I am at a point in my life where my family is small enough that I still have a degree of independance and the ability to create savings (with a bit of budgeting of course)
I have always been touched by the culture and people of Japan, having chosen Studio Ghibli as the focus of my media studies course work, Castle in the Sky being the first film I remember watching as a young lad.
So as you will have no doubt guessed, I want to go to Japan, but not so much as a blatant holiday, but more as a journey of discovery. The issues are, I do not speak Japanese, I am very poor at booking an itinerary/accomodation, and more selfishly, i want to go on my own without the lady half because - well - it's my life defining holiday (if that makes sense) - If i am take a back by it then a perma move here would become the new life goal.
So I am apprealing particularly to those who have much experience traveling/living in Japan and Asia- what is seem as reasonable pricing for accomodation and flight, How easy is it to survive with minimal Japanese language skills, and just how amazing is it there
When Milne comes out with a 15 point plan or whatever the gimmick from the top, it is usually met by a high degree of mockery (and rightly so) from the fans.
Youth development apparently was a big push in our latest gimmick from the MD - and landing young players to help build a squad. Now I do need to say there will be a degree of speculation that follows; however I think it is reasonable speculation.
If you ask me Huws is a player we need at ITFC to be the poster boy for this young energised 72 slide PowerPoint presentation which the brass revealed last season or so. He is young, he is good, and he by far and large showed a willingness and desire to be here.
Much was said about us not paying all his wages, which suggests town has some rigid wage policy in place regarding age/squad status - however Huws was one of the better parts of last season, and for my money should have been snapped up straight away.
Why have we not? Speculation states we are trying to nickle and dime him into a contract - which is par for the course being associated with town now - however I wonder if we are trying to sign him on wages of a youth player, wages of a starting 11 player, or somewhere in between?
I am not suggesting for a second town should break their transfer ceiling willy nilly - as that will likely not end well in the long run, but if we are ambitious then for a special player surely a degree of leniency needs to be in play; especially if A- The quality of the player is prove n for us and B- His potential to improve is there; I would say Huws is certainly both.
So now other teams are sniffing around Huws, and sceptical me believes will sign him under us- why are we even dithering? If we succeed or fail to sign Huws this summer will be the best clue on just how ambitious town are, and just how much rollox Milne and the Puppet master expect us to swallow
Surely failure to sign can only mean one of two things, he became really big for his boots and demanded silly sums, or more likely we were too concerned trying to get him on a clearance label contract while another teams were willing to pay him a more reasonable wage.
So if you ask me, Huws will be the deciding factor on whether or not Evans and Milne are actually talking shyte, or genuinely have a plan.
Although it rarely matters as the results are set, why are there always a small number, or in this case one, area who just doesn't get the results tallied in a timely way? I mean, are they having coffee and cakes after counting every 100 votes in Kensington, can they not be arsed? Did someone put every other result upside down and back to front as a bit of a joke?
In the past couple of elections we've seen Scotland go from a significanly Labour supporting area, to the SNP, and low and behold something I would never have thought to see was that amount of seats turning blue
I realise there was a bitter falling out between Labour and Scotland, so am I to assume that Scotland was merely trying to vote tactically to keep labour out, or are they genuinely growing Tory support?
Ipswich has been "Gummer World" for a very long time, and I have to admit- I am very pleased this is changing as personally I have sent Gummer many letters over the last few years, very polite letters, but asking for clarification on certain issues I feel are being left undone in key areas of our town (The baron wasteland near The Mill, several building projects which are not being worked on because of contractors going broke, the fact you cant get a nice house in certain areas of the dock with modern Internet capabilities)
All my letters were fact finding letters rather than "Do This, Do That" rants. I never once got a reply back from Hummer's office, which was an underlying reason why I went from a Tory Supporter to a Labour Supporter.
Now, it will remain to be seen whether the new beast is any better, but I really cant help but think a change in political representation in Ipswich is something we've needed for a very long time.
I would certainly be very interested to hear some of your thoughts regarding the local government past and future.
I don't eat a whole lot of fast food, infact it is a 2 or 3 times a year thing at most - but tonight I really fancy a Donner Kebab- and im stone sober...
