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iknowsitnow

Listed below are comments made by iknowsitnow between Wednesday, 9th July 2008 and Thursday, 24th December 2009.

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Dunces nixing Mayweather-Pacquiao 4:44pm on 24 Dec 2009 Can someone clarify exactly how much blood each fighter will have to give for a sample? If it's a pint, Pacquiao has a point. However, if we're talking about a vial, then you can't blame Maywether.
In respect of the steroid allegations, you have to ask how Pacquiao has managed to progress up the divisions in relative ease? I only ask because who else has managed it?
As for the 'fight of a generation' tag, surely that can only go to a fight in the heavyweight division? Simplistic I know, but to the majority of sports fans outside the game, that's the yardstick.
Woods's only option was to step away 5:52pm on 12 Dec 2009 Iain, is this a joke?
He had a couple of affairs, what's that got to do with golf?
It's got everything to do with him and his wife and no-one else.
Like a lot of sports journos (sometimes I think you're more deluded than the fans) you've got hugely confused about this issue i.e. he's a man first and a sports star second. Just because he's good/brilliant at sport does not make him infallible.
This story is retold again and again.
Stop putting these people on pedestals.
Johnson primed for battle ahead 10:22am on 04 Nov 2009 Whew!
If this was any of the other 3 Nations we simply wouldn't be able to put out a competitive team.
The year after Wales won the 2005 Grand Slam, we lost basically a whole XV due to injuries and guess what happened?
In respect of Jonno's press conference behaviour, what do you expect after reading some of the questions? It must be like talking to a bunch of 5 year olds - some of the questions mentioned simply can't be answered adequately e.g. 'how competitive are you going to be?'.
How Johnson and Co do not add a few expletive-deleteds to their replies is beyond me.
It's as if these journos just want to wind them up deliberately and then that becomes the story - it happened with Mike Tyson yesterday and Roy Keane a few weeks ago.
On a brighter note and despite prejudicial views to the contrary, I'm sure most of us will be hoping for all the European sides to do well over the course of the next month, so best of luck to England, Ireland, Scotland, France and Italy (until the 6th of Feb 2010 that is).
Fore! 7:40pm on 19 Oct 2009 Betsan – I’ll say what you and every other Welsh political journalist is thinking but not saying – Edwina Hart would be a nightmare choice for leader of the Welsh Labour party.
Why? You know all too well.
Like most of us with even half a brain, I’m as suspicious of the Press as anyone.
You often omit to tell the whole truth, are biased towards your paymasters or toe the Establishment line, which is usually a reactionary one.
Let’s face it, it’s often all three.
Most of us have been involved with a news story which is not actually reported ‘as it happens’; license is often taken and the knitting needles come out to embellish the narrative.
But here’s the big ‘but’; at the end of the day, you represent us, the people.
Your job is to inform us and hold the politicians to account on our behalf.
So when a politician ignores you, most of us think that person is also ignoring us.
We expect our politicians to get in the game and take on the counter arguments proposed, often by you, and if they can’t, it makes us think they’re either not good enough or they’ve got something to hide.
History has often shown us there’s a correlation between the two.
Edwina Hart chooses to ignore the press in a way that’s sometimes comical.
She reminds me of the character of Major Major from Catch 22 – if you recall, when he’s in he’s out and when he’s out…well, you get my drift.
But as First Minister, her avoidance of the Press and inability to publicly back up her arguments won’t be funny, it will simply reinforce the view around Wales that the Labour party and this Labour administration is simply too arrogant to listen and reason, that they’ve been in power too long and have become too complacent.
I’ve heard stories about her attitudes – that she has a ‘combative personality’ and is ‘single minded and determined’.
Others might simply call her a bully who doesn’t like it when she can’t get her own way.
Well, the message to Ms Hart is this – we’ve had enough of your type of politician, if we ever appreciated it in the first place. If you are really serious about this job, let’s see you put up the arguments and engage with the Press and the people.
Because it’s not her friends in the Unions she should be persuading, it’s the strangers in the street.
Ferguson revels in classic win 09:21am on 21 Sep 2009 Speaking as a neutral I'd say that, judging by these comments, Utd fans are as worried by developments across the City as Ferguson so obviously is.
'Petulant' is his middle name (his spat with the Beeb is so childish!) and it looks like a lot of Reds have also adopted that moniker. The treatment of Tevez was awful - he slaved for you and dug you out of so many holes in games that were on the edge last season. Yet he's treated like a pariah just for pulling on a blue shirt.
Test clues emerge in Cape Town monsoon 3:41pm on 25 Jun 2009 Bryn,
Re Shane;
"They were accomplished solidly for the most part, although he may not enjoy analysis of his role in the hosts' last-minute try, when he appeared to move inside too early, giving Danwel Demas the space in which to dive into the right corner."
It was Earls who came in. He's done this on at least one other occasion on tour, but can't be blamed because of his unfamiliarity with the defensive structure and his age.
A few other points while I'm here;
1. The Lions should have scored another 5 tries on top of the three in the Test. The Boks looked like scoring no more than the two chances they had.
2. SA have a very limited game plan. I'm sure Pienaar kicked the ball every time he got it bar one when he gave it to a very out of sorts De Villiers. And that was it. The Lions on the other hand, seemed to break through at will.
3. Much has been made of the scrum but it simply wasn't reffed. The law is quite clear on the need to scrumage straight and Mtawarira didn't do so for any of the penalised scrums. Lawrence was a disgrace, something we've unfortunatley come to expect from SH refs.
4. Even if Vickery committed the relevant offences (sorry, what were they again?!), Lawrence did not have to give a penalty on every occasion, as all refs can reset before the warning and even then can go for the free kick depending on the offence. As is often the case with Lawrence, he inconsistenly chose to punish the Lions and not SA.
I watched him for one of the penalties (not releasing at the ruck) and his arm was going up even before the Lion hit the floor!
5. More on Vickery; he and Murray easily got the better of Mtawarira last Autumn, so what's happened since then? Don't tell me he's achieved so much simply by hard work. Other issues at work? Mmm...
6. du Plessis the pantomine villain is such a hard man threatening to hit someone on the floor. What a joke figure.
7. The subs being the cause of SA's demise? It was falling apart before de Villiers took them off and that's the only reason he acted. Watch the tape.
Expect a good Lions win this week, something that really should have happened last week.
Ruthless Lions bare their teeth 11:24am on 04 Jun 2009 Lets put it in perspective

