Next Gen News

10/06/2010 The Liverpool sale â€" live blog

• Liverpool chairman expects £300m deal next week
• Profile: prospective new owner John W Henry
• Timeline: Life under Tom Hicks and George Gillett
• Comment below or email Steve Busfield or on Twitter

2:10 pm: On the subject of the coming together of the "national sports" of the US and England, the BBC has "When baseball meets football". Two great links in that piece:

• Henry and his partners, Werner and Lucchino were declared Best Owners in Baseball by Sports Illustrated in 2009

• Earlier this week the Red Sox owners took out a full page advert apologising for missing out on the play-offs

1.57pm: Back on the Liverpool Red Sox theme, Eddie Smithwick emails:

"I can reliably inform you the First Base bar was baseball themed but has been closed for 3 years. I drive past it on my way home each day. What I can confirm for you is that baseball is played regularly a little further down the road at Maiden Lane sports field throughout the summer. As for Liverpool being renamed the Liverpool Red Sox, you have more chance of Roy Hodgson winning manager of the season...."

1:35 pm: It hasn't yet been suggested that Liverpool might become Liverpool Red Sox, and surely the potential new owners would be foolish to even contemplate it, but an email from John Penton points out:

"Liverpool, and Anfield in particular, is a hotbed of English Baseball. There is a bar, not too far from Anfield , called First Base that is full of baseball memorabilia. Take a look at the English Baseball Association website and, if you look under 'History', you will see there is even a suggestion that Liverpool seamen brought the game to the USA. Baseball is coming home!!!!!!!"

1:31 pm: A very useful Q&A from the Press Association tackles some of the complicated financial questions:

Q. Why are Hicks and Gillett so against the offer?
A. They believe the price of £300million grossly under-values the club - and because they would each take a massive financial hit.
Q. But £300million seems like a lot of money - isn't that far more than they paid for the club in 2007?
A. Yes, they paid £219million, funded entirely by bank loans, but since then the debt has swelled due to interest and other fees to £280million, and they have invested £144.4million into Kop Holdings via a company registered in the Cayman Islands, which was then lent to Liverpool.
Q. What would Hicks and Gillett be left with if the £300million buy-out goes ahead?
A. Around £200million would go towards paying off the Royal Bank of Scotland and Wachovia debts. RBS would be likely to leave around £30million of the debt as a credit facility for the new owners. Only after all the other creditors are paid would any left-over cash go to Hicks and Gillett towards the £144.4million loan they put in.
Q. What about the penalty fees that Hicks and Gillett have built up with RBS?
A. They are about £ 45million but they are certainly subject to legal challenges, too.
Q. So what size of loss are Hicks and Gillett contemplating?
A. A sizeable one, even as much as £100million.

1.14pm:Video interview with Barry Glendenning for sale Liverpool: "They 'Re only interested in huge profits"

12.28pm: To recap the events of the last few hours in the life of Liverpool Football Club:

• The board of Liverpool FC has agreed to sell the club to the US owners of the Boston Red Sox baseball team. In a statement on its website, Liverpool said it had accepted a bid from New England Sports Ventures (NESV), which owns the US baseball team, in defiance of the club's American owners. 9:58 am: The deal with New England Sports Ventures would value Liverpool FC at about £300m.

• However, any deal would be subject to lengthy litigation after the club 'S owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett attempt to dismiss the chairman, Martin Broughton , and two other board members, who were prepared to accept the NESV offer.

• In response, an official statement from the club said the deal had gone through. The club accused the American duo of opposing the offer because the bid would not give them enough profit for their shares.

• In a Q&A on the Liverpool FC website, chairman Broughton says he is confident the deal will go through. But the sale will be subject to a court hearing that the board is acting legally. Broughton said: "Essentially when I took the role they (Hicks and Gillett) gave a couple of written undertakings to Royal Bank of Scotland. Those written undertakings included that I was the only person entitled to change the board and that was written into the articles of the covenants, and also that they would take no action to frustrate any reasonable sale. And I think they flagrantly abused both of those written undertakings."

• More about prospective new owner John W Henry in this profile.

• David Conn explains what might happen next, and the crucial role is played by the Royal Bank of Scotland, who gave Liverpool Oct. 15 deadline to repay debts.

• Timeline of life under Hicks and Gillett

12.31pm: "Liverpool FC sale could take weeks to complete", say lawyers, reports Owen Gibson.

Daniel Liptrott, partner, Eversheds, says:

Maxim usually sell something that would be the owners of assets that must approve the sale of it. However, water has become murky when other stakeholders are involved, as debts to suppliers in a situation of LFC.

When the chairman, Martin Broughton, was brought in at the behest of RBS, the bank â€" owed £237m â€" ensured that the balance of power on the board resided with Broughton, the managing director, Christian Purslow, and the commercial director, Ian Ayre.

They have argued that they have a duty to act in the best interests of the company and the principal lenders, while Gillett and Hicks have so far blocked any sale that does not return a substantial profit on their original investment.

12.20pm: So, Liverpool chairman Martin Broughton clearly thinks that the owners are acting unconstitutionally and that the sale will go through. He also has some words about the potential/likely/possible new owners:

Why, in your opinion, is the New England Sports Ventures Law of the new owner of FC Liverpool?

I think both of them would have been excellent new owners. New England have a lot of experience in developing, investing in and taking Boston Red Sox - as the closest parallel - from being a club with a wonderful history, a wonderful tradition that had lost the winning way, and bringing it back to being a winner. Their commitment to winning is what it's all about there and they've extended it from Boston Red Sox to Nascar and other things, but Red Sox is the main one.

Will the debt burden be removed completely?

To all intents and purposes, yes. All of the acquisition debt that was involved in the current owners acquisition will be removed completely. We'll still have what we call normal working capital debt and there's a facility there for the new stadium which will remain in place, but to all intents and purposes all the major debt that has been causing our problem has been paid off.

Is there a commitment from them to progress the new stadium project?

12.14pm: Liverpool FC's official website now has a Q&A with Liverpool FC Chairman Martin Broughton on the takeover. Here are some key parts of that Q&A:

Can you explain exactly what the situation is right now?

It certainly has been dramatic. The latest position is that we have a sale agreement in place, we've agreed the sale to New England Sports Ventures, that sale is subject to a number of conditions like Premier League approval and other normal conditions. The specific additional condition is that it's subject to confirmation that the Board acted validly in drawing up the sale documents.

Last night fans read a statement on the official website claiming that the owners had sought to remove Christian Purslow and Ian Ayre from the Board. What was the reasoning behind this and were the owners successful?

The court will ultimately decide whether the owners were successful. The reasoning behind it was that the owners felt we were reviewing two bids which they considered undervalued the club and therefore they wished to remove Christian and Ian and replace them with Mack Hicks, who is Tom's son, and Lori McCutcheon, who also works with him.

We don't think it was valid to do it. Essentially when I took the role they gave a couple of written undertakings to Royal Bank of Scotland. Those written undertakings included that I was the only person entitled to change the board and that was written into the articles of the covenants, and also that they would take no action to frustrate any reasonable sale. And I think they flagrantly abused both of those written undertakings.

Just to clarify, what needs to happen now for the sale to be finalised?

The key thing is the court case. We need to go to the court to get a declaratory judgement, which is for the court to declare that we did act validly in completing the sale agreement, and then the buyers can complete the sale. We have to get Premier League approval and I'm certain that's not going to be an issue. There are one or two minor things like that but the key issue is the court, which should meet I would think next week sometime. That is the most likely time, in short order.

Maybe the owners of a block sale of LFC in the New England Sports business?

Well, we have to win a court case. So effectively yes, if they win the court case, they can block the sale. But then we may have one or two other thoughts in mind as well.

Could the sale process be dragged through the courts for months before a resolution is reached?

No, I don't think so. We should get a declaratory judgement I would have thought probably by the end of next week, in short order. There is an appeal process but that is also very fast.

12:09 PM: A lot of debate below the line appears to be about whether Liverpool will/should/might be docked points should they go into administration. PA quotes sources saying that Liverpool will NOT be docked points. But that is unofficial at the moment.

12:03 pm: StreetStories.com, that, say, "Premier online site covering managed futures, hedge funds, commodity trading advisors (CTA) and a large market traders master the last 40 years", has an interesting background on John Henry W ' glory years as a fund manager . In 1992 Henry was Number 6 in the Financial World: Wall Street 100:

Back when John Henry was raising soybeans, he reaped a $75,000 windfall one day by hedging his crop. Although today he ascribes that feat to "pure luck," he was hooked for life on the futures market. By 1981 Henry was managing money full-time, plying six mathematical models he devised to trade everything from currencies to grain futures. Last year, on the strength of long stakes in Japanese bonds and assorted currency wagers, he outshone renowned rivals Paul Jones and Bruce Kovner by posting a 69% gain in his biggest fund, the Financial and Metals Portfolio. At year-end, Henry, 42, was overseeing more than $690 million in assets.

