soundian

Most bricks-and-mortar shops use offline (or credit) debit transactions, i.e. they don't communicate with the bank at the time of the transaction (except to authorise the PIN I would imagine). This means your card effectively has to guarantee that the bank will pay the retailer, regardless of how much money you actually have. It is, when used in this way, just like a cheque. I think this is where most people fail with debit cards. They (like I did until I used the mighty googletron) think it works like a glorified hole-in-the-wall card. Treat it like a cheque book and you won't go far wrong.

I was trying to find a Liverpool beach-ball that I could send to a good enemy of mine for Christmas. I didn't find any in the official club shop but I did find where they got the inspiration. Junior & Baby-

I'm pretty sure I read they were putting on more than 1 skin this time. Even if they just give us a choice between a light and a dark skin that would be an improvement.

You dream about playing proper league clubs like the Might Barnet. You probably touch yourself at night in anticipation of such an esteemed fixture.

I think if the OF fuck off to England then Scotland's euro co-efficient is going to swiftly drop to the level where representatives of far-east betting syndicates start turning up in Scottish airports clutching brown envelopes stuffed with cash.

I've just seen BBC sport saying the same thing, but contradicting other reports on the same website. I don't believe for one second any EPL side would have voted for only 17 players aged 21 and over in their squad, that's plainly ludicrous.

I think you've got that slightly wrong. Homegrown players have to have been registered to a club in england/wales for 3 years between the ages of 16 and 21, regardless of how old they are now. That means Ryan Giggs qualifies as homegrown. Any number of under-21s can be added to the 25 man squad. It's similar to the Chumps League squad rules iirc.

I agree with all of this. Individual mistakes, one from a player who wouldn't be in the squad if we didn't have a lot of injuries, and several from a waste of space that did nothing but greet about how shit his team-mates were all night, was all the difference. Scotland need to get a tad more discipline as well. Too much boo-hooing at the ref when a decision goes against them. I'm sure refs don't appreciate people shouting abuse and waving their arms about EVERY decision that doesn't go their way.

It was Richard Gough? Bah! I though David Bowie had switched allegiance.

I don't see how changing from group stages to knockout would change the mentality of smaller teams. They'll all just "do a Rangers" ; aim for a 0-0 and hope to nick a goal somewhere in the 180 minutes. Those were some of the most boring european matches I've ever seen. It's not TV, it's the cash generated by it. There's not enough leagues in europe to provide anywhere near the current revenue if you allow only champions into the CL. I like the new 4th round qualification split. With 25% of the champions league teams this season being debutants it's certainly helping the smaller clubs and nations. One thing I'd change though: I noticed all 4 English teams were in pot 1 for the draw. Maybe they shouldn't allow teams from the same country to be in the same pot. That could throw up some cracking groups (e.g. German champs, Spain 2nd, Italy 3rd, England 4th) and give the lesser teams more of a chance of getting through to the knockout stages. As for managers moaning about too many matches. I bet if you were to ask every manager in the world whether they'd prefer to play 0,6 or 13 CL matches this season 100% of them would say 13.

The problem with TV in Britain, from my point of view, is that I can't watch commercial channels without paying for the BBC. Maybe I'd be quite happy paying nothing and have no BBC. Like you though, I don't think I'd like it without the BBC. Maybe I just don't like having no (legal) option.

Although there are a certain amount of benefits someone who is employed can claim, these only top up your earnings to subsistence level. A certain amount of education is usually free FOR THE UNEMPLOYED; usually just enough to get them a low wage job. Someone on a low wage gets nix, nada, zero etc etc. I've spent over 600 re-educating myself in the past year, and there's no frigging jobs in my chosen field at the moment. You starting to get an idea as to why they call it the poverty trap.

Really. Please tell me what these means and methods are. There are millions of people in Britain eagerly awaiting your insight and we're fully prepared for a collective "D'oh!" moment as you explain how stupid we've been to miss something so obvious. (I couldn't find a picture of an award winning rooster to put here so you'll all just have to use your imagination)

If you look at some of the 4th round qualifying matches: Arsenal v Celtic, Debrecen v Levski Sofia, FC Zurich v FK Ventspils etc. you'll see that the weaker teams DO have a better chance of CL footie. They split the 4th round into two pots to give some weaker teams the chance of top flight footie and, more importantly, a good dollop of cash from the TV rights. Looking at the fourth pot in the CL draw, I reckon there's probably a few countries represented there that have never/rarely featured before. that doesn't seem completely counter-productive to me.

This made my day. The only real cuntrag of a customer at my work is a scouser. He was all mouthy about the Everton score during the Man Poo game. Even better, another couple of regulars had spurs to win at 2-1 and correct score at 10-1. Nose. Rub. You can guess the rest.

Fixed that for you. (MSN if you read this soon)

Delboy will be pleased: Chairman resigns

The one main difference between Apple and Microsoft OSs is that Apple OSs can't be (legally) installed on non-apple devices. I imagine that's the difference, and I'm sure Microsoft's lawyers have looked into this very carefully.

bah. It's the lack of screwhead on the earth that's the 6th. D'oh!

Don't you mean the working class, your lordship?

Tin foil is made from aluminium.

30th June is it, a Tuesday is it. That's fighting talk round here. Bah, I normally work Tues night but if there's a chance of a snog from you and Stevie B I'm well up for it. I should be able to wangle (or mangle) the night off so put me on the guestie.

I like the optimism shown with the rider. 3 piece band plus 4 (presumably) crew in a 150 cap venue. Amazing! I hope they got 6 bottles of warm Kaliber and sandwiches that were just starting to curl.

Doing a hallway, you either need to take of the door frames (and trim them) or get some of the flexible filler that's available. it's pretty impossible to fit otherwise using the normal method of just cutting a bit off the bottom of the doorframe if you have a lot and they go in different directions, I've tried. The mouldings are fine for everything else if you don't want to remove skirtings. Radiators are easy, drill a hole, cut a V shape up to the edge of the hole \ ( ) / put the two pieces in and cover them with the wee round radiator things you can buy. Simples. Being a hallway, you might want to make sure you get some hard-wearing stuff as well. Oh yeah, also, glue the mouldings (if you use them) to the skirting board, NOT the laminate. The floor laying guide on the B&Q website was useful to me so check that out. The hardest bits are the last ones where you have to trim lengthwise as well, so lay off the beers until the last bits down. You also might want to consider getting some knee pads.

I found Careers Scotland - For all your career advice needs useful. They gave me a list of local employment agencies and their specialities amongst other things. It might be worth getting in touch with them. There's lots of letting agents round here, looking out my window I can see signs for ELS (ELS - Edinburgh Letting Solutions - Home) and Murray and Currie.ESPC as someone mentioned as well. There are certain areas to steer clear of though, sighthill, niddry and southside are three that spring to mind immediately, unless you're planning on buying a stab-vest.