Verbal

I can't remember where I saw it, but a Premier League spokesman was quoted today as saying that the league couldn't countenance a Premier League team causing a Football League club to go into administration. I think he's referring to Watford. That would indeed be shocking - and hopefully a sign that Pompey won't be easily let off the hook over the £10 million-worth of debts that need to be repaid within the month. I'm sticking with my end of January prediction for Adminsitration at Pompey. It can't possibly go on beyond that.

No, at half time. EDIT: FULL time!

Where?

BA are the Royal Mail of the skies - appalling industrial relations and on the brink of extinction. BA's problems are so bad, and so numerous, that I for one won't travel on them unless someone else has paid the ticket. I had to fly them to and from Frankfurt yesterday, and all the usual old problems were on display - both flights were late (the outbound because they underestimated the loading time and missed their take-off slot), the cabin crew were, as usual, contemptuous towards its customers, and the planes were cramped and unpleasant (certainly compared to the aircraft operated by a low-fares airline like EasyJet). BA has outlived its usefulness to everyone except some probably desperate shareholders. The union members who congratulated wildly on winning the strike ballot clearly have other job opportunities on their minds (because they can't have been thinking of the 900,000 passengers who'd paid their wages with bookings, only to have their holidays ruined). The dinosaur-like management has a history of oppressiveness and abuse that extends beyond their own employees to customers who have displeased them in some way (including some spectacularly nasty threats aimed a few years back at a passenger who complained about finding glass in his food). And their aircraft fleet is creakingly old, expensive to maintain and not fit for purpose. Good riddance. (The Royal Mail, on the other hand, I'd miss!)

No, it didn't.

Interesting, I'm sure - but writing solipsistic posts like this demonstrates a kind of selfishness that's quite revealing. Regardless of what you want, what about those who are engaged by the coverage in the Echo and elsewhere?

Wes, I'm really surprised that you've fallen into line with the Party of God on this, with the fatuous argument about how the club's continuing public silence on this means that we can't draw any conclusions. This is a trivial and local incident in the grander scheme of things, and involves a newspaper that isn't popular on here. But it really is astonishing to see how easily people might be to sacrifice good journalism in the face of the kind of pressures that Wilko quite rightly complains about in the wider world. Sadly, we live in a world where the information presented to the public is increasingly sanitised by corporations and governments, and where sanctions are sought against journalists, photographers and others don't toe the party line. And sometimes, the best friends are those ready to tell others when they're wrong or have failed to understand something. In this case, no one has suggested other than that an embargo was imposed selectively and after the fact. That is not how embargoes work, nor how they should work. This is a storm in a teacup which should be settled by the end of the week. Anything else would suggest some peevish egos at work. But I have faith...

The Macbook Pro is the best buy on there, imo. I can get the education discount and I'm VAT registered. Just thinking...

It does, hypo. And the FL approved the owners after secret meetings with people on the board at Notts Clo who basically showed the FL bits of paper suggesting who the true owners were. The FL has never revealed who these people were - nor have they said why they believed these people had any credibility whatsoever, despite a welter of newspaper reports saying that Qadbak were about as legit as a three dollar bill. So evidently bad is Qadbak's track record that the FIA banned them from owning a Formula One team. Which is a bit of a reality check - the FIA has more moral backbone than Mawhinney's Football League.

As what looks like fraud unravels at Notts Co, I'd be surprised if they make it through the season in League 2, let alone have any chance of promotion. Their supporters' dreams of reliving the glory days have been crushed - and they've lost control of their club because they believed the false claims made by anonymous characters from a secretive offshore company. 'Fit and proper' indeed.

So it is about power - or at least in your mind. You seem to have a deeply (and presumably unintentionally) low opinion of Cortese. As I've said before, the club and the paper will sort this out. And they will do it in an adult fashion, is my guess - rather than with a 'We're doing this because we can' childishness.

Then why are you so insistent that the Echo 'grovel'? Only because, to suit your own argument, you assume that the Echo must have done something that the others didn't. But what on earth is that assumption based on? It's something of a relief to be know that this tiff between the club and paper won't be sorted out with the interventions of a few on here, but (I'm sure) with sensible, adult mediation.

But that wasn't the point I was making. To repeat: you are failing to apply your logic to your own posts. What you now reduce it to is a balance of power. Presumably the BBC won't be banned because it is too powerful. Does that make it right - just because the club (in your view) can? If I were Cortese, yours are hardly the arguments I'd want to hear.

Abu Dhabi seems to make a habit of bailing out screw-ups. In the early 90s, the Emir also shelled out to many of the creditors of BCCI, the notorious gun-running, drug-dealing, terrorist-sponsoring Ponzi scheme that was, until Bernie Madoff, the biggest scam in history.

If you're going to argue in that way, then I do think you have to apply the same rules to your own posts. Your comments earlier about the Echo having to 'grovel' if a resolution is sorted out in the next few days does seem like you've made up your mind before hearing Cortese's statement, assuming he makes one.. As I said earlier, a grown-up response will in any case ensure that this will all be settled within the week - everyone has seen enough of Cortese's careful approach with the club to reasonably think that.

You wanted Ollie to win?

Less worrying then...

I don't think you realise - LA77 was being amusing.

There are quite a few worse strikers in the Prem - which is always a bit of a worry...

I'm sticking with my prediction.

Right, but I'm saying it'll be sorted out by next week. I wouldn't expect either side to grovel. That's just silly. Time for a grown-up resolution. I have faith in Cortese and his advisors to sort this out.

Wanna bet?

If FM says stewards were issued with photos to ID Echo staff, I'd be inclined to believe him, given his inside knowledge. But as you say, a search like this would hardly be foolproof. The larger issue is that the longer there isn't an explanation from the club, the more your position just seems like an attempt to close down the argument. In any case, I'd expect some kind of statement from the club tomorrow - any smart media management would dictate that. The club will have to address what seems on the face of it a bit of problem. The embargo appears to have been applied only to the Echo - and, worse, seems to have been imposed only after the Echo approached the club for comment on the plans. This isn't how embargoes work. They are applied at some point before the point at which information is released - in this case, either when the planning application is made, or when the council nominates the time and day that it makes the application public. You certainly don't announce embargoes after other media - including the BBC and even TSW - have covered the story extensively. If it turns out that the club did exactly this, and placed the embargo only for the BBC, etc., to break it, then fine - except that there still has to be an explanation as to why the Echo was singled out for sanctions and not the Beeb - and us! Either way, this is all an unhealthy situation, and both the club and the paper should move quickly to resolve it. It's all very well for a selfish few on here to say f**k the Echo, but there are people out there for whom it is their means of following the club. And it does hurt people. The photographers, for example, by following the club's apparent diktat (if this was the case) that they couldn't sell their pictures to the Echo would have lost income. Plus there's the issue of how the sponsors might feel about it, etc, etc. Everyone loses in the end. Expect it all to be resolved within the next week.

Just curious. Did you know FF was a Saints supporter?

Best antivirus? A mac. Never had antivirus on any of my Apples and never had a problem.