11:54 AM: Reader Alex Gale offers this theory via email:

What if this bid acceptance/refusal is a ruse? Due to all the publicity it is pretty much official that, should the club revert to ownership by RBS, they will sell it at probably much the same price as the bid to the Red Sox chap. This in turn smokes out any other potential interest, god knows where from, most likely Thailand or a Gulf State, even China and they are forced to make a bid before the bank takes ownership. The price goes up and the two yanks come away having at least covered their investment cost…

11.38am: I think it might be worth repeating from a piece elsewhere, David Conn trying to explain what may happen from here:

As for what happens next in this endgame being played by Broughton, Purslow and Ayre against the bank deadline of 15 October, it is still in flux. Hicks and Gillett sought to remove Purslow and Ayre yesterday to prevent the three, as a majority, approving a sale of the club to John W Henry, owner of the Boston Red Sox, or another, unnamed, Asian buyer. Neither, apparently, would have delivered a personal payday to the Americans. The statement said: "This matter is now subject to legal review."

The power, everybody knows, rests with RBS, the collapsed bank now 84% owned by the British taxpayer who bailed it out. Yet the last thing the bank wants is to be in charge of a football club as high-profile, crisis-hit and emotionally volatile as Liverpool. All along, the possibility most pondered has been for RBS to reclaim the club on 15 October, if Hicks and Gillett do not pay up, with a buyer lined up for the bank immediately to sell to.

There are many twists lying in wait before so clinical a solution can be orchestrated, especially with the club's three directors having decided to make no secret of their opposition to Hicks and Gillett.

11.34am: Interestingly, the Liverpool Echo's version of this story states: "Liverpool FC sold to New England Sports Ventures"

It is not until the last paragraph of the story adds: "The statement also said the sale conditional on the approval of the Premier League, as well as dispute resolution conference room and other issues,".

11.26am: Checking the comments below the line, I thought this was interesting post from New-York reader therentedhat:

Henry's a good owner, but he has changed Fenway to help it make more money for the team, while not building a new stadium, primarily because Red Sox fans won't allow it...

I put it to you this way. I was talking to an friend of mine who has a fairly superficial understanding of the football...

He asks me, "What about Liverpool?"

I respond, "They are broke. They have Gerrard and a couple of other players, but they're broke."

"Broke, how that possible?"

\\ "They are in joint possession of the owner of the Texas Rangers and the owner of Montreal Candians. "

\\ "Oh, shit."

Pop those corks on the Merseyside tonight. You've earned it with all that marching and sign making and that.

The Sox got destroyed by injuries this season and still were in it to the 2nd to last Sunday of the season. If the Sox had Youk and Pedoria they would have won close to a hundred games this year.

11.06am: Here is the reaction from some Liverpool fans websites. Barry Glendenning also considers some of the other views (not necessarily that the brand Red):

On Twitter, Manchester United fan and Sky television presenter Eamonn Holmes said. "We don't buy baseball teams - because we don't understand it, so why don't these American companies take the hint and follow by example?" he tweeted, speaking for those unable to distinguish between a shortstop and a pitcher. Self-styled joke-loving Kopite Davylpool was quick to respond, telling Holmes "we don't buy baseball teams because we can't afford them", before labelling him… ah, go and see for yourself.

10.49am: US tycoons George Gillett and Tom Hicks offered £435m to buy Liverpool in early 2007 and when the deal went through it valued the club at £219m. The plan was to build a new stadium too, but a year later the pair were barely speaking to each other. The relationship with the supporters deteriorated fast, with Tom Hicks Jr, a board member, responding to an email from a fan with a foul-mouthed tirade. In April this year Gillett and Hicks announced the appointment of British Airways chairman Martin Broughton, to oversee the sale of the club, saying: "Owning Liverpool Football Club over these past three years has been a rewarding and exciting experience for us and our families. Having grown the Club this far we have now decided together to look to sell the Club to owners committed to take the Club through its next level of growth and development."

This year a string of possible deals have been touted, including Chinese investor Kenny Huang, a consortium of Middle East investors and private equity firm Blackstone.

And then, in September, Hicks decided to try to maintain control, and he tried to refinance debt of ?? 237m Royal Bank of Scotland. If you were unable to find a new loan, Texas may be forced to abandon their investments on 15 October. From that date looming, and the ?? 60m fine variety of opportunities, comes the Revelation of John W Henry 'S bid.

10.34am: Liverpool will not be docked points if it goes into administration, according to Press Association sources. The PA story says:

There have been suggestions that if Tom Hicks and George Gillett block a £300million takeover for the club by New England Sports Ventures, owners of the Boston Red Sox baseball team, then their holding company would be put into administration by the Royal Bank of Scotland over their unpaid £280million debts.

This will not lead to an automatic deduction of points for the Reds however - Premier League to clarify the rules regarding the parent company, so that if the club itself is fully solvent entity - like Liverpool - the penalty should not apply.

A Premier League source told Press Association Sport: "The aim of the regulations is primarily to capture clubs who have gone into insolvency. This is manifestly not the case with Liverpool Football Club."

10.11am: So, who is the man who now wants to take over Liverpool FC? John W Henrymade his fortune in hedge funds before using it to treat their sports interests, with the Boston Red Sox baseball team in NASCAR, a huge American Series racing. In accordance with this profile , his personal fortune was worth about £540m before the credit crunch, meaning that he is not in the Abramovich league.

He does, however, have a good track record of success with his teams. He owned a string of minor league baseball teams, and then the Major League Florida Marlins, before he and his partners in New England Sports Ventures, Tom Werner and the New York Times Company, bought the Red Sox in 2002.

Within two years of purchase Red Sox, he helped to end "The Curse of the Bambino" . (The Red Sox went 86 years without a World Series after selling the legendary Babe Ruth to their biggest rivals, the NY Yankees).

Liverpool fans may also be pleased to know that Henry resisted temptations to move the club out of the historic Fenway Park and instead developed the old stadium.

Likewise, his Nascar team won their first Daytona 500 in 2009.

10:08 am: I see that below the line there are many, many questions. Obviously we will be trying to work out the answers to as many of them as possible today: clearly the most important of which is, will this deal happen? But then there are questions about how it could happen, what will Hicks and Gillett do, what do we know about the Boston Red Sox owner, is another American taking over a major English sporting institution a good thing, etc etc etc.

9.16am: Liverpool's celebrity supporters produced this video against Hicks and Gillett.

9:09 am:

So, Liverpool, bottom of the Premiership after their worst league start for donkeys, think they may have found a saviour. But the current owners, reviled by many, are not happy. This could be tricky to unpick.

Through the day we will try to unpick the details, work out who will end up owning the club, and gauge the reaction of fans, the league, the various claimants.

8:25 am:

Liverpool Football Club has agreed the sale to the US owners of the Boston Red Sox baseball team, the club announced this morning.

In a statement on its website, Liverpool said its board had agreed the sale of the club to New England Sports Ventures (NESV), owners of the Boston Red Sox, New England Sports Network, Fenway Sports Group and Rousch Fenway Racing.

However, the sale of a fire in the Conference Room of battle, revealing the degree of the split at the highest club level. Late last night's American owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett, was believed to have rejected the offer NESV , despite the three other directors at Liverpool being prepared to accept it.

This led to an official statement from Liverpool accusing Hicks and Gillett of opposing the offer because the bid would not give them enough profit for their shares.

However, this morning the club announced that the sale had gone through.

\\ "I am pleased that we were able to successfully complete the sale process that was thorough and extensive", said chairman Martin Broughton Liverpool.

"The board decided to accept NESV's proposal on the basis that it best met the criteria we set out originally for a suitable new owner. NESV's philosophy is all about winning and they have fully demonstrated that at Red Sox."

"We've met them in Boston, London and Liverpool over several weeks and I am immensely impressed with what they have achieved and with their vision for Liverpool Football Club," Broughton added.

\\ "By removing the burden of the acquisition debt, the proposal allows us to focus on investment in the team. I'm just disappointed that the owners have tried everything to get things happening, and what we have to go through trials in order to complete sale. "

The sale is conditional on Premier League approval, resolution of a dispute concerning Board membership and other matters.

Next Gen NEWS

09/18/2010 Our Russian adventure

Lucy Ward and family have swapped their delightful Tudor home in a leafy English market town for a 10th-floor flat in a Stalin-era apartment block in Moscow. Quite a culture shock ...

It's 1 September, and in a packed school hall in Moscow the warm air is thick with the scent of flowers. Every child carries an elaborate bouquet â€" the grandest featuring tiny flashing lights or fresh fruit â€" and golden balloons hang in clusters from the ceiling. White ribbons cascade from ornately plaited hair, and pupils wear their finest outfits â€" white tights, black patent shoes and something sparkly for girls; scaled-down suits for boys.

