Verbal

Widesprad reaction in America to the outcome of the Amanda Knox/Raffeale Sollecito trial is that it was the result of 'anti-Americanism'. This is fairly typical: 'Senator Maria Cantwell, a Democrat in Knox’s home state of Washington, also leapt to her defence. “I am saddened by the verdict and I have serious questions about the Italian justice system and whether anti-Americanism tainted this trial,” she said.' Or this: Judy Bachrach, a Vanity Fair journalist who wrote about the case, told CNN: “This was a very carefully choreographed trial and everyone knew from the beginning that the prosecutor had it in for Amanda Knox and the charges were trumped up. This is the way Italian justice is done. If you’re accused, you’re guilty.” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/philip-sherwell/6735329/Amanda-Knox-Foxy-Knoxy-was-an-innocent-abroad-say-US-supporters.html Fair?

Good to see the first conversation on the first mobile phone is a take on 'I'm on the train.'

Yeah, but you can easily be bumped by stories about t1ts in the NOTW. So HR is in there then?

I'm sticking with January 31. I can't see how they can legally trade beyond that date.

No, I'm well aware of how wafer-thin the test is. I just assume that your identity has to be known and face put to the name before you can be passed. I'm also aware that Thaksin was given a clean bill of health, despite the corruption case in Thailand outstanding at the time, and that Gaydamak passed despite continuing suspicion that he was fronting for his dad, who would not have passed even the FA's pathetic requirements. The football 'fit and proper' test in this country is generally pathetic. The front company that's taken over Notts Co also tried to move into F1, but the FIA banned them. So there you have it: the FIA has more of a moral compass than the FA and FL. Amazing.

QED

I'll take your clean sheet and raise you a single Lallana goal.

You remind me of tommac. Same self-defeating rage, aimed at posters who collect their ammunition from...you!

This is where my money is (metaphorically speaking!). Admin by end of Jan.

Can't - because it's a test for owners only. Although how on earth they're going to do a 'fit and proper' test on the invisible Faraj seems a pretty big question. The PL seem to be dodging that in the doomed hope that this mess unravels in a way that doesn't embarrass them. In the meantime, of course, they're simply failing to apply their own rules.

So the only thing anyone knows for certain about the mysterious and elusive Faraj is that he has no money. Brilliant!

From the way the New york Times tells it, the Americans think they've got it pretty easy too. There's even the merest hint that they'll turn us, and our 'incessant long ball game', over. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/05/sports/soccer/05draw.html?hp

Whatever our feelings about them, they won't survive beyond January the way things are going. So what we want is pretty much beside the point.

I liked the 'frittering' though.

'the', Frank, 'the'. Lowe out. Oh, he already is.

Just a wild guess, but if you have a little glance down, I think you'll find some recently planted Glaswegian pulling your pl0nker. Or should that be Willy?

This guy, Rex Murphy, is so laughable that even his own TV station in Canada takes the **** out of him!

I've got two PMs from mods saying you're on their shortlist. Now don't **** up.

I don't think you quite understand how serious golf is. As a mod-elect, have a word with yourself and give yourself three infractions.

I thought you didn't have a handicap. Have you been fibbing again?

But they sure as hell will beat England if we get drawn against them.

Real dilemma, this. Should I consider throwing a decisive contribution into your tin, or instead buy the blueberry muffin staring back at me in Starbucks. Muffin.

I'm saying nothing...

Quite. And if you encased the FA headquarters with a wafer-thin paper bag, the bigwigs trapped inside would die of starvation. Triesman in particular is a walking billboard for malevolent uselessness.

All I said was 'Really?' Anyway, the fun has to stop. Starbucks awaits.