Messages

Somebody make it make sense.

Someone is, or several are, on the take is the reason.

Please please please Santa, send me an early Christmas present and organise it so that the only candidate standing against frog mouth is Lord Binface. I promise to be a good boy for the rest of the year.

In that circumstance, and everyone voting for Binface with same breakdown as previous; our intergalactic overlord wins.

... and a most welcome win it would be too.

I can't comment on the merits of seating vs terracing in the original plan (though iirc the GAA were opting for all-seater from the beginning?).

Anyhow, by the time the GAA were hoping that Euro2028 soccer would save them (by justifying extra government funding), that could only ever have been all-seater, since that is/was a mandatory UEFA requirement.

While a nice, tidy 10,000 (County-standard) ground would NEVER have qualified as a "regional" stadium to receive government funding from the original Maze money.

They were (all-seater) - which was a big mistake IMO.
Given the good state of the terracing, they could have built a really good (and big) new stand to replace old one, put a new roof over the terracing on far side of ground and called it a day.

~30k capacity, covered standing, covered seating and likely well within budget.


Euro28 should never have been in the conversation. A millstone.

The terraces at Casement Park weren't that old, they were built around 1998, before that there were grass mounds.
They were only 6 years older than Hill 16 and 4 years younger than the Clones hill terrace.

They demolished them because they thought they were building a seated stadium and now they are probably just going to have terrace again.

Exactly. The terracing was in decent shape.


I know volunteering for endless committees etc is a tough gig and a rake of people on the council will be pulling long hours for no thanks, but a lot of the day-to-day of this was handed off to a salaried sub-group to run... and this has really shown up the limitations of the governing structure. Putting two fellas with a background in the civil service, but maybe good gaa men, in charge of a large engineering project has been shown up as misguided at best.

I'd like a 10,000 all-seater with seats completely all the way around.

Plus seats that are not making you squash up like sardines. I'm not that big but I finf the seats in the AG Armagh tight enought.

A nice tidy compact stadium that when 3/4 full would create a great atmosphere. 

I wouldn't.

You can have your seats.

But please don't force that on those that prefer to stand.

How much did he invest and how much is it worth now?

If he's, as you say, not in it for money, what's he in it for?

He's an absentee landlord.

But key point still stands. Celtic are a mess.. Is there any fan of the club who actually think the club is being run well?

- No idea and not going looking

- A question better directed at him. Its not like he's winning popularity contests out of it!

- Yep - as others say later on, stadium a bit of a mess and squad weak. Back in the 90s, Fergus McCann had no money to spend due to the stadium redevelopment, so had to be sensible with it. Now there is a rake of cash in the bank doing nothing. Unless they've some kinda plan for having the club invest that money and "live off the interest" then the end goal certainly isn't clear.

So he's a minority shareholder?

But he must be making money...otherwise he wouldn't be invloved.

Had a quick look.

Reckon the club paid out just over 500k in dividend last year and he lifted about a third of that, or
185k.

Which you might say is big money.

But when he's got probably 120 million quid tied up in the club, its piss poor. A return of 0.15% a year? That is abysmal.


While it might not fit with the popular narrative, he's not there for the money.

The Continuity Traditional Unionist Voice

 


The brains trust would probably go for "The New Traditional Unionist Voice"

Maybe seafoid; but you'd imagine most DUPers will move toward TUV rather than UUP or Alliance.

Whether lone ranger Jim (and his sidekick Timto) have enough party members who can spell their own name correctly in the application forms is another matter.

Ah look lads, all that is needed is 3 good signings up the spine of the team and neither Rangers or Hearts will be able to touch them.

That said... when is the last time 2 good signings were made in one window never mind 3! 

I thought you couldn't just appeal on a whim - you needed to show something incorrect that did, or something new has emerged that would, affect the outcome.

Going back in and shouting louder that its lies won't work. Its not an environment where DUP negotiation tactics will suffice.

We'll be ok this time but trend is only going one way.

Yeah, now's the time to start considering what modifications to make to yer house for next summer.

We'll probably put these over the two Velux we have - they're like a massive radiator at the moment:



(Have a temporary thing over one of them right now, helps a lot - a blackout blind for few quid off Amazon with a bit of duct tape)

Then some kinda pergola to cut down the sun into the patio door in height of summer. Haven't figured that out yet.

"Has anyone dug into the theory that they are spraying us with breathable heavy metals that will essentially make our bodies WiFi ready?!" Jesus wept.

Just whisht and keep taking your iron supplements   

(Is that what the 5G crowd have moved onto?)

Mayo beat an average Meath team reduced to 10 men and suddenly Andy is the best since sliced bread and Mayo have the best forwards in the country.

The fickleness of GAA is insane.

I think if Meath had 5 boys standing along the line and Mayo just got over them, no one would be praising any aspect of it!

Sue a barrister? Be nice to live in that world but the most would be discplinary matter. Under the adversial system its viewed as "fair play".

The Lucy Letby case was particularly awful in this regard.

Well, if the legal system ever wonder why such a low proportion of rape and sexual abuses cases come to court - the courts need to take a good look in the mirror.

Ahh that old nonsense.

No surprise at not taking criticism of the legal system well.


Its hardly an opinion limited to me as well, see here

Attending court can be hugely intimidating for victims of crime. Many will find the experience highly-retraumatising. For rape victims, this is particularly the case.

Special measures are ways to help victims to give their best possible evidence in court. An exceptionally effective one is known as 'Section 28' after the clause in the statute which introduced it.

S28 says that a complainant may have their evidence videoed by the police (instead of making a written statement) which is then served on the defence. The defence then have time to prepare and when they are ready will cross-examine the complainant which is also video recorded. These two videos then become the complainant's evidence for the trial, to be played whenever it takes place.

A huge advantage is that once the recordings are done, the complainant has finished with the proceedings. They can get on with their life and take therapy if they need to. This gets them out of the court queue, saving them perhaps years of anxious waiting. Completing their evidence close to the time of offence also aids memory recall and helps to reduce the distress experienced by some witnesses when giving evidence to a full courtroom at trial.

S28 was piloted long ago and was rolled out nationally for vulnerable complainants from the start of the pandemic. I worked with the Criminal Bar to press for this rollout and the Government response was excellent. However, that limits the use of S28 mainly to child victims. It is good news that the Deputy Prime Minister has resolved to roll it out also for 'intimidated' witnesses which includes adult rape complainants. After its announcement in December, it has since been rolled out to a total of 26 out of approximately 85 Crown Courts in England and Wales. This is excellent and this work must be sped up even further. There are clear views amongst some criminal justice professionals that this should be the default way in which all sexual assault complainants give their evidence. The courts have been using video evidence for almost two decades and S28 is too beneficial for victims not to be used throughout the court system in England and Wales.