benjii

Don't shoot the messenger..... As we all know, Gao bought the football club so that he could invest lots of money into Southampton's infrastructure. Well, it's MUCH bigger than we thought. The real plan all along has been to develop the long-heralded Dibden Bay docks. The Chinese want to extend belt and road to the UK south coast to give them a strategic presence on either side of the EU. Whilst Gao could feasibly have been used to front the redevelopment of the gas works / Itchen foreshore, he's not a credible front for Dibden Bay, which will need mega billions. Now, it just so happens that various US interests are also keen to establish a sizeable logistics base on the outskirts of the EU. The US government can't be seen to openly collaborate with the Chinese on this but the boss of a certain US business with a need for logistics capability has the liquidity to underwrite a sufficiently scaled development, for his own needs, but with strategic excess for the B&R / Uncle Sam. None of this can go ahead without acquiring SFC to grease the wheels.....

Great post. And whilst certain Asian populations seem to have a callous disregard for suffering in general, both human and animal, I'd wager that if any of us spent a day in an industrial abbatoir in the West we'd be pretty appalled at how we treat animals too.

60 tonnes of PPE donated to the NHS by the UAE arrived on a plane from China yesterday. Great success!

The idea of playing all matches on a single campus seems nuts. There are, what, 90-something matches left? So at 3 matches every day that's every team playing every three days or so for a month. If there are some rest days then extend the period. If 3 matches a day at the same venue can't be done then extend the period. As soon as anyone involved has tested positive, which is inevitable, you would have thought, then that's everything grinding to a halt for 14 days? And you can't have everyone playing at the same time on the last day of the season so scheduling could have a big impact. It will be a drawn-out, boring, pointless affair and quite unfair to teams with good home form. And that's without even mentioning contract issues and potential loss of players. If we can't do football properly then wait until we can. Give Liverpool a nice certificate or something for "good effort" then start again another time.

His profile is a cracking read. Turns out I used to walk past his old house regularly. Anyway, this has been a bit slack today, apologies. Score update to follow tomorrow plus a new question format.

Darn tootin', it's CB Fry!

.edit.

Further clue: once held a World Record.

One benjii point for the black man's cock reference.

If you’re thinking van Gobbel...... ‘fraid not.

‘fraid not.

Shows how fortunate we were that Koeman guided our incoming transfers in our summer of rebuilding and that other clubs didn't outbid us. Swap Tadic, Pelle and Mane for whoever Les and Ross would have gone for and we'd have been screwed.

It's good but it's not right.

"His tackling and risk-taking may have been issues on occasion, although his sprinting ability – 100 yards in 10.2 secs – so often enabled him to recover."

Yep!

"He’d decided he wasn’t comfortable in the No.9 shirt, so Jimmy Melia wore it against his old club and created havoc in their man-marking system."

We need to see it. No see-ey, no pointsee.

Yep, 5 benjii points.

Ok, give the public what they want: "By the time his League career dwindled to a halt, in loan spells dogged by injuries, he had long become the seventh Saint, post-war, to pass 400 games for the club."

Two hundred.

BONUS ROUND - OPEN UNTIL MIDNIGHT ON 30 APRIL Following the revelation that Tamesaint has a ball signed by Duncan Spedding, I shall award the benjii points indicated below to anyone who can upload a picture of the applicable item before the Bonus Round window slams shut. FIVE BENJII POINTS: A ball with David Speedie's signature on it (provided such signature is not part of a range of signatures of non-Saints players). Any ZDS Final memorabilia signed by someone who played for us in it. A signed reserve match "program" from The Dell. FIFTEEN BENJII POINTS: Anything signed by David Dein, Paul Allen or Mickey Fialka. TWENTY BENJII POINTS Any Celebration Plaza memorabilia. Any photo of Claus, Gary Monk or Kevin Davies out on the lash. Any photo of Jo Tessem or Egil Ostenstad involved in Nordic activities. TWENTY FIVE BENJII POINTS Any Saints branded / official merch signed by one of: Jacinto Ela Eyene Kleber Chala Imants Bleidilis FORTY BENJII POINTS An espadrille signed by Juanmi. A semi-nude photograph of Inigo Idiakez. Anything signed by Ronnie Ekelund. FORTY-FIVE BENJII POINTS Kompromat on Rupert Lowe. Calum Davenport's kitchen ware or a general letter of apology. FIFTY BENJII POINTS Dani Osvaldo's guitar pick. SEVENTY FIVE BENJII POINTS Anything signed by Cosimo Sarli. ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY BENJII POINTS A golden slipper signed by Cosimo Sarli. THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY BENJII POINTS A pair of golden slippers signed by Cosimo Sarly. FIVE HUNDRED BENJII POINTS Any merch relating to a club other than Saints for which Papa Waigo has played, signed by Papa Waigo.

Right, here's the leaderboard after day 2. Spedding-gate has provided a clear leader but there's still all to play for. Tamesaint - 20 Let's B Avenue - 10 Norwaysaint - 8 Colin's BJ - 5 davefizzy14 - 5 Shurlock - 5 The Cat - 5 Saint Mikey - 3 Avenue_Saint - 1 CB Fry - 1 stknowle - 1

Some skate on 5Live claiming they should have penalty shootouts to replace the playoffs.

Jurassic Park! I knew someone would get it. That's twenty benjii points. Top work. Plus a bonus benjii point for having a Duncan Spedding signed ball. You have also inspired a new type of round, which will be released later today.

Good guess. One benjii point. I met him in The Rhino club once and he was dead chuffed to be recognised.