No way on earth would we ever have got anything close to "a wad north of £20 m ." Only if more than one team were REALLY interested would sums like that get seriously mentioned .....and like you say nobody was even interested enough to make a bid . Chelsea could have got him for half the amount you mention - if they'd have wanted to of course .

Sounds like George Steiner .......so unnecessary at times

Oh I don't know .... Any particular filth you care to recommend ....

It's called a bad year , Flopsy...

THIS is probably the only book Flopsy's ever read .....

You're right , Bryan .... he has had a sense of humour failure . Must be on another power trip

I think I'll pass on this one .......sounds like a load of old brownian motion to me .

You're probably right , Flopsy , that this bloke had probably been harbouring his urges for years . However alcohol has always been legal and is never going to be illegal - (unless my worst fears for the future of this nation come true :ph34r:) . There is no logic IMO to legalise hard drugs simply because another form of intoxication is already legal - there's enough crime being committed by drunks to start with ! As for this waste of human life .......he'll be in his mid 50's when he comes out . If the human rights brigade have their way it'll be sooner . He'll still have his urges and kids will still be at risk . It's time we put such scum to death and started to put the interests of our kids first and foremost .

Yep ; that was the one ! I'll make another note of it ... As for Dickens , they always talk of Great Expectations as being his best . It isn't ; not by a long chalk . DC is simply the best novel I've read . Not that I'm a big novel reader - I always tend to read historical non fiction stuff .

Better than David Copperfield ! ? I don't know how you find the time to read so much , Sidders .....I remember making a vow to read one you recommended eons ago but never got around to it . I'll try again with this one .

Global warming , global cooling ? Take Your Pick .

Anybody else suffer from hay fever ? I'm having my worst year for about the last dozen or so - despite the fact that the weather's bloody awful . Very strange

Cheers Fife . Just as well they didn't have the internet in those days .....

Sorry , but the amount of money you took is irrelevant . You cheated at cards - a cardinal sin to anyone with an ounce of honour .

Quite restrained I'd say , Bryan , considering the depth of his treachery . It's not just modern players who don't give a damn about the supporters . Wandering off the topic a bit , what exactly did go on with the ticket scandal of that cup final ? Anyone know the details ?

Not really , jim . I base my suspicions on the fact that this Labour government brought in special laws to cater for so called hate crimes against specific groups based on race and religion* When you consider that all crimes are hateful to a certain extent and that existing laws already cover these crimes , you have to wonder why the government was so intent on highlighting these crimes above others . It could only be an attempt to drum into the public and the judiciary that they are somehow worse than other such similar crimes . For example a mugging against a person can be highlighted in law and deemed a "racial" crime . A mugging against a little old lady is just your run of the mill mugging . Why is one deemed different to the other ? They were both illegal in the first place so why change the law needlessly unless one is to be viewed as more serious than the other ? The law should apply equally to all ; bracketing people into sub groups based on race and sexuality and religion creates more trouble than ity solves. (Not sure if the religion laws ever reached the statute book but the intention was there ...)

You're right Flops ...I looked at the 2 years instead of the 9 years . Still not enough either .... As for the woman on the link you put up - well the mind boggles . It's a sick world . No wonder the prisons are full .

Re-reading the article there's nothing about the racial origin of the victim (although I'm pretty sure we all have a rough idea ) My point is that if the perpetrator was white , he would undoubtedly had received a harsher sentence . Anyone disagree with that .......? For the record I'd like to see such rapists , regardless of the race of either the perpretrator or the victim , swinging at the end of a rope . Is that racist ?

A two year sentence for rape ...? Tough on crime.......... Just imagine the sentence if it were a white man raping an Asian girl (or boy) ......is that a racist thought ?

A couple of months....!! ? I'll stick to the traditional hangover , I reckon......

