NJS

Sadly all governments, even those who come to power with good intentions, fall foul of the real establishment in this country - the aristocracy, the judiciary, the forces and the senior civil service. To some extent it doesn't matter who's in power as those bodies always get their own way and get away with murder. What this country's history lacks is a proper revolution.

I've never seen anyone that comes close to Given at his best - there were long spells when I was genuinely surprised if he was beaten. I never understood why Bobby seemed to rate Harper as someone who could keep shay out as he did for spells here and there - no comparison imo. I understood why he left but I admit to being wryly amused at how it turned out for him at Man City.

There was a different copper in charge though and they supposedly streamed the arrivals better - I think I read one "ordinary" copper's statement which was changed where he questioned why the previousl bloke had been replaced by someone who'd never been in charge of such a big game before.

Supposedly traffic streams for the direction of arrival/departure iirc.

Its a bad argument to use imo because even if it was true that Liverpool have a bigger fanbase so demand would be higher, it implies that people would turn up ticketless beacuse of that.

Or standing along the half way line because even though people were dying, preventing any bother with the Forest fans was their number one priority.

Funnily enough I suspect that the reason Thatcher has got off quite lightly is that I don't think they have access to cabinet minutes - maybe we'll have to wait for them to be released under the 30 year rule for that.

One of my main complaints about New Labour was that they promised a full public enquiry while in opposition but settled for asking a judge to take another look who because he didn't have the acess of this panel, could do nothing but confirm Taylor which was fair enough as far as it went but not far enough. Straw has a nerve saying the police had been granted an air of impunity by Thatcher when I thought he took the new report (the one he commissioned) far too easily for fear of upsetting the police imo.

When you patent rounded edges somenthings wrong somewhere.

In the context of the times, I would never call them or any other fans angels. I completely accept that games in that era were prone to "boisterous" behaviour even when not full blown bother but I think it perpetuates the non-closure side of things if people keep picking niblets which are undoubtedly contributory factors and inflating them too much. The overriding cause was failure on the part of several authorities - I think the subsequent lies and cover-up in some ways prove that more than the actual eye-witness evidence. I think everyone knows what I think of Scousers but that doesn't detract from a more fundamental camaraderie which HIllsborough engenders in anyone who watched football pre-allseaters - the overwhelming acceptance that it could have been us or anyone else. I think the attitude of "yeah but Scousers were worse" is going a bit too far even in Football grudgery which I'm a fan of in general.

Given the size of the paddock, how many ticketless fans do you think would have been required to push the line from discomfort to disaster? I'd say more than 500 - do you honestly think there were that many or more?

Surely they can identify key "order givers" like the one to take alcohol blood samples from the dead and check for criminal records? Name and shame every copper should be its starting point. Also surprise, surprise the source of the Sun's story was the local Tory MP.

Love the bit about how some piece of shit stole CCTV tapes - but of course can't be identified.

The Thatcher angle on this if they release it will be her very deliberate attempt to demonise fans and make them the enemy. She did the same with the miners. She was very big on polarising people into those she thought shared her so called values and those who should be written off and punished - hence her contempt for the NE and similar areas.

I actually see Shola's ongoing presence in the squad as the perfect indictment of the regime. Canny bloke, abysmal footballer.

Two things - going to Hillsborough in the 80s was always a nightmare thanks to the SYMM (not really the clubs fault I know) but mainly because when they got promoted in 84 under Wilkinson they were the epitome of football murdering bastards - they had a horrible offside trap which absolutely destroyed us when they beat us at our place. On a related but non-hatred note when we played Millwall in 93 we were stopping in Clapham at the time as one of the lads was seeing a lass who lived there and it was the day of the Arsenal Sheff Wed LC final - we made the mistake of heading for what was our usual haunt of Camden only to find it full of Sheff Weds top boys - had a dodgy moment when their "general" sized us up but then decided we weren't worth bothering with and instead we had a good crack on with them - then fucked off back to South London as soon as we had the chance

I would also say that among the masses filed under "every fucker else" I do have a few I have particular grudges against - for example Nottts County. We played them in 91 when we were shite and heading for the third pre-Keegan and they were heading for the first/premier and we played them at SJP around xmas time. Stimson got sent off and this was when I used to sit in the East stand near the seated away fans and there were a few around us that day as they actually brought a goof following. Anyway they were complete pricks about the sending off and really bigging themselves up as if they were a bigger club than us - really pissed me off. I was fucking ecstatic when we played them a couple of years later in the LC when they were on their way back to obscurity and put 7 past the cunts.

Just woke up to this - a bit surprised he won but looking with an outsiders lack of knowledge it seems like a masterstroke appointing Lendl.

I think I've done this before but my hierarchy of hatred goes: Mackems Man U/Liverpool Forest/Sheff Wed/Stevenage/Hereford All London teams Every fucker else.

Just had a moment of self-awareness at my sometime complete idiocy. I'd intended to do absilutely nothing while off work for the next two weeks then just decided 20 minutes ago to go somewhere. Eyed up a couple of trips then had a thought that some places are fussy about impending passport expiry and I thought mine ran out in October. Dug it out and found it ran out at the end of July. Sketch well and truly knackered unless I spend a fortune and waste a day going to Peterborough. Bollocks.

23 minutes from two weeks off - almost happy.

I don't think CT has grasped that investment actually produces returns through tax. He sees it as money pissed away rather than seed sown.

There's also the point that it was obvious to anyone with more than two brain cells that weaker countries that embraced austerity (as they did) would spiral downwards - so you can fuck off with your "nobody predicted the eurozone crisis" Tory shite.

I think Ferguson played a decent back four (though Neville was a kid then) with the idea of seeing if they could sneek it but without being too bothered if they lost - I still enjoyed beating them immensely at the time.

Is iPhone development Java or something more exotic? (I know Android is Java)