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Nick, please return to the very start of this thread and remind yourself how it began. Pompey were just about to get a new 'Billionaire' owner, and Duncan suggested all might not be as straightforward as it seemed. The bookies had Portsmouth down for a mid table finish, despite having sold many of their biggest names. It was looking as if Pompey's bad luck was behind them, and a successful future awaited. Sure they might not have been penalised quite as much as you would have liked. But when you step back and see how far they have fallen in the course of this thread it's simply beautiful. The fact that they are still up to their eyeballs and sinking makes me smile even more. Even if this all ends tomorrow, no point deductions, a CVA agreed, all charges dropped for dodgy dealings, I'd still find their awful year a good time to look back on. So Nick, why so much negativity? The shows still not over, sit back and enjoy the second half. Sure, they might escape further mishaps, but it's looking increasingly unlikely. One things for sure, they most certainly haven't got away with in.

Just having 'HMRC' would be far cheaper... and possibly even funny.

Best laugh of the day so far, especially the clever Svensson switch.

People voted for Yoko Ono and Nicole Richie? All of the comments exchanged in the Corden/Stewart tiff have the common trait of being devoid of humour. As, to my knowledge, Corden is the only one of the two employed in the field of 'comedy', Stewart has to be declared the winner by default.

Personally I think Parliament should be filled with bearded folk in cardigans, elbow patches and sandals. Let the elite from the academy govern for a change.

Nothing really new in this article. It was unlikely they would be docked more points as in theory they had a 'punishment' for entering administration last season. The penalty might not have counted in the end, but the fact it was levied would have impacted the performances of the players in games subsequent to the penalty. Of more interest is this bit: "If they exit administration but it is without a CVA, our board would meet to discuss the possibility of letting them carry on in the Football League and accept a points deduction, as long as they can show how they will repay their creditors"

Does Thatcher count as human though?

"I have faith that the accused was the person who committed the burglary at my property. No, I didn’t notice any indications of a break in, but I have faith that there was one. No, nothing was broken. No, nothing was stolen, but you must believe me that I am completely convinced that this man was is guilty. No, I didn't witness it, but my goldfish did and showed be through a vision. I also have a really old book which suggests a burglary might happen. I know it's been frequently rewritten and has dubious origins. Your honour, the law should be based on faith. If you need proof, then you have no faith.

Oh, and some basic (and highly innaccurate) Charlton related maths for FMPR. TV income c. £300k Matchday income c. 350k (average gate * £20). Total Season income c. £8.5 million Now if Charlton spend a maximum of 66% of their income on that would leave c. £5.6 million wage budget. or c. £4300 per player per week (based on a squad of 25 players) For Charlton to be paying £15,000 for a 'squad' player would be financial madness, and that's assuming Charlton don't have debts to repay (which they do!).

That's interesting, but pretty irrelevent. In the Premiership we had a wage cap of £16k. If Charlton are willing to pay close to that right now, then they are living way beyond their means. Southampton, can afford to pay mid-table Championship wages (c. £9k per week for our top players), only because our income exceeds our expenses (we don't have any debt, but do have a large attendance). I want a Ferrari, but alas I don't have the income. Perhaps if I pretend I can afford it, take deliverly of the car, but budget to never pay the for it..

Quite right. I was offended that the pro-religion adverts were allowed to explicitly state 'There is a god', while the Atheist adverts were prevented from being definitive, and forced to use the term 'probably'. Despite the lack of evidence fairly conclusively supporting the Atheist view. Each to one’s own on the religion thing IMO. I have friends who believe and friends who don't. I've given up trying to work out why the believers do so, they can't justify it, but why should they? We all sometime do things without reason, just because we can, if other people want to believe things without reason, why should I not let them? This sums it all up pretty definitively:

JB, despite the 'fraudon' name-calling, this post sums up the current situation very accurately IMO. Gordon didn't create the recession, and even with the best preparations we would still have suffered, but Blair & Brown's reckless spending (post 2001), and worse still their reckless borrowing during a boom, put the country in an incredibly weak situation when the recession hit. Had government spending have stayed below £400 billion pa, we could have entered the recession with having already saved 3/4 of the debt mountain we now have to pay back.

Or © take responsibilty for your own decision (both to buy and to sell), dust yourself off and start again, while justifiably feeling slightly resentful towards a government who helped to make your decisions backfire.

That's crazy. Mind you I'm starting to really want his autograph. Perhaps on a skate shirt with the name of a certain form of heated bread product across the back.

It's 65% repayment, unless the crooked Russian abandons the £34 million he claims he is due. Oh, and the 65% CVA is over 5 years. The only way it makes ends meet is if you use the income over 5 years, and spend very prudently. Based on this years income alone, they are well and truely insolvent. If you spend any debt over enough years of income (and fix expenditure) the debt will eventually become affordable. Oh, and (correct me if I'm wrong), I didn't see the 65% CVA mention the secured debt. Does this have to be paid/settled upfront by a prosective club purchaser? If so, that would be even more debt that the club essentially can't afford to pay off without administration.

Again, don't really want to argue this. Yes, there are plenty of scientists who say otherwise, they are however a very small minority. Scientific method is the process which debates and refines theories, attempting through peer review to find the theory which best explains the observed evidence. Currently, the process of scientific method is finding overwhelming evidence supporting Climate Change. Quite simply none of the altenative theories proposed to date has been found to fit the evidence as accurately. I'm not arguing that Climate Change is a 'fact', I am saying that it is currently (by far) our best explaination for the observed global changes. To argue against this, is essentially to say that you don't agree with either the process of scientific method, or you don't believe that the vast majority of scientists are following it correctly. A strange position for anyone to adopt.

Simple she polorised the country. She trashed the areas which didn't vote for her, and benefited the rest of the country. She was loathed by about 1/3 of the country, and found to be more acceptable than the Cause 4 brigade by about 1/2 of the country. To this day 1/3 of the country still hate her, the rest are ambivalent.

Yes, there is some. It is currently massively outweighed by the overwhelming amount of evidence disproving your ideas. As scientific method is a process which adapts to evidence, you are essentially saying that you don't belive that the process of scientific method has correctly identified the most likely outcome of the observed data. Being against scientific method is a rather illogical position to adopt IMO.

Oh right. I don't particularly want to debate this as it's been done to death. However, your opinion is largely unsupported, and goes against overwhelming evidence. While you are free to hold your own opinion on the subject, you do realise that to hold your belief you are arguing against the process of scientific method?

Yeah, I agree, back then Saddam was the aggressor, and had Weapons of Mass destruction.

Although it's not like Maggie didn't do her fair share of stomping through the middle east too... http://www.margaretthatcher.org/commentary/displaydocument.asp?docid=110711

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To be fair to Maggie, she did get it right about Global Warming.

Lloyd George, Attlee, Churchill, possibly Asquith... all have to rank ahead of Lady T. Edit: Oh that's right, they usually do http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_Prime_Ministers_of_the_United_Kingdom