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The most staggering thing is that up until his funding was cut this balloon was getting funding for his projects, something in the region of 800k if I remember rightly.

There's something badly wrong with the systems we have in place if we've handed out nearly £1m to an idiot like Frazer.

Och thanks Ziggy, that means a lot to me. 

The thing I can't understand is how you can jail a drunk student for making a stupid racist remark on Twitter but you have the England captain, John Terry, caught on live TV calling a fellow professional a black **** or something to that affect.

The student is jailed in a matter of days but handily enough Terry gets his case put back to the end of a major football competition a few months away, the result of which remains to be seen.

I'm sure there are hundreds/thousands of people bullied and racially abused on Twitter and Facebook every day, does this not set a precedent where every piece of racist abuse online should be met with a custodial sentence?   Seems very OTT to me...

If the ref hadn't have jumped in and gave him that ten seconds to recover he would have been cleaned out. You can't stand with your hands down at that level, it only takes one slap. Long way back now for Dudey.

Maybe slightly off point here but does anyone think that they changed some of the prayers at mass to try and re-brand the church to an extent after all the negative media stories?

Some of the changes are ridiculous and there seems to be a word or two changed here or there for the sake of changing it.  I just don't see the point in the changes and they seemed to start happening after the negative press they received.

There's still always some crater gets it wrong every Sunday:

'The Lord be with you'
'And also with you. Crap, and with you're spirit, sorry Father.'

Load of balls.

Just stop eating biscuits, if that means eating two apples a day then it'll be a lot better than eating six biscuits. Cut out bread altogether as well and just eat more fresh fruit, vegetables, chicken, fish, etc. Eat 3 spuds instead of four and only eat pasta if you intend to exercise four or five hours after it.

Its not rocket science but some small changes and a bit of will power can get you there. Stop buying crisps and biscuits to remove any temptation in the first place usually helps...

Had a great insight into the mind of a United fan earlier on Facebook complaining that the referee has ruined a good FA Cup semi final for the neutral with a bad decision. Deluded outfit.

Was there any digs threw or just handbags? Should make it a bit more interesting anyway! Is it tonight or tomorrow?

Any more details Hardstation? Seen someone mention on Facebook thay it had kicked off...

If people can go on and watch games for free I would doubt many of them would donate much, even if it is there own club.  Sure if you're going to watch a game at your own club and you know the man on the gate, a wink and nod gets you in!  They'll hardly pay 2 or 3 pound from behind their screen!

You may be better with a monthly subscription, fiver a month or fifty quid for the year or something like that - you'd be guaranteed some sort of fee after signups anyway!

I could never fully understand the tourism or great attraction to a boat that sank on it's maiden voyage.  Surely that would go down as a failure and not be anything to be proud of really.

In the future it would be similar if Ireland based their whole tourism industry on the Celtic Tiger collapse.  We could bus tourists around the ghost estates and show them where it all went wrong...Hooray!

Take another ten points off...

I think this debate was had on Radio Ulster in the not too distant past where we had a large portion of the Unionist/Loyalist community on complaining that there wasn't one mention of the 12th of July celebrations or the Orange Order events held throughout the summer.

One lady even came on to denounce everything Sinn Fein and suggest that they were 'taking over' up there on the hill and that it was about time somebody put a stop to them ruining their culture and traditions.

Then the tourist board came on and said that inclusion in the advert was based upon applications received from certain sectors and industries that had been received beforehand.  It turns out the Orange Order hadn't applied and therefore wasn't included - any previous caller had miraculously disappeared and couldn't be contacted, bigot and politician alike...

I'm guessing the GAA didn't apply either and therefore wasn't included. 

On reflection, the debate on Radio Ulster would have been red hot if there had have been a few snippets of GAA action and Orangefest had been 'overlooked' or so the callers seemed to think!?!

Perhaps we weren't mentioning the correct benefits scheme - DLA, ESA, etc.  I don't pretend to be an expert on the situation but any point I was trying to make earlier in the thread was as simple as this:

Mr A worked for ten years, paying his taxes, national insurance, etc.  Mr A has recently become unemployed but is actively seeking another job.  Mr A now receives benefits, JSA I presume, to the tune of about £60-70 per week.  If Mr A has a family this may be increased, I'm not sure.  Let's pretend he has no family and it stays at the above total.

Moving on to Mr B.  Mr B perhaps worked a while ago but hasn't worked for lets say ten years.  Mr B is an alcoholic, and lets pretend he has no children so we can make the comparison with Mr A.  Mr B gets perhaps 3-4 times (a rough estimate) the amount of money Mr A gets and may also get his rent paid, heating allowance, etc. 

Yes Mr B is an alcoholic and yes alcoholism is a disease, but how does this qualify Mr B any more than Mr A to receive a substantial amount more in his benefits package each week.  Surely Mr A who has contributed for X number of years to the system through tax and national insurance contributions deserves to be treated better than someone who has contributed nothing or very little?  How does this extra money help him to beat his alcoholism?  Surely it encourages it by giving him access to more money than usual to buy more alcohol and therefore makes his problems worse. 

If alcoholics got the same benefits package as your average Joe Bloggs there would be a lot less registered alcoholics due to the fact that there would be no financial benefits to being an alcoholic.  You do not defeat a disease by giving people who suffer from it access to the very thing that causes it.  Give them the same amount of benefits and access to people or programs that can help them.

The heavyweight division really is in dire straights.  Two big useless c***ts who just throw stupid big slaps.  Fair enough if they connect they would do damage but it's pathetic boxing to watch.  Mike Tyson or any other good heavyweight would have had either of these mugs for breakfast.