The History of the Tyne-Wear Derby

151 Responses

1. Great post guys!

   What a miss this Tyne-Wear Derby in the Premier League!

2. Chuck, Nutmag and Hugh, could we please make comments in this post from now on instead of doing them in the old posts?

3. Hey it wasn’t us who changed the system, if you don’t like it………….

4. OK, I’m going to start closing down commenting on old stories after a while.

   In reply to the comments on the other page

   Chuckles, we’ve had this discussion before. All the big teams have a clearout of players when they get relegated, it just isn’t feasible not to, even at Newcastle, and we still had the best squad in the Championship with no excuses for not getting promoted at the first attempt, which of course, we did. In the Premier League, we have a lower mid-table squad like West Brom which should be well above the squads of teams like Brighton, Huddersfield, Burnley and Bournemouth, though of course, it is nothing like what it should be considering the size of Newcastle United, or the size of Ashley’s pockets.

   Yes, Ashley dangles the club out there in the hope that some naive Oligarch or Oil Sheikh will pay well over the odds for it, so I never built my hopes up with the Amanda Stavely thing.

   When Dawn of the Dead was made, it was shopping malls which turned people into zombies, now they want more profit and fancy shops are a big overhead when we can just reprogram people to fulfill all their needs on a smartphone. Maybe my life has been at the right time, when they had the technology to keep me alive as I would have been a sickly child, then a dead child back in the old days. On the other hand, the future looks positively dystopian and I’m pretty glad I won’t be around.

5. All big teams team’s have a clear-out of players when they get relegated ?

   Bit of an oxymoron that, being “Big” clubs don’t get relegated, plus if you remember our first relegation, we kept a good number of our best players.

   Just shows in retrospect how f***ed up the club was with such names as Ashley, Shearer, The hunchback of Notre Dame, Llambias etc.

   “The blind leading the blind”

   It’s hard to believe that things have not changed much, look if you cant figure out how to run a football club or make money with one, especially considering the revenues paid to PL members, over a ten year period, then it’s time to sell up and move on.

   The club could be sold, it’s a problem only because Ashley has overvalued it

   There are numerous reasons for evaluating a club, the quality of the stadium, players, management, location, earning power, ability to attract players, etc.

   Location is a problem, Newcastle being farthest from the capital, colder, with less of the things that attract young players in their prime, had St. James’ Park been located in London (which it is, the other St. James’ Park), it wouldn’t be a problem.

   As for big box stores, they will always be around, especially the name stores, being women love to shop and there are many who have to physically examine the merchandise, for quality and to check the so called “standard sizes” which can vary so much .

   As for technology, big business, government agencies, etc. are becoming infatuated with it, they see it as the customer doing the job of an employee, check yourself in at the airport, the overuse of e-mail. Uber, etc. and pay via either a credit or debit card, which forces one to adjust their life styles.

   An example are the attempts to force customers to check out goods via the self check out machine, which I refuse to do, explaining I was there to buy a product not replace the kid who needed the job at the checkout counter, of course I get blanc looks, but i’m sure I get the message across.

   I believe we are still In the early stages of this dystopian/techie age, enjoy the luxury of being taken care of by employees while it lasts, being the worlds biggest retailer Amazon has recently opened a store without check-out counters you simply take whatever you want and somehow or other the sale registers and charges one.

   The positive is no waiting or paper and almost no employees, but is that what the public want ?

6. Once again Rafa was left holding the bag, being that highly skilled upper management team of Ashley and Ashley, relayed through the chubby guy, has hit a rock at Anderlecht, don’t ask why it’s about too much money or sump’n.

   The good news is there’s a Slovack goalie on the way, that no one had previously known about, plus a couple of loan moves, Slimani from Liecester and Kenedy from Chewsea, both decent players, but we need more help than that, which means looking to unload all our big stars before we go back to the championship league, that’s if you can find any.

   In an era where clubs are paying enormous transfer fees and there’s anticipation of another massive increase in tv revenues, our dear leader refuses to fund enough to acquire the necessary talent to begin a rebuilding program.

   To constantly suffer relegation is the way to becoming another Leeds United
   in which case it would behoove Ashley to at least bring in the talent needed to avoid the drop, loosing the tv revenues of the PL will devastate the club and cause a massive reduction in value, does our great leader not realize this.

   But it’s obvious he doesn’t care, believing the club can avoid relegation, just like both of the prior seasons he bet on our survival, I don’t get it, better to spend a couple of quid now, than take the massive hit that relegation brings, I just don’t see Slimani and Kenedy being enough.

   Ah well have to get my tv scheduling set for the championship this coming season I guess.

7. Managing Newcastle United is like managing England, it breaks every manager in the end, and it did well before Ashley too.

   Slimani was supposed to be a real up and coming player when he signed for Leicester, but of course, the reason they they are loaning him out is because he’s been Leicester’s Mitrovic, who we’ve loaned out now. It’s a bit like pass the parcel but who knows, maybe the change will do both of them good. Kennedy looked very good this evening but, alas, there was more late disappointment, which I’m getting really sick of now. I thought Joselu would miss that penalty before he took it, he didn’t inspire confidence when I looked at him. I’d have rather have had Gayle out there.

   I hate the bloody self service tills and yes, they are making the customer do all the work. All this ‘internet of things’ stuff that people are starting to become addicted to are observing every detail of our lives and can be hacked. I don’t usually wear a tinfoil hat but nowadays you’re best off putting a bit of tape over your webcam, and those Amazon and Google assistant things that listen to you 24/7 are particularly sinister. They can just feed all your waking thoughts to the Amazon or Google Mothership so they know what to sell you, whether to give you health insurance, or send the men in white coats ’round to pick you up!

8. To-days younger generations who have never experienced any kind of personal privacy will no doubt elicit an eye-roll reaction to any complaints by an older generation, due to advances in technology resulting in a loss of privacy, being they have never experienced it..

   Understandably so, being our governments (whether a democracy, dictatorship, or other) have taken the lead in eves-dropping and other means of gaining personal information, which in turn may be used as a form of control.

   Of course they are matched in this process by the private sector, who’s use is less that of control, but used primarily to separate you from your hard earned dosh.

   Those born before the introduction of computers became commonplace, say pre 1980 know what I’m talking about perhaps.

   Fact is the majority of the post 1980’s population were born into a generation that never understood the cold war witch hunts that saw people lose jobs through blacklists which took place in countries who considered themselves
   democracies and openly boasted about it.

   At present the scale of technology is immense, making it virtually impossible to travel throughout any sizable city, without being on camera the whole time.

   Of course smart phones can trace ones daily movements besides every function you decide to use, in many cases combined with credit cards
   displaying your wages, bank account, where and what you buy, of course the technology to solicit this information is available through bank statements which
   gives one an idea how far behind the present day laws are,it not being in the interest of either private or public sector to protect those they spy on.

   The expression “flying below the radar” has become somewhat impossible nowadays except in minor ways, use cash, there are enough cash points available, though the banks would love to see a cashless society, but fear not, bit-coins are ready to step in and the sooner the better.

   It’s time to-days youth picked up the struggle forcing their lawmakers to protect
   their privacy not act like the sheep they have become over time, that along with
   the outrageous cost of to-days third level education, that can penalize youngsters for generations, or put their parents in debt.

   Don’t ask demand !

9. Hold the front page! Grumpy old man moans about the youth of today!

   Beyond enthusiasts and work it really got going in the 90s. Tim Berners Lee has a lot to answer for with his World Wide Web. He seemed like such a nice, kindly man who liberated the world of information, but now his creation has turned into the ultimate tool of evil, enslaving the world by turning everyone into constantly observed Internet addicts who are always in search of a hit! He only wanted to design a little network at CERN in Switzerland so the Scientists could find documents easily.

   The world of spies has certainly changed over here. It used to be that the controllers of MI5 and MI6 didn’t even exist officially, now they do interviews and you have ex-controllers on prime time TV as celebrities. The HQs didn’t used to exist either, but now they’re (pretend) blow them up in James Bond films. There’s been a huge PR campaign for the Secret Services, which probably helps add to softening people up to the idea of being surveilled all the time.

10. Erm, some of what you say may be true, whatever it was ?

    And no we cant give up on the younger generations, who although they may not
    fully understand the fact that unless they object to their particular governments attitudes and obvious attempts to increase their control, we will be facing any number of countries that are destined to be run by and for those who believe they are the ones who know best, quite similar to the former Soviet Union.

    If it’s a compromise between the policies of Mao and the latter day Soviets and their counterparts the so called western democracies, all over again, what’s to gain ?

    Their appears to be some kind of reaction in those recent additions to the EU, in regard to the switch from a former Warsaw Pact member to entry to the worlds largest common economic market, also understandable.

    Being they are the on the bottom rung of an organization that is a market primarily for those who export to those that are still in he process of development, the result being a country who cannot compete and not unlike (Greece, Spain, Portugal) tend to move in the direction of nationalism, in other words a basically fascist attitudes generally shown recently to those refugees attempting to pass through their countries heading for Germany.

    I really don’t know what to say about the UK and Brexit, other than in the words of John McEnroe, “You cannot be serious” though most Brits I feel now have adjusted to the idea and may even believe it to be a good one.

    Sorry folks you will realize soon enough it was possibly the worst plan, but that’s your problem and as far as the US and our dear leader Trump is concerned, it’s
    the US first, though he may intimate that both countries have much in common,
    in fact there’s little as far as trade is concerned.

    Hey I wish you well but the writing is on the wall and it’s unbelievable when one looks at the changes that have taken place over the last half century to the former Empire where the sun never set upon, to a small island off the western coast of Europe, whose future does not look that bright, due to allowing the electorate to reach the decision of separation from he rest of Europe.
    Ah well !

11. The recent window clearly indicates that NUFC is not exactly the club that those looking for a new club are interested in, despite having one of footballs great mangers in Rafa. Benitez, though I have no complaints with those recruited.
    Slimani or Kenedy

    Slimani with a fellow center forward who can hold up the ball, he could play the fast forward role played by Bellamy, alongside Shearer and hopefully put a few in the net.

    However it has become clear to anyone with a brain, that the Mags. are not the most popular club in the PL for either loanee’s or those looking for a more permanent home.

    This was described recently in an article by ex Liverpool defender Caragher, now pundit, who really needs to learn to speak English especially when it comes to worldwide audiences, being all one gets are puzzled looks accompanied by a “wha de say” ? in

    Yes folks it’s true Newcastle is not exactly the first choice of foreign players, not even English players, perhaps when used as a stepping stone like most of our French imports, it’s ok, being they all push for a move sooner or later.

    Even Sturridge who chose WBA instead of Toon the other day, sez it all, he plus the young Chelsea striker who chose a second tier club before nufc at the seasons start.

    I guess whoever owns the club come next season, will have to spend some money if the club is going to survive as either an elevator club or a regular PL fixture.

    Whoever it is better have plenty of it.

12. To-days game was a confirmation that NUFC are destined once again for the second tier.

    The game started with some fairly decent football, but following the Newcastle goal, it became all Palace, who are in fact a better side and deserved a victory.

    Once again our dear leader has let the club down, not only the club and it’s fans, but come next season in the second tier, the clubs value will be close to half it’s present worth, which is not four hundred million, not even close.

    In which case what the hell is he trying to do, I just don’t get it ?

    And let me be the first to ask the question concerning Benitez, can he really walk on water or is the fact he has moved from club to club following his firing from Liverpool, with no real silverware or longevity at any of those sides, got anything to do with it.

    Yeah sure he was hired and awarded a pretty nice contract, the amount being one we could all use, but on looking at this present side, I find it the worst bunch since SBR’s sides, definitely not an EPL quality side, apart from the fact Ashley has refused to underwrite the purchase of any decent players, why is he still here with this crap team.

    One can only come up with the fact he likes the weekly check and is hoping another opening, this time at a decent club arrives, being he certainly wont be around following our third time in the second tier.

    Ah well, he’s not the only manager around, there are plenty of up and coming young guys just waiting for such an opportunity, I really don’t know if I can watch this bunch of losers anymore and have given up on them and both Ashley and Benitez, it’s just too depressing.

13. Another problem which I find very annoying is the commentary, certainly to-days color commentary was that of a rabid Palace fan, who’s every comment was as one sided as it gets, which over a ninety minute period can become pretty annoying.

    Silly me , I had the understanding like most sports commentary was an attempt at neutrality and when directed at an English speaking audience, was at least understandable, not one full of colloquialisms and use of a barely understandable local dialect

    About time Fox or whoever hires these guys would hire people who understood the role of both play by play and color commentary.

    Oh ! by the way I have experienced a number of games which were both did their jobs well, which was both understandable and interesting.

    Good commentary has nothing to do with volume or amount, more about certain things that may be happening in a tactical sense and it’s enough at times to just mention the name of the player during a passing session, rather than run a continuous unnecessary and boring rant.

    I recall some of the older commentators on radio, calling certain games, they were marvelous making the game so real, with either a quickening or raised voice at time which we the audience understood to mean there was a threat of a goal being scored.

    Well that’s entirely un-necessary to-day, being a tv audience is no different from the stadium audience, apart from the information given by he commentator, who should be well aware of that .

    As for ex players who continually comment on their former careers or have the urge to sound funny, can it guys it’s boring.

    In which case if you cant call the game in an intelligent manner sotto voiced and not continuous, with the necessary comments on either sides tactical play and leaving out the obvious and such local colloquialisms that wouldn’t be understood by a foreign audience.

    Gedit ?

14. Chuck I didn’t watch that commentator but I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the US match coverage in general. I thought it might have been a bit too flash and razzmatazzy like the American Football but they’ve been admirably restrained.

    I was a disappointed to see Sturridge go on loan to WBA (as mentiooned above), even if we’re not Man City, we should have had a go if he was willing stoop as low as West Brom.

    Another disappointing draw, we really needed a win in one of those last two games because it’s Manchester United next. If we pnly draw the ‘easy’ games, we’re going to get less than a point a game. Well done to Roy Hodgson though because he has certainly improved Crystal Palace, though they were missing sitters today (as they say).

    “And let me be the first to ask the question concerning Benitez, can he really walk on water or is the fact he has moved from club to club following his firing from Liverpool, with no real silverware or longevity at any of those sides, got anything to do with it.”

    Since Benitez left Liverpool, he’s won the World Club Cup and Italian Super Cup with Inter Milan, the Europa League with Chelsea, The Italian Cup and Italian Super Cup with Napoli, and of course, the Championship with Newcastle, did you forget all that? That isn’t bad at all in 7 years or so. What do you expect?

15. Commentators sometimes irritate me too. In fact, I often struggle to believe they’re watching the same game as me. I just turn the volume off when that happens.

    Benitez is undoubtedly a good manager but I’m not sure he (or anyone) is good enough to keep us up this season.

    He definitely can’t walk on water though. I watched David Blane do that on The Thames once though. Maybe we should hire him.

16. Hugh,
    the way things are going right now, I would be open to any plan to stay up, even a walk on water guy.

    But I just have to mention something that annoyed he hell outta me in he Liverpool vs Spurs game, which was the officiating.

    Which has become worse over time, with some of the most horrendous decisions being made by officials.

    For example the first penalty call, which I can only describe as a blatant Arry Kane dive, who was in fact offside when he received the ball.

    Strange that really, as I have noticed that over a number of years many unjust (IMO) penalty awards have for some strange reason, been missed, why I have no idea,

    Anyway what I would like to know is, in the day, penalty awards were based on the goalie actually tripping the ball carrier, not simply by his making contact, which was the excuse used by Kane, who claimed contact was made and naturally he went down, is this the new criteria, a simple contact elicits a penalty ?

    Then following the subsequent Liverpool goal, the call by the (to avoid confusion) linesman, of a foul in centerfield on Lamela by the Liverpool LB, which was ignored by the ref., who in fact was closer to the scene, was then changed to a penalty, and this is the same linesman who failed to call Arry. Kane offside, but who was so insistent in forcing the ref to award an additional penalty, I mean are we expected to see more calls by the additional refs. (linesmen) who for the most part cant even make the right decisions in regard to throw in’s and leave the crowds wondering who he hell is running the game.

    When I watch NBA basketball games or NFL games I can bank on at least 90%
    of the calls to be right, and yes I know the rules governing football (soccer) have been changed over the years, but have they improved ?

    Personally I believe not, in which case like Brexit the UK aught to examine the present way the game is officiated and either find a way to improve the officiating or come up with a different system.

    Unfortunately the UK is stuck with ties to the past and those presently running the game are scared stiff when it comes to changing things, however it appears the introduction of international players and the fact there are and always have been differences in the officiating between continental Europe and the UK, where football is still considered a contact sport.

    Of course diving has now been accepted as a part of the game, but rarely punished, in the day the very ethos of the UK game, forbade certain acts, which was observed and run by the players themselves, especially diving, which was considered somewhat shameful, at times the diving player was admonished by both sides, apparently not to-day, having listened to Kanes version of what happened.

    If the awful officiating is to continue, then it’s time to examine it from a to z, being the present system is obviously not working (just ask the Liverpool fans)
    though I doubt if anyone is willing to rock the boat unless tremendous pressure is applied, hell it took over a decade before they applied electronic devices (which really don’t interfere with the game) to judge whether he ball had crossed the goal line.

    Nah ! those with cushy jobs in the FA are content to sit on their asses and collect their checks and it will be another decade before pressure forces them to try and improve the officiating

    To prove i’m not just calling for change for changes sake I I am also for reverting to previous rules, that which makes fouling by simple contact with an attacker in the box a penalty, to one which either obviously displays a trip , shove, jersey pull or those rules we lived by before the introduction of rules imported by continentals.

    Hell ! they have changed the offside rule any number of times, so that now, no one really knows what it means, it being so subjective, the answer in this case is to return to the original rule, where there’s no confusion in it’s application.

17. Worky

    I’m not sure as to what US match covering you were referring to in your opening statement, actually I rarely watch most pro. sports here in the US, apart from the NBA and College basketball, where the officiating and commentary is excellent.

    Yeah I remember Sturridge as a young player, impressed the hell outta me, however I believe he is now an official sick note and doubt if he would have fit into the present Toon side.

    I was impressed by Kenedy’s game and believe once he gets a bit more playing time and a pair of shin guards, there will be improvement.

    Hopefully Slimani can play a role soon as it’s obvious our goal scoring is non existent, being we cant go on earning no more than a point a game, though I looks IMO like another year of relegation.

    Question is what then, do we become the new Leeds ?

18. Can Benitez walk on water ?

    It’s obvious he can win things managing the best clubs in each league he managed in, which begs the question, how come he wasn’t asked to stay ?

    Now lets see what he can do without a top side managing a second tier squad now playing in the toughest league in Europe.

    And by the way, his time at Liverpool apart from that fluke win in the European cup was nothing to boast about and really, think about it, what the hell brings him to NUFC, who along with Sunderland and Boro. have recently hired and fired some of the most useless re-tread managers in football.

    I would guess it’s a temporary pay check, until he hopefully ends up with a top six side, though I doubt that’s gonna happen, being he obviously was not considered prior to coming to St. James’ where he was welcomed as the savior

    Ah well , lets see ?

19. The English Premier has now become a reflection of the society they sprung from.

    What am I on about?, well the division of wealth works out somewhat similar, there are approximately 25% of the population that own most of the wealth, six clubs in the PL which is also 25% who are so wealthy they can buy and guarantee to either win the league title, gain entry to the richest cup in the world, and repeat year after year.

    I recall a time when the old 1st. divison sides had no clue at the seasons beginning who would win the championship, to-day we just have to check the bookies odds.

    And here was a time the FA Cup was as important as winning the league, now many clubs field their reserves or at least rest their better players for cup games. .

    Oh sure Leicester were he exception to the rule a coupla seasons ago, but it’s doubtful if they can even gain entry to the top six this season, but the same wealthy sides are separated at the top, according to how much dosh they invest in players, spending big time, that plus hoarding young talent by loaning them to other clubs, some who pay their wages, shameful, what the hell happened to he supposed fair play system.

    It’s a rich mans game not just for billionaires, but multi billionaires, which has taken place in the short period of time since the EPL was brought about, even our own owner has stated so and explained he cant afford to remain in competition with these oligarchs and realizes he has to sell.

    Hopefully soon as he has been nothing but useless as an owner.

    Just take a look at the localities of to-days PL clubs, where one finds there has been a shift from the previous industrial areas, Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield and the vast stretch between Liverpool and York, not forgetting the three big NE sides, now elevator clubs up and down between the PL and championship, both Everton and Liverpool would possibly be a part of this group, were it not for the additional wealthy ownership money.

    And others I may have omitted, replaced by clubs from Bournemouth, Brighton, and Southampton clubs from the south coast alongside clubs from London and it’s vast suburbia, leaving the former industrial north struggling.

    Plus the fact any new overseas owners, certainly have no intention of travelling three hundred miles north to support any team they might buy, better to find one in the regions close to the capital.

    Then of course there are the exceptions to the rule like Man. Citeh, a northern city though I believe they got a free stadium out of it, not unlike W/Ham, and of course Liverpool who were bought by American interests based on their successful history.

    Yes sir folks there’s a bleak lookout for those former working class cities in the once industrial north, in regard to having a successful football club, regardless of
    fifty two thousand showing up each week, just look at the two former giant fifty and sixty thousand seat stadiums in Glasgow owned by Celtic and Rangers, who had competed well in Europe, until bums in seats became passe, being wealth was now generated from tv revenues, which like many other leagues in
    Europe were non existent.

    That i’m afraid is the future of professional football in the UK.

20. Chuck, You’re always gushing about these deadbeats who come and go, yet you dismiss Benitez with his 12 major trophies. Apart from Real Madrid, he usually managed teams just a bit below the top teams. He got his Valencia job after getting a second tier side (Tenerife) promoted, then took the Bats above the big two Spanish giants although they were much smaller, a bit like Simeone did for a while at Atletico Madrid. I know you think he spent far more than he did at Liverpool but he was never quite had the resources of the Chelseas and Man Uniteds. Admittedly, Inter Milan were on a high when he got there and he could have done a bit better. Napoli had Juventus but he still won a couple of cups.

