dinger

I was going to say, the only other genuinely senior players who are likely to start seem to be Hart and Carrick. A lot of people don't favour a keeper as skipper (I'd be one of them) and Carrick refused to travel to the Euros. There's hardly a wealth of options.

Who would you give the armband to?

And he is perfectly at liberty to defend himself against any accusations, he's just choosing not to.

It's all starting to look pretty damning. Perhaps football should be glad it only has to deal with diving.

We sure do have a lot in common. It's good to talk to somebody who understands.

[video=youtube;AI-a9dEpQOA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=AI-a9dEpQOA

I've come to that conclusion because in the context of this story, these events, the criminal incompetence and outright lies, you've made the same "they brought it on themselves a bit" point 6 or 7 times, and I'd advise you to take a step back and see how that looks. Of course there were a lot of social and political reasons why grounds were set up the way they were, and why fans were treated with such contempt. Some of those reasons were valid, some of them unjust IMO. But Hillsborough was a disastrous mismanagement of a situation by a body specifically detailed to manage that situation. I'm not trying to tell you to pretend an emotional involvement in a tragedy; I'm suggesting that you are coming across as callous and crass and that, rather than continuing to refine your relatively minor point, you might be better served dropping it. Just saying though; you're perfectly entitled to your opinion.

You make a good point, and I should probably be more careful. This quote from a witness (taken from the Guardian) will be more accurate: "Approaching the tunnel that led down to our standing area behind the goal, and still shocked by the previous crush, I bought a carton of Kia-Ora near the tunnel's entrance. Hundreds of fans started to approach, and my fear returned. This was the only entrance to the pens directly behind the goal. "Don't go down there, mate, it's gonna be packed," I told a group of fellow fans. Like many others who thought they had come through the worst, they passed me without comment. I remain convinced that just one steward or police officer directing fans to the side entrances, away from the central pens, could have saved many lives that day. Every day since, I have wondered if I could, and should, have done more."

d) Your point is correct but irrelevant. If I got crushed to death against the wall of my living room, the question would not be why the wall was there, but why I had 100 other people in the room with me. e) It is perfectly acceptable practice in a crowd situation to follow the direction of the designated authorities (e.g. stewards and police). Those authorities continued to funnel supporters into an overcrowded pen, when neighbouring pens were underfilled. The supporters at the back could not have known about the tragedy at the front; they continued to push their way into the pen because they had been instructed to by the police. Why were they pushing? Because the pen was full. Why was it full? Because the police kept telling more people to go in. Perhaps you would have acted differently. Well done you. Perhaps there are a handful of people who are haunted by the thought that they were in too much of a hurry. But they can have had no reason whatsoever to suspect that they would be indirectly responsible for the deaths of their fellow fans. Why? Because there would have been no problem had not the trusted representatives of authority so badly let down those under their care. Your point is true as far as it goes, but in the context of events it's relatively unimportant and your persistent reiteration of it is making you come across as self-satisfied and uncaring.

Hold on, alpine, surely you're the one here whinging self-pityingly about some perceived, possibly hypothetical injustice? Would this be dragging on if it had happened to Saints? WTF kind of question is that to be asking? A massive injustice is to some extent being righted. That is an unequivocably good thing. How can you turn that into a personal grievance? In fact, how dare you?

I realise that. But the notion of 'lawful policies' is subject to constant refinement, due to the concept of indirect discrimination. I may have read him wrong, but he appeared to suggest that no exceptions should be made, thus ending the process of that refinement. Meaning that any future challenge would be turned down flat; the implicit assumption being that the law is perfect as it currently exists. Why should people not be able to challenge this? Whether you think someone has a case or not, the courts will settle it. If we were to base all of our opinions on the subject on these particular 4 cases, I'd see where derry was coming from, but these are not the only 4 cases.

Surely that leaves the door wide open for companies to actively pursue a discriminatory policy without fear of prosecution? So a company could, without any real justification, ban head coverings on its premises, and thus prevent themselves ever having to consider employing people of certain faiths.

Yeah, I'd probably agree with that.

In answer to Norway's question though, I don't generally agree with people of faith being given dispensation not to carry out part of their contracted duties. I think if you have a strong moral conviction then you have to stand by it not in the sense of forcing other people to accomodate you, but by accepting that there are some things you are unable to do. I have strong opinions that mean I have chosen to avoid air travel or driving a car. This has often restricted my career choices, but they're my scruples; I don't ask to be excused the travel requirements of a particular role, I just have to swallow my morals or take a different job. The tricky case appears to be the Lillian Ladele one, as it looks like the conditions of her employment may have changed while she was in post, so she may have a case.

A company can easily and justifiably specify no jewellery, as they had on this occasion. It's called a uniform and she will have signed a contract giving details. If there is discrimination at work here, it is discrimination against the wearing of jewellery. Jewellery wearers are not a protected minority under law. However, best practice would caution against indirect discrimination, which is where this falls. CiPD website says "If a dress code contains a generally applied provision which puts persons of a particular religion or belief at a disadvantage then it will be actionable discrimination unless the dress requirement is proven to be ‘a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim’." So to parallel your burka question, a Muslim teaching assistant was required to remove her veil as this was deemed to interfere with the 'legitimate aim' of interacting with kids. Whereas a muslim hairdresser won her case against discrimination over wearing a head scarf, as the claim that all employees should advertise the business with their hair was not deemed to be proportionate or legitimate when weighed against this aspect of her religious freedoms. (source: http://www.cipd.co.uk/hr-resources/employment-law-faqs/religious-discrimination-dress-code.aspx)

Surely the conclusion to draw then is that we/he had money available (viz. the bids for players) but it was never spent.

Thanks for posting that; many happy memories

There's some cracking stuff on there. I was particularly interested to hear more Mooney material. Been listening to a ton of German stuff recently while preparing a podcast about the krautrock scene (I'm a bit of an obsessive, as my user name will attest to). This lunchtime I've been on Das Hohelied Salomos, by Popul Vuh. Beautiful album.

Yeah, nazis. All of them.

I think once you get a panel involved to rule over whether one participant is equivalent to another, you know they probably aren't.

Yes, of course it would.