JackFrost

Please being Cotterill back . . .

Man City 1-0 Spurs

Navas scores in the 1st minute

According to a S****horpe supporting friend of mine

"That was our first win in a month and we should have put 5 or 6 past them"

The stock market. Does it actually work as it was billed to? As in, invest in a company, mess up their rival, your share price rises? I've yet to see it and looking at forums the popular opinion is that no, it doesn't actually happen.

Not noticed it myself apart from when you do the assassination missions with Lester. If you buy the relevant company's shares as you do or shortly after the mission, complete the mission and then sell the shares 3 days later you always get a pretty hefty profit.

On another topic I just love some of the clips when you switch between the characters. I've just switched to Trevor and he's halfway up Mount Gordo wearing a woman's dress. "A less rational man might think he's just been abducted by aliens"

None of Pompey's recent goals have been remotely relevant to me TBH. It's always amusing watching/hearing their fans giving it large about their equalizer against us and as their club goes plummeting down the leagues behind their back. To me their irrelevant compared to some of the goals we conceded when we were fighting relegation.

The number one for me was Marcus Bent, that goal just shattered our confidence. It sucked the life out of all the fans, the players, the coaches and I don't think the club ever recovered from it. At that point of the season we had momentum and were playing really well but that one goal destroyed our season.

Against Everton we were easily the better side and I seem to remember we were also denied a stonewall penalty. Then just after Nigel Martyn pulls off a brilliant save for Everton, Marcus Bent of all people (a player who scored about 5 goals in his last 40 games at that point) somehow beats an on-form Paul Smith at his near post in the last minute.

Even now if that goal had never gone in I genuinely think we'd have stayed up

I think Whittingham will get sacked after this.

and who on earth could they get to replace him?

Not remotely the same thing. Labour aren't trying to get content permanently removed from every nook and cranny on the Internet.

Labour would probably love to have some of its more embarrassing statements purged from public Internet record, but it hasn't done so, mostly because it isn't the party in government.

The only reason the Tories thought they could get away with this is because they're the people in charge.

Replace the words "thought they could get away with this" with "did it". Do you honestly not see the common denominator in your own post?

You've said it yourself.

I'm not saying Labour have been forever blameless on this issue, but the two cases you make in your mocking comparison aren't the same thing. There is a difference between removing stuff from your own website and trying to get it removed from the entire Internet. Historically, I'd have had you pegged as the sort of character able to make the distinction.

Yes, it's called one party not going to the same lengths, and the simple reason is one party is in power and the other isn't, meaning one party is subject to more criticism/scrutiny because the decisions they make affects everyone in this country on a regular if not daily basis. Just because one party hasn't gone to the same extent doesn't mean the overall concept is any different. You think Labour wouldn't have done the same if they were in power?

As for distinction, I certainly can't make much between the parties in the most elitist Parliament in modern history. The Tories are the Tories, and the Lib Dems have proven to be an unelectable party that say whatever they want to gain populist votes, and have become the fall guys for most of the Tories' more stupid policies. As for Labour they are a directionless entity who don't represent who they claim to represent, and conjure up meaningless gimmicks portrayed as policies to try and convince people they do. In general I merely get amused when people try to score political points against any party for a reason that is a common factor between their or all of the political parties.

Again Pap. You seem so surprised. They all do it. Yet you only use the Conservative lot as your examples

Certainly looks that way

The splendid irony is that Dave has removed his speech wherein he said how much he valued the power of the internet in holding politicians to account. Surely not the same Dave that now seeks to castrate some of the powers of the internet and, thereby, the powers of such sites as 38 Degrees that do such a good job of challenging policies.

Funnily enough it appears that Labour have tried to do the same thing with "boom and bust"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24942040

Mayuka was an absolutely superb signing

Marek Saganowski would be a massive player for us when he signed permanently

Paul Wotton was absolutely useless *****il I saw him play live, press the opposition and work his socks off for 90 mins in a game even with his limited ability)

Dexter Blackstock would develop into a PL striker

Kelvin Davis should be sold and Bart should be our number one (during KD's bad spell for us under Burley)

and one from a friend of mine - Leon Best will be fine taking the first penalty against Derby in the play-off semi final

Kim "The Hurricane" Huybrechts has just unexpectedly won the PDC Dutch Darts Masters.