    I quite like Kennedy, he looks like he knows how to take a shot, which is quite unusual for a Kennedy!

21. Chuck
    I have been a bit sceptical about why Rafa out of the blue turned up at Ashley’s door offering his services. This would mean putting his name and reputation in the hands of Ashley who’s track record is there for anyone with more than two brain cells to see.
    My theory is Rafa is in the Staverley camp and has always been (they met in her failed bid to buy Liverpool) .
    Why would he continue to put up with the joke transfer windows he has. When its so obvious even with the most modest of investments in the last three windows could have resulted in us having at least ten more points and safety.
    I believe the Saverley takeover has a little more to run.
    If the takeover does fail then I believe Rafa will leave and I doubt anyone will blame him.
    Ashley to me is like a man selling a house with a busted roof and can’t see the sense in repairing it to get a better price. Hence loan deals rather than purchases.
    Unfortunately Ashley holds all the cards and he is more at home dealing in backrooms of pubs and curry houses than around boardroom tables.
    He is gambling on PL survival on the cheap or becoming a Championship side for some time with the likes of Pullis and others in charge.
    Place your bets now!!

22. This is like the pessimism world championships, Chuck vs Nutmag in the final! It’s hard to argue though. ‘becoming a Championship side for some time with the likes of Pullis and others in charge’ sounds like a vision of hell worthy of Dante. It almost made me shudder!

    Nutmag, you could have carried that gambling metaphor right through the last paragraph in a little literary masterpiece; ‘holds all the cards, gambling on survival, Place your bets now’ and so on, but you dropped the ball by saying by saying ‘pubs and curry houses’ instead of ‘casinos’ ;-)

    “Benitez is undoubtedly a good manager but I’m not sure he (or anyone) is good enough to keep us up this season.”

    Hugh, we should be lower mid table, but with a manager of Benitez’s pedigree, we should be punching above our weight and hence a bit higher than that, like Dyche at Burnley so far this season, hence I’m a bit disappointed with Benitez considering.

23. Nutmeg
    Nah ! I doubt there’s any collusion there in regard to Amanda and Benitez and I think a sale could be worked out and believe Ashley’s cutting off negotiations is no more than a ploy, as is Amanda’s waiting until the seasons end to come back with a new offer.

    I mean does he really think the club is going to avoid the drop, a situation where he would really be up shit creek as far as selling is concerned..

    It’s not like he has a great stadium in the capital, it’s three hundred miles from it, making a sale almost impossible.

    Benitez is fine, on the pay-role until the end of the season, Chelsea need a new manager, possibly both Arsenal and Spurs may be looking also, and the toon may just survive, nowt but choices.

    Look the guy is a cool operator, just look how he has the fans eating out of his hands, what the hell has he to worry about, after all he did the necessary brought the club back to the PL and everyone was informed he was given no money, so he can f**k off still looking good,

    Look with his reputation there will be plenty of opportunities, even to stay if the club is bought, what I would like to know is who the hell is Amanda working for .

    Anyway looks to me like the only people getting shafted are the fans, who showed up week after week, religiously, ah well whats new ? .

24. There was a time when i perhaps naively thought wow ! there’s a coincidence, when viewing certain ads. or subjects that i had just written about perhaps on blogs like this.

    Not realizing how insidious those who make a living or are striving to become regular paid contributors to this particular media have become.

    Of course those attempting to sell you something or elicit as much information about you as possible, have become much like smart phones and their providers as far as one having to be careful about what one discloses about oneself.

    Yeah some will think, “ah ! paranoia” and question anyone who thinks in such terms as an idiot and the older the complainant the easier to subscribe such terms, many believing that the web is a benevolent introduction to make our lives easier.

    That may have been the case many years ago, when the web was fairly new and finding it’s way, however it didn’t take long before big money and the scammers plus John Bull and Uncle Sam got involved, not to mention the early Nigerians and some of their pathetic attempts at scamming.

    It took the Russians and eastern Europeans to refine and introduce other more sophisticated means of ripping people off, Ransom-ware etc.

    But to explain how pervasive the net has become, when i continually see
    blogs addressing the same (and in certain cases, almost word for word) subjects i had recently wrote, perhaps right here for instance

    i just refuse to believe it to be co-incidence, not that it bothers me, actually i accept it as something similar to a compliment, though it certainly rings a bell when something so innocent in a sense is noticed and used by others.

    Oh ! not only is he paranoid but also a bit delusional, is the usual response from those who still believe that even though their lives are an open book to all, due to their miss- use of smart phones internet, credit cards and banking that if you are not involved with anything untoward or unlawful,
    “whadda ya have to worry about”.

    After all there’s a massive structure run by the UK government, who it’s rumored intercepts all trans- Atlantic cable transmissions and they are still in the process of building a massive complex in Utah for storage of information, what kind of information ?

    And that’s only the Public Sector, god only knows what the private sector is up to.

    To give one an idea of the storage capacity of these complex’s, most of the worlds history can be stored in an area the size of a thumbnail. while the areas mentioned cover acres.

    And if you are not doing anything illegal, then don’t worry The bankers and whole private sector will not rip you off, or scam you and the Government, has only your best interests at heart.

    And i gotta nice bridge for sale, goes from Manhattan to Brooklyn
    going cheap !

25. Many websites are hosted in Utah, Chuck, they have some huge commercial data centres there already. They say that MI5 spies on you Yanks for the CIA and the CIA spies on us for MI5 by some kind of mutual understanding.

    It sounds like you’ve been getting tailored advertising depending on what you enter in your search engine and other places. Johnny Rotten once said (originally about Richard Branson) “Never trust a hippie!” and 30 years later updated his comments to apply to these modern Silicon Valley gurus as well. All their caring, sharing stuff about connecting the world and their offices that look like children’s playgrounds is all bull shit, they want to spy on us like the Stasi.

26. Worky
    I’m afraid I’m a talker not a writer but I do try.
    Chuck
    Tailored advertising bugged me for a while especially one. I had decided to build my own studio easel as to buy one would cost a fortune. What I wanted was a large counterweight one and the best weights for the job were round ones used by weightlifters on a bar. After I looked online I was inundated with everything for the fitness freeks. Unfortunately they lacked one piece of vital information my advancing years! and of course that I have already got the body of an Adonis. I did go on to preference site and blocked them which seems to be working at the moment.
    The storing of information is another thing. You may be able to store all the worlds secrets in something the size of a biscuit tin but keeping it secret is another problem. Not only from different country’s and organizations but from “spotty young kids in their bedrooms.” Nothing ever changes it only gets more technical.
    Way back in my service days while on leave back home I went with my old coal mining mates to a talk given by and about Russian life. Standing around outside chatting after the meeting two guys in overcoats and trilbys stepped up and said “This is no place for you to be sergeant” I was surprised as I wasn’t in uniform.
    When I returned to barracks I was told I was to be moved from the main cookhouse where I was shift sergeant to sole control of the officers mess some way away.
    Later I found out my c.o. had been told “I may be a bad influence on the men” Funny my influence would not work on the officers The two guys I believe were Special Branch. I never heard anymore about it.

27. Yep guys ! obviously you understand, there are those who don’t have your best interests at heart.

    Nutmag

    I’m sure that the special branch, were heavily employed during the period of national service, which coincided with the struggles to end colonization, especially in such places as Cyprus, Palestine and throughout Africa, especially Kenya and of course Asia

    Of course for want of a better term, there was that most innocent of names given to the Irish catholic under-class’ struggle for equality, known as “The Troubles”.

    When every ferry port and airline terminal connecting the UK to the min- state, was inundated with them, looking after the interests of those who now prop up
    Mrs. May’s government and recently demanded millions to do so.

    Whos demands have no end and are a main sticking point in the Brexit talks, concerning open borders in that small island , the Good Friday arrangements which are supposedly guaranteed are about to become if not already, a major but an impossible task.

    What to do ?

    Where crossing the border to and from the ROI, was once a nightmare, not from the regular soldiers, but by Special Branch and backed up by the armed Ulster regiment who were only too happy to help out.

    I don’t know why, but the job was then handed over to the army, who for the most part had no dog in the fight, being mostly youngsters from former industrialized areas now without jobs and couldn’t wait to get outta there.

    Is it to now become a repeat performance ?

    And yes I understand when I am being interrogated and have been a number of times in various places, by those who believed I thought we were just having a pub conversation, geezers having US and UK accents.

    Resulting in having to acquire a passport for my two year old, in order to present it as required, not necessarily for the immigration officers, but for the SB agents who stood behind them.

    Anyway that’s all over now, but with the approach of Brexit, things will revert once more, the Racist President in the US, is presently attempting to send hundreds of thousands of so called illegal aliens, (no not people from another planet), but people mainly from Central America and the Caribbean including youngsters brought here by their parents decades ago, as if they were some form of disease that needed eradicating.

    Of course if you are from certain areas of the world (as described by our dear leader, as shitholes) you can just fugedaboudit.
    Even those who have committed crimes yers ago, while holding the famous Green Card or id card indicating the holder was a legal alien,” love that term alien”.

    Yeah I read the news and realize the similar thing is happening in the UK and will get worse, ain’t it grand to live in a country run by racists for racists.

    I’m smiling here thinking about Sunderland, which produces more Japanese cars, more than that produced in many countries, never mind one area, many of which end up in the EU, who voted almost 100% for Brexit, “what were they thinking”?

    Sorry folks didn’t mean to bring you down, but I cant say i’m too happy with this pre dystopian world we are in.

28. Worky

    The Stasi you say, one wonders how educating youngsters to report on their parents works ?

    There are some interesting German made movies about this subject that and the fact that no-one other than the highest ranking Nazi’s were ever prosecuted in post war Germany and as late as 1948, there were ex Nazi’s openly traveling between South American countries and the Fatherland , Joseph Mengele included.
    Of course that had more to do with The Cold War than anything else.

    In which case, most citizens only know what they are told via newspapers or tv, which is the same as that explained by the current form of government in place at that particular time, being that government has it’s sponsors, like Murdoch and the Labor Government of Blair, one being responsible for the others election.

    Weapons of mass destruction, anyone ?

    It’s also in the nature of Governments to have as much control as possible, a human weakness unfortunately.

    There already have been situations where countries (China) have banned certain practices on the internet and there has been continuous calls from different groups to ban various stuff they disapprove of, which thankfully has been ignored for the most part and hopefully will remain so.

    I believe we are a very flawed species and getting worse, being technology is outstripping our ability to use it, not being able to visualize the consequences .

    Perhaps when we become cyborgs with additional brainpower, we may improve, if we can get to that stage before we end it all, oh ! by the way I believe the Doomsday Clock has advanced thirty seconds recently, no doubt something to do with the exchange of threats between NK’s and the US’s dear leaders.

    n

    k
    !

29. It’s not just about how much they can store on you, it’s about how efficiently they can pick out relevant information from all the reams of guff. Yahoo and GMail read private e.mails and use them to serve contextual adverts, and now these Big Brothers of commerce (Amazon and Google) want us to pay for the privilege of having our homes bugged with microphones 24/7.

    Nutmag, that would have been a few years after the time of the Cambridge spies I presume? It was all the posh officer / MI5 types who should have been watched! Do you remember the alleged plotting against Harold Wilson with Mountbatten taking over?

30. I used to know someone in Berlin who grew up in East Germany in the time of the Stasi. She told me about the prison of Hohenschönhausen looming in the distance and of people going away for ‘holidays’, though she didn’t really make me much wiser about it all. I did use the comparison with the Stasi but it would be rather silly and lacking in perspective to us to take it too far.

    Speaking about Richard Branson in 1977, Johnny Rotten said “Never trust a hippie!” What he meant was never trust a hippy billionaire who wants us to believe they are different from the old fashioned billionaires. Thirty years later he raised it again in relation to the Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerburgs of this world, who use the language of hippies to convince us they aren’t really interested in the money, but just want to connect the world and create a caring, sharing nirvana for all of us. At least you know where you stand with the billionaires who aren’t very good at concealing they are bastards, which brings us back to Mike Ashley again!

    I would have thought you two who go back to the 50s would have mentioned Vic Keeble, who died recently. He was before my time but I know he was a very good player for us.

31. Massive three points, that. I feared the usual late goal against us but we hung on this time.

32. “now these Big Brothers of commerce (Amazon and Google) want us to pay for the privilege of having our homes bugged with microphones 24/7.”

    Yes, bizarre concept, that. Who needs spooks when we willingly bug ourselves and, as you say, pay for the privilege.

33. First and foremost, RIP Vick Keeble, who was the last living member of the third of Newcastles FA cup winning sides during the fifties, if my memory serves me right a fairly tall gangly guy with sandy hair, brought up from a lower division, for pea-nuts, nowt new there ?

    And perhaps you-all are unaware of the fact the perfect device to spy on people in their homes is already in place, it’s not a difficult process for providers to use ones tv reversing it’s usual function and spy on those blissfully watching tv., not to mention the fact most computers also have that capability and have been commonly used for that purpose, even though in most places it’s unlawful.

    Have to say to-days game had me on edge, awaiting that disappointment of being overtaken by MU, but fair play to them (United, erm, talking bout Newcastle United, no one team has the right to be called United) they gave it their all and deserved the three badly needed points and of course plaudits to Rafa whose game plan and tactics , plus his ability to install confidence in a side that I wouldn’t exactly call great.

    However when one compares the player costs of the two sides it should have been a walkover for the mancs. too bad Carrick didn’t sign for us for the season being he aint getting many starts, ah well !

34. Worky
    Your mention of the Mountbatten /Harold Wilson affair.
    I have heard of the Lady Mountbatten affair with Nehru but please enlighten me on the Lord Luis attempted coup, if that’s your insinuation ?

35. Worky
    The Cambridge five were a little after my incident I must be older than you thought.
    I have an abiding memory of Vic Keeble. When Stanley Matthews played at St James’s, in fact I believe it was the first or even the only time he played there.
    Matthews got the ball in his usual manner on the wing prepared for one of his legendary dribbles. Vic made a bee line for him from at least 50 yards away in his gangling gate he didn’t tackle him but just ran over him as though he hadn’t seen him the disgust on Matthews face after he disentangled himself was classic.
    Vic was unfortunate that he was seen as Milburn’s replacement and had some big shoe’s to fill

36. Didn’t see or hear the match today but from what I’m hearing it was great overall performance. It being a good team performance makes it perfect.
    We all know what can be achieved its only one man that’s holding it back. He just doesn’t get it and never will I’m afraid. Good that the new goalie did well.
    I’m with Rafa with our need for a commanding keeper its a foundation a team is built on. lets hope its onward and upward from here

37. The team certainly deserved 10/10 for blocking shots on goal today when they had to, but they were pretty good at keeping Manchester United under control in the middle as well for alot of the game. I was wondering when Matt Richie was going to score next, and Gayle should have had a definite penalty as well so it could have been 2-0. Still no win for Mourinho at SJP.

    Nutmag, you’re the one who was there, but Burgess, MacClean etc went on right through that time, Burges and Maclean’s defections were 1951, Philby was ’63. That was my point to an extent, because they the right kind of upper middle class sorts, they could work in the heart of MI6 and pass secrets to the Soviets wholesale without much scrutiny at all. And don’t forget the ‘fourth man,’ Sir Anthony Blunt, who was the keeper of the Queen’s pictures until 1972 and wasn’t outed until 1979. Thatcher revealed that Blunt confessed in 1964, but he was just let off, kept his Knighthood until it was stripped in 1979, and carried on working for the Queen!

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/16/newsid_3907000/3907233.stm

    Chuck, The Plot against Harold Wilson

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Wilson_conspiracy_theories

    There’s a big film documentary about it here.

38. There’s a new blog up now:

    https://nufcblog.org/2018/02/why-newcastle-cant-progress-under-ashley/

39. Yes, the documentary is news to me and very interesting, more on that later.

40. Nutmag

    Yes I saw both Mathews and Mortensen play for Blackpool in the old first division at St. James’ in the early fifties, by then he was well past his best (Mathews ) and I was surprised to see how tiny he was, of course he showed a few of his characteristic dribbling skills, but could be easily pushed off the ball, though he lasted quite a while longer.

    Mortenson though also fairly slight, had enough pace to avoid a lot of contact, though my memory of that particular game is very vague, think it had to be around 1952 to 54, when the club put out decent sides, even used two up front, G. Robledo and Millburn, unusual for the time, Robledo there for his heading skills, lacking in Millburn, though I recall Millburn scoring for England with a low header during one of his few caps for the country.

    Though my hero at that time was that great left winger Bobby Mitchell, who had a hell of a career at Newcastle, great entertainer and goal-scorer, plus any number of assists, which were never counted at except by the managers during that era.

    Now that was entertainment !

41. Chuck
    Milburn scored the first goal against Man City in the cup final with his head, it was a great diving header that I had a photo of for years. I’m with you though Bobby Mitchell was my favourite in a well balanced team.
    I think Rafa could build a decent squad, as it is squads that are needed now more than just teams If he is given time and backing which he won’t get from you know who.

42. chuck says:
    February 14, 2018 at 8:11 pm

    “Yes, the documentary is news to me and very interesting, more on that later.”

    Chuck, this little 1/2 hour documentary is gripping if you are into that stuff, It’s about the greatest newspaper editor of the 60s, the Mirror’s Hugh Cudlipp. It includes the Mountbatten coup as Mirror Chairman, Cecil King was right at the heart of it.

    The chairman of a British newspaper was planning a military coup against the British Labour Prime Minister but it wasn’t Lord Rothemere from the Mail or some other right wing baron, it was the chairman of the Labour newspaper! Cudlipp staged a coup of his own which actually happened and unseated King from the Mirror.

    It should be a far fetched conspiracy theory, but it isn’t. It’s very ironic that a plan to overthrow a Labour prime minister wasn’t going to be committed by a Lord Rothermere (Daily Mail) or some other right wing newspaper baron, it was the Chairman of the Labour newspaper, the Mirror! It then goes on to the big powershift in the fight for the soul of the British working man, telling how Cudlipp sold another left wing paper he didn’t quite know what to do with called ‘The Sun’ to an brash Australian called Rupert Murdoch.

43. Hmm ! becomes more interesting, simply knowing the Mirror though not that interesting a read, there was no doubt as to where it stood in a political sense.
    strongly Labor, which makes the question, why would he Cecil King be the one to bring about a coup that would devastate the party his paper backed.?

    Of course I know little about Cecil King or what he stood for and of course what happened to him ?
    I’m betting nothing untoward.

    Look I understand with the sun setting on the postwar Empire and it’s implications. as you may have become aware during my Mau Mau rant on here, but I was quite surprised that it’s mentioned that the Royals maintained such influence.

    They of course backed by the titled landowners and their minions down to the fox hunting gentry, well nowadays that would be the grouse shooters of the moors.

    I suppose the Scottish gentry earn more from the grouse than sheep, the original reason for ousting the crofters, (their fellow clansmen) many who ended up doing very well for themselves, immigrating to such places as the newly formed state of Georgia, namely Oglethorp’s City of Savannah, Georgia, which relieved the pressure on the Carolinas from the Spanish territory to the south, Florida.

    Well I see i’m digressing, and suppose I will have to do a bit of research, you can be assured you will be informed as to what I find.

    Well maybe , depending on how interesting it is.

    Florida
    Florida.
    I’m curious as to how much actual influence they have maintained, there being a substantial number of anti- monarchists, (or those in favor of republic) now most citizens/ subjects have more information as too the difference and is not considered almost treasonable.

    florida.

44. Nutmag

    I think I understand your meaning concerning a good squad.

    Right now I am a big fan of the French club Monaco, who are below only the super wealthy PSG in their league, but are head and shoulders above the also rans.

    A policy of astute scouting and obviously a persuasive manner in acquiring those deemed to become future stars, which appears to be their major profit making policy.

    I did mention not long ago that one (probably the only one) policy attempted by Ashley, was the annual train journey by our ex Head Scout, through the French and Dutch countryside looking at youngsters or those willing to spend time @ nufc
    for low wages and put themselves in a position of playing well in order to be acquired by a top six side, wasn’t such a bad idea IMO, though it really didn’t succeed due to crap top management, most couldn’t manage a decent bowel movement.

    Anyway, it will be interesting to see how Monaco do and possibly repeat their policies.

    I doubt if we will have Rafa for much longer, enough time to fulfill his contract, in which case the club should be looking at managers of the same caliber, though not
    the same wage bracket, in other words an up and coming younger manager, with contacts among the scouting system, who could provide the same youthful talent that Monaco’s scouts are currently bringing to the club..

    The Choice is either we find a wealthy owner like PSG, or a management and scouting system like Monaco, it would be nice to find that wealthy owner, but certainly more realistic to imitate Monaco.

    But then what do I know, what I do know is you are going nowhere with the current management efforts of those retread’s like, Woy, Big Sam, well I wont go through the litany you know hem better than I do.

    Hey all we need is a new owner, and a group management that includes good scouts, a good manager who understands the game and a certain amount of youthful future stars,

    A lot to ask you say, well it’s that or something similar if you have any hope of remaining in the EPL, being I don’t see any big money guys arriving to pay Ashley an over the top price for a club, located farther from the capital than any other and having nothing outstanding to offer other than a fanatical fan base.

45. Worky
    I discovered there was yet another plot for a coup, as late as around 1974, where it Mountbatten as once again the chosen Savior/political Head of State , initiated I understand by both members of the military and the establishment,which once again failed to take place .

    Why they would choose such a person I have no idea, as apparently his record of quick promotion throughout his Naval career, was one achieved through royal connections as opposed to any unusual abilities, his role being basically schooled in radio communications.

