble towards me at all. This match was played at a place where the British killed 14 people including one of the teams captains, and holds a very significant place in the history of their Country. Yet there was no trouble at all. I suggest that had the roles been reversed and 14 Englishmen killed at Wembley by the Argies, then an Argie watching the first visit of Argentina since that event, would not be very safe in a London pub full of English. To start going on about victimhood status and the like, shows a bit of ignorance about the history of their country. They have a hatred of the British establishment and the British state, and the English football team represent that. On an individual basis I have yet to meet one Irishmen (and I visit regulary) who has ever been anything other than friendly and warm to me and my family. I can not say the same about Jocks and Taffs, or even people from some other parts of England. As for why the TV stations treat them differantly than the French ect. Surely that's not too difficult to understand is it? Whether people on here like it or not, they are "less foreign" than the rest of Europe, with us sharing a common language, a border, & until 1922 we were part of the same Country. If Scotland votes for independance I guess we'll have threads asking why the BBC are not treating Scotland like they do France.

The Building Societies' members voted to demutualise. The bar was set quite high with 75% of members having to vote in favour, but the people were seduced by greed and "free" money. How can it be "unfettered capitalism" if the banks were nationalised. Capitalism wont work if failed business' are bailed out. Labour certainly had to take their share of the blame, particulary Brown and the now shadow Chancellor Balls.The offical report by Lord Turner into RBS said lax regulation of the City contributed to the collapse of Royal Bank of Scotland and allowed the former bosses of the bank, including Sir Fred Goodwin, to walk away without being disciplined .He said the regulator had been encouraged to take a "light touch" by Labour and that its creator, Gordon Brown, had left it with a "structural flaw". Brown made a terrible error in taking banking regulation away from the Bank of England in 1997 and hand it to the FSA.

Dario Gradi who does know a thing or two about young players devolopment gave an interesting interview a couple of years ago. In it, he claimed that there is a cultral difference which we need to over come. He said if you give group of French, Dutch or German kids a ball each they will practise skills, do keepy uppys, and flicks ect.He then went onto to say if you give a group of English kids a ball each , the first thing they will do is run and smash it into the back of the empty net.

For Capitalism to work, bad business’ have to fail and have to be allowed to go bang. Nationalising failed business’ and bailing them out, is pure Socialism, not Capitalism. Perhaps that's what New Labour meant by the "third way". Capitalism with the profits and Natiionalise the losses.

How on earth can you support the idea, an idea which will end in tears and cause the people of some European countries a decade of misery. Brown was not right, the Euro was wrong full stop. It doesn't matter whether the "golden rules" were passed or not. The whole idea was wrong and is still wrong. The problem is people and politicans thinking like you do. Until you lot wake up and smell the coffee,abandon the whole idea and have a planned ending of the Euro things will never get better. Ken Livingstone was on Sky this morning and he hit the nail on the head. The whole thing was about creating a United States of Europe. Surely the ERM fiasco should have told you the Euro was unworkable.How on earth people can still support the idea is beyond me.

Tony Blair called people oppossed to the Euro "extremists".

What a load of pony. Nearly every Lib/Dem did and still does believe we should join the Euro, and dont forget Labour's offical policy was to join when the time was right. It is Labour supporters who are against the Euro, most of their leaders were for it. The argument has always been that you can not have a currency union with economy's as diverse as Greece and Germany. Many Many Tories were against the ERM and against maastricht, both which played massive parts in the birth of the Euro. To claim the people who were right about the Euro all along, were right only because of some xenophobic principle is disingenuous.The Tories fought a painful and bitter battle over maastricht between Euro realists like Taylor, IDS , Redwood ect against Clarke, Major, Pattern and Heseltine. They fought this over principle, and were proved right. Nick Clegg and Ed Milliband are so wedded to idea they can not bring themselves to rule out joining the Euro in future.I doubt if Clarke or Hestletine can either. Yet these very people will be the ones that tell us we can not leave the EU.

The Greeks were able to borrow money at German interest rates for one simple reason. The markets did not believe the term of the maastricht treaty would be kept. The Maastricht Treaty that all the EU signed up for amended the terms of membership to allow the setting up of the Euro. The treaty had a “no bail-out, no exit, no default” clause. It also set out the terms and conditions of Euro membership. The markets never believed that the no bail out clause would be stuck to, so were happy to continue to lend, safe in the knowledge that they would get most if not all of their money back, and that the EU "project" was more important than any silly rules. There were people in the UK who oppossed the Maastricht Treaty, people who were called extremists and loons. They have been proved right and it was the accusors who have been proved wrong. The Germans and French broke the strict borrowing rules first and the rest followed suit. The Greeks, Italians ect, could not comply with the strict entrance criteria so fudged the figures. All that Gordon Brown did was refuse to fudge the UK's figures. He was for the Euro, he was for the UK's entry to the Euro when the economy was in position for us to enter. He was wrong about the Euro. He was for the Euro for Greece, for Spain, for Ireland and in principle for the UK. What on earth are you thanking him for, not fudging the figures, that's like thanking someone for not robbing your house. When the Euro (which Brown supported) collapses and takes our GDP down by 4/5%, are we going to thank him then. "Thanks Gordon, our GDP fell by 5%, whereas it could of fell 10% had our economy been aligned to allow membership of the Euro). We shouldn't be thanking anyone, we should be saying sorry. Sorry to people like Bill Cash, John Redwood , Teddy Taylor & IDS, we should be saying sorry we should have listened to you and strangled the whole thing at birth . Idiots like Major, Clarke, Hestletine and Pattern, aided by Labour and Lib/Dem Euro fanatics all thought the Euro was a good idea.They are the Peter Storrie's of modern politics.