In the middle of all this are my two daughters, looking by turns impressed, surprised, confused and puzzled. Personal rapid decline in ground-and-run they are used to: it's the first day of the school year in the Russian style, so it is has a name - the Day of Knowledge - and his own ritual: the sound "first call" to open the road to knowledge.

For our family â€" my partner, Liam, and daughters, Ailis, 10, and Maeve, seven (our four-year-old son, Ned, had already started at an international school here) â€" this was one of those "how did this happen?" moments that have struck regularly since we moved to Russia in the summer.

How on earth did we come to leave our beloved dog, house and garden in a market town near Cambridge for a modest flat on the 10th floor of a Stalin-era apartment building on Komsomolsky Prospekt, Moscow?

The answer, as for many British families here, is work: Liam is employed by an asset management company specialising in Russia and is doing a stint in Moscow. That makes me, in expat lingo, a trailing spouse, and the kids, I suppose, trailing children.

Except that we don't view it like that. Liam has a longstanding interest in Russia, having lived here in the mid-1990s; and my 18th birthday present was a week-long trip in 1987, when St Petersburg was still Leningrad and there was nothing in the shops.

This time, we hope to turn a work-driven move into a shared experience for our family. Once our plans were fixed, the children had weekly Russian lessons, and the girls came to Moscow for a few days to visit their new school. And we did our best to help Ned understand what was going on.

Ailis remains the most cautious â€" she is missing her final year at primary school, has had to wave goodbye to her best friend and was enjoying growing independence in our small town. All three miss Rosie, our dog (staying with the people who are renting our house), but the younger two children have simply taken their world with them.

The girls face the most dramatic change: while Ned has started his school life in an international school teaching the English curriculum, Ailis and Maeve attend a Russian private school. They will be taught a special personalised curriculum â€" lots of one-to-one Russian lessons, plus English lessons tailored for them.

Each morning they must change from outdoor to indoor shoes, and they have been allocated a locker each to take winter boots and clothing. They are fed repeatedly, including breakfast, lunchtime soup and a main course, plus cake and fruit in the afternoon. They play outside in much smaller playgrounds than the playing fields they are used to and will do so even when the temperature drops to -10C or less. They stay at school longer, but do their homework there, with help from teachers. So far they have settled well, even joining a school theatre club and acting in Russian. They are already patronising about my accent â€" watching their mum look silly in shops is an unexpected bonus of our move.

In order to choose the school makes you as an emigrant family to determine the kind of life you want to lead abroad. Setting up in another country, you have a clean sheet on which any attempt to carbon copy or redraw your lifestyle.

For us, another big change has been our home â€" we have swapped a three-storey, half-refurbished Tudor house with three quarters of an acre of garden for a compact flat with a tiny balcony on the 10th floor of a block overlooking one of the main six-lane arteries entering the centre of Moscow. The whole apartment is arranged along one corridor. It is furnished from Ikea throughout and feels a bit like sitting in the showroom.

Some expat families in Moscow opt to live in (or are sometimes allocated through diplomatic jobs) one of several compounds for foreigners around the city. We couldn't have afforded a compound home anyway (Moscow rents, and indeed all prices, are astronomical â€" an average flat let to a foreigner can easily cost £5,200 a month), but we neither want nor need one.

But the delight taken by Russians in childhood is something Brits could learn from. While British schools might argue legitimately that fussing over potentially distressed four-year-olds as they say goodbye to their parents only prolongs the agony, the enormous sense of occasion engendered by the Russian bouquets, balloons and songs instils in children the idea that they are important to their country and that their education is too.

Beyond the playground, we have crossed the Moskva river via a nearby footbridge and begun to explore Gorky park, where a funfair offers an unexpected counterpoint to the post-cold war image of a hard-partying city awash with flashy new wealth. We pass a square where couples join free outdoor dancing lessons, and Ned and I spin on a boating lake in a plastic duck while nearby children enjoy rides on a camel.

The paths and open areas in the park are flooded for skating in winter, and our kids are now fitted out with skates and ice hockey kits thanks to donations from fellow expat families who have helped guide us through the Moscow maze.

Thus, we have a few weeks and, while barely able to buy a ticket for the still glorious underground Soviet era, all we can do, I think, let's start with what we experience first hand - if my stilted, chats with Natasha, my friendly old neighbor in the apartment next door, or the efforts of Russian teachers went to greet our daughters.

In the end, our family is living its own version of Moscow life: we've brought our British ways and attitudes with us, inevitably, but with luck we'll take something of Russia back when we go home. We have a long way to go and a lot to learn but the five of us are in it together.

Next Gen NEWS

09/24/2010 Why women shouldn't be campaigning for equal pay

In 1968, a strike by female employees at Ford laid the groundwork for the Equal Pay Act. It seemed like a great triumph, but the truth has proved very different

Rip off your pinny, reach for the Biba frock, get that asymmetric bob: it's the 60s all over again. Feminism's second wave is brewing, Barbara Castle is first secretary of state and the 187 women who sew car seats at the Ford Dagenham plant are out on strike.

Don't do it. It is the wrong cause at the wrong time. Rising unemployment, a government set on cuts, employers reluctant to concede so much as a pay rise in line with inflation mean one last heave would be a wasted effort. Instead, review the past and contemplate its lessons. One lesson really: equal pay legislation hasn't worked.

So much noise has been made about equal pay for so long, to so little effect, that it can be hard to remember how we got here. The industrial world of the 60s, portrayed so vividly in Made in Dagenham, is another country. Back then, manufacturing contributed more than a third of the national income, and the production line was the ancestral home of the alpha male, the skilled worker. At Dagenham, Ford's flagship UK plant, there were 300 men to every woman worker, and pay negotiations began at the top with the skilled men, worked down past the semi-skilled and the labourer, right to the bottom of the heap: the women.

Ironically, it was a step towards modernisation, a plant-wide job evaluation, that triggered the women's strike. Their work â€" machining covers for car seats â€" was graded as unskilled. But as the women protested at the time, if their work was really so simple, anyone could do it. When challenged, the evaluators had no idea how to put a seat cover together. Their work was classified as unskilled only because they were women. Unfortunately, there was no law against this.

The pay system was built on differentials between one sort of worker and the next, and as far as the trade unions were concerned â€" despite some vocal support for equal pay, and reluctant union backing for the Ford machinists â€" the emphasis was not on questioning them, but maintaining them. It was never spelled out, but paying women the same as men, in whatever grade, would be like pulling out a brick at the bottom of the heap. The whole structure would topple.

The problem was not only that employers paid the worker and not the work; there was also a stubbornly enduring assumption that women had no right to be in the workplace. They were indispensable during the war years, but after that they were expected to go home and have babies. By the 60s, it was thought that a woman at work was either looking for a husband, or earning pin money.

On the whole, the Dagenham machinists did not consider themselves feminists. It was a sense of injustice that motivated them: the unfairness of earning only 87% of the men's rate. They eventually settled for 92% â€" an extra 2p an hour â€" and a few years later equal pay legislation was introduced. Like so much political change, this was largely a matter of coincidence and random events: a desperate bid to shore up a shaky Labour government that had lost its bearings, to give Castle a boost after she had been left bloodied by union opposition to reform, to meet the demands of entry to Europe â€" and to find a quick answer to silence the small but newly influential women's lobby among MPs.

The commitment was given at a time of eye-watering pay restraint, when any pay award had to be justified not in terms of justice but increased productivity. Experts gloomily predicted that equal pay legislation would add £600m to the national wage bill. Equal pay was therefore often painted as less a victory over injustice and more a threat to the national economy.

Sometimes political decisions made in the heat of battle are brilliant, but the Equal Pay Act was never more than a concession of principle. It had its triumphs â€" it did finally end the categorisation of workers by sex in pay negotiations â€" and it did lead to a small across-the-board increase in women's pay. Nonetheless, its five-year introductory period gave employers time to redefine the work of female employees so that they could not compare their jobs with those of their male peers. And it was always up to individual women to prove that they were doing equal work of equal value â€" not for the employer to justify the difference.

The situation improved after 1983 when the act was amended â€" employees now had to prove they did "work of comparable value", rather than exactly equal value. Supported by their unions, a series of defining cases was brought. But they were won at huge personal cost to the individuals prepared to take this long, hard road. It took 11 years and a final appeal to the European court of justice, for example, before speech therapist Pamela Enderby won recognition that her line of work, which is mainly done by women, was of comparable worth to that of clinical psychologists and pharmacists, who are predominantly male.