Read into that what you will.

I can see where you are coming from, but surely the true purpose of motorsport is not to see how fast we can make a race car go around a race track. No, it seems to me that Formula One is a branch of 'show biz' - IE it exists in order to entertain those who choose to follow it ... oh and to sell stuff to those same fans of course.

 

We can all snootily look down our collective noses at 'blue collar' motorsport formula such as the BTCC and criticize their lack of "purity". But I can assure you that many younger motorsport fans I personally know have given up on F1 but are still keen enthusiasts of lesser forms of motorsport precisely because of their unpredictability, close racing and wealth of incident compared to the sterile and overly academic fare on offer from F1.

 

I've just seen the (typically dull) Indian GP and - my congratulations to Red Bull and Vettal aside - how fitting it is that this season should effectively end with another 'whimper' of a race rather than the 'bang' that might have done at least something to install a sense of enthusiasm for next season. I can recall when it was announced a while ago that the BBC would lose the rights to screen every F1 race live how annoyed I was back then because I used to love this sport so very much.

 

Now however I could hardly care less to be brutally frank about it.

But to me that is the entire point of Formula 1.

I suppose it depends how much of a 'purist' one is but I don't tune in to Formula 1 for the sole purpose of on track action. Partly yes but top-level motorsport is far from being just about on track battles and overtaking. I can find the strategic side of it just as interesting.

I still tune into the Le Mans 24 hours and there's a lot less overtaking for position in that than Formula 1.

I was actually concerned about Garth Crooks comments when he was condemning Wenger and Mourinho for wanting to see evidence before deciding what action would be appropriate. If the evidence is there then fine, if it isn't then a witch-hunt every time someone accuses fans of racism is the last thing that is needed. I sympathise with him to an extent as I suspect he took a lot of racist abuse back in the day but he's misguided if he thinks a boycott will achieve anything long term.

I condemn racism as much as the next guy but if the black players boycott the 2018 World Cup then congratulations, you've given the racists exactly what they want - an all white world cup.

Russia is probably the most racist and homophobic country in the world but what needs to change are the society's attitudes. The best way of dealing with the racists is rubbing their noses in it by black players producing MOTM performances, and playing to the best of their ability. Then if there are serious issues with racism during the tournament let FIFA bear the brunt of the inevitable and completely justified outrage, at the decision to hold the world cup there in the first place. Personally I don't see there being any major issues in 5 years time though, as the Russian authorities will have dealt with it in the build-up, as their country are in the world's spotlight.

No one has ever suggested that

People knock Lowe, but the fact is that Cortese is basically Lowe with private funding.

LOL at the view that Cortese is basically Lowe with money.

When it came to moving the club forward and building on previous success Cortese appointed Nigel Adkins and Mauricio Pochettino. Lowe appointed Stuart Gray, Paul Sturrock and Steve Wigley.

Cortese had 10 year's experience in sporting finance and quite frankly it shows. Both the Pardew/Adkins sackings were widely condemned on here and some people even said "Cortese out"(I still think Adkins himself was badly treated by the way) but when it comes to moving the club forward Cortese has been proven right on both occasions. I think a good percentage of the condemnation came from the legacy of some of Lowe's ridiculous managerial appointments and Cortese's appointments were hefty risks but it's clear he knew what he was doing, unlike Lowe.

Considering the financial situation at the time I didn't think Lowe did THAT bad a job. I think he did a good job running the club on a shoestring but let himself down with stupid decisions at the most vital times, and failing to endear himself to the fans.

Whilst I haven't met either of them the only thing Lowe and Cortese have in common apart from being chairman of Saints, is that I suspect they are very capable of being arrogant c***s, just like 99% of the people in this world who have loads of money.

 

Players' tunnel

 

Potentially expensive clean-up operation there...

Especially in the below image as that stuff will need drilling through, not draining. . .

Portsmouth 0-1 Wycombe Wanderers

LOL at Pointless on BBC1

They had to name teams in the top English leagues that ended 'United'. Some woman said Portsmouth and got 100 points as it was incorrect.

