Watched a couple of programmes on South Africa Decaf ...... things didn't seem too rosy but then the whole world isn't in a great state .

A year back I could fill my car from nearly empty to full for $110 ...now it is $80 from 3/4 to full . Food has risen a bit .
Power is OK because most of our electricity is generated by hydro electric and we have tons of water .

Major problem in our town is homelessness , reports of other towns giving their homeless a $1200 bung to come here

Our stupid council has housed them in various motels and buying up prime near inner city land to build homeless shelters so once the word gets around of such a soft approach more drop kicks migrate here .

Some homeless are hard luck stories for sure single mum / three kids that type of thing but a lot have social , mental problems , drug addicted .etc

We are a tourist orientated city , heaps of reports of tourists arriving and having to listen to fights , arguments , loud music in adjoining rooms or premises .

Hard to imagine a more stupid shoot yourself in the foot policy .

Think it's a Chinese proverb something like ""rather than give a man a fish better to teach him to fish"" . so I don't think providing free housing free food is long term solution .

Seeing as you seem to have installed yourself as the forum's movie critic ; Have you seen ""The Green Book ""

had never heard the original rendition of the Searchers hit ""Goodbye My Love "" by Robert Mosely before

"" Hidden Figures "" another I enjoyed

Just watched the new Ray Donovan movie; disappointing after the standards of the series.

Anyway, sorry to hear of your physical woes Pete, glad to hear you're better now.

If you're stopping drinking the sump oil, beware of constipation. Especially at your age.

I think the Ray Donovan movie was ok but they only had 2 hours to cram everything in and reach a conclusion. The series was good fun though.

And they still left it open for another one. Never showed the annoying son, Connor.

But as you say, it was ok and whiled away a couple of hours.

Think you will see more movement by the start of august. Feels like we have one more card to play

A major issue has been such little interest in the players we need to shift

Leno, Mari, bellerin, runarsson, Pépé, torreira, nelson, ainsley 8 potential players there that should fetch 40 to 50 million at least if we could move them all on. Clogging up space for a rebuild. They are the type of players who sell only towards the end of the window

Right now your looking at Chelsea bringing in Sterling and it feels like we haven’t really moved the needle like that. Jesus an improvement no doubt but the rest unknown entities

I think some clubs also prefer to wait closer to the season starts to conduct their business. If you sign a player at the start of July on 200k a week you’ve spent 800k in wages more before the season even starts. Every week that passes makes it more affordable. If Fulham leave signing Leno another 2 weeks they save themselves 200k in wages

I’m not sure Man U are stronger. They’ve only added a young left back to last seasons squad. Or do you think the addition of ten Hag immediately takes them above us even given no real squad improvement?

If I was to take an ultra positive view you could say we have the squad most likely to improve by way of the existing players because of their age. We haven’t lost any important players, Liverpool, city and Chelsea all have. We’ve also addressed the biggest weakness in squad terms any of the top 6 had last year by signing a very good striker.

Seems a bit of a false economy. I mean if you want to stay up then a keeper as good as Leno is like a gift from the gods. He literally could be the difference between a relegation dogfight and finishing midtable or just below. If I was Fulham I'd be thanking my lucky stars and doing the deal asap before anyone else comes in for him, not quibbling over a couple of million.

Hi Bernard,

I kind of hoped that Chelsea might implode after the loss of Abramovich but this american guy Todd Boehly seems serious, if not somewhat brash in the way he goes about his business. Will his forceful no-nonsense approach work? Who knows.

I agree it’s nuts also he’s easily worth the 11 million they seem to be quibbling about but if they know they are the only club in for him it gives them licence to take the Mickey. Just seems the mode of operation these days.

Also seems crazy that nobody’s in for ainsley. He’s easily worth 10 million. Id rather not sell him to be honest

Haven’t they signed Martinez, or is he the left back you’re talking of? Maybe it was the clickbait nonsense I’m always moaning about but I saw somewhere his signing was certain.