Women in local government have had to struggle with devious settlements that have used bonuses to maintain the pay gap â€" and when they have challenged them, the councils have threatened to cut some men's pay rather than raise women's, with predictably angry results from male workers. Other councils have found legally sound ways of enhancing men's jobs to enable them to maintain the gap. The act's historic impact may actually be that, in making it marginally easier to enforce women's right to pay parity, it has ironically made it harder to achieve.

In her panoramic survey, The Equality Illusion, feminist writer and activist Kat Banyard is still convinced that an equal pay law that actually works could make the difference. She and the Fawcett Society, where she was campaigns officer, argue that making employers conduct a compulsory pay audit â€" a review of relative rates of pay, according to gender â€" would expose the scale of the inequity and ignite calls for justice. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that employers will buy into the idea, (and plenty that they won't) and no prospect that even a Labour, let alone a Conservative government would impose it. That's not to say it isn't worth trying. Only that it is no quick fix.

Nor, as Banyard acknowledges, is there a guarantee that this change in the law would change behaviour â€" any more than outlawing sex discrimination has ended sex discrimination.

In 2004, then prime minister Tony Blair set up the Women and Work Commission to explore the stubborn refusal of pay practice to fall in line with the law. Its first report identified how, from early in their school careers, girls make choices that lead directly to lower earnings than men: they choose the wrong kind of GCSEs, duck the hard subjects that better-paid work demands.

The commission came up with dozens of suggestions for improved career advice and wider work experience for girls, but two years later a follow-up report found little had changed. The final gloomy report, last year, concluded that the government might have been talking the talk, but it was mostly hot air.

Outside the public sector, the industrial conditions that made pay discrimination so blatant are fading from memory. The high-profile unfair pay cases now come from the late 20th century equivalent of the shop floor: the City. And women with a claim use sex discrimination law rather than cumbersome equal pay legislation.

Meanwhile, arguably as much harm as good has been done by repeated attempts to insert talented women into a man-shaped world â€" just ask about the experiences of the women elected to parliament for the first time in 1997. The jeering discourse of tokenism is one more way of undermining women of ambition, and it deters other able women.

So perhaps it is time to accept that the Equal Pay Act, with its focus on gender inequality, has failed. It has failed partly because it was never meant to work: the economic crisis of the late 60s was no time to be revolutionising pay structures. And it has failed because it was out of date before it was introduced.

The real question is whether workplace equity can be brought about some other way. Even in the 60s, campaigners knew that the more effective, straightforward way of ending low pay for women was to introduce a minimum wage. As Banyard points out, poverty has a female face: 70% of low-paid workers are women.

At the dramatic climax of Made in Dagenham, the central character, Rita, played by Sally Hawkins, cries out: "We are not separated by sex, only by the will of those who are not prepared to go into battle for what is right, and those who are." But that is just what the campaign for equal pay has done: separate by sex.

There are signs that we are ready to think anew about how people are paid. Bankers' bonuses have stirred a sense of injustice. The BBC has been running a "what are they worth?" exercise, inviting people to rank jobs in terms of their value to society. London Citizens' Living Wage campaign has transformed our understanding of what millions earn in the capital â€" and what's needed for a basic human existence (£2.80 above the minimum wage of £5.85).

The fight for equal pay is a fight for justice, which is the only valid purpose of a progressive society. But fighting for one group is a contradiction in terms. Low pay affects women most, but it is not only a problem for women. If Made in Dagenham stirs us into any battle it should be for a living wage â€" and justice for everyone.

Next Gen NEWS

09/17/2010 'In France we had little, but here in Romania we have nothing'

'We had little in France, but we have nothing in Romania', say Gypsy families forced from their adopted home

On the way to Barbulesti road dissolves into the gravel and dust. For Romica Raducanu village where he was born and grew up feeling like a doomsday. His hopes for a new life while a distant dream, and he was stuck here. Only his t-shirt gives the place he considers home: adorned with stripes of red, white and blue one word - France.

Until three weeks ago Raducanu was living on the outskirts of Montpellier in southern France, eking out a living for his wife and children by collecting scrap metal and selling it on for seven centimes (6p) a kilo. Then, after a summer of growing unease, the crackdown ordered by President Nicolas Sarkozy hit home. Friends were ordered to leave, and the pictures he was seeing in the newspapers became too much. Raducanu was scared.

Without taking the money available to him as part of the "voluntary repatriation" scheme â€" he didn't understand the papers, he says, so he didn't sign them â€" the 35-year-old and his wife packed their family into the car and set out, with other departing Roma, on the journey of more than 1,000 miles to Romania.

A day later he heard that the police had come to clear away his former home. Now, in the dilapidated surrounds of his new one, he is bitter and depressed.

"We had to leave so that we weren't sent away. Every day I was seeing in the papers and on the television that more and more people were being expelled," he says quietly, fiddling with the handle of a bedroom door missing half a pane of glass. Remembering the moment he realised what was going on, he adds: "We were desperate when we heard. Sarkozy hates the Roma. He's making the same moves as Hitler."

Vichy comparison

An extreme comment in the same vein provoked fury this week in the Elysée palace, where the French president fumed over the comparisons made by Viviane Reding, European commissioner for justice, between his summer clampdown and persecution of the Jews during the second world war.

But, incendiary as these remarks may be, the vehemence of Raducanu's anger is perhaps understandable. For, he says, while he had little in France, he has nothing in Barbulesti.

Since the end of July, when Sarkozy made a speech in Grenoble outlining his tough new approach on crime and immigration â€"the two themes, he implied, were inextricably linked â€" about 1,000 foreign Roma have left France, mostly for Romania and mostly under a scheme offering €300 (£250) for each adult and €100 for each child returning to their native country.

About 200 non-authorised Roma camps have been cleared, as well as hundreds of traveller sites occupied mostly by French citizens. However, a leaked circular, since amended to avoid singling out an ethnicity, stated that the Roma were the chief targets of the evacuations.

For many French people and other western Europeans who witness the poverty in which a large number of Roma live, in cities from Marseille to Milan to Madrid, their desire to stay is incomprehensible.

Yet most of the 7,500 Roma in Barbulesti, a predominantly Gypsy village 50 miles north-east of Bucharest, say that a life in the wealthy west offers chances unimaginable in their native Romania, where the vast majority are trapped in a cycle of discrimination, unemployment and poverty.

And, as long as this remains the case, they say, they have no intention of staying put. Ever a nomadic people, they will be on the move again soon.

Raducanu, an EU citizen entirely conscious of his right to free movement within the bloc, is already planning his return. "I can't wait to get back, to work. There is nothing to do here. Hunger. No work. I will go back," he says. Later, in a flourish of the language he had learned to love, he adds: "C'est très dur, la vie." Life is very hard.

Appearances

At first sight, it is difficult to understand why Raducanu and his fellow villagers feel this way. With its large, villa-like houses in bright shades of reds, oranges and greens, Barbulesti looks from far off like a Disneyesque hamlet rising from the acres of flat, drab Romanian scrubland. Children wander, rucksacks on their backs, home from school; many roofs have satellite dishes and expensive cars are parked in driveways.

Compared with some of the Roma squats in France, these homes appear salubrious.

Appearances, however, can be deceptive. In one house in the centre of the village carved lion heads sit proudly atop wrought-iron gates and the back garden is shaded from the sun by trellises threaded with vines.

But, inside, the reality of living standards becomes clear. The villa is clean and tidy- but its four rooms are home to four families. "Seven people live in here," says Stylian, a 34-year-old man who did not want his surname to be published. "And six in here."

Throughout the house, open wires run precariously over ceilings and walls, and the cheer of paint in electric pink and lime green cannot mask the fact that the mud walls and wattle-and-daub roofs are badly in need of repair. The kitchen, used to feed more than 20 people, is open to the stony ground, and the fridge is virtually bare.

A decades-old well brings up water, and the single toilet is a hole in the ground in an outhouse. "We wash it, we keep it clean," says Stylian. As he speaks, children play on the rusting hulk of a climbing frame next to a pig sty. The pigs are long gone.

But he insists his lack of success was not due to a lack of effort: he tried everything in his power to work legally, he says, but to no avail.

One opportunity as an apple-picker proved particularly elusive. "The paperwork remained in the prefecture, the apples remained in the tree, and we left," he jokes.

When asked about the trigger for his return a fortnight ago, however, Stylian's smile vanishes and his voice begins to boom around the driveway. "I don't agree with these [forced or voluntary] returns. It's racism," he says, describing how, frightened by the political climate and police threats of expulsion, he eventually left of his own accord.

Before Sarkozy, he says, there was less prejudice against the Roma in France than in Romania. "But now they're both the same." Were it not for the fact that, at home, "you can work all day and not make enough to eat", he says, there would be no reason to go anywhere else. "Nobody would leave then. Who wants to leave their home?"

In a statement earlier this year, the human rights group Amnesty International issued an urgent appeal, warning that the authorities must stop their "forced evictions" of Roma people and "immediately relocate" those living in "hazardous conditions" on the margins of society.

