El Pibe

Fair enough jah, I'm happy to retract the word. Sloppy perhaps, timid maybe, blunt, illiquid. Far less the threat that they look on paper, England a little more. And bob, harsh, I'm rather partial to the chiles charm, and as for that frisson I don't know what you're talking about, I mean what's more innocent than Poland-Russia....oh...erm, France-England....bugger, Germany-holland? Oops, ah well, Russia-Czech republic, damn......

As I yours and your spurious stats polymath. I work in the industry and I can assure you it is not cheap, does not follow moores law and it's the majority who are strangling things. Reject away, the sand is warm around your ears.

I bow before your superiority in all things oh polymath ;)

I have to say I'm by and large with H on this one. Infrastructure is expensive and is playing catch up with the huge increase in demand for bandwidth heavy usage such as VoD and file downloads. Just like free banking and other sleights of hand, we'll end up paying for it in one form or other. Our phone contracts keep going up for that all imnportant 'free' unlimited bandwidth as it is. Expect ISP charges to do likewise. It makes sense to me to make those who clog up the internet pay for it. I've been championing charging for emails for years, might stop some of those several trillion spam emails a year for starters!

You'll notice I have the fidelity of a 2-bit whore when it comes to national identity, whatever makes the best point. I of course would never revel in the inglories of one hoist by their own petard, oh no not me, never!!!

Maybe I'm confusing organisation with liquidity. ** or less flippantly I think you're confusing possession for organisation. Ceding possession and hitting them on the break in expectation of facing a more clinical side was clearly part of the gameplan. France's lack of ideas in the final third isn't to be confused with a lack of oraganisation, it's utterly symptomatic of it.

The Gowlett used to, I don't know if it's even still open these days though.

Shifting alleigance to MK Dons then huh?

Just as an addendum to quids' rantings about our politicians I thought I might quote this gem i found in a blog somewhere Miliband: don?t think he?d come round at night and steal your garden gnomes, but you wouldn?t lend him any money. Cameron: Would steal your garden gnomes and then break them in an act of purple-faced spite. Clegg: Would steal your garden gnomes, then come round your house pretending to be a concerned neighbour and nick your wallet. Brown: would steal your children and replace them with garden gnomes. Blair: a sort of black hole of distrust, where distrust flips over into its opposite in another part if the multiverse and you pay him to take your children away and carry the garden gnomes to the van for him while he lectures you about rights and responsibilities. Hunt: A kind of obsidian cinder of bad faith. He is tolerated because he is perceived not so much as a human being but as physical evidence of original sin.

Oh god, and yet another slew of polarised, class related excoriations ensues. It gives rise to desperation not aspiration frankly! Aspiration is a facet of character, one might even argue of being human full stop. It has shit all to do with class. I suppose at a pinch one might say it's cultural, but then there IS something about Britons' peculiar schadenfreudal love of failure and sneering at success that means you should all keep schtum on this one. Back on topic I'm afraid Grayson doesn't really do it for me either, but then Chuckie Egg is my idea of a great artistic achievement.

IF you look up troll, weirdly the definintion isn't "someone who doesn't like me" likewise that of bully isn't "someone who disagrees with me" now wipe the spittle flecks from your lips, have a nice cup of tea and start again, there's a good fellow ;)

I love out of date space raiders. It's the almost complete lack of flavour and 10p price tag that makes them irresistible.

"What's the monster lurking in the abyssal depths EP?" THe old laissez faire approach of let the banks go bankrupt and see what happens rather than the open ended commitment to constantly prop them up.

These are hardly problems unique to either Spain or the economies perceived to be failing. What you're complaining about is the state effectively underwriting banks' operating risks, something the British gov't did for the entire industry here, not just the banks we specifically bailed out (or nationalised if you insist), to the tune of muchos billions. It's frustrating especially as banks don't then do what we ask of them, ie improve the risk modelling and have safer business models with lower risk/rewards. It doesn't help that whilst we effectively are asking them to lend more sensibly we're also asking them to lend more full stop. But then what's the alternative, noone has yet dared stare into the abyss?

I'm afraid the ECB, IMF et al are indifferent as to your opinions on the veracity or accuracy of such definitions. Regardless Spain has already enacted severe austerity measures in an effort to reduce the budget deficit, so it likely that an insistence that they do so is unecessary.

The difference wa that this was a banking bail out not a soverieign one. Spain was actually much more circumspect in it's borrowing than most, it's debt to GDPO ratio is way below taht of Britain's leave alone the troubled economies, though as quids pointed out the budget defecit is high. It's problems are very different to those of the other pigs, and alot of it, like here in the early days of the credit crunch, is to do with banks' reluctance to lend causing grave difficulties for business, making it very hard to kick start growth.

I can't believe an England tournament game has garnered such little response, and even that from a foreigner ;) England were better than I expected them to be. No standouts but a good team performance, though clearly we were set up to stymie the French we created chances and had some incisive breaks. It's hard to tell with the French, they seemed a little disorganised, but whether they will improve or implode is anyone's guess.

Bless you Ted :)

My god, format programming has a format? Wow, who'd have thought it. Next you'll be telling me researchers for Kitchen Nightmares actually look for restaurants with dirty kitchens. Never I tell you, it's all real that reality tv thing! I rather like like our kev, I thought his programme about the grand tour and the influence those early holidaymakers had on British architecture was excellent, and I'm rather partial tio GD, especially as I'm in the midst of building my own house. Oh and wot monniemae and Rosie said. I thought fazer had been banned so was surprised to read yet another of his tiresome trollings on here.

It's a great series kittysailing, you should be rightfully proud. If only more telly were like it.

Have to disagree re EC vs WC. As a general rule I much prefer the Euros for the football, though there have been poor tournaments. Since the WC expanded its a much greater spectacle and has much more of a buzz factor about it, but there is a lot of mediocre football and dead rubbers from the filler teams, and let's face it, by the time it finishes the major feeling (apart from elation when Spain wins) is one o f relief that it's finally over!!! Anyways, so far so good on this one. Some cracking games I the group stages and a good upset already!

Could be and laugh.

I was going to have a more organised head wetting, but let's kick off on Sunday. Anyone fancy starting early with the Spain game?

I'm flying back from ireland early sunday morning SJ, and will be weirdly newborn free, so would be well up for that.

Is this where I say mundanity is allfornun, even if it isn't?