El Pibe

Have you a tech savvy youngster in the house who might be annoyed with you? They could easily have gone into the router admin and banned the mac address. More likely that your iPad is fucked I'm afraid. Apple centre can sometimes take pity on you and replace it.

"I can't see Cameron scoring for England, can you?" I can't see Bent scoring for England either frankly.

I trust that post is dripping with irony. You don't think Torres' ?7m odd a year is rewarding failure? I'm obviously being a little facetious to make a point which is of course that by and large the market determines the pay. It's about the price and conditions to attract the talent, and the lengths those that support are willing to go to see that. Now I'll take my analogy slowly so you can follow... Fans pay over the odds for their tickets and accept these huge sums paid to players and managers in order to produce results. WHen things are going well noone complains. When things go badly they don't undermine the system, they ask for a change, the manager gets a huge golden handshake for termination of contract, and subsequently so will many players as the fresh sweep is employed. Things wobble a bit and either result improve or the whole thing happens again. Now read shareholders for supporters and you might finally get it. Factor in to this that the big bonuses are not rewards for failure but salaries, done as such a way to get around loopholes limiting the size of the salaries, probably put in place by ham-fisted attempts at regulators to appease the baying mob last time things got a little shaky. If this happens again, expect new loopholes to be exploited in a bid to get the talent in. Hester has a proven track record, he's the business equivalent of Mourinho except that he costs about a quarter as much to employ!!

Darren Bent kicks a football round a park, are you seriously saying that kicking a football in a park is more difficult than running a bank? Average permiership player pay is over 1.5 million pounds and there are currently over 400 players earning this sort of cash. I couldn't give a shit about the fortunes of Aston Hotspur, but I think getting someone to recoup the 20 billion we've lost in our RBS investment is proabaly worth chucking some hard cash at. I think we've got our moral compass all wrong, where's the tabloid outrage about Wayne Rooney's ?8M a year? I also don't get this yard stick about Prime-ministerial pay. For starters the pay is kept artificially low for political purposes, and secondly ex prime ministers become very rich off the back of their stint of service thak you very much. (not that cameron needs it mind)

A great british compromise, not ideal but neither especially unreasonable.

Red Ken makes a point that accords with what I'vbe long suspected, the relocation thing is an empty threat to manipulate cowardly, self-serving politicians. I also suspect the corollary to the threat is that the desired behaviour will result in a nice directorship when you're done with all this tedious public service nonsense.

I'm well aware that their massive flappy feet can actually damage ones washing machine and the red noses are prone to running into their white frills. Does anyone have any suggestions how I can get some of the local feral clowns clean whilst keeping my children safe?

This is often portrayed as an absolute moral issue, but what cracks me up is a common-or-garden utility player in the premiership will be on more than ?1M with a huge bonus for coming fourth in the title race, and yet this garners little or no comment. We have to look at our own hypocrisy before demanding behaviour of others. Nowt to do with the RMT mind you, but that conversation had become old and tired hadn't it. What shall we talk about next then George......

We did Wednesday 5-1 this season and have claimed a few FA cup scalps over the years so Spurs would be wise not to be overconfident. I don't expect to win this in all honesty, but will hopefully bag a couple of tickets as it'll be a fantastic day. ps Spurs is pretty much most people's other team in Stevenage.

I stumbled upon selective perception whilst reading about something entirely different and it seems to nicely sum up why such discussions are so extreme. It basically says that sports fans are irrational when it comes to their team. No surprise there really, but nice to see such deviations in judgement being demonstrable conditions ;) Interestingly, for all the mud that's thrown at him, Otta has been consistently the most rational and dispassionate observer in this whole charade. I can only infer that he either has an extremely cool head or he's not really that much of a Liverpool supporter any more ;)

Unless I'm missing something, hasn't Katie simply made a self-deprecating pun in an attempt at levity in this fractious thread? Those quotes are all UDT's.

I was under the impression you knew everything UDT ;-)

Err yes I know. Sorry if != wasn't clear. Geek speak for 'not equal'

Can't wait for the fifth round Stevenage 8 - 0 Spurs

UDT, the BBC has both editorial independence and a duty enshrined in law to provide as balanced an approach as possible*. Public service http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/math/f/c/9/fc96ad814da494dec61f5128a498e508.png government shill. Sometimes people don't know when they have it good, you should look at Spain's national broadcast bodies, they really do have to toe the government line. Why do people insist on seeing deception everywhere, sometimes a duck is a flippin' duck. *in the world of opinion there is no such thing as neutrality, especially when people always see anything they don't agree with as unnacceptable bias. But see Loz's comment earlier about how the balance of complaints actually show how good a job the beeb does at annoying everyone. The israeli/palestinian conflict is another case in point, it's amazing how the Beeb manages to be both a zionist and hamas propogandist! *edited for clarity and legibility*

The most surprising thing is that apparently we currently have a foreign policy! Could have fooled me ;-) But you're right AGW3, I clearly remember the relentless WMD propoganda by the BBC in the run up to invasion :-/

Poor old auntie beeb, one minute they're a bunch of leftie subversives trying to bring this country crashing down, the next they're toeing the government line. Can't win can they. I listen to three things on the radio, the Today programme in the mornings, Six music when I'm cooking and the test match special whenever I can.

We're expecting a boy in mid may, is this the right place? La Piba and I might be interested in popping our heads in, especially as I'll be SAHD from September for a while.

what did you think? I rather enjoyed it. I was born into Franco's Madrid and have seen it change dramatically over the years. I did like that it picked an unfashionable period/place in history, it was wonderfully evocative and really caught the nature of 'el olvido' very well.

Camera that photographs light moving. Coooool. http://gizmodo.com/5867562/unbelievable-trillion-frames-per-second-camera-captures-light-in-motion

http://www.yelp.co.uk/search?find_desc=&find_loc=East+Dulwich%2C+London ?

genius. POTW!!

116 objections BNG (including 2 from casa Pibe), that's got to stand them in good stead. And yes, Hoopers is a great example whereby a pub can be revitalised without going down the canoes on the ceiling (20 years ago), pine/chrome (15 years ago), flock wallpaper (10 years ago) or Capital Pubs formula (they're EVERYWHERE!!!!) routes. I don't think it's especially luddite to lament the loss of those beautiful victorian features (or yearn for their retainment) to yet another bunch of low slung sofas, nursery school plastic chairs and another 6th-form-common-room-ironic makeover is it? But agreed that keeping the pub alive would be massively preferable over more flats.

I wonder where the EDF fits into this http://a3.img.mobypicture.com/cf6c6b67be47d7affb60884fea778940_view.jpg

Am with you on the Larsson meh reaction. The first one was intriguing enough and clearly benefitted from a decent editor, the follow ups were pretty awful. Were they published posthumously? That might explain why they were so much flabbier (and sillier).