After a summer in which the plight of France's estimated foreign Roma, estimated to number between 15,000 and 20,000, came under the spotlight as never before, those words are all-too familiar.

Nevertheless, the statement was not directed at Paris, but in Bucharest and living conditions have not been described those aliens in a foreign country, but the Romanian citizens in Romania.

"Across the country Roma families are being evicted from their homes against their will. When this happens, they don't just lose their homes. They lose their possessions, their social contacts, their access to work and state services," said Halya Gowan, Amnesty's Europe and central Asia programme director, in the January appeal.

With unofficial estimates pinning the number of Roma in Romania at 2.2 million, the minority makes up about 10% of the country's total population. Yet, say human rights groups, the Roma are routinely ignored and pushed out of the mainstream, their needs not met and their voice not heard.

According to Amnesty, endemic prejudice leads to discrimination from the authorities as well as society at large, while the statistics speak for themselves: 75% of Roma live in poverty, compared with 24% of Romanians and 20% of ethnic Hungarians. Unemployment is far higher than the norm, and life expectancy is significantly lower.

For all these reasons â€" not to mention the economic ties that have deepened since EU accession in 2007 â€" the Romanian government has been careful in its reaction to the Sarkozy crackdown. As the French have repeatedly pointed out, Bucharest is in no position to judge: if it weren't for its failure to integrate the Roma, they argue, the "problem" would not be so acute elsewhere in Europe.

Mild rebuke

But, behind the relatively mild diplomatic rebuke issued by President Traian Basescu, who, though telling France he "understands" its position, insists Romanians have the right "to travel without restrictions within the European Union", there is considerable anger.

And, in a reflection of the confusion expressed by many people in Barbulesti, he adds that he has "a big question mark over the paperwork" returning Roma had been asked to sign in France relating to the "voluntary repatriation" schemes. "Because they weren't given a copy of what they signed," Dinca says.

The ANR is at the forefront of government efforts to solve the Roma problem. In the past decade a number of projects designed to facilitate integration and boost living standards have emerged, from the appointment of special health and education "mediators" designed to communicate on behalf of the Roma, to positive discrimination measures in Romanian high schools.

On top of the €22m received from the state, Dinca says, €90m comes from Brussels to go towards various NGOs and Roma-related institutions.

And yet not one - in Bucharest, Brussels, or less than the total Barbulesti - he thinks makes a big difference.

For Viorel-Vivari Banescu, a teacher at a mainstream Romanian school near Barbulesti, the one thing that could change things is education. The most important thing the state can do, he says, is provide retraining opportunities for adult Roma and classes for their children. "They have a tendency to self-victimise, to say 'I don't have a job because I'm a Gypsy,'" he says. "But that's not true. He doesn't have a job because he doesn't have any training."

Pacing the ground in the town, Banescu tries to recruit 14-year-old Posirca Marian, who has been skipping class, a common problem in the local school, which has the county's biggest number of pupils on paper but in practice sees high absenteeism.

Parents receive €10 from the state for every child they have in school, but often say they still can't afford the kit required for attendance. "I want to make him my champion and get him through the 7th and 8th grade," says the teacher.

Over in the Raducanu family's backyard, lines of tiny socks and vests hang out to dry in the sun, and indoors Romica's wife, Simona-Mariana, struggles with the couple's restless brood of toddlers. They are a family of nine living in a two-room house with no proper kitchen.

On its successes to paint chipped doors, the village of 'S vice-mayor, Vasile Lita, scraps of pears from the mouth of the five-year-old Jacob. He half-rotten. "This is something that we once again" is ", he exclaims, waving his fruit in his hands." Sarkozy has to think about basic rights. His [Raducanu 'S] children have nothing to eat today. "

Unlike many of his more bombastic, heavyset friends, Raducanu is a slight young man who speaks quietly, in both French and Romanian, of the "great" people of Montpellier, of the "respectful" French police, and his life there, where, in the embodiment of Sarkozy's work ethic, he "got up early and even worked Sundays".

He can provide more for his family there than here, he says, as squeals come through the bedroom window. What are his hopes for the future? "That I will get back to France, to give them something."

Next Gen NEWS

09/23/2010 Lords of the Flies: insect detectives

Where the police and pathologists fail, flies and maggots â€" and the Natural History Museum's forensic entomologists â€" can solve even the most difficult of murders

Martin Hall, genial, white-coated head of research at the Natural History Museum's Department of Entomology, holds a miniature glass phial up to the harsh fluorescent light of his gleaming laboratory. Inside, a handful of small brown bugs bob lifelessly in clear preserving fluid.

"So here," says Hall, with suitable drama, "they are: the Ruxton Maggots."

Were it not for the maggots, it is pretty safe to say the case of Dr Buck Ruxton, one of Britain's most celebrated prewar murders, would be all but forgotten. On 13 March 1936, the Bombay-born GP, admired and appreciated by all in his Lancaster practice, was sensationally found guilty of killing his common-law wife, Isabella Kerr, and their maidservant, Mary Jane Rogerson.

Ruxton, born Buktyar Rustomji, had somehow become convinced that his extrovert companion was having an affair (no evidence was ever found that she was). In a fit of jealous rage, he leapt on her and strangled her with his bare hands. The unfortunate maid he suffocated immediately afterwards to prevent her revealing the crime.

Putting his professional knowledge to effective use, the good doctor then mutilated the corpses, removing identifying marks such as moles and scars, dismembered them, and wrapped the 70-plus body parts in old copies of the Daily Herald, Sunday Graphic and Sunday Chronicle. He loaded his gruesome cargo into his car, and dumped it in a remote ravine more than 100 miles away, on the Scottish Borders.

Two key errors led to Ruxton's arrest: one of the papers he used turned out to be a special edition, sold only in Lancaster and Morecambe; and, on the way home, he knocked a man off his bicycle in Kendal and the police noted his licence plate.

But crucially, the case against the doctor was also much aided by a certain Dr AG Mearns, an expert on insects, who established the date on which the body parts had been deposited in the ravine from the presence of a mass of bluebottle larvae, aged 12 to 14 days, crawling all over them. That corroborated other evidence in the case, helping to ensure Ruxton's conviction and eventual hanging.

It was the first time a maggot had been used in a court of law to convict a criminal. These days, of course, thanks to TV series such as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and Bones, and movies such as Silence of the Lambs (in which a seriously deranged serial killer memorably places the pupa of a death's-head hawkmoth in the mouth of his victims), the forensic entomologist â€" a scientist who specialises in studying the insect life on and around a cadaver to ascertain time (and sometimes place) of death â€" is a rather more familiar figure.

Courteous, quick and disarmingly normal, Hall, one of the museum's 300-plus behind-the-scenes scientists who will be showcasing their work at an open evening tomorrow, is nothing like the obsessive, borderline nut-jobs TV apparently thinks bug experts should be. (That said, he is not above the odd unnerving observation. "It's a strange smell, isn't it," he muses, as we enter the malodorous confines of his culture research room, where a host of assorted maggots feast on rotting liver and dog food. "Quite sweet, in a way.")

These flies can detect death from 10 miles away

Underlying the science is the helpful fact that flies go through four main and identifiable developmental stages, from egg (which will generally hatch within 24 hours) to larva (which will feed on the corpse for about five days, then spend another couple preparing to pupate) to pupa (equivalent to a butterfly's chrysalis; another seven days) and onwards to adult fly. The maggot stage, in particular, can be further subdivided into three distinct phases, known as instars.

The exact rate at which a fly develops through these stages can vary significantly according to a number of factors, notably the temperature at the scene, the size of the body, whether it is in the open air or in a sealed room, and whether it is naked or clothed. The forensic entomologist's basic job, then, is to collect and measure the insect life on and around a dead body, factor in all the variables, and come up with an approximate time for when the first flies arrived on the scene. "After about three days, it becomes hard for an ordinary pathologist to judge the time of death," says Hall. "Insects can be more accurate. Within limits, in the first week or so of development, you can be accurate to within a day. They're also good even if a body has been burned, for example, which makes things very hard for a pathologist."

A small plastic spoon is perfect for scooping up maggots

Forensic entomologists provide what is called a minimum postmortem interval, or PMI. "What we can do is say when the insects found the body," Hall says. "In summer, in the open air, that can often be within an hour of death. In winter, or indoors, it can take much longer." But knowing when the flies arrived can, in itself, prove a critical piece in the evidential puzzle that will solve a murder. So can the kind of flies found on the body.

\\ "If the body is in the countryside, somewhere" D normally expect to find all types of blowflies, but those that we find in it only one species, say a more urban variety, which may be strong evidence that the body came from somewhere else ", says Hall.

