peasepud

new club surgeon by any chance?......

Its sounds a daft one but have you tried hoovering the fan covers? Its amazing how much dust and stuff accumulates around them and a quick blast with the nozzle will help cool the machine and increase performance.

oh god hes on the slippery slope, chasing losing bets.

I would have thought that raising PAYE by a mere 0.1% would easily have covered this being extended, Id happily pay that extra tiny bit more to see this continue. Handing out Child Benefit is one thing but that doesnt even help those kids most at risk, Id rather see them halve CB and give all school kids free breakfasts, milk and dinners. Ensure that every kid in the country gets a good start to the day, some additional calcium etc from the milk and a hot meal daily. That way you'll ensure that those most at risk ie the really poor or those with parents who would rather spend the CB on beer, tabs or drugs at least eat. It would also help the school system in giving more reason for these kids to actually attend school. Totally agree, can you not hack Camerons computer and set this as his wallpaper. Yet you have no problem at all in backing the closure of a pilot which would go some way towards that because we "need to save money".

I would have thought that raising PAYE by a mere 0.1% would easily have covered this being extended, Id happily pay that extra tiny bit more to see this continue. Handing out Child Benefit is one thing but that doesnt even help those kids most at risk, Id rather see them halve CB and give all school kids free breakfasts, milk and dinners. Ensure that every kid in the country gets a good start to the day, some additional calcium etc from the milk and a hot meal daily. That way you'll ensure that those most at risk ie the really poor or those with parents who would rather spend the CB on beer, tabs or drugs at least eat. It would also help the school system in giving more reason for these kids to actually attend school.

His cracks starting to go bald????

Is this really a loophole though - I am pretty certain this is already illegal. Sounds like one of those things that is really cost inneficient to pursue aswell. Maybe loophole is the wrong wording to use. As for cost inefficient I dont think it would be, off the top of my head (without use of any valid data of course) you could make it self policing. Basically, when a legitimate business is asked to do work in this way and then doesnt get the contract then they pass the details of the customer onto a department in HMRC. That department would then check out of the work had been carried out and who by, they then do a quick compliance check of the books to see if that job is recorded. If not, hefty penalty on both the supplier and customer. Just the threat of this happening would be enough to make many many more businesses fall into line. The compliance check could even be a random sample telephoned and asked to confirm that the work has been carried out, this then recorded and used in any future action. Receiving the telephone call would be enough to make the supplier add the work to their books, just in case. This means they've done work at a loss and therefore would be less likely to accept another of those jobs. It would also be possible to police the work via the planning permission route, when applying for permission the customer must name the builder, details of all planning permission data is then passed to HMRC and used in any future compliance investigation. A lot of anti-fraud measures are more scare tactics than actual investigation, put the fear into suppliers that they'll lose thousands if they do this and they'll refuse the work. Make it known that the customer will also have to repay the VAT plus a hefty fine and many will simply not bother asking in the first place.

More interesting with adverts are the small print they flash up, womens cosmetics and hair products are the worst. Things such as "70% of 229 women agree" which means that 68 women didnt think that it worked! Or the classic that appears on the Cheryl Cole ad is when they say about how it makes your hair something like 50% shinier...... the small print then says "compared to unwashed hair". Seriously? washing your hair makes it cleaner??? wow!

There was an interesting point made on News at Ten last night, they were talking to a carpenter who pointed out the money that could be raised simply by closing off the "cash in hand" loophole. What he was saying is that, as a small business hes regularly told by people that he wont get the job unless he does it cash in hand to save the VAT, as a legit business he refuses and therefore loses the work. What he then pointed out was that as the cuts deepen and more people become unemployed then you'll get a load of new tradesmen setting up on their own and agreeing to this. The resulting VAT loss already is huge but will be much, much bigger as times get harder. Close that loophole with big penalties for those that flaunt the rules and you'll get a lot more VAT in and at the same time increase the likes of PAYE/NIC as a consequence because these backhander jobs are therefore adding into peoples profits/ hours worked etc. Seems like a sensible logic and again, as I mentioned yeserday we currently have thousands of staff in HMRC who dont have proper jobs (3,500 was the figure I heard mentioned earlier today) who we could move onto this literally overnight.

Fuck the adverts completely. What should be hanging there is the lifeless bodies of a fat man and a greasy casino manager... either side of the club crest. FYP

Quite right too, toilets they need to be clean.

Alive and well seemingly, twitter seems to disagree though. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/england/south_y...re/10268581.stm

By the end of the year. And so it begins http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/10266501.stm Does this affect Mr G?

those fucking big posters from the concourses next season. I hate being reminded of good times by seeing pics of Given, Shearer, Ferdinand and Ginola with the words "Nothing is impossible".

Are we to assume that the same fate has befallen the Guardian following the "racist Newcastle fans protested against Cole"? Im guessing not because that doesnt affect the fat man.

Plan B's the Defamation of Strickland Banks, not bad actually.

