beyond our ken

Ricky Hatton is tiny-i'd have to give him a punty-up on to the pony, never mind the high-horse Anyway, the high-horse isn't looking so good since you started flogging it to death. i may have to get him put down

could have been a plumber & decorator undoing the damage that Dilo is supposed to have done to a flat Could have been a 3 in a bed romp could have been someone other than Gary Teale Could have been Teale getting flung out by his missus You see where i'm going with this

You are grasping at straws here, the 30 years of rent wont even cover the cost of borrowing the capital, building the house and then maintaining it for 30 years. Local authorities have enough to contend with without getting involved in the property market-most of them were damned glad to offload their rental stock onto housing associations who would build more if they could raise the capital-but governments won't allow that as it affects the profits of private builders. i thought you were a free-market champion who wants to see everything that comes from central and local government outsourced to the private sector-not someone who champions state involvement in the private housing sector. Time you made yer mind up, little man.

Could be a private party

Should be pervades, Ill give you an example on how to use it "just goes to show that lack of grammatical talent pervades all lesser trades"

Peter weir was also out of football completely for at least a year before going back to the amateurs, and then he joined saints

Positive looking signing, makes my other post on another thread look stoopit

getting back to the subject, with only a few weeks until the friendlies and only around 6 until the league starts, it would be nice to have seen a couple of decent outfield signings by now. As said before, contracts in england don't expire until the end of the month. If anyone really wanted to sign for us they were already free to do so which suggests that everyone we have targeted thinks they have better options-otherwise they would have landed or have been announced by now

the answer is simple maths, councils and housing associations cant afford to build 100 houses, sell them off for the price of building 30 and then replenish the stock fully from the funds raised. it's an ever decreasing circle and a local authority with other constraints on it would be daft to enter it. councils do work with private builders to ensure social housing is included in new developments as part of a planning gain

the much-predicted transfer activity, deals all but done and only the return of people from holiday is required to close them. that is a small sample of the things that are not happening yet.

It's not happening yet, is it? We are way off the pace this close-season

To me, the whole concept of independence is less about nationalism and more about saving Scotland, and maybe the rest of the UK, from the road to hell that the career politicians in Westminster are driving us down. Irivine Welsh wrote the article below in yesterday's London Evening Standard and i wish it was repeated across every outlet in Scotland. Something strange and beautiful is happening in Scotland. The country is reinventing itself from the inside out. People are talking about their futures as if they actually have them. It’s that exhilarating, intoxicating and occasionally exasperating phenomenon at work: welcome back participatory democracy. How these islands have missed you. To recap what’s happened in your absence: everything has been set up in favour of a small, transnational global elite. Most citizens are being or have already been reduced to the level of poorly paid, debt-ridden servitude. Yes, many are still unemployed, but many more are underemployed, overemployed and set to work on barely liveable wages. Within this context, looking at traditional indices of economic prosperity like unemployment rates, inflation, GNP is severely limited, as those don’t account for the reality of the past 35 years. The growing penury and financial instability suffered by everyone outside of society’s elites is the true political narrative of our times. It needs to be addressed locally and globally. This hasn’t happened in the UK. The main political parties remain complicit in the transfer of resources from our citizens to this super-rich elite, under the advocacy of a private media, and through the constant lobbying of elected representatives. The “pragmatism” touted by politicians is one that solely addresses how to manage this movement of resources to the wealthy, through the constant rewarding of their corporate emissaries. As a nation state the United Kingdom was an imperialist construct, and to this day it retains these undemocratic trappings: a hereditary principle, an unelected second chamber, no written constitution and a ruling elite drawn from a narrow, privately educated strata of society. In Scotland, voters have traditionally sent a block of Labour MPs to Westminster to represent them. Labour originated in Scotland as the party of Keir Hardie and had a strong home rule ethos. As it grew from a party of protest to one of power, Labour changed its view: the best way to govern was to send representatives down to London. Thus a career structure emerged, whereby “ambitious” politicians could move from local council to a safe Labour seat, then perhaps become a minister. When the party lurched to the Right in the Eighties, it was usurped on the “Left” by the SNP, a bourgeois nationalist party which had taken on social-democratic trappings. Since then we’ve seen the rapid de-industrialisation of Britain, the sale of national assets, the dismantling of the welfare state, the squandering of oil revenues on dole payments and bread-and-circus foreign wars, and the steady erosion of the democratic, participatory spirit in politics. Politicians changed. They were less likely to have trade union, industry or even professional backgrounds, more inclined to be career politicians, and people are now more alienated from them than ever. These changes took place under both Labour and Conservative governments. Now Scotland, through the independence debate, is leading the way in the reassertion of the democratic ethos. The actual result of the referendum in September, while massively important, is less significant than the fact that this process has gained such traction. Whether Scotland votes Yes or No, its people have got used to having a say in how their lives are run, outside of the self-interested and morally bankrupt party system. The drive for more of the same will continue. English protest politics have been of the Right in recent years: “Eurosceptic” Conservatives, Ukip, the BNP and EDL. But without the distraction of Scotland, England will have to look seriously at what it is and what it aspires to be. I would expect that narrative to change and the country to shake off its weary attachment to the cabal of centre-Right/Right-wing parties and their tired platitudes. Rather than enabling its political progression, Scotland holds England back by sending it more lobby-fodder careerists invested in zero substantive change. The Yes campaign’s biggest strengths are its vigorous grass-roots support, mainly from people who have felt disenfranchised by party politics. They are bolstered by the activities of the No campaign, with its unappetising coalition of the elite, the self-interested and the perennially servile, with the honourable but misguided exception of those who still believe, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, that the British state can deliver social progress and economic justice. The No campaign’s main asset is people’s intrinsic fear of change. The anti-independence campaign is, in tone and substantive argument, the same as any other throughout history. It seeks to make administrative procedural arrangements of varying awkwardness into compelling reasons for maintaining the status quo. The same arguments, citing different processes, were used in America, Africa and Ireland (and practically every independent nation in the world) with the same dire consequences predicted if they were ignored. Of course they were, and yes, life went on much the same as ever. It isn’t in the nature of any state to want to cede territory but it begs the broader question: why is the British Establishment so desperate to keep Scotland? Well, if there’s a Yes vote, north of the border instantly gets rid of the hereditary second chamber, the City of London and Britain’s public-school elites, all those forces superfluous to good government but expensively grandfathered into our current system. There will also be a proper constitution drawn up, conferring citizen rights and designating responsibilities. It’s inevitable that people in England will then look north and think: “I fancy a bit of that.” So Scottish independence is about a lot more than self-determination for that country: it is about the genuine modernisation of these islands’ political systems, conducted through the restitution of participative democracy. I don’t know whether September will offer up a vote of hope or fear. But I am convinced that those who pushed themselves to the forefront of the debate on their futures are unlikely to cede that power back to the elites, as represented by the Camerons, Cleggs and Milibands of this world. And that might be contagious.