Hall's scene-of-crime kit includes a collapsible net to capture adult flies, a magnifying glass, a digital thermometer, a small cube of high technology called a data logger (it checks and records the temperature at the scene every hour), and a small plastic airline coffee spoon that's "brilliant for scooping up maggots". Some specimens are killed at the scene by plunging them briefly in boiling water, then preserved in ethanol for future analysis. Others are captured live, taken to the culture room, placed in incubators at the right temperature, and fed.

"The live ones give you a second handle on ageing," Hall says. "If I know it takes 20 days for these type of larvae to become flies in these particular conditions, and they become flies after 10, I know they were 10 days old when I got them."

The foundations for forensic entomology were laid by a Frenchman, Jean-Pierre Mégnin, in two pioneering late 19th-century works called Fauna of the Tombs and Fauna of the Cadavers; both are still on every forensic entomology student's reading list. The science is still developing, though, Hall says, and his culture room contains several incubators holding specimens destined solely for research (a current project is the low-temperature development of bluebottles; flies that take a fortnight to mature in summer may, apparently, need up to three months in winter).

"We know only a few species well," says Hall, who has been fascinated with insects since he was a small child. ("I grew up in Africa, where we had a mosquito net. It was supposed to be used to keep the insects out, but I used it to keep them in.") "There's a lot we need to learn about others, and about temperature ranges. There's plenty still to be done."

Things have come a long way, though, since Dr Mearns and the Ruxton maggots. In America they are working on the changing odour of decaying, insect-infested flesh as an indicator of PMI; Hall has begun experimenting with thermal imaging technology to measure the heat generated by a mass of maggots (the hotter they get, basically, the older they are).

CSI's failing is that it gives you no idea of the smell

Certain key cases have advanced the science's cause, leading to far greater acceptance among police and pathologists. The so-called Lydney Murder was one such: on 28 June 1964, police were called to a body in woods near Bracknell, Berkshire. Its dreadful condition led them to assume it had been there for at least four weeks, but Professor Keith Simpson, a pioneer of forensic entomology in this country, told them it was more like nine days, and certainly no more than 12. Missing persons records for that period pointed to a Lydney resident, Peter Thomas, who had gone missing at exactly that time, and fingerprints confirmed the identification.

A couple of Hall's cases stand out, he says. "One was in winter. A body was found wedged in the narrow space between a building and a steep embankment. The pathologist thought it had been there for maybe two to three weeks, but the insect activity was showing two to three months. In fact, it turned out to be a tragic accident: the chap had fallen down the embankment and broken his back. But at least it gave closure to his family; they could account for the gap between his disappearance and discovery, and they knew when he died."

Another particularly satisfying case was a suitcase murder: "The body was in a suitcase. We were able not only to give an approximate time of death, but to say when the case was dumped at the scene. We did that by comparing the age of the eggs on the outside of the case with the age of the youngest maggots inside, which would have been laid as eggs just before the body was zipped up inside the case. That was quite rewarding." In a third, the insect life on a badly burned and otherwise all-but-impossible-to-identify corpse found in an old second world war ammunition bunker allowed Hall to tell the police the body had been dead for seven to eight days, allowing them to focus their inquiries and, eventually, trace the victim.

Unlike Hall, who focuses mainly on the when, Bonney looks at the who. She will also be discussing her work tomorrow evening, though she is at even less liberty than Hall to discuss specific cases. "They're quite high- profile, usually," she says. "Lots of media interest. But it's usually about helping identify the deceased where the condition of the body makes that difficult â€" so burned, dismembered, decomposed, that kind of thing." Many of her call-outs turn out to be false alarms: bones that date back centuries (or not even bones; members of the public have been known to hand in any number of odd objects in the firm belief they are prehistoric body parts.) The others are real.

"Usually," Bonney says, "I'll go to the postmortem, or to the mortuary just afterwards. The ideal is to be at the scene of crime: the context the remains are found in is almost as important as the remains themselves, particularly if there's little or no tissue left. Also, if we're there, we'll be sure of recovering absolutely everything, down to the very smallest bones."

Forensic anthropology can establish first whether remains are human or animal. If they are human, it can estimate how long the body has been in situ (bone also decomposes, albeit less radically than flesh, although the rate can vary according to the dampness of the surroundings, the amount of oxygen present and the chemical make-up of the soil).

By looking specifically at parts of the skull (the ridges over the eyes, the area behind the ears) and pelvis, Bonney can determine whether the body is male or female. By examining the teeth and looking at the places on the body where bone joined cartilage, she can make a pretty reliable estimate of age. By taking precise measurements of the skull and feeding them into a computer database, she can establish ancestry (or ethnic origin), and by measuring the arm and leg bones and feeding the results into a mathematical formula, she can arrive at height. Sometimes her analyses will turn up evidence of previous disease or trauma that can provide further identifying information.

"If it's a missing person, forensic anthropology can help confirm a body could be the person the police think it is," she says. "If they have no idea who it is, it can help narrow the field, give them an idea where to start looking. It's not quite as exciting as TV makes out â€" we're a discrete part of an investigation. We don't go round interviewing suspects. We come in, do our work, submit our report, and usually the next we'll hear of a case is when it comes to court. But I love it. It's never boring; every case is different and you can never, ever go by appearances."

Meanwhile, a selection of very dead maggots have found themselves under the binocular microscope in Hall's lab. Their hard brown forms are projected on to a computer screen, and some nifty software allows Hall to drag a red line along their bodies and measure them to within a thousandth of a millimetre. "I know the species, and I know these maggots will have required a certain thermal input to attain that size," he says. "So now I'll use the figures from my data logger at the scene, and correlate those with the relevant Met Office data, and feed all that into a calculation, and I'll end up with a date for when these maggots were laid as eggs on the body they were found on. It's not as glamorous as CSI makes it look, certainly, but it's satisfying. Though CSI's one big failing is that it gives you no idea whatsoever of the smell."

• Visitors can meet members of the forensics team and other Natural History Museum researchers at After Hours: Science Uncovered, on Friday 24 September, from 4pm-10pm. The scientists will demonstrate aspects of their work and explore some of the museum's scientific treasures up close.

Next Gen NEWS

[[[Times of London Life. 2 Politics Society Cartoons - Budget News Network - Light Switch Covers - single switch]]]

Discription : Budget news Network Light Switch Cover is new and handcrafted utilizing unique process resulting in a stunning high gloss ceramic-like finish. SET OF MATCHING SCREWS IS INCLUDED giving it a perfect finishing touch. Made of durable metal material.


Read more review in the near future.









Buy Here (for discount) Londons Times Gen. 2 Society Politics Cartoons - Budget news Network - Light Switch Covers - single toggle switch

[[[Times of London Life. 2 Society Politics Cartoons - Budget News Network - Mouse Pads]]]

Discription : Budget news Network Mouse Pad is measuring 8w x 8h x .25d, soft commercial quality high resolution product. The image is permanent and becomes part of the mouse pad surface. Our transfer method produces professional matte finish with Premium Quality and Superior image resolution.


More review soon.









Buy this (the discount) London Times Everyday life. 2 Society Politics Cartoons - Budget News Network - Mouse Pads

09/18/2010 Stoke City 1-1 West Ham

Scott Parker's goal looked like giving West Ham their first win of the season, but Kenwyne Jones earned Stoke a point

Good day: You don't need to be Alanis Morissette - in fact, you never need to be Alanis Morissette - to appreciate the potential irony on offer today. Rain on your wedding day, you presume? No. Ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife? Wrong, that's not ironic. West Ham, after four defeats in their first four games, winning their first points of the season when Avram Grant is off atoning and fasting and gallivanting on Yom Kippur? Bingo!

This is a no-win situation for Grant, but then he's already managed Portsmouth. He's used to that. The Israeli strikes me as an unlucky manager, one who's difficult to pin down conclusively. You can judge his time at Chelsea in one of two ways: either he was mightily unfortunate not to win the league and the Champions League, or he was a shambling chancer who blew their title hopes, allowing the senior players to run the team. Unless you were on the training ground every day, it's difficult to choose (but those who were tend to report the latter). And then at Portsmouth, he had to deal with a points deduction and the boardroom shenanigans at Fratton Park, but his side still finished bottom. And just how much can you read into an FA Cup run these days?

So if West Ham lose today, he will be derided and criticised for a supposed dereliction of duty. If they win (which they won't) then questions will be raised over his influence, particularly if they were to lose to Tottenham next week when he does return. As my name might suggest, I'm slightly biased when it comes to this subject. No, Grant doesn't observe the Sabbath every week, but Yom Kippur is the holiest of holy days for Jews. It's a 25-hour fast - no food, no drink - and you're not meant to do anything but go to synagogue and atone for your 'sins' over the past year. Grant has said that he's doing this partly out of respect for his parents, who are Holocaust survivors, and it's also important to factor in his reputation in Israel, where there were calls for Deportivo's Israeli goalkeeper, Dudu Aouate, to be banned when he played on Yom Kippur. What's more important - your faith, your country, your principles, your family ... or Stoke away? If it meant more to me, I know which I'd choose.

