Matt

Absolutely terrible news. RIP mate.

Phil Craig was the mod on the Newcastle subforum on soccer 24-7, which was canny for a while but swiftly went downhill. The original toontastic.linuxdriven.net came out of that. JawD, Cath and Alreetlike were all on there, must have been about 2001/02.

The fact that they closed it all down shows how miserable the outlook must have been- the administrators are liable for a shortfall incurred in the period following administration. I suspect that most of the stock was still effectively owned by the suppliers, so the only real option was to shut up shop immediately.

Making a proper effort of things after a spectacularly bloaty 2012. No killer regime or miracle cure, just eating less crap and more fruit & veg, cutting down (significantly) on the boozing and getting my arse into gear 4-5 times a week. Not absolutely cutting out on anything, just being sensible with something that is sustainable. Part of that is getting up at a sensible hour and not dicking about online at all hours.

Madrid is immense. Nightlife superb and lots of very bubbly young ladies. Bruges impressed me massively while I'm also a big fan of Valletta, just for its history if nothing else.

Got to go to a wedding in Vienna at the start of June and considering flying to Budapest and getting the train up to Vienna before flying back. Any suggestions? I was thinking about spending 3 nights / 2 full days there.

Don't really go for hard resolutions, as they're too easy to give up if you break them once. Definitely scope for considerably more exercise, less eating shite, less drinking and less dicking about on the internet (like I'm doing now).

We have two goldfish who are nearly 6 now and have lived in a big tank for nearly 3 years. It's a right pain in the arse, but until they both snuff it, they will be tended to. Once they're gone, that tank will be on Gumtree within seconds.

Can't really do the late afternoon / evening, so will give it a miss. Hoping to get up for the Reading game in January so maybe see a few of you then.

Exactly, George O must have been off sick on the day his school introduced the concept of ratios.

Rather than explain things, I'll just assure you that you have no idea what you are on about. Of course, the same can be said for most of the population, which is why as a nation we are easily swayed by political arguments that are plausible on the surface, but fail to stand up to any real scrutiny. That's why we have chaps like Osborne and Balls vying to be leaders of our economy.

Do you remember that Carlsberg advert, 'if carlsberg did banks'? That's what most small businesses want, lots of cheap money, no questions asked, and if it all goes tits up, well never mind, that's life eh. Set up again as Little co (2012) Ltd and everything is tip-top. At least that's what I found when I worked for one and with plenty others. We've had an over-reliance on easy credit, no more so than in high-risk SMEs. What we are lacking is more equity or equity-like funding, which is not something banks would generally be involved in. Anyway, King's point is that there is little capacity to be expanding lending, whether people are asking for it or not.

Merv disagrees. He thinks banks are still overlent. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20540693

So why are you advocating a policy of shunning all that cheap money in favour of grinding people into the dirt?

Rhetoric swallowed good and proper. Rating agencies do not decide at what rate investors will lend to sovereigns, they simply give a view on their credit risk. Ultimately yield is a function of demand and supply and if there aren't many AAAs left then the money has to go to the next best place. What happened when the US lost its AAA ratings? Its rates went LOWER. Because it is such a big issuer there simply wasn't anywhere else to go and it followed the downward pressure of relative safe havens (as seen with negative bund yields) We're in a historic low-rate environment. It's actually the best time for the DMO to issue debt in decades. And don't think that austerity measures are seen as good by investors and spending seen as bad- it's not that simple. That debt has to be repaid some day, which will need productivity and tax revenues to support it- not a moribund zombie economy trying to print its way out of trouble.