clearly bested-he takes to repetiton as a last stand You're not a top-cat at all, more like bottom cat. which is in no way a referrence to your fixation on sticks and arses

You're clearly smitten, the referrence to a stick is a bit of a Freudian slip I like speculation, especially where i get to speculate on the performance of the "we know somethng you don't know" brigade (they are not doing well just now). I am phoning someone who is involved in all of our dealings later this week and could easily call him now and ask for an update, but I choose to wait and see how things go and not try to portray myself as a "look at me-i'm a special case" fan boy. I didn't have a go at anyone, i just offered an observation based on experience and a degree of amusement (you are currently supplying the bulk of that with your wee rants) I'll use a smiley to make it clear that i am as lights as a feather-you've clearly had a bit of bother getting your napper round that- it's only a forum And you don't get to tell me what to do, sonny

If i took it seriously i wouldn't find it laughable, would I? Reading what is actuallly written rather than applying your own interpretation would help you an awful lot. Dont thank me for the advice though.

I know where the info comes from-someone who has grafted himself onto a player in order to feed of the snippets, but there is a laughable sense of smugness and "i know something you don't know" about all of this

there are dross signings to be had from every club, including man city. anyone who is happy to leave them is not liable to be better than anyone else we can afford. that being said, most the self-appointed cognoscenti who are busily holding their smug wee conversation ("we can be trusted with the info which makes us special") are easily fooled and have proven to be less than reliable in the past. best wait until the signings materialise

He will be halfway to paradise by now and i hope somone takes good care of his baby Great lyricist who was a bridge between tin pan alley and the more serious popmusic of later years. sad loss

I introduced a new point by posting a link to the FOA view on the overheating SE housing situation, which you then tried to hijack by introducing the notion of currency union. Even in an informal currency union there will be guarantees and agreements to make it work, but the point you made put forard the HYPOTHETICAL notion that YS would seek to tie us to that area's economy. Trident-schmident as far as this phase of the debate goes, but you seek to cover your tracks by invoking things from sections of the debate that we moved on from some time ago I dont know what you get from this. You post all sorts of crap, twisting and turning as you go and getting found out all over the place. Do you imagine you are winning these arguments or do you just enjoy the fact that somebody took time to answer the nonsense you peddle. Either way, it's not good for you (not that I'm worried)

Disappearing up your own arse is becoming your tour de force-you were the one that raised the hypothesis on the Yes campaigns hopes for currency and fiscal union, only to rubbish the notion when someone else picks up the thread Go back to you fictitious dinner parties and inflatable girl-friend

That is not even a good one to miss out on-he would have been a bad signing and it is worrying that this is the pond we are fishing in unsuccessfully

The thing i dont understand is the referrence by TC to the release date for english players. They are all free to talk to clubs openly and freely just now Sad to say, but such as they are-our best signings are probably already on the books At least we have plenty left in the kitty for the new-year panic signings

We both know (well i do, you possibly know hee-haw) in a currency or other monetary union that once agreed all parties ave to act in the interests of the greater good and not slavishly commit the bulk of resources to one area of a broken economy

Meanwhile, a conservative think-tank has concluded that the greed and lack of control in the south east is liable to damage the economy of the other more sustainable parts of the UK http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-27902587