Happy Face

I apologise, I have black outs whenever the subject of Obertan comes up, he sends me into a frothing rage, so shite is he. I honestly think he would be more suited to women's football. Hopefully if he reads a Newcastle forum it'll be N-O where the 12 year old half-wits will wank themselves silly every time he does a stepover. I've said he's shite on here. It's the collective groans 3 minutes into a game that do him (and us) no favours.

There's broken Britain. Bankers and dole scroungers are exactly the same. They are out for number one and claim no differently. I don't expect either of them to self regulate. Elected officials and Civil servants are the only people that deserve any abuse for allowing the situation we're currently in....whether you want to blame them for excessive benefits (in which case you'd be wrong) or over-relaxed regulation (in which case you'd be right).

Haha you got shin pads for christmas? Might as well get nuts. I got a Vectrex when i was 5. In your face.

We'll berate some skill into Obertan and Perch if it's the last thing we do.

Got my 5 year old nephew one of these bad boys. I cannit wait for a shot of it.

I brought up Northern Rock to give it a tenuous link for you.

To be fair to her, The Sun probably paid for all the stuff she's bought rather than benefits or credit.

It's funny because the response people should have to this is that credit is far too easily given to the poorest members of society. Rather than blame the powers that be though, people will cheer on their cuts...which force people to use kneecap finances entirely legal 45000% interest rate to get into shit and cause the financial collapse of the west. Huzzah. Speaking of which.... Back to the glory days of Northern Rock “People buying newly built houses will need a deposit of as little as 5 per cent under measures designed by the government to help unstick the housing market.” Financial Times, Nov 22 What’s the story here? We need to go back to the height of the credit boom, four or five years ago. Banks were handing out mortgages without requiring a deposit. In the case of the most brilliantly managed banks, for example Northern Rock and HBOS, mortgages were offered with loan-to-value ratios of 125 per cent, in effect allowing house buyers to go deep into negative equity the day they collected the keys. Was that a problem? Yes, it was. Somebody in negative equity may be unable to move house without defaulting on the mortgage loan, which makes them a risky proposition for the bank, as well as trapping them in other ways – making it hard to move to find new work, for example. There’s also a fair case to be made that loose lending standards in the UK helped drive house prices up to absurd levels. If people tend to get carried away when they see rising house prices, which seems plausible enough, then their spending will be limited only by the giddy enthusiasm of the banks. Oh. Sounds bad. It’s good for elderly people who happen to move to smaller houses at just the right moment, and it’s good for presenters and producers of vacuous home-improvement pornography. But it’s bad news for anybody who owns less house than they’d ideally like – which is most of us, given how pokey British houses are – and it’s also bad news for the stability of the financial system. The crisis was triggered by similar loans in the US, not in the UK, but that doesn’t make overstretched UK loans a good idea. Right. So what’s the problem that the prime minister is trying to solve? It’s very simple: this unsavoury state of affairs stopped a few years ago, and David Cameron would like to kick-start it again. I’m sorry, I must have misheard you. That’s what I thought when I heard the policy being announced, but I am afraid it’s true. Such mortgages only made sense – for both bank and homebuyer – if you had (false) confidence that house prices would continue to rise forever. The government has noticed that banks have lost this confidence and now insist on substantial deposits as a cushion in case house prices fall. So it plans to throw the taxpayer guarantee in there – on top of the deposit cushion, the taxpayer is a kind of airbag. If prices fall and the buyer defaults on the loan, the taxpayer will absorb some of the impact. On what planet is this a good idea? Let’s be fair: more house building would be an excellent plan. It’s a contribution to the long-term wealth of the country; unlike manufacturing it cannot be offshored and provides plenty of employment, even from the young and the unskilled. And there aren’t nearly enough houses, which is another reason why prices are so high – relative to earnings they are still roughly at the level at the peak of the catastrophic late-1980s housing bubble. Private companies are building about 100,000 homes a year – low levels not seen since the 1920s. A few hundred thousand more houses each year at a time when prices are high and unemployment is also high would kill several birds with one stone. But? But this is surely the stupidest imaginable way to stimulate house building. There are three fundamental problems: prices look high, so banks don’t wish to be exposed to their likely fall by lending either to developers or to house buyers; the banking system itself is fragile, exacerbating the sense of caution; and above all, planning permission is hard to come by, so if you have the money to build a house the local council probably won’t let you. The government’s response is to try to prop up prices with the following proposition: lend money to people who should not be buying such expensive houses, and if things turn sour you can repossess the home, sell it at a loss and the taxpayer will see you right. What does the opposition think of this plan? They think it should be much bigger. Not nearly enough taxpayers’ money has been thrown into it, apparently. Without a more determined effort we’ll never get back to the aggressive lending of the glory days of Northern Rock. What happened to Northern Rock again? Let’s just say it’s gone to a better place. Utter fucking lunacy. Business goes on raking in the cash.

Official Club Partner?

Personally I think Drogba & Mata were to blame. Either way, I only hope they're concentrating on apportioning blame as accurately on the training pitch. I'd hate whoever was responsible to put it out of their mind and move on, in the confidence they won't face players of that quality every week.