It all depends on how much money we have to spend. I know Green is a free, but there must be a budget for wages. If signing Green means that we can not strengthen in other areas, then I'm against it. My personal opinion is there are other areas of the team that need looking at , before we spend a shed load of money on a new keepers wages. There is not much difference between Kelvin and Green, so if money is limited I would rather we got one who will be paid less, and kept Kelvin as number 1.

1. What do you think of her family and their morals 2. What do you think of the Syrian regime. If the regime last 200 years, will that make what they are doing now ok? 3. Do you think the first born son should be automatically be given a job, no matter what they do or whether they deserve it. How would you feel if your MP died and was automatically replaced by his/her son?

Spot on......... In any other walk of life Prince Phillip would be a considered a disgusting racist, and senile old fool. Prince Andrew would crawl back under the rock he came from. Even old Lizzies sister went round the world like some sort of slut groupie. The Queen must run the most dysfunctional family in the country, if it was some sink estate family, Dune would be up in arms about them. Yet we need to fawn and bow to them. Perhaps the old fashioned monarchists amongst us enjoy being subjects. Why is Assad in Syria such a bad regime, when he’s only doing what our Royals did for hundreds of years? Is it the time difference, in 300 years time will Syrians be waving flags and bowing to his family, saying what an inspiration they are? If you were setting up a nation now, you wouldn’t dream of putting 1 family as head of state, have a system where the oldest son inherits the role and you have to be of a certain religion. It may have been ok in medieval times, but surely we’ve all moved on from that?

I am not angry about the Monarch, just find it a bit strange. All we keep reading about is Gideon Osborne and Dave Cameron being “out of touch”, posh boys running a cabinet of millionaires.Yet we fawn and bow to the poshest, most out of touch people in the world. people’s view seems to be, lets get rid of the house of Lords, lets judge people on their merits, but lets leave the Queen to reign over us subjects. It is inconsistent. At least the Republican’s views are consistent.

She's been at it again.... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18325382

My Fav whipping boy now is Harding. When he came on for the home game against Skates I turned to my lad and said "that's it, 2-2". Turned out I was right......... Previously, Stuart Ripley (who made it worse by once telling me to **** off) Colin Clarke Dave Beasant Anyone who I considered to be Branfoot's blue eyed boys. Mick Mills The past few years it's maybe easier to list the players who weren't on my "not good enough" list. One guy I rated but the guys who sat with me used to moan about all the time was Magillton. Whenever he passed the ball sideways or back, they'd go mad.

SAF said that Rio was incapable of playing 3 games in quick succession, perhaps Rio should tweet Sir Alex asing him to keep his nose out of England selections. Carrick refused to go on the stand by list, so once there were drop outs Woy could hardly turn to him. As for Richards, I rate him, but Capello and Woy clearly dont and I think they know a bit more about it than us.

"Cutting your nose off to spite your face", would indicate that I really wanted to watch and join in, but I dont. I can think of anything worse than watching people harking back to the 1950's . As for the concert, Paul McCartney, Jools Holland & Stevie Wonder are the only 3 worth watching, and I've seen Paul in the 70's and 90's, so maybe wont even do that. I can see nothing worse than watching second rate washed up has beens like Tom Jones, Annie Lennox, Gary Barlow & Shirley Bassey, together with lightweight pop acts like Kylie, Robbie Williams and JLS?. To make things even worse that bore Cliff Richard will muscle in and no doubt that other long serving Queen, Elton will put in an appearance. ****ing hell, is that the spirit of rock and roll, playing in front of the establishment and a load of middle class people waving flags. Time for the revolution.............

What a load of old pony.

I wish Rio F would just STFU.

But the pays good, and your kids are sorted for life even if they are wasters. Your other half is also allowed to go round the world insulting people, and getting paid for it. Sitting through a boring peasants procession, is a small price to pay. [video=youtube;o60W286cm-E]

Vinyl making a comeback? Let's hope not. I dont really understand the nostalgia around records. 45's were a pain in the arse to keep getting up and changing. Even if you did have an arm that held a few at a time they either slipped or too many fell at once. 33's were as bad. Had to be held very carefully in case of a scratch, bloody fluff on the needle, and you couldn't skip the shiete songs without getting up. Give me downloads anyday, maybe the sound isn't as good, but it is to my ears and it's portable. The ONLY thing great about records was sitting there looking over the sleeve, whilst you listened to the sounds.

But are we better off because of the EU, or despite the EU. Surely the standard of living would have increased anyway with the advent of cheap debt, easier mortgages and a global economy. All thing's that would have happened anyway, and certainly would have done so if the EU had remained a trading bloc. It has certainly brought real benefits to Ireland, Greece, Spain and Portigual (although they are paying it back in spades at present), I'm just not so sure that we have benefitted. My opinion has always been about accountablility, that Parliament should be sacrosanct and that legislation should start and finish in this country.