I see Manchester United’s biggest priority as strengthening what I call deep midfield. If Martinez replaces McTominay who I don’t think is quite as bad as some have made out, that would be a significant improvement and one that added to the appointment of Ten Haag makes me more optimistic about Manchester United’s league position than Arsenal’s.

As I say, hopefully that’ll change by early September. There’s clearly still time for it to.

Martinez is supposedly close for them but not done yet - he'll cost about £50m. Reports are Man U are looking at him as a CB rather than LB (they have 3 of those already) or def Mid. They are also chasing hard for De Jong who would be a huge upgrade in their def mid position but there are lots of complications on that deal with Barca supposedly owing de jong £17m in outstanding wages

If we got a LB/LCB and a quality CM then with the addition of Jesus our starting 11 looks stronger than Man U's for me. Even with the signings of Martinez and De Jong I think Man U are weak at right back, I also don't rate de gea in goal for a possession based team and there are still huge question marks over rashford, martial and sancho in the wide areas and they still rely on a 37 year old who wants to leave for most of their goals

With all these players in the final year of their contracts there would be a point where the offers are so low that it just makes sense for us to keep them and use them in Europa and lose them for nothing at the end of the year.

If we're careful with our squad rotation the fact that we're playing in Europe this season shouldn't really affect us until the 2nd half of the season. In the early Europa rounds there is no reason why a 2nd 11 can't negotiate those group games and finish top of the group - whilst the CL teams will almost certainly be playing their strongest 11's in Europe and the Prem. Of Course I'd rather be in the CL but I dont think us being in europe this year as opposed to last is a big a factor in our predicted struggle this year that many are making it out to be - at least until after the world cup.

ps: the world cup being mid season is going to shake the season up like no other ever has. Injuries, fatigue, mental state (before and after) - who knows what's going to happen.

Hi Kiwi - no - thanks for the tips, I will try. Enjoy this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5aVK70P88k

I assume we were heavy favorites?

I am also reminded of the 3 straight FA cup final appearances and recall thinking. The two we were favorites we lost and the one we won was by far the most difficult of the 3 and no one would have been surprised had we lost to Man Utd.

In most recent years, not winning a league cup final against clubs below us or losing in the semis to clubs we should have beaten.

So The Arsenal is going to Baltimore. Home of the tv series 'The Wire' easily for me, one of the best 5 tv series ever, if not first or second.

Then Orlando. Disneyworld. Wonder what went into choosing the locales? Miami has a fairly large British community of pensioners. But giving more thought, neither Baltimore or Orlando get to see much big time football of any kind.

The Wire.

Brilliant storylines and brilliant cast. Not a single wasted character. So many of them were my ‘favourites’. Omar was quite superb.

It’s been two and a half years thanks to covid but we’re finally back abroad.

Other than masks the standout change is the sheer number of electric scooters. They are everywhere. I’m not sure why they are called scooters though since nobody actually scoots. They are more like an in-line Segway.

Usual speed seems to be around 25 mph. Works well though as all areas have wide cycle/scooter lanes alongside pedestrian strips.

Indeed - so many memorable characters. I had a soft spot for Frank Subotka (Chris Bauer) the dockers leader in series 2. A trade unionist of mythical proportions!

In London they are a danger to pedestrians, who are effectively third rate citizens. Scooterists and cyclists should be licensed.

Scooters have been a danger wherever I have seen them in England (as well as being illegal). In an area with space and clear delineation they work surprisingly well.

Cycling on the pavement in the UK really pisses me off. That’s for 5 year old kids. And that’s the view of someone who until recently cycled about 10,000 miles a year.

Landsmen is increasingly my favourite. The fat murder sergeant that’s a complete cynic but playing the game. The actor played it so well.

Landsman was a great character. They all were. That’s what made it such a standout programme.

Does anyone get the feeling that for some reason we are going to do this…..

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/foo ... 23015.html

40 million is a ridiculous fee for Gabriel who is our best defender. Gotta be over 60 surely but I wouldn’t sell.