Teams? Teams:

Stoke: Sorensen; Huth, Shawcross, Faye, Collins; Pennant, Delap, Whitehead, Etherington; Walters, Jones. Subs:Begovic, Higginbotham, Whelan, Gudjohnsen, Fuller, Wilson, Wilkinson.

West Ham: Green; Jacobsen, Da Costa, Upson, Gabbidon; Behrami,
Parker, Noble; Obinna, Piquionne, Cole. Subs: Stech, Tomkins, Barrera, Boa Morte, Kovac, McCarthy, Faubert.

Referee: Lee Mason (Lancashire)

In the red and white corner: Javelin refugee Rory Delap.

In the claret and blue corner: England's Robert Green.

We all know how this one's going to end up, don't we?

Modern football is jiggered, part XIV:You notice LL 'a clear lack of Kieron Dyer to West Ham composition. He reportedly refused to go to Stoke after the name on the bench again, says Grant, that if he 's suit to make it to the south, it' s fit enough for a start. You 'd have sympathy to him, if he 'd have a function for the full 90 minutes in any game since 2007.

Even this early in the season, this might have been billed as a relegation six-pointer, but for Stoke's victory over Aston Villa on Monday. Until then they were matching West Ham stride for stride, in the manner of the fat kids at school forced to wheeze their way through the cross-country, on zero points. It must be pointed out, however, that before their comeback against Villa two of their three games had been against Chelsea and Tottenham, and the other was away to a tough Wolves side. They look set for another decent season, probably a mid-table finish.

Stoke are good at what they do. They're not great to watch, but they're superbly organised, tough, physical and exceedingly dangerous from set-pieces. That said, if Kenwyne Jones retains his focus, they will start to be far more menacing in open play, perhaps even more so if Eidur Gudjohnsen fancies turning up. On the face of it, he doesn't appear to be a player who can fit seamlessly into Stoke's side, but perhaps he will provide them with a little more variety and intelligence, even if I do think Tony Pulis has signed him because the only worthwile thing he did in a Tottenham shirt last season was against Stoke.

As ever though, it's the aerial assault which West Ham will have to stand up to, and given the way Bolton roughed them up and the comparatively small Michael Essien scored two easy, unchallenged headers against them for Chelsea last week, Stoke must fancy their chances. In that regard, Manuel Da Costa's inclusion could be vital. He's a little ropey on the ground, but he wins his headers, and with Stoke fielding two genuine wingers in the shape of Matthew Etherington and Jermaine Pennant, expect a lot of crosses.

A pertinent email on matters of faith: "I wonder how many of the people slating Avram for his non-attendance will be volunteering to work on Christmas day this year?" points out Tom Cuell. "Having said that, I am a Stoke fan, so I'm very opposed to Ben Haim's decision to sit this one out." Well?

Anyway this should neatly explain Avram's stance: he doesn't roll on Shabbos.

West Ham will be managed by Paul Groves and Kevin Keen today by the way. Grant has travelled but will spend the day in prayer. Did he walk?

Alan Pardew is in the Sky studio today. It's good to see him doing media work again.

Skynoted that West Ham was in Britannia Stadium twice. I LL point 'they' ve only twice: in the Premier League, but actually went there twice in the championship. His condition.

Peep! We're off, Stoke getting us underway and kicking from right to left. There's a typically boisterous atmosphere as you'd expect. Jermaine Pennant tries to get Jonathan Walters in behind the West Ham defence, but the ball's too long and runs out for a goal-kick.

2 min:West Ham are playing three front today, Carlton Cole, Frederic Piquionne and Victor Obinna, who was very impressive against Chelsea last week, when some of his wayward finishing. Nigeria moved to the left, teasing Robert Huth to the intersection, but Faye hooked the ball.

4 min: The game is settling into a pattern that you might have expected, West Ham comfortable in possession in midfield but so far incapable of finding a killer pass when they need to take the ball forward. Stoke seem happy to let them stroke the ball around in harmless areas, but they are very tough to break down. West Ham haven't won an away game since the first game of last season. A win here would do nicely.

6 min: Jones is a handful and is so far winning the aerial duel with Upson and Da Costa. He dominates Da Costa here, before spraying the ball to the right for Pennant, but Gabbidon blocked his cross, giving Delap the first chance to wind up one of those fearsome throws. Nothing doing though, despite Faye getting his head on the ball.

8 min: A nervous moment for Thomas Sorensen in the Stoke goal, who came to collect Mark Noble's corner, gained after Pennant put Behrami's cross behind. Sorensen was nowhere near it though, and was grateful to see Shawcross head the ball away before West Ham could take advantage. For some reason, he decides to bawl out Shawcross, who surely took appropriate action.

10 min: The first shot in anger comes from West Ham, as Cole barges his way through a couple of challenges, before screwing a lamentable left-footed effort well wide from 25 yards out. Immediately Stoke attack, Pennant running at Gabbidon again, this time winning a corner. Matthew Etherington's inswinger causes disquiet, but Piquionne heads away.

11 min:Another Delap throw on that West Ham defended well, only to see the ball roll out of the corner, this time left ...

12 min: ... which is delayed after some fun and games between Robert Huth and Valon Behrami. After a brief wait, the corner is headed away by Cole at the near post. For another throw...

13 min: Yup, Delap's throw is headed away. Throw. Head. Throw. Head. Throw. Head. This is sophisticated stuff.

14 min:Sorensen looks nervous today. Long permission from Robert Green should be considered either Shawcross and Sorensen, a defender in the end accepts his evasion goalkeeper shows more indecision, and the ball on the slices for another corner. In the end, Obinna 's decent left-foot volley from the edge of the area deflected straight into the hands of Sorensen.

16 min: On second viewing, Obinna's volley was deflected by Shawcross's outstretched hand. That could well have been a penalty for West Ham, and Stoke can count themselves a little bit lucky.

18 min:Walters does not work to receive treatment after the cut down by Behrami - in fact, he 's limp with a magic sponge. However, it sa 'free-kick in Stoke, which must be taken Pennant.

19 min: And Green nearly gifts Stoke the opener! He really is a bag of nerves at the moment, making mistake after costly mistake. Pennant's free-kick was whipped in with pace and Shawcross's run in front of Green seemed to put the goalkeeper off - what should have been a regulation catch was fumbled to his left, and Huth, sliding in smacked the ball against the post. Green needs to sort himself out.

21 min: West Ham are rocking a little here, and Behrami is booked for his third foul in as many minutes, this time on Pennant.

22 min:And from a free-kick, he 's another chance for Stoke - and, one might say, ill miss Jones. Pennant had a free-kick, this time trying to go for goal. His low effort is arranged through the wall and fell to Jones, 12 yards out. On the rebound, a left-footed shot goes high and wide. He should have got it on target at least.

1923 min: Cole's turn and shot from just outside the area is, again, straight down the throat of Sorensen.

24 min: This is a scrappy, niggly game, and Behrami is involved in most of the tedious little skirmishes. This time he's on the end of some of the rough stuff, and Delap is booked.

26 min: Neither side looks capable of a goal from open play so far. It's going to take a set-piece to separate them. West Ham have had 57% of the possession, but have done little with it. They're short of ideas once they get into Stoke's half.

28 min:Left Piquionne shows the power and skill to blast past Hoot, which brings down the striker. It 's kind of good to play West Ham demands but noble' s grim kick, right on the first man, is not.

30 min: West Ham are containing Stoke with relative ease. And vice versa. Nothing's really happening. A lot of huff and puff. West Ham are doing well until they get the ball into Stoke's half. Stoke are getting little out of West Ham's two centre-backs, and Etherington and Pennant have been unable to find Jones with their crosses.

GOAL! Stoke 0-1 West Ham (Parker 32 min):

34 min: And that was so nearly two! The goal has lifted West Ham's approach immeasurably, and Piquionne cut inside from the left, before curling a delightful effort towards the top corner. Sorensen needn't have gone for it, but the ball smacked off the frame of the bar.

37 min: Some comical defending by Da Costa, who trapped the ball further than I can kick it, gifting Stoke a throw-in. And we know what that means - Delap's throw is right into the middle of the goal, and Jones should score with a free header from no more than three yards out. Instead he heads the ball miles over the bar.

39 min: "Just noticed in your preamble a reference to Stoke's difficult opening fixtures - have you checked who West Ham have played in their opening four games," asks Matt. "Villa, Chelsea, Man Utd... Alright, losing at home to Bolton wasn't clever but they weren't exactly favourites to be top of the table after four games, eh?" You are, of course, correct. Anyway back to the action, Noble's bender was easily held by Sorensen before Cole becomes the latest player to be booked for a foul on Collins.

