blandy

I dunno about this bit (agree with the rest). Oil = money and influence. Putin likes money and Putin likes influence.

Well, we've only got (had) one stadium to sell, so we can't sell another one! But it is a one off, in reality anyway. The Club sold it to another NSWE company in order to meet the EFL's FFP regs. AFAIK the valuation is still being looked into by the PL on behalf of the EFL. It may be possible that at a later stage the club could buy it back from the NSWE Co. it was sold to, but I wouldn't expect that to happen any time soon, for a number of reasons. I mean why would it? firstly it would be a football club expense that is unnecessary, secondly it would make the initial move to sell it look even more blatant, then there's the potential for Ground developments - if these are managed by the current NWSE company that now owns the ground, there may be some tax or other beneifits which might arise.

Exactly. And you're right, not even complex 3D models are totally accurate or correct. There are various Geodetic models that are used in navigation - e.g. GNSS/GPS etc. Some are more accurate for Europe (the Western military tends to use WGS84 though, others are more accurate for other parts of the Globe - ED50, for example). I mean they're all astonishingly good, all things considered, but none are perfect and they get updated from time to time - the WGS84 geodetic model was updated about 15 years ago, because the earth and its topography changes - islands form, mountains sink, coasts are eroded...etc. Plus satellite technology gives ever better definition and accuracy of heights and so on.

No, I disagree. Largely for the reasons outlined above, but it's also worth remembering that Sheff Utd were having an ownership dispute between a loaded Saudi Sheik and an old school family who joint owned the club. Until that was resolved last month (the Sheik won) they couldn't really splurge to the same extent, because the then joint owners had a massive falling out.

Sure, kind of. Our owners have said for a while they're serious about challenging and getting the club right back up to the top, they're not mucking about, they're not going to be content to just sit and collect the telly money and have a lower mid-table side, that might go down again. They're quite happy and willing to "go for it" (none of that is an actual quote, it's just my recollection of their approach as voiced by Purslow and Deano etc. Further, we needed a lot of new players, due to loans leaving, the age of others and so on. We had to spend money and we did, as much as we were permitted, basically. Norwich and Sheffield United have their own approaches and situations. They're both also well run clubs, but they've taken approaches for their situations. Managers who had teams that didn't need as much spent as ours did. Plus managers who'd been there longer and had teams more to their liking, or further down the road that ours was. On top of that there's a strong reason not to "blow the lot" right from the off. It gives them room in January, once they've seen how they're doing. It means if they don't spend all they could, they will be sustainable and financially secure. Norwich have an ownership who worked long and hard to unravel a financial mess fro ma decade ago, whilst not being personally loaded - they won't want to, nor should they, ever put their club in that mess again. Sheffield United too were pooling about in Div 1 not long ago - they are in different circumstances, though they have spent money in the summer. Another aspect is that Villa as a Club is a bigger name internationally, and has more scope to raise revenue as a consequence - plus bigger ground, more fans etc. So Nodge and Utd have been better run for longer than Villa has been in recent years, and their squads were in a better condition at the end of last season. Good luck to all 3 of us, as I think all of the 3 have a lot going for them.

No absolutely not. The opposite for me. I like her. I think she gets her message across straightforwardly, easily, clearly. She's part of Labour that would and does deal with the world as it is and tries to make it better for people. She's also clearly a member of the human race.

Parachute payments are taken into account in EFL type calculations. If we go down after this season we'd get only 2 years of parachute payments, not 3. While we're up (long may that last) we need to comply with PL FFP type rules. In broad terms you can't increase your spending on players (wages, fees etc.) by more than 7 million a year, unless your income from doing football (not owner bungs) covers it. So promoted clubs obviously get a huge income increase and are in general terms allowed to spend that profit increase. From the Premier League Handbook for this season. A pdf of which can be found by yahoogling "2019-20-PL-Handbook-220819.pdf"

It sort of depends on how you define it, really, maybe. There's been various corrupt, disfunctional South American type failures. Then there's the non-democratic Eastern bloc type examples. If you take democratic, western examples, then much less so, if at all. The various Scandinavian examples seem to many like the "right" (or at least a better) way to run a country/society. Sure everywhere on earth will have its problems, but the Scandi nations have been good examples of social democratic government.

Dau fargarîn wrth fynd, Heathcliffe

Listened to Gwenno Le Kov on my iPod. It's like French 60's pop crossed with SFA crossed with Jane Weaver and sung in Cornish. Most excellent.

Perhaps the difficulty is that some leavers' actually are more than a bit Hitler-worshippy. The Brexity throbber Yaxley-Lemon is caught here on the youtubes further making the point.

Well, what you could do is, like spend it all on something fun, like booze n'fags n'that and pretend you'd spent it on a course. And then if you got caught you could say "I didn't know it was a financial cr....ah! I've just seen a problem with that ruse. Don't be bad, kids.

Money Laundering is your go to there, then.

Tir Ha Mor - Cornish Language, Welsh-Cornish singer. Sort of a bit Jane Weaver -ish. Good

I saw it as a shared "sorry. don't worry about it, we both effed up there and both know it - let's get back on it"

It's gross, isn't it?. Absolute throbbers.

He isn't disrespected. I don't see that at all. People may or may not think one keeper is better than another, but "disrespected" not at all (though there will always be a few). I think we like him and appreciate what he did and his performances.

There's some proper dim effwits - not so much not knowing, but "hard of thinking" - just too dim to realise that what they were singing was utterly braindead and offensive on multiple levels.

Fair play and good on you for saying you might be wrong. I can honestly say that in my case at least, I look at the PL and see that the best player in his position is Kante - he's brilliant, and regardless of the ratio of different races of players in that position, I think there's some similarities between Marvelous and Kante - they're not the same, but there's a wholly positive element of similarity between them in the way they exert control, excellent use of the ball, cover, energy and a whole lot more. I'd be sad if I wasn't "allowed" to make a comparison because it would be seen as "lazy" of me. They're two terrific players with loads of ability and also a credit to themselves and their clubs.

This is a ludicrous thing to get upset about. Positively commending and comparing one talented, black footballer to another talented black footballer, because they are similar in passing ability, all-action style, commitment, tackling ability dedication, hard work...etc. is not remotely wrongheaded. He's a cracking player, and comparing him, or saying there's a bit of a similarity in style to the brilliant way Kante plays (which IMO there is) is a pure compliment.

go on then...

More a case of "look over there!", from Trump. perhaps?

I found out it's not. https://premierleague-static-files.s3.amazonaws.com/premierleague/document/2019/08/23/c8a5b4b5-7f29-43b5-9317-aae04d407c18/2019-20-PL-Handbook-220819.pdf

Not backed by the US any more. Trump's abandoned them to be killed by the Turks

Yeah and the switch of sides has helped him with that, too.