Expect Rob to start telling us how he worked on the early design of them any time now.

but we are already means testing them for child tax credit! Just do away with child benefit all together and add it to the tax credit system. This. as someone who has fairly recently started receiving both I can wholeheartedly agree with the concept of doing away with one or the other. The stupid thing was that to claim child benefit we had to fill in a 12 page form, tax credits was 10 pages long yet the latter is means tested and the 1st goes to anyone. Merge the forms at least. Have one form which claims both. Means testing Child Benefit is also something Id agree with but rather than really drop it down make it something like 60 or 70k just to weed out those that really dont need it. I know its a godsend to us, especially in the first year when one of you isnt working. As an aside, Ive just spent the day in a treasury building at Horse Guards, theres an easy way to save £6bn this year and thats to sell off those buildings, huge ornate place, massive rooms, antiquities all over the place, it makes a mockery of the whole austerity plans tbh

Id sell it face value to another fan, that however has no bearing on whether Id pay less for someone elses ST which Im guessing caused this thread

A someone who works in the Public Sector its a scary time ahead. The concept of having to take a pay cut following three years of negligible pay rises is not one that I relish. On top of that add in additional taxes in the form of PAYE, VAT etc, the cost of everyday items going up and its suddenly looking like I could easily be £120-£150 per month worse off. Thats before any additional cuts in things such as Child Tax Credits etc. The bigger worry however is the job itself, not the fact of whether I will have a job or not but more in the job itself. Cuts are never made sensibly, no matter which government is in place. My department consists of 5 of us, collectively we save the government over £4m every year on an annual budget of just over £350k. We are not however front line staff and therefore be liable to be cut. The problem being that each little area within the bigger deparment has its own budget allocated and frankly doesnt care what problems it may cause another department ie if my ultimate bosses need to save £50k this year then they could feasibly get rid of a piece of work that saves another area £500k, the result? our boss has done his bit but simply created a bigger problem for another one somewhere down the line. What currently happens when specific job roles etc are cut within the civil service is the biggest joke however and explaining it to people is the hardest thing possible as it defies all logic. Imagine the scene, a section has 10 members of staff and is told it has to lose 2 as the budget isnt there. The result? two people are told to look for jobs elsewhere within the department, a department which has no jobs and has numerous other people in the same boat. You therefore become something called "pre-surplus" and spend your days hunting the internal jobs pages for a move. Meanwhile you sit at the same desk you sat at previously but you're not allowed to do any work, after an hour of job hunting you move onto doing a crossword, read the paper and generally just lose the will to live. Every month however you're paid the same pay as you got for doing your job, your colleagues meanwhile become more and more stressed as theyve got 20% more work to do. Result? more sick leave and reduced productivity. This happens day to day in thousands of sections across the Civil Service yet its seen as a cost cutting exercise, basically paying people to NOT work. Why not just drop them all into a big pool and move them to wherever in the Public sector needs the help? take 2000 civil servants from DWP, HMRC, F&CO etc and put them tomorrow into doing admin work for the police, thereby freeing up officers to spend more time on the beat and cut crime. After a month put them into the Benefit fraud department, 2 or 3000 extra staff in one day to move cases on, monitor suspects etc. The savings would be immense literally overnight. All of these front line services that could benefit immensely from the experience and abilities of these staff yet no, we'd rather sit them at a desk and fester on the hope they'll either leave or die of boredom. Cameron talks about a previous spending "splurge" well we've not seen that, for the last few years we have been cut repeatedly. Talk of not replacing staff who leave as a way of saving money is old hat. We've not recruited properly for years now and although its not a problem at the moment at some stage in the near future we're going to lose huge numbers of experienced staff due to retirement/ redundancy etc. The gap will be immense and cost billions to correct but that will be down the line. The answer is not to cut Public Spending, its to freeze it or increase but more importantly its to spend it wisely, if people arent needed then get rid, do it now, offer a redundancy package but stand back and wait for the stampede as it will be hugely over subscribed and thats the sad fact of life in the Public sector. Most believe they are doing a job for the better good of the country but feel hugely undervalued and let down by the way its ran overall. I see nothing from the new government that will correct that.

It has no bearing to me like, as far as Id be concerned Id be paying for a seat that I had no guarantee of getting the next year therefore Id prefer not to pay full price otherwise why not just go out and get one from the club, with a choice of seats and the ability to keep it as long as you want?

Compared to England whos players are on the books of Man City, Chelsea, Liverpool, Spurs, Aston Villa, Man United, West Ham and Portsmouth. Only two of those clubs finished below any of the English clubs that have Americans and they only account for 3 players, one of them being the third choice keeper. I automatically ignore those that play in Scotland as its the equivalent of a kick about in a middle school playground.

and what better way to get players to want away than to publicly say you want them and then make a derisory offer in contract talks [/cynical]

That just sounds like Weeds but without the clunge.

That sounds sooooo gay my Reg, not my mate Reg or a bloke I know called Reg but my reg