craigLCF

A plastical masterclass

Harvey Spent aka Chewed-face

I recall he dropped the word monosyllabic into a Match of the Day interview like it wasn't no thing. A rather unfortunate choice of word for grammar school Roy to select in order to show us all how clever he is. Roy how do you say irony in latin?

I agree with the need to significantly strengthen defence for next season as most suggest. However I think that what has mostly wrecked this season was the suicidal decision not to bring in another forward before the season started. Since the start of January we have won 5 out of 10 games and of the 5 we didn't win, 2 were decent results away to city and arsenal. Is this perfect, no definately not but nevertheless if you extrapolate that across the season it is pretty much the same level as Arsenal and Spurs (Spurs have won 16 out of 30 and Arsenal have won 14 out of 29 so far). Prior to January we won 7 out of 20 and the only real goal threat we had was Suarez. If we had brought someone in who even managed 5 goals between August and December we would probably be right in the mix for 4th. Naturally the focus has shifted to other areas now we have Coutinho and Sturridge. Rightly so because Skrtel looks an absolute mess. However I think we shot ourselves in the foot majorly before the season began. The amount of games 17 year old Sterling played for us in this period is shocking for a club like ours.

I hope you're proved right but I'm not sure about that. I mean we weren't in Europe last year which may have helped in the cup competitions but it definately didn't do us much good in the league. Maybe you're right about 1 or 2 players if we don't make Europe as we would have less games I guess.

I think it's possible. I was looking back at previous league tables the other day just to see how far behind we are now compared to where we were. I noticed that in Rafa's first season we had 58 points but the next season finished 1 point off the mancs with 82. I reckon we will end up somewhere around 60/65 this year and it's possible the league could be won with around 80/85 points. A similar increase could see us challenge but the problem is that in the close season between 05/06 we signed Momo, Reina and Crouch all of which were great for us. We would need 3 or 4 signings to come in and every single one be boss which is unlikely. It's probably more likely I'm bending statistics to suit an insane agenda.

Great to get that monkey off our back... oh and also great to beat a team above us for the first time.

He has a multi-pack of Golden Wonder in his kitchen.

Just a heads up as I thought this may interest some of you. Went to see this the other week and it's a very powerful and interesting play. On this week on Friday and Saturday at The Lantern Theatre...

Ye but you seem to be ignoring the anti-Tory VAT campaign your party ran pre-election. I wonder why you were against said 'progressive' taxation then but not now. Also, when I said that the poorest tenth pay double the richest tenth in relation to percentage of income, I was taking that from a graph within the IFS report you refer to. A quick google search reveals other studies labelling it as a "piece of political dogma, seriously flawed, etc". The idea that flat-rate taxation somehow ends up being progressive is bonkers.

I see what you've done there but do you believe flat-rate taxation is progressive? I'm unsure how any tax which makes the poorest tenth of society pay double the richest tenth as a percentage of income can be called progressive.

Nick Clegg pre-election... "AV is a miserable little compromise." Sad to say I was stupid enough to vote Lib Dem in the hope of real voting reform.

Isn't that somewhat of a moot point though? Even if they did have the skills there aren't enough jobs for everyone so effectively there would be little difference in the unemployment figures and an even more competitive job market.

I'm not sure whether it was intentional but I find that a little offensive. There are 480,000 job vacancies in the UK and 2.7 million unemployed so I don't think you can apportion all the blame on the individual. The jobs in my area are basically retail, catering and care. I recently started working with a couple of guys in their 50s who just lost their jobs as lorry drivers. What can they do to gain employment? About half the learners I teach have very recently been employed and many move back into employment very quickly, the turnover is very high. I think you would be surprised how resourceful these people are as they develop coping strategies to get on in life. I actually think a big part of the problem is the English language itself as languages like Finnish, Italian and Spanish tend pronounced exactly as they are spelt which is how UK dyslexic dictionaries function. Conversely, English has a million different rules which makes it more complex. Our education system is obsessed with rote-memory, obedience and testing. We are also still dire at picking up Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, etc. We have a lot to learn from Finland... No standardised tests No private schools Less homework Less school hours More co-operation and less competition Teachers are given decent pay and a lot of autonomy What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland's School Success - Anu Partanen - National - The Atlantic

That's grim yet not all that surprising. I'm on placement with a social enterprise/charity at the mo, teaching adults literacy and numeracy but they also have a job-brokering service. The funding gets smaller every year which results in redundancies yet the targets remain the same. They now have a limit of 6 months imposed on them for working with people which means the most needy get turned away as the organisation won't be able to get them 'job ready' and into employment in that timescale. Everyone there has strong morals but what can they do? If they don't hit the targets then it's goodnight for the whole organisation and they won't be able to do any good work. Job brokers are all cherry picking their clients, I guess that A4e have just taken this to extremes.