    He was also in charge of a destroyer that was first put out of action, then sunk with Mountbatten as commander on both occasions. but due to the Brit’s ability to make failures into successes, (see the recent movie , Dunkirk) he was described as a hero, he was also was involved in planning the infamous Dieppe raid, which was a disaster resulting in the deaths of a huge number of Canadien’s.

    And of course his greatest failure was as the principal British or Raj member negotiating Britain’s withdrawing from the Indian sub-continent and the division’ that subsequently took place.

    Well actually it’s said he was firmly instructed to keep India as a single nation, but was unable to do so he claimed and was forced to divide the country into separate nations according to areas containing major religious populations, both a hasty and regrettable choice, the alterative being an immediate civil war he claimed, though the actual results from the division were massive population upheaval’s and the uncountable deaths.

    Those are just some of the most well known failure’s of his career, but both the press and historians, have in many cases managed to change history, where despite his numerous failures ,he is regarded as a true British hero, though as
    German as can be , with both sides of his family belonging to titled aristocratic families, related to the present British royals.

    Perhaps he should be lauded for his refusal to take any part in a political coup, however I believe he saw the futility of the plans involved and for that reason wanted no part.

46. My fault, Maybe a little clarifcation is required. The long, fairly modern drama documentary was the 1974 one, and the one talked about in the Cudlipp documentry was the 1968 one, though they are very similar.

    If they try to stage a coup against Prime Minister Corbyn after he gets in, we will all rise up here in Islington! The pitchforks have all been sharpened in readiness. There’s an obviously ridiculous story in the media over here at the moment about Corbyn being recruited by a Czech to be a Soviet spy. The man making the claim also claims to be the inventor of ‘Live Aid.’ The Conservatives are always making these communist spy accusations about the Labour Leader / Prime Minister of the time, and yet when it comes to treachery, it’s always them! When it isn’t them, it’s Public School educated spies including the keeper of the Queen’s pictures!

47. Worky
    Of course you are right, both about the two proposed coups, in regard to PM Wilson being a soviet agent I understand having checked out both, however in an attempt to be brief, wont go into them.

    It was those members of the British establishment, who feared they would suffer the fate of the titled and wealthy in the Soviet Union and its satellite states, being there labor unrest strikes and the natural events that, like devaluation of the pound, all events that could be expected and inevitable with the loss of Empire.

    That and the fact the country still treats it’s royalty like it did in the days of Empire while others reduced their royals to what became known as bicycle monarchies, Britain maintained royalty as a center of power and influence.

    I suspect the proposed use of both the monarch and Mountbatten was thought to be guaranteed by those of both the establishment and an Army still officered by members of that class, in order to continue a lifestyle that favored them, as opposed to what some imagined was a Trotskyite takeover.

    And of course looking for spies by both MI5 and the establishment was pretty futile, being they had to look no farther than that agency and establishment to find the likes of Burgess and McClean, never mind the director of the Queens art collection.

    And as I might have mentioned previously, Maggie Thatcher put every ones mind at ease, by ordering an investigation into the matter and found no such attempts were ever made, yeah sure Maggie !

    ! and if I remember right the US intelligence agencies had little or no faith in either MI5 or MI6, and considered the term British Intelligence an oxymoron, things were never so bad, as far as intelligence was concerned.

    Not that I am a fan of Angleton, or any subsequent head of the CIA comparing most countries intelligence agencies as a massive waste of money and despite their massive spending had no idea of the immediate collapse of the Soviet’s at the end of the cold war.

    Now of course we are hearing about the FBI and it’s until now irreproachable history
    though many of us knew that was a history concocted by that blackmailer Edgar J.
    Hoover.

    And there is the new agency The NRA, which i’m sure will spend another fortune of the publics hard earned money, all a waste of time as were the KGB, Stasi, etc.

    Ah well ! at least you guys should thank those who were asked to join the Coup, especially Solly Zuckerman, who had the smarts to see an approaching debacle and stated so.

48. Quite a good game to-day, Barca. slightly ahead with a 1-1 away draw, there also should be some interesting games to be watched between the relegation strugglers, more so than who’s gonna win the league, which we should just award to Citeh.

    That and the Champions league , certainly among the quarter final games.

    Newcastle’s win over MU no doubt came as a surprise to most and may have changed the odds somewhat, hopefully they can survive, you have to be thankful
    we still have Benitez, who I think inspires the side and gives them belief in themselves ,being I really don’t think they are that great as far as quality is concerned, but you gotta go with what you got and certainly unlike the other occasions, these guys are giving it their best effort..

49. If Wales doesn’t beat Ireland, this coming Saturday, then I believe Ireland can take the
    six nations title, being that would leave their matchup with England, which will not only be played in Dublin, but on St. Patrick’s day, which aught to be a great game and a severe test of English will.

50. Also the upcoming game against Bournemouth, appears to be a must win, in the run in to avoid relegation, sure the recent win against MU gave the fans a lift, but from now on it’s game by game, with each one equally important.

    If we cant get all three points against certain sides, we may be ok, however it won’t be enough to survive on draws alone, this run in places us up against some top sides, sure a draw would be acceptable against such clubs as Chelsea and the upcoming game vs Liverpool, with both sides playing well at present, but if we can manage the same type of low scoring defensive tactics, used so well there’s always a chance.

    Plus this is a time when the leagues top clubs are fighting on two fronts, for a decent league finish that can guarantee a spot in next years two top competitions
    and in both of those competitions themselves, which may cause them to field a number of reserves against weaker opposition.

    Seems that high line preventing the opposition from bringing the ball into our half
    appeared to wear the Mancs down, but it was that defensive wall in our own half that prevented them from scoring, that and the possibility of a breakout which was always there.

    I like that game, suits our present quality, kinda like the old Catenaccio, no ! .

51. I don’t get on with rugby much, I was forced to play it all the bloody time at school instead of football and it was very serious because the school was the Real Madrid of the prep school rugby world and we had to practice all the time to win all the time.

    Well it’s hard to predict things at the moment; disappointingly dropping points against lower teams and getting results against big teams. Bournemouth have been a bit unpredictable too.

    Chuck, never mind Her Majesty’s secret services, the CIA have a catastrophic record and it’s American Intelligence with the oxymoron joke. Most of the things they do blow back in everybody’s faces all over the world. They make the Keystone Cops look good. The British service had a huge worldwide network and a very highly developed civil and secret services for a country of middling size. Spies have existed for thousands of years, but it was Robert and William Cecil in the time of Elizabeth 1st who brought us the first modern secret service in the first place. It’s one of the things we do, like pageantry and afternoon tea.

    NRA? Government Agency? I thought they were the National Rifle Association? The gun nuts?

52. Worky

    Surely you are joking, or watching too many James Bond movies ?

    At present the government is trying to unload that ugly massive building just across
    the river from Parliament, cant afford it, as for the huge worldwide organization, you must not be aware of the massive cuts in funding which have reduced it’s operational abilities almost in half.

    An organization headed and one who needs the signature for any particular task by one of the cabinet’s most brilliant and knowledgeable politicians, foreign secretary Boris Johnson.
    nuff said !

    Though British intelligences latest member GCHQ is certainly big enough and aggressive enough , who it’s claimed tap into all Trans Atlantic Cable transmissions, which for the most part pass through the UK, they also intercept other signals sent via satellite’s etc.

    What’s not generally known is like their US intelligence, counterparts they also spend an enormous amount of time and money spying on their own nationals.

    Look we have previously discussed this pre-dystopian world we are in the process of entering, one much more subtle than anything either Huxley or Orwell could imagine, where unfortunately humans are about to end up as their own targets, fueled by the ultimate drug, power.

    Though the same warnings have been passed on by many of the elderly throughout
    the last century, they have been ignored as the ramblings of the doting class.

53. I see you quote William Cecil as being responsible for the earliest spy network, at least in England, which is nonsense being spying had been a part of just about every country’s history, for any number of years.

    The Cecil family had been involved for some time in various power struggles in the royal court, William himself later involved with a power struggle against the Duke of Northumberland (of the Percy family) who wielded a great degree of influence in England throughout history.

    Poor old Guy was merely a gunpowder expert, who was recruited for that reason, but the recent use of Guy Fawkes masks commonly used be those participating in demonstrations and not wanting to be identified has made him a much more well known character than Cecil or any of the main plotters.

    Also there has been some suspicion that Cecil himself may have played a role, since the plot was discovered well before it’s intended time, being it was in his interest both religious and personal, to incite an anti-Catholic s situation within the country and gaining influence with the newly crowned court of Scottish protestant James 1st.

54. worky

    yea ! Freudian Slip, meant NSA on the other hand you could consider the NRA to be a government agency , being the have control of any number of elected politicians in Washington, who they own lock stock and barrel, through enormous political donations and if you expect any serious changes in the gun laws, fugedaboudit !

    Actually there has been a suggestion which our dear leader has endorsed, to arm a certain number of teachers, not less guns but more in fact, insanity rules, well actually money does.

55. Chuck, as I said, spies have been around for thousands of years, but William Cecil was the father of the modern secret service network. Alot of it to fight the Catholic threat against Protestant Elizabeth. He was extremely important in other ways too at what was a vital point in British and world history. William’s son, Robert Cecil was even trickier than his dad, and just as influential. He could have outfoxed Niccolo Machiavelli any day. There was a pretty good two part thing on them on the TV over here not so long ago.

    I do agree with you about the MI6 building. It’s a piece of arch postmodernism by Terry Farrell, a very famous architect who, incidentally, was brought up and studied architecture in Newcastle. It was built in the 90s but it reminds me of the eighties, like Joan Collins in ‘Dynasty’ wearing a glitzy dress with huge shoulder pads (those big dark blocks that rise up on each side).

    As for Britain, yes, it’s much the same as it was at the arse end of the last long term Tory regime in the 90s. The railways are in a state, the NHS is the same and all the family silver has being sold off; things could be worse though, at least we don’t have Trump and the NRA governing us. I listened to some of his latest, very long, rambling speech today. Even after everything he’s done so far, he can still make you go ‘WTF?’

    “What’s not generally known is like their US intelligence, counterparts they also spend an enormous amount of time and money spying on their own nationals.”

    I telt you Chuck, they spy on each other. It’s GCHQ is watching you right now drinking your Amstel as you break wind and touch yourself. I’m probably being monitored by some Yank with a name like ‘Chuck’ or ‘Brad.’

56. Afraid to-days game was a bit of a disappointment as I’m sure most fans were counting three points by half time knowing how well Rafa. can organize his defense..

    Though I cant say I’m personally that upset, being I thought we could lose this one, Bournemouth being a decent side, didn’t get to see the game although it was listed,
    as we have a new cable provider Spectrum, who I find worse than Time -Warner if that’s possible, plus the different networks that bring the games, want more money, resulting in organized chaos in regard to scheduling.

    As I stated earlier the real interest is now watching the race to survive, in which case four points against both MU and Bournemouth is ok. being “who wouldda thunk it”

    I’m certainly not counting any chickens yet and don’t understand our dear leaders refusal to spend enough to survive, being he will have to offer a big discount to unload the club if relegation takes place, I guess he is both cheap and a gambler, kind of oxymoronic, I would certainly be happy to see go, as he has done absolutely nothing to improve the club, other than a lot of trial and error attempts, none of which were of any real use.

57. Why oh why?

    I’m getting really sick of this pattern of sticking it through the game week after week, only to see them throw the points away in the final act. Benitez has kept stop-starting with Gayle making it more difficult for him just to settle back into a groove. He finally looks like he’s getting there, the team are two Gayle goals up and rightly so, so Rafa takes him off with 20 minutes to go, replaces him with a defensive midfielder and it goes tits up! Not a good afternoon for Rafa the Gaffer I must say, though they were looking pretty good and capable of running away with it earlier. I even thought I might be writing poems about him in my assessment of the game when we were 2-0 up, how wrong I was!

    Dan Gosling’s goal put a few things in prespective when we say thing like we only have a Championship squad and need to get top players to avoid relegation. We looked down on and abandoned players like him, Danny Simpson, Wayne Routledge et al saying things like ‘squad player at best’ and ‘not good enough for Newcastle.’ etc but they have all been regular and valued Premier League players since with one winning the Premier League and one winning the League Cup.

    Over here my Virgin Media is shite as well, or the customer service is anyway. In the modern Capitalist world, everybody talks about competition and choice, but as Marx rightly observed, it just ends up being the opposite with a few giant corporations getting a monopoly then grabbing you by the balls.

58. Well in regard to Virgin, cheapest is usually for a reason, whether trains , planes or electronic media, to figure why they are cheaper.

    Yeah I also question whether Gale has been given the opportunities he deserved, you just don’t go from a twenty goal scorer to nothing, despite being in a better league, and face it there’s not a whole lot of difference between the top ten in the Championship and the bottom ten in the Premier divisions.

    We are seeing clubs that came nowhere near the top division become regulars and then we have the club known during the 1950’s as the millionaires, “Sunderland” (being they were the first side to spend that amount on players at the time) about to drop into what was known then as the third division north, I suppose there are many more old industrial cities with clubs that will never again see the Premier league other than come up for a cup of coffee.

    Why is it the side can hold a one goal lead over a side like MU, then a week later lwe couldn’t hold onto a two goal lead and repeat against a lesser side in Bournemouth.

    A missed opportunity, that could be fatal in this struggle for EPL survival, being we have Liverpool next week playing brilliantly, then Arsenal., both unlikely wins or even draws, those three points could have been both a league jump and a stimulus for the side, ah well !

59. Virgin isn’t the usually the cheapest, Chuck. Their cable Broadband is the fastest in theory and I do work on the Internet so that’s an important factor. I’ve never had Murdoch TV. I’m thinking about putting my own dish in.

    Fifties? Millionaires? Didn’t the Mackems get relegated in the 50s? From what I know, the odd wins apart, the only time Sunderland were a real top team, like Manchester City now, Queen Victoria was on the throne! It’s little different for Newcastle though. Apart from odd Championship / Cup wins including those Cup wins in the fifties, the only time we had a sustained, dominant league topping team was a few years after Sunderland’s in the Edwardian years of the 1900s.

60. Actually Sunderland were known by some as the “Bank of England” club, during the middle fifties, because of their heavy investment in players.
    Unfortunately they were relegated I believe for the first time around the 58-59 season, to the old second division.

    Actually I was at Roker Park once, it was a game between Sunderland and Boro, who had Brian Clough playing for them, why I was there I have no recall and all I remember was being impressed by the feisty Clough.

    I also attended a game at The Stadium of Light, a few years back which I believe was a mid week game, having originally flown to Newcasle the Saturday before and decided to catch another game, while in the NE.

    Nice enough stadium, but like most UK stadiums very little amenities for the fans, poor facilities and certainly not geared up for the amount of people involved.

    Though I have to admit I have no problem with St James’ where both food and a beer were readily available, however I don’t get it why unlike in all US stadiums it’s not forbidden to take a beer while watching the game, without everyone rushing in order to use the toilets or get a cold one, hell they come around selling beer in the ball parks here, pop the can pour it into a paper or plastic cup and pass to you while in your seat.

    I guess there’s a fear of hooliganism, which is never a problem here, due to security and no history of hooliganism at sporting events, but on saying that, when I attended the old St. James’ park, where everyone was de- segregated and went through the turn-style of their choice, without any friction, unless it was a bit of banter, which made a poor game better, it was quite similar.

    Personably I blame the hooliganism began with the ending of national service, when those testosterone fueled youngsters who had previously been lobotomized by the Army’s drill instructors and were now bored and it was later imported by the rest of European clubs.

61. Chuck, you have gangs shooting each other there,just imagine that all those gangs were into the football or baseball and sorted out their ‘beefs’ at the games, in front of the TV cameras. As for the facilities at Sunderland, what do you expect? it’s Sunderland!

    Letting the youth of postwar Britain be degenerates instead of peeling spuds and marching up and down the square had its good side as well, in art, music and stuff like that.

62. Chuck, you and Nutmag were around in the days of National Service and I wasn’t but when it ended here in the late 50s, wasn’t there Rock ‘n’ Roll and youth culture with gangs of so called ‘Teddy Boys’ or gangs of rockers on their motorbikes getting into fights already?

63. Yeah, around the early fifties, perhaps the explosion of rock & roll took place, replacing modern jazz, which was a combination of small groups and the big bands.

    Specifically the movie “Rock Around the Clock” starring Bill Haley, which caused roit’s, dancing in the isles of movie theatres etc. and was considered by most parents some kind of undesirable American cultural invasion, unlike “The Beatles” and other British groups who signaled the end of what R&R had become in the US “Doo Wop” in general, though R&R was a general vast mixture of country, R&B, Blues, Tex-Mex, you name it much of it being regionally evolved.

    The teddy Boys of the time developed basically in London, but rapidly spread to all parts of the country, (as did R&R) anything that set kids apart from their parents and the deprived times of WW2, actually the name derived from the so called Edwardian men’s fashions, which quickly changed in all but name, being they were actually a copy of the Los Angeles zoot suit’s, usually a bright hued gabardine suit, called a Drape Shape with a reet pleat, that being a copy of the suits worn by jazz musicians, the exception in the UK being yes there was a drape shape but instead of the reet pleat there were drainpipe pants, much like the present day skinny pants.

    And yes I suppose there were gangs, there was always gangs, no ?

    From what I remember from reading about it, there were the middle class Mods, with their Scooters vs The leather wearing Bikers, mostly working class, in the UK one can never dismiss class, much like India’s caste system.

    And of course they both had their differing musical tastes, among other things.

    Of course the English invasion was welcomed, being it was different, even though it was based on differing R&R styles, plus the fact they had longer hair and pointy toed shoes.

    However I still believe that football hooliganism was based on the ending of National Service, when those testosterone laden 18 year olds full of piss and vinegar ended up in the hands of those hard case drill instructor’s and taught them
    abought tuff !

    Most ended up being somewhat lobotomized after two years of army life and quietly went about finishing their apprenticeship and ended up married far too young, but that was the program at the time.

64. Now the Brexit negotiations are getting close to the final decisions, the real stumbling blocks are more apparent, though your exalted foreign secretary finds the border situation in Ireland to have a simple remedy, comparing it to crossing the congestion line between central London and Camden, it should be so simple, but coming from Boris, it’s just an aggravation, I mean when has this clown ever uttered anything in anyway intelligent, he has made a career of being a clown that really knows better, truth is what you see is what you got, so how did he ever get elected.
    Possibly by he same fools who voted for brexit.

    I noted that Corbin (not exactly a big fan of the EU) has voiced a pro customs union
    opinion, which would take care of a great deal of the problems of Brexit, however PM May is presently dependent on the Norn Iron vote, and who though the people of NI voted overwhelmingly to stay ( EU subsidies being what they are) will now refuse to consider being in any way separated from the rest of the UK, bit of paranoia there ,and possibly rightly so.

    It must be difficult to see the country going through these times and those who can project

65. continued

    what kind of a future they are in for, must wonder how the hell could things get to this point, the inmates are now running the asylum, almost like being a passenger on the Titanic .

    Ah well, I suppose things could be worse, I just cant imagine it though.

66. worky

    I don’t recall giving an opinion on whether being conscripted was a good or bad thing, only that it set the conditions for a lack of football hooliganism.

    On the other hand I have had the experience of being drafted into the US army during the Berlin crisis of 1961 (that was when they built the wall) now I wasn’t particularly happy about it, but had little choice in the matter.

    It pre-ceded the Viet Nam war, which i’m thankful for and it was an experience I will never forget , thank goodness I managed to wrangle my way to doing my time in such places as Barbados and Panama, don’t ask !

    And met individuals from just about every state in the Union, which was an education at the time.

    However I realize in retrospect that a citizen army is always one that espouses the
    general principles related to it’s particular country and if unjust, like Viet Nam, for instance, (where I spent some non military times) show their disapproval .

    It became not commonplace, but to frag both officers and NCO’s happened and one was aware of the unpopularity of having to be there, totally unlike the regulars during the desert storm invasion of Iraq who were in fact totally gung ho !

    Of course the generals realized, that they had lost control of the army for the most part in Viet Nam, which was the reason for making it a volunteer army better paid, with plenty of unemployed youngsters to recruit.

    But it also lost something from becoming a volunteer as opposed to being a citizen army where everyone was involved, of course there were those who dodged the draft through various means, but in general I believe the US citizen Army of ww2 was the best produced.

    I imagine things were quite similar in the UK and of course by 1960 the majority of trouble spots had disappeared along with the Empire, which now required a smaller but more professional army than using millions of two year don’t wannabee’s.

67. Wasn’t the film called ‘Blackboard Jungle?’ As someone said on a programme about Rock n Roll over here, the problem was that Bill Haley ‘looked like a Greengrocer.’ He was no Elvis. When I was a bairn in the seventies, you would still see burned out old Teds with the hair full of oil and wearing ‘Brothel Creeper’ shoes. Alot of the tackiest Pop Bands of the 70s like ‘Mud’ and ‘Showaddywaddy’ still dressed like Teds nearly twenty years later too. Even as a bairn I thought it rather strange.

    Mods, Rockers and Skinheads were all working class, Chuck, the middle class were more hippy. Before my time but I believe there was a rather strange middle class cult for old Traditional Jazz before the big revolution happened in the 60s

68. Without a huge conflict the modern, developed army wants committed, professional soldiers on a longer contract, not lads who are forced into it for a year or two on National Service. On the subject of luck, I have a friend whose father was in the Army, and he told me he was posted to Bermuda for WW2! My father wasn’t so lucky, he was in quite a few campaigns but he didn’t used to talk about the bad bits much, it was mostly about time off in Calcutta, or the Pyramids or wherever.