Richard Osman - "Portsmouth getting 100 there, usually they score 0" (about 2 people in the entire audience groan)

Can you imagine pap doing jury service?

I managed to fail a round of golf because one of my tee shots went a bit left, all the other players had their shots to the green. It reset Franklin to standing on top of the golf course fence, i stepped off and landed on one of my golfing partners and got a wanted level in the process.

Nah mush. We've done this dance before. It's a good job traditional criminal investigations don't follow your insane line of thinking.

 

"sir, I have doubts about their claims."

"Do you? Explain everything at once, in detail, and I'll believe you. Otherwise, shut up".

It's a good job traditional criminal investigations don't follow your insane line of thinking.

 

"sir, I have doubts about their claims."

"Do you? Explain everything at once, in detail, and I'll believe you. Otherwise, shut up".

:facepalm

When following a line of enquiry, if an officer has reason to doubt what someone is saying (e.g. picks up on 2 things where both can't possibly be true) they have to report it and if they think it has significance, develop a credible hypothesis using already established facts. What you've quoted is pretty much the exact conversation (albeit harsher) that they had with myself and the team.

What Aint is referring to here is the "put up or shut up" scenario. He's just said when you're backed in a corner you resort to insults and changing the subject, and you've responded by calling him "mush" and changing the subject. I'm not going to spend any further time responding to you as I think you're just trolling in a strange type of way by plummeting to new depths with each post. Either answer aintforever's question or give it up, please.

I don't think I've said anything of the sort.

 

In brief, here's how I see things.

 

Verbal made it instantly about murder.

 

Gemmel, aintforever and JackFrost immediately started proceeding down such polarised lines of enquiry, hence a bit of light mockery.

 

Verbal weighed in with his usual seems-intelligent-but-not-really-about-the-topic w4nk, leaving me to deconstruct his "contribution" line by line, laying bare what a vacant "debating style" he really has.

 

I think that gets us up to date.

says the man who polarises virtually every world news story into a conspiracy theory

But what caring responsible parent would go out and leave their children alone in a flat, I certainly would not. If I was on holiday with my children they came out with me at ALL times.

In this case, by instinct I couldn't let my opinion of their parenting or feelings towards their social status cloud my judgement. I had to deal with the cold hard facts as they were established and focus on finding the girl, and at that point I wouldn't give a toss about how good or bad parents they were.

With child abandonment you're talking about the intention to relinquish your parental responsibilities permanently, with the knowledge that the child could potentially come to serious harm as a result. Leaving kids in a warm comfortable hotel room for 35 minutes (can't prove it was otherwise) whilst they ate dinner 50 metres away is careless parenting and not child abandonment.

When Madeleine went missing, they played the media like a violin and turned her into ''Britain's missing Princess'. One of the facts about life is that money talks and couple that with Madeleine's physical appearance, the parents were always going to exploit the media to the full. To be fair I can't blame them because the media is the most powerful force in the world when it comes to informing people and influencing people's opinions. The fact that this is one of god knows how many missing children out there who is getting 99% of the press coverage is one of the sad facts of life but the reason it's the case boils down to money. The "Find Madeleine McCann" campaign has been turned into a brand, and newspapers/TV stations etc. will continue to broadcast it because they know it will sell newspapers and be watched on TV by the masses.

Like I say, in my uninformed opinion (I've never had kids) I think the parents are far from perfect but I am not going to let my personal feelings towards them change my definition of legal terms or criminal offences, no matter how much they exploit the media (rightly or wrongly) or how much they insist "they've done nothing wrong"

Chalk another idiot up to Verbal's "it had to be murder" brigade. Fk sake, JackFrost. I expect it from persistent contrarians like aintforever and Gemmel. I would expect a more balanced appraisal from someone who is presumably trained in aspects of law, and should be able to distinguish between the various charges that can be brought when someone is adjudged to have been responsible for another's death.

 

The only people talking about murder here are the McCann apologists, usually to get an emotional response which defies the logic and evidence at hand.

 

Seems to me that the Portuguese police looked at the evidence and found the McCann's and their cohorts' statements to be wildly inaccurate. They were not treating it as an abduction, with exactly the same justification British plod would use in similar circumstances.