No, I mean the other perspective.
The Gauteng/Golden/Xerox Lions played 7 home games in this years Super 14 and heres the results;

Lions 34 Cheetahs 28
Lions 9 Bulls 16
Lions 25 Brumbies 17
Lions 32 Hurricanes 38
Lions 20 Crusaders 32
Lions 27 Highlanders 22
Lions 33 Waratahs 38

Theres been a lot of talk about them being the 12th best in the league, but as these results testify, they didnt do too badly at home. The Bulls scored 1 try against them at the stadium they both share.
As you can see, no one hammered them. More to the point, they racked up some big scores even when losing e.g. the last game. To be fair to our Lions, the sole try scored against them was the result of players not knowing each other in the defensive structure, something Shaun Edwards will put right soon enough.
Yes, I know the GGX Lions were missing a few key players but come on! Dont tell me they werent totally motivated by the sight of those red jerseys last night?
As well as that, last night our Lions were basically a scratch side that have been playing together for at least a fortnight!
However, even if they lose all the provincial fixtures, its the Test series that counts.
As long as they are building towards the 20th of June I dont really care (OK, Im lying about that last bit)
Premium bonding top priority for Lions 10:40am on 18 May 2009 "With a pre-tour match against Argentina to prepare for, the only time the Lions have played on 'home' soil, there was little opportunity for socialising however."

Bryn, you're wrong here.
They played against a Welsh XV in 1955 (Cardiff), the Barbarians in 1977 (Twickenham for the Jubilee) and 1986 (Cardiff). I went to the last one where the attendance was negligible from my memory. It's the only time I've ever seen the Lions, though hopefully not the last if I can persuade my wife that a fortnight's jaunt in Australia in a couple of years is time and money well spent.
Don't hold your breath though...
Spotting a sociopath 9:01pm on 26 Nov 2008 This comment is not directly related to this blog, more to the accompanying article “PM 'outrage at unspeakable abuse' “

At the end of that piece, we get the following comment;

“Peter Duxbury, director of children's services at Lincolnshire County Council and chairman of the Lincolnshire Safeguarding Children Board, said since the events child protection systems had been improved.”

For me, this is the crux of the issue about social services failings.
For those of you who don’t know (and to cut a long story very short), Safeguarding Children Boards were set up by every local authority to monitor child protection issues within that local authority. It monitors the work of all agencies, but in particular the work of the lead agency, which is the social services Dept. The legislation that created these Boards gave the Boards the option of having independent Chairs, i.e. an expert from outside each attending agency.
Unfortunately, so many of them chose not to take up this option and are chaired, in the majority, by people like Peter Duxbury. I don’t know Peter; he may be a good worker, conscientious and challenging, able to dissociate himself from his day job and really confront all the issues and difficulties inherent in chairing his local Board. Or maybe not.
Can you honestly believe that anyone in his position could effectively analyse and criticise the work of his own Dept in front of his peers and representatives from all the local agencies such as the police, health etc? Yes, you’re right because so many of them don’t. These meetings are simply a backslapping talking shop where no issues or difficulties are ever really confronted, aired or dealt with. Before you ask, I know because I used to sit on one.
All around the country, the same arrangements are made to manage this process. If you don’t believe me, phone your local social services Children’s Director/Director for Children. Ask the secretary who answers, who is the chair of the local Safeguarding Children Board? Unfortunately, in the vast majority of cases, the answer will be that the person supposedly responsible for independently monitoring the quality and rigour of child protection work will inevitably be the person who’s job it is to actually provide those services in the first place.
And so on it goes.
As for Peter’s comment at the end about how things are different now?
Again, a sick joke.
Every public enquiry into the death of children over the years has inevitably been followed by the local Director giving the same glib answer. The worse thing about this is that Peter himself probably believes this statement.
The answer? I don’t know, but what I do know is that until the responsibility for child protection and looked after children is removed from the hands of councils and councillors for whom the two interlinked issues are probably the lowest priority on their list (in my experience, below the bins and dog litter), this situation will not improve and will happen again and again.
Scolari charms to take top billing 09:18am on 09 Jul 2008 The bile from the Man U and Liverpool fans is quite shocking if you're not used to it. It's as if the more successful they are, the more embittered they become. This is a good insightful article, but they can't see past it. You've both got fantastic teams, so why not now get a life?
My grandfather used to despair for the days when good football got applauded by all - the M62 may as well be running through no-man’s land the way these two are at war with themselves and increasingly every other football team approaching their success.
Very, very sad.

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