Selling fatty foods isn't the business of the government ...producing laws and guidelines that minimise the amount of dangerous (in as far as that is possible) should be . Having the government actively selling and distributing even the most fatty of foods simply because the trade has gone on in the past wouldn't be a good idea , don't you think ? Drugs provided by the NHS that have SUBSEQUENTLY been found to have been dangerous should - and are I trust - removed immediately . What the legalisation of all drugs would mean is simply that the government make known the risk to the public.......and then carry on selling and distributing . Personally I prefer the government not to get involved in such a trade .....(call me old fashioned !) Taxation of drugs ? .......Mmmm , maybe many of the yuppie users might be OK with that - but round these parts they aren't the main problem . The average junkie cluttering up the streets of GB's cities don't have such scruples as bothering with tax - let alone taxation on the drugs they use . Maybe they would steal even more to pay the tax or maybe they'd stay with the illegal dealers who don't declare their income to the tax man ! Like I've said before , if the aim is to curb crime the government would literally have to dish the drugs out for nothing (which they're finding out in Holland ), which IMO is quite immoral because the government would be actively participating in promoting the ill health of its own citizens . And then there's the question of whom should pay for it all - who would that be apart from those of us who are inclined to get up and work for a living ? An ever increasing number of kids would weigh up the options ....and bugger off down to the chemists ask for a prescription for a lifetime of oblivion .

Primitive societies didn't have the type of instantly addictive drugs to be found on the streets today ; a bit of cannabis is not in the same league as heroin or crack cocaine etc - however recent studies show that even the average spliff is far more dangerous than those used a few decades ago . The bottome line is you still would like to see governments REPLACE the role of criminal gangs in producing and distributing ALL drugs (unless you have shifted your position recently ) . You might call it "regulating" or whatever but the result would be the same - the gov't dishing out substances that have proved to be harmful , addictive , and in many cases , lethal . Please explain how this is in anyway a moral thing for a gov't to do ? And then tell me how the gov't wouldn't be wide open to law suits from the victims and relatives of victims ? Perhaps you could also explain also who is going to pay for the hard drugs that renders the user unfit for anything other than a zombie like existence contributing nothing to society ...? It could only be successfully done if the tax payer picked up the bill . In other words the working tax payer would be subsidising a life long habit of non working , hard drug users - the wasters wouldn't need to steal to get their drugs, but neither would they ever work or do anything constructive with their lives . Maybe some tax payers would settle for the higher tax bills - others would be on the first plane to a Mediterranean hot spot were society doesn't have druggies littering up the place ....... Criminalisation hasn't worked in the past quite simply because we haven't had a government who have tried hard enough . Tougher sentences for users and dealers with a policy of cold turkey for addicts would do a hell of a lot more for our society than your silly idea of getting the gov't involved in the drug trade . In reality the only sensible argument for legalisation of drugs is for those that are less addictive than alcohol - anything else is just ill thought through stupidity especially in these days when governments are trying to clean up the health of their citizens by clamping down on smoking ....

Whichever way you look at it his best option would have been just to have gone with the under 21's , play "within himself" .....and concentrate on the coming season . A couple of weeks on his hols won't compensate for all of this trouble . And whatever the faults of the media it was hardly never going to make headlines .......it's not just the tabloid readers who don't like the idea of players snubbing their country .

Nonsense . The vast majority of punishments for driving offences are far too draconian - it's only the very serious ones that could and do result in accidents that are too lenient . But that's the trouble with the British justice system as a whole - no sense of perspective .... Anyway , Flops ; the prisons are full ....we have to let the likes of Hughes out early to fill the cells with the single mothers who haven't paid their TV licences ....

Don't be daft , Rev . Rooney has been an established England player for years now ; comparing him to Bentley , who let's face it , has only had one good season , is way off the mark . Rooney is a genuine world class player by anyone's standards - Bentley is in the limbo between the under 21's and the first team squad ; only the blinkered Rovers fanatics would put him before Beckham at the moment . I'm afraid Bentley has overestimated his true worth to the England set up and will pay the price . The truth is he has taken on the management when he hasn't yet the gravitas to back it up . Unless he has an absolutely blinding season next year he could find himself quickly forgotten . My guess is that he's already regretting his decision . Next year when the England manager (whoever he may be) is picking his team for the Euro's , Bentley's fitness and attitude may very well be the deciding factor against him fulfilling what any right minded player would regard as the pinacle of their career . One other point ; knowing that he has blown his chances with England might have a negative effect on his performances for Rovers ....and not the positive one that a lot of the posters on here are taking for granted .