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.

Perhaps Kenny has apologised to try and share the burden rather than having the whole thing placed on Suarez shoulders again.

Sorry don't have a link mate but I do remember seeing Lee Sharpe telling an anecdote about his time at United during that spell. Basically he was describing getting a total bumming from slur due to doing some silly dance whenever he scored. However, he then went on to say that pissypants reaction to Cantona's kick in the same season was "you can't really do these things Eric." When it's a big player for them in trouble it's a different story. Hypocritical cunt indeed. Sharp probably deserved to be bummed though.

Thanks for those links Kopout. I hadn't seen those before. I'm a community education student and became interested in alternative currencies when I came across the Brixton pound last year. I did a bit of investigating as I was considering possibly trying to start something similar when I finish my course. However, there do seem to be some problems with it. Namely that a lot of small business owners get majorly pissed off with having to do the tax on alternative currencies.

Don't agree with this. The welfare state has been around since the Beveridge report. Post world war 2 employment is much better than employment now when we had the welfare state so I doubt the welfare state has caused this underclass. Also, Swedish society creates more equality through greater distribution of taxes and benefits. It goes further than the British model and I don't think you'd find such a class there. Unfortunately, I think things have gone tits up since the 80s thanks to you know who and neoliberalism in general. As another poster said the 'scum' don't know any better. Taking away welfare won't help it'll just lead to crime. Society has to intervene to readdress the balance. Regarding education, I think schemes like this are the way forward... [YOUTUBE]gIgLGt4hZuY[/YOUTUBE]

Much like yourself, I'm not surprised about those stats. Surely you have to ask though, why does the UK have such an underclass? Why are 7 million people functionally illiterate? Why do so many lack basic educational qualifications? Why are so many excluded from school? Why are those on benefits stealing? When you look at social democratic policies in other countries and compare their society with ours it goes some way to telling us the answer don't you think? Much higher unionisation, teachers given more autonomy and responsibility to develop their own curriculums (which don't revolve around rote memory/obedience), restorative justice, egalitarian welfare state, etc.

Sounds like a great deal. Interestingly that the guardian say we are also in for Adam as well still. Wonder if Kenny might be planning to play with wingbacks quite often next season as 3 centre mids would probably be used in that system.

Just did a quick google search there to check cus I wasn't sure mate. They did though and it looks like they might be about to do it again. Thousands of jobcentre staff start strike vote - News centre - PCS Thousands of jobcentre staff start strike vote 7 March 2011 Around 7,000 staff in Jobcentre Plus call centres will begin voting today in a strike ballot over intolerable working conditions. The ballot widens a dispute which led to two days of strike action in January by more than 2,000 workers in the seven newest contact centres who have been forcibly moved from processing benefit claims to handling enquiries by phone. It comes as the union is considering a ballot of all its members for national industrial action over cuts to jobs and pensions, and is in talks with other unions about co-ordinating any action. The union says managers have “an obsession” with hitting call centre targets at the expense of providing a good quality public service. The oppressive conditions are resulting in high levels of stress and sickness, and staff are leaving at an alarming rate. Since April 2010, more than 2,700 staff have left - over 20% of the total call centre workforce of 12,800. The union wants to improve the levels of customer service in call centres and allow more varied work; end the target driven culture, particularly by changing the way unrealistic ‘average call times’ are used; and introduce proper flexible working arrangements. The ballot also follows an announcement by senior managers that they want to close more of the department’s benefit processing offices and call centres. As a result of the government’s cuts in public spending, JCP is also planning to reduce staff from its current 73,000 to 65,600 by 31 March 2012. This is down from a peak of 84,000 at the end of 2009. The closure plan is based on three flawed principles: that unemployment is falling, when it is in fact rising; that large numbers of people will claim benefit online, when that is untested and unknown; and that the proposed universal credit will reduce the number of staff required, when that will not start until 2013 at the earliest. PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: “Our members do not want to work in such oppressive conditions simply because the senior managers have an obsession with arbitrary targets. "They want to be allowed to deal properly and professionally with the calls they receive and stop having to fob customers off because they need to end the call within a certain amount of time. “Instead of cutting back on staff, the government should be investing in jobcentres and the benefits system to help get people back to work quicker to get our economy back on track.” Thousands of jobcentre staff start strike vote - News centre - PCS

I can't really comment on jobcentre plus as I don't work there but didn't they strike in January in relation to their managers cutting call times to silly levels in order to meet service targets. I think they argued that this effectively made a lot of calls worthless. I work part-time for the pension service in the evenings. To be fair I am given as long as I need to deal appropriately with calls. I can spend 15 mins going over pension deferral with a dottled old lady to make sure she understands and nothing will be said. Although, I have an easier shift so I imagine it'd be stricter during the day. They've also just brought in an efficiency measure called lean which supposedly works through bottom-up management. Having read about it; it seems like top-down with the rhetoric of bottom up so I think some absurd service targets may be on their way to the pension service. Although, I can't say that for sure yet.

I wouldn't sign Honda. His only asset is his 100 hand slap and that's nowhere near enough for Nani or any of the mancs.

Yikes. I forgot about that quote. The passing of time and certain events make it look even worse than it did at the time.