69. Yes “Rock around the clock” was the sound track to Blackboard Jungle a Glenn Ford movie about a teachers fight with American inner city thug pupils. The movie was naff but the soundtrack really kicked off “Rock n Roll” in this country at the time.
    I would like to clear up my military service before I continue. Having had my National Service deferred to finish my apprenticeship. While awaiting my call up I heard through lots of mates who had done their service that you could not follow your own trade in the Army you had to take pot luck in what they gave you.
    This gave me the Idea to sign on, to allow me to follow my own trade and also be paid regular soldier wages not the twenty five bob “Nashie” wages. This I thought for the price of doing 3 years instead of 2 years. Unfortunately I could only get 3 years if I did not have a trade being a tradesman I had to do 6 years this I did and never regretted for one minute.
    Even as I left the service suffering from PTSD (It didn’t have this name till recently) I wouldn’t change a thing.
    Chuck your stereo type sergeant drill instructor comes straight from all those stupid army films from Ealing Studios and Hollywood. Stock characters “Nasty Sergeant” that everybody hates “Cowardly” Private who comes good in the end and in the final scene thanks the dying sergeant for everything as he was right all along.
    The great majority of “Nashies” went into the “Corps” Service Corps, Ordinance Corp etc The majority of the “Regiments” Infantry Tanks etc were regular professionals. Nashies”after their five weeks drill training (lobotomy?) they went out on posting to do whatever job they’d been allotted, Driving, Stores, a whole list of day to day jobs just like “civvy” street The only differences being the money and not being able to leave.
    I really believe it did a lot more good than it harm. To be continued

70. Nutmag

    When looking back on my time spent as a draftee, I realized that it was if nothing else, still it had some positivity.
    Certainly it was a well thought out program, that began on he first day, it was designed to take away ones personality and merge everyone into a group mentality.

    First thing they did was remove your hair, civilian clothes and issue you with uniforms etc, resulting in a loss of personality everyone was reduced to a sameness, then their was the yelling and threat’s, the constant physical stuff, that was part of a designed system that made certain youngsters react without thought.

    If one wasn’t aware of what was happening they had managed to reach the goal of creating a person who reacted automatically to any orders from superiors.

    However it was in fact more subtle and difficult as time passed, being to co-operate with situations one would have rejected out of hand previously became easier to co-operate, rather than a system of non co-operation, which was the beginning of a subtle but continuous change in attitudes, not realized until one was discharged or separated from the army.

    The result was a barely perceived change in ones attitudes, leaning more to-wards co-operation, than one of resistance. to previously held beliefs.

    Yes like many organizations the army had it’s psychological plan, of course there were also some of the best schooling one could receive anywhere, well thought out
    courses with surprisingly good instructors.

    It was an experience that I’m glad I went through, but when asked whether I would like to re-enlist ( with a number of enticing choices, mostly schooling with a joint offer of a warranty ) had no hesitation in replying thanks but no thanks, being I just didn’t fit into such a regimented regime.

    And as I said, depending on ones experiences it was two years of my life where I learned a lot, but as stated, two years were enough.

71. Nutmag/Worky

    I have no doubt there are still “teds” about in both the UK and Ireland, with their gabardine drape shape, drainpipe pants and wedged crape soled shoes, I know I have seen them.

    However perhaps ‘rock around the clock’ was the soundtrack to a movie about nyc street kids, but it was the film itself that introduced R&R to the teeny boppers of that era, I should know being one of them.

    Of course Bill Haley didn’t last long and was replaced by the great performers of R&R in the fifties, Little Richard, Elvis and a host of others, the music was electrifying, a total change from anything that came before it.

    And the kids loved it, of course it had it’s detractors both in the UK and deep south of the US,

    Of course there were a number of British imitators, Tommy Steel, Cliff Richards who were poor images of the real thing, but over time they produced some good bands and a more educated bunch of musicians.

    And hey ! don’t forget the Tony Curtis haircuts with the ducks ass at the back.

    Certainly a far cry from the dullness of demob suits and haircuts of the returning post war soldiers.

72. I wonder if foreign secretary “Boris” realizes what is at stake with a hard border, is
    25.2B.$ worth of UK exports to the ROI and 18.3B$.worth of imports from the same source figs. for 2017 . that’s beside adhering to the promises of ‘The Good Friday Agreement.’

    Of course without accepting the offered membership in the EU customs union, the drawback being, they will have to accept the rules of the customs agreement in any trade arrangements with any non member, unless of course the UK and EU can come up with some mutually acceptable agreement, which appears to be the sticking point.

    Fact is the UK was well aware of this situation prior to opting for Brexit and insisted on a hard Brexit following the vote, hoping to cherry pick what they wanted, on the grounds of mutual benefits for both sides, which appears at present anyway, not to be the case from an EU perspective

    Ah well ! we all at times do things we regret, with the real culprits one (Cameron) keeping a low profile, the other (Boris) continuing to make both outrageous and ignorant statements in Parliament.

73. Well I wasn’t there, Chuck, so I only know this as a music fan and keen student of history but Larry Parnes was the great ‘Svengali’ of British R&R with his stable of nice young boys with dynamic sounding showbiz names like ‘Billy Fury’ ‘Vince Eager’ and ‘Marty Wilde’. There were some classic British rock n roll songs from the likes of Johnny Kidd and the Pirates and Vince Taylor too, but it was too little too late. It didn’t really have enough of its own British identity either and by the end of the 50s, a truly British revolution in music was on its way. Both Parnes and Billy Fury turned down an unknown young band from Liverpool called ‘The Silver Beatles,’ who got their revenge a few years later, becaming the biggest band in history and eventually putting all the old Rock n Rollers (American and British) out of business, helped by other bands like the Kinks, the Rolling Stones, The Who etc etc…

    Chuck, like his fellow New Yorker, Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, even though he is in high office, seems to able to get away with any blatant lie he likes. He can say one thing one day, then say the exact opposite the next. You keep waiting for the lies to catch up with them, for them to be drummed out of office or even better, carried away and locked up, but it doesn’t happen.

74. Chuck
    Some of the things I took from my service and could not of hoped for as a just out of my time young chef. Were a course in a an army slaughter house, Cooking for the team that mapped the northern frontier province of Kenya ( like being on safari 3 months at a time) Cooking banquets for the Governor of Kenya and other visiting Dignitaries and finally cooking lunch for the Queen at Bisley .
    Not bad for a red hot socialist from the north east !!
    I’m afraid I must own up to having a “Tony Curtis” Have you noticed the kids of today have hair cut just like very bad army cuts of our day.
    Kids follow fashion to be different by being the same.

75. Nutmag

    Yeah, you hit the nail on the head in regard to haircuts and made me LOL, they remind me of those ‘recently demobbed soldier’ haircuts of the post war years, possibly the most ridiculously ugly cuts ever.

    But then what do I know about hair fashion…….

    Worky

    Hmmm ! cant say I heard of any of those early mentioned British R&R guys, being we had more than enough of the real thing, though I liked later bands that developed over there, no not The Stones in particular, being they thought they were performing as a blues band, Jagger was a shrewd businessman, who earned them a fortune and had about as much rhythm as a spastic, ooops ! not PC.

    I liked the Beatles later stuff ,” She loves you yea, yeah”……was teeny bopper stuff, but as they became independently wealthier, they branched out and what I enjoyed was their diversity, Lennon lived around the corner from me and I sometimes caught him in the local store, usually buying ciggies, so over time there was the cursory nod of recognition, no spoken words, which is a NYC thing, a certain anonymity is both given and accepted.

    Yeah ! the British bands then became too frilly shirted and the music became somewhat acid related, then along came back to basics Punk, which was in full swing on my time in London, which in turn became more sophisticated and I quite liked “The Clash”, after that I kinda gave up on much of the popular music and listened to my older Jazz stuff, which I still find satisfying.

    stones

76. Nutmag, Chuck’s comments are so long I missed your first one there for a while!

    PTSD? I’m sorry to hear that. I was very young when my grandfather when my grandfather on my mother’s side was alive. He was a very big, tough Yorkshireman who fought in the First World War. He was a gentle giant, a real gentleman who was wasn’t prejudiced and never had a bad word to say about anybody normally, except he did seem to have some kind of problem when it came to Turkey and the Turks. He saw things there which haunted him and were still with him 60 years later in the 1970s. Gallipoli was horrible, a real slaughter just like in Europe but as bad as that was, I don’t think that was what troubled him after all that time. What stayed with him was the Anatolian genocide which had been happening within the Ottoman empire at the same time committed by the so called ‘Young Turks.’ An estimated 1.5 million were slaughtered. One of the things they used to do was eviscerate pregnant women, cutting the babies out of their stomachs when both were still alive. As I said, he was a very tough man who endured some of the worst combat imaginable with armed men fighting armed men and ripped up bodies everywhere, but seeing the women and babies slaughtered like that was something else.

77. Worky

    The big problem is a misguided and Ignorant electorate (mostly consisting of those who hate the system) who’s only means of retaliation is the vote, even if it kills them, which it may very well do.

    It was the Tea Party in the US and people like those from the Northeast of England(Sunderland for instance voted around 90% pro Brexit ) when their jobs at Nissan are at stake, being all but one in eight of their production goes to the EU and Sunderland produces more cars than many countries, how dumb is that ?

    The head of Toyota has already stated, the reason we have invested in the UK, is to make a profit and when the majority of cars and other vehicles manufactured there are exported to the EU., well it’s not rocket science, draw your own conclusions.

    In the US it’s the unemployed from the mid western rustbelt and flyover country who have been displaced by modern technology and who’s jobs will never return.
    Though when told by power hungry despots like Trump, believe that America will become great again, another way of saying white men will once again be the flavor of the month.

    But the reality of Brexit is, it was all a big mistake , being the vote was supposed to be a rejection of Brexit, and possibly even those voting for it found it difficult to believe and began to wonder what happens now.

    Actually that remains to be seen, but you can bet your ass it’s nothing pleasant and could actually end the UK as we know it, through constitutional turmoil, being both Scotland and the NI state-let both voted overwhelmingly for stay.

    And it appears the SNP, now voting as a single block, could use Brexit as a good reason to devolve from the UK and rejoin the EU, could take a bit of time and constitutional effort, not to mention getting the votes, but anyone following the game of Rugby should have no illusions about how he Scotts view their neighbors to the south.

    Plus those votes from the NI DUP presently keeping May in power, who are a demanding bunch and if there is a breach between they and the Tories, could result in another General Election.

    At present there is no joint government in NI as required by the good Friday agreement, plus the outcome in regards to a hard or soft border between the ROI and NI, is a bone of contention, between the two parties (the UK & EU) which has serious implications for the island of Ireland .

    Yep those clever politicians of the nineteen twenties certainly concocted a hornets nest when the created that the statelet of NI, being it’s a constant pain in their ass and demanding as hell with enormous subsidies to the tune of subsidizing each
    person to the tune of over thirty thousand quid per annum.

78. Chuck,

    Brexit is a mess and the current Government are incompetent cut throats riven by strife. I voted Remain too because I could see what the right wing Brexiteers had in mind for a UK which was outside of the EU. However, as someone who might be considered to the left politically, especially by today’s standards, I have no love for the EU at all. Like Jeremy Corbyn, I am a left wing Eurosceptic who voted remain. Incidentally, Newcastle voted remain too (just), It was Sunderland and the outer regions of the NE that voted to go, though it wasn’t anywhere near 90%. I think the only place who voted like that was Gibraltar, who voted over 90% to remain.

    On the music side of your coments, it was ‘Shakin’ all Over’ that probably became the biggest British Rock n’ Roll song around the world and something of a ‘standard’ but over a long time with different artists. Johnny Kidd and the Pirates did it first and it was a number one hit here. Later, other artists around the world did it and also had hits with it, It was in the charts with the Guess Who over there in the 1960s and bit by bit it became a real classic.

    Vince Taylor’s most famous song ‘Brand New Cadillac’ was later revived for a new generation by the Clash. That’s what I meant by music with a British identity earlier though. Singing about brand new Cadillacs and stuff like that is somehow more authentic if you come from Georgia than if you come from Middlessex!

79. Come on guy’s how many topics do you want to discuss at the same time. Fashion, Haircuts, Brexit, National Service, All aspects of Music, Politics, and occasionally what passes as cheap assed Ashley Football at Newcastle
    You do realise I’m a member of the “Terminally Bewildered”
    Chuck
    Trying to catch up. I too only went once to Roker Park back in the day, it was against Spurs Alf Ramsey and Ron Burgess played for Spurs, The “Clown Prince Of Football” Len Shackleton played for Sunderland. Len played for Newcastle in the first Toon match I ever saw I believe he got hat trick against Cardiff City around about 1947 or 1948 pity we lost him.

80. Nutmag, I think I’ve said this several times before on here but when I was a bairn one of my school mates was the son of a Sunderland Director and we could do what we liked at Roker Park, play in the dressing rooms, meet Bob Stokoe and the players, play with the FA Cup (in 1973), but I was always a Magpie. Things were very different back then and I also noticed that the players used to drink and smoke a hell of alot. I don’t just mean drink and smoke alot for so called professional athletes either. Old Stokoe was as canny in real life as he seemed to be on TV etc.

    It’s hard to go on about the football at the moment, I always watch the games but Manchester United apart, I just end up feeling disappointed and deflated after a late capitulation and want to change the subject. Anyway, there’s another game to watch soon so I’d better get it all ready. I hope we don’t get beat or lose two points in the last minutes again.

81. Nutmag
    Sorry pardner, I sometimes get carried away and produce a bunch of liqourice allsorts.

    Worky

    Yeah vaguely remember the number Shaking all over, unfortunately it was only a hit in the UK, like many others and basically unknown in the US.

    Of course it was an early attempt and certain individuals and bands were no more than copies of us stars, many doing copies of their us counterparts.

    Even the Beatles did covers of US numbers and took a lotta riffs from US Artists, especially Chuck Berry plus George Harrison was found guilty and fined for ripping off The Chffons, number ‘He’s so Fine’ for his “My Sweet Lord” .

    Which doesn’t really diminish their overall output, being most musicians take riffs from other artists and give them a new twist, is that original, hell how does one keep score.

    Another strange fact is he Beatles made more money from their early teeny bopper music than their later efforts, hmmm !

82. Oh well, it’s not a shock to lose 2-0 the way Liverpool are playing. I remember a young Mohammed Salah about five years ago when he was at Basel. He was unknown but he was excellent against Manchester United over their two games in the Champions League and I remember feeling frustrated that he wasn’t on our radar. Some time after that Chelsea started sniffing around him and he was immediately out of our league.

    Chuckles, I think that “ripped off” is extremely harsh in that case, I could imagine that three note motif could be found could be found in quite a few songs if you looked for them. If you want to have a go at some white British superstars (which I know you like to do), have a go at Led Zeppelin. I think they ripped off a few legendary blues artists without giving them enough credit.

    “Another strange fact is the Beatles made more money from their early teeny bopper music than their later efforts, hmmm !”

    I can see why you say that, Chuck, alot of their biggest selling chart singles were from the early days. However, much to the chagrin of John Lennon, the Beatles’ biggest money spinner by some distance in terms of Royalties and such was McCartney’s ‘Yesterday,’ which is the third biggest money earner of all time behind ‘White Christmas’ and ‘Unchained Melody.’

    https://www.royaltyexchange.com/blog/three-things-the-top-10-royalty-earning-songs-of-all-time-have-in-common#sthash.S9y8pIJO.dpbs

83. It’s irresponsible to mention Mud and Showaddywaddy without some sort of content advisory ahead of it to protect readers. I had blissfully forgotten how they assaulted my eardrums in the 70s but now I’m reminded of the horror. Oh the horror.

    That royalties chart makes for fairly grim reading as a playlist.

84. “That royalties chart makes for fairly grim reading as a playlist.”

    A Geordie made it to number 7 in that list though, even if it was Sting and that song of his get right on my tits.

    You could go much lower than Mud and Showaddywaddy, Hugh, after all that was the era of novelty records by bairns making it to the top of the charts. To pluck just one example from many, do you remember this lot of Scouse chancers? or even Little Jimmy Osmond from Chuck’s side of the pond? Or his brother? There were many more but some things are so bad we just repress them.

85. Blimey, now you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel. ‘Our Kid’ truly are appalling.

    Some songs just seem to bug me in the extreme. This one always makes me shout “please make it stop”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xmnd3uiK_Y

86. Hugh, If you think that Our Kid are scraping the Barrel, you haven’t seen my music collection.

    Well Dana was so nicey nice and virtuous she made many people want to chuck before she even started singing. However, all other Irish musical crimes paled into insignificance when they gave us Bob Geldof and Bono. That’s more than enough revenge for hundreds of years of oppression!

87. Worky
    I just watched your tape of the winners of the Euro song contest and I have a guy on tv singing that old Jo Stafford number, “See the Pyramids Along the Nile” I feel like I have entered a time warp.

    Have to admit the Euros. were priceless so bad it was hilarious.

    Sting, gotta say you mentioned the no1 jerk, with his misogynistic theme song “Every breath you take” as for Bono and U2 a close second, both having enormous ego’s and I would like to ask them both questions.

    ‘Ermm Sting, how’s your buddy from the Jungles of Brazil doing you know the guy you had on tv, who has lips like plates, what’s his name again ?

    Hey Bono ! any news on your crusade to help the entire third world, think maybe donating a few bucks to famine relief could help, now that you are saving a fortune as a tax exile in Holland ?

    Well I guess we have bigger things to worry about with our dear leader, starting trade wars but hopefully not real wars, and Mrs May preparing the British public for hard times having refused continuous customs union membership in the EU.

    Soh ! for all you overweight folks there’s hope in Brexit , as just being in the UK will be hungry times.

    And for all those who voted to exit I gotta theme tune your gonna love, “Who’s sorry now”.

88. Chuck, it was Hugh who tortured us with the nun-like Dana in the Eurovision Song contest. I can see what he means, it’s such an overdose of niceness it overloads the system and make you feel like you’re going to have a seizure after a while. That Sting song is an anthem for stalkers. He really got on my nerves during the period when he used to bang on about how great tantric sex was all the time, but howay, no-one’s as bad as Bob Geldof and Bonio!

    It was an excellent result for Hughton’s Brighton today, Wenger is definitely on the ropes at the moment and therer’ll be yet more rumblings of discontent around where I live. I wonder what would happen if they sacked Wenger, then started bringing in managers like John Carver, Steve McClaren, Joe Kinnear etc. Then they’d really have something to moan about!

89. Sorry about Dana. I’ll hand myself in to the nearest police station later for posting that link. It has to be an offence of some sort.

    I try to separate the song from the singer where possible (and I’m not talking about the delightful Dana here). I liked some of the early stuff from The Police, The Rats and even U2 (up to the ‘War’ album), but Sting, Geldof and particularly Bonio developed obnoxious, arrogant ‘holier than thou’ attitudes that generally irk people.

    It’s a problem a lot of entertainers suffer from. They think a modicum of success in their field somehow makes them a sage on all worldly subjects. They’re entitled to an opinion of course, but it’s worth no more than anyone else’s and it’s the arrogance with which they deliver it that annoys me; the sermon-like approach, as if their opinions came down the mountain with Moses.

    Yes, good result for Brighton and I’m pleased for Hughton.

90. Hugh
    If you haven’t been arrested yet you should have been. I listened to two or three bars just to refresh my memory and couldn’t get it out of my head. I even found myself humming it while preparing dinner. You really have got a lot to answer for!

91. Worky
    Sorry about your grandfather. We can deal with the physical side of these traumas but the mental side is another story. Its only now we are more aware. Sixty odd years I’ve coped and those lads of two world wars had it worse. Like a lot of them I suppose keeping it buried was the only way not only for yourself but as I have to protect those close to you. Why burden them with something they don’t need or can help with.
    This is not a good subject for a “Football Blog” so I will leave it now.

92. “but Sting, Geldof and particularly Bonio developed obnoxious, arrogant ‘holier than thou’ attitudes that generally irk people.”

    Well the Irish have been a bit more religiously inclined in the past, but that doesn’t account for Sting. I’ve known a few famous musicians and such and you just get told how wonderful you are all the time.

    Getting back to the football, Newcastle do have a slightly better squad than they did before the transfer window, but Premier League spending is still going up and up so the competitors have also improved their squads too. In real terms we have even gone back a little bit if anything.

93. OK, back to football, it’s become a commonly held opinion, that the race for survival has become more interesting than the race at the top.

    Of course the long suffering Arsenal fans are wondering about “wor Arsene” will he stay or will he go ?

    Look he’s lost the dressing room and his most successful years are long behind him
    fact is his mentor Kroenke loves the fact he’s a great earner and wants him to stay, , sorry you only deserve to stay through success, plus he has this belief that the club owes him something, but the fans have had enough, go !

    What about Man. U., I believe Mourinho has also lost the plot, look it’s a great money machine and despite the outrageous fees they pay for management and player and at the same time becoming the Glazers biggest cash cow, the revenues just continue to roll in.

    The club need a manager who is a judge of talent and tactically astute, actually Benitez could easily fill that role, but Mourinho just can’t do it any more, he keeps tripping over his own ego and ends up feuding with the players and is tactically questionable .

    Anyone watch the Chelsea / Citeh game, if this is what we are to expect in the future then you can say bye, bye, to the EPL, one of the most boring of games, where Chelsea were afraid to attack and Citeh concentrated on keeping possession, with more square balls and back passes that forward passes, and both goalies received more balls from their respective sides than the opposition.

    It’s my belief the reason for the EPL’s popularity is because of the speed of the game combined with a bit of physicality, much like that of the Bundesliga, others however consider themselves more sophisticated about the game boast of watching what they describe as a more sophisticated Spanish league, where players have more time on the ball, my answer is how many world cups have Spain won ?

    Yes it has become obvious the lines are drawn, there are those wealthy clubs, who have the talent to crush most lower PL sides, who on realizing that, play a defensive game much like NUFC with Benitez hoping for the opportunity to score from the occasional breakout, it’s a case of horses for courses and they have little choice, it certainly worked for Benitez against M.U.