Would I bring about the end of days by getting a donner kebab without having a drop of alcohol, or should I stick to something much safer and acceptable like a Burger- This is one of the toughest decisions I have had to make in a very long time.
I am a huge fan of Southgate as England manager- Even if he takes some time to get results, he is already mentally seeming to handle the job much better than previous managers - The following quote from a recent article springs to mind:
"Southgate added it was "impossible to say" whether Manchester United striker Rooney, who has scored 53 goals in 119 international appearances, would play for England again and that "form will dictate" his inclusion."
He is being blunt about players needing to be in form for their clubs essentially, and it is nice to see a head coach actually dictating a player's future international involvement; and not the players themselves "I will be here until this world cup, or that euro championship"
Now the true test will be if Southgate gets to a major tournament and go with a fresh in form team, or if he will say rollocks to helping us qualify- time to bring the Old Boys Club in.
As I'm sure a few are aware of already last week or so Virgin Media had a lengthy 4 day outage in the area which in itself is very poor however their customer service was abysmal in this so I decided as the other network is in my area to go with a 78mb provider (virgin boast up to 300 but that would rarely be seen unless your website or service is hosted locally)
Needless to say the front runners on the other super fast network are EE, John Lewis, Sky, BT and Plusnet
Plusnet are who I think I'm going with as they are pretty on the button with service and support although o do recall when on adsl they flagged a lot at peak times.
Are there any particular ups and downs or testimonials peope have
Reliability is more important than speed in my case as I have to do large data transfers at night for work but the speed does need to be better than standard broadband
I think at this point wether we like it or not it's a certainty that he will be. Gotta let go of last season and hope lessons are learnt from more than just MM, and try to look forward to next season - If we keep dwelling on the bad times, and baying for blood, we are as good as dinosaurs to.
Living in a flat has many challenges, and to keep this short, lets assume the police are staffed enough to act on the following.
Make too much noise, the police will be called
So I have a neighbour who cooks at 1130pm at night. Okay, nice smelling stuff is pleasant, but we are talking burnt eggs and off cheese, plus add the stench of burning- its basically like burnt birdseye meaty discs every night since the new tennant move in.
Honestly i think that smell is more potent senses of the lot of em, especially when something is nasty - but does the law cover smell like it does Sound?
Yes obviously if there was the smell of carrion they would be over in a flash im sure- but i really am at a loss of how to tell my neighbour his cooking is sh*t and 11:30pm is not a great time for it.
Any Advice? J2Blue how do your neighbours approach you when you get out the frying pan?
I have to say it is getting a bit silly now. I am in the camp of those who are not going to be at FPR next year, but I still respect the optimism of those who are.
Bickering over the fact of how you are a better fan and person for chosing to do one thing of the other however is very poor form. While I like to think some times me not renewing is a form of voting with my feet, I do remain somewhat unconivinced the club really take action on it. My decision not to renew is that it is just far to expensive to justify being utterly disapointed week in week out, not because im being an activist.
We're in this sh*tstorm together, slam the club dont dont slam each other.
However, surely it would be clear to me that if a massive rebuilding is going to happen, a change of Manager is needed to go along with that? The problem we have now is ***IF*** Mick gets to rebuild and gets a decent team together, we finish in and around the playoffs, and then he goes at the end of his contract, he has put a team together which the next manager may not be able to work with so well.
Problem being is if ME decides to invest in significant squad building this year, he's not likely going to repeat it next year- and with a new manager unable to invest in his team; the cycle continues.
The club has played a very very poor hand with the fans this year, one of the worst I've ever seen them play in my life time - so in my mind only three options make a lick of sense:
1. They need to invest in Mick, extend his contract and financially invest in the squad so he has a few years with the money he never had to really make a difference and not plug the gaps.
2. They need let Mick run out his contract and really scout good managers who can work with you at this level, and hope we can grind another year of so/so success
and the popular vote I'm sure
3. Cut their losses with Mick, get a new manager in sooner rather than later, invest in him with plenty of time to get his support staff and scouting underway before the season starts.
But again, Investing in the squad with a manager who looks all but gone at the end of his contract has to be the stupidest thing they could do; and looks most likely to do.
