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The Rose-Tinted Menagerie

Listed below are comments made by The Rose-Tinted Menagerie between Friday, 26th September 2008 and Wednesday, 17th December 2008.

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Ince demise highlights flawed thinking 12:34pm on 17 Dec 2008 The problem with football, Mr Bose, is that for every winner there's a loser.

If all 20 Prem League Clubs were each managed by one of the 'best' 20 managers in the world, there would still be 6 or 7 clubs in the bottom 6 or 7 most of whom would finish the season with a change of manager.

That's football ........
A twist in the expat tale. 9:56pm on 06 Dec 2008 We, UK he and French she, eke out a simple living in France, or rather we did.

In Autumn 2007, we were concerned to learn that our lifetime savings (from working in the UK) in a UK Building Society were just £20,000 in excess of the guaranteed limit. To be honest we'd never even contemplated that our savings could ever be at risk in a Bank or Building Society.

What should we do we asked ourselves ? We considered moving the excess into a shoebox under the bed, but what fools we'd be if the unthinkable happened.

So we put it in another Building Society a/c (Derbyshire Offshore) paying a rate of interest which wouldn't exactly 'make' money but would go someway towards countering price inflation. Safe as houses. And..........the unthinkable did happen.

"But why did you put your money offshore on the Isle of Man ?" a few friends have asked.
Simply because living outside the UK we were not able to open a new account in the UK.
"Did you pay tax ?" they asked. No we said. Our account wasn't due to pay any interest until Dec 2008, and then we'd have to pay UK tax on it like everybody else.

We want the money and the accrued interest back. Every penny of it.

We are so worried, and embarrassed that we will have to contemplate return to the UK and for the first time in our lives and see out our remaining days on benefits as we both have sufficient years worked in the UK to get full UK state pensions, and are too old to start again.

Thank you BBC.
Beckham gambling in Milan 07:41am on 25 Oct 2008 Beckham on the BBC TV news.
Beckham on the online News.
Beckham on the online Sports News.
Blogs about Beckham.

Why, please, are the BBC so obsessed about Beckham, and why do they think we are equally interested ?
Beckham gambling in Milan 8:29pm on 22 Oct 2008 For me this guest / celebrity loan thing (eg Beckham, Larsson) is a farce and misuse of what may once have been a well-intentioned last resort option for clubs.

Unfair on other clubs in the same league and competitions.

Re write the rules !

Mr Blatter - what do you think ?
Spend, spend, spend? 11:04am on 16 Oct 2008 The following may assist those not claiming to be experts;

Once upon a time in a place overrun with monkeys, a man appeared and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10 each. The villagers, seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest, and started catching them.

The man bought thousands at $10 and as supply started to diminish, they became harder to catch, so the villagers stopped their effort.

The man then announced that he would now pay $20 for each one. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again. But soon the supply diminished even further and they were ever harder to catch, so people started going back to their farms and forgot about monkey catching.

The man increased his price to $25 each and the supply of monkeys became so sparse that it was an effort to even see a monkey, much less catch one.

The man now announced that he would buy monkeys for $50! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now buy on his behalf.

While the man was away the assistant told the villagers...'Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has bought. I will sell them to you at $35 each and when the man returns from the city, you can sell them to him for $50 each.'

The villagers rounded up all their savings and bought all the monkeys. They never saw the man nor his assistant again and once again there were monkeys everywhere.

Familiar ?
39th-game could benefit Asian football 6:19pm on 09 Oct 2008 Sadly the most significant English thing about today's Premier League is that matches are played in England.

As the Premier League is fast becoming a circus (and a bubble waiting to be burst) why don't "The Billionaires" of Asia and the Middle East (and there'll be many more of them there than in Europe) simply buy Asian clubs and buy the best footballers in the world and play ALL the matches there ?

At least we might get to watch it on TV and perhaps a few English players might get the chance to play abroard and develop the rounded skills enabling the English International team to advance.
39th game to take back seat - for now 1:19pm on 09 Oct 2008 "39th"game ?

In current climateThe Premier League bubble may have burst before the 39th game is played.

Mark Mywords
The deleveraging vortex 1:11pm on 09 Oct 2008 Kaupthing.

Living abroard I put some savings for retirement into Derbyshire Offshore IOM (when you live abroard and have no UK address you can no longer open a UK BSoc a/c) who sold out to Kaupthing at the end of 2007.

A small saver (not speculator) like me doesn't know the ins and outs, but did Derbyshire Offshore, when selling itself, not have a responsibility to its savers and detailed access to Kaupthing's books ??
Capello will keep England grounded 6:08pm on 08 Oct 2008 " I still feel Owen should have been in that squad and he should be in this one."

Well let's hope you are wrong again.

[Have you thought of offering a pie to anybody who can wade through all of your 'article' ??]
Time for Everton to deliver 6:06pm on 26 Sep 2008 Mr McNulty,

Are you paid by the written word ?

In summary:

Everton v Liverpool, tomorrow lunchtime. Orrite ?

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