94. It should be obvious to all, that one of Brexit’s main hurdles will be the question of an open border between the UK&EU on the island of Ireland, being the NI electorate voted unanimously to stay within the EU (better subsidies from both the UK ‘AND’ the EU), a vote that is beneficial to all of the people of NI.

    However the Good Friday Accords are in place and apart from games being played by the joint political governing parties, where there is at this time a form of direct rule by the British government, which is not appreciated by those who are guarantors of that agreement, why you may ask.

    Simple the DUP are more or less part of Theresa Mays Tory government, it being held to ransom due to the support of those few DUP candidates that ensure they have the necessary votes in Parliament.

    The deal has cost the British taxpayer, by ensuring they (the DUP) will support the Tories in Parliament, for increased aid of many millions, plus not always getting their way in the NI joint sharing government, they have no problem with the idea of
    shutting it down, all contrary to the ideals of the GF agreement.

    Of course the fact the majority of the NI electorate voting to stay during the Brexit election, one would come up with the idea that for NI to remain part of the EU customs union, would be the solution, something that has already been offered by the EU, which would ensure the open border with The Republic, but rejected by both the DUP and governing Tory parties.

    Who by the way are guarantors as is the ROI government to that particular policy, of an open Border, in which case which will supersede the GF agreement or Brexit

    It’s obvious the reason that the DUP is rejecting a border down the middle of the Irish Sea, one that would effect them favorably, is that old fear of being separated from their sponsor s,

    erfidious albion

95. Perfideous Albion, which created that Statelet which has been a pain in their ass for the last century and would love to dump them (those embittered under siege mentality
    people living according to biblical standards, who should emigrate to Fly Over Country , the US bible belt, where they would fit in perfectly) as i’m sure they would be made welcome by Donald Trump, which would add to his majority of votes.

96. Yup ! the race to avoid relegation is no doubt gaining interest, as it appears the top six are almost settled, apart from who will end up in fourth place.

    Following the Newcasle -Liverpool game, my doubts about the Toon surviving increased, sure we beat Man. U. but Palace also had a two goal lead over them and had they held on like we did, could have earned a valuable three points.

    And we do have a tough run in, during this final quarter and could very well be back in the Championship again, where the only thing to look forward too, would be the two derby games against Sunderland and Boro, that’s if Sunderland don’t get relegated to the third tier.

97. Chuck, our next three games are Southampton, Huddersfield and Leicester, so we can’t really moan about having to play top teams for the next few weeks. The big one after that is Arsenal and even they’re not quite their best at the moment. After Arsenal we have Everton and Pardew’s West Brom, who are currently stuck in one of those dreadful Pardew slumps we know about from bitter experience. If we don’t get some decent points in the next three games though, things will start to get worrying.

    “who should emigrate to Fly Over Country , the US bible belt, where they would fit in perfectly)”

    Well your country was founded by a kind of 17th Century Protestant Taliban, also I would imagine that a fair bit of the character of ‘dispossessed’ white America come from people whose families are descended from Irish and Scottish immigrants like Trump himself with his Scottish ginger hair (though I know that much of it isn’t his).

98. yeah you have a point about the run in , I thought it was tougher, but there’s a certain number of mid league positioned sides that are not in the relegation battle and we know how desperate those that are will be, including ourselves, I mean do you think Brighton would not be a struggle.

    Actually I was describing the super conservative protestant religious right, of NI, currently represented by the DUP, who unlike the rev, Ian Paisley and his nationalist counterpart Martin McGuinness, aka “the chuckles brothers” after a long weary Nationalist struggle commonly known as “The Troubles” accepted the solutions of the GFA and did their best to achieve the goals set out in the agreement.

    However the once all powerful UUP, (Ulster Unionist Party) that of a more progressive and liberal party, has been supplanted by the DUP, a party began by Paisley himself has now become the party of NO ! led by the ultra conservative protestant religious right with little or no co-operation between they and the other elected parties, following the death’s of the Chuckles Bros.

    Of course their leader Arlene Foster has recently received almost a half billion quid in investments for NI from PM.May for the badly needed support of the DUP in critical parliamentary votes, to support the Tory government.

    What I was thinking about in my remarks about a likeminded group, (fly-over country) was when I recalled driving to California in December I decided to not risk bad weather, crossing too far north therefore drove south to N.Carolina and joined interstate 40 west, which goes through the Bible Belt, you know nothing but rightwing politics mixed together with Hard Shell Baptist preaching, sometimes difficult to separate one from the other.

    Crossing the Apalachians into Tennessee, Arkansa, Oklahoma the Texas panhandle and into New Mexico, I actually stopped off one evening dying for a decent meal and a beer after driving most of the day, only to find out I was in a dry county, that didn’t sell alcohol.

    Of course in fly over country radio stations reflect both the local politics and religious attitudes, why not it’s like a constant barrage on ones brain, not unlike the Pavlovian Technique, I even ended up leaving an native American language station on rather than have to listen to ……….

    And that’s why I mentioned, the people who support the DUP in NI, would feel right at home there.

99. I know how much you like a beer, Chuck, so I could imagine your disappointment. Over here, we are educated in, and entertained by the ways of such people on the Discovery channels, where they make shows about people in those kind of states making moonshine, firing big guns, illegally racing hot-rods and stuff like that. If I were making a journey like that, I’d probably cause offence at some stage and end up getting lynched.

    ‘Dr’ Iain Paisley certainly could have fitted in as a fire and brimstone preacher in the bible states over there, he even got his dodgy doctorate from some University over there. As for Arlene Foster, I wouldn’t want to meet her down a dark alley

100. A surprising and welcome three points to-day, not a particular great game to watch, though one has to credit Shelvey with some decent playmaking and the second and third goals certainly showed the degree of selflessness that exists within the side.

     Hopefully the side can gain points like this for the rest of the run in, but to then lose Benitez, what’s the point, as IMO he is the reason we are not in WBA’s position.

     It appears that there will be any number of PL clubs looking for new management and considering what he has accomplished with Newcastle, he stands head and shoulders above both the retreads and the up and comers available.

     I also think Ashley owes him, sure he’s making a decent salary, but if there’s no money available during the summer, what’s to keep him.

     Being his family and home is located in The Wirral , then were it not for the fact he managed Liverpool there’s a job at Everton it would have been the perfect club, being they have new money and spent a shit-load already this season, he would be the ideal candidate, but who knows ?

     If Ashly had any sense he would try to keep him and give him the funds to buy some decent players, being a well run club, even a mid table club could be a decent money maker, if managed properly, trouble is Ashley from his actions obviously wants to have a hands on role wherever he has an investment, just look at those he has hired then fired when no longer useful.

     The recent accusations from the reserves and minors, plus the fact , the club has seldom developed any top players, is obviously “jobs for the boys” as far as those in charge are concerned, hell fire them all and have Rafa run (manage) the club top to bottom, as you cant have a PL club run like a Gateshead or Bishop Aucklant, no
     insult intended to either club.

     That and the fact the NUFC Board consists of only one person, following Moncour’s recent retirement/ firing? That’s the chubby little ex office boy, hell somebody’s gotta be managing director.

     Is this any way to run a football club, I ask you.

101. Worky yup ! don’t believe all you see on TV about moonshiners and Alaskan loners
     but yeah there are some areas in Appalachia you don’t wanna be in and yeah they are for the most part the ethnically descendants of a massive number of Presbyterians, who emigrated from NI during the late seventeenth to early nineteenth century, due to religious differences with the dominant protestant ascendancy.

     They settled mainly in Pennsylvania, as the shipping lines which carried flax to feed the NI linen mills brought it from Philadelphia and took emigrants on the return journey.

     Resulting in the early immigrants acquiring the best lands of Virginia & N.Carolina , the later ones having to go further west to Appalachia , of course there were later immigrants from Italy and southern Ireland who settled in both West Virginia and Pennsylvania, who arrived to work for the coal companies during the massive coal and steel era of the late nineteenth century.

     Dominated by the robber Barons, one of which was an immigrant himself, Andrew Carnegie.

     However many spread throughout the lower Appalachians and westward to Kentucky, meeting other immigrants from the deep south also heading west in a search for land, felling trees and the native inhabitants with equal disregard.

     Its called manifest destiny, American exceptionalism, etc, terms used to justify taking the land of the native residents, including The Louisiana Purchase where they made the French an offer they couldn’t refuse of course almost half if which was known as Mexico was also absorbed, just check out the names of the western states.

     ameri

102. Yes, it was rather pleasant to see a convincing victory like that. Newcastle did some good things and took their goals well, but Southampton made some mistakes too so it was a question of how much was due to us being good, or them being bad? It seemed that they dominated possession more than us, but we were just soaking them up and hitting them on the break. Win or lose, I think we could be forgiven for thinking that Rafa has brought more Big Sam than Spanish tiki taka with him sometimes. That new goal keeper has been good, and he did some good catching again on Saturday, but I thought I might be seeing some chinks in his armour. I don’t necessarily mean whan he made a mess of throwing it out as Petr Cech did exactly the same thing with Arsenal today. I don’t know how windy it was on Saturday but he was slicing the ball when he was doing his goal kicks and the results weren’t very good and drifted somewhat.

     Aye, there’s an American comedian from Virginia over here who has also done some good documetaries about all that kind of pioneering stuff through to the railroads, oil and that sort of thing over there. Wasn’t that big chunk of the western US nicked from Mexico over the 1830s – 1850s after the Mexicans won independence from Spain? I’m not really an expert on that kind of thing.

     Regarding Trump, I heard that these so-called ‘left behind’ white folks struggling to survive are getting the blame for Trump, but only 35% voted for him and it was actually more affluent people who really got him in. However, whilst these Trumpsters were often fairly affluent, or above average, they weren’t the highly educated, professional kind of affluent people. That’s a thumbnail sketch from my memory of what I heard and read anyway.

103. Yes I have to agree and believe Southampton are a more talented side, the difference being Newcastle having a more talented manager, who’s tactics are horses for courses, which is the reason we are beating better sides through the use of varying tactical approaches, which for the most part vary slightly, by having a well organized defense and depend on scoring through the obviously well rehearsed fast break.

     However our lack of quality in regard to goal-scoring is there for all to see and should be our number one goal if we survive relegation.

     Yes what’s known as manifest destiny, was in fact the policy of the English speaking settlers, which basically meant, it’s our destiny to own all of the lands, south of what was then British Canada and as much as we decide to take from both the French and Mexicans, fortunately for France they earned a few bucks by selling what was commonly known as the “Louisiana Purchase” however the French had little choice as they had a very tenuous hold on the area involved and Napoleon needed the money to fund his European wars.

     Following that, the next area was a grab by westward moving settlers who took all of Texas, (“remember the Alamo” etc.) then as a result a continued westward movement, the former Spanish settlements to the west of what had been French Louisiana, that is all of the areas they desired, being Mexico was heavily settled at the time and they couldn’t afford to absorb too many of the population, it’s not commonly accepted in US history but IMO, a somewhat racist reason, ain’t that why Trump is deporting those same Mexicans and building a wall to keep em out.

     Also a significant statement to-day in a speech by Cable the Lib Dem leader about Brexit, explaining who was responsible for the pro Brexit vote, which was the fact that over 75% of over 65 year olds voted for Brexit, while over 75 % of under 25’s voted to remain.

     His reason being similar to those westward driven settlers in the American southwest, they were nostalgic for white faces.

     Gale also fails to understand as do most outsiders why the UK would vote to make themselves poorer, though certainly not The Scotts who voted 60% to thirty odd percent to stay.

     Ah well ! no one ever said that democracy and certainly not referendas are the best form of political systems, being a great number of people who vote have little understanding of what they are voting for, certainly not those of Sunderland, ‘North and South Tyne-side and the county of Northumberland (Newcastle itself was a very fine 1 % lead for Stay) perhaps through a big turnout by the University crowd.

     Of course I place a lot of blame on the “stumm” Corbyn, who avoided any effort to inform the public as to how Brexit would effect them and to this day has been a failure in expressing any anti Brexit rhetoric and the little he has done is a day late and a dollar short.

     I really fail to understand his reasoning, better IMO to attempt to change the things you dislike about the EU, from within, than relegate the country to what undoubtedly will be a smaller economy and a generally poorer UK. with less influence in world affairs with trade groups like Nafta, Asean , even the independent Swiss and Norwegians who maintain a certain membership in the enormous trading block which is the EU.

     Nope sorry I just don’t get it and if anyone can inform me why it’s a better deal to be outside the worlds largest trading block, when there are those still awaiting an invitation to join, then please explain it too me.

104. Worky

     Of course everyone has their own agenda, one of which the Tories can profit by is a race to the bottom, by being the same sweatshop as it was during the industrial revolution, where although GB was at the time the wealthiest nation in the world, it’s labor force was under-payed by most European standards, and once the present UK is cut adrift, they will no longer have to adhere to European standards, “bringing back control” is quite similar to the slogan “make America great again”

     Which is about to be demonstrated by a madman by introducing a Trade War, which he really believes he can win, the fact is no one wins in wars of any kind.

     Just wait and see what changes are made following Brexit, power grabs by the government, changes to law and who will be the beneficiaries, certainly not those generating the wealth, not unlike the situation during the industrial revolution, the Tory’s long for a rerun of the Thatcher years, believing in a religious sense in the
     “The Market” , as the only economic system that works, the divergence in wealth between the wealthy and the lower classes will widen and it’s commonly thought that getting out from the laws that for the most part protect he working classes will be their savior,

     Face it no one deliberately thought of these things pre-Brexit except a few extreme Tory’s it only being a ploy to increase the number of seats of the government of Cameron who was against it, actually only the racist right wing hoped it would happen..

     However since then the wheels have been turning as how best to take advantage of the situation, where both the Tory right and the Corbyn left have their agendas now set, both about power, resulting in nothing of an good due for the people of the UK
     anytime soon.

105. Well something has finally managed to put Brexit on the backburner for a short while, it’s war! With the Russians!

     That ex-Exxon chap, Tillerson, who was supposed to be friends with Putin said it looked like Putin was behind the nerve agent attack in Salisbury, then Trump sacks him soon after by Tweet. I never thought I’d feel sorry for a former Exxon boss but what sort of President sacks a major Government minister like that?

     “The Market” , as the only economic system that works, the divergence in wealth between the wealthy and the lower classes will widen and it’s commonly thought that getting out from the laws that for the most part protect he working classes will be their savior,”

     Whilst the world took a series of financial shocks in the mid-late 70s, from the Second World War to 1980 there was a broadly left, Keynesian consensus around the world and the world economy grew by over 3% every year, and far more than that in Western Europe and Japan as Germany and Japan rose Phoenixlike from the ashes after defeat in the War. When Thatcher, Reagan and people like Milton Friedman created the new financial paradigm, that growth was cut in half and wages started going down in real terms and all the money went to shareholders and managers. Their record is worse than John Carver’s but they use propaganda more skilfully and that is what counts.

106. Hmmmm ! Yep it’s getting to the point where we in the USA are becoming inured to what Trump sez or does, it seems like we are watching a reality show and no doubt our fearless leader believes he is starring in the ultimate role.

     Which when taken seriously is actually pretty terrifying, a megalomaniac without any political experience running the most powerful country in the world, who by the way is about to meet possibly his match in Kim Jong-Un, in an as yet undisclosed location or time period, where Trump believes (he being the worlds best self proclaimed dealmaker) that he can make the world safe for democracy, that meaning god only knows what, or what he has in mind.

     A bit like the proverbial Nero playing the violin while Rome burned, it’s laughable until one realizes this is no tv show and standing by are a totally bemused Republican Party who are like rabbits caught in the headlights, sometimes as enablers, but all (well those who are pro’s and don’t want to lose their jobs and are
     afraid of the NRA) deadly afraid of sticking their heads above the parapets.

     Unfortunately the greatest fear of the two party political system has come to pass
     that of a populist with an enormous voting block, who cannot actually be described as being a Republican any more than Bernie Sanders can be described as a Democrat.

     There have been such individuals such as Eugene Debs, Hughie Long, George Wallace and perhaps Al Smith, who were feared for their policies and enormous g populists backing, though the system required them to belong to a specific party .

     At least there were no tv reality shows when they made their bids and they recognized how politics and running a nation worked, not like the present situation that the system has no idea how to deal with.

     Oh ! they are trying desperately to removeTrump from office any way they can and declare he and his backing as an aberration, which should never be allowed to happen again, but having little success in doing so, good luck with that.!

     If the above sounds a bit over the top, then I have an even more ridicules situation of national self abuse to vent on, yes folks back to Brexit.

     Possibly Brexit is an example to future politicians, on understanding what not to do in the future.

     We are all aware of how things came about, former PM Cameron having little or no idea of what was on the mind of the British voting public, in an attempt to increase the Tory majority thought he could take votes from the loony right, The Nationalists
     and proposed a referendum, knowing that the general public would never vote against their best interests, that of leaving the worlds largest trading block, The EU.

     Well we don’t have to explain what happened, other than when the realization of what the resulting vote meant, the party in power attempted to justify themselves by compounding the situation with a Hard Exit, when they had the opportunity to take what was on offer (the EU obviously not wanting the UK to leave, were offered the possibility of remaining in the customs union) which was declined.

     Why would you vote to leave the words largest trading block, where the majority of your exports go, to attempt to trade elsewhere, I mean where is elsewhere.

     Then there’s the problem of keeping an open border on the island of Ireland, which is guaranteed by the Good Friday Accords and appears as of now to be an unsolvable situation,.

     Actually it can be solved simply by letting both NI and Scotland both voting to remain, now do so, that is remain as part of the customs union , after all the Scotts voted 60% to stay, being that the Ulster Unionists are afraid of being separated although they also voted to remain as a part of the EU, then, with a Scotland which is also in the customs union, may allay there fears of being separated from the UK,
     not brain surgery, though it would be strange to see customs checks at Carlisle and Carter Bar, which have only the union of 1707 to worry about, a union voted by both parliaments, without a referendum which was highly unpopular with the majority of Scotts.

     The point is that trade between the ROI and NI and the UK will be adversely effected, plus there are guarantees on both sides for an open border and it was the UK’s actions that has (as usual throughout the world) caused the current problems, so it should be up to them to solve the issues of this their latest fiasco.

107. Being there’s nowt going on as far as football is concerned, leaves very little to write about .apart from “Will he stay or will he go” talking bout Rafa..

     Apparently he must know something we don’t, being he has began a process of rebuilding the club from top to bottom and certainly not before time and without spending one thin dime.

     Now I don’t think he got it right entirely, other than in a tactical sense, being he aught to have given our Serb center forward at least a certain number of games being he does ok while on international duty and while on loan, certainly no worse than Joselou or the two other forwards.

     And Murphy hasn’t shown us why we spent so much on him, in fact the big surprise has been Dummitt, playing a stay at home defensive game, but he’s certainly got the best outta Shelvey, notice he’s always calling him over to the sideline to put a word in his ear.

     It could be an interesting time if Ashley gives him a few bucks to rebuild the side, not asking for a lot, also sell in order to buy now that we have what appears to be a well organized scouting system which includes stringers in places like central Europe and The Balkans

     Hey I could wait a few years to improve knowing it would happen with Benitez running the Club, it’s what went wrong here, the lack of planning and poor top management.

     I firmly believe Newcastle could re-invent themselves to be once again on the cusp of being around the twentieth largest clubs in Europe, in terms of generated wealth and prestige.

     The alternative is to bring in a cheap UK manager a re-tread and end up being relegated once more and become like Leeds, good clubs are all about making the right choices and a top management team is the essence of any success that follows..

108. Well it’s certainly a great cast for a disaster movie, Chuck. Trump, Putin, Kim Jong Un, some rather scary right wing leaders popping up in Europe. The stereotypically inscrutable Xi Jinping will probably be the winner in the end.

     On the EU you say “Well we don’t have to explain what happened,”

     So why do you keep trying to explain it so many times? You certainly seem to be revelling in Brexit, the Irish border thing, and the Scottish thing too. The great Johan Cruyff once said, “Every disadvantage has its advantage” and Brexit will be no different, we just have to find the advantage, that’s all. We did after the last ‘Brexit’ when Henry VIII left the Roman Church. So what’s the advantage in the disadvantage of having Trump as President over there? Well maybe, if you survived 8 years of Bush, and you survive another 8 years of Trump, it shows that absolutely anyone could run the United States without it falling into the sea, so you can all save yourselves the bother and the expense of all those neverending elections and just put any idiot in charge!

109. Worky

     You are ways so defensive in any situation regarding the UK, relax my man, it’s just an exchange of impressions.

     I have no idea what you are insinuating by the expression “find the advantage” being there can be no advantage in voluntarily leaving the worlds largest trading block, as Brexit was all “a cock up” caused by idiots, who are about to compound it by insisting on a hard Brexit, which means rejecting any reasonable offer such as the major one regarding continuity within the customs union.

     And to show impartiality I will also condemn Trumps proposed trade war, as an irrational act by someone who’s experience in international commerce is so limited
     that it too will prove to be “a total cock up”.

     Brexit can only be looked at as a case of “cutting off the nose to save the face” when applied by the UK.,

     And yes Henry the eighth succeeded in changing the head of the established church, got his divorce because of his desire for another woman, the resulting persecution of those who disagreed including poor old Guy Fawkes, that and numerous wars, reformation, counter reformation and the introduction of numerous fundamentalist protestant churches, many no longer in existence, yes that certainly sounds like a decided advantage the country could have done without.

     The fact is the UK a remnant of The British Empire, had better get used to the idea they are only an island off the western coast of Europe that still own a few tiny islands of no importance scattered throughout the world, most of which are used as tax shelters for the wealthy of his world and not really that important.

     It appears that for the most part it is advantageous for the UK to a part of the EU, dealing with other trading blocks from a position of power, not unlike NATO to which the UK has expressed a desire to continue as a member plus the EU is the UK’s largest trading partner, which begs the question, exactly where will they find a replacement with such advantages to trade with.