The press have mooted players in a swap deal that are fundamentally uninspiring.

The rumour doesn’t seem to be going away. If this happens it will be a real head shaker

Ornstein reporting we've going for Zinchenko after missing out on Martinez. He says City are open for a sale if valuation met. I think this lad is a great player, left back for City, centre mid for his national team - anything around £20-25m we should get this done.

City must have some signings to come, so far they've added Haaland and Alavarez and have lost Jesus and Sterling, and their are rumours of Ake going back to Chelsea and now Zinchenko coming to us. City actually have a surprisingly small first team, smaller than you think.

Dear god. I mean seriously

https://twitter.com/suellabraverman/sta ... w37BztrxDg

This would be a superb signing. Perfect for us really

I’m a bit surprised they would let him come to us. I suppose they want that superb Brighton left back and he’d be surplus to requirements.

City are incredible, they have 2 perfectly adequate left backs yet saw a slight upgrade elsewhere and want to act. Everybody is playing for second place these days

Zinchenko for us just makes perfect sense. He's only 25, can play LB and left-CM, could also play wide on the left as well I'm sure. He's got vast experience with City, won trophies with them, worked with Arteta before, knows the league well. If the price isn't silly it just makes total sense.

Signing players from within the league aren't seen as exciting maybe because we'd nearly always be signing a player a better team consider they can let go or signing from a team we consider ourselves better than.

Id add Tielemans to this too, the Savic lad may be the exciting link but I'd take Tielemans over him.

At the risk of sounding elitist towards smaller clubs, Leno is much better than Fulham level of football. They really should be happy as hell they are even in contention for a GK of his quality. I too lazy to look up their owner or whomever acts as their equivalent of football director, but squabbling over that price shows how they think and an indication of how ambitious they are.

Leno is a CL football level GK in quality and if they mess this up trying to squeeze the last pence out of the deal like my grandmother used to do at the market, they deserve what they (don't) get.

Our Ukrainian friend joining won’t go down well with kiwi. He will accuse of him of wrecking our own changing rooms when nobody’s looking and not speaking in the local language.

Spot-on AG, he's a top level keeper, fully accustomed to the demands of the PL and at a peak age.

As I said earlier, I think he's as good if not better than Ramsdale was during the 2nd half of last season.

Fulham should be thanking their lucky stars if they were able to get a keeper of his quality for £20m let alone £11m.

Its just not joined-up thinking is it.

Hi Rich,

He would be a top signing for what we seem to want, notably a versatile leftie who can fill in both in midfield and at LB.

As you point out, sometimes the sexy foreign signings are not the ones that make the most sense.

This is mental. Check out this Fox News segment as to why Boris Johnson resigned.

https://mobile.twitter.com/number10cat/ ... HI3rvnJh0A

I am pains to think of any fairly well known medium in America that purports to give 'news' that is widely trusted and respected.
Tucker Carlson in particularly has learned that he can literally lie (although the segment you posted doesn't have him making comments) and the listeners simply don't care. I wrote about him a while back. He could run for office and fairly easily win in my humble opinion although the other side ideologically has done a fairly good job of calling him out.

CNN, MSNBC are both Democratic party shills. The Guardian is regarded as a trusted source in large part because its not American and Americans trust British opinion more than its own because we see you lot as more enlightened and remnants of the 'special relationship' is thrown in there as well.

Tucker and his show's producers vet each guest. He knew the guy would say something to that effect. Which shows you how insane things are.

Just mad. Fox News gets crazier every year.

It’s weird these days it’s like they are doing Putins bidding for him. It’s not even an attempt to tell the truth

Hey Rich, I haven't kept up with the transfer news as much so the tidbits and such I get off here is what I pretty much know.

Regarding Zinchenko. Where does that leave Tierney? Is because of his Tierney's injury record? Will we sell him?

Another player supposedly "linked" to Arsenal.

https://www.football.london/arsenal-fc/ ... r-24492071