Dr Gloom

i don't get why americans don't like nice lager. i just got back from vegas, it's light beer all the way out there.

So, out of the 8 teams left in it you've gone for the 3 favourites? nah, fuck that. ghana all the way Stop being inspired by Sky Sports News lunch time World Cup report. I reckon Ghana could've raised eyebrows had Essien been fit. possibly; they had a kind draw though and i doubt they would make it past the semis either way. it's good for the tournament that at least one african team is left in it. there were way too many empty seats in some of the group games for a world cup so hopefully the south africans will latch on to ghana.

i do a mean balti, make the paste from scratch and chuck in shitloads of fresh corriander at the end. serve it up with a nice side of raita and dal makhani (lentils cooked with tomatoes and cream) oh, and a new york style cheesecake. make this one for your mrs and she'll be putty in your hands.

i'm a big fan of ardberg. some might find it a bit too petey but if that's how you like your scotch, this one is hard to beat i'm more of a bourbon man myself though. love a drop of wild turkey or maker's mark me.

So, out of the 8 teams left in it you've gone for the 3 favourites? nah, fuck that. ghana all the way

we need to invest a bit of cash to finish anywhere near midtable or above the mackems, and i'm not talking players of j lloyd samuel's quality. as things stand with the squad we've got, we're looking at another relegation battle

can't see past the brazilians or the argies. spain probably the best bet of the european countries left in it

camp as a line of tents tbh You're the expert.

camp as a line of tents tbh

been listening to muse a fair bit this week on the back of their glastonbury performance

crap collar

johnson did enough to get in ahead of swp, as did walcott. i probably would have taken walcott instead of heskey

i know one of the senior sports reporters at a national redtop and he reckons they've been sitting on a massive gerrard story until after the world cup. it's pretty bad and could explain why he might be leaving the premier league this summer.

nowt on telly so thought i'd give it a whirl for half an hour. that shabby girl seems a bit disturbed like. painful to watch.

none taken, but you're 12 and haven't a fucking clue (no harm of course), and you wouldn't have heard of some of them as there is a large local presence of artists. festival started out 10-12 years ago w/ 600 people attending and has been growing ever since w/ 12-16 thousand attending last year. truly an amazing experience, no other festival like it. nice line up. akills, noisa, plump djs, nextmen, beardyman, qbert, hatrias.....looks good

benicassim in spain is a good option. been there once myself; it was class

aye. bit liek when henman choked when sampras went out early and all he had to was beat ivanisevic and rafter. he won't get a better chance than this year. already a set down like but he's doing better int he second. 3-0 up

Leaked government data concerning next five years shows hidden costs of austerity drive George Osborne's austerity budget will result in the loss of up to 1.3m jobs across the economy over the next five years according to a private Treasury assessment of the planned spending cuts, the Guardian has learned. Unpublished estimates of the impact of the biggest squeeze on public spending since the second world war show that the government is expecting between 500,000 and 600,000 jobs to go in the public sector and between 600,000 and 700,000 to disappear in the private sector by 2015. The chancellor gave no hint last week about the likely effect of his emergency measures on the labour market, although he would have had access to the forecasts traditionally prepared for ministers and senior civil servants in the days leading up to a budget or pre-budget report. A slide from the final version of a presentation for last week's budget, seen by the Guardian, says: "100-120,000 public sector jobs and 120-140,000 private sector jobs assumed to be lost per annum for five years through cuts." The job losses in the public sector will result from the 25% inflation-adjusted reduction in Whitehall spending over the next five years, while the private sector will be affected both through the loss of government contracts and from the knock-on impact of lower public spending. The Treasury is assuming that growth in the private sector will create 2.5m jobs in the next five years to compensate for the spending squeeze. Osborne said in last week's speech that tackling Britain's record peacetime budget deficit would help keep interest rates low and boost job creation. "Some have suggested that there is a choice between dealing with our debts and going for growth. That is a false choice." However, investors are increasingly nervous about the lack of growth in the world economy. The FTSE 100 fell more than 3% yesterday as fresh jitters hit confidence. The opposition and trade unions said the unpublished Treasury forecasts backed up their argument that the unprecedented scale of the cuts in public spending would hamper Britain's recovery from the deepest and longest recession since the Great Depression. Alistair Darling, the shadow chancellor, said: "Far from being open and honest, as George Osborne put it, he failed to tell the country there would be very substantial job losses as a result of his budget. "The Tories did not have to take these measures. They chose to take them. They are not only a real risk to the recovery, but hundreds of thousands of people will pay the price for the poor judgment of the Conservatives, fully supported by the Liberal Democrats. It shows the risks they are prepared to take. If they get it wrong, those people losing their jobs will not get back to work." Osborne said last week that his newly appointed panel of outside experts – the Office for Budget Responsibility – believed the jobless rate would soon start to improve. "The unemployment rate is forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility to peak this year at 8.1% and then fall for each of the next four years, to reach 6.1% in 2015," he said. This forecast was fleshed out in the Treasury's Red Book, which says: "The decline in employment appears to be coming to an end and we expect a modest recovery in employment in the second half of 2010." From next year, officials believe that stronger growth and a rising working population will lead to an acceleration in jobs growth. Over the five-year period from 2010 to 2015, the Treasury assumes that employment will rise from 28.8m this year to 30.1m in 2015, despite the loss of jobs caused by spending cuts. The TUC general secretary, Brendan Barber, said: "With Treasury figures revealing that spending cuts will hit private sector jobs harder than those in the public sector, it is absurd to think that the private sector will create 2.5m new jobs over the next five years." "This is not so much wishful thinking as a complete refusal to engage with reality. Much more likely are dole queues comparable to the 1980s, a new deep north-south divide and widespread poverty as the budget's benefit cuts start to bite. Many will find that a frightening prospect."John Philpott, chief economist at the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development, said: "There is not a hope in hell's chance of this happening [the creation of 2.5m new jobs]. There would have to be extraordinarily strong private sector employment growth in a … much less conducive economic environment than it was during the boom." The CIPD has estimated that there will be 725,000 jobs lost in the public sector alone by 2015, although Philpott said the number could be lower if the government succeeded in pushing through pay cuts. He added that Osborne was expecting a similar rise in employment over the next five years to that seen during 13 years of the last Labour government, when around a third of the employment growth came from the public sector. "This is a slower growth environment and there will be no contribution from the public sector." Last night David Miliband, one of the candidates for the Labour leadership, said: "This proves what we feared but the government kept secret. The budget will slash jobs not create them, and the least well-off will pay the highest price." Andy Burnham, another of the Labour leadership candidates, said: " The human cost of Osborne's budget is now clear, despite his best efforts to hide it." http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jun/29/b...yment-austerity

before the world cup apparently http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/...te-England.html

he'll choke against federer or nadal. the longer it takes him to pick up a major, the more chance there is of being the next nearly man in the henman mould. agree about his style. boring as fuck. he's the typically modern tennis player - a baseline container that bores his opponent into a mistake with endless defensive shots rather than getting on the front foot. bit like nadal really, must be a nightmare to play against.

the take up on the refinancing was much lower than the consensus forecast so it seems the banks are doing better than expected. markets up on the back of today's news. we're not out of the woods just yet mind. liquidity is still tight int he banking system. the soverign debt crisis could spark another banking crisis, a double dip recession and deflation. ah well, at least there's newcastle's barnstorming return to the premier league to look forward to

yeah. i'm supporting andy 'you can't hurry' a murry