     After all they had a difficult time in joining The Common Market as it was previously known., having been rejected by De Gaul in their first attempt.

     I’m afraid you are beginning to sound like the party in power, (everything’s gonna be great), at the same time hoping something positive will suddenly appear, while the reality is Brexit has raised a multitude of problems that no one has answers for even though the EU appear to want he UK to stay and have made reasonable offers to do so.

     However to expect the EU to change their entire rules and policies to placate a situation brought about by fools should not be expected..

     No ! in fact parliament though they finally gave the Scotts the right to hold a referendum concerning devolution, certainly made things very difficult for them,
     The result is an almost one party system The Scottish Nationalist Party, who vote for their interest as a block and with Brexit taking place may once again request a repeat of the referendum in regard to devolution and follow it by a request to rejoin the EU that’s of course if the devolution referendum is successful, which would result in a Little England and perhaps Wales and NI, perhaps not ?

     .

     I’m sorry but here’s nothing I have heard yet that could change my mind that a Hard Brexit will in any way be a benefit to the people of the UK.

110. Chuck, I’ve read your piece about the terminal decline of Britain before. Remember, if it was for all those “fundamentalist protestant churches” you moan about, the US wouldn’t be what is today.

     There can be advantages in disadvantages, I’ll give you an example. In the UK of the 1960s, tax for the highest earners was very high because of war debts and such, over 90% at the top. George Harrison wrote a famous song about it on the Beatles’ Revolver album called ‘Taxman.’ Most of our top musicians (and others) left the country to avoid it, hitting the road on almost endless tours and recording albums all over the world like bands of Gypsies. At the time it looked bad with Britain losing all those musicians and other talents, but in the disadvantage there was advantage in that it made alot of those bands far more successful than they might have been otherwise around the world (especially the US), and cemented Britain’s role as one of the two greatest forces in the worldwide music industry. You never know completely how things will turn out in a situation which might seem disadvantageous at the start, that’s history.

     On Trump, maybe it wasn’t Putin who swung it for him after all, maybe it the British! Or the British company Cambridge Analytica anyway. I saw a thing on TV about this a while back.

     https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/17/facebook-cambridge-analytica-kogan-data-algorithm

     As Newcastle weren’t playing I watched Liverpool and Watford. Mohammed Salah is still getting better and he was unbelievable today with his four goals, as good as Messi.

111. Yes of course those sites like face-book, twitter etc. are dangerous and there is competition between them for advertising revenue, that which once appeared to be an innocent social media outfit that kept one in touch with ones friends and peers, has become a multi billion dollar organization, which when needed can exert tremendous powers, and all of your comments from day one, of your signing up

     And be careful concerning questionnaires and other data requested, they may sound simple enough but then…..

     Of course nowhere near the powers that the website and manufacturers of the machines used to receive, lap tops, tablets, and especially smart phones

     Don’t believe it ? read the fine print and instead of looking for the place to sign “I
     agree” like most of us, for curiosity’s sake and for an education, read most of it.

     The real villain appears to be the smart phone, why what can it do?, perhaps you should check it out and don’t forget the word once written is recorded forever and in storage.

     Plus with a smart phone, on a daily basis every place you go is recorded or can be called up, every conversation, sites visited, an extraordinary amount of personal information, where one shops, what one buys, of course your credit card and debit card also registers the same info, often wonder where the adverts on your social media or lap top come from ?

     There are at present any number of films and reports on the dystopian future where artificial intelligence is featured, like the movie ( ex Machina) but no one ever mentions that this world is already here and everyone has bought right into it, the doorway being to-days toys, especially the ones mentioned above.

     Which record every piece of information about you through the use of these machines and there’s no escaping it, being it is essential to understand the basic use of these machines, or end up like the elderly man who is unemployed and gets lost in the social system by his lack of ability to use a computer in the movie
     “I Daniel Blake” by Ken Losey.

     On visiting my medical group I was recently handed a tablet which asked a series of questions, prior to that it was a pen and questionnaire paper and prior to that it was the same questions asked by a secretary, like the corner drug store where I was requested to check out my purchases, which I refused, being I was replacing a youngster who needed the job, strangely enough they rehired a couple of humans.

     Then there’s he old adage, “if you are not doing anything unlawful, why worry”
     yeah right !

     Yeah Salah is phenomenal, would you trade him for Coutinho, no way, the money clubs will soon be making BIG offers I think.

     If it were not for all those fundamentalist protestant churches , the US wouldn’t be what it is to-day, you say ?

     Sure there’s truth in that, but is that a condemnation or praise ?

     I’m afraid the analogy to music is kinda weak, when one compares Brexit to high tax rates.

     I mean it now looks like PM May intends to screw the DUP and the Scots in favor of an open border on the island of Ireland and on fishing rights, which could result in
     the Scots looking for another referenda on leaving and god only knows what the loyalists of NI may do, when a line is drawn through the Irish sea, of which leaves them outside the UK.

112. Chuck, it isn’t one thing, it’s alot of things all interlocking with each other to build a picture. The health aspect is very worrying, especially over there with insurance.

     I don’t know about over there, but there was one of those covert videos over here with the head of Cambridge Analytica, Alexander Nix. In the video he was talking about bribing politicians, setting up politicians with beautiful Ukrainian girls and then blackmailing them, along with some Hitleresque ‘big lie’ stuff such as “It doesn’t have to be true. It just has to be believed.” Just the usual.

     https://www.channel4.com/news/cambridge-analytica-revealed-trumps-election-consultants-filmed-saying-they-use-bribes-and-sex-workers-to-entrap-politicians-investigation

     Nix is like a shite English public school style Bond villain who was rejected and left on the cutting room floor.

     What gets me is the way these young supermarket jockies sometimes get annoyed when I refuse to use the self checkout and insist on being served by a human, or something vaguely resembling a human anyway as you can’t be too fussy in my part of town. One day I’ll grab one and give them a long, screaming Howard Beale style speech about what’s really going down and how they’ll be the next one to be made redundant and homeless like the scruffy looking man sitting outside the doorway asking for change!

113. Abviously another happy camper, in this brave new world, where one not only has to replace workers in order to save companies/corporations money, being profits are based on margins as tight as a ducks ass.

     Strange when one hears of preserving jobs, when it’s clearly seen that artificial intelligence is replacing workers far faster than those hordes of immigrants pouring into Europe from the less fortunate parts of this world

     Where formerly failed companies like Apple have raised themselves like the proverbial phoenix and built themselves into a multi billion dollar (possibly trillion) company and remain in a furious race with Samsung for products that should they fail, could bring down the whole stack of cards.

     Apple, of course they pay little taxes by incorporating themselves in the Irish Republic, which claim the don’t want /need the fifteen billion or so taxes owed to them recently.

     Of course they (Apple) are not the only US corp. that register themselves outside the USA, being they would be taxed at a 25% rate (recently lowered by Trump) as opposed to the 12.5 rate in the ROI, of course there are any number of former parts of the British Empire, too small to support themselves , but available to be used as tax evading centers, that play that same game, basically a brass plate outside the door of an empty building, ah well !

     One of my early predictions following Trumps election was, the one thing we can expect from his assuming the presidency will be he will end up as a far richer man than he was before.

     But that’s nothing new, it’s a corrupt world we live in and it’s all bout wealth and power and the means to control populations, As we speak for instance that very clever recently proclaimed President for life, Xi Jinping has gained control of the Peoples republic of China, and is said to be in the process of re-energizing the Communist Party and introducing a number of reforms.

     Throughout history China’s rulers main problem was to avoid unrest and it’s aftermath, civil wars, but in a country so vast with lots of history and differing ethnic groups, a difficult task and though the Communist Party has been effective in creating a unified populace.

     However with to-days move to-wards a market economy, a now well clothed fed and educated population, who seem to emulate the post ww2 Japanese, who one saw traveling throughout the world, once their economies became stronger.

     The question remains can the Communist Party maintain control, apparently the once fairly Laissez- faire run British colony of Hong Kong, closely watched by Taiwan are not impressed and have little desire other than to trade with such a vast market, which raises the question, being this has been acclaimed as the century of Asia, in which case can the communist Party maintain it’s grasp on such a vast and in the past incontrollable population.

     I certainly don’t envy that President for life role Xi Jinping has maneuvered himself into.

     However i’m sure there are still the legacies of Stephen Hawkin to concern us, who has projected we could destroy ourselves prior to the end of this present century and looking at some of the present so called world leaders, one wonders.

114. Chuck, It’s a question which has been asked many times before but when everybody is out of work and in penury because of the rise of the robots, who is going to buy the stuff that is produced by the robots?

     After Steve Jobs left Apple, they stagnated and when he came back again they rose like a Phoenix again as you say, which of course led to Jobs being revered as a business God. Although Apple computers were pretty much the standard thing for the kinds of work I’ve done in the past, I’ve never really liked Apple much. Besides being a closed, proprietary system, they seemed to model themselves on some kind of religious cult and alot of their users were like brainwashed cult members. I always suspected there was something in their devices which was brainwashing them and it scared me off :-) Of course, you are also right to say they are just one of quite a few tax dodging megacorporations, Amazon and Google are no different and Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, is now worth over $120 billion, making him the richest man in the world.

     Correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t federal corporate tax 35% before Trump lowered it? I knew it was a fair bit higher than the larger EU economies, but I remember the 35% figure from the times when they were calling my MP a Communist Stalin lover because he wanted to restore the corporation tax over here to something like the levels of a few years ago at 21% for small businesses and 26% for larger ones so we could stop the UK from turning into some kind of ‘Mad Max’ world.

     Chuck, though China has changed considerably from the days of Mao, no way is China a ‘market economy,’ it is highly regulated by government, as was the UK, and then the US when our economies boomed and we became world powers. There is no such thing as a ‘market economy’ as there is no such thing as a truly free market. China has an abysmal human rights record and of course there have been protests in the past, but I suspect it would also take a huge reversal in the economy and consequent weakening of the state before there is a huge scale uprising.

115. The corporate tax rate was @ 35%, prior to varying amounts being suggested of between 15% & 20%, the latest suggested amount I believe is in the region of 22%.

     The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate is @ 4.1 %, a comparably low figure, y (obviously a better idea than comparing unadjusted rates that vary so much seasonally) however those industrial workers of the rust belt, will never again have
     the same middle class lifestyles they had under the Ruther Bros. and UAW union, much of the industrial Midwest will find it difficult to compete with the European and Asian automobile plants that have recently been built, though mostly in non union red states, they like the people of Sunderland will have jobs, but they will settle for lower paying jobs.

     Information
     Don’t reply to questionaries or surveys, don’t give your opinion to advertisers, it’s just another piece of information that is added to your personal file in regard to likes and dislikes, ever see those small signs thumb up or thumb down for like or dislike and wondered why anyone would want to know.
     If you are in the habit of using any modern toy/tool, such as a computer/tablet/smart phone don’t be surprised if there is a massive amount of data already gathered concerning you, probably more info. than you yourself know, don’t give those who gather that info. any more, the same applies to banking, investments and of course credit cards.

     Be discriminating.

     Though what you say and where you surf also betrays an enormous amount of information about one.

     Worky China
     Well certainly there has been any number of economic policies attempted Marxism, and Keynsianism , the Chicago school’s market economy or neo-Liberalism, which is no more than a re-run of Laissez- Fer or free market Capitalism, but a mixed economy is what exists in China at present.
     Ask, Mah yun (Jack Ma) the owner of The Alibaba Group.

     A multi- billionaire among others, but no, the cat is out of the bag, with wealth comes power and as China becomes wealthier they will have the same social problems that we in the west have, differences in affluence which usually result in
     different social classes, which are contrary to the tenents of The Chinese communist government.

     I project that a similar situation will occur to that of The Soviet Union, the Communist System will eventually prove incapable of controlling a basically mercantile China, the difference being it’s oligarchs will by then already be in place.

     What or how it happens we can only guess, and how it will end up, who knows ?

116. Chuck, over here, unemployment figures aren’t high either, but unemployment figures arent what they used to be. There are now more people doing these really crappy little jobs where they’re on the end of their mobile all the time waiting for a call to get a few hours of minimum wage work, and that counts as a job just like an old fashioned, secure, full time job did. Many of the people on the new Social, ‘Universal Credit’ are working, but their jobs are so bad they can’t survive and pay the bills so they’re working, but they’re still on the Social as well. Most of the council houses have gone so the Government have to pay out a fortune to this new army of buy to let landlords who bought into the housing boom.

     China had a rebellion at the end of the 80s too, but it was mostly students and unlike in Eastern Europe, Deng Xiaoping didn’t call off the tanks, it was easily crushed and China moved on. They have some awful human rights but they’re isn’t an irreconcilable conflict between the business and the politics.

117. worky

     That last sentence is an assumption, but the fact that China will eventually stratify into varying classes, due to wealth differences, plus education and politics is inevitable.

     A class system is inevitable in just about every country, only based on different values, likeminded people generally band together for various reasons, wealth, political beliefs, religious beliefs, etc.

     With wealth differences and religion in the west, there will be class struggles and , one has only to look at the problems caused by religion, the many schisms alone in the three large monotheist groups, never mind the hundreds of different forms of Hinduism.

     For instance the class system is so stratified in the UK, which is enforced through family, schools, language the old boy system and so reinforced it’s almost impossible to break.

     This becomes so obvious when reading obituaries, listing education, family history,
     awards and other such nonsense, however in cases of certain soldiers obituaries, it is also stated, his achievements as a soldier, but insists on adding that he achieved this by advancing through the ranks, which can be looked upon as neither praise nor condemnation.

     One particular Field Marshal being Lord Roberts gets little press on having advanced through the ranks, which is almost an impossibility, however though he did join the army as a private soldier, it should be known his father was also a general, and an Anglo- Irish Peer which I suspect may have helped.

     Well the original power and wealth was based on it being a monarchy (and to a large degree a titled landowner) that has existed long after it’s need, in fact it exists as an anachronism still, however talk to any British working class stiff and you will find a monarchist, why ?
     I cant imagine, it being the root of the ridgid class system that has kept people in their place or designated station for generations, I’m sure you are familiar with the expression “don’t attempt to rise above your station in life”

     And yes I understand you have these types of employment, like Uber and Lyft and have (take out) meals delivered, many of which come under the label of self employment, which requires one to sign an agreement that relieves the actual business owner from most responsibilities.

     I’m not sure what you mean by “on the social” collecting unemployment benefits ? or entitled to social benefits such as NHC .

     Here in the USA of course each state is responsible for minimum wage levels which cannot sink below the designated national level, which recent strikes and formations of unions have forced the state of NY to raise the minimum level to $15 an hour. for fast food workers, however there will eventually be driverless cabs (meaning I will stick with the subway) and what i’m projecting for the future and in a way fear, is we shall all be replaced by self operating machines, ATM and self checkout only being the beginning of a whole slew of machines we will have to get used to.

     And as technology works like the proverbial snowball effect, each roll accumulating possibly twice as much, the speed to-wards a perceived future where robots and
     machines that learn, proliferate, making most drudge work (those continuously moving auto lies in Sunderland) no wonder they voted for Brexit.

     We, everyone, will have to adjust to some kind of dystopian world where we are totally controlled and like yer man in 1984, can do little about it.

118. Well, appears to be some positive progress has been made recently on the Brexit front, though no real disclosures as of yet, but I have a feeling it may result in the UK remaining within the customs union, that is not exactly, as there’s been no official word on what concession/s is/are being asked of the EU,

     However it seems that both the UK (The Tory’s) and EU, plus and I suppose the Lib/Dems and SNP are all in agreement that it is the most desirable outcome also I understand that wor Jeremy is an advocate of remaining within the customs union, or so he sez, though not until recently if I recall right.

     It should also solve the problem relating to the retention of an open border on the Island of Ireland, as ridiculous as it sounds, almost as ridiculous as Ireland having two football teams and two separate parliaments, though only one united side as far as cricket and rugby are concerned, two national anthems though, and like the Scots rugby side, who have their sports anthem, when playing against the auld enemy, “flower of Scotland ” apparently Ireland concocted a pseudo anthem “Shoulder to shoulder”, which is as bad as the Scots anthem, ah well !

     I suppose the UK was never that united, truth be told as Wales had little choice in the matter other than annexation and most Scots were against the union in 1707, there were no referendums then and the act was rushed through Parliament

     I would venture a guess that the breakthrough may have something to-do with the UK negotiating an agreement, giving them the choice of singularly negotiating additional trade agreements, which are outside the jurisdiction of the EU, a sort of cherry picking agreement that I can see the EU agreeing to, as there’s a lot at stake and common sense by all parties is needed, being many, especially those who advocated a hard Brexit, will no doubt proclaim it a betrayal of the referendum.

     What will Boris do then, if Theresa May had any sense she should end his career
     rather than having to constantly pull his chestnuts out of the fire.

     Plus the service industries of the UK, especially banking and money matters can not afford to be lost to continental cities, plus think about those hard working Sunderland auto assembly line guys who need jobs, in fact both Norway and Switzerland both negotiated separate and different concessions as the price for their particular association, so understandably the UK being the worlds fifth or sixth largest economy its association has much more important .

     It shouldn’t be that hard a sell for PM Theresa, but it ain’t exactly putting lipstick on a pig, as I have a feeling many “out voters” may have regretted their choice in the referendum and any clever politician can proclaim both Brexit and the fact the country will not cease to be totally outside the worlds largest trading block “a win win situation” , plus it will keep those Sunderland fans grafting on the Nissan assembly lines, at least until they are replaced by robots, even while suffering the ignomony of another possible football relegation.

     i

119. Yet another week of no football from Newcastle. It would be nice just to get it over so we have enough points to be absolutely sure we won’t get relegated again.

     What have been smoking this time, Chuckles? Lord Roberts doesn’t get enough press? He was a Victorian General FFS! I suppose you also think it’s a scandal, and indicative of the rigid British class system that there was no mention of Sir George Pomeroy Colley in any of today’s UK Newspapers? Your regular historical references do remind me of how indebted I am to the historical documentaries on BBC4 over here though, which is where I last saw something about Roberts and the Indian mutiny, possibly in commemoration of the 70th anniversary of Indian Independence or partition or whatever though that was about 100 years later.

     Things have gone backwards somewhat. Though I did have quite a privileged education myself, I’m sick to death of all these annoying, smug, toffee nosed, public school actors with names like Benedict Frigging Cumberbatch appearing in everything. Back in the 60s and 70s it was all about working class actors like Albert Finney. Still, the very working class Gary Oldman won an Oscar recently. There are no posh people called ‘Gary.’

     As for the robots again I can only say what I said last time. If nobody has a job nor money, how will they buy all the things the robots will be producing? If nobody can afford the products produced by the robots, what is the point of them?

120. Look , field marshal Roberts was only a fraction of my rant, which I used as an example, (being I had read a biography of the man years ago and was somewhat impressed, until I read his background). but actually the main point was about the British class system and a country described as a Constitutional-Monarchy, with head of state being the ruling Monarch, of which there are a number of European states also called Constitutional Monarchies, in fact for the most part they are described by their fellow citizens as bicycle monarchies.

     However most don’t take their monarchs quite as serious, as the Brits. nor do they have the same powers, this being due for the most part in the UK to the lack of a written constitution, unless one claims the Magna Charta serves that purpose.

     And as the head of state (some describe the Monarch as a non political head of state, insinuating this is something positive) which couldn’t be further from the truth.

     Both the Queen and heir apparent Prince Charles constantly interfere in politics, mostly in cases that protect either their wealth and powers or petty likes and dislikes.

     And yes I agree an Albert Finney starring in “Saturday Night and Sunday Morning” (don’t forget it was a 44 hour work week in those days, so not Friday night and Saturday morning) or “Room at the Top” with Lawrence Harvey, which introduced the British working class movies dubbed “The New Wave” or “This Sporting Life” starring Richard Harris, all excellent films, when compared to anything done by the somewhat insipid Cumberbach, the difference is clear.

     As for being replaced by AI machines, I suppose you haven’t heard of Finland’s experiment in regard to an annual wage given to people, whether they work or not, check it out, it could be he answer, after all they are a small and somewhat homo-geneous country where something of this nature could very well work, at least it’s a forward thinking attempt, which the Scandinavians are well known for, thinking outside the .box.

     Where just recently a union in Sweden are in the process of buying out the owners of a company contracted to them and becoming the new owners, which had been tried before by the Anarcho Syndicalist’s in Catalonia during the mid 1930’s and was operated more efficiently than under their former owners.
     So there’s some hope for the future, no ?

121. Chuck it was good old Thomas Paine and Thomas Spence who thought outside the box with the basic income back in the 18th Century. I remember hearing something about a trial in Scotland I think, and I was reading about a trial in a small Canadian town called Dauphin in the mid 70s fairly recently. It was started by the Liberal Government in Canada and lasted around three years, then a Conservative Government got in, buried it and it was forgotten about until an Economist called Evelyn Forget hunted down the results of the trial thirty years later and spent five years going through it all. Both Forget, and the people who took part in the trial who were tracked down and interviewed certainly thought it was a great success. Instead of doing dead end jobs for shitty employers to survive, people would do things like go back to school and get better jobs such as a librarian, or start their own businesses. Depression (it was a book about depression) and other ailments went down due to lack of stress and people leading more fulfilling and interesting lives and so on… That’s what the book said anyway.

     I just picked out Finney as one example, there were quite a few as you suggest. They were a ‘New Wave,’ but I think that was more French directors like Jean Luc Goddard and Francois Truffaut. The British writers of these so called ‘Kitchen sink’ dramas were known as the ‘Angry Young Men,’ coined for John Osborne whose very famous play ‘Look Back in Anger’ was adapted to a film starring another working class lad who went on to do quite well in the acting world, Richard Burton. The grim British realist school has always carried on through directors like Ken Loach (who you mentioned earlier), Alan Clarke and the younger Shane Meadows.