Recently the whole marketing of amazon's "You get it on prime, so you may as well use it" suckered me in. I stepped down from Spotify, to get Amazon Music for £7.99 (in addition to the prime cost) and also cancelled my Netflix sub for Amazon video (the missus will be reversing this decision in June when Orange is the new black comes out)
All in all there are a few issues I have with it, Spotify uses an API, Netflix is more straight forward, but I'm getting there.
It took me a while to get onto Amazon Original shows, as I have some weird idea it will be low budget crap. However... I dipped my toes in the water with Bosch... I love it, it isn't over the top and actually highlights the ramifications of police actions after the fact, other than Guy shot bad guy- hooray- we move on.
What other shows on prime would you recommend? American Gods will happen, but I will wait for the first season to be out in it's fullness before I start.
I heard "Man in the High Castle" is supposedly good, and am well aware of Vikings.
What other amazon exclusives have come out that have pleasantly supervised you, and what should one avoid.
I appreciate this might be a far out opinion, thought it is one I think every time I see the loan argument pop up. In modern football as terrible as things have become, it seems that the big clubs like to gobble up as much talent and potential talent as they can leaving a limited selection of players with superstar potential for the rest of the leagues.
My main point here is that given the change in outlay as above, are loans really these throw away 'pointless' signings which guts the continuity of the club, or are they simply just season long transfers - where by the destination of the players is well known in advance.
The Tom Lawrence Player's Player of the Year award certainly suggests the players see the lad as much as a true blue as they would anyone else, so on that note I personally don't see loans as gap fillers under the new loan rules.
That said I think the loan system is massively flawed. I believe there should be a ban on loan fees, as the benefit of the parent club is the development of one of their potential stars via competitive footy- something they can not offer the player themselves. I also think there should be a cap based on a league average which a club is expect to contribute toward the players wages.
Given the need to develop grass roots I have always thought that clubs should compile a short list of players they want getting game time including lowest acceptable competition for the player, and then submit the lists a centralised FA youth panel which then offers the information to the clubs. Once this is done the parent clubs can then see who wants their players and then indicate which destination they prefer for the player.
It may seem a bit extreme, but for all the flaws American sports have, their general excellence of youth development is to be admired, something that the leagues themselves are heavily involved in.
In conclusion I feel loans are not a bad thing at all, but the system needs some big improvements where by the parent clubs should receive no financial profit from any loan dealings.
Forgive me for posting something about 5 months late here, however I couldn't figure out in my head the answer to this riddle today-
I appreciate this topic was covered when the "Pump and Grind" business went in at #1 Great Colman Street, and I recall my comment was it looked like it ran out of money before it opened and had to open before it was ready, and looking in the place as I walked past today, i could see the same water damage never got fixed, and the substandard paint work on the exterior never got finished - So the fact it closed is not where the mystery lies.
However; That, and the place round the corner which has been a Diner have both been hotspots of high turn over Tennant/owners over the year. In my head this is a prime location for night and day life - It's near the buses, and the 66 picks up from it's doors, it is close to most of the town's taxi ranks, and it is right near the main shopping street (although it barely qualifies as that any more)
So why in a world and time of "Location Location Location" does it seem that this area can not sustain profitable businesses, The nightclub, the corner building and the big ex diner now estate agent (I think that is what it is) In my mind this would be a prime spot to run a business - unless its the age old issue in Ipswich where very high rent is charged which seems to run businesses out for newer more lucrative suitors once the property values climb.
With Lucan's comments on J2Blue's Salted Caramel post as well as some really good (and bad) foody posts and replies over the years, I have the impression quite a few of us fancy ourselves in the kitchen (in more ways than one im sure)
It has me curious, does anyone have any recipes they absolutely love and claim as their crowning achievement in the Kitchen? I'd love to find out more as I get the feeling a lot of us on here are foodies deep down
Despite initial concerns about some of Mick's signings over the winter, for the most part they didn't do too bad. Seems as we have hit decent form lately (I can hardly count Rotherham as that never would have been a full starting 11 if something was still to play for), the possibility of landing Huws, and some strengthening, McGoldrick and Sears coming back into form - We might not do too bad...
Or am I smacked up off me head on Salted Caramels and being too optimistic