40 min: If you're not watching this game, you might find this hard to believe - Robert Green has just caughtFor a long punt up field. It 's really caught one. Held it too. Return to.

42 min: That was nearly delightful from Mark Noble. West Ham were allowed to play the ball around just outside Stoke's area. Piquionne came inside before playing the ball to Noble, who deftly slipped away from Whitehead before attempting to release the ball for Obinna. The execution was just too hard, otherwise Obinna would have had an excellent chance of doubling West Ham's lead.

44 min: Late pressure from Stoke, but Jacobsen does well to stop Walters getting his head on to Pennant's dinked cross. The ball is put back into the West Ham area, but Lee Mason blows for a foul on Upson by Jones.

45 min: Dean Whitehead is booked for a late tackle on Parker. There will be a minimum of two minutes of the added stuff.

46 min+ 2: The home crowd have been baying for free-kicks with increasing frequency when Upson and Da Costa have challenged Jones and Walters. Mason has mostly ignored the cries, but this time awards the free-kick. Etherington curls it in, there's a bit of head tennis, and then Da Costa nearly takes Huth's head off with a overhead clearance. Technically you could argue that should be a penalty.

Half-time and West Ham hold a deserved lead. "Do you think the charming directors at West Ham would have appointed someone else as manager had they known that Uncle Avram couldn't be on the bench today shouting "Track back!" at Mark Noble every five minutes?" says Gary Naylor. "Of course they wouldn't have appointed (say) Alan Pardew - because Uncle Avram was the best man for the job. I like him - he knows his football, conducts himself well and shows just enough fire to reveal the steel behind the avuncular exterior."

"If you look at this West Ham team, they shouldn't be anywhere near the relegation places come the end of the season," says Sam Zakowski. "Upson had an extremely bad World Cup, but so did John Terry, and he'll captain of the champions at the end of the season. A midfield that contains Parker and Behrami is surely not the 18th best midfield in the league? Comfortably mid-table in that department. Carlton Cole, for all his faults and injuries, is also very useful up front. People have written off West Ham after only three games. Maybe a tad early, don't you think?" West Ham have been written off early for each of the last three seasons, but they always seem to avoid the drop eventually. That said, they should have gone down last season. My word, they were dreadful.

"West Ham had five men in the six yard box when they scored," says Gary Naylor. "I'm not sure I have ever seen so many attacking players so close to the opponent's goal. Why didn't Stoke just clear out? The dodgy keeper is at the other end." They've both been dodgier than the feed I'll be using to watch this afternoon's games on (without success). Sorensen has been extremely tentative today. Asmir Begovic is wanted by Chelsea, yet sits on the bench for Stoke. That's mysterious.

46 min: We're back. Can West Ham hold on? Or will Stoke pull off a repeat of their second half comeback against Aston Villa on Monday? I bet you can't wait to find out.

47 min:What 's throw-in account? Stoke started as they mean to go on, but Parker cleans with Delap 'roll. with West Ham attempted to stop the gap in the Hat 's foul on Behrami, who, with' stayed down, clutching his left leg. It 's probably good.

GOAL! Stoke 1-1 West Ham "(Jones, 48 min) Well that didn't last long, and it was more iffy goalkeeping by Green. Pennant was released by Walters on the right, and, with Gabbidon absent, dug out a decent cross to the far post. It was a fine delivery, but surely not enough to deceive Green who, in any case, flapped at the ball, and there was Jones at the far post to equalise with a simple header from a yard out. Precisely the start to the second half West Ham didn't want.

49 min: Suddenly rampant, Stoke are on the attack again and Etherington's shot is deflected over by Jacobsen.

51 min: West Ham are down to ten for the corner, Behrami limping off for more treatment after going down again. The corner drifts away harmlessly.

52 min: Behrami seems to have injured his knee ligaments and his mixed bag of an afternoon appears to be over. The clunking midfielder Radoslav Kovac replaces him, a retrograde step for West Ham.

56 min: As you'd expect Stoke are all over West Ham now, the visitors unable to hold on to the ball for more than a few passes. Pennant finds space to cross again, but it was too high for Walters.

57 min: Sometimes footballers are so foolish. Parker was in a tricky situation facing his own goal, and seemingly with no option but to put the ball out for a corner. As he turned away, Walters tripped him, which is precisely what Parker wanted him to do and West Ham get a free-kick when they could have been defending a corner.

59 min: Green isn't the only West Ham player who's bringing his World Cup form into the equation. Matthew Upson's defending is putrid here. Chasing a long ball with Jones, he appeared to have the situation under control, calming the danger. Instead he was bustled off the ball by Jones, who cut into the area and hammered a shot that Green tipped on to the post. Great play by Jones, dismal by Upson.

63 min: Ricardo Fuller is getting ready to come on for Stoke, a signal of their intent. He scored the winner for Stoke at Upton Park last season.

64 min: West Ham dominated the midfield in the first half but since Stoke's goal, they have been thoroughly second best. Their passing is sloppy and they cannot afford to do that against Stoke, who are snapping into challenges with considerably intensity.

66 min: Ricardo Fuller is on, Jon Walters is off.

67 min: With Fuller on, West Ham might consider making a change of their own. Their front three have been anonymous in the second half, with Carlton Cole particularly dismal, slow in mind and body, as he has been all season.

68 min: Lovely play by Jermaine Pennant. He won a race with Noble to reach a loose ball, before deceiving Parker as he went to shoot. Instead he shuffled inside, before chipping a delightful pass to Jones, whose header beat Green and clunked on to the bar. Luckily for West Ham, Jones was offside.

70 min: Finally West Ham come into it. They've taken their time. Neat interplay by Cole and Piquionne nearly leads to an opening but Shawcross gets in the way. The ball squirted away to Obinna, whose bouncing right foot volley was pushed aside for a corner by Sorensen. West Ham worked it short and Noble's cross to the far post was headed towards the near post by Da Costa, but again Sorensen prevented the visitors from regaining their lead, diving to push the divert the ball away.

73 min: You hate to see this happen. Eidur Gudjohnsen has been waiting to come on for the past few minutes, but there hasn't been a stoppage of play. Finally, however, play is stopped, and Gudjohnsen comes on for Jones, who can be satisfied with his work for the afternoon. Now, this is an entirely different proposition for West Ham to counter.

74 min: On a couple of occasions West Ham have been utterly careless with their distribution, giving Stoke throw-ins in attacking positions. Now Parker's volleyed pass is far too heavily hit for Gabbidon to reach. Luckily Piquionne heads Delap's humdinger away.

76 min: That was criminally wasteful by Obinna. After an ill-judged flick from Delap, West Ham broke dangerously and at pace. With options left and right, he made the wrong choice, sending a comically awful left-footed shot well wide from thirty yards out. Choices, choices.

79 min: More careful, precise passing by West Ham nearly leads to an opportunity for Parker, but Obinna's lay-off to him is far too hard, rebounding into the midfielder's hand, and a free-kick to Stoke is given. Not that it would have mattered, as Parker blazed the ball well over anyway.

81 min: Jermaine Pennant has had a fine second half, but his hamstring has gone. He's trying to jog it off, but it seems unlikely. Play continued in any case, and Fuller won a throw-in on the right. West Ham have dealt with Delap's missiles mostly very well all afternoon, but they were left gawping this time, as Fuller, ten yards out, headed down into the group and up on to the bar with Green rooted to the spot. I was convinced that one was in.

83 min: Parker, who has given another rambunctious display is down after a heavy tackle by Collins, who is booked. And, to his credit, acknowledges his misdeed.

85 min:

87 min: Now this is weird. Delap's throw-in was easily collected by Green, who looked to immediately set West Ham on the attack with a swift kick up field. Unfortunately the ball, hit pretty hard, flew into the back of the unsuspecting Shawcross's head and rebounded back towards West Ham's area. Luckily they escape, while Shawcross has been floored, probably from the surprise. Glenn Whelan has replaced the injured Pennant.

89 min: It's starting to look like a point apiece here...

90 min:

90 min+ 2:Rory Delap had just dropped the ball on the edge of the window at West Ham with a throw of halfway line. West Ham make their second change, Luis Boa Morte replacing the lively Obinna. It's another throw to Delap though...

90 mins + 3: It's headed away and that's it. Lee Mason blows for full-timeSC and the point 'each, which is probably the correct result.

After the match thoughts: West Ham battled well and were on top in the first half, Scott Parker's goal a just reward. Disappointingly for them they were unable to hold on to the lead for too long, but at least they finally have a point to their name. Both sides hit the bar, both goalkeepers made some fine saves. When it all came down to it, that was all a lot of fuss over nothing about Avram Grant, wasn't it?

Next Gen NEWS