     You have different governments, Labour or Conservative, Democrat or Republican, but, possibly more importantly, you have a general political ‘consensus.’ I’ll leave the ‘States to you but over here, Conservative or Labour, there was more of a ‘left’ consensus over here from 1945 which lasted for around thirty years until the mid 70s, then, you there was a fairly chaotic period for a few years as one epoch slowly decayed, leading to the rise of the gruesome twosome, Thatcher and Reagan. Back in the old days it was old Tories like Macmillan who, despite being elected as a Conservative Prime Minister, stuck to the consensus doing things that would seem mad to a Conservative Prime Minister today, like building Council Houses all over the place. After the switch, the boot was on the other foot and you saw (alleged) Labour Prime Ministers like Blair following the so-called ‘free market’ system. After that long preamble I’ll get to the point. The Scandinavians didn’t have a Thatcher and didnt let as much of that earlier consensus go as the UK did. It is somewhat ironic that the period when a more left wing consensus held sway is now known as the ‘Golden Age of Capitalism‘ when everything boomed. The right have completely changed perception among the public though, and such times are now looked on as the bad old days. In actuality, the new consensus has decimated growth, stopped it completely in Africa and has the world lurching from one financial crisis to another through chasing short term dividends in a poorly regulated market.

     They have mounting another full scale attack on my MP again over the last few days, they are having another go at the antisemitism angle this time and it has been at fever pitch all day. After going back through years of his online posts they found something from 2012 in Facebook, where he appears to oppose the painting over of a large outdoor mural by an American artist which could be said to have antisemitic / anti masonic overtones. I was listening to talk radio as I was working all day and it was totally hysterical. Almost all day it ran along the lines of is Jeremy Corbyn more antisemitic than Hitler? Are Corbyn supporters more antisemitic than Hitler? and that sort of thing. Anyone who tried to defend him was shouted at and more or less accused of being antisemitic themselves. I really shouldn’t listen to all that guff as much as I do.

122. Yes, well I just finished watching clips of such people as Ken Loach, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Ken McClusky and others give their opinions on certain antisemitic attitudes within the Labour Party and within every political party one will find a minority of opinions rejected by the majority no doubt.

     There is no doubt a number of openly anti Zionist’s within labour, however to claim those as anti-Semitic, considering the history of what was formerly the British protectorate of Palestine is a step too far, though the term anti Semitic is oxymoronic in the sense that all of the original peoples of the former Palestine can be referred to as Semites.

     It appears the problems within the present Labour Party has more to do with economics, being there are the remnants of Blairites remaining within the party, from New Labour who would like to return too being the party in power and getting rid of Corbyn, by any means, fair or foul, would be their first goal.

     On the other hand I find it difficult to picture Corbyn as PM, yes I know Atlee one of he most successful of post war leaders was never the most dynamic of personalities, but he was surrounded by a cabinet of doers who had outstanding and strong personalities, who convinced people their intentions were in the interests of the voters, who by the way made it easier, wanting a chicken in every pot and the rewards of having sacrificed for six hard years.

     Something I don’t see in either Corbyn or his Shadow government for the most part
     unfortunately.

123. Thomas Paine, a deist from East Anglia, sure one of my few hero’s who never let his humble origins (son of a ship or boats stays maker) get in the way of a life as a dissenter, visionary, revolutionary, inventor, writer, builder of the worlds second cast iron bridge, then the worlds largest, which was built over the river Wear in 1796 and lasted until 1927. (a 240 ft. single span bridge)

     Who’s pamphlet “Common Sense” which was printed in Jan. 1776 and it ‘s claimed following the tax revolt and battles of Lexington and Concord in 1775, exhorted the colonists to become independent from Gt. Britain.

124. Chuck, Thomas Paine died over there in Greenwich Village. It’s pretty much impossible to overestimate his importance as a political philosopher and arch troublemaker in a very important time in history. He sorted out the American Revolution, then popped over to France to sort their revolution out. Everyone who could read over on your side of the pond read ‘Common Sense’, which kicked off all the trouble. I won’t get carried away and go on about the American Crisis, the Rights of Man, The Age of Reason etc and how important they were.

     You’re right about Attlee’s cabinet, and it was diverse, not in terms of race but in term of background, from posh very highly educated creatures of the establishment like Stafford Cripps to people like Aneurin Bevan and Ernie Bevin. Bevin hardly went to school, yet he did things like helping to form NATO and sorting out Palestine (though that second one hasn’t really gone too well in hindsight). Today, outside his core of supporters, most of Corbyn’s MPs are still characterless Blairite robots who are all the same. They are also programmed to be treacherous against Corbyn at every opportunity.

125. Yes, this is getting a bit weird that we can agree on so much, it’s certainly more fun to disagree however, I suppose we will have to accept the fact we probably agree on more things than not.

     Strange when the name Stafford Crips comes up, I immediately think of the beginning of a calypso record concerning the marriage of his daughter to a British trained lawyer
     Joe Appiah, which caused as much scandal as did the mixed marriage of Sertse

126. cont.
     Khama, the son of an African paramount chief, not only within the UK and colonies but in his own homeland Bechuanaland a former British Protectorate
     Of course the difference between those times and the present, with most African foreign service people and the so called settlers for the most part having an acceptable racist attitude, compared to the present day acceptability of not only mixed race marriages but marriage’s between people of the same gender.
     Which would until recently be considered a crime.

     Of course I mentioned Calypso, which was so popular during the fifties and sixties, a style of music that bears a resemblance to Hip-hop, not particularly the music of Harry Belafonte, which was more acceptable to white audiences, but that found on juke box 45’s, from such artists as Mighty Sparrow, Lord Such, Lord Kitchiner of course here were more Lords than Mighty’s and Sirs to mention and such songs as “Matilda”, “Mama look a boo boo”, “cricket lovely cricket”, “coconut woman”,
     “Stone cone cold dead in de market” and too many more to mention.

     In one sense a different time and music, where certain improvements have occurred, though with them a price has also been paid, being there is little romance left, with cruise vessels carrying people to the far corners of the world, where they find little difference from their own towns and lives, now that we have instant communications and everything is of a oneness.

     Ah well !

     Actually I had Sertse Khama and Joe Aphia confused,
     Aphia was a then “Gold Coast” citizen (later renamed “Ghana” following idependence)’, who married the daughter of Sir Stafford Crips, a Labour Party Cabinet member, which involved such a scandal.
     On reflection a tempest in a tea-pot.
     l

127. Aye Chuck, funnily enough I was also starting to get worried about agreeing with you!

     Poor Attlee was the original Shillary in one respect. He beat old Churchill twice (a landslide and a much tighter one) but the third time, he lost even though he got the most votes. As for Cripps, I believe he was actually expelled from the Labour Party 1939 for advocating allying with Stalin against Hitler but he still ended up in the War Cabinet, for a while anyway until he rubbed people up the wrong way again then he was sent off by Churchill to sort out Aircraft production. He was a couple of years ahead of his time there.

     I’ve seen a few of those Calypso artists at the Carnival and around and about much later. I even think the Mighty Sparrow is still gannin’! Lord Kitchener is no longer around sadly, but he’s having a bit of a renaissance along with Paddington the Bear as his ‘London Is the Place for Me‘ was featured in the recent Paddington Bear film. All they do is just recycle old stuff nowadays.

     I have Harry Belafonte records on vinyl. He does ALL kinds of stuff on them and his live ones especially are like a musical tour of the world, I’m holding one now and he tackles French (Merci bon dieu), Jewish (Have Nagela), Irish (Danny Boy) and so on. That’s just a few, a bit like Dick van Dyke, he even has a go at a ‘Cockney Air’! He was the original so called ‘world’ music, only instead of a diverse range of artists from all over the globe, it was just him having a bash at everything!

     Ships were more romantic in the golden age of the liners when people still actually used ships to go somewhere, like from London to New York and vice versa rather than just floating around in various sunny locations. The ships were an international competition for national prestige, like floating embassies showcasing the qualities of their various countries. The French Normandie was all about the fine food and French Art, the Queen Mary was like a floating Savoy or Claridges. Even the Swedes had a really good one (the Stockholm), showing off Scandinavian fresh thnking and elegant, clean design. You Yanks didn’t really go into it with your usual gusto with the ‘United States’, you didn’t even try to build the biggest, which is strange for your lot! and the German one was like Germany, efficient but pretty boring and lacking the ‘Je ne sais quois’ of the Normandie or the Queen Mary. Once again, I have watched a BBC4 documetary on the subject.

     These modern cruises are absolutely terrible environmentally, pumping out huge quantities of shite (literally) and pollution into the most beautiful parts of the seas.

128. Yes, there are the ocean liners of old, which actually looked like ships, instead of the massive shoe box designs of to day, pack em in, with no wooden decks to wander around, nor a good book sitting in a deck chair wrapped in a blanket, plus any particular voyage gave a sense of both time and distance, as opposed to a few hours sitting in the cramped seat of a plane.

     Though I have no intention of taking a voyage even if there were regular services across the Atlantic via ship, actually there was a time when one could take a cabin on a regular service cargo vessel, to South America and South Africa or Europe from the US, also from the US west coast, to Asia, some which continued around the world.

     As for the “Big U” as it was known, it was primarily subsidized to convert to a troop carrier and hospital ship (that’s the liner United States) it was never a pretty ship but fast and fireproofed, having very little wood.

     Either fortunately or otherwise the end of the North Atlantic passenger trade occurred with the introduction of the Boeing 707, well actually when fares became cheaper than ocean travel in the early sixties, but the 707 was the final nail in the coffin of that particular trade.

     I suppose that immigrants of the post liner days, never got to enjoy the sense of distance that one experienced, nor the approach to New York with it’s vistas of the Statue of Liberty , Ellis Island and the approach to Lower Manhattan, with it’s skye’-scrappers, truly an eye opening experience, not to be forgotten.

     I didn’t mean to suggest Harry Belafonte was not of the Caribbean or wasn’t a great singer, it was just that those 45 guys used a sense of humor and were known for the use of the “double entendre” and “political criticisms”, all in all a rawer and more entertaining sound IMO.

     I have to disagree about the pollution caused by such cruise vessels, there are very strict regulations that have to be adhered to, with logs kept on what was taken off the vessel, in regard to plastics and raw sewage which is not allowed to be dumped, sure there are those who attempt to avoid the regulations, though certain food ground up to a fine degree may still be allowed to be discarded at sea.
     ‘

129. I get the feeling NUFC are about to avoid relegation, though it’s as yet still undecided.

     A fortunate win to-day, yet not undeserved, but the fact we lack that good finisher (something the club loves, a great No 9.) makes the run in questionable, then again having Benitez instead of the useless retreads we have suffered under, who couldn’t tell the difference between a tactic and a tic-tac , but could talk a great story, gives one a bit of confidence.

     I see there are signs of a growing rapprochement between Ashley and Amanda, who has apparently found a couple of new suckers who are interested in funding a EPL club,
     I only hope they have deep pockets.
     On the other hand there’s little expense involved, other than a few decent players and as long as our dear leader doesn’t ask an arm and a leg for it , but knowing from experience he probably will.

     St.James’ Park needs little improvement, it being one of the most state of the art stadiums in the country, well I suppose every stadium could use a few extra seats, but Ashley seems to have put the keybosh on that, flogging the real estate behind the Gallowgate end, whatta a guy !

     Apart from that perhaps another season in the PL and a rebuilt side, hey I would be happy to end up mid table, which if we can hold onto Benitez should be very possible, but you know how often managers move in the EPL, my wish and I suppose most fans also may be a stretch, but we can live in hope, perhaps a bit of a demonstration may work with Ashley, after all he did apologize to Chris Hughton for the way he was treated, nah !!!

     At least here’s some light at the end of the tunnel and if he sells to the right people
     could be the beginning of a new era of top class football every other weekend and possibly a shot at some silverware, hell who knows?

     k

     ps add a few thousand seats, as the way things are going with Sunderland and Boro., we may be the only PL club in the NE. soon.

130. Well we won but only just when we dominated alot of the game and got enough chances to make it a more convincing victory. It is near the end of the season and our top goalscorers have got 5 so we still have a goalscoring problem.

     Chuck, have you been reading all that newpaper gossip again? I haven’t been paying much attention to it all. Getting sucked to all that is where madness lies, especailly with Ashley.

     Alot of those great liners were used for the war. Much later, the Queen Elizabeth II was in the Falklands war. You’re right about the 707 but I am just old enough to remember the Vickers VC-10. It was a beautiful plane, all four engines were at the back and because of that it was really quiet and smooth. It was also the fastest and could land and take off on much smaller runways. Despite all that it was crushed by the 707. I mention all that though because I wondered why they haven’t designed more planes with engines like that because it was a brilliant idea that didn’t seem to have any safety problems.

131. What actually occurred was that possibly due to the war, the development of British aircraft and engines was at a peak, with also the unusual production of wooden aircraft which were developed due to the lack of raw materials, very unusual.

     Of course the first allied jet fighter was the Gloster Meteor which was used mainly to shoot down German launched V2 rockets, why no jets, ? surprising since Frank Whittle developed the first jet engine well before ww2, however the constant developement of the RR Merlin engine, which was used in what has been described as the dominant fighter of the European theatre, the P51, was powered by that British designed engine introduced around 1933, as was the jet engine.

     Britain was in the process of development of a massive bomber late in the war, the Brabazon, the prototype first flew around 1949, with the idea of then justifying the costs involved, by becoming a long distance pressurized passenger plane, however it was scrapped due to the ongoing cost, it was about the size of a 747 Boeing.

     By then the US super constellation, easily recognized by it’s triple tails was in production and I recall flying in one to the US, stopping in Gandar , Newfoundland, and Boston, then what was known as Idlewild Airport , in NY.

     And of course the fatal crashes of the first Trans-Atlantic aircraft (The Comet), due if my memory recalls correctly, to metal fatigue, that then left the market to prop driven planes until the Boeing 707 was introduced, and everyone now could consider themselves as members of the jet set, plus put an end to Trans-Atlantic travel by ocean liners.

132. Chuck, the Comet had those fatigue problems because they didn’t know yet that with a faster jet plane like that, the windows needed to be more round than they were in the early Comets. It was a very good plane when they had round windows. Like the later VC-10, it was very pretty as well (this is all BBC4 documentaries again!).

     As for Whittle’s jet, as you suggest he’d been developing it for a long time but the men at the Air Ministry were very cool about it and let him go off and develop it himself.

133. I don’t think I can take any more Corbyn antisemitism hysteria, it’s been getting on for two weeks now. The poor old gadgie has been even been called antisemitic for celebrating Passover with a Jewish group now.

     Getting back to the planes though, Chuck, the Comet (early problems notwithstanding) and the VC-10 were fast, highly innovative and beautiful planes, but the Brabazon was a flying turkey as a passenger aircraft.

134. Worky I think Corbyn must be scaring them. This year he has been connected with the IRA of being a “Commie” and more The media are really scraping the barrel and the “Blairites” are joining in to try and save their cushy jobs.
     Its not anti-Semitism to disagree with what’s going on in Palistine.
     Don’t know much about planes only my first long haul was in a DC6 and a few scary flights in Hastings and Beverly’s in the forces. My flight to Florida in a Jumbo was delayed when the captain said the throttle was sticking, he came on later to say they had put some grease in the tube the cable was in and it seemed to be ok. There was a loud murmur went around the passengers but the flight went well.

135. Nutmag, I’m no fan of the rulers of Qatar and I am always somewhat dubious of al Jazeera and their programmes because of that, however I did watch their show ‘The Lobby‘ about Shai Masot, Israeli interference in UK Politics and how members of the Labour Party on the left wing were being framed for antisemitism. One of the Labour MPs featured, Joan Ryan is an MP in Enfield where my friend lives, and head of the ‘Labour Friends of Israel.’ She is a really nasty piece of work, as you will see in the film when they entrap, then lie about a Labour Party Corbyn supporter who was subsequently accused of antisemitism and suspended from the party when she had done no such thing.

     As I said though, this doesn’t necassarily mean I’m a fan of al Jazeera or the Sheikhs of Qatar (where my sister lived for a while).

     It’s funny that when they accuse Corbyn of being a Hamas supporter because he once addressed them as ‘friends,’ they never seem to accuse Gandhi of being a Nazi when he used the same term to address Hitler.

     If we’re still on the subjects of planes we have flown in, I flew in both a Comet and a VC-10, but I was only a bairn. I think the Comet was ‘Dan-Air’ (remember them?). I seem to have a case of vertigo which gets worse the older I get though so I’m quite a nervous flyer now which I never used to be. I also recall going up in one of those small helicopters from the 60s/70s where the cabins were just like clear plastic bubbles where you could see absolutely everything around you. It didn’t bother me at all but if I did the same thing now, I would almost certainly be paralysed with fear! I wonder if a Jumbo Captain would say the same thing today about the throttle sticking and banging a bit of grease in there to fix it?

136. Who supports who? it can be hilarious at times and unless one is totally aware of the exact reasons behind political statements, something like the scene from “The Life of Brian” the Monty Python version of the Life of Jesus, not that i’m a fan of that group, but fair play the political humor there was funny.

     It’s kinda like the NI loyalists supporting the Israelis while the nationalists support the Palestinians, which makes no real sense and recently when my son and his friend were in Belfast, they were asked what religion they were, my son replied he had no religion and his friend was Jewish, to which the answer was “aye but is he a protestant Jew or a catholic Jew”.

     Which leads us onto the Stupidity of the Saudi’s and the shame of both the US & the UK for making a fortune in arms sales to the Saudis and plaudits to Qatar for opposing the recent pressures from both the Saudi’s and Emirates.

     I remember watching Algazeera TV until (I believe) it was forced off the air (perhaps not) and found it to represent a fairly liberal (for Qatar) point of view.
     I wonder what if anything they are saying to-day, certainly in regard to the destruction of Yemen, who’s only answer are a few dodgy rockets which sometimes land inside Yemen, which I suppose are supplied by the Iranians.

     And I am taking a wait and see attitude about the bloodless revolution , by Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, now in the process of creating both a more liberal society and a less ridged form of the present Wahhabism, a very strict form of Islam, good luck with that Mohammad !

     And for all you ex-pats out there, watch out, as you are about to be dodging cars driven by Saudi women in the near future, for those that don’t get it, that was tongue in cheek, which I use frequently.

     Not unlike Christianity, Islam is full of schismatic groups who’s beliefs contrast with one another and these like civil wars are the most vicious of all and presently the main protagonists are the Saudi’s, members of the Sunni sect and the Iranians who for the most part are Shi’a, a dispute about the inheritance of the Islamic leadership following the death of Mohammed in the seventh century .

     I find this and in general an area who’s importance is becoming less neccessary as the discovery of new oil-fields and the fact that burning coal, oil and gas or any polluting materials is becoming socially unacceptable, however most oil producing countries are still rich.

     What I don’t get , (unless it is strategically located) and controls the supposedly mineral rich former Soviet States (the other Stans) as to why anyone would want to be there , other than those who were there when Alexander The Great invaded who quickly saw the light and moved on to the more low lying fruit area of the Indian sub continent.

     People come, people go , not much changes

137. Chuck, in Ireland, they’re either more Catholic than the Pope, or more Protestant than Martin Luther. I wouldn’t be so sure about the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, I think it will be more superficial than you hope, but things seem to be progressing in Ireland regarding sex and the old time Catholic ways, I’ll shut up though because I’m no real expert on that sort of thing.

     Great Bitter Lake next to the Red Sea – That was where they had the big meeting in 1945 between Franklin D. Roosevelt and King Abdulaziz, where it was all sorted out and Roosevelt agreed to turn a blind eye to KSA’s brutal fundamentalism in return for mother of all strategic oil partnerships, worse, they were allowed to spread their brutal fundamentalism worldwide with all the oil money they were getting from the US.

     On the subject of Monty Python, funnily enough, my latest £1 leftover bookshop bargain is ‘Bash the Rich!’ by Ian ‘Class War’ Bone. It’s his autobiography. Like Class War magazine itself, the proofreading is terrible but nonetheless it’s a real page turner and very funny about the bitchiness between all the myriad Communist and Anarchist groups in the 70s, 80s and 90s. It has an added entertainment value as I remember something of that world from the 1990s. Of course, it was much the same over a century before in the days of Marx and Bakunin.

138. Chuck, People come, people go, not much changes.
     I was born into a world heading into WW2 and now I’m getting close to leaving it, and what has been learnt “Diddly Squat”
     The reason as the Show of Hands folk group sang “Arrogance, Ignorance and Greed”. They wrote it about the bankers and the crash but I think it applies to most all people whatever nationality colour or creed. as they say If you don’t learn from history your destined to relive it.
     I asked a close friend and History lecturer soon after Thatcher had been elected What will be the one big difference we will see at the end of her tenure? His answer “You will have to look after your own” So I will add selfishness to arrogance ignorance and greed. That is the only change from my start to my end. The war, our work and our community’s brought us together. Now society is so fragmented and becoming more fragmented with Brexit Scottish break away Trump and his nationalistic utterances etc..
     “Never mind I did see the Toon win the cup”

139. Nutmag
     Do you actually mean you were at Wembley for one of the three cups won in the fifties ?
     Must have been a thrill and a great memory, I actually have a tape of the final against Man. Citeh , it’s difficult to describe, the playing style and tactics quite modern, yet having watched the Liverpool vs Citeh game yesterday, the comparisons are obvious, even the ball itself is so much lighter and there is no comparison with the players equipment and playing surface.

     And yes I believe we are in he same age group, pre war models, which was something I remember being quoted often by my elders during the early post war years, “they don’t make em as good as before the war” which they said about everything, which had no real truth, but what the hell, actually it was just a shot at the younger generation

     Of course regarding the Brexit vote, this brings to mind one of the stat’s I read recently, that seventy five percent of those over sixty voted to leave, as opposed to seventy five percent of those under twenty five who voted to stay, the elderly vote was described by one source, as the nostalgia of seeing only a white face, an unusual way of describing a latent racism.

     My own opinion was it was just a total miscalculation on the part of Cameron, which was then compounded by May, declaring a Hard Brexit, for whatever reason.

     We shall have to see what develops, who knows the EU may place a great degree of need for a closer association of the worlds fifth largest economy and offer a decent relationship, however, whatever is put on offer can never replace what is about to be lost, through a stupid miscalculation and a hard headed follow-up

     Of course that’s only an opinion, and in regard to the border between the ROI & NI,
     and guaranteed by both governments, I believe may eventually result in NI remaining within the customs union, well they did vote overwhelmingly to “remain” in the referendum, better to receive subsidies from both the UK and the EU, which if they stay in the customs union, may continue.

     Of course this would draw a line through the Irish sea, anathema to any loyalist, who’s worse fear, is separation from the UK of any kind and with the present situation in the British parliament where PM May governs only with the support of the loyalist DUP, could signify “Interesting Times” as the Chinese say.

     However this and all the UK’s present political choices, are the chickens coming home to roost from prior decisions, that were never fully thought out, or were forced through by might and arrogance of Empire.

     Ah well !

140. Nutmag, in the modern world, we are contantly led by the nose and alienated by a false reality, in political discourse as well as everything else. A perfect example of this has been happening in the UK right now, where the biggest political talking point of the last few weeks has been a constant vilification of Jeremy Corbyn over how he reacted to a brief message on Facebook six years ago. In the US it is the same, not about Corbyn of course, but there will be some other non-issue which happened over there to distract Chuckles and his compatriots in the same way.

     So what really happened in the 1970s which overturned the old postwar consensus and brought us the new so called ‘free market’ economics, as well as the social alienation of Thatcher and Reagan at the end of it? On this side of the pond, the new Consertives like Keith Joseph and Margaret Thatcher convinced us it was all about the left, banging on about the three day week, the ‘winter of discontent’, the Miner’s strike, powerful unions which must be crushed and so on. In other words the symptoms and not the real causes. So what really happened? The 50s and 60s was the golden age for America, but in the 70s it went from being a surplus nation to being a deficit nation, the postwar Bretton Woods agreement was flushed down the lavatory, the $ became a fiat currency and the world sank into a financial crisis of inflation, ‘stagflation’ (where economic stagnation combines with high inflation) which the political right took full advantage of. They succeeded in convincing enough of us firstly that we were the only country undergoing this financial turbulence (all the stuff about Dennis Healey’s IMF loan and us being the ‘sick man of europe’) and this was all because the country was being destroyed by powerful unions striking for ridiculous wage rises which seemed high on the surface, but were actually below the high rates of inflation of the time, so in real terms they weren’t ridiculous demands at all, they were actually pay cuts. Meanwhile, Chuck’s city, the undisputed money capital of the world at the time, was going bankrupt.

     I haven’t seen Newcastle United win any Cups, not proper ones anyway. Even the back to back Texaco Trophy wins were just before I started getting interested in the team after I met ‘Supermac’ and we were in the FA Cup final of 1974, which was a few months before my 10th birthday.

141. There’s certainly truth in what you described above an yes the US $ is a reserve currency that is spread out around the world and god only knows how much it is really worth, plus another important fact is the price of a barrel of oil is measured in dollars.

     Of course the dollar being a reserve currency that is so predominant around the world, what with the number of large US corporations switching their headquarters to low corporate tax countries, (ROI @12.5 %) as opposed to the current us corporate tax, as high as (35%) of course that money should not be legally returned to the US, being it was taxed at half the rate, but it’s these kind of shenanigans that make finance so complicated and the use of the dollar is more of a world wide currency owned by a large number of countries, that any revaluation can cause it’s host nations to either suffer with a devaluation or become happy when the dollar increases in value.

     Yes the corporate system, a wonderful invention for the rich, which controls so many peoples lives without them realizing it, the market system, which is more or less controlled by complicated computer systems rather than humans, (and largly responsible for the last major financial crisis) another example of artificial intelligence that is gradually being used to run most things.

     I understand that Sweden is well on its way to-wards becoming a cashless society,
     which in certain countries its but a dream, however think about it, who nowadays pays cash at restaurants , bars, supermarkets, taxi’s etc. and though one may have thousands of Kroner in Stockholm there are any number of places that do not accept cash, possibly more than do.

     Soh ! all of you old geezers out here, it’s in our interest to keep up with the technology snowball effect or fall by the wayside,

142. Was I surprised by to-days nufc win against a decent Leicester side, hmmm ! not really.
     I’m more concerned about losing Benitez, having no idea what Ashley has in mind, however had he listened to my advice years ago, stating the reason the club were never successful during his time as owner, was due to terrible top management, meaning he himself made all the decisions and had idiots like Llambias and Pardew, Joe Kinnear, et all, well everyone knows who, they all came cheap and with good reason.

     And now we have the good fortune to have one of the top managers in Europe, I mean just look what he has accomplished with basically a group of second tier players this season, unbelievable .

     Fact is given a few bob to buy some players, there is no way this club would need to struggle to avoid another relegation, as I believe Benitez would make us a regular top ten side and perhaps win something, if only for the sake of the most loyal fans in the country, who live and die with the fortunes of this club.

     I suppose the best we can hope for is a new owner/s, with deep pockets (hell an opportunity for any mogul) or continue with Ashley, as a top ten side, which with the current tv revenues wouldn’t cost him one thin dime, of course that depends entirely on continuing with Benitez.

     “will he stay or will he go”

143. I’ve always since childhood been an avid moviegoer, I can still recall certain wartime news reels and films from the forties, even in those days they showed two movies a week which I seldom missed.

     And yes i’m aware of Net-Flix and streaming etc. but there is nothing to compare with viewing a film in the theatre itself and at one stage the movie theatre was for adults and TV was for children, now unfortunately things have reversed, in which case decent movies have become as rare as hens teeth.

     Hollywood has never pretended to create art, it’s function was to make money, except in the rare occasion when a director so decided and once made had to pay for themselves or the country was at war and there was a need for propaganda to bolster the public.

     I’m not claiming every country was alike, certainly there were countries that attempted to produce quality movies and for that matter still do.

     However even they produce less and less and for cinemagoers it becomes impossible to find something worth watching anymore and even those who attempt it, usually fail miserably these days.

     I can recall during the early 1960’s Broadway between Columbus circle a west 96th St in Manhattan an area covering around almost forty city blocks, there were at least five so called art houses, not counting the regular cinemas, where one could earn the equivalent of a Phd. in cinema.

     I suppose a lot had to do with the times, especially following the war and the fact television wasn’t exactly that entertaining.

     Unfortunately cinema now ( the Hollywood versions) produces more movies directed to-wards children and in most cases the rest is for children of all ages.

     I regret that though the technology that is used to produce to-days films, although so much better doesn’t necessary mean that the direction, production and acting and of course the story line, have kept pace, too bad really.

144. The two recent defeats of the former what appeared to be in a league of their own Manchester City side, of course managed by that inventor of the tica-taca style of (quick one touch passing combined with team possession and a relentless pursuit of the ball following the loss of possession)

     That is Pep Guardiola, an astute student of those innovators who have added tactical astuteness and technique to the game and introduced his own constantly evolving ideas of how football can be played successfully.

     Certainly not the most radical of innovators or tacticians, but obviously the most successful of to-days group.

     Well following the recent defeats by both the second and third placed sides, meaning Manchester United & Liverpool, his reputation has no doubt been placed in question, not to mention his Ego has probably suffered and perhaps a bit of self doubt may have crept in.

     Certainly we can describe in a tactical senses the reasons for his loss to Liverpool, by that old adage, “a game of two half’s” where Liverpool used basically the same tactical approach as Citeh, applying a tremendous amount of pressure combined with a very high line up front and the same relentless pursuit of any lost possession, where the skills of Salah who’s amazing ball control and positional awareness plus the ability to find the open team-mate, made it impossible for one defender to handle.
     And of course by the end of the first half, Liverpool were out on heir feet and spent the second half, defending a three goal lead, that’s it, so congratulations to Klopp.

     Whereas the game between the two Manchester’s where the so called sports writers, including those commenting on the game, could only describe the game in
     emotional terms, always reliable when one has no idea what happened in a tactical sense.

     My personal take is the Citeh defense are to blame, and possibly the defensive midfield, face it the Man. U. side is made up of many of the most expensive players in Europe , with an equally egotistic but successful manager, which it’s possible that MC took lightly in the second half, while holding a two goal cushion, plus I should add the fact Citeh began with a number of bench players, which may have convinced Pep all was good for the second half.

     Of course Jose is taking the entire credit for the win, along with a salved ego, his subdued and self deprecating manner during a post game interview said it all
     perhaps he should now kiss Pogbas ass, being it was he, with his goal that actually saved his ass.

     As an addendum I would just like to mention the difference between the more defensive MU manager, ( who’s style of play is intensely disliked by an attack oriented MU fan base) MC’s tica taca Guiardiola and NUFC’s Rafa. Benitez,
     which is, I believe Rafa. is an all round better manager than either of the other two, why ?

     Because of how he has taken a motley bunch of second tier players and cheap transfer material to a tenth place and in my opinion safe position in the PL, could either one of the Manchester managers have managed that under the same circumstances ?

     I doubt it and it’s my belief he is a better manager of players, installing a certain amount of self belief, leaving no doubt as to what their role is, and by having an understanding of how his opponents play in general and deploying the necessary tactics to counter that, horses for courses.
     Life is a hell of a lot easier when managing a multi million $ side of footballers against those who lack those resources, no ?

     My fear is a BIG club will now make Rafa. an offer he cant refuse, in which case it would behoove Ashley to sign him to a long term contract, whether he intends to sell or not, being a state of the art stadium, combined with a full house fan base which are two of nufc’s main assets, but with Rafa Benitz managing the price increases substantially.
     Hopefully Ashley understands his !

145. Chuck, this so called ‘cashless society’ will be swipey smartphones recording everything you do and where you do it. Give me cash in hand any day.

     I don’t think we’ve been scoring scored enough goals, but I think you’ve overdone the relegation thing through the season, and other people have as well. We’ve had one or two sticky patches like quite a few other teams, but I’ve never seriously thought we’d get relegated again. On the other hand, I’ve always said that we have a lower mid table squad, and with a top manager getting the best out of them, they should be about where they are now in the middle of the table, hence I don’t think that Rafa has performed any miracles yet either.

     Mourinho didn’t win all those trophies for nothing and one thing he is very good at is turning games around that don’t start too well for him, and Manchester United certainly did that against Manchester City. I think that Mourinho and Guardiola certainly wouldn’t do as well with Newcastle as they do with their current teams, but I do think that they could’ve managed to get us to tenth as well.

     I have the same problem with music that you have with film when it comes to CDs or even worse, downloads. Even old albums have nearly all been ‘remastered’ and over normailised so they sound really loud and horrible with no dynamic range. I still have two turntables to play my vinyl records as they sound much better.

     International finance is so complicated that it is pretty much impossible for humans to make rational decisions as the causes of recent financial crises has shown.

146. Strange the things that happen on line, it’s no surprise and one now accepts once one’ looks at an ad. for say eye- glasses, that you can expect to become inundated with ads for eye-glasses closely afterwards.

     In my case (call me paranoid) it appears that the particular subjects I mention or describe, become the subjects of choice shortly after, only last night “WNBC” tv, the news program which is the direct opposed to “Fox News” which we understand to be very much to the right, politically.

     For those in the UK who don’t understand, the political center in the US is the equivalent of the Tory Party, yes actually that far to the right, of course they look at things a bit differently, considering most European countries to be socialistic and consider the best government being the least government.

     In any case this WNBC program was about personal privacy, in regard to those organizations, {mostly private corporations) which do collect (every scrap) information, both Apple and Microsoft and especially the social networking programs, where many people actually volunteer all kinds of personal information, down to what kind of toothpaste they use.

     Then of course there are the surveys and simple quiz which can also be described as interrogations, yes probably harmless you may say, but they are placed on the internet or smart phone for a purpose.

     The guest or person being interviewed on this particular program was the present head of “Apple’ Tim Cook, who gave the correct answers giving the appearance Apple was on the side of the angels, ( of course I only watched a short segment of the program being it sounded like he “Cook” was whitewashing his company )

     However from what we know about Apple, it’s one of those US corporations that is registered in the ROI avoiding or evading a US corporate tax rate of around 35%, being the rate is 12.5 % in the ROI, which the last time I heard Apple owed the ROI 15 billion in back corporate taxes, to which (I don’t know whether that bill has subsequently been paid or not) the ROI had stated they didn’t have to pay it or some such nonsense, again so much for the honesty of Apple Corp.

     In any case, the recent scandal with Facebook, plus the losses of peoples personal data by Credit companies, Banks , Government Agencies and god knows who else, should be a warning to everyone, be careful with personal information.
     Yes I understand when all private phone calls are recorded and everything you purchase is listed, things you eat, books you buy and just about everything you do is recorded it’s hard, but knowledge is power and it’s inevitable that it’s collection will continue, regardless of any attempts to put controls on it.

     And I suppose that the present head of Facebook whose name sounds like a whole sentence will be grilled not only by a US Congressional comity but will also attend a British enquiry, he is presently preparing himself, with his lawyers and taking public speaking courses and will amount to a hill of beans with a light slap on the wrist, hell the company has I believe a net worth of over three hundred billion $.
     Yes that’s right folks 300 billion $ I cant even write that number it’s so big.

147. Ashley again folks, the big question is will we ever see his ass disappearing in a southward direction, having extorted what is possible from the sale of NUFC, or will he ever agree on an amount that is enough.

     If one looks at he situation, he has sold our best players (a season ago) and generally unloaded those with high salaries (apart from Colback who sat it out collecting a pay day) reduced costs by refusing Benitez requests for transfer money.

     In other words h will never be in a better position to make the most out of a sale than right now.

     As I stated in an earlier post, the fact that the club has more or less survived relegation, plus the fact we still have Benitez, (who’s value as a manager has been raised significantly, because of what he has accomplished this season) all which imo create a positive perspective for any future buyer.

     Plus the very fact that as far as we know talks have resumed with Amanda Stavely, fronting for god only knows who, plus IF there are other serious competitors all the better, being Ashley will get an understanding of just how much the club is worth
     and exactly how much future buyers are willing to pay for it.

     l

148. Chuck, isn’t it MSNBC that is the lily-livered liberal opponent to Fox? Bollocks to ’em all! I’m no fan of fake news, I like stories with good sources or from good sources, but the fact is that the so called ‘Mainstream Media’ (a term I don’t like very much) have been churning out bollocks for years and have had it coming. Undoubtedly though, some of the worst peddlars of ‘fake news’ in history have been Newcastle United correspondents like Lee Ryder and Alan Oliver!

     I think quite alot of people here know that it’s a bit right wing over there, you’ve made it pretty obvious over the years! We love to have the really rabid right wingers like John ‘Yosemite Sam’ Bolton on TV for a good shouting match on TV over here though because it’s a bit like Shillary and Obama on Fox, it gets people angry and getting people angry is good TV. I think that possibly some of the biggest giveaways to people in the UK though are things like the attitude to healthcare, or when you hear people over there describing countries like Sweden, or institutions like the NHS as ‘Communist.’ I was genuinely shocked though when I heard Bernie Sanders openly using the word ‘Socialism’ in a campaign in the US without being lynched on the spot!

     I’ve always thought that Apple is an empire of evil, and that Steve Jobs was Satan, so don’t expect a balanced opinion on them from me! When Hugh told me that he had a Mac laptop I was disgusted with him. Even now I still don’t believe that Steve Jobs is really dead, I just think he’s just gone back to hell for a while to prepare for the coming Apocalypse.

149. Well maybe this Amanda Staveley has been holding back until survival is guaranteed? I don’t know, I don’t look into that stuff like I used to.

     ps, ‘Apple Corps’ is the Beatles’ record label, but Apple Computers stole the name, just like they stole the Graphic User Interface from Xerox and all the rest. If China nicks all the stuff Apple nicked themselves, that would be poetic justice.

150. Worky

     I’m sure you are aware that most people are the product of the general attitudes of where they are brought up, including the particular class they belong to.

     Now if you live in certain parts of the US, say Kentucky, Arkansas, the Texas Panhandle, in other words an east west line running parallel with interstate 40#
     You will have a distinctly different general attitude, from say an equally rural area like northern New England, simply because each area have a different cultural attitude, which is reflected by a difference in local laws, attitudes to-wards both politics and such things as religion racism, you name it.

     However the one thing they have in common is a belief that the USA is the best country in the world, no different from Sweedes, Swiss, Brits etc, being we are all products of countries that tell us that, no different from people of different classes who believe their particular class is better for various reasons.

     The most non contentious of ways to get people to believe whatever you are selling is to repeat the same slogans over and over, Pavlov did it with dancing bears, simply by heating the floors of the bears cage until the poor animal had to lift his feet continually to avoid being burned, while at the same time playing a specific tune, naturally whether the floor became hot or not, the bear came to associate the tune with hot feet and began to dance as it were, most people react to such tings as visual signs, flags, anthems etc. in the same manner, it’s not a difficult process people are quite malleable in general

     And yes the US is isolated from the other continents, even that of South America
     therefor different and subjected too a continual barrage of propaganda, with the word freedom central to everything, other than that they believe that the constitution and it’s amendments are sacrosanct where most everyone think of the US constitution as similar to Moses’ ten commandments .

     Now the second amendment “The right to bear arms”, (no not short sleeved shirts) is sacrosanct , though this being the twenty first century where more of our citizens are killed by firearms than anywhere I can think of in the world, isn’t it perhaps time to consider change, this is not the wild west making the second Amendment totally archaic, but try selling that to indoctrinated populations and politicians who are bought by the gun lobby.

     Steve Jobs projected a somewhat cultish figure and his successor Cook attempts IMO to continue that role, however I have no personal beef with Apple products, believing they may very well be the best of those available, though I think perhaps they may be overpriced and without being thought of as a Luddite I believe this particular technology is dangerous to those who miss-use it, I mean take the social media programs that are available and multiply them with Facebook, we have no idea where this will go and I project a lot of regulation being applied around the world, in the near future, but it’s amusing to hear the ignorance of this particular media coming from elderly politicians during the ongoing hearings where a rather arrogant Zuckerberg stonewalls them with the arrogance that a three hundred billion dollar corporation brings to the table, would love to hear what both Jeremy and Theresa have to say on the matter being I believe he will once again be asked to hearings on personal safety, by a parliamentary committee

     You mention John Bolton, who no one can dispute is too the right of Attila the Hun, the less said about him the better, a real dangerous nut-job. scarey !

151. Again on the why’s and wherefores of how the people from North America think, it’s amazing really how different Canadians are from their cousins in the lower 48,

     Canada has had a similar health service to the NHS for years, it’s too much to describe but basically it is funded via charges in all of the provinces and territory’s, though the standards are very similar, a much more liberal country, certainly without a fixation on guns and in general happy enough with their parliamentary system of government.

     In general hey are well aware of their neighbors to the south, but don’t envy them nor wish to become a part of the lower 48, and certainly some work across the border and return every day, however there is a culpable ignorance in the US concerning most things Canadian, other than it’s somewhere up there in the north and cold and a belief that most Canadians prefer to get their medical treatment in the US, though they will grant you that medication is cheaper in Canada, where many of them (those that are aware) get their prescriptions filled.

     Of course don’t take that description literally it being a tongue in cheek , which has at least some truth to it.

     In which case if that’s what the people in the US know about their closest neighbors, how much can they be expected to know about the rest of he world, or their political systems and social systems, when they have been told otherwise, that everything has a cost and the people of the USA can’t afford to provide a health or social system that prevents people from being homeless and having no medical benefits.

     That’s in the richest country in the world, there is an old adage that anyone who works hard, should be able to provide for themselves. it’s kind of like the adage “hard work never killed anyone” if one thinks about it, it’s obvious where adages like these come from.

     Of course those with the most money are able to influence politicians to provide the most favorable tax laws where the lowest earners subsidize them, god forbid if it were the other way around and the money went to those that need it

     Well how do you do that, In the US there are only two real political parties “tweedle dum” and “tweedle dee” with the whole spectrum of political attitudes included within them, not as in most countries where people are aware of which party by its policies and platforms, which inform the public what they represent.

     Now an interesting situation arose during the last election, apparently the Tea Party
     representing a mixture of folk “small contractors”, “laid off industrial workers’ etc. all of who considered themselves middle class Americans and on the opposite end of the political spectrum. young people and Union workers, those on both sides who should have been voting for the same thing, voted for Both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, the first a real estate mogul with a questionable background in finance and an elected Socialist member of Congress running on the democratic ticket.

     Of course it came as a surprise that none of the regular Republican hopefuls could compete with Trump. who promised to drain the swamp that is Washington, on the other hand the Democratic party joined ranks to dump Bernie Sanders using underhanded methods to deny him in the nomination.

     Well of course out of work industrial workers from the rust belt, elected Trump along with those others of the red states, religious fundamentalists and old time republican conservatives.

     The point is that there are still the remnants of that group who backed Bernie Sanders, who are aware how the two party system works and will no doubt in the next election organize a ticket that will finally represent them, it’s just too bad that they will not be joined by their natural allies, the once proud workers from steel mills and auto-factories of the rust belt , where those jobs lost will never return, those of The Tea Party.

     Who knows perhaps Sander’s will make another run, but I don’t see Trump getting re -elected, by either being opposed and dumped or who knows what else, on the other hand Bernie certainly made an impression with a more Socialistic platform and we now have a much better informed younger voter, who have no problem with that, who in fact understand who and what is in their best interests.