Which is linked to the point I was making in the Obertan thread. Carroll can score goals. He should have a better career than the likes of Crouch, Ameobi or Heskey. His confidence is being destroyed by the start he's had and the contempt it spawns in the stands. At least there's the excuse of the £35m price tag heightening expectation. Obertan cost half as much as Craig Gardner. I suppose he was up there with our biggest signings of the summer like...so the disappointment is comparable.

and...despite getting raped by Sturridge repeatedly, I'm not sure you could blame RTaylor for any of the goals conceded.

when you said santon seems to be as welcome as aids and compared him to xisco I assumed you had wanted him in sooner. I don't see why he would displace anyone in a back four that had only conceded 12. The fact no team had conceded less made that the best defence in the league.

When would you have brought Santon in exactly? From the start, changing the best back 4 in the league? To replace Coloccini, moving Simpson into the middle so half the defence are forced into unfamiliar positions? At one nil down, chasing the game and needing attacking options? How would that fit your pro-active requirements?

All That Heaven Allows 50s melodrama classic. Bit too wifey and a bit too dated for me. Even as wifey films go, I far preferred the modern take of Far From Heaven. Through A Glass Darkly 60's Bergman classic. She's a proper dort. Made 6 years after the one above, it's light years ahead. Source Code It's nae Inception, plot holes all over the shop, but it's canny good fun.

Barfa's only performed in 2 out of his 11 appearances and all the wise heads on here will lambast you if you suggest more should be forthcoming from him. Not saying Obertan is any good or Ben Arfa is shite, but the gulf between the 2 in terms of patience from fans is interesting to note. Especially when Barfa is the older, much more experienced of the 2. [tin hat on]

No We Need To Talk About Kevin? Or Senna? Or Hugo? Or Tinker Tailor? Not seen any of them myself like, but seem to have got raves.

Only seen one of those. The Kings Speech. As I said in the film thread, the fact that it beat Inception, Toy Story 3, Social Network and True Grit to loads of awards will look like Forrest Gump beating Pulp Fiction and The Shawshank Redemption...or Driving Miss Daisy beating Do The Right Thing...an absolute aberration.

You talk through your arse. Nowt else to say to that. We lost 3-0 at home and only Tim Krul prevented it from becoming a cricket score. And you do not find anything remotely worth critizising? Something went wrong, obviously. I thought Sammy looked out of his depth, loven was pants as usual save the odd pass, Raylor at left back is becoming increasingly hard to defend, why is Santon not given playing time? I also thought we lost a bit of momentum when HBA came off, didnt understand that either.. We are not a winning team anymore, time to shake things up a little? Think It's Ashley you wanna blame here, not Pardew. Whatever criticism you level at Ryan Taylor, he was part of the best defense in the league before Saturday. Pardew would be daft to unbalance that if not forced to by injury. Pleases me to have a manager who has a definite idea where he wants players to play, and won't deviate from it unless absolutley forced to. 2 men fighting for every position, everyone knows their place, and everyone works to make the place their own. The back-up we have is pretty poor, especially at left back, everyone knows it's our weakest position.... Krul/Harper Simpson/Santon Colo/Perch Taylor/Williamson RTaylor/??? Guti/Marveaux Cabaye/Gosling Tiote/Guthrie Obertan/Sameobi Ba/Ameobi Ben Arfa/Best

12:45's should be banned for crimes against atmosphere. Gary speed tributes aside, It was dire.

I literally have no idea where that criticism could possibly come from. I've had a pop at Pardoo in the past when I think he's lacked a pro-active game-changing attitude. Can't possibly say that here when he was making changes by half time to ensure we held the ball up top more...and had used all our subs with 20 minutes to go, which left us exposed ultimately and gave them a wider margin than they deserved.

This. We've played Man C, Man U and Chelsea in the last three games and he's contributed in two of the three. And he's not fit. This is one player we really need to stick with untill he is fully recovered psychologically and phsically. It's been a while since we've had such a pure footballer. And despite the lengthy lay off he looks tons more dangerous than Obertan, Lovelyhands or Sammy. That subbing decision really had me wondering........ never saw him give us any quality like lova's gorgeous through ball for the Luiz red card foul or like Sammy's volley that got cleared off the line. Course he deserves time and has shown great quality, just saying its sporadically, and it does him no favours to build him up, even on his off days. If two moments in the whole game from those two are enough for you then HBA's performance against City ought to merit a a starting position for a year. Like others have said, we needed a moment of brilliance in that game, and it wasn't going to come from Lovelyhands. Got nothing against the man, just think the odd great pass in a game is just about what he can give us now. Not sure why we needed that much more brilliance than we had. We hit the woodwork 62 times, not to mention the saves and goalline clearances. Seems to me we just needed that bit of the luck we've ridden superbly up until this twot of a referee decided to balance it out. Ben Arfa is clearly our most gifted player. Daft arguing comparisons with Lova or Sammy...or Best whose position he's taken, all I'm saying is it's frustrating I go to SJP excited every time he's playing, but i leave frustrated by him, having only youtube clips of away day exploits to masturbate to.

Von Trier wins best film in Berlin. He sent the wife to collect after his vow of silence "I should say from Lars that he has no statement for you. But he did ask that I should wave to you in a kind and gentle way,"

This. We've played Man C, Man U and Chelsea in the last three games and he's contributed in two of the three. And he's not fit. This is one player we really need to stick with untill he is fully recovered psychologically and phsically. It's been a while since we've had such a pure footballer. And despite the lengthy lay off he looks tons more dangerous than Obertan, Lovelyhands or Sammy. That subbing decision really had me wondering........ never saw him give us any quality like lova's gorgeous through ball for the Luiz red card foul or like Sammy's volley that got cleared off the line. Course he deserves time and has shown great quality, just saying its sporadically, and it does him no favours to build him up, even on his off days.