 

You talk about lack of evidence, but just like the rest of your mob, are ignoring the evidence your own dog handlers presented. Reacted to both the apartment and their car. The dog hasn't been wrong before or since, as I understand.

 

They were never treated as suspects by British OB. They're not even up on charges of child abandonment in Portugal, which carries a maximum ten year jail sentence. Whatever else they may be, they are certainly guilty of that.

You don't have a clue what you're talking about and you're clearly very confused about what my opinion on this case is.

And by the way I've come across a few child abuse victims who would willingly enlighten you as to what constitutes child abandonment, and what sentence the McCanns would likely get if they ever stood trial for it.

She had a solicitor present.

Fair enough

Don't agree with your assessment, professionally inclined as it may be. We used our own dogs in the forensic investigation.

And if say Madeleine had been murdered in the hotel room they'd have found evidence. Sniffer dogs have been known to detect blood that is invisible to a microscope let alone the naked eye.

The bumbling Portuguese argument doesn't stack with me.

Pap,

-The first officers on the scene didn't even secure the hotel room and god knows how many people were allowed to go into it

-The border and marine police weren't given descriptions of Madeleine until HOURS after she disappeared

-They misreported/got basic facts wrong about witness statements which they gave to the press

-They didn't do BASIC checks like obtaining surveillance videos or doing extensive door-to-door checks

-The officer originally in charge of the investigation had been independently charged (and since convicted) with covering up failings and corruption involving a previously botched investigation into the disappearance of another little girl who went missing in 2004 only 7 miles from where Madeleine disappeared

-They misinterpreted DNA evidence which led to them focusing the entire investigation on the parents (and they weren't the only suspects)

-All of the above is public knowledge and not the opinion of Gerry McCann

All the things you have said, Gerry McCann has said. Ad nauseum.

If the parents had murdered the kid either our of their police would have found the evidence by now, and the original investigating officer would have been on to it faster than a rat up a drainpipe. The reality is no-one has found anything and the best the police have in the public domain is a couple of e-fits of people that may or may not be involved.

But leave how the investigation was conducted for one side for a minute. Abducting a kid from a hotel room, without anyone in the hotel or the street noticing, without getting caught on a security camera and leaving virtually no trail behind is no mean feat. It was a professional job.

The dodgiest thing about the whole affair has to be Kate McCanns refusal to answer 48 questions posed by the Portuguese police, including many that would have helped to find an abducted child.

If she didn't have a solicitor present at that time she'd be stupid to answer those questions. That said I hope the Met have got more than they've released into the public domain. The Portuguese police and the Met don't seem to have a lot combined. Also people on here should be aware the McCanns their kids alone for exactly 35 minutes whilst they were 50 metres away. I'm not condoning it but make of that what you will.

Since about a month after she disappeared I've been certain it was a pre-planned abduction by organised human traffickers. Whoever took her knew she was in that room, knew there were no adults present and knew their route from the hotel room to their getaway point to the last detail without arousing suspicion or leaving evidence. All this happens in a hotel in a crowded holiday resort, and there isn't one confirmed witness sighting or CCTV image of Madeleine or the abductor.

If the parents had killed her the police would have found out by now forensically if by no other means and I can't believe an opportunistic burglar could have done all of that. They'd have either left Madeleine alone or panicked and left evidence behind.

To me this was a job done by professionals and I'd wager a lot that the McCann family were watched in the days beforehand and their routines were studied. The biggest problem was the complete cock-up of an investigation the Portuguese police did in the first instance. They "mis-interpreted" DNA evidence and came to believe that Madeleine had died in the apartment, which is why they suspected the parents. Funnily enough the officer in charge was convicted around the same time of beating a confession out of a mother, whose kid went missing and their body was never found.

Whilst I don't think Madeleine is dead (I think they'd have long since found her body) I can't see her ever being found. The only chance now is if she grows up and discovers who she really is. I don't think much of the parents either but with their wealth and Madeleine being a beautiful little girl they were always going to play the " Britain's missing angel" card with the media and to be